Sunday Recap at Macedonia

Run, Run and Run some more but such is the life of a Pastor. The city of South Bend just had a successful City-Wide revival sponsored by The Inter-Denominational Ministerial Alliance where the Rev. Dr. Elliot Cuff, Pastor of the Lincoln Heights MBC of Woodlawn, Ohio and the Dean of the National Baptist Congress of Christian Education for the National Baptist Convention, USA Inc. was our guest evangelist. Congratulations to Pastor Keith D. Witherspoon and all of our sister churches for a job well-done pulling our city together to lift up the name of Jesus.

Sunday, I feel like I died a horrible death. We continued our series in Nehemiah and I feel like I over studied, brought too much wood or something. I felt like I was going 75 and the church was going 35 and I had to pump the breaks violently to adjust to the flow of traffic Sunday. We opened this series of Nehemiah last Sunday with the sermon, "Does Anybody Care" Nehemiah 1:1-4 When Nehemiah heard the condition of his people, he: Sat Down, Wept, Fasted and Prayed.

We suggested that Nehemiah cared! We live in a day and age where people can hear bad news about people they are connected to and yet can keep on moving, unaffected, unmoved and unfazed. Other can be moved, but not moved to care, but rather be moved to Comment or Criticize. They can always tell you what's wrong, who is to blame and why it happened but never care enough to weep, pray, fast and sit down.

We live in a day and age where our walls are crumbling. Our children, our churches and our communities show the effects of crumbled walls and no one seems to care. We walk past the effects of disobedience everyday and no one cries, no one fasts, no one prays but so many people comment, no care, no love, but constant criticism.

Nehemiah cared, he cared enough to start praying, not a one day, one time prayer but rather a four month prayer. In his prayer he:
Acknowledged their past Vs:6-7
Accepted their Punishment Vs: Vs:8
Asked God for Pardon Vs: 9-10

We picked up Sunday at vs 11 and continued into Nehemiah Chapter 2: 1-8 and talked about What do you do When Life Falls Apart. The answer is PRAY. A car traveling on a highway needs to have proper and balanced inflation in all four tires to travel safely. No one would venture to drive any distance with the left front tire inflated at 32 PSI, the right front at 28 PSI, the left rear at 36PSI, and the right rear at 10 PSI. That would be dangerous and unthinkable.

Sometimes in life, our tires get a little low; we hit potholes, go over speed bumps, rub up against curves, run over nails that deflate and diminish our capacity to keep running and helps make things fall apart but when we pray God does some things for us:
God is Attentive to our Pleas 1:11
God will Allocate His Provisions 2:1-7-8a
God will Answer Prayer 2:8b

Later, this week I will blog (God Willing) the clause in the verse I had never seen before that had me so excited although no one seemed to like it but me.

Owens