The sermon, titled 'Nehemiah - the Man Who Cared' by Mala Chindongo, explores the story of Nehemiah from the Bible, focusing on his deep concern for the restoration of Jerusalem and the worship of God. Nehemiah, serving as the king's cupbearer in Babylon, is moved to inquire about the state of Jerusalem and its people, which leads him to weep, fast, and pray for their well-being. His prayer acknowledges God's greatness and covenant faithfulness, and he confesses the sins of Israel, seeking God's forgiveness and intervention. The sermon emphasizes that Nehemiah cared enough to act, ultimately asking the king for permission to return to Jerusalem to rebuild its walls and restore worship. This narrative is used as a backdrop to discuss the broader theme of biblical missions, which involves spreading the gospel and establishing local churches where God is worshiped. The sermon draws parallels between Nehemiah's mission and the mission of Jesus Christ, highlighting the importance of inquiry, prayer, and going out to fulfill God's purposes despite opposition. Nehemiah's story serves as a call to Christians to care deeply about God's global mission and to take active roles in supporting or participating in it.

Reading from Nehemiah chapter 1, 1 through 11, and again chapter 2, 1 through 10. Nehemiah chapter 1, the word of God. The words of name I at the son of Hacarion. It came to pass in the month of Chislev in the twentieth year as I was in Shushan, the citadel, that Hanani, one of my brethren, came with men from Judah, and I asked them concerning the Jews who had escaped, who had survived the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem. And they said to me, the survivors who are left from their captivity in the province are there in great distress and reproach.

The wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its gates are burnt with fire. So it was when I heard these words that I sat down and worked and mourned for many days as I was fasting and praying before God the God of heaven and I said I pray the Lord God of heaven all great and awesome God you who keep covenant and mercy with those who love you and observe your commandments. Please let your ear be attentive and your eyes open that you may hear the prayer of your servant which I pray before you now day and night for the children of Israel, your servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel which we have sinned against you. Both my father's house and I have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, nor the ordinances which you commanded your servant Moses.

Remember, I pray, the word that you commanded your servant Moses, saying, If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations. But if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though some of you were cast out to the farthest part of the heavens, yet I will gather them from there and bring them to the place which I have chosen as a dwelling from my name. Now, these are your servants and your people, whom you have redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand. O Lord, I pray, please let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant and to the prayer of your servants who desire to fear your name. And let your servant prosper this day, I pray, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man, for I was the king's car-bearer.

And it came to pass in the month of Nisan in the 20th year of King Atasaxus, when wine was before him, that I took the wine and gave it to the king. Now I had never been sad in his presence before. Therefore the king said to me, Why is your face sad since you're not sick? This is nothing but sorrow of heart. So I became dreadfully afraid and said to the king, May the king live forever.

Why should my face not be sad when the city, the place of my father's tombs, lies west, and its gates are burnt with fire? Then the king said to me, What do you request? So I prayed to the God of heaven. And I said to the king, If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, I ask that you send me to Judah, to the city of my father's tombs that I may rebuild it. Then the king said to me, the queen also sitting beside him, how long will your journey be and when will you return?

So it pleased the king to send me, and I said to him at time. Furthermore, I said to the king, if it pleases the king, let letters be given to me for the governors of the region beyond the river, that they must permit me to pass through, pass through till I come to Judah. And I later to Esau the keeper of the king's forest that he must give me timber to make beams for the gates of the citadel which pertains to the temple for the citadel and for the house that I will occupy. And the king granted them to me, according to the good hand of my God upon me. Then I went to the governors in the region beyond the river and gave them the king's letters.

Now the king had sent captains of the army and horsemen with me. When Sanbarat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite, or Fisha heard of it, they were deeply disturbed that a man had come to seek the well-being of the children of Israel. Amen. Let's pray. Father, we thank you and come before you as we consider what you are about to do, what you have been doing in the last few years, preparing the hearts of men and their wives, preparing their children, their families, preparing their friends, their churches, and preparing other churches.

And Lord, as you have been at work, and we know that you have been at work preparing that part of the world in Teke for the preaching of the gospel we pray that Lord you may give us understanding that we may think of missions, Lord, according to you, according to your word, that you would open our eyes today, the ears that we may hear from you, that Lord, we may know how to encourage our friends, our brothers and sisters, that we may know how to pray for them, that we may know how to support them. More importantly, oh God, we may know how to support good gospel endeavors. I pray that Lord you would give us the right frame of mind through this text. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Please take your seats. Want us to spend our time in these two chapters. Chapter one of the book of Nehemiah and a little bit of chapter two. As we consider Nehemiah, the man who cares, The man who cares because Nehemiah cared enough to see the city of God, Jerusalem, rebelled and restore worship in that city. And before we begin walking through our text today, I want us to take a step back.

And so, if you can turn with me to Acts chapter 13, as we take a step back to consider what biblical missions is. In Acts chapter 13 verse 1 through verse 5. Now in the church that was at Antioch there were a certain prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon, who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manane, who had been brought up with Herod, the Tentrarch, and Saul. As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, separate to me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. Then having fasted and prayed and laid hands on them, they send them away.

We're talking about missions this morning, and the word itself has been defined in many ways. There are a lot of things that Christian men and women are doing in the world today that they consider missions, and they call it missions. And I want us to imagine if we were in this church at Antioch in verse 2 as they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, now separate to me bannabas and saw for the work to which I've called them. What is biblical missions? You hear the words, the work to which I have called them, and will not spend too much time here, but it does seem clear that Paul in Barnabas and the church at Antioch, when they had set these men apart, they left and began preaching the gospel in different regions and local areas in these cities that they had visited.

And we have so many letters today in the New Testament that are written to churches that these two men had planted. It's clear that poor in Banabas, wherever they went, they began preaching the gospel, calling men and women to repentance. But they also began organizing these men and women into these small groups that we call churches today. These small groups included families, singles, children, and they made under one roof to hear the word of God preached to them in fellowship and prayer, breaking the breaking of bread. They made to encourage one another.

They made to support one another. Poem in Bona Bossa as they went out from being, having been sent here, understanding that the work which the Holy Spirit had for them meant organizing these men and women together so they can meet on a weekly basis, but also they appointed elders to govern these men and women. They also appointed others called deacons, and we see throughout Paul's letters, and others. We look at these men and women, these small groups in these local places and we call them churches. If you and I were in that church at Antioch, how are we going to understand, at least make sense of the words to the work to which I've called them?

If you and I were Paul and Barnabas and we're going out, What are we going to do out in the world? It's clear that Paul and Bonobos understood biblical missions as the planting of biblical local churches. There are many today who are indifferent and don't believe in such organized groups that we call local churches today. But Poe and Bonobos understood the work to which I've called them meant organizing believers, men and women, families, singles alike, into groups that could meet together for the purpose of worship. God has been doing this from Genesis.

We see him preparing the world through the nation of Israel for these local bodies, local groups that would meet to worship Him. So it is His great plan to populate the earth with these small groups, transformed men and women in every tribe and language that they would gather together on a day like this to worship His name. Biblical missions means that you and I are going out, evangelizing, gathering people together, appointing elders that would look after those people, and appointing deacons that would serve those small groups. Those groups would meet together to grow in knowledge, to love God and save him. A few other places in the Bible where the Apostles, at least these were foundational for the apostles in the early church in understanding Christian missions.

In Matthew chapter 16 and verse 18, the Bible says, I will, Jesus is speaking and he ends by saying, I will build my church. Here's another phrase in Matthew chapter 28 and verse 19, Jesus is commissioning the disciples and he says, go therefore and make disciples of all the nations. Toward the end of that verse he says, teaching them to obey. And so it is in these small groups that these men and women, having been organized by those who would plant them to learn to sit under the feet of their teachers, learning the words of Jesus. In Acts chapter 1 and verse 8, Jesus tells the disciples that you shall be my witnesses.

And so as the early church went out preaching the gospel, they understood that they needed to bring men and women together, men and women who had believed the gospel, bring them together and begin to teach them the words of Christ. And we look at these small groups today, local small groups, and we call them churches. So it's been God's mission to create a people for himself right now in this world, in their local regions, local areas to meet for the purpose of worship. And that is to happen in every tribe and every tongue. God's mission and message has not changed.

I want us to pay attention to Exodus chapter 4 and verse 23 and this is a something that's repeated over and over again in the book of Exodus and Deuteronomy as well. So I say to you, this Exodus chapter 4 and verse 23, so I say to you, let my son go that he may save me, that he may worship me, But if you refuse to let him go, indeed I will kill your son, your firstborn." And so it's been God's, God's design is to create or serve, serve a people for himself, creating what today we call the church. And he started doing that with Israel. In Exodus chapter five and verse three, the Bible says, the God of the Hebrews has made with us, please let us go three days journey into the desert and sacrifice to the Lord our God, lest He fall upon us with pestilence, with a sword." So God has been from the beginning all about creating a people for himself. And when we read the book of Revelation, we see that in the end he will gather all these people, all nations, all tribes, he will bring them together to worship the Son, the Lamb of God.

And today that is happening in these local areas where born-again men and women meet together for the purpose of worship. So as we consider worship, as we consider missions this morning, I want us, our minds, to focus on this subject of worship. Like one famous Baptist preacher has said in his write, he says missions exist Because worship doesn't. And so the reason why we're sending men, the reason why two churches would be sending men and families to go to a place where Christ is not heard, where Christ is not being preached, is because there is no worship in that place. We see Christ, the Son of God, the King of Kings, Lord of Lords, as one who should be worshiped in every place, in every tribe.

Nehemiah was a man who was consumed with zeal for the glory of God. And so if you can go back to our text in Nehemiah chapter one, where we begin to see what it looks like to share in God's concerns. He was concerned that God was not being worshiped in Jerusalem, the place that God had set apart to be a place where his name would be glorified, his name would be honored, his name would be worshiped. Jerusalem had been destroyed. Many of the Israelites had been captured and taken as slaves into Babylon.

And Nehemiah knew what God's design was. This is a place that God has set apart for himself for worship. At this point, it's lying in ruins. Nehemiah is the man, at least was the man, who cared. He cared for the worship of God.

And our churches, we need to pray and labor that in our churches, our churches would be filled with men and women who care. Men and women who care for the worship of God. Israel, this promised land, God worked zealously from Genesis, from Exodus, worked so zealously to bring the children of Israel into the promised land where his name could be worshiped. Nehemiah understood the significance of the nation of Israel. He understood the significance of the temple.

You can see in his prayers this comes up over and over again. Nehemiah understood the significance of the sacrifices that these things pointed to the coming of the Messiah, to the promise that God had made to send his son Jesus Christ. Nehemiah cared. Just like Daniel, Esther, Nehemiah having been captured and now in Babylon like we, someone has said that you could take Nehemiah and you could take these men out of Jerusalem, but you could not take the worship of God out of their hearts. So even in exile, as they were serving in that city, in that country, that their hearts were still back home.

And it's clear when we read our text in verse one through verse four that when he inquired of Jerusalem and the brethren that were left behind, The Bible tells us that he wept and mourned for days. Nehemiah cared enough in spite of his conditions. Look at what he says in verse 11 of chapter one. He says, oh Lord, I pray please, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant and to the prayer of your servant who desire to fear your name. And let your servant prosper this day, I pray, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man, for I was the king's cup bearer." Nehemiah had every reason to say to not care at all.

He had every reason. He was comfortable. He was, he had been given a high position in Babylon. He was serving the king. He was comfortable.

He had every reason to not care at all, but Nehemiah cared. And the question that I'll be asking this morning, are you the man, are you the woman that cares? Do we care enough for the worship of God that we are willing to give up our comforts to see the worship of God installed among the nations. Do we care enough? Are you the man?

Are you the woman that cares? Look at verse one and two of our text. The words of Nehemiah, the son of Hikariah, it came to pass in the month of Chislev in the 20th year as I was in Shushan, the citadel, that Hanani, one of my brethren, came with men from Judah, and I asked them concerning the Jews who had escaped, who had survived the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem. And they say to me, the survivors who are left from the captivity in the province are there in great distress and reproach. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its gates are burnt with fire.

First, we need to understand that Nehemiah cared enough to inquire. He cared enough to ask about the people of God. He cared enough to find out about their spiritual states. He cared enough to find out about their welfare. He cared enough to find out about their safety.

And when you read Chapter 2, where the king is asking him, why are you so sad when the city, why are you so sad? This is not sickness. His response is, and say to the king, may the king live forever. Why should my face not be sad? Nehemiah is saying to us that it should be obvious for the people of God to care for the worship of God.

Are you the man or woman that cares? Nehemiah cared enough to inquire. The text tells us that Nehemiah cared enough to ask not just about the people but also the place of the worship of God, Jerusalem. I asked about those who had escaped and survived the captivity and concerning Jerusalem. He inquired about the worship of God, the temple, the guests, the wars, and the things that he would go back and seek to restore.

He understood what God's mission was, to have a place where His name would be worshipped. At this point, this place lies in ruins. The first thing we need to do in missions is to ask, to inquire. Surely as Nehemiah challenges us here, that it should be obvious that the people of God would care about the worship of God. So before we do anything, we need to begin with asking questions, inquiring about the worship of God among the nations.

How can we pray for the nations? How can we desire to see the worship of God among the nations if we don't inquire? Here are a few questions we should be asking. A few inquiries we should be making. If we care enough, then we want to inquire, we want to ask, we want to find out.

So inquire about the spiritual state of the churches in that part of the region, Wherever God is pointing you, wherever places God is drawing your attention, at this point there are two families in this church and their churches where God is pointing them to Turkey and is giving, has given them a burden for that place. And so we need to begin to ask, inquire about the growth of Christ's kingdom in those places. Inquire about persecution and the hardships in those places. Inquire about gospel opportunities in those places. Find out, learn more about how many laborers are there, how many missionaries are in that place.

Inquire about salvation, convasions. Inquire about discouragements and encouragements. The man who cares will ensure that he knows these things. Find out. Learn more about what God is doing among the nations.

It's true probably here and always true with my church that most of the times you find that people in our churches know more about sports and movie stars than missionaries, than the work of God among the nations. At any given point, God will be pointing us in a certain direction. He will be bringing to our attention certain nations. It could be you bumping into someone from a certain country reading about the wake of God in a certain place in the world. We cannot become experts in world history, but God will draw attention to particular places in the world, and this time is taking.

Are you inquiring? Nehemiah not only cared enough to inquire about the place, the people of God and the place of worship, Jerusalem. At this point he hears the news that Jerusalem, the walls are broken down and its gates are burnt with fire. And he says when he heard these words, he sat down and worked and mourned for many days. And then he begins to fast and to pray before the God of heaven.

I want us to pay attention to his prayer. So Nehemiah not only inquired, not only cared enough to inquire, but he cared enough to pray. So the burden for prayer comes from inquiry. You can't pray for what you don't know. We cannot be burdened for the worship of God among the nations if we don't inquire.

And we cannot pray with knowledge if we are not inquiring. So the fact that he cared enough to inquire birthed in him a burden to pray. He tells us he begins to weep to pray to fast for many days and I said in verse 5 and I said I pray Lord God of heaven, oh great and awesome God, you who keep your covenant and mercy with those who love you and observe your commandments." So he cares enough to pray acknowledging God's greatness and faithfulness. And So we also cannot just be praying for the nations. We need direction in the way we pray.

And Nehemiah shows us how to do that. He acknowledges God's greatness, or great and awesome God, you who keep your covenant and mercy with those who love you and observe your commandments." He acknowledges God's faithfulness in verse 6. He moves on. He says, please let your ear be attentive and your eyes open that you may hear the prayer of your servants which I pray before you now day and night for the children of Israel, your servants." He also recognizes that God delights in answering the prayers of his people. So as he is coming to him, recognizing his greatness and his faithfulness, he also acknowledges and recognizes that God delights in answering the prayers of his children.

So he can come with confidence And his prayer is his prayers throughout this book are saturated with with confidence in God. He desires, he's willing, he delights to answer our prayers. As we think about missions, let's pray with delight. Let's pray with confidence. Let's pray knowing that God delights to hear our prayers, not only to hear our prayers, but to answer our prayers.

Toward the end of verse 6, as you can see, he says, I pray before you now, day and night, for the children of Israel, your servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against you, both my father's house and I have sinned." So he also recognizes that sin is a corporate issue. Like, one might sin in secret, one might do something, but it will eventually affect the whole community. And so he just doesn't confess the sins of the children of Israel. He brings in his family and he throws himself right in there. He is a man who cared enough to inquire, to pray, but even in his prayer to acknowledge who God is and confess the sins of the people and his own sins.

In verse 7 he says, we have acted very corpably against you and have not kept the commandments. Also he is very specific the sins that he's confessing. He's not just saying, God forgive us for we have sinned against you, but he's very specific. He mentions the sins that he's committed, that his God's people have committed. We've acted very corrupterly against you and have not kept your commandments, your statutes, your ordinances which you commanded your servant Moses." And then he moves on to pray God's promises.

And scripture, the scriptures are filled with many promises regarding missions. We know what God is doing in the world. We know what he wants to accomplish at the end. We read in the book of Revelation and we see that in the end God plans and is working to gather together men and women from all tribes and tongue in one place to worship him. Nehemiah understood that.

Nehemiah saw that in part. In verse 8, remember I pray, the word that you commanded your servant Moses, saying, if you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations. But if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them though some of you were cast out to the farthest part of the heavens yet I will gather them from there and bring them to the place which I have chosen as a dwelling place for my name. Now these are your servants and your people whom you have redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand." He begins to pray the promises. There are many promises in Scripture that God has given us regarding missions, starting with those who should go out to preach.

He commands us to pray for laborers to go out in the field, pray to the Lord of the harvest that he may send out laborers. We need to start there. We see Paul throughout the scriptures, his letters and mission and activities, praying that God would grant him utterance, that God would bless him to be effective in the preaching of the gospel. Pray for wisdom among your missionaries, pray for power in preaching. These are things that Paul keeps asking believers, churches to pray for him.

So we need to care enough to pray, to pray for the work that God has given us. Nehemiah cared enough to pray. Nehemiah cared enough to pray. In chapter 2, we see Nehemiah that he cared enough to go. In chapter 2, the Bible says that he came to pass in the month of Nisan in the 20th year of king at his exes when wine was before him that I took the wine and gave it to the king.

Now I'd never been sad in his presence before therefore the king said to me why is your face sad since you're not sick this is nothing but sorrow of heart. So I became dreadfully afraid and said to the king, May the king live forever. Why should my face not be sad when the city, the place of my Father's tomb, lies west, and its gates are burnt with fire? Then the king said to me, What do you request? So I prayed to the God of heaven, and I said to the king, if it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, I ask that you send me to Judah to the seat of my father's tombs that I may rebuild it.

He cared enough to go. He cared enough to go and restore the worship of God in Israel. He cared enough to rebuild the walls and rebuild the temple. And as we read through the book of Nehemiah, we see Nehemiah restoring worship. And Ezra eventually joins them and they begin to instruct the people of God and to restore the things that he's been confessing, the sins he'd committed, repenting and turning away from them and helping the children of Israel turn away from their sins and embrace the law of God again.

He cared enough to go. Are we the men and women who care? Are our concerns God's concerns? Nehemiah knew that God's concern was the restoration of worship in Israel and as long as there was worship in Israel it meant that the promises of God pointing us to the Lord Jesus Christ would continue. Nehemiah, just like many others, had a sense of that.

Are we sharing in God's concerns? If we are men and women who truly care and care enough, we will seek to go. We will seek to go and stay. We will seek to go, maybe short term missionaries. We will seek to go and help and hold hands with those who have gone before us.

But all of this, as you can see, started with a simple inquiry. I asked them about the state of Jerusalem, the people and the state of Jerusalem? He asked. Here are a few things that we need to be doing. Number one, like I said, We need to ask and inquire, not out of curiosity, but we need to ask serious questions.

We need to inquire, not treating news from the mission field as just another morning bulletin. We need to inquire so we can pray. We need to inquire and ask questions so we can learn about the nations and the worship of God among those people. Not just to satisfy our curiosity about what God is doing out there, but so we can fervently pray for the nations. Care enough to inquire.

Care enough to pray. Let's care enough to go ourselves to the mission field. Not every man is called to the mission field, but every man truly can inquire. Every woman can inquire and every man and woman can pray. Not all of us will end up in take, not all of us will end up in Africa.

But all of us have a duty we can inquire. We can ask serious questions so that we are able to pray with knowledge. You might not go, but you can inquire, you can pray so that you can send. Are you the man that cares enough? Are you the woman that cares enough to inquire, to pray and to send?

And there'll be many times where will be tempted not to care. We will be tempted not to care about the nations and the worship of God. And there are men in this text that did not care about the worship of God among the nations. And God's work has always faced opposition. We see in our text today in chapter two toward the end, verse 9 and 10, then I went to the governors in the region beyond the river and gave them the king's letters.

Now the king had sent captains of the army and horsemen with me. When Sanballat, the Hornite, and Tobiah, the Ammonite official, heard of it, they were deeply disturbed that a man had come to seek the well-being of the children of Israel to the men and women who don't care. These were their brethren, the descendants of Esau, the descendants of Lot, the Moabites and the Ammonites. There's two men continually opposed Nehemiah. They didn't care about the worship of God.

To them, they had placed themselves in these positions, at least they had been appointed to be in these positions, where they benefited from oppressing the few people that had remained in Jerusalem. So when they saw that a man had come to seek the well-being of the people of God in Jerusalem, this greatly disturbed them. Listen to the way Paul describes such men in Philippians chapter 3 and verse 19. He says, whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their mind on earthly things. Son Barlet and Tobiah were benefiting from oppressing the few people that were remaining in Jerusalem.

And when Nehemiah showed up to restore worship in that place and rebuild the city, these men knew that that would affect their income. And so that disturbed them. Throughout this text we see that in chapter 2 and verse 19 that they sneered and scoffed at Nehemiah's efforts to restore worship. Every church, including our church, has the Sanballats and the Tobias, the Skofas, those who are indifferent to the worship of God among the nations. They don't care whether God is being worshiped in truth or in spirit.

Even the news that people would be moving to a different country for the sake of church planting so that God can be worshiped in those places, even that kind of news bothers them. It's a waste of time. It's a waste of resources. That's how they treat it. The son ballots and toll buyers of our churches with the spirit of Judas would pretend to care about people's needs and pretend to have good intentions but all they care about is their bellies.

Every church has men and women who don't care. Are you the men, the women, who do not care about the worship of God. God's concerns are not your concern. And one of those things is that the sun ballads and the Tobias as we see in the text is they were too comfortable. So they would not inquire, they would not pray, they would stand in opposition to what God was doing.

They will mock, they will sneer, they will despise, they will trample upon what God is doing. We need to continually examine ourselves when we think about missions and probably our lukewarmness and coldness towards missions, We need to continually examine ourselves so we don't find in a place where our concerns are in competition with God's concerns. God has a single concern, as we've said. He's committed to that one mission that through his son Jesus Christ, he would save a people that would worship him in truth and in spirit. But son Barat and Torbayah were standing in the way.

And this is not new. The world's God has seen Pharaohs, kings and princesses, son Bar-lots and Tobias, Judas' standing in the way to stop the worship of God. They would seem concerned, more concerned about human suffering than the worship of God. As one commentator says that we should be concerned about human suffering, yes we should, but we should be more concerned about their eternal suffering. God's mission has always faced opposition.

And my prayer, and what should be our prayer, is that we should not be the ones opposing God in his mission. When God sent his son, Jesus Christ, he too faced great opposition from his infancy. A Pharaoh tried to kill him. Even the devil with his agents tried so many times to stop what God was doing, tried several times to kill Jesus before His time. Even when Satan thought he had succeeded in killing Jesus through the betrayal of Judas and the crucifixion by the Roman soldiers, God overruled that evil, and through the death of Jesus Christ, we have hope today.

Are we the men and women who care? Are we care enough to inquire, to pray, and to go? Or we are the men and women who don't care and who stand in the way to stop what God is doing? Missionary families might sometimes feel like they're just tugging along. You could be tempted as a child with your parents making a decision to go overseas to preach the gospel.

You can feel like you're just tagging along. You can feel like you're missing out on opportunities, a comfortable life back home. You might feel like you are abandoning great opportunities, a career, success, money. So it's good to have our consents and perspective as we think of God's concerns in the world. Let's end here.

More than Nehemiah, Jesus, the man who cares more than all, Jesus being God, He did not need to inquire. He did not need to pray before descending, but He came anyway. And he was sent by the Father to earth to die for our sins. Jesus came down not to be served but to save and give his life as a ransom for many. And so missions is really an imitation of what God has done for us through his son Jesus Christ.

Just as he sent him to restore worship here in this world, we go to restore worship among people groups. Are you the man that cares? Are you the woman that cares? Are you going to inquire? Are you going to pray?

Are you going to go? Are you going to be the son ballot? The toll-buyer? Standing in the way, sneering and jeering. Stomping upon what God is doing, seeing it as a waste of time, you would not inquire, you would not pray, you would not go.

You would oppose the mission of God. God will overrule all evil to fulfill his purposes that his name would be made great among the nations. Amen. Let's pray. Dear Father, we pray that you would help us to be men and women that truly care, that we deeply care about how your name is treated among the nations, among people groups, both here at home and in the world.

Pray that Lord you would help us to be serious in what we do with the information we get about others who are preaching the gospel in different parts of the world. God I thank you that you're pointing these two churches in that direction, and I pray that their churches would come behind, finding out, learning, pleading before you that you would save many in that country, that some in this church would follow later, that they would go preaching the gospel among the nations. I pray for those who are indifferent, those who believe that their cause in the world is more important than yours, that Lord you turn their hearts and they may submit themselves to you, that may submit their concerns, they may submit their priorities to the worship of your name. Pray, O God, that you would help us to care. You would help us to be the men and women who might not go, might not, might not, might be able to inquire and pray, might not go, but might be able to send.

That you'd help us to be faithful senders, faithful rope holders. That Lord we would give our brothers and sisters who are going all our prayers that Lord we would continually support them and encourage them. I pray you would help us to do that. Lord I pray that many would be converted through their work, through their preaching, through their discipleship, that many would come to Christ, that a church would be born, that churches would be born in that part of the world, that the name of Christ may be made great among the Turkish people. Lord we thank you and pray this in Jesus' name, Amen.