Life.Church with Craig Groeschel - The Good Work, Part 1: When You Can't Take It Anymore

Episode Date: June 2, 2019

Making a difference might start with a different perspective. You might not be able to change the whole world, but you can change your part. What’s your purpose? What’s your story? What’s The Good Work God will do through you? Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, thanks for joining us here at Life Church. You know, we'd love for you to stay connected. And the great way to do that is simply subscribe. That way you can be notified the moment we have new content go live. Plus, we'd also love to keep in touch with you throughout the week. And the best way to do that is through the Life Church app. It's free and available wherever you download your apps from. Now, with that being said, let's go to this week's message with our senior pastor, Craig Rochelle.

Well, I am crazy glad to have all of you with us today at all of our Life Churches. Guess what? I'm going to try that again and see if you guys are with me all of our churches. Guess what? Today we're starting a brand new message series. It is called the good work. And if you wouldn't mind today at all of our churches, would you just mind standing to your feet? What I want to do is I want to speak a blessing over you, speak into your life, introduce the big theme that we're going to talk about over the next four weeks, and then I want to open this message series by going before our Heavenly Father together in prayer with great expectation that we will all hear from the heart of God.

We will be stirred by His Spirit to believe that he wants to do more in us, and more importantly do more through us. A word for our church family. If you are the best of the best, the brightest in your class, the star athlete, the leader of all, God can still use you. I promise he can.

It's just that our God specializes in using very ordinary, everyday people. This message series is for those of you who believe deep down that you're created for something more. That you are born for a purpose, created by God to do something eternal, something that matters, something that lasts.

Over the next four weeks, if you're open to what the spirit of God would say to you. I believe that God will speak very directly to some of you, give you the faith to step out and to do something that outlasts you. But I want to warn you. When God uses you, it always comes with a personal cost. when you take a step of faith to do something significant,

it's very likely that you'll pay a price greater than you can imagine. I must warn you, you will very likely experience pain, agony, rejection, heartache, failure every now and then, loneliness, doubt, and occasional bouts with discouragement. there are times that you may stand alone. People may laugh at you, misunderstand you, make fun of you. But when your sacrifices impact another life and glorify God,

you will never think about any price that you paid. Because of your faithfulness, God will be honored and people will be different. You may look like an ordinary, everyday person. You may not feel exceptionally gifted or talented, but you are the exact type of person that our God loves to use. We're going to study a person from the Old Testament over the next four weeks, an ordinary man named Nehemiah who had a broken heart for the plight of his people.

He looked on at their situation and decided, I cannot sit by and do nothing. Somebody has to do something. It might as well be me. And so in verse 18 of chapter 2, in the book of Nehemiah, scripture says, so they began the good work.

Somebody said, good work. So they began the good work. The title of this message series is the good work. And if you have faith to believe that God might speak to you and stir you to do even more, would you just join your heart with mind and prayer? Father, we ask that your Holy Spirit would stir us to believe that we could do exceedingly and abundantly more, God, by your power to make a difference in the lives of people. God, give us the courage and the faith to step out. Would you speak two hearts, God?

Stir us. Use the gifts of those who love you to make a difference in the lives of other people and to glorify you, God, in all that we do. We pray this in the name of the one who gave us the perfect. work. Your son, our Savior, Jesus. And all God's people said, amen and amen. Why don't you high-five about three or four people around you and say, let the good work begin. Let the good work begin. I'm calling this message by this title, when you can't take it anymore. When you can't take it anymore. We're to look today and the next few weeks at what is to me one of the most

motivating, captivating, inspirational stories about an ordinary guy from the Old Testament that made an extraordinary difference. What I like about this guy is Nehemiah was not a pastor. He wasn't a priest. He wasn't a king, a prophet, he wasn't a warrior. He was an ordinary person that, heard about something that broke his heart, that crushed his spirit to a point where he had to do something about this. He was compelled to make a difference in the world around him. He was an ordinary guy, and if you don't know what he did for a living, he was actually known as a cup bearer. Nehemiah was a cupbearer to the king of Persia, king Artaxerxes. Now, you may say, what in the world is a cup bearer? It's a good question. In our context today, if you think of someone who is a servant or maybe a butler,

that might be the equivalent of a cup bearer. But a cup bearer was an incredibly trusted role because if you can imagine, this guy had tremendous access to the king. So if the king's having a private conversation, like I think we need to attack so-and-so, the cup bearer is going to hear that information. Or if the king says, I don't like the way somebody walks, the cup bearer's going to hear that and is going to have to keep that information confidential. This guy would have been very trustworthy. He would have been full of integrity and he was also incredibly loyal to the king because the title of his job often would reveal one of the most important things the cup bearer would do. If you could imagine in this time in history, there were plots just like in many parts of the world

today to overthrow a kingdom. And so sometimes people would try to attempt to take the life of the king. Well, what the cup bearer would do, among other things, is the cup bearer would be the only person to taste the wine before the king would actually drink the wine to see if the wine was poisoned or not. Now, I don't know about you, but if I'm the guy tasting the wine, I'm wanting a job with good insurance with real benefits, because any one time it goes bad and then you're kind of out of a job and maybe even out of a life. So this guy was an ordinary person, not in a role of status, but in the role of a servant attending to the needs of the king. One day, Nehemiah had just an ordinary day, kind of like you would have maybe what's

considered an ordinary day today. And he hears a conversation from someone that moves him to a place that he'd never been before. Here's how the story goes in Nehemi chapter 1. verse two. It says this, Han and I, one of my brothers, came from Judah with some other men, and I questioned them about the Jewish remnant that has survived the exile and also about Jerusalem. So here we're having a conversation between Nehemiah and his brother, and he says, tell me about our people, tell me about our homeland. Now, the reason Nehemiah is asking about this, because about 140 years prior to this moment, in the year of five, In 586 BC, the Babylonians, under the rule of the evil King Nebuchadnezzar, attacked the Jewish people

and completely demolished their city, their life, their culture in a way that's very, very difficult to describe. If you've ever heard of Solomon's Temple, it was gone, wiped away, burned to the ground. Every building was now in rubble. The gates to the city, which formed protection, were burned. almost everyone that they knew was now without a job and without any kind of hope. And so the evil Babylonians then took the Jewish people captive, took them way away from their homeland,

and held them in bondage for a long time. If you can imagine, the Jewish people felt demoralized, felt completely hopeless. What are we going to do? We have no homeland. Our life is over. Decades later. Imagine this. Decades later.

50,000 Jews or so moved back to Jerusalem to rebuild. We're going to rebuild the city that we love, our homeland. We're going to try to make a better future. The problem is they couldn't get anything moving, and they found themselves stalled in a complete dead end. That's when the brothers said to Nehemi in verse 3, those who survived the exile are back in the province, and they are in great trouble and disgrace.

Why? Because the wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire. In other words, with no wall, with no gates, there's absolutely no protection from outside forces that would surely be attacking. It was impossible to rebuild. There's already no jobs, no economic system, no leadership, no direction, no confidence. With no protection, there's no plan, therefore there is no hope whatsoever. What do you do when you don't know what to do? What do you do when you see something that breaks your heart and you know there is a good work that needs to be done and you think perhaps you're supposed to be a part of the good work?

What do you do when you see something that bothers you deeply and you can't take it anymore? I want to give you three thoughts about how to begin your good work. The first thing we see Nehemiah do is what you may end up doing at some point of your life. What do you do? Number one is you actually sit down to cry. You sit down and let whatever it is, the injustice in the world actually break your own heart. You can see this in verse four of Nehemiah one.

Nehemiah says this, when I heard these things, when I heard about the devastation, when I heard about the hopelessness of my people, he says, I sat down and wept. It crushed me. It broke my heart. What's so interesting to me is to think about where Nehemiah was when he heard this news. He was about a thousand miles away

from his homeland and he was actually living a pretty good and comfortable life in the palace. Think about it. This guy is eating the same food the king eats. This is good stuff. He's watching the same shows that the king is watching.

watching on his 4K TV. This guy is probably posting selfies every now and then, hey, just serving the king, hashtag blessed to serve. This guy is living a completely comfortable life. I don't know about you, but sometimes in my comfort, I can be scrolling across some news story on my phone or looking across some prayer request that comes in and thinks, oh, that's too bad. Sucks to be them. I mean, they're a long ways away. I know it's not bad, but what can I do about that? I'm living in a comfortable life. I mean, I'll say a little prayer for them, but I'm just not going to really let this into my heart. At that moment, Nehemiah had a choice. He could kind of acknowledge the plight of his people. Oh, that's too bad. What a shame. I hate to hear

that. I really feel badly for them, but I'm glad my life's okay. or he could choose to let the pain in, not just in his head, but in his heart, to the point where it bothered him, disturbed him, gave him a divine burden, an ache in his soul. When he heard the news, he didn't do what's so easy to do, brush it off.

He sat down, he broke down, and he started to cry. I would ask you this, what breaks your heart? What is it that burdens you? What is it that creates this righteous anger on behalf of God? This isn't right, not on my watch. What is it that crushes your spirit when you look at some injustice, perhaps, to a group of people or a need in this world?

Why doesn't somebody do something about this? Maybe for you it's the plight of hurting children. Maybe it's those children who can't read or those who have very special needs and need help and love. Or maybe it's those who've been bullied or neglected or those who've been abused. Maybe it's for those who are bound by an addiction. Your heart breaks. They're a hostage to drugs or they're trapped in a lustful world of pornography and you'll do anything to help them get free. Maybe it's homelessness.

You see people that are really stuck in life and barely have their needs met and you want to do something about it. Maybe it's those who've been trafficked and abused their whole life. Maybe it's those who are impoverished and don't have clean drinking water, or a very simple mosquito net in another part of the world, or some drugs that would prevent diseases just for a few dollars. They don't have access to. and you see children and innocent people dying needless deaths because someone hasn't gotten there. Maybe you're like some people I know, and you have a heart to get God's word into the native language of every living person today.

You want to eradicate Bible poverty. Maybe you feel called to speak on behalf of the unborn. Someone needs to stand up for those who can't stand up for themselves. What is it that breaks your heart? What is it that burdens your soul? I'll tell you a story that hit me and shaped me in a way that's hard to describe when I was a very young pastor. Before starting life church, I was an associate pastor at a great Methodist church, and I would occasionally be a guest preacher for other churches that were really, really small

couldn't get anybody better than me back in my early 20s. And so I went to a really small church on the other side of town, and I preached the first service. And there was this guy in the service that the only way I know to describe it is he had what I call a mad vein. There was a vein in his forehead that just perpetually proclaimed, I'm mad at the world. You know how some Christians, when they read the Bible,

they get all loving and full of grace? And others, them get angry and mad veins. I don't know why. but this guy had a mad vein and I was preaching I even tell a funny joke and instead of smiling his mad vein would just well after the first service

we went out to greet the people who were leaving and greet the people who were coming into the next service and the receptionist came up all excited and said oh my gosh we have a guest coming evidently that didn't happen often she said you better be good in the next service implying that maybe I wasn't good in the first one maybe that's why the vein was there you better be good we got a guest coming we got a guest

coming. Well, I was outside with mad, vain man who was chosen to be the greeter, which might be one reason the church was really small. And I saw the guest drive up. The reason I knew she was the guest was because her car didn't look like everybody else's car. When she got out, she wasn't dressed like anyone else. Everyone else had very nice formal clothes on. She honestly looked like she had probably slept in her outfit. She

looked like life had been very, very hard to her, and I couldn't be more excited to welcome her into church. As she was walking up, God is my witness. Mad Vang guy stepped in front of me and said to her, young lady, is that the best

outfit you have? Because in our church, we wear our best for God. She looked so broken, so ashamed. She turned around faster. I couldn't catch her. She got in her car. She sped off. I could barely preach the next service.

I drove all the way home and my little red geoprism crying my eyes out, partially because I was in a red geoprism. But I was so disturbed, so broken, so righteously angry. on behalf of a God of grace who welcomes all people from all races, from all parts of life. And on that day, I made a promise, if I ever get to lead my own church, we will have a dress code.

It will be simple. Please do put something on. Come to the house of God. That is not the God that I serve. Our God loves people. they are and invites them whosoever is thirsty come in to the presence of God. Here I am 23 years later, and what you see here is a reflection of what broke my heart almost three decades ago. What breaks yours? Let it in. Let it crush you. Let it move you.

Sit down to cry. Listen to me, I don't worry when every now and then something breaks my heart and moves me to the point of tears, I worry when it's been a long time when that hasn't happened. I want my heart to be tender, to be broken by the things that break the heart of God. What do you do when you can't take it anymore?

You sit down to cry. The second thing you do is you kneel down to pray. You kneel down to pray. Nehemiah says this, for some days, I mourned, and I fasted, and I prayed, before the God of heaven.

Listen to me, church. If it's big enough to cry about, it's big enough to pray about. Sometimes we just say the most insulting things to our God, like, all we can do now is pray. Can you imagine God sitting in heaven going, oh, well, man, all you can do is pray?

I mean, it's down to me now. All you've got is me, the all powerful, all knowing ever present God. Me, to all things are possible with me, God, and all you can do is pray. Well, you're screwed now. No, no, no. Well, there's just one of me.

God plus one is always a majority. We go before the God of heaven. We invoke his power in prayer. Nehemiah cries out to God, verse 5. He says, Lord, the God of heaven. The great and awesome God who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and keeps his commands.

God, let your ear be attentive and your eyes be open to the prayer your servant is praying before you day and night for your servants, the people of Israel. If you watch Nehemiah's prayer and read on, he confesses his own sin. He confesses the sins of his people. He reminds God of God's promises and God's faithfulness. and after he's mourned and fasted and prayed, he goes before the king and asks permission, I honor you, my heart will always be with you. But would you grant me permission to leave where I am

to go back to my people and try to rebuild? Verse 11, he talks to God about the king and says, God, give your servant success today by granting him favor in the pre-being. presence of this man. You'll watch them pray over and over and over again. I hope you'll understand that what you pray about really reflects what you believe about God. If our only prayers are blessed this food and keep me safe and give me a good day, you really don't believe in a real powerful God. But when you ask God to stretch you, to use you, when you pray for the impossible, God, move, do

miracles, bring healing, God, spark revival, use me, God, to meet someone's knees. You believe. and the power and the glory of the good God. What's so interesting to me about Nehemiah is this is actually the first of 12 prayers that we see he prayed in the book of Neomiah. There's 12 we know about. That means he would have prayed hundreds, maybe thousands. This is the first of 12. We see it at the beginning of his story.

We see it all through the middle. and the last thing he's doing is praying as he goes before God. What I love about him is you're going to see in the upcoming weeks, he is a leadership genius. He is practical in every way. He studies, he strategizes, he casts vision, he delegates, he is a leadership genius, and yet everything he does is bathed with intimate faith-filled prayer

before His good God. How do you begin the good work when you can't take it anymore? You let it into your heart and you sit down and you cry. Then at some point you kneel down and you pray. And then once your heart's been broken and you've sought the goodness of God,

number three, you stand up and act. What do you do? What do you do? You sit down. to cry. You kneel down to pray and you stand up to act. Nehemiah takes the cup and goes to visit the king. His heart is heavy and the king can tell. So in verse four, the king says to him, Nehemiah, what is it you want? Then watch them again. Here's a little flare prayer. Here it comes. Then I prayed to the God of heaven. He prays again. And I answered the king.

If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in his sight, let him send me to the city of Judah where my ancestors are buried. Why? So I can rebuild the wall. My people are hurting. The walls are down. The city is exposed, and I can't sit around and do nothing. somebody has got to do something about this. It might as well be me. Stand up to act. I don't know. Sorry, you can sit back down. I was just saying point three again, but I love your passion.

And if no one stood up at another campus, it's only because these people had more passion. So my bride, Amy and I were, I was 27 years of age. And we wanted to start a church. We had no money, no plan, no just passion. That was it. And we went to a church service in California.

We saw this lady named Crystal Lewis. We didn't know who she was, but you might have heard of her now. And she sang a renewed version of this song, Come Just As You Are. It was a fresh version. And we saw probably 50 people dressed a lot like the lady that got turned away from church, come forward to give their hearts to Jesus.

And in the middle of that song, and in the middle of all those transformed lives, we said that is the kind of church we want. The type of church that Life Church is today didn't exist a whole lot 20 plus years ago. It was very new and very different. And I was 27 years of age. She was 24, and we were scared to death.

We prayed God give us a sign. Show us. weeks, months, we prayed. We cried over the brokenness of people. We sought God in prayer. And then one day, driving in our car, asking God for confirmation, the first time we'd ever heard the song on the radio came on the radio in the middle of our prayer, come just as you are. And in that moment in our hearts, we stood up to act. and we made the decision.

We don't know the details. We don't know the how, the win, and the where. Somebody needs to do something. It's going to be us. I don't know who this is going to talk to. But there's somebody. Something bothers you. Maybe you've tried to keep it at a distance.

But now you're going to let it in. You're going to feel the pain. you're going to let it wreck you. You're going to let the burden overwhelm you, and you're going to sit down to ache and cry about it. And then you're going to go into your prayer closet, your prayer place, and kneel down and invoke the power of the God of heaven.

And then at some point, God's going to prompt you, and you're going to have the faith to stand up and act. But who am I? I'm not a pastor. I'm not trained. I don't have a lot of experience. Listen to me. Hear it and feel it.

You don't have to be appointed by man if you are called by God. You don't have to be chosen by people. If God prompts your heart, stirs, your spirit gives you a burden. You just step into it. it, trust him, and watch him act. Feel the presence of God stirring you. It breaks your heart. Why does it break your heart?

Because perhaps you, just like Nehemiah, an ordinary guy in every other extent, was chosen by God to step into the burden and start the good work. He didn't finish it alone. He didn't do it alone. But it didn't happen until he started it. What do you do when you can't take it anymore?

You sit down and you cry. Kneel down and you pray. Somebody is going to stand up and act. So, Father, we ask that by the power of your spirit, you would speak to us today. stir up some people, God, in your church to do your work. As you're praying today at all of our different churches, those of you that you are followers of Christ,

and you want to be even more open to what God might do through you. You're available. You'll let the pain in. You'll let it break you. You'll ask God to use you. If you believe God uses ordinary people just like me and just like you, and you want God to do more through you. Would you lift up your hands right now,

just all over the place, lift up your hands? Father, I thank you for a church full of people that are not priests, prophets, or kings, but God in your kingdom, they are servants of the most high God. Give us opportunities, God, to serve you. God, we ask for your power, your provision, your protection, your wisdom,

your direction to guide every step that we take. I pray, God, that wherever we go and whatever we do, God, we would do it for your glory. Stir up within us, God. Break some hearts that we might act on your behalf to do your will on earth, God, as it is in heaven. Speak to us today, we pray. As you keep praying today at all of our different churches, the good work is starting. Let me tell you about the good work, the best work.

In Christian circles, we call this the good news. What is the good news? The good news is better than you could ever imagine. The good news is all about a loving God who became one of us in the person of his son, Jesus. Jesus was perfect in every way. Jesus was obedient to his father, even to death on a cross. Why is this good news?

The bad news is that we've all sinned. If we sit down and talked about it, you'd probably recognize you've done some things that are wrong. You perhaps feel guilty by those things. You feel ashamed. So do I. Why? Because we have a conscious that shows us there's such a thing as wrong, and we've all done wrong. We've sinned against the Holy God. But Jesus, who is perfect in every way, the son of God who was without sin, became the perfect sacrifice for our sins on the cross. He died in our place. And by the goodness and the power of God, God raised him from the dead. Why? So that anyone, and this includes you, who calls on the name of Jesus, would be saved, your sins forgiven. Doesn't matter where you come from,

doesn't matter what you look like, doesn't matter the clothes that you have on, doesn't matter how bad you've been. When you call on his grace and call on his name, he hears your prayers, he forgives your sins, he makes you brand new. In fact, today at all of our churches are those of you viewing online,

there are some of you who recognize you are here for this moment. The good work is about to begin because the goodness of God is going to transform your life. At all of our churches, those who say, yes, I need his grace. I need his forgiveness. Today, by faith, I turn from my sins.

I give my life to Jesus. That's your prayer. Lift your hands high right now all over the place and say, yes, Jesus. I surrender to you. As we've got hands going up all over the place, those of you at church online, you click right below me. And I would be incredibly honored at all of our churches.

If you would, just go ahead and stand to your feet and I mean it this time. Stand to your feet. we're going to join our faith with those around us and pray as God transforms lives. Would you pray aloud? Pray Heavenly Father, forgive my sins. Save me. Change me. Make me new. Jesus be my Savior. Fill me with your spirit so I can know your love and show your love. Start the good work. in me. Bring it to perfection as we make you known. My life is not my own. I give it all to you. Thank you for new life. Now you have mine. In Jesus' name, I pray. Hey, could somebody worship

big welcome this morning to God's family. As a church, it's our heart to help you take your next step in your relationship with Christ, and we have a great resource to help you do that. It's called life.com.church Next, there you can find all kinds of resources to help you continue to grow in your faith journey. Again, thanks for joining us here at Life Church. We'll see you next time.