Resistance Is Coming. Now What?

Taught by Pastor Brandon Sereg, Lead Pastor of Vibrant Church in Davie, FL.

Watch This Message

The moment you start rebuilding anything — a marriage, a budget, a sobriety streak, a habit of actually showing up on Sundays — something pushes back. In this message from the Live a Better Story series, Pastor Brandon Sereg walks through Nehemiah’s fight to finish Jerusalem’s wall while under attack, and lays out three ways to respond when opposition doesn’t quit: keep building, defend what matters on purpose, and learn which fights were never yours to take.

Resistance Is Coming

“The moment you decide to do something in your life, the moment you start trying to live that better story, somebody, something, somewhere is going to try to stop you,” Brandon said. “And that’s always how it works.” He ran through the pattern: decide to rebuild a marriage, and three weeks in it’s worse than when you started. Decide to get on a budget and kill the debt, and a tire blows. Decide to get sober, and the friends who haven’t texted in months all reach out the same week. Decide to make church and a group a priority, and the kids get sick. “Resistance is coming,” he told the room — not as a discouragement, but as the setup for the whole message: the question was never whether resistance shows up, but what you do when it does.

You’re Fighting the Wrong Enemy

In Nehemiah 4, Sanballat mocks the builders outright — he calls them feeble, certain they could never finish. Brandon connected that mockery to a familiar voice: a parent, an ex, the voice inside your head that’s been on repeat since you were young. But most people lose the battle not because they won’t fight, but because they’re fighting the wrong one. “We’re swinging the sword at things that are not the real enemy,” he said. “Meanwhile, the actual enemy walks in right by you without you noticing and starts tearing down your wall faster than you can build it.” The example he gave the room: your spouse is not your enemy — even when you don’t agree.

He also pushed back on a quieter version of the same mistake — trying to rebuild through effort alone. People run the budget, work the spreadsheet, get the gym membership, listen to the podcasts, “but they don’t pray.” Manifesting it into existence doesn’t work either, he said. Nehemiah’s own strategy was to “pray and post a guard” — prayer paired with practical action, not a substitute for it.

Don’t Come Down From the Wall

When mockery didn’t stop the work, the opposition changed tactics. Sanballat and Geshem sent Nehemiah an invitation: “Come, let us meet together in one of the villages on the plain of Ono.” Brandon read Nehemiah’s answer straight from the text: “I am carrying on a great project and cannot go down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and go down to you?” They asked four times. He gave the same answer four times. Brandon named the fights that actually are worth leaving the wall for — someone being abused in your circle, a kid being bullied, something everyone in the house is pretending isn’t happening — and then drew the line for everything else: put down the battle God never assigned you.

The Sword That Was Already Swung for You

Brandon named the tension underneath the whole message — that some people are building and defending at the same time, and they’re tired. “Some of you, you’ve been carrying both for a long time and you’re just tired,” he said. “I see you.” From there he pointed to a sword swung two thousand years after Nehemiah’s: Jesus stepping onto the wall on our behalf, carrying a sword we couldn’t — and still asking us to carry ours.

Three Ways to Respond

Brandon closed with three specific responses:

1. Pick up the trowel. Start building something specific this week — not someday, this week.
2. Strap on the sword. Defend what matters on purpose, and don’t forget who the real enemy is. Don’t forget the potential of prayer, or that God is greater than whatever is coming against you.
3. Put down the battle God never assigned you. Not every invitation deserves a reply.

Where This Lands

Two questions to actually answer this week, not just hear: what’s the one thing you’re going to keep building even though resistance showed up? And what’s the battle you’ve been fighting that was never actually yours? The ask wasn’t to feel resolved by Sunday — it was to pick the trowel back up on Monday.

This message is part of the Live a Better Story series, continuing from last week’s look at who belongs on your wall while you rebuild. Next week is the finale.

Keep Going

If resistance has you worn out mid-rebuild, a couple of next steps: start with our guide to prayer if “pray and post a guard” is the piece you’ve been skipping, and get into a Connect Group so you’re not defending the wall alone. If the fight in front of you is more specific — a marriage under pressure while you’re trying to rebuild it — our page on marriage help in Davie, FL is a place to start.

New to Vibrant Church? We meet Sundays at 9:30 and 11:00 AM at Indian Ridge Middle School in Davie.