This is Undaunted Life a man's podcast. I'm your host Kyle Thompson. Let's get into it. Welcome back to the forging table. The mission of Undaunted Life is equipping men's

to push back darkness with content that forges spiritual mental and physical resilience at the forging table. You'll see a group of regular guys forging spiritual resilience by digging into God's word and we're welcoming all of you to come along on the journey with us. That's Jake. That's Ryan. That's Matt guys were digging into neomy7 today and one quick note on neomy7 right from the beginning. There are certain parts of the Bible that are super easy to skip because it seems like nothing's there that as you're as you're going through it. And you know, maybe you've you've you've you've

not done with Romans. And it's like every sentence every verse of Romans is just astonishing and like it's just such a big deal. And then you get to certain parts of the Bible and they just kind of seem like a slog. If it seems like a slog, maybe you should really think about what you're seeing there because there's probably a whole lot more there. Then then what you recognize. So that's just kind of the the basic beginning to neomy7. But again, from last week with neomy6. The wall is rebuilt. It's done. Right.

They set out to do what neomy set out to do when he risked his life by asking for, you know, a leave of absence from King Art of Xerxes court as a cup bear. It's done. And it wasn't without its opposition.

And for a lot of us. And I think we mentioned this last week, we get to this thing where we've accomplished the goal. And then we think we've arrived. And then we think there's there's nothing else that that needs to be done. But there's clearly more that needs to be done. So Jake, if you would mind read verses one through three of neomy7, please sure.

Now when the wall had been built, and I had set up the doors and the gatekeepers, the singers and the Levites had been appointed. I gave my brother, Hannah and I, and Anaya, the governor of the castle charge over Jerusalem.

For he was a more faithful and Godfaring man than many. And I said to them, let not the gates of Jerusalem be opened until the sun is hot. And while they are still standing guard, let them shut the bar, shut in bar the doors.

Point guards from among the inhabitants of Jerusalem, some at their guard posts and some in front of their own homes.

So the thing is right here from the beginning. The works done, but the defense of the work is not the it is an ongoing project, not a project that is simply finished.

And so I think that's an important thing here. And there's there's a lot of context here that, you know, if it's interesting to you guys, you can get into it, but, you know, why they wanted to wait until the heat of the day to open up the gates, because typically it was opened very, very early in the morning, but as part of their defense of what they just got through doing they wanted to adjust that.

And again, Nehemiah being the consummate manager, the consummate politician, he was ready to go with gatekeepers, singers, Levites. And then he appointed a man. So basically he gave some of his power away to a Godfaring and faithful man to be the governor of the castle and charge over Jerusalem.

So there's so many just basic business and leadership lessons here, even just in the first part to where it's like you've accomplished your goal. You were the main guy. And then the very first thing you did is you basically assigned a manager over something else, you assigned a captain. And again, just in the first few verses like that's a big deal. All this going on all at once.

And then I did the worst job of setting anybody up because everyone just looked at me and went not only is he ugly, not only is he a ginger, but also he makes terrible points. So should I just I think, well, I think the delegation of these things and that Nehemiah does like he obviously is this is not for his glory, or you could probably see some I'm going to do all these things because I don't trust these people. He trusts God.

For his promise, but then he also trusts other people to help carry out what God has called him to do. And what a great lesson in leadership. And Nehemiah is just a book, chalk full of lessons in leadership.

I think that's a what a humble, what a humble approach to say, I'm going to let these people do this thing. I'm going to assign other people these these other things.

Instead of going, I want, I want the glory. I want to do it.

You know what I found interesting was the first people he considers in terms of guarding the walls. Okay.

He he brings out the gatekeepers, singers and the Levites. These are all worship officials. Okay. He's not he's not putting an army on the wall.

It's it's not about it's not about might. It's about worship. So the first thing that he comes up with in terms of how am I going to defend this city from future attack.

Well, the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to put people in place to honor God. That's first. Yeah.

I wonder as well, because I definitely didn't think about that, Jake. I wonder if that even attaches to what we saw in Nehemiah 6 to where it's like, okay.

What did Tobiah and Sam ballot and guess them? They they tried to set him up as oh, well, we heard through the grapevine that you wanted to make yourself a king.

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