Hello, this is Ashley Chase welcoming you to the Mark Driscoll podcast.

For more content from my dad, Pastor Mark, senior pastor here at the Trinity Church in Scottsdale, Arizona,

visit real faith.com, where you'll find study guides to go along with each sermon series as he

preaches verse by verse through books of the Bible, daily devotions, free

e-books and more. Now grab your Bibles and get ready for today's sermon.

All right you're ready to jump into a brand new book of the Bible?

If you've got your Bible, fine.

It's a book in the Old Testament called Nehemiah.

Some of you may be familiar with it.

Most of you are not.

We're going to spend 13 weeks going through it

as you're finding your place in Nehemiah.

Last week here at Trinity,

we look back at God's faithfulness for, in, and through you wonderful people for six years.

We had a great celebration.

This week we're starting to look forward.

What does God have for us next as the people?

We're going to take our cues and clues from the great book of

Nehemiah. Let me set it up for you. They are dealing with some cultural, spiritual,

economic, practical circumstances that will sound very very familiar I believe that God's word is

timeless but this particular book is incredibly timely here's what they're dealing with

tell me if this sounds at all familiar. Number

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