Approaching the intersection...

Week #3 in the “When the Walls Fall Down” Series -  …Get to Work  July 29, 2018 Review series Some 440 years before the birth of Jesus, Nehemiah – a Jew living in exile – made a 1,000-mile trip to Jerusalem to repair its broken walls and help restore hope to the Hebrew people.   Over the past couple of weeks, we have looked at how Nehemiah was able to do what he did and how we can apply those principles in our own lives when we find our lives taking directions we did not anticipate, and the walls having fallen down. The first step in Nehemiah’s journey was to pray.   We noted that prayer was his first option, not his last resort.   Nehemiah not only prayed; he prepared.   Roughly four months after he received the word about the state of Jerusalem, Nehemiah was engaged in a conversation – seemingly out of the blue – by the Persian King Artaxerxes.   When Artaxerxes asked Nehemiah what he desired to do, Nehemiah was ready with an answer...

Week #2 in the “When the Walls Fall Down” Series -  …Make a Plan Nehemiah 2: 1-8, 11-18 (NIV) Last week we were introduced to Nehemiah.   Born more than 450 years before Jesus, he was a Jew living in exile.   He had never seen his ancestral homeland of Jerusalem, but he grieved for what had become of it.   Conquered by the Babylonians roughly 150 years earlier, Jerusalem and the great temple of Solomon had been destroyed.   Since the Persians had defeated the Babylonians some 50 years after that, they had been much kinder to the Jewish people allowing some of them to return to Jerusalem, but the city was still pretty much in ruins and it broke Nehemiah’s heart.  What God was about to do through Nehemiah was an amazing thing, and in his story, we find lessons from which we can draw when our worlds get turned upside down and life takes us in directions that we could not have anticipated.   Last week, we learned that the first thing Nehemiah di...

Week #1 in the “When the Walls Fall Down” Series  …Pray July 15, 2018 Introducing the series Before reading the text this morning, I would like to take a moment to introduce this sermon series.   Entitled, “When the Walls Fall Down,” this series is based upon the book of Nehemiah and his quest to help rebuild the walls around the city of Jerusalem as well as the faith of Hebrew people.   As we look at how God used Nehemiah as an instrument of restoration, we may find some insights that will be helpful and encourage us when life takes us in directions we did not expect. It may be helpful if we set the context for our journey.   The once great nation of Israel is only a distant memory.   After the death of King Solomon, it split into two kingdoms – one northern and one southern.   The Northern Kingdom was known as “Israel,” and would last a little more than 200 years before it was conquered by the Assyrians.   The Jews who lived there ...

“Boats, Boxes and Other Plan Bs” Pikeville UMC July 8, 2018 John 21: 1-14 (NIV) 1 Afterward Jesus appeared again to his disciples, by the Sea of Galilee.   It happened this way:   2 Simon Peter, Thomas (also known as Didymus), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were together. 3 "I'm going out to fish," Simon Peter told them, and they said, "We'll go with you." So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. 4 Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus. 5 He called out to them, "Friends, haven't you any fish?" "No," they answered. 6 He said, "Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some." When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish. 7 Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, "It is the Lord!" As ...