Imagine Part 4 - Archie Callahan

0:00Welcome to the Bridge Church for Jeanne Beach Podcast, where we connect all people to the person, power, and purpose of Jesus. Wherever you are listening from, we are so glad that you are joining us. Now let's listen to this week's message. I want to take out your Bibles and turn to Nehemiah chapter 2. We've been talking about this subject called Imagine. We've been dealing with Bible characters for the last several weeks. The first one we dealt with was Joseph, who had a dream that his brothers would bow down to him and that dream became a reality. We talked about Moses, that following week and how Moses was spoken to by God in a burning bush. She had a dream to go back to Egypt and to deliver gods, people from Egyptian bondage. Last week we talked about Esther, who was an extraordinary woman. In fact the Bible says she was a beautiful in appearance and she had a bot.

1:04That's what the Bible says. I'm just telling you. We've got to read the Bible and so we talked about Esther, how she was called by God to save the Jewish nation from extermination for such a time as this. Today we're going to look at Nehemiah and Nehemiah was an extraordinary leader. Tonight I had the privilege along with my wife and about 110 leaders down in Kertut, North Carolina to sit through a time of strategic, of fundraising for that campus. We're hoping to break ground by the end of this year on that campus and we believe God's going to move. But we saw some great testimonies last night but I got to talk to a man called his name was Sam. Sam Powell and Sam's about 70 plus years old and he came up to me, he introduced himself to me, he said, I'm Sam, he actually said he was Frank just joking with me, he said, no, I'm Sam, I'm Sam Powell.

2:05He said, Pastor, you know, I heard this story about Sam that his family had lived in Kertut County since the mid 1700s. Sam is an entrepreneur, if you ever go on 168 you see that Powell produce, how many have you ever seen, all those signs been trying to get you to stop and buy some apples, some oranges, some cucumbers, some watermelons, and cantaloupes and tomatoes, amen. I got hungry, that's why I kept going and so I was talking to Sam Powell and heard this story that at a night of worship, God touched him and he made this statement, you got to understand the significance of this statement that he made, his family been there since the 1700s. He said, Pastor, bridge church is the greatest thing that's ever happened to Kertut County. That's a huge statement, not because of bridge, let me get you to understand it, it's because

3:10Jesus, Jesus, for a man that's in his 70s to be so touched by the presence of God to make that statement means that the dream of putting that campus and imagining that campus in a rural county, they're right across the line over in Mojang, Kertut County, it touches Camden County, Pasputang County, Proquemance County, Dare County, and man, God is moving, they have over 400 and average attendance after three years, bought 16 acres of land paid off debt for you, gonna build almost a 17,000 square foot building on that 16 acres, come on, come on, God's good. And next Sunday, you're gonna see that in a video, you're gonna see it on Reveal Sunday, you're gonna see what that building looks, I already had the honor of seeing that, so, but you're gonna get to see it and we're gonna celebrate what God's doing in North Carolina,

4:11because it's not just about 3168 Indian River Road, it's about a church that's reaching beyond even our region to the nations of the world. And so we want to look at Nehemiah, we're gonna talk about dreaming of restoration, Nehemiah chapter 2, we're gonna read the first five verses of this chapter, and Nehemiah is an extraordinary leader, if I was gonna pick to mimic my life after somebody, it would probably be Nehemiah, he was very pragmatic, which means practical, he was very strategic, he understood the time in which he lived in, and it says this, in the month of Nisan, in the 20th year of King Arduzartese, Nisan is the month in the Hebrew calendar, which would be our calendar, the Gregorian calendar, it would be March through some probably half of April, so it was in the spring time of year when Nehemiah is telling this and how he approaches the king,

5:12when wine was brought for him, I took wine and gave it to the king, I had not been sad in his presence before, so the king asked me, why does your face look so sad when you're not ill? Have you ever been in any round anybody like that? Why are you so ill? I used to say that to my kids, why are you so ill when you've got everything? Amen, follow me to Guatemala and see some kids that have nothing but their smiling. I said, why does your face look so sad when you're not ill? This can be nothing but sadness of heart. I was very much afraid, but I said to the king, may the king live forever. Why should my face not look sad when the city where my ancestors are buried lies in ruins? And its gates have been destroyed by fire. The king said to me, what is it you want? Then I prayed to God of heaven and I

6:15answered the king, if it pleases the king and if your servant has found favor in his sight, let him send me to the city in Judah where my ancestors are buried so that I can rebuild it. He's talking about the city of Jerusalem, the city of Jerusalem. See, Nehemiah had a vision. It was given to him by God. It was a blessing that would bless the people of Jerusalem. At this time in the history of Jerusalem, they had just come out of captivity in Babylon. So this is what we would consider a post-exilic book. It's a post-captivity book. So Nehemiah is writing after the fact. If you really want to understand the book of Nehemiah, read First Chronicles, Second Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah as one continuous story and it gives you greater detail

7:17of the background of what Nehemiah is talking about. It's some 900 miles from Medopersha Babylon to Jerusalem. There were three migrations that came out of Babylon back to Jerusalem. The Jewish people took three migrations from Medopersha back to Jerusalem. The first one was under the governor, Zerubbable. And Zerubbable, we see in the book of Zachariah where it says in Zachariah 4 verse 6, it's not by might nor by power, but it's by my spirit, says the Lord. And within the context of that, Zerubbable was going to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem so temple worship could be restarted. Why? Why did they want to build the temple first? Because if you build the temple first and if you put God first and you worship God first, everything in your life will come into order. That's why Jesus said in Matthew 6, 33, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness

8:17and all these things will be added to your life. And so they began to put God first. The second migration happened under Ezra and the third migration back to Jerusalem happened under Nehemiah. Most historians believe some 50,000 plus Jews came back to Jerusalem from Babylon. And so when you look at the book of Nehemiah, you began to understand that chapters 1 through 7 is the rebuilding of the broken down walls. It's the rebuilding of the city gates of Jerusalem. And you know, in our country we have this debate going on right now. Should we have a border wall or shouldn't we have a border wall? Should the border be secure? Should it not be secure? Well, in biblical times and in history, if you didn't have a wall around the city, you are open to attacks. So God's not against building borders. The role of the government is to protect its people. The role of the church is to love all people. Don't confuse the two. I don't vote somebody in the

9:27office to be my pastor. He has a job. And government has a job. That's not a political statement. That's just fact. And I'm called to pray for anyone who is in office. Come on. Paul says pray for all those that are in authority over us. So the government's job is to protect its people. It's to protect its people. The church's job, when strangers and aliens come into our midst, guess what we do? We love them. We nurture them. No matter their background, bridge church has multiple, multiple ethnicities in it. It has people from all over the world, just met a guy in our first service from South Africa. He had a great accent. Great. I wanted them. If I had one, I would probably play James Bond or something. You know what I'm saying? When my wife asked me to marry her, she thought I was James Bond. Amen.

10:27I was cutting her. She didn't ask me. I asked her. You know, that's a trend going around now that ladies are asking men. Don't do that. Don't do that. If he don't have the guts to ask. I love you, but I love you from a distance. If he tries to get engaged without a ring, I told my girls that if that guy asked you to marry him, he'd better come with some jewelry. And I don't want to have to take out a magnifying glass to see. Everyone, I've got nice rings.

11:28It's the proof. It's the proof. Amen. Sometimes it's just the proof. When they see their mama's ring, they're like, oh, I gotta come up. You know, every boy that comes to my house, I show them my wife's ring. It hasn't been yet. I got a great son-in-law. I got a great future son-in-law that will be married to my daughter this Friday. Amen. Hello. Celebrate with me. Another one off the payroll. Hallelujah. In our house, they get married and we don't let them come back. That's funny. So one through seven is, I don't know how I got on that, one through seven is the rebuilding of the temple. Eight through ten is the revival in the people. An 11 through chapter 13 is the

12:34resettling of positions in the nation of Israel. And Nehemiah would be in charge of all of what was going on. God had appointed him for such a time as this. King Art of Zerxes in this book, and Nehemiah, he is the son of King Zerxes and the book of Esther. So he is, look here, he is the stepson of Esther. God's still using these kings for his purpose. And so when we look at the book of Nehemiah, we begin to realize that this is a very pragmatic guy, but though he's pragmatic, he's very spiritual. How many, you know, you can be both at one time. You can be practical and spiritual at the same time. Now if I got to choose between the two, when I have an airplane pilot, I don't care if he understands the gifts of the spirit or not.

13:38As long as he can fly that plane and get me where I need to be, I want to be very practical and strategic. I want him to be smart, amen? Because, you know, he can be spiritual and still be dumb about flying a plane. I don't want that. I want him to be very practical and understand what he's doing. And so Nehemiah was that man, but when you look at the book of Nehemiah, there are three lessons I want to look at that we can learn from Nehemiah's life. Number one, you will never move until your heart's moved. In life, by and far, you will never move until your heart moves. When we look at chapter one of Nehemiah, we begin to see something in that book that really tells you the heart of Nehemiah. Nehemiah is approached by brothers from Jerusalem. They bring him the state of the union address for Jerusalem and they tell him the city is lying in ruins.

14:45Its gates have been burned. The walls are broken down. And the Bible says that Nehemiah began to weep. His heart was moved. In fact, when you look at this, you can see that Nehemiah sat down and he wept. Look what it says in verse four of chapter one, when I heard these things, I sat down and wept for some days, I mourned, I fasted and prayed before the God of heaven. So he was touched by what was going on in Jerusalem. But here's the deal folks. At this moment in Nehemiah's life, he had never been to Jerusalem. He's weeping over a report that he gets from his brothers that the city is in ruin. He had never been there. He had never seen the city.

15:47He's 900 miles away. But yet something grips his heart. Something compels him to weep. Can I ask you this? When's the last time you were moved to tears over a situation in somebody else's house? It's easy for us to cry over the situations in our own homes, the situation in our own children, the situation in our own nation. But when have we been moved to tears over the situations and the blight of the inner city in America where people feel trapped, where homes are dilapidated? When have we been moved to tears over the needs of our neighbors? Nehemiah though, he was a practical man. He was the cup bearer to the king. He wept. He was a man's man. So oftentimes we think of masculinity as not weeping. One of the prophets was called the weeping

16:50prophet. Just because you're masculine, just because you're a man doesn't mean you can't weep over need. He he wept. He he was moved by the sheer problems of Jerusalem. We live in a world that seems like it man. It's spiraling out of control. Even in parts of our nation where people just feel trapped. They feel trapped in dead zones. They feel trapped in inner cities. They feel trapped in schools that are getting no better. And politicians promise better. But it seems like it doesn't get better. Because most politicians don't want it to get better. Because it gets any better, they have nothing to run on. Did you know most of our problems in our nation could be solved overnight if people would be practical and not political? Schools could come up higher.

18:01Kids could learn. How would we do that? We would start with parenting. Come on, if you can't control your kids, how is a teacher going to control your kids? Don't stone the messenger. I remember this when I would get in trouble at school. I got in trouble when I got home. If I got a paddling at school, that's when they could paddle you back in the south. They could tear your rear end up. Bend over and and the teacher had a paddle and he would drill holes in it. Bend over. How many of that got my attention? I'm not advocating for that now because I think people are too weird. You know what I'm saying? That's not what I'm advocating. Don't go out here and say, I'll pass your things. We need to have paddling back to it. No, no, that's not what I'm saying. But what I am saying, we need to once again teach our kids respect for authority. Parents don't always take the side of your child. I remember I had to go to school for

19:06some of my kids. My son went down and got in trouble. He was Mr. Talk a lot. So I show up at school. Got two-three teachers. He's right on the front row. He's old now getting ready to have a boy. Hey man, his wife's getting ready to have a boy. He's along for the ride. And I had a principal there I think, had a couple teachers and they were talking. They were saying, man, he's a great kid. People love him. He's a people person. He's an athlete, but he just won't be quiet. I looked at him. I said, son, do you see these teachers in this principal? When they ask you to do something, do it. If they tell you to be quiet, you be quiet. They tell you to do work. You do work. And when I began to talk to my son like that in front of him, they'd be like, they got bold about that. Why? Because I was backing

20:16their authority and not overriding their authority. Now I'm not saying all teachers are right. That's not what I'm saying. If a teacher acts stupid, that needs to be confronted. But I'm talking about by and large, we need to get our kids to understand authority and to submit to authority. If not, you're preparing them for prison. And if you won't discipline them, the justice system will. Will. It will. I don't know how I got on that, but the Lord knows we needed it. And I'm convinced you all needed that, not the first service, because I didn't say it in the first service. Somebody here need to hear that word today. So he said, I'm going to start coming to the first service. We need you to look how crowded it is in here. We need you to come to the first.

21:19And so he was moved with compassion. I like that movie. The pursuit of happiness will smear places. God named Chris and Chris, man, he's just struggling to make it, man. He's trying to make a better life for his son. He's pushing through. He's living on the streets. He finally gets an unpaid position at Dean Whitter and he learns finance. He learns about the stock market and being a broker and eventually he gets a breakthrough and becomes very successful. And you see all throughout that movie, he's moved with compassion and his compassion causes him to persevere through hardship until he becomes a success. Even the Bible says that Jesus was moved with compassion. Matthew 936, when he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. Compassion, he was moved. That word

22:22compassion means to be moved from the inside of your bowels. He was moved internally deep. He was moved to the point that he felt the needs of others. Compassion has three components. First of all, it's empathy. That I can empathize with other people. I can feel their feelings. I can feel their hardship. I can feel their suffering. Number two, it's action. I just don't feel it, but I move to action. Jesus just didn't feel the pain of the people around him. He was moved to action. Nehemiah just didn't feel the pain of Jerusalem. He was moved to action. Number three is love. Intertwined in empathy and action is this twine of love that's interwoven between those two concepts. That's what compassion is. That I don't not only feel it, but I am moved toward it because

23:25of love. Nehemiah sits down and he weeps. He kneels down and he prays, but he stands up and he works. When you feel it and you weep and then you pray, there comes a time. You got to stand up and move toward action. That's what compassion is. It says, when I heard these things, I sat down and weep for some days. I'm born in a fast and prayed before the God of heaven and then he was moved to action that moved him toward the king. It says, so the king asked me, why does your face look so sad when you are not ill? This can be nothing but sadness of heart. He felt it in his heart. He felt it in his heart. Number two, movements start with movement. That is simple. This is not deep today. Movements start with movement. Bridge church start it with movement. My wife and I

24:29answer in the call to come to Virginia Beach to step out in 1998 to move here from Augusta, Georgia with no kids. We were poor. No, we were poor. You know what? Poe is. It's one level lower than poor. We were poor. We moved to Virginia Beach. Why? Because if God ever touches your heart, there has to be corresponding action because faithful without words is dead. Nehemiah was moved to weeping. He was moved to prayer. Then he got up and acted because movements begin with movement. There has to be some movement and for somebody to say, hey, that's a movement. There, somebody is moving. We moved here. God began to move other people. Look what it says. The king said to me, what is it you want? Then I pray to the God of heaven and I answer the king. If it pleases the king and if your servant has found favor in his sight, let him send me to the

25:33city in Judah where my ancestors are buried so I can rebuild it. You got to understand this is the chief of staff. He's asking the king. Can I go to Jerusalem? He's going to leave the glamour of the palace, the comfort of the palace to go to a place that's dilapidated. And that one man moving made a difference. It's like Mother Teresa in Calcutta, India. Her life made a difference. Her move toward children that were in need and filth and grime and in the dumps of Calcutta. She moved toward that disease and not away from it and that compassion caused her to be empathetic to take action because she loved those children and we write about Mother Teresa today and in 1979 she won the Nobel Peace Prize and in her speech she said this,

26:38we can do no great things, only small things with great love. She was moved. Nehemiah was moved and look what he said to the king, send me. I don't know. Sometimes we get so comfortable. We can't say God, send me. See, because oftentimes we think the mission feel is in Guatemala. We think the mission feel is in Tanzania. We think the mission feel is in some foreign nation. Sometimes the mission feel is right across the street from your house. God, send me. There's a need there. Send me, Lord, just like Isaiah said in Isaiah 6, he says, here am I, Lord, send me. Sometimes we say Lord, send them. When we need to say Lord, send me. There's a need here. There's a situation here. There's a young family that has a need. Sometimes it's just mentoring. I mean, there are young men that need to be mentored. Man, if you raised your kids and you did a

27:43great job at it and you've learned some things, what about sharing that knowledge with somebody else? I watch my wife do it all the time with young moms and young girls. She'll share knowledge. She doesn't keep that wide because that's a part of generosity. Oftentimes we think generosity is just giving money. Generosity is giving your time, giving your influence, giving what you know to somebody else. If you're a business man, mentor somebody else, give it away. Hear my send me, Lord, I am going to give it away. See, movements begin with movement. He had to leave the palace 900 miles to Jerusalem and the king said, yes, the king gave him access. I mean, you know, our king Jesus has given us access and we need to move. Lesson number three, here it is. Others move when I obediently move with God. Others move when I obediently move with God.

28:49When tangent, I left a great paying job in Augusta, Georgia, moved here with no assurance of pay and just said, we're going to start this thing. When we began to move and obedience, other people began to move. When we got here, we began to talk about what we were doing. People started gathering in a home at 1707 Biven Street near Regent University. Started out with 16 people. My dad passed away. My grandmother passed away within 10 days of each other. I had to preach their funerals and it grew down to six or seven. Having a nice negative church grow. We got back and we knew God had called us here and we kept meeting. That thing began to grow. And in 11 weeks, we had 65 people in a house, in a small house. We were crazy. But that move of obedience made other

29:53people move toward a vision. And by that Easter of 1919, 130 people met. 13 weeks after we moved here, 130 people on a Sunday morning. Why? Because when you move in obedience, other people move. God begins to move people toward the vision that God placed in your heart. And now there are thousands of people that call bridge church, their home church, and their meeting in multiple locations. Why? Because when you step out in faith, God causes movement. God causes action and other people. It just takes one person. Nehemiah was willing to step out and move. In obedience, look what it says. Then I said to them, he's talking to the people that are in trouble in Jerusalem. You see the trouble we're in? The job of any great leader is to define reality. You need to write that down if you're a leader,

30:57if you own a business. And you talk to employees. One of your main jobs is to define reality. When we have staff meetings here, and I have to be very bold, sometimes very blunt. Guess what I have to define reality? Where are we at? You see the trouble we're in? He defines reality for the people in Jerusalem. Jerusalem lies and ruins. And his gates have been burned with fire. Come, let us rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, the wall of Jerusalem. And we will no longer be in disgrace. That word disgrace means to take on shame. It means to be a person of reproach, a city of shame, a city of reproach. If we'll do this, we'll no longer be in disgrace. Anytime you disconnect your life from God's grace, you become a person of reproach, you become a person of shame. Grace doesn't put shame on you. Grace takes shame off of you. Because the church sometimes wants to say shame on you, but Jesus says shame off you. Because his grace has appeared to all mankind. He says, we'll no

32:02longer be in disgrace. I also told them about the gracious hand of my God on me. And what the King has said to me, they replied, look what they replied. They replied, let us start rebuilding. So they began this great work, Nehemiah called by God. He tells these people, let's build. And they began this great work. How many, you know, every great work has an adversary, has an enemy. They had enemies. Sam ballot, Tobiah and Gershim. They tried to stop the progress of Nehemiah and the people rebuilding the walls and saving the city gates in order. But the Bible says they had a sword in one hand and a trial in the other. They kept building while at the same time fighting their enemies.

33:08And if you're going to build a great marriage, if you're going to build a great family, if you're going to build a great church or a great business, whatever you build today, you got to understand you can build with one hand, but you're going to have to fight with the other hand. Come on, building a great marriage is not easy. You have to work at it. I got a few eight men's. If you want a great family, you're going to have to work at it. You're going to have to have the sword. What is the sword? It's the word of God according to Ephesians 6. You put on the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, the sword of the spirit, the belt of truth. We shot our feet with a preparation of the gospel of peace. We put on the helmet of salvation. So we fight this good fight. I want you to stand. Moses was moved by God out of a burning bush. Joseph was moved by God in a dream. Esther was moved by the voice of Mordecai

34:11to step out and approach the king. Nehemiah was moved by the need of Jerusalem. Moved to tears, moved to prayer, moved to action. What's your move today? Do you need to move toward Jesus to receive salvation today? Do you need to move in the area of baptism and follow Jesus into the water of baptism? Do you need to move toward starting point and getting connected to a life-giving church and not just coming and attending but being connected in a real way? Do you need to move toward being connected into a small group that helps disciple and mentor and train? Where do you need to move to? Maybe you need to move across the street and just let your neighbor know something about Jesus.

35:16I don't know what your next move is but I believe all of us need to bust a move in here to do that. Not in the secular way but in the spiritual way. Amen. We need to bust a move. You need to move. Men, you need to move. Just your life moving toward Christ will impact your life and your gears. For generations, for generations, moms moving toward respecting that husband. You say, well, he doesn't deserve respect. Well, the Bible doesn't say respect him if he deserves respect. He says, just respect him. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave his life for her. If you want to be married, man, it comes with a death certificate. If you want to be single, don't get married. Married folks don't need to be acting like single folks.

36:27You married. You married. Amen. Come on, somebody. We don't have secret bank accounts. We don't keep extra five hundred dollars in our wall is that our spouse doesn't know about secret accounts. Get front accounts. No, we're married. Let the two become one. That's hard. But it's scripture. Amen. Very scripture. Whatever that move is, you need to go toward that. Amen. Let's power his. Well, I just thank you. God, the power of your word is real. Thank you for every man, woman, boy and girl in this place today. Great, great grace over them for those that are joining us on line, great grace. Thank you for joining us today. If you would like to connect, text bridge to 94,000, visit our website at bridgechurch.tv and follow us on all social media platforms. Thank you for listening. Now go out and be the bridge.