Don’t Let Distraction Defeat You 9.21.25
- Distraction - a thing that prevents someone from giving full attention to something else.
How to Defeat Distraction
1) Value Your Mission
The Distraction of Opportunity
Nehemiah 6:2–3, 2 Sanballat and Geshem sent me this message: ‘Come, let us meet together in one of the villages on the plain of Ono.’ But they were scheming to harm me; 3 so I sent messengers to them with this reply: ‘I am carrying on a great project and cannot go down. . .
- One reason so many of us get pulled into distractions is because what is sacred becomes ordinary to us.
Colossians 3:23, Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.
- Even Jesus said no when it came to distractions from His mission.
Luke 4:43, . . . “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.”
- What’s pulling you off your mission right now? Busyness? People-pleasing? Lack of discipline?
2) Value Prayer
The Distraction of Opposition
Nehemiah 6:5-6, 9, 5 Then, the fifth time, Sanballat sent his aide to me with the same message, and in his hand was an unsealed letter 6 in which was written: “It is reported among the nations—and Geshem says it is true—that you and the Jews are plotting to revolt, and therefore you are building the wall. Moreover, according to these reports you are about to become their king . . . 9 They were all trying to frighten us, thinking, “Their hands will get too weak for the work, and it will not be completed.” But I prayed, “Now strengthen my hands.”
- “Unsealed letters” were meant to allow the contents to be widely circulated and read by anyone along its delivery path. This was used to spread information and even rumors.
- Don’t let opposition pull you into arguments. Let it push you into prayer.
Why pray?
- It invites God into the situation
- It helps us respond with wisdom instead of just reacting in emotion.
- It reminds us that the battle isn’t ours but His.
- It gives us strength.
- Where do you go when opposition comes? Choose to pray.
3) Value Faithfulness
The Distraction of Compromise
Nehemiah 6:10–11, 10 One day I went to the house of Shemaiah son of Delaiah, the son of Mehetabel, who was shut in at his home. He said, ‘Let us meet in the house of God, inside the temple, and let us close the temple doors, because men are coming to kill you—by night they are coming to kill you.’ 11 But I said, ‘Should a man like me run away? Or should someone like me go into the temple to save his life? I will not go!”
- Nehemiah knew this was a compromise.
Numbers 18:7, . . . “Any unauthorized person who comes near the sanctuary is to be put to death.”
- “I will not go” was an emphatic statement!
- Don’t let compromise be a killer of your calling.
Judges 16:20 - Samson lost strength because of compromise.
4) Value God’s Lordship
Nehemiah 6:15–16, 15 So the wall was completed on the twenty-fifth of Elul, in fifty-two days. 16 When all our enemies heard about this, all the surrounding nations were afraid and lost their self-confidence, because they realized that this work had been done with the help of our God.
- The wall had been destroyed for 140 years and was rebuilt in 52 days. Builders were not professionals but rather laymen.
- Hebrew: ki-me’eloheiynu ne’eseh hamelakhah hazot — “This work was accomplished from our God.” Aka: “Look what the Lord has done!”
Psalm 127:1, Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain . . .
- You may think it’s too broken or too far gone, but like Nehemiah, the testimony of your life can be “Look what the Lord has done!”