Book of Nehemiah – Rebuilding Our Faith

Strength & Direction for Life — Video

Nehemiah 9:1–38

Paul J. Bucknell

Three guiding points for strength and direction (Nehemiah 9:1–38)

God creates intersecting paths of grace (Nehemiah 9:1–25) – He intervenes in our lives so we can walk in His good ways.
Failures of others warn us, not guide us (Nehemiah 9:26–31) – Their story warns us away from stubborn disobedience.
God quietly prepares us to make right choices (Nehemiah 9:32–38) – He works ahead of time so we can respond to His will.

Description: Strength & Direction for Life, a video exposition of Nehemiah 9:1–38, provides three key ways God prepares us for making right decisions in life so that we can follow and draw close to Him.

Significant Paths

Each of us crosses significant paths that either lead us closer to God or to the world. Sometimes these decisions are seen as small and trivial, sometimes they appear as big and threatening. In any case, each decision made at that intersection of life is crucial because of the direction it leads one in.

Click to begin the video below. Further below are some notes and an outline.

Through this message, we gain the opportunity to step back and gain God’s perspective of how He works with His people. God intervenes in man’s history by creating crossing paths where we can discover and experience His rich ways.

God always wants us to make the right life decisions, whether big or small. The prayer in Nehemiah 9 reminds us how God prepares us to make those right decisions so that even though things might be confusing or busy, we can avoid temptation and rightly make those key decisions.

Three Guiding Points in Nehemiah 9

Nehemiah 9 records three guiding points or principles that help us make right choices. If we pay close attention to them, we, with Joshua, will be successful. If we, for one reason or another, choose to ignore God’s promptings, we will face the taste of pain at the end of our path such as the Israelite people had. Here are the three guiding points.

(1) God creates intersecting paths of grace in our lives (Nehemiah 9:1–25)

God is, because of His grace, intervening in history and time. If He merely came, judgment would finish all of us off. He is patiently working with us and creates these intersections of grace where we can step towards His good and kind ways. We will look at three situations on how the mighty God has intervened in the lives of His people in the past.

(2) Failures of others are used to warn us, not to guide us (Nehemiah 9:26–31)

Failures are placed as warnings to motivate us to see the end of certain choices. We should not allow ourselves to think that we have to fall into such ways. God is only using these past scenarios to help motivate us to choose His good and gracious ways at these crossing points of grace.

(3) God quietly works with us ahead of time to prepare us to make those right choices (Nehemiah 9:32–38)

Various choices will regularly be placed before us. We will not have much time to decide what to do. We might even think it unfair, but God does give us opportunity to prepare us for these decisions. It is critical that we regularly spend time with God, seeking His will and purpose for our lives. These quiet moments will help us through these crisis decisions.

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