May 22, 2024 • 19 mins
Discover the bedrock of godly leadership with Jonathan Sole as we journey through the inspiring narrative of Nehemiah—a leader whose dedication and strategy are nothing short of exemplary. This episode not only promises to unveil the six fundamental principles that Nehemiah harnessed to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, but also offers a blueprint for infusing these same timeless truths into your own leadership approach, whether you're at the helm of a family, guiding a congregation, or steering a corporate team towards success.
Join us as we navigate the challenges and victories that Nehemiah encountered, each one reinforcing the importance of unwavering faith and the courage to act upon one's convictions. You'll glean wisdom on how to remain steadfast in the face of adversity, and learn the significance of intertwining prayer with leadership—an approach that proved essential in Nehemiah's successful mission. This exploration is not just a historical recount; it's a masterclass in leadership that seeks to empower you to lead with integrity and align your ambitions with a higher, divine purpose.
Stock Music provided by wolfgangwoehrle, from Pond5
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hi and welcome back to the Pleasing God podcast, a
show focused on helpingChristians to think biblically,
engage practically and livefaithfully for the glory of God.
I'm your host, jonathan Soule,and on this episode I want us to
think about the subject ofleadership.
What does biblical leadershiplook like?
What are some examples, or anexample we see in the scriptures
(00:30):
?
How can we take the lessonsthat we have found and look at
them practically and then kindof apply them in our own spheres
of influence, our own context,our own areas of leadership, in
a way that glorifies God anddoes good to others?
And so, even just bringing upthe subject of leadership,
there's countless books written,many many good books written on
(00:54):
practical leadership leadershipin the workplace, leadership in
the home, leadership as afather, parenting, whatever it
might be and I want to kind ofzoom out a little bit from that
and give kind of generalprinciples that could be applied
to most, if not any, context ofleadership.
I know it'll vary kind ofdepending on exactly what your
(01:16):
leadership looks like Are youmanaging people, are you over
children, whatever it might be,is it volunteers, is it in the
church, is it in the workplace?
But I think there are someprinciples that we can see
throughout the scriptures thatgive us insight into how to do
this well, how to be a godlyleader, how to be a biblical
(01:37):
leader.
And so when we think aboutcharacters in the scriptures
that exercised good leadership,characters in the scriptures
that exercised good leadership,what names come to mind?
We wouldn't say Adam, or atleast I wouldn't See that's a
failure of leadership.
Maybe Abraham at times, attimes not so much.
He allowed fear to kind ofdrive him at times to sin.
(02:01):
Maybe we get to Moses I'm surethis is a name that many of us
thought of when I think ofleadership.
Certainly Moses, but he had hisstruggles, but every leader has
their struggles.
Moses shows good leadership inthat he takes advice from people
.
His father-in-law, jethro,comes to him and says man, your
leadership's terrible.
(02:21):
You don't know how to delegate.
You need to fix this before youburn out.
That's good leadership.
That's a really good examplethere.
But I want us to think aboutsomeone I wouldn't say lesser
known but maybe doesn't get allthe press that someone like
Moses does, and that's Nehemiah.
Nehemiah shows an excellentexample of what leadership looks
(02:45):
like.
He does it well.
So who is Nehemiah?
Well, nehemiah lived around the5th century BC about middle of
5th century BC and he was onethat was in exile.
When the Jewish nation wasoverrun by Babylon in the 6th
(03:06):
century the people were takeninto exile.
Jeremiah had said 70 years inexile, you will go.
This was the Lord's doing.
And the first wave of exilescame back to Jerusalem under
Cyrus the Persian.
He freed them after destroyingBabylon.
And as the first wave come back, they find that Jerusalem's
(03:30):
been destroyed and they beginworking on building a temple.
That work is stalled, with somedifficulties.
Some of the minor prophets kindof lean back in and say, hey,
we need to finish building thistemple.
They rebuild the temple.
Then Ezra the scribe comes askind of the second wave of
(03:53):
exiles in the middle of the 5thcentury BC and teaches the law.
He's another one of greatleadership.
So he represents the secondwave of exiles.
And then a third wave of exilesreturn to Judah and Jerusalem
and this is when Nehemiah comeson the scene.
And when Nehemiah comes on thescene he realizes the walls are
(04:16):
broken down.
There are no walls.
Jerusalem lies open and heneeds to rebuild the walls.
So Nehemiah comes back to thecity that has a rebuilt temple.
But he knows that it's time torebuild the walls and he's got a
tall task in front of him.
There are people that arestruggling, there are people
that oppose him, that just don'tlike him, but he feels
(04:39):
compelled to do what God haslaid upon his heart.
And then, if we were to look atthe life and ministry of
Nehemiah's leadership, there aresix things that I can see and
identify that are principles foreffective and healthy
leadership, no matter where itis, whether it be in the local
church, whether it be in theworkplace, whether it be in the
(05:01):
home.
And the first thing is thatprayer precedes action.
In Nehemiah 1, he is given areport of the state of Jerusalem
, with no walls, and he isgreatly troubled.
He is told that the wall ofJerusalem is broken down and its
gates are destroyed by fire.
And the very next move thatNehemiah makes is not action but
(05:24):
prayer.
As soon as I heard these words,I sat down Nehemiah 1.4, and
wept and mourned for days and Icontinued fasting and praying
before the God of heaven and Isaid O Lord, god of heaven, the
great and awesome God, who keepscovenant and steadfast love
with those who love him and keephis commandments.
And he continues to go on fromthere and he finishes and he
(06:22):
continues him mercy in the sightof this man.
He was going to go to the kingand basically ask permission to
go to Judah.
And so before he does anythingfirst principle of godly
leadership he prays.
Prayer precedes action.
But he doesn't just stay in hisprayer, he then takes action.
(06:42):
And that's the second principlewe can see in Nehemiah is that
action is fueled by conviction.
He goes to the king he was theking's cupbearer.
He goes to the king andrequests that he could go back
to Jerusalem, to Judah andJerusalem, so that he may
rebuild the city.
Nehemiah's action to go to theking to request that he leave
(07:07):
from the Persian rule and goback to Jerusalem, it's fueled
by his conviction, hisconviction that he wants to see
the city of Jerusalem, zion,rebuilt.
This is what God has placedupon his heart, and so this is
what drives him to take a risk,to go before the king.
His request could not have beengranted.
(07:27):
And so then Nehemiah, fueled byhis conviction, returns to
Jerusalem, inspects the wallsand sees that they are in
terrible shape, and so he takesa courageous step.
Here's a third principle ofleadership, biblical leadership
Conviction drives courage.
I would argue that the reasonwhy we can struggle with being
(07:51):
cowards isn't because we needmore courage.
It's because we need moreconviction.
We need to be convinced thatthe thing that we are doing, the
area where we are leading, is athing that God has placed upon
us and that we are doing it well, and that we are going to do it
with all our might, and that weare more afraid to not do it
(08:14):
than do it.
Whatever that task may be,conviction drives courage.
Lack of conviction will resultin cowardice.
With Nehemiah's conviction, hecourageously begins the
rebuilding of the wall.
With Nehemiah's conviction, hecourageously begins the
rebuilding of the wall.
He begins to recruit, rebuild,to strengthen.
Nehemiah was willing to takerisks.
(08:34):
Courageous people take risks.
He risked failure.
He risked setting out to dosomething that might not get
accomplished.
He believed it would.
He believed God had placed itupon his heart.
He had prayed and he prayed andhe had prayed.
And he wasn't doing it for hisglory, no, he was doing it to
(08:54):
restore Jerusalem.
Here you have the second templehas been built, yet Jerusalem
just lies open and vulnerable tothe very next attack.
He was consumed with the honorof God, the glory of God.
And so this drove him tocourageously take risks to begin
the rebuilding of the wall.
And this leads to the fourthprinciple of biblical leadership
(09:17):
Courage faces opposition.
And this is exactly whathappened with Nehemiah as he
begins the rebuilding of thewall.
The nemesis of the book thatbears his name, sanballat that's
a great villain's name, by theway Sanballat heard that we were
rebuilding the wall.
(09:38):
He was angry and greatlyenraged and he jeered at the
Jews and he said, in thepresence of his brothers and the
army of Samaria what are thesefeeble Jews doing?
Will they restore it forthemselves?
Will they sacrifice?
Will they finish up in a day?
Will they revive the stones outof the heaps of rubbish and
(09:59):
burn ones at that?
Tobiah, who's the kind of thesecond villain, his henchmen,
the Ammonite, was beside him andhe said yes, what they are
building, if a fox goes up on it, he will break down their stone
wall.
So they're just making fun ofthese guys.
They're from the North, theyhave no respect for what's
(10:23):
happening.
They're just in there laughing.
They think it's a joke and theybegin to stall and they begin
to come in and show outrightopposition to the work that
Nehemiah has started.
As the work on the wallprogresses, the task that God
had given Nehemiah to do.
Sanballat and Tobiah, theybecome even more angry that
(10:46):
progress is being made.
Sanballat and Tobiah, theybecome even more angry that
progress is being made.
And we read in Nehemiah 4, 8,they all plotted together to
come and fight against Jerusalemand to cause confusion in it.
Here's Nehemiah's move, verse9,.
And we prayed to our God to seta guard as a protector against
them.
Day and night After prayer,nehemiah takes an action.
(11:08):
He sets up people to guardagainst a possible coming
invasion.
This is fueled by hisconviction to get the wall done.
His conviction drives hiscourage to oppose, to stand up
against the opposition.
And so when word gets back toSanballat and Tobiah that
Nehemiah has discovered theirplan, the people of Israel, or
(11:33):
the people of Judah, wereexcited.
So when Sanballat and Tobiahfound out their plan was
discovered and that the peopleof Judah were going to stand up
against them, they did notcontinue and ultimately, the
work continued to rebuild thewall.
So that's what we see inNehemiah's leadership is that in
his courage, he faced theopposition and he did not back
(12:00):
down.
Friends, brothers and sisters,those of you that lead in
various capacities.
Those of you that have beendoing it for any period of time,
you know one thing is certainyou will face opposition.
Not everybody is going to likeevery decision you make.
That's one of the costs ofleadership.
(12:20):
You're not going to be liked byeveryone and when you come to
grips with that early on, it'sone of the most freeing things
that you can do.
Leadership is not about gettingpeople to like you.
Leadership ultimately biblicalleadership is about honoring God
and doing well with the taskthat he has given you.
(12:41):
People will benefit from that,people will love you, people
will like you.
But that is not the primarymotivation, the primary drive.
Nehemiah did not labor in hisleadership to be liked, but to
be faithful, to do the tasksthat he was given, to do the job
(13:03):
well.
And he was a fantastic leader.
He served as governor twice inJudah.
And so that was the fourthprinciple of leadership Courage
faces opposition.
And fifth, as we just saw,opposition cannot overcome godly
leadership.
Now it might appear for aseason that you know the
(13:24):
opposition is loud and mightgain some traction, but
ultimately, prayer, conviction,courage together will overcome
opposition.
It might not be easy, but evenfacing opposition will
strengthen you in yourleadership.
(13:44):
We have to truly believe thatGod honors those with the purity
of heart, purity of motive,seeking to lead well for his
glory and the good of the peoplethat they lead.
So we must recognize,especially when we are committed
to biblical leadership,opposition will come, but do not
(14:05):
allow opposition to stonewallyou, to be barriers to where God
is leading you, to lead others,whether maybe it's in the home.
Maybe as a man, you're seekingto lead your family well and you
just can't seem to get on thesame page with your wife.
She seems like she's, as you're, trying to do the right thing.
She just doesn't seem to be onboard and she's starting to
(14:28):
oppose you.
Stick with it, stay the course,love her well by leading her
well and your family.
Or maybe it's a leadership rolein the church and you're trying
to implement some new practices, policies, something like that,
and you're kind of feelingstonewalled.
(14:50):
Maybe there's an old guardwho's just kind of like we've
never done it this way andyou're feeling the weight of
that opposition.
Like we've never done it thisway and you're feeling the
weight of that opposition.
Make sure prayer precedes action, that your action is fueled by
conviction, and be courageous inyour leadership so that when
you do face opposition, if youare handling it in a godly way,
(15:13):
you will overcome.
Maybe it's in the workplace andyou find yourself just coming
up against dead ends all thetime.
You've got ideas, you know thedirection that you want to bring
this organization.
You want to implement new andgood direction.
But people don't trust you.
People oppose you because theyjust don't like you or they feel
(15:37):
like you're a threat to them.
Continue thinking through theseprinciples of godly leadership.
Let that encourage you, becauseNehemiah faced trouble.
Nehemiah faced it all.
Don't be discouraged.
Sixth principle godlyleadership is constant in prayer
.
I'd encourage you to readthrough the book of Nehemiah.
(15:57):
You can skip over the namesbecause that's kind of
challenging.
We just did that in our church.
We'd read through books of theBible chapter by chapter,
usually one chapter each Sunday,and we were reading through
Nehemiah recently and I'll admitit was pretty challenging at
times reading through all thosenames.
We kind of got to the pointwhere we said, okay, yep, this
(16:18):
is a section of all these names.
This is good, read it on yourown time, but we felt it was
kind of a distraction in thepublic reading.
So read the book of Nehemiahand work through it, and what I
would encourage you to do andsee is how many times Nehemiah
repeats this process.
Godly leadership is constant inprayer.
(16:39):
And then go back to the top.
Prayer precedes action.
Action is fueled by conviction.
Conviction drives courage.
Courage faces opposition.
Opposition cannot overcomegodly leadership.
Godly leadership is constant inprayer.
Take these six principles,meditate on them through the
(17:02):
book of Nehemiah and see thesecan be applied in almost any
context.
Again, varies little by little,but these are good, sound
leadership principles.
Now, this isn't exhaustive, butwe see how Nehemiah did his job
.
It took Nehemiah 52 days tobuild the wall and then they
(17:22):
finished.
And we read in verse 16 ofchapter 6, and when all our
enemies heard of it, all thenations around us were afraid
and fell greatly in their ownesteem, for they perceived that
this work had been accomplishedwith the help of our God.
All godly leadership, biblicalleadership, is only accomplished
(17:46):
with the help of our God.
He goes with you, he goesbefore you, he stands beside you
, he's behind you, he's allaround you, he's behind you,
he's all around you.
And remember, it's Christ inyou, the hope of glory, that is
to propel you in all the thingsthat you do.
So this is Nehemiah.
(18:06):
These are principles ofbiblical, godly leadership.
I hope, thinking through these,you can find ways that these
can apply directly into yourlife, into your leadership
context, in such a way thatit'll strengthen you, It'll
strengthen those around you.
You might be weak in one ofthem, you might struggle with
conviction or facing opposition.
I know nobody likes it, butit's necessary.
(18:29):
Maybe you're one that getsright to the action and you need
to pause a little bit, thinkand pray.
Whatever it might be, find theprinciples that you can really
lean into, maximize yourstrengths, minimize your
weaknesses and look to Nehemiahas a great example of what
(18:50):
biblical, godly leadership lookslike.
He gets the job done and hedoes it well.
I want to thank you forlistening to the Pleasing God
podcast.
If you have any questions, Iwould love to hear from you.
You can reach out at questionsat pleasinggodpodcastorg.
And remember 1 Thessalonians4.3,.
(19:18):
This is the will of God, yoursanctification.
Hi and welcome back to the Pleasing God podcast, a
show focused on helpingChristians to think biblically,
engage practically and livefaithfully for the glory of God.
I'm your host, jonathan Soule,and on this episode I want us to
think about the subject ofleadership.
What does biblical leadershiplook like?
What are some examples, or anexample we see in the scriptures
(00:30):
?
How can we take the lessonsthat we have found and look at
them practically and then kindof apply them in our own spheres
of influence, our own context,our own areas of leadership, in
a way that glorifies God anddoes good to others?
And so, even just bringing upthe subject of leadership,
there's countless books written,many many good books written on
(00:54):
practical leadership leadershipin the workplace, leadership in
the home, leadership as afather, parenting, whatever it
might be and I want to kind ofzoom out a little bit from that
and give kind of generalprinciples that could be applied
to most, if not any, context ofleadership.
I know it'll vary kind ofdepending on exactly what your
(01:16):
leadership looks like Are youmanaging people, are you over
children, whatever it might be,is it volunteers, is it in the
church, is it in the workplace?
But I think there are someprinciples that we can see
throughout the scriptures thatgive us insight into how to do
this well, how to be a godlyleader, how to be a biblical
(01:37):
leader.
And so when we think aboutcharacters in the scriptures
that exercised good leadership,characters in the scriptures
that exercised good leadership,what names come to mind?
We wouldn't say Adam, or atleast I wouldn't See that's a
failure of leadership.
Maybe Abraham at times, attimes not so much.
He allowed fear to kind ofdrive him at times to sin.
(02:01):
Maybe we get to Moses I'm surethis is a name that many of us
thought of when I think ofleadership.
Certainly Moses, but he had hisstruggles, but every leader has
their struggles.
Moses shows good leadership inthat he takes advice from people
.
His father-in-law, jethro,comes to him and says man, your
leadership's terrible.
(02:21):
You don't know how to delegate.
You need to fix this before youburn out.
That's good leadership.
That's a really good examplethere.
But I want us to think aboutsomeone I wouldn't say lesser
known but maybe doesn't get allthe press that someone like
Moses does, and that's Nehemiah.
Nehemiah shows an excellentexample of what leadership looks
(02:45):
like.
He does it well.
So who is Nehemiah?
Well, nehemiah lived around the5th century BC about middle of
5th century BC and he was onethat was in exile.
When the Jewish nation wasoverrun by Babylon in the 6th
(03:06):
century the people were takeninto exile.
Jeremiah had said 70 years inexile, you will go.
This was the Lord's doing.
And the first wave of exilescame back to Jerusalem under
Cyrus the Persian.
He freed them after destroyingBabylon.
And as the first wave come back, they find that Jerusalem's
(03:30):
been destroyed and they beginworking on building a temple.
That work is stalled, with somedifficulties.
Some of the minor prophets kindof lean back in and say, hey,
we need to finish building thistemple.
They rebuild the temple.
Then Ezra the scribe comes askind of the second wave of
(03:53):
exiles in the middle of the 5thcentury BC and teaches the law.
He's another one of greatleadership.
So he represents the secondwave of exiles.
And then a third wave of exilesreturn to Judah and Jerusalem
and this is when Nehemiah comeson the scene.
And when Nehemiah comes on thescene he realizes the walls are
(04:16):
broken down.
There are no walls.
Jerusalem lies open and heneeds to rebuild the walls.
So Nehemiah comes back to thecity that has a rebuilt temple.
But he knows that it's time torebuild the walls and he's got a
tall task in front of him.
There are people that arestruggling, there are people
that oppose him, that just don'tlike him, but he feels
(04:39):
compelled to do what God haslaid upon his heart.
And then, if we were to look atthe life and ministry of
Nehemiah's leadership, there aresix things that I can see and
identify that are principles foreffective and healthy
leadership, no matter where itis, whether it be in the local
church, whether it be in theworkplace, whether it be in the
(05:01):
home.
And the first thing is thatprayer precedes action.
In Nehemiah 1, he is given areport of the state of Jerusalem
, with no walls, and he isgreatly troubled.
He is told that the wall ofJerusalem is broken down and its
gates are destroyed by fire.
And the very next move thatNehemiah makes is not action but
(05:24):
prayer.
As soon as I heard these words,I sat down Nehemiah 1.4, and
wept and mourned for days and Icontinued fasting and praying
before the God of heaven and Isaid O Lord, god of heaven, the
great and awesome God, who keepscovenant and steadfast love
with those who love him and keephis commandments.
And he continues to go on fromthere and he finishes and he
(06:22):
continues him mercy in the sightof this man.
He was going to go to the kingand basically ask permission to
go to Judah.
And so before he does anythingfirst principle of godly
leadership he prays.
Prayer precedes action.
But he doesn't just stay in hisprayer, he then takes action.
(06:42):
And that's the second principlewe can see in Nehemiah is that
action is fueled by conviction.
He goes to the king he was theking's cupbearer.
He goes to the king andrequests that he could go back
to Jerusalem, to Judah andJerusalem, so that he may
rebuild the city.
Nehemiah's action to go to theking to request that he leave
(07:07):
from the Persian rule and goback to Jerusalem, it's fueled
by his conviction, hisconviction that he wants to see
the city of Jerusalem, zion,rebuilt.
This is what God has placedupon his heart, and so this is
what drives him to take a risk,to go before the king.
His request could not have beengranted.
(07:27):
And so then Nehemiah, fueled byhis conviction, returns to
Jerusalem, inspects the wallsand sees that they are in
terrible shape, and so he takesa courageous step.
Here's a third principle ofleadership, biblical leadership
Conviction drives courage.
I would argue that the reasonwhy we can struggle with being
(07:51):
cowards isn't because we needmore courage.
It's because we need moreconviction.
We need to be convinced thatthe thing that we are doing, the
area where we are leading, is athing that God has placed upon
us and that we are doing it well, and that we are going to do it
with all our might, and that weare more afraid to not do it
(08:14):
than do it.
Whatever that task may be,conviction drives courage.
Lack of conviction will resultin cowardice.
With Nehemiah's conviction, hecourageously begins the
rebuilding of the wall.
With Nehemiah's conviction, hecourageously begins the
rebuilding of the wall.
He begins to recruit, rebuild,to strengthen.
Nehemiah was willing to takerisks.
(08:34):
Courageous people take risks.
He risked failure.
He risked setting out to dosomething that might not get
accomplished.
He believed it would.
He believed God had placed itupon his heart.
He had prayed and he prayed andhe had prayed.
And he wasn't doing it for hisglory, no, he was doing it to
(08:54):
restore Jerusalem.
Here you have the second templehas been built, yet Jerusalem
just lies open and vulnerable tothe very next attack.
He was consumed with the honorof God, the glory of God.
And so this drove him tocourageously take risks to begin
the rebuilding of the wall.
And this leads to the fourthprinciple of biblical leadership
(09:17):
Courage faces opposition.
And this is exactly whathappened with Nehemiah as he
begins the rebuilding of thewall.
The nemesis of the book thatbears his name, sanballat that's
a great villain's name, by theway Sanballat heard that we were
rebuilding the wall.
(09:38):
He was angry and greatlyenraged and he jeered at the
Jews and he said, in thepresence of his brothers and the
army of Samaria what are thesefeeble Jews doing?
Will they restore it forthemselves?
Will they sacrifice?
Will they finish up in a day?
Will they revive the stones outof the heaps of rubbish and
(09:59):
burn ones at that?
Tobiah, who's the kind of thesecond villain, his henchmen,
the Ammonite, was beside him andhe said yes, what they are
building, if a fox goes up on it, he will break down their stone
wall.
So they're just making fun ofthese guys.
They're from the North, theyhave no respect for what's
(10:23):
happening.
They're just in there laughing.
They think it's a joke and theybegin to stall and they begin
to come in and show outrightopposition to the work that
Nehemiah has started.
As the work on the wallprogresses, the task that God
had given Nehemiah to do.
Sanballat and Tobiah, theybecome even more angry that
(10:46):
progress is being made.
Sanballat and Tobiah, theybecome even more angry that
progress is being made.
And we read in Nehemiah 4, 8,they all plotted together to
come and fight against Jerusalemand to cause confusion in it.
Here's Nehemiah's move, verse9,.
And we prayed to our God to seta guard as a protector against
them.
Day and night After prayer,nehemiah takes an action.
(11:08):
He sets up people to guardagainst a possible coming
invasion.
This is fueled by hisconviction to get the wall done.
His conviction drives hiscourage to oppose, to stand up
against the opposition.
And so when word gets back toSanballat and Tobiah that
Nehemiah has discovered theirplan, the people of Israel, or
(11:33):
the people of Judah, wereexcited.
So when Sanballat and Tobiahfound out their plan was
discovered and that the peopleof Judah were going to stand up
against them, they did notcontinue and ultimately, the
work continued to rebuild thewall.
So that's what we see inNehemiah's leadership is that in
his courage, he faced theopposition and he did not back
(12:00):
down.
Friends, brothers and sisters,those of you that lead in
various capacities.
Those of you that have beendoing it for any period of time,
you know one thing is certainyou will face opposition.
Not everybody is going to likeevery decision you make.
That's one of the costs ofleadership.
(12:20):
You're not going to be liked byeveryone and when you come to
grips with that early on, it'sone of the most freeing things
that you can do.
Leadership is not about gettingpeople to like you.
Leadership ultimately biblicalleadership is about honoring God
and doing well with the taskthat he has given you.
(12:41):
People will benefit from that,people will love you, people
will like you.
But that is not the primarymotivation, the primary drive.
Nehemiah did not labor in hisleadership to be liked, but to
be faithful, to do the tasksthat he was given, to do the job
(13:03):
well.
And he was a fantastic leader.
He served as governor twice inJudah.
And so that was the fourthprinciple of leadership Courage
faces opposition.
And fifth, as we just saw,opposition cannot overcome godly
leadership.
Now it might appear for aseason that you know the
(13:24):
opposition is loud and mightgain some traction, but
ultimately, prayer, conviction,courage together will overcome
opposition.
It might not be easy, but evenfacing opposition will
strengthen you in yourleadership.
(13:44):
We have to truly believe thatGod honors those with the purity
of heart, purity of motive,seeking to lead well for his
glory and the good of the peoplethat they lead.
So we must recognize,especially when we are committed
to biblical leadership,opposition will come, but do not
(14:05):
allow opposition to stonewallyou, to be barriers to where God
is leading you, to lead others,whether maybe it's in the home.
Maybe as a man, you're seekingto lead your family well and you
just can't seem to get on thesame page with your wife.
She seems like she's, as you're, trying to do the right thing.
She just doesn't seem to be onboard and she's starting to
(14:28):
oppose you.
Stick with it, stay the course,love her well by leading her
well and your family.
Or maybe it's a leadership rolein the church and you're trying
to implement some new practices, policies, something like that,
and you're kind of feelingstonewalled.
(14:50):
Maybe there's an old guardwho's just kind of like we've
never done it this way andyou're feeling the weight of
that opposition.
Like we've never done it thisway and you're feeling the
weight of that opposition.
Make sure prayer precedes action, that your action is fueled by
conviction, and be courageous inyour leadership so that when
you do face opposition, if youare handling it in a godly way,
(15:13):
you will overcome.
Maybe it's in the workplace andyou find yourself just coming
up against dead ends all thetime.
You've got ideas, you know thedirection that you want to bring
this organization.
You want to implement new andgood direction.
But people don't trust you.
People oppose you because theyjust don't like you or they feel
(15:37):
like you're a threat to them.
Continue thinking through theseprinciples of godly leadership.
Let that encourage you, becauseNehemiah faced trouble.
Nehemiah faced it all.
Don't be discouraged.
Sixth principle godlyleadership is constant in prayer
.
I'd encourage you to readthrough the book of Nehemiah.
(15:57):
You can skip over the namesbecause that's kind of
challenging.
We just did that in our church.
We'd read through books of theBible chapter by chapter,
usually one chapter each Sunday,and we were reading through
Nehemiah recently and I'll admitit was pretty challenging at
times reading through all thosenames.
We kind of got to the pointwhere we said, okay, yep, this
(16:18):
is a section of all these names.
This is good, read it on yourown time, but we felt it was
kind of a distraction in thepublic reading.
So read the book of Nehemiahand work through it, and what I
would encourage you to do andsee is how many times Nehemiah
repeats this process.
Godly leadership is constant inprayer.
(16:39):
And then go back to the top.
Prayer precedes action.
Action is fueled by conviction.
Conviction drives courage.
Courage faces opposition.
Opposition cannot overcomegodly leadership.
Godly leadership is constant inprayer.
Take these six principles,meditate on them through the
(17:02):
book of Nehemiah and see thesecan be applied in almost any
context.
Again, varies little by little,but these are good, sound
leadership principles.
Now, this isn't exhaustive, butwe see how Nehemiah did his job
.
It took Nehemiah 52 days tobuild the wall and then they
(17:22):
finished.
And we read in verse 16 ofchapter 6, and when all our
enemies heard of it, all thenations around us were afraid
and fell greatly in their ownesteem, for they perceived that
this work had been accomplishedwith the help of our God.
All godly leadership, biblicalleadership, is only accomplished
(17:46):
with the help of our God.
He goes with you, he goesbefore you, he stands beside you
, he's behind you, he's allaround you, he's behind you,
he's all around you.
And remember, it's Christ inyou, the hope of glory, that is
to propel you in all the thingsthat you do.
So this is Nehemiah.
(18:06):
These are principles ofbiblical, godly leadership.
I hope, thinking through these,you can find ways that these
can apply directly into yourlife, into your leadership
context, in such a way thatit'll strengthen you, It'll
strengthen those around you.
You might be weak in one ofthem, you might struggle with
conviction or facing opposition.
I know nobody likes it, butit's necessary.
(18:29):
Maybe you're one that getsright to the action and you need
to pause a little bit, thinkand pray.
Whatever it might be, find theprinciples that you can really
lean into, maximize yourstrengths, minimize your
weaknesses and look to Nehemiahas a great example of what
(18:50):
biblical, godly leadership lookslike.
He gets the job done and hedoes it well.
I want to thank you forlistening to the Pleasing God
podcast.
If you have any questions, Iwould love to hear from you.
You can reach out at questionsat pleasinggodpodcastorg.
And remember 1 Thessalonians4.3,.
(19:18):
This is the will of God, yoursanctification.
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