My rubbish - my burden

Turn with me please to the book of Nehemiah, chapter 4. It's on my mind for this conference. It will fit in very well with what we just listened to this afternoon. As most know, the conference in Mount Sterling was on Nehemiah.

And as I studied that for a long time, this portion here was what stuck out to me personally as a personal challenge to myself. It wasn't brought out at the conference because I was still struggling with it. We're going to talk about the dust.

We've listened to a man who was laying down in the dust and the reality of the rubbish. Chapter 4 of Nehemiah, we'll read at verse number 2. And he spake before his brethren and the army of Samaria and said, What do these feeble Jews? Will they fortify themselves? Will they sacrifice? Will they make an end in a day? Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of the rubbish, which are burned? Drop down to verse number 10. And Judas said, The strength of the bearers of burdens is decayed, and there is much rubbish, so that we are not able to build the wall.

Chapter 8 please. Chapter 8. We'll read together at verse number 10. Then he said unto them, Go your way, eat the fat and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared.

For this day is holy. Unto the Lord neither be ye sorry, for the joy of the Lord is your strength. Now to the book of Romans please.

Chapter 15. Romans 15. Verse 1 We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak and not to please ourselves.

Let every one of us please his neighbor for his good, to edification for even Christ, please not himself. But as it is written, the reproaches of them that reproached me fell on me. For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.

Lord, bless to us the reading of His precious Word. The burdens. The bearers of burdens.

There's only one thing that stopped the work of the wall when it came to the reproach and all the things that Nehemiah and the men faced, and that was the much rubbish. And maybe you've just listened, and maybe the Lord has spoken to you as John preached to you of one committed life. And you're wondering now, where do I start? I want to sign up.

Where do we go from here? What's the next thing to do? I'd like to challenge your heart today really about the rubbish. About the rubbish. There's much rubbish.

And you understand that in those days that that city had been destroyed, the walls had been torn down, the gates had been burned with fire, and that word rubbish really just means the dust or the ash. It speaks of the earth. It speaks of the clay.

And there's a city and it's really in a heap. And the enemies even say that the rubbish is in heaps. And there those bearers of burdens are working.

The rubbish had to be cleared away before they could build upon the old foundation. All of that had to be removed. All of that had to be taken away, so that as they would build that wall, that they would have something solid to put it on.

It was the rubbish. And as I was thinking of this for some time, I was thinking of that dust. What does dust do for you? What does dust do for you? You farmers, you know what it does for you.

It's field work time. If it gets a little dry and there's the cultivators going through and the dust is rolling up behind it, what does it do? Well, it blinds you. What else does it do? It chokes you.

What else does it do? It sickens you. You get enough of that into your sinuses and you're going to get a sinus infection. You're going to get into your lungs.

You're going to get farmer's lungs. All these realities. But you see this, these dear people, these bearers of burdens.

Could I ask you today, if you want to live for God, if you want to have the committed life for God, what burden do you have? We become Christians that function in this life. And when it comes for something for God, there really is no burden. There is no reality in our soul.

There's no reality deep down in that I have something that is on my heart to do for the person. The Lord, as we heard about in Revelation. The One who walks among my assembly.

The One who sees into my life. Is there a young person, an older one, here today and you have a burden for God? A burden. Some of you don't know what that is yet.

That's okay. Maybe by the end of these 20 minutes you might. If the will of God is.

You see, you were saved for a purpose. You were saved for a reason. God rescued you from your sin.

God put you in Christ. God indwelt you with the Holy Spirit of God that you might get to work for God. We don't know what it is often times when we're first saved.

I say it's a rarity that someone that is just newly saved knows what their gift is or knows what they're going to do. But I echo what John has just said. There's some of us here that have been saved for 30 years.

And you have no burden for the things of God yet. We're just being real. I see it in myself.

This is why I couldn't talk about this two weeks ago. And it's even worse now. There is so much rubbish.

There is so much worthless stuff blowing around in my life. And I know it's the same for you. There wouldn't be someone here so arrogant really to say that my life is perfectly in order and all the rubbish is gone.

I can tell you this, if you think the rubbish is gone, you need to look again. It blew right back in the moment you thought it was gone. And you can see these burden bearers.

And that was their job. And they're there and they've got to keep ahead of the workers. And the work has started and it's going all around the wall at the same time.

And they're working and they're laboring and these men have to keep going and they have to get their rubbish out of the way so that the things for God can be built and so that there can be separation for the people of God and safety for the people of God. And their strength is gone. They're wore right out.

What happens when people are wore out? They start to doubt. Are we really going to get this done? Is it really worth it? And they get discouraged. And it says here that we are not able to build the wall because of the amount of rubbish.

First of all, we're going to look at the rubbish in my life. Then we're going to look at the rubbish in others. And we're going to look at the rubbish in the assembly.

Paul said, and John has quoted it, that he counted all things but dung for the excellency of the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. He counted everything but rubbish. Take it out through the dung gate.

Get it out of the city. Take it far away as it can go. Because if we really want to be like Christ, we're going to have to get rid of the rubbish.

And it's going to be discouraging. And it's that way by design. So that we keep looking to Him.

And we'll get to that in a moment. Rubbish in our personal life. I don't know what's in your life.

I'm kind of a public person, so maybe you know more of what's in my life than I do. But I don't know what's in your life. But you know what's in your life.

As we're here at this conference in Stout in 2025, and you've now been challenged on one consecrated life, one committed life, and you're wondering where to start, and what is the first step in all this? Where do I go? Start with the rubbish. The rubbish has to go before anything can be built. And as you search your heart upon your knees, beside your bed, in the quietness of your closet, wherever it is, you get alone with God and you start to confess your sin.

And you start to be honest with God. And He starts to show you the things in your life that are in the way. Things in your life that are nothing but dust.

Things in your life, those heaps that you trip over and you stumble over every day. You'll soon find yourself this. You'll find yourself overwhelmed.

You'll find yourself overwhelmed at the amount of rubbish in a person's life. Their strength was gone. I read in chapter 8 because it says there that the joy of the Lord is our strength.

It's two different words for strength there. The first word for strength is the power and it speaks to the men and their physical power that was gone, it was wasted, it was spent, it was all done. And in chapter 8, you come to the strength there and what you'll find there is this, that it is a fortified place.

It is a defense. It's not the power of the flesh. It's not the power of the muscles.

It's not the power of the man. But the joy of the Lord is our fortified place. The joy of the Lord is a place of our deliverance.

It is a place of our defense. You see, they just spent all of this effort and all of this energy to build this wall. And when they get to chapter 8, they're realizing this.

It wasn't our effort to build the wall that's going to do anything for us really. It's going to be the joy of the Lord that is our fortress. And God wants them to realize that.

They were trusting in the bricks and the mortar of that wall before. They were indestructible in their own eyes and they were high and mighty in their own thinking. And they had rubbish in their life far before the rubbish of the city came down.

It was internal. And what was internal was then seen when God allowed Nebuchadnezzar to destroy that city and to put it into heaps. It was in their soul far before it was on the soil of Jerusalem.

And the rubbish, if they would have noticed it, if they could have got that rubbish out of their life, if they could have got back to God, if they would have repented of their sin and obeyed the Lord, Nebuchadnezzar would have never come. But you see, the rubbish was already there. And it choked them.

And it blinded them. And it sickened them. And then we've got the rubbish of others.

That's kind of where Romans 15 fits in. The burden bearing for others. You see, God is looking for workers.

Paul worked hard, didn't he? That's who He's looking for. God is looking for men and women and young men and young women that are willing to work. Could I say God can't use people who won't work? You want something done, who do you ask? You ask a busy man.

You ask a busy woman. She'll get the job done. She knows what it is to put her shoulder to the work.

The nobles in chapter 3, they didn't put their neck to the work. They weren't interested in the things of God. They were far more interested in watching others do the work.

Is there someone here that's just willing to do the work? Are you willing to shovel the snow for the hall? Are you willing to pick up the garbage around the yard? Are you willing to get rid of the rubbish? You know, even that's work, isn't it? That's enough to wear any man out. Helping others. It says that those that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak.

That word infirmity means a feeling of doubt or hesitation. In other words, it's impossible. That's one of the definitions of the word is impossible.

Ye that are strong, that means possible. I was thrilled to learn that, looking at those two words. That here is something for someone, and for them it is impossible.

But for you, if you see it and it's something that you can do and it is possible to help one another. And here's a believer and they're like these burdened bears and their burden is great and they're discouraged. And there's a feeling of doubt.

There's discouragement. There's hesitation. And we can actually help one another.

Where do we find that in the life of the Lord Jesus? When it comes to dealing with the dust of the life of others. Wasn't that the basin where He'd wash their feet? Every Christian has been cleansed of their sin. But the dust of the daily defilement of the daily life and the walk is always there.

And you can actually help another Christian. You can actually draw near and you can help with that feet washing. And the washing of the water by the Word.

And some of that dust can be taken away. And some of that rubbish, that defilement, you can actually help. But we can't help them until we see what's in our own eye.

And the rubbish is there and it humbles us. And in that attitude, we can actually help others. We can bear the burden of others.

The infirmities of the weak. Not to please ourselves. What a privilege is that? We had an older overseer, Mervyn, and he was a very interesting man.

But when he retired, he said something more than once. He said it's not every day that you get to help somebody. Any Christians here that are willing to work to try to help somebody? That's what the work of God is.

It's serving God and it's serving others for the glory of God. Not to please ourselves. The rubbish.

The doubt of it. The discouragement of the rubbish. It was interesting that as they're discouraged there and they're out of strength, it says that there is much rubbish.

What does that tell me? There's a long way to go for every one of us. There's much that lies ahead of us. It's not like we can do the deep cleaning once and it's over.

We can take the vacuum and we can go and we can dump it out. What happens? Some of that same dust comes blowing right back if you don't get far enough from the house. There is so much rubbish.

What about the assembly? The rubbish in my life. The rubbish in others' lives. What kind of dirt are we bringing into the assembly? The house of God.

The pillar and the ground of the truth. A place that is the presence of God is known and is felt. Some of you have visited Canada and if you go to Canada, you take your shoes off before you go into the house.

You can go through the door and then you take your shoes off. Why is that? It's to keep the rubbish on the outside. Any rubbish here in the assembly in Stout? How about Heightsville? How about Antioch? How about Ankeny? How about Waterloo? La Crosse? Cedar Falls? Fridley? England? Canada? Garnavillo? Omaha? Dunkerton? There's much rubbish, brethren.

Sometimes there's much rubbish. There's always something that we have to watch for. There's the rubbish of false doctrine.

There's always watch for that. It's always trying to get in, either inadvertently or advertently, whatever it might be. How do we know that the rubbish of the false doctrine is trying to get in? Because Satan is trying to introduce it in.

And he's trying to ruin the assembly from the inside out. How about the rubbish of hypocrisy in the local assembly? We don't have any of that, do we? We're all as humble as we profess to be. We all live in the perfect assembly.

And everybody else has got the rubbish. How about the rubbish of self-righteousness? I can tell by some of the looks on your faces that you don't like what I'm saying or it's hitting home. It's going to be one or the other.

But brethren, our Bible tells us there's much rubbish. But to bring that into the Lord's house, to bring that into the remembrance meeting, to bring that rubbish then into the prayer meeting, to bring it into the Gospel meeting and expect the Lord's blessing, to expect the Lord's presence, to expect the Lord's power, there's much rubbish. Have you ever wept about the rubbish in your own life? Christians now, on our way to heaven, washed in the blood of the Lamb, redeemed, set apart and sanctified, indwelled by the Spirit of God, and powerless.

Why are we powerless? Why has there not been revival already? Why has there not been restoration? Why does it always seem like things are going in the wrong direction? Because it goes in the wrong direction personally first, and then it's brought into the assembly second. And there's so much rubbish in the work of God. I'm so thankful that He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins when we confess Him to Him and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

I'm so thankful that we can as a group here today, as a gathered out company even here, that we can have a moment of confession even just as we sit in the seat. Did you realize today that this could be the very day through just one consecrated life? And that of you, great revival could work for God. Did you know that revival could spread from this side over here all the way to the back and up to the front and down this side? Do you believe that, brethren? We talk about revival and we talk about blessing and we talk about power in the Gospel and we talk about changed lives in the ministry.

Do we really believe it? I believe today that it is God's desire that in this conference gathering, every single heart would be touched for God. And that fire would be rekindled in every single soul that is saved by the grace of God for His honor and for His glory in every one of us. And if you're in your sins just now, I believe that God wants to save you at this conference.

But there's much rubbish. God help us today to recognize it for what it is. The sin that so easily besets us.

The rubbish that needs to be removed. And as we find ourselves as the bearer of burdens that without strength, and John has quoted it as well, that the joy of the Lord is our strength.