Battles are won and lost in critical moments. When it comes to spiritual rebuilding, there are things that will sidetrack us or bring progress to a halt unless we take bold steps to keep moving forward.

Battles are won and lost in critical moments. When it comes to spiritual rebuilding, there are things that will sidetrack us or bring progress to a halt unless we take bold steps to keep moving forward.

Stay tuned. Some of you want to rebuild your life in God, but you have to clear out some of the unforgiveness, some of the garbage of your past, so that you can rebuild your life. Some of us will never make progress until we're willing to look at the garbage dump and say, okay, how am I going to clean this mess up?

Stay tuned. Some of you want to rebuild your life in God, but you have to clear out some of the unforgiveness, some of the garbage of your past, so that you can rebuild your life. Some of us will never make progress until we're willing to look at the garbage dump and say, okay, how am I going to clean this mess up?

Welcome to Bold Steps with Mark Jobe, president of Moody Bible Institute and senior pastor of New Life Community Church in Chicago. Well, any military general will tell you that a good strategy is key to overcoming the enemy when it comes to moving forward with God in our spiritual lives, the same is true. Opposition will come and weaknesses will be exposed. Pastor Mark says that we need to protect those vulnerable areas while we're working at our call. Or it could come to a grinding stop we pick up today where we left off last time in Nehemiah chapter four, where we'll continue learning solid principles in the rebuilding process. I'd encourage you to visit Bold Steps org to listen to any past program or learn more about our current series. Rebuild your Life, Your city, Your World. Again, go to Bold Steps radio.org. Now with part two of Moving Forward Under Attack, here's Mark Jobe with today's bold steps.

Welcome to Bold Steps with Mark Jobe, president of Moody Bible Institute and senior pastor of New Life Community Church in Chicago. Well, any military general will tell you that a good strategy is key to overcoming the enemy when it comes to moving forward with God in our spiritual lives, the same is true. Opposition will come and weaknesses will be exposed. Pastor Mark says that we need to protect those vulnerable areas while we're working at our call. Or it could come to a grinding stop we pick up today where we left off last time in Nehemiah chapter four, where we'll continue learning solid principles in the rebuilding process. I'd encourage you to visit Bold Steps org to listen to any past program or learn more about our current series. Rebuild your Life, Your city, Your World. Again, go to Bold Steps radio.org. Now with part two of Moving Forward Under Attack, here's Mark Jobe with today's bold steps.

Some of you feel spiritually defeated simply because you're physically exhausted. You need to get in a healthy rhythm of balance in your life. By the way, God instituted what what what's called the Sabbath. The Sabbath is a day of rest. If you don't have a Sabbath, a day where you just turn off your cell phone, don't check your emails, don't do any work. Just sleep in late. Stay in your pajamas. Hang out. Uh, don't have anything on the agenda. Don't work. Then I'm going to tell you you're unhealthy. You need to get a healthy rhythm in your life. You need to get a rhythm in your life that allows for replenishing. God created the heavens and the earth in six days. And on the seventh day, the God of the universe with unbounded energy. Who has all the power in the world, unlimited in might and power and sovereignty. What did he do on the seventh day? He rested. Why? Because he was tired? No, because he wanted to give you and I a sample to follow. God doesn't get tired. But he knew that you and I needed a pattern. A pattern of rest, to enjoy what God had established to enjoy the work of our hands. You know, when I was young, I used to think, man, I'm going to burn out for Jesus. Burn the candle at both ends. I'm going to go out in a blaze. I would rather burn out than rust out. You know, that sounds good when it's coming from a fireball. 20 year old. But the truth of it is that God has had to rebuke me over the years. And I've realized that. You know what? I want to be on fire for Jesus. But if I am unhealthy in my schedule and my life, it's not going to give Jesus any glory. If my wife says, you know, I never see the man and my kids feel like he's an absentee father, and I'm working my fingers to the bone doing things, but I'm unhealthy and my body's not well and my mind is not well and my spirit's not well. And I'm all proud of being a workaholic. You know what? That's not going to help anybody. I want my wife to say, man, this man, he's super busy. But, man, he talks to me. He's engaged in my life, he loves me and I know he does. And I want my kids to say, hey, even though this. This guy is super busy in ministry and stuff, but he always has time for us. He's engaged, he's dinners with us, we talk with him. He's never. We're never like, last on his list because he got a bunch of things to do that gives more glory and honor to Jesus than anything else in life. I want my life to be healthy, my mind to be healthy, my body to be healthy because I want to have a long term impact. Living for God. Amen. Amen. Okay. Judah had become tired, discouraged, and tired because the work that was on them, they were physically tired. And then there was opposition from the outside. So there came a critical moment. Here's the thing. Battles are won and lost in critical moments. You have critical moments in your life where you just feel like, I'm so overwhelmed, I'm ready to give up. There's a critical moment. It's a critical moment. You're discouraged on the inside. There's opposition from the outside. Here's what needs to happen in critical moments. You have to change the Strategy and do something about it. Now you're not sitting and talking with your critics, but you have to do something about it. Notice what Nehemiah did. It says in verse 13, therefore Nehemiah speaking, I stationed some of the people behind the lowest points of the wall at the exposed places, posting them by families with their swords and spears and bows. After I look things over, I stood up and I said to the nobles, the officials, and the rest of the people, don't be afraid of them. Remember the Lord who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers and sons, and your daughters and your wives and your homes. Sometimes we have to remember, first of all, who God is, and then we have to remember why we're in this battle to begin with. He says, don't be afraid. Often times, fear grips us because of opposition, and we have to remember that God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and of a sound mind. If your life is driven by fear and not by faith, you will come to a crashing halt. By the way, do you know that, for example, 60% of our fears are totally unfounded? Like they'll never happen? They're just kind of crazy thoughts. 20% of our fears are already behind us. 10% are so petty they don't make any difference. 5% are real. But we can't do anything about them. 5% are real, and we can do something about them. So really, the great majority of your fears are a waste of time. Stop living in fear. Start living in faith. So Nehemiah decided to do this. He reminded people of who God is. God is an awesome God. God's on our side. Remember, this is why you're battling. This is why you're fighting. Remember, this is the vision that God gave us. So you have to remember your vision. Remember that God is on our side. When you're encountering opposition, change your strategy. Do something about it. That leads me to my third point. Point number three. Jot this down. Learn the power of spiritual multitasking by protecting your weakness while working at your call. Typically, life is not just doing one things. What discourages is about life is that we have so many things to do. What discourage the people of Judah is they had to rebuild the wall and take out the rubbish. They had to take out the debris. Now, how many of you don't raise your hand? Please. But some of you have garages that you can't fit your car in. You leave your car outside. You just scrape the snow off your car because you know what? Your garage is such a mess. You can't fit your car in there. And you've been talking about cleaning it up for a while. It's just such an overwhelming task. And that's just five years of garbage. Imagine 100 years of garbage. These walls were surrounded by 100 year of rubble and ruin and garbage. And the people had to take out the garbage before they built the wall. Let me just let me just give a life application there. You know what? Some of us are trying to rebuild something. But before we rebuild, we got to get rid of the garbage. Some of you are trying to rebuild things in life, but you know what? You're walking around the garbage and God says, you know, let's let's face the garbage first. Let's deal with the garbage from our past so that we can rebuild. Now, don't you say, well, I know I don't want to do I don't want to go there. Let me just rebuild the wall. You're trying to work around the garbage, but it's really hard to rebuild something new before you deal with your past. Hey, I know you want your marriage to go forward. That's great. But how about cleaning out some of the garbage and rubble that affects your marriage and go to the hard places. Clear it all out so you can start working well on your future. Some of you want to rebuild your life in God, but you have to clear out some of the unforgiveness, some of the garbage of your past, so that you can rebuild your life. Don't be afraid to deal with the garbage, because some of us will never make progress until we're willing to look at the garbage dump and say, okay, how am I going to clean this mess up? Now remember that you need to multitask by multitasking. I mean, look at what Nehemiah did. It tells us that Nehemiah got his men and basically what he did with his men. He says, some of you men, you're going to have to do two things at the same time. You're. Some of you men are going to have to stand guard, and some of you are going to work, and then you're going to switch places, and others of you are going to wear your sword at your side and have your hammer in the other hand. You have to learn to guard your weakness by still working on the task. The point is, you don't stop working and notice. Where did he put the guards? He put at the lowest point of the wall. Here's how it works, folks. If you don't guard your weak areas while you're working on what God has called you to work on, then those weak areas will eventually stop the entire work of God because those sabotage your work unless you put a guard there. Are you tracking with me? You see, you're trying to work on your marriage, and it's a great thing. But you know what your weak area is? That you just. You're you're a time bomb. You explode and you fly off the handle, and you just you just had these fits of rage. And so you're trying to build trust with your wife, trying to build things up again, and then something ticks you off because you haven't guarded the weak area and you explode like a time bomb, and you set everything back four months back again because you haven't guarded your weak area. Rebuild by guard and guard your weak area. Do you understand Some of you are rebuilding things in your life, but you know what? You have a weakness. You still have a weakness. And that area of of you know you're bad with money because those boats, man, they have like a they have your name on it. And every time you start to get financially stable, you know what? You go out and you think you're going to make money by going out and spending money and gambling a little bit. And every time you do, you end up in debt. So you need you need to guard your weak spot because you're just starting to get out of debt, just starting to make ends meet. And then you go and your weakness throws you back into the cycle of chaos again. You need to rebuild your life by guard, but guard your weakness at the same time. That means you get people in your life that are going to ask you the hard questions. That means you put safeguards in your life that don't allow the weakness in your life to overcome. You listen to me. We all have weak areas in our life You have them and I have them. We all have. And here's the thing. You're always going to have them. So what it means is you learn to live with those weak areas if Satan's going to get at you. Here's the question to ask if Satan's going to get at me. Here's the way he discourages me or gets at me. You fill in the blank.

Some of you feel spiritually defeated simply because you're physically exhausted. You need to get in a healthy rhythm of balance in your life. By the way, God instituted what what what's called the Sabbath. The Sabbath is a day of rest. If you don't have a Sabbath, a day where you just turn off your cell phone, don't check your emails, don't do any work. Just sleep in late. Stay in your pajamas. Hang out. Uh, don't have anything on the agenda. Don't work. Then I'm going to tell you you're unhealthy. You need to get a healthy rhythm in your life. You need to get a rhythm in your life that allows for replenishing. God created the heavens and the earth in six days. And on the seventh day, the God of the universe with unbounded energy. Who has all the power in the world, unlimited in might and power and sovereignty. What did he do on the seventh day? He rested. Why? Because he was tired? No, because he wanted to give you and I a sample to follow. God doesn't get tired. But he knew that you and I needed a pattern. A pattern of rest, to enjoy what God had established to enjoy the work of our hands. You know, when I was young, I used to think, man, I'm going to burn out for Jesus. Burn the candle at both ends. I'm going to go out in a blaze. I would rather burn out than rust out. You know, that sounds good when it's coming from a fireball. 20 year old. But the truth of it is that God has had to rebuke me over the years. And I've realized that. You know what? I want to be on fire for Jesus. But if I am unhealthy in my schedule and my life, it's not going to give Jesus any glory. If my wife says, you know, I never see the man and my kids feel like he's an absentee father, and I'm working my fingers to the bone doing things, but I'm unhealthy and my body's not well and my mind is not well and my spirit's not well. And I'm all proud of being a workaholic. You know what? That's not going to help anybody. I want my wife to say, man, this man, he's super busy. But, man, he talks to me. He's engaged in my life, he loves me and I know he does. And I want my kids to say, hey, even though this. This guy is super busy in ministry and stuff, but he always has time for us. He's engaged, he's dinners with us, we talk with him. He's never. We're never like, last on his list because he got a bunch of things to do that gives more glory and honor to Jesus than anything else in life. I want my life to be healthy, my mind to be healthy, my body to be healthy because I want to have a long term impact. Living for God. Amen. Amen. Okay. Judah had become tired, discouraged, and tired because the work that was on them, they were physically tired. And then there was opposition from the outside. So there came a critical moment. Here's the thing. Battles are won and lost in critical moments. You have critical moments in your life where you just feel like, I'm so overwhelmed, I'm ready to give up. There's a critical moment. It's a critical moment. You're discouraged on the inside. There's opposition from the outside. Here's what needs to happen in critical moments. You have to change the Strategy and do something about it. Now you're not sitting and talking with your critics, but you have to do something about it. Notice what Nehemiah did. It says in verse 13, therefore Nehemiah speaking, I stationed some of the people behind the lowest points of the wall at the exposed places, posting them by families with their swords and spears and bows. After I look things over, I stood up and I said to the nobles, the officials, and the rest of the people, don't be afraid of them. Remember the Lord who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers and sons, and your daughters and your wives and your homes. Sometimes we have to remember, first of all, who God is, and then we have to remember why we're in this battle to begin with. He says, don't be afraid. Often times, fear grips us because of opposition, and we have to remember that God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and of a sound mind. If your life is driven by fear and not by faith, you will come to a crashing halt. By the way, do you know that, for example, 60% of our fears are totally unfounded? Like they'll never happen? They're just kind of crazy thoughts. 20% of our fears are already behind us. 10% are so petty they don't make any difference. 5% are real. But we can't do anything about them. 5% are real, and we can do something about them. So really, the great majority of your fears are a waste of time. Stop living in fear. Start living in faith. So Nehemiah decided to do this. He reminded people of who God is. God is an awesome God. God's on our side. Remember, this is why you're battling. This is why you're fighting. Remember, this is the vision that God gave us. So you have to remember your vision. Remember that God is on our side. When you're encountering opposition, change your strategy. Do something about it. That leads me to my third point. Point number three. Jot this down. Learn the power of spiritual multitasking by protecting your weakness while working at your call. Typically, life is not just doing one things. What discourages is about life is that we have so many things to do. What discourage the people of Judah is they had to rebuild the wall and take out the rubbish. They had to take out the debris. Now, how many of you don't raise your hand? Please. But some of you have garages that you can't fit your car in. You leave your car outside. You just scrape the snow off your car because you know what? Your garage is such a mess. You can't fit your car in there. And you've been talking about cleaning it up for a while. It's just such an overwhelming task. And that's just five years of garbage. Imagine 100 years of garbage. These walls were surrounded by 100 year of rubble and ruin and garbage. And the people had to take out the garbage before they built the wall. Let me just let me just give a life application there. You know what? Some of us are trying to rebuild something. But before we rebuild, we got to get rid of the garbage. Some of you are trying to rebuild things in life, but you know what? You're walking around the garbage and God says, you know, let's let's face the garbage first. Let's deal with the garbage from our past so that we can rebuild. Now, don't you say, well, I know I don't want to do I don't want to go there. Let me just rebuild the wall. You're trying to work around the garbage, but it's really hard to rebuild something new before you deal with your past. Hey, I know you want your marriage to go forward. That's great. But how about cleaning out some of the garbage and rubble that affects your marriage and go to the hard places. Clear it all out so you can start working well on your future. Some of you want to rebuild your life in God, but you have to clear out some of the unforgiveness, some of the garbage of your past, so that you can rebuild your life. Don't be afraid to deal with the garbage, because some of us will never make progress until we're willing to look at the garbage dump and say, okay, how am I going to clean this mess up? Now remember that you need to multitask by multitasking. I mean, look at what Nehemiah did. It tells us that Nehemiah got his men and basically what he did with his men. He says, some of you men, you're going to have to do two things at the same time. You're. Some of you men are going to have to stand guard, and some of you are going to work, and then you're going to switch places, and others of you are going to wear your sword at your side and have your hammer in the other hand. You have to learn to guard your weakness by still working on the task. The point is, you don't stop working and notice. Where did he put the guards? He put at the lowest point of the wall. Here's how it works, folks. If you don't guard your weak areas while you're working on what God has called you to work on, then those weak areas will eventually stop the entire work of God because those sabotage your work unless you put a guard there. Are you tracking with me? You see, you're trying to work on your marriage, and it's a great thing. But you know what your weak area is? That you just. You're you're a time bomb. You explode and you fly off the handle, and you just you just had these fits of rage. And so you're trying to build trust with your wife, trying to build things up again, and then something ticks you off because you haven't guarded the weak area and you explode like a time bomb, and you set everything back four months back again because you haven't guarded your weak area. Rebuild by guard and guard your weak area. Do you understand Some of you are rebuilding things in your life, but you know what? You have a weakness. You still have a weakness. And that area of of you know you're bad with money because those boats, man, they have like a they have your name on it. And every time you start to get financially stable, you know what? You go out and you think you're going to make money by going out and spending money and gambling a little bit. And every time you do, you end up in debt. So you need you need to guard your weak spot because you're just starting to get out of debt, just starting to make ends meet. And then you go and your weakness throws you back into the cycle of chaos again. You need to rebuild your life by guard, but guard your weakness at the same time. That means you get people in your life that are going to ask you the hard questions. That means you put safeguards in your life that don't allow the weakness in your life to overcome. You listen to me. We all have weak areas in our life You have them and I have them. We all have. And here's the thing. You're always going to have them. So what it means is you learn to live with those weak areas if Satan's going to get at you. Here's the question to ask if Satan's going to get at me. Here's the way he discourages me or gets at me. You fill in the blank.

It's not an easy process. It is hard to get the garbage bags out and examine what specifically needs to go in order to start moving in the right direction. Well, let's take a quick time out. That's pastor Mark Jobe with some bold steps. We're talking about how to move forward with rebuilding while under attack. Let me remind you that if you do miss any of the broadcast, you can always listen again at bold steps. Org. Also, if you're a regular listener, you might want to check out the new Moody Radio app. It's easier than ever now to bookmark and quickly access the teaching heard on Bold Steps. Go to Bold steps.org to learn more. Now back to the conclusion of today's message in Mark Jobe, continuing to encourage us to guard those weak areas while staying on target in the rebuilding process. Here again is Mark with bold steps.

It's not an easy process. It is hard to get the garbage bags out and examine what specifically needs to go in order to start moving in the right direction. Well, let's take a quick time out. That's pastor Mark Jobe with some bold steps. We're talking about how to move forward with rebuilding while under attack. Let me remind you that if you do miss any of the broadcast, you can always listen again at bold steps. Org. Also, if you're a regular listener, you might want to check out the new Moody Radio app. It's easier than ever now to bookmark and quickly access the teaching heard on Bold Steps. Go to Bold steps.org to learn more. Now back to the conclusion of today's message in Mark Jobe, continuing to encourage us to guard those weak areas while staying on target in the rebuilding process. Here again is Mark with bold steps.

Let me tell you something about your weak area. You look at the person beside you at their weak area and you say, ah, how could you have that weak area? It doesn't affect me at all. Because other people's weak areas seem like nothing to us, and our weak areas seem like nothing to someone else. You know, if you're a guy here and you've never struggled with homosexuality or sexual identity issues and someone says, well, that's my weak area, you're like, what? Get a life. What's wrong with you, man? Never struggle with that. How could you even struggle with that? Because, you see, that's never been your your your weakness. But, but but may. That person is looking at you saying, you know, my struggle is that that old, you know, powder cocaine used to really have a draw on me. And and they'll say, you know what? What are you, an idiot, man? Why would you snuff powder in your brain that makes you go crazy to affect your life? What is a matter with you? How could you even struggle with that? And why? He looks at her husband and says, you know, I don't understand how you could even be attracted to that Playboy magazine. What are you, a sicko or what? And he says, but I don't understand why. How you can just be a shopaholic. I mean, you have 102 pairs of shoes. Why do you need another one? You have to go out. I don't understand that, man. I have two pairs. My boots and my dress shoes. That's all I need. You see, some people's weaknesses don't make sense to us. But here's the thing. You're not. You don't have to guard other people's weaknesses. You're called to guard your weaknesses. And make sure that your level of the wall, your weakness in the wall doesn't Is it you? Guard it so it doesn't end up sabotaging you. So you build and you guard. You build and you guard, you build and you guard. And then lastly, jot this down, number four. It tells us in verse 19, then I said to the nobles and the officials and the rest of the people, the work is extensive and spread out. Remember the the wall of Jerusalem was a mile and a half long. They had to build it to be 15ft high, three feet wide. And we are widely separated from each other along the wall. Whenever you hear the sound of the trumpet, join us there. Our God will fight for us. So he continued the work with half of the men holding spears for the first light of dawn, till the stars came out. And at that time also I said to the people, have every man and his helper stay in Jerusalem at night so they can serve as guards by night and workmen by day. Neither I, nor my brothers, nor my men, nor the guards with me, took off our clothes. Each had his weapon even when he went for water. So basically they spent 52 days without taking a bath. Man, that would be quite a smelly ordeal there. But in essence, what he's saying in this passage, I want you to understand this. I want you to understand that the enemy's strategy is to isolate and conquer. So make sure you keep close to your protective community. I want you to hear me well, because this last point is so powerful and so poignant to where so many of us live. You are most vulnerable when you are most isolated. Did you hear me? You are most vulnerable when you are most isolated You see, most of our tendency is when we start struggling, we isolate from people. Someone says, you know, I haven't seen you at home group in about a month. Yeah, I've been struggling. Hello. If you're struggling, shouldn't you be at home group? Hey. Haven't seen you around church worship service in a while. What's going on? I've been going through some things. Just going through a hard time. Wait a second. Now, shouldn't you be at worship service when you're going through a hard time? See? See, our challenge is when we start to struggle, we tend to isolate and we get alone with our own thoughts. And typically, most of us, when we get alone with our own thoughts, away from other people, isolated. Listen to me. We get worse. People that struggle with depression, they isolate get alone with their thoughts. Don't want to see people, they get more depressed. People that are struggling with addiction. They get in the room. They get away from people. Their addiction becomes their comfort. They get worse. The people that are discouraged in life right now, what? They don't want to be around people. They just get alone. They don't talk to people. They don't communicate with people because they isolate themselves and their discouragement, and they get worse in their discouragement. You see, it goes contrary to our natural tendency. Our tendency is when we're struggling, we pull away. But yet that's why the Word of God is constantly encouraging us to pull into people. You need community to be healthy. The Christian life was never intended to be lived in isolation. If you currently are isolating yourself emotionally, if you're isolating yourself Physically if you are staying away from people, if you are living in your own little world, then I can guarantee you you are currently an unhealthy individual and it will only get worse. Pastor, I don't want to talk to anybody about my bulimia. I'm ashamed of it. One in every four college girls struggles with an eating disorder. Don't talk to people about it. Just spirals downward and I get worse. I don't want to tell anybody about those self-destructive, suicidal thoughts that I have once in a while scares me. It's creepy. I've held a bottle of pills before, and I've looked at them. Shaking them around. Takes all that's in within me not to go there. So you isolate. Let me tell you, it gets worse. One of the remedies that God has placed in our life is people, community. And one of the hardest things to do at times is to open up our soul, pull open the door of our struggle and say, I'm having a hard time. I need someone to pray for me. I need someone to talk to. I am struggling. The Bible says pray for one another and encourage one another because there's healing power in it. Hebrews chapter three. It says encourage one another daily while it is still called today. As any of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, because you know what you are at your most vulnerable moment when you are struggling in isolation, just you say, well, no one can help me. I got to make my decisions. Yes, you do. But you know, just the mere fact that other people know and that you're struggling through it with the knowledge and support of other people, makes you more likely to succeed and makes you more likely to have victory because you're struggling with it in community and not just alone. So some of you need to break the isolation, break the silence, break the isolation. Come out and say, I am struggling. Some of you are married and your spouse doesn't even know what's going on in your life because you know what? You isolate from them emotionally. You don't say anything and you isolate. You put your cubicle around, your invisible cubicle around, and you isolate yourself. And your spouse just knows. I know they're going through something. I just they don't let me in God has given us this thing called relationship and community. God has given us this powerful thing called the church, the People of God community. If we're willing to open up and you say, well, people are going to hurt me. Yeah, welcome to life. People are going to hurt you. Well, people might maybe not follow up on me. Yeah, well, that's going to happen, too. But you know what? Build relationships. Speak it out. Let it out of the closet and allow God to pull you out of your isolation, into the light, into community where healing can happen in a healthy, powerful way. Amen.

Let me tell you something about your weak area. You look at the person beside you at their weak area and you say, ah, how could you have that weak area? It doesn't affect me at all. Because other people's weak areas seem like nothing to us, and our weak areas seem like nothing to someone else. You know, if you're a guy here and you've never struggled with homosexuality or sexual identity issues and someone says, well, that's my weak area, you're like, what? Get a life. What's wrong with you, man? Never struggle with that. How could you even struggle with that? Because, you see, that's never been your your your weakness. But, but but may. That person is looking at you saying, you know, my struggle is that that old, you know, powder cocaine used to really have a draw on me. And and they'll say, you know what? What are you, an idiot, man? Why would you snuff powder in your brain that makes you go crazy to affect your life? What is a matter with you? How could you even struggle with that? And why? He looks at her husband and says, you know, I don't understand how you could even be attracted to that Playboy magazine. What are you, a sicko or what? And he says, but I don't understand why. How you can just be a shopaholic. I mean, you have 102 pairs of shoes. Why do you need another one? You have to go out. I don't understand that, man. I have two pairs. My boots and my dress shoes. That's all I need. You see, some people's weaknesses don't make sense to us. But here's the thing. You're not. You don't have to guard other people's weaknesses. You're called to guard your weaknesses. And make sure that your level of the wall, your weakness in the wall doesn't Is it you? Guard it so it doesn't end up sabotaging you. So you build and you guard. You build and you guard, you build and you guard. And then lastly, jot this down, number four. It tells us in verse 19, then I said to the nobles and the officials and the rest of the people, the work is extensive and spread out. Remember the the wall of Jerusalem was a mile and a half long. They had to build it to be 15ft high, three feet wide. And we are widely separated from each other along the wall. Whenever you hear the sound of the trumpet, join us there. Our God will fight for us. So he continued the work with half of the men holding spears for the first light of dawn, till the stars came out. And at that time also I said to the people, have every man and his helper stay in Jerusalem at night so they can serve as guards by night and workmen by day. Neither I, nor my brothers, nor my men, nor the guards with me, took off our clothes. Each had his weapon even when he went for water. So basically they spent 52 days without taking a bath. Man, that would be quite a smelly ordeal there. But in essence, what he's saying in this passage, I want you to understand this. I want you to understand that the enemy's strategy is to isolate and conquer. So make sure you keep close to your protective community. I want you to hear me well, because this last point is so powerful and so poignant to where so many of us live. You are most vulnerable when you are most isolated. Did you hear me? You are most vulnerable when you are most isolated You see, most of our tendency is when we start struggling, we isolate from people. Someone says, you know, I haven't seen you at home group in about a month. Yeah, I've been struggling. Hello. If you're struggling, shouldn't you be at home group? Hey. Haven't seen you around church worship service in a while. What's going on? I've been going through some things. Just going through a hard time. Wait a second. Now, shouldn't you be at worship service when you're going through a hard time? See? See, our challenge is when we start to struggle, we tend to isolate and we get alone with our own thoughts. And typically, most of us, when we get alone with our own thoughts, away from other people, isolated. Listen to me. We get worse. People that struggle with depression, they isolate get alone with their thoughts. Don't want to see people, they get more depressed. People that are struggling with addiction. They get in the room. They get away from people. Their addiction becomes their comfort. They get worse. The people that are discouraged in life right now, what? They don't want to be around people. They just get alone. They don't talk to people. They don't communicate with people because they isolate themselves and their discouragement, and they get worse in their discouragement. You see, it goes contrary to our natural tendency. Our tendency is when we're struggling, we pull away. But yet that's why the Word of God is constantly encouraging us to pull into people. You need community to be healthy. The Christian life was never intended to be lived in isolation. If you currently are isolating yourself emotionally, if you're isolating yourself Physically if you are staying away from people, if you are living in your own little world, then I can guarantee you you are currently an unhealthy individual and it will only get worse. Pastor, I don't want to talk to anybody about my bulimia. I'm ashamed of it. One in every four college girls struggles with an eating disorder. Don't talk to people about it. Just spirals downward and I get worse. I don't want to tell anybody about those self-destructive, suicidal thoughts that I have once in a while scares me. It's creepy. I've held a bottle of pills before, and I've looked at them. Shaking them around. Takes all that's in within me not to go there. So you isolate. Let me tell you, it gets worse. One of the remedies that God has placed in our life is people, community. And one of the hardest things to do at times is to open up our soul, pull open the door of our struggle and say, I'm having a hard time. I need someone to pray for me. I need someone to talk to. I am struggling. The Bible says pray for one another and encourage one another because there's healing power in it. Hebrews chapter three. It says encourage one another daily while it is still called today. As any of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, because you know what you are at your most vulnerable moment when you are struggling in isolation, just you say, well, no one can help me. I got to make my decisions. Yes, you do. But you know, just the mere fact that other people know and that you're struggling through it with the knowledge and support of other people, makes you more likely to succeed and makes you more likely to have victory because you're struggling with it in community and not just alone. So some of you need to break the isolation, break the silence, break the isolation. Come out and say, I am struggling. Some of you are married and your spouse doesn't even know what's going on in your life because you know what? You isolate from them emotionally. You don't say anything and you isolate. You put your cubicle around, your invisible cubicle around, and you isolate yourself. And your spouse just knows. I know they're going through something. I just they don't let me in God has given us this thing called relationship and community. God has given us this powerful thing called the church, the People of God community. If we're willing to open up and you say, well, people are going to hurt me. Yeah, welcome to life. People are going to hurt you. Well, people might maybe not follow up on me. Yeah, well, that's going to happen, too. But you know what? Build relationships. Speak it out. Let it out of the closet and allow God to pull you out of your isolation, into the light, into community where healing can happen in a healthy, powerful way. Amen.

We've learned that in a battle, your chances are much better at victory. When you have trustworthy people around you in community encouraging you forward. That's Mark Jobe concluding today's bold steps. We're in a month long series of messages titled Rebuild Your life, your city, your world. Mark, next time we're going to move from opposition generally to the kind of opposition that can come sometimes from within and how we handle our money.

We've learned that in a battle, your chances are much better at victory. When you have trustworthy people around you in community encouraging you forward. That's Mark Jobe concluding today's bold steps. We're in a month long series of messages titled Rebuild Your life, your city, your world. Mark, next time we're going to move from opposition generally to the kind of opposition that can come sometimes from within and how we handle our money.

Yeah, I'm going to talk next time about the battle inside the wall and one of the battles that oftentimes we face and we're not always expecting it is the battle for resources. And Nehemiah faced it. It was conflict over money. It's a huge problem in the world we live in. The number one cause for marital divorce, conflict between relatives when it comes to inheritance, business partnership, employer complaints. I mean, it's huge. And I believe that if you have a calling on your life, that calling more than likely will involve resources and expect a battle in that area.

Yeah, I'm going to talk next time about the battle inside the wall and one of the battles that oftentimes we face and we're not always expecting it is the battle for resources. And Nehemiah faced it. It was conflict over money. It's a huge problem in the world we live in. The number one cause for marital divorce, conflict between relatives when it comes to inheritance, business partnership, employer complaints. I mean, it's huge. And I believe that if you have a calling on your life, that calling more than likely will involve resources and expect a battle in that area.

Well, the Bible has a lot of wisdom for us, doesn't it? And we'll get to it next time in Nehemiah chapter five right here on Bold Steps. Remember, you can always visit these lessons or share them with a friend by going to our website at Bold steps, dawg. Plus, these daily programs are fully available through our podcast. And when you subscribe through your podcast app to bold steps with doctor Mark Jobe, you'll have easy access. We even have a new Bold Steps app you can download to hear original sermons and access brand new video content from Mark. So if you haven't already, go and download the Bold Steps app today through the App Store on your phone or mobile device. And today, we also want to offer you a special resource that speaks to the pain of a fractured faith. Maybe the church has hurt you. Maybe your community has failed you. Maybe you've begun to wonder if your faith in God and His church was misplaced. Well, Lena Abu-jamal's book, fractured Faith doesn't offer pat answers or quick fixes. Instead, it's an intimate, thought provoking exploration of how to rebuild a faith that's been shaken. Lena's relatable voice and biblical grounding makes this a must read for anyone wondering Is God still there? She tackles hard questions and common pains with empathy and wisdom. Fractured faith could be the lifeline you need to rediscover a vibrant, healthy belief system, and we want to send you a copy today. Reach out and request this bold step gift and perhaps share it with a friend who needs it. We'll send you a copy with your gift of any amount to support the Ministry of Bold Steps, just call us 800 D.L. Moody. That's (800) 356-6639. Or give your gift online at Bold Steps, dawg. Well, that's our time for today. I'm Wayne Shepherd. We'll see you tomorrow when we continue our study in Nehemiah with Mark's next message called The Battle Inside the Wall. It's a crucial lesson about faith, finances, and being separate from the ways of the world. That's Tuesday, right here on Bold Steps with Mark Jobe. Bold steps is a production of Moody Radio, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute.

Well, the Bible has a lot of wisdom for us, doesn't it? And we'll get to it next time in Nehemiah chapter five right here on Bold Steps. Remember, you can always visit these lessons or share them with a friend by going to our website at Bold steps, dawg. Plus, these daily programs are fully available through our podcast. And when you subscribe through your podcast app to bold steps with doctor Mark Jobe, you'll have easy access. We even have a new Bold Steps app you can download to hear original sermons and access brand new video content from Mark. So if you haven't already, go and download the Bold Steps app today through the App Store on your phone or mobile device. And today, we also want to offer you a special resource that speaks to the pain of a fractured faith. Maybe the church has hurt you. Maybe your community has failed you. Maybe you've begun to wonder if your faith in God and His church was misplaced. Well, Lena Abu-jamal's book, fractured Faith doesn't offer pat answers or quick fixes. Instead, it's an intimate, thought provoking exploration of how to rebuild a faith that's been shaken. Lena's relatable voice and biblical grounding makes this a must read for anyone wondering Is God still there? She tackles hard questions and common pains with empathy and wisdom. Fractured faith could be the lifeline you need to rediscover a vibrant, healthy belief system, and we want to send you a copy today. Reach out and request this bold step gift and perhaps share it with a friend who needs it. We'll send you a copy with your gift of any amount to support the Ministry of Bold Steps, just call us 800 D.L. Moody. That's (800) 356-6639. Or give your gift online at Bold Steps, dawg. Well, that's our time for today. I'm Wayne Shepherd. We'll see you tomorrow when we continue our study in Nehemiah with Mark's next message called The Battle Inside the Wall. It's a crucial lesson about faith, finances, and being separate from the ways of the world. That's Tuesday, right here on Bold Steps with Mark Jobe. Bold steps is a production of Moody Radio, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute.