Motivational Talk on 'PROJECT NEHEMIAH'
~ Pastor Thuamminlian Guite
Bible Verse: Nehemiah 1:1-4
When talking about ministry (Project Nehemiah), human touch is the most important. It is not about the physical building which is most important, although at the initial stage it was the primary needs. Even when the need for building schools is high, the aim is still to provide good education to the students at our villages. The people that we take care are not robots; it will be ideal if we can have imprints on their life. We should really need to know the reality of our people at the villages; the progress of our villages has been really slow. We gave career guidance to the kids, which is good, but it could be better if we take steps ahead and disseminate the importance of parental role in education. We can go and conduct career guidance for the kids, but when we are not there anymore, the parents will always be there to motivate them if they know the importance of education.
When our parents talk about their time, we usually do not want to hear about it saying that it is not the same anymore. But we should hear and know the situation of our parents during their time. God is interested in generations and we can see even a book about the counting of generations in the Bible from Joshua 4. Let us hear and know about our parents’ generations and their difficulties so that we can know how God has lifted us up. We forget our old times too soon and so we are now facing problems in our generation. Our descendants were the kinds of people who did not even have toilets. We must never forget that God has lifted us up from that situation. We have all kinds of good facilities over here in Delhi. There are kids who would have been more successful than us if they had half the facilities that we have here. I want to encourage you not to forget our roots. God also finds the roots of the people of Jerusalem important, so he makes the twelve stones a mark of it, as we can see from Joshua chapter 4.
We will talk about several points from the life of Nehemiah:
Nehemiah knows his people and his land first: If we have been making a project without knowing the difficulties of our people and land, then we might have been making a mistake. So, Nehemiah first know the status of his people at Jerusalem. We need to know what all difficulties have been faced by our people at the villages, so we need to go there and see at the place and understand them.
Nehemiah prayed to God: The next step Nehemiah took after he knew the situation of his people was that he prayed to our living God. He stayed at the King’s palace but he did not approach the King to help him sort out the problems of his people, which he could obviously. But he first cried out to God, and that is what we need today. Wealth or authority is not the first thing - acknowledging the difficulties and running to God is what we need today. We may be well-equipped with money to help our people, but like Nehemiah, we should cry out to God and pray for our people. We know the status of our land; we can be patriotic without love. Nehemiah was patriotic and loved his people, so he cast all these to God.
Nehemiah worked ethically: After Nehemiah prayed to God, he worked according to the laws. It is possible that we can do our ministry by deviating from the ethics and think we are patriotic. But Nehemiah worked according to the laws. With permission letter from the King, he establisheed his land.
Nehemiah did not react but responded: When they began work, he faced certain difficulties along the way. Nehemiah did not react to those criticisms and difficulties faced along the way, but he gave responses to them. He worked so hard in rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem that people disturbed him from outside asking him to come out and talk to them. Nehemiah did not react to them and continued with what he was doing.
What we learn from the life story of Nehemiah is that, he knew his people clearly, he loved them and brought them to God. He prayed to God and started working by firstly asking God and then the government. He worked ethically with the permission from the King. He spread his vision to the people, people agreed on his vision and they started working. They began to face problems when they worked, but he did not react to them; he just responded them. And God gave him victory.
With a project named 'Project Nehemiah', how can we share our privileges with people who do not have the privileges like us? The living condition of our people is such that there is no other place to rely on other than our mission schools. Let us keep God, the King of kings the foremost. Nehemiah did not say, "Let me get help from the King", although he was a government official. He sought help from God first. Like Nehemiah, let us also keep God first.
Gamchiam | Sept 29, 2019 Sermon Audio Sermon Video Photo Gallery
