Description
Influence
God-Ops
February 14, 2010
Ed Young
You know, I was thinking a couple days ago, there’s no real opportunity without opposition. You start trying to build a marriage or a career. You start trying to build financial security. You step out in any realm, whenever you go after any sort of opportunity, there’s always going to be opposition.
People talk a lot about a photo-op. That’s basically an opportunity for a cool photograph. And I’ve blown a lot of cool photo-ops, I’m sure you have too. It’s like, “Oh, I wish I would have had a camera. I mean, I wish I could capture that moment on film.”
Sometimes we’re lucky enough to take the right photograph of the right situation or the right person we meet. Or maybe it’s magic time when the sun is setting and we see something really amazing and we take that picture.
Well, God-ops are even more profound than that. God is a God of opportunity. He’s all about the opportunity. He’s given all of us amazing opportunities. And the question I want you to consider today is, are you taking advantage of those opportunities? And if so, are you experiencing opposition?
I’m here to say that opposition is really a good thing in the midst of opportunity, because opposition reveals to you and me our position before God and others. You see, what I’m driving at is the fact that all of us are leaders. Every single person hearing my voice, if you’re 12 years old or 72 years old, all of us are leaders. All of us are influencers. God has placed us in the position that we find ourselves in for an amazing reason. For opportunities and to take advantage of those opportunities that present themselves in our lives.
Well, how do we take advantage of opportunities? It sounds sort of easy. “Ok, an opportunity comes my way, here’s potential, here’s the chance, I just go for it.”
Well, it’s a little bit more than that. Because we’ve been learning about a guy in the Bible named Nehemiah. Nehemiah was the shortest guy in the Bible – Knee-high-miah. He was really small. He was a great leader. Nehemiah was a man that had a really cool opportunity. He took advantage of it. And today we’re going to look over this prophet’s shoulder and learn some stuff about opportunities. Because all of us have these great opportunities.
So think about, just for a second, the opportunities that are before you. Think about those opportunities that are out there before you. Just think about those, ok? I would argue that if you’re not experiencing hell, then you’re not going to get any heaven. In other words, you’ve got to go through hell to get to heaven. You’ve got to pass the test to be blessed.
And one of the things we have to remember when it comes to opportunity, especially against the backdrop of Nehemiah’s life, is his life was all about preparation. That’s the first deliverable. That’s the first point of application I want you to consider. Preparation.
I’ve said this several times before, let me say it again. Wherever you find yourself in whatever walk of life, whatever you’re doing right now, God is preparing you for what he has prepared for you. Right now. So especially, I’m talking to students right now. I mean, if you’re in junior high or high school, or if you’re a college student, God is preparing you right now for what he has prepared for you. So his opportunity is before you. Take advantage of it and realize the preparation process.
Now, this word preparation is cool, you can kind of change it around and say, “pre-prayer-ation.” Nehemiah was a man of prayer. I’ve got to say Nehemiah is the best leadership book ever penned, it’s in the Bible, it’s a true manual on influence. He was a man who knew how to talk to God. Nine times in the book of Nehemiah, Nehemiah prayed. He prayed long prayers, short prayers, microwave prayers, one-word prayers. He prayed.
He also was a master conversationalist. If you’ll notice his conversations with God, he prayed and listened. He listened, he prayed. So there’s kind of a two-way thing going on.
I think too many of us, and I’m confessing my own sins here, when we pray, it’s like, (babbling). And I feel like God’s going, “Whoa, ok, I hear you, but now I have some stuff to say to you.”
Talk to people of prayer, people who are into preparation, they spend a lot of time listening to God. Just take some time to say, “Yes, Lord. Thank you, Jesus.” Just listen. Just listen. It’s going to be amazing what he is going to deposit in your life. Preparation.
Now, maybe you showed up here and you’re like, “Ok, Ed, Nehemiah. Who is Nehemiah?”
Let me give you the quick Cliff’s-notes on Nehemiah. Nehemiah, an Old Testament figure, was living in exile in what is today considered modern day Iraq. He was the wine-taster, the cup-bearer of King Artaxerxes, which sounds like a menial task. Really, it had huge meaning. He had the ear of the king. You know, he had it going on.
Well, he heard from strategic conversations, that the city walls in his hometown, Jerusalem, were in shambles. Now, today, it’s like, “City walls – what do you mean?” You know, we live in gated communities, maybe your apartment complex is gated. Maybe you have some friends who live in a gated golf course community, or maybe you have a gate around your house. We’re into all of that. The gates and the walls. But back in biblical times city walls represented something major. They represented protection, they represented community. In Jerusalem, they represented the glory of God – the city walls.
The city walls were in shambles. They were just tattered, totally messed up. Nehemiah in this whole preparation process, prayed. He asked the king, I mean the guy who could chop his head off if he saw Nehemiah in a bad mood; he asked the King for permission to go back to Jerusalem and rebuild the city walls.
Think about preparation. Nehemiah had a great job, was making a lot of money, had a cool office. He was living in the town of Susa. God was preparing him, right? For what he had prepared for him.
Little did Nehemiah realize that God was going to use him as the catalyst for change, as the leader to do something that people said couldn’t be done. To rebuild the city walls. Preparation, preparation.
If you have your Bibles, turn to the book of Nehemiah 3. If you don’t have them, you can follow us along.
Nehemiah did something after preparation. Nehemiah, and here’s the 2nd word, the 2nd deliverable we need to download. He was into simplification. Yeah, it was preparation. God was preparing him, he understood that, he knew that. He knew that it was time for him to seize the opportunity and rebuild the wall. But also too, notice simplification, notice how the simplification thing happened.
Anything that works well in the world today, whether it be a government, whether it be a Fortune 500 company, whether it be a University, an Entrepreneurial enterprise, a church, whatever it is – anything that works well, I believe, needs to have a simple structure. Keep it simple.
Illus: I equate it to kid’s toys. When my kids were younger, they had simple toys. A football. A block. That was it. Those things don’t break. How do you break a football? How do you break a block? It’s pretty tough. Now, as our kids have gotten older and older, the stuff we give them, it’s too expensive, it’s too technical, it breaks, they lose things.
So the more complex an organization becomes, what happens? It has a tendency to break down. It has a real propensity to totally mess up.
Nehemiah kept it simple. He shows up to Jerusalem, he’s got this vision from God. God gives him the opportunity to rebuild the wall, but notice something. He doesn’t just start blabbing it to everybody. He doesn’t blog about it. He doesn’t do this email blast about it. He doesn’t text everybody about it. “Wow, God’s given me this incredible opportunity, and I’m going to rebuild the city wall. Man, I’m all that!”
He didn’t do that. He kept it low. Shh, quiet. There’s a time to talk about it; there’s a time to keep it quiet.
He came to J-town, saw the situation, saw that they were in rubble-trouble, and he thought, “I’m going to keep it simple. Yeah, God’s prepared me, but I’m going to keep it simple.”
So he took just the natural groups of people. For example, the priests and all the holy men and women, and he said, “Ok, guys and gals, you rebuild the city wall in front of your house, that’s what I want you to do. Hey, sheep herders, I know you like the sheep and you love animals and the sheep, are using the sacrificial system, you rebuild the wall in front of where you work.” Brilliant. Simple.
Well, all these people are mentioned in Nehemiah chapter 3 except Nehemiah. Isn’t that cool? Nehemiah was just giving the ball away. You got simplification, also you’ve got multiplication. You’ve got delegation involved, but stay with me. Simplification.
You read Nehemiah 3 and the phrase “next to him” is used 22 times. And I would try to read some of the names for you, but they’re so difficult to pronounce, I’m not going to even go there. But you can try to pronounce them yourself.
I do, though, want to draw your attention to Nehemiah 3:5, because I think it’s pretty funny. Nehemiah is just giving everybody the high-five for working and talking about how great they are, and they’re doing this and they’re doing that, and they’re stepping up and he’s encouraging people–and that’s so, so important to encourage one another. That’s why I believe those of us who know the Lord personally, should be the most positive people around. I’m not saying that we should stick our heads in the sands of denial and go, “Man, there’s not any negativity and there’s not any opposition.” I’m not saying that. I am saying, though, because we know the future and we know who holds the future; because we’re fighting not for victory, but from victory–we should encourage one another. So if you think an encouraging thought, say it! If you think an encouraging thought, text it. Think an encouraging thought, email it! You’ll make someone’s day when you do that.
Sometimes I’ll like think about a friend, I’m thinking, “Ah, he hears that all the time.” Or “She hears that all the time. I’m not, I just don’t…” and then I’ll think, “Ok, I’ll just text them.”
And they’re like, “Oh, thank you so much, that made my day.” You know!
Nehemiah 3:5, this is hilarious. Nehemiah calls out the men of Tekoa. He’s complimenting all these people, but he talks about some laziness. He says in verse 5, “the next section was prepared by the men of Tekoa. But their nobles would not put their shoulders to the work under their supervisors.”
The men of Tekoa basically wouldn’t use the back-ho-a. They weren’t into it.
Now, he didn’t just go, “Oh, man!” he didn’t just get in their face. He just said, “Man, these people just didn’t work.” And there’s always people like that. There’s always men of Tekoa, women of Tekoa, in your company, on your team, in the church, wherever, and you know, you’ve got to work with the workers. You’ve got to work with the workers.
I guarantee it, if you could bring the men of Tekoa back today, I guarantee you they would go, “Oh man, if I had it to do over again, I would have worked! Because little did I realize it would turn into the Bible and billions and billions of people would read how lazy we were!” I just threw that in, I mean, I’m just thinking like the men of Tekoa.
Well, if you keep reading in Nehemiah 3, Nehemiah talks about some people working zealously. I like that word zealous. You’ll see it I think in Nehemiah 3:20. You know what the word zealous means? To be full of God.
And the word “work” is talked about and used so much in Nehemiah–work is a good thing. Work is a gift from God. God gave us work before sin ever entered the human equation. There’s a reward to work. After God works, because creativity and work go together like chips and hot sauce, right? Like rice and beans, right? Like half-and-half and coffee, right?
When you have work going on, and creativity going on, God will look back on it and say, “Man, that’s good!” He talked about his own work, “That’s awesome!”
We have the rewards of work. After we’ve put the toddler down and are worn out, the reward of work, you know. After we’ve graded 1,700 papers, oh, the job is done. I worked – the rewards of work. After we’ve bagged the client, you know, “Whew!” the reward of work. After we finished the surgery, after we’ve had this long meeting, after the sermon, the rewards of work. After the tough practice where you’ve worked your butt off–the reward of work. It’s a God thing. And Nehemiah is about work.
So, it’s great to have vision, it’s great to dream dreams, it’s great to say, “Ok, God’s preparing me for what he’s prepared for me.” But we’ve got to work.
So, Nehemiah moved with the movers. He gave the ball to people who naturally wanted to work. And I find that interesting, because we have a wall to build right here.
Illus: And when I have an opportunity to travel and talk to believers here and also around the world, they’ll often say to me, “You know, that’s cool what’s going on here.” Maybe I’m talking to some leaders in Los Angeles, or in New York or whatever, and they’ll go, “It’s cool what’s going on here. But man, if you put me in Boccata or Kiev, or if you put me in New Zealand, I’m going to, wow, I will really work then. I’m going to work for the Lord!”
I’m all for missions. Our church is all about missions, but we need to work where God has positioned us. This is a mission. Dallas / Fort Worth is a mission. Everywhere is a mission. So don’t say, “Well, if you put me over there in Asia, then I’m going to go for it!” Start here. Start where you are. That’s the brilliance of Nehemiah.
When you have opportunity, there’s going to be opposition. Remember the preparation piece, remember the simplification piece. You can also throw in delegation, multiplication.
Now, look at Nehemiah 4. Because you’re going to see the intensity of opposition being cranked up. There were some people out there who didn’t dig what was going on. And they started kind of general. They started kind of just saying stuff like, “Oh, these feeble Jews. These Hebrew hillbillies, what do they know? They can’t rebuild the wall!”
Sanballat, Tobiah and Geshem led the charge. You can put names and faces in your life in place of these names and faces. There are three different groups of people that you’ll deal with in your entire life. The workers, I’ve described those to you. People who will just go, “Ok, here’s an opportunity, I’m all in.”
Then you’ve got the shirkers – the men from Tekoa, you know, who don’t want to use the back-ho-a.
Then you’ve got another group. The slurpers. Now, the slurpers.
Illus: I want to introduce you to a brand new drink that I heard about a couple of months of ago. It’s new to the market. This stuff is very, very, very expensive. Can you read it – can you see it? Hater-ade. Hater-ade. You got the workers, you got the shirkers, but you got the slurpers, slurping down Hater-aide. I love me some Hater-aide, don’t you? I’m surprised at how much I drink Hater-aide. “(Singing) Hater-ade is thirst-ade for that deep down negative thirst.”
Isn’t it funny how all of us, let’s just be honest, we’re in church, we like to drink some Hater-ade, you know. Here, you can have some Hater-ade. Would you like some? It’s good for the electrolytes. It’s really good. Ok, you can have some electrolyte fluid too. Hater-ade. Hater-ade. Yeah, yeah. Hater-ade. Slurpers. You’re always going to have haters.
Illus: I remember back I junior high school, by God’s grace, he gave me the strength to live the life – did I perform perfectly? No. Did I say things that I regret? Yes. But you know what? God gave me the strength. I had haters back in junior high school.
So, whenever you step out and whenever you step up, you’re going to have haters. That’s just part of it. So, haters, would you stand up for a second. Here are the haters. Stand up, stand up, stand up. And hold the Hater-ade up high. Hold it up high, hold it up high. All right, all right.
Here is the lynch pin of the deal. And young people, please listen to me, students, please. I mean it’s great for the adults to listen, but I want to talk to you specifically. You’re going to have hater-ade people, “Oh, man, why are you only dating believers?” “Why do you spend so much time at church?” “You’re kind of a Jesus freak, or a Jesus chick,” or whatever.
All that, all that stuff, all that stuff. And as you live your life, you’re going to have the people who slurp all the negative stuff. And that’s cool, that’s ok, they’re going to give you hell. But remember, you ain’t going to get heaven until people are giving you hell. Jesus said for you to go to the next level, people have got to curse you.
But here’s what I’m going to tell you, students. You’re not going to get invited to all the parties. But the party you go to is on a ‘hole ‘nutha level. You’re not going to have as many dates, you’re not going to have as many dates as those people who live like hell, but the dates you have are going to go swell. If you don’t believe me, look at my wife. How did I get her? It’s a God-thing.
Talk about friends? You’re not going to have as many friends. You will not. I did not. I did not. And there were some lonely times, and I’m talking junior high school, high school! Lonely times. But you know what? The friends that god has given me are true friends. They’re not frien-emies, they’re friends.
So, here’s how we shrink the vision for our life, ok. All of us, we want the best, we want the God-op. But if you want to shrink the opportunities, just concentrate on the Hater-ade. “Oh, Ah, Oh, you’re slurping Hater-ade!” What happens? When we focus on this, students, singles, single parents, those of us who are married, are trying to build a company, a career, trying to get our masters, trying to do what God’s led us to do; when we focus so much on the Hater-ade, what do we do? We shrink the vision and we miss the masses.
Look at all these people out there! Look at this influence! Why am I trying to say to the haters, “Ok, let’s sit down, I can change you, let’s sit down. Surely, we can understand one another. Let’s sit down. Oh yeah.”
People who slurp Hater-ade will not believe your explanations even when you give it to them. Please be seated, Hater-ade people. And those people are very positive. I’m just using it you know as an example.
Well in Nehemiah 4, the wall starts going, the wall starts happening, the Sanballat, Tobiah and Geshem started going crazy. And Nehemiah was like, “Ok, we’re gonna stay on the wall. We’re going to build the wall.” And as the project kept going, and let me read to you just a couple of these verses right quick, Nehemiah 4:1 and following. “When Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall, he became angry and was greatly incensed. He ridiculed the Jews.” Ridicule begins where your influence ends.
Now, let’s skip down right quick to Nehemiah 4:7-9. Ok. The wall now was half its height. Half it’s height. And what happened? Brother, the enemy came out with a fight. They were slurping so much Hater-ade, it was just dripping and drooling, you know, down, down their beards onto their Gucci robes. They were all upset about it.
“But when Sanballat, Tobiah (and Geshem too,) the Arabs, the Ammonites and the men of Ashdod heard that the repairs to Jerusalem’s walls had gone ahead, and the gaps were being closed, they were very angry. They all plotted together to come and fight against Jerusalem.”
So it started out with, “ok, we don’t dig the Jews.” Now, “We’re going to fight Jerusalem, man!”
Well, here is something we need to understand. Half it’s height. Half it’s height. That’s when the fight really intensified. The Jews began to get all exhausted and freaked out. They were so concerned about the rubble, about what needed to be done. They began to focus on, “Man, we got so much work ahead of us. I don’t know if we can do it!” They took their eye off the ball. They took their eye off of what God had done, and they were thinking about, “Ok, here’s what’s undone.”
Some of you right now are in a marriage. And God has built some great stuff in your marriage. You’re marriage is half it’s height, but you’re so concerned, you’re so wallowing in the waa-waa, you’re in such rubble-trouble that you’re not focusing on the positive, you’re looking at the negative. You’re looking at the rubble.
Some of you are trying to build your finances, and you’re half way there, but you’re like, “Man, we’ve got to save this and do that. We gotta put kids through college and blah, blah, blah.” You’re too worried, you’re too negative about the rubble, and you’re missing what God has done.
You’re building a career, you’re building a company, whatever it is, rubble-trouble.
Hater-ade people. Work with the workers. Stay away from the shirkers. And definitely ignore the slurpers. That’s what you gotta do.
But Nehemiah, the Bible says, prayed. And you know what he did? I love Nehemiah. Nehemiah, if you keep reading, had his people on the wall. They had a weapon in one hand, are you ready for this? And a tool in the other. A weapon in one hand and a tool in the other. Positivity, “Man, we’re going to build the wall!” but also, “I’m going to deal with negative people.”
Hey guys, I love, for example, Ultimate Fighting. I like boxing, football, rugby. I love to watch that stuff. Shoot ‘em up movies, you know. Yeah! However, you know, however cool and male that is, you know, we like to watch a fight and be involved in the fight – guys, don’t forget the main fight. The main fight is the faith fight. We gotta fight for our marriages, we gotta fight for our families, we’ve got to fight for our kids. We’ve got to fight to spend quality time at God’s house. We’ve got to fight to serve one another. Remember the fight – the fight.
Also, too, we’re in the building business. We’ve got to build, man. Think about the building that God wants you to do. If we could see the wall that God wants us to build, individually and collectively, we wouldn’t believe it. But I love that – Nehemiah – weapon in one hand, and a tool in the other.
And notice too about the balance. If you’re hanging out on a wall, you’ve got to have balance. He didn’t just have the sword, “Ok, we’re going to deal just with the Hater-aide people.” No. The balance. And we’re constantly in that state of balance. There’s no opportunity without opposition.
Well now, the negative people started freaking. They’re like, “Oh, man, this thing is going to happen!” and they tried to get Nehemiah off the wall. Remember – stay on the wall. Stay above the fray and pray. That’s what Nehemiah did. Once you get down off the wall, you become prey – P.R.E.Y.
Preparation, Simplification, but notice another one here, and this is another cool word, determination. We’ve got to be determined. You know, I’m going to stand here and I’m going to be who God wants me to be.
Here’s what I’ve learned about negative people. Negative people are always smaller than smaller people. Have you noticed that? Now, I’m not talking about physically. No, no, no. Negative people are always looking up at positive people. Why? You’re on the wall, baby. We’re on the wall. And we’re always bigger than negative people.
Negative people basically aren’t willing to pick up a sword and a tool. They want what you have, but they’re not willing to do what you’ve done to get to where you are. That’s the bottom line.
You know, we love everybody. The workers and the shirkers and the slurpers. But we gotta build a wall. Nehemiah wouldn’t come off the wall. They tried to lure him off the wall, “Nehemiah, please meet with us.” The enemy said this. “Well, we’ll share some Hater-ade with you.” and they wanted to meet on the plains of Ono. That was the name of it. “Hey, Nehemiah, get off the wall and come to the plain of Ono. I call it Yoko-Ono. Ono.
So Nehemiah, if he would have met with him, these Haters on the plain of Ono, Yoko-oh-no, he would of had to put down his weapon, his tool, come down off the wall and make a day’s journey and meet with the people as they drank some Hater-ade and had boiled Nehemiah. He said, “No. Project is great.” Read it, read it, read it. Nehemiah 4, Nehemiah 6. He said, “I’ve got to do what God wants me to do. He said, “Why should I come down when God has taken me to this level.” Negative people are smaller than positive people.
Numbers 13 & Numbers 14. You remember God’s people getting ready to close that phenomenal real estate deal – the Promised Land? You remember that? Well, God told Mo, he goes, “Mo, tell the tribes to pick the smartest dude in each of the groupings, and we’ll call these guys spies. They’ll go out and do a secret reconnaissance mission on the land that I’ve already given you.” I mean, you talking about an opportunity.
So, Mo said, “Ok, tribes, pick your best guy.”
Well, there was 150,000 people in each tribe. Check it out. So they picked the smartest, you know, person. So as the spies go out, they come back, 10 of the 12 spies are negative, drinking Hater-aide. You know what they said? “We’re like Grasshoppers in the eyes of these giants. There are giants in the land. We can’t tackle these guys. They’ll run right over us. Their cities are fortified. We’re like grasshoppers.”
Negative people will exaggerate, elongate, and they’ll go grasshopper on you. Every single time, man. Negative people are small.
Name me one of the 10 negative spies in the Bible? You can’t. Negative people aren’t remembered. But you remember the two positive–the two out of the 12, Joshua and Caleb. We name our kids after them. We name ministries after them. They were people who were doing the stuff, weren’t they? Amazing. Amazing.
And I could go on and talk to you about these negative people tried to get him on the plains of Ono. And he was like, “No way, I’m not doing that.” Don’t tell me what you’re doing, tell me what you’re not doing. And then, the 5th time they went after Nehemiah, they said, “Hey, uh, Nehemiah,” and here, I love this.
Look at Nehemiah 6:6. They sent this open letter to Nehemiah. “It is reported among the nations,” when it comes to rumors, there is never a source. “And Geshem says it’s true…”
Well, remember, who’s Geshem? Geshem is a liar and now he is agreeing with the lies of this unnamed source.
“And Geshem says it’s true that you and the Jews are plotting to revolt and therefore you’re building the wall. Moreover according to these reports, you’re about to become their king…”
What? That wasn’t Nehemiah’s deal. That wasn’t his opportunity that God gave him.
But look at Nehemiah 6:9, you know what Nehemiah said? “Lord, strengthen my hands.”
So, the wall, I mean, they’re getting ready to set the city gates. It’s coming to the climax of this whole construction project. And then, you think, “Whew, it’s over. Man, wow, it’s over! Surely, surely the opposition will not continue.”
But wait. Oh it gets really nasty now. You know what happens? Tobiah, Geshem and Sansabelt, Sanballat, who wore Sansabelts, they hire one of Nehemiah’s close friends, a man of God, to try to mess him up.
So, now, his enemies begin to play the ‘God card.’ Sometimes people would just try to out-God you. You know what I’m saying? “Well, God told me…” “God spoke to me…” “God’s leading me…” “I’ve been praying about it…” I’m like, well, I talked to God this morning, and he didn’t say that.
And when people play the God-card, God’s never going to tell you to do something that is against his Word. Well, this guy tried to say, “Hey, Nehemiah, let’s hang out in the Temple, and we can discuss the situation.”
Nehemiah was like, “Hmm.” The word ‘temple,’ you know what it means? Holy of Holies. Nehemiah was not qualified to go into the Holy of Holies. He would have sinned before God. “Oh! Busted!” He stayed away. Stay on the wall. Stay on the wall. He stayed on the wall.
And this wall represents worship. The wall was built in a record 52 days. The wall was built by these feeble Jews, by this guy, Nehemiah, who had the opportunity, who seized it, who faced the opposition.
You see, I’m talking about leader-ship, not leader-slip. Leadership is when you take the ship out and you go, “You know what? We’re going to face the currents, the winds. We’re going to face the rogue waves, we’re going for, the Lord is our Captain.”
Leader-slip is, “Oh man, whoa, there’s too much opposition with the winds and the seas. I’m just gonna put the ship in the slip and have this marina mentality and play it safe. Nehemiah was about leader-ship and so are you. Nehemiah was about building a wall, so are you.
What are you building? What’s the God-op? Because there’s no opportunity without opposition. Stay on the wall. Build your life, build your relationship with God. Build the church. Build this fortress that will free you up to worship like you’ve never done before.
[Ed ends in closing prayer]