BUILDING. a. Nehemiah Learns About the Problem (Nehemiah 1:3)

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1 BUILDING THE WALL Tanner Peake - NOVEMBER 17, The Story Abbreviated a. Nehemiah Learns About the Problem (Nehemiah 1:3) i. They told me, The exile survivors who are left there in the province are in bad shape. Conditions are appalling. The wall of Jerusalem is still rubble; the city gates are still cinders. (Nehemiah 1:3, The Message) b. Nehemiah s Prayer i. When I heard this, I sat down and wept. I mourned for days, fasting and praying before the God-of-Heaven. I said, God, God-of- Heaven, the great and awesome God, loyal to his covenant and faithful to those who love him and obey his commands: Look at me, listen to me. Pay attention to this prayer of your servant that I m praying day and night in intercession for your servants, the People of Israel, confessing the sins of the People of Israel. And I m including myself, I and my ancestors, among those who have sinned against you. We ve treated you like dirt: We haven t done what you told us, haven t followed your commands, and haven t respected the decisions you gave to Moses your servant. All the same,

2 remember the warning you posted to your servant Moses: If you betray me, I ll scatter you to the four winds, but if you come back to me and do what I tell you, I ll gather up all these scattered peoples from wherever they ended up and put them back in the place I chose to mark with my Name. Well, there they are your servants, your people whom you so powerfully and impressively redeemed. O Master, listen to me, listen to your servant s prayer and yes, to all your servants who delight in honoring you and make me successful today so that I get what I want from the king. (Nehemiah 1:4-11, The Message) c. The King Helps Nehemiah (Nehemiah 2:1-8) i. It was the month of Nisan in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the king. At the hour for serving wine I brought it in and gave it to the king. I had never been hangdog in his presence before, so he asked me, Why the long face? You re not sick are you? Or are you depressed? That made me all the more agitated. I said, Long live the king! And why shouldn t I be depressed when the city, the city where all my family is buried, is in ruins and the city gates have been reduced to cinders? The king then asked me, So what do you want? Praying under my breath to the God-of-Heaven, I said, If it please the king, and if the king thinks well of me, send me to Judah, to the city where my family is buried, so that I can rebuild it. The king, with the queen sitting alongside him, said, How long will your work take and when would you expect to return? I gave him a time, and the king gave his approval to send me. Then I said, If it please the king, provide me with letters to the governors across the Euphrates that authorize my travel through to Judah; and also an order to Asaph, keeper of the king s forest, to supply me with timber for

3 the beams of The Temple fortress, the wall of the city, and the house where I ll be living. The generous hand of my God was with me in this and the king gave them to me. When I met the governors across The River (the Euphrates) I showed them the king s letters. The king even sent along a cavalry escort. (Nehemiah 2:1-8, The Message) d. Nehemiah Mobilizes (Nehemiah 2:17-18) i. Then I gave them my report: Face it: we re in a bad way here. Jerusalem is a wreck; its gates are burned up. Come let s build the wall of Jerusalem and not live with this disgrace any longer. I told them how God was supporting me and how the king was backing me up. They said, We re with you. Let s get started. They rolled up their sleeves, ready for the good work. (Nehemiah 2:17-18, The Message) 2. Nehemiah s Practical Problem Solving a. The Problem i. First, the people were in distress. It wasn t simply that a structure for the sake of a structure was broken down or malfunctioning. Nehemiah is made aware that the problem involves people, and in this specific instance, these particular people happened to be covenanted with God. ii. The walls and gates, or that which was needed for the people s ongoing preservation, were said to destroyed. Walls represented physical protection against intruders and a sign to the outside world that the city was cared for and looked after. b. The Attitude i. We see in this story Nehemiah had a unique attitude upon hearing about these problems.

4 The attitude of Nehemiah s heart or posture of Nehemiah s heart upon hearing the bad news eventually dictated what he did practically in response to this problem. ii. First, Nehemiah took ownership for the problem in Israel. Nehemiah didn t just see this as the problem of other people from whom he could be isolated. In fact, Nehemiah included himself in declaration of those who have done wrong (Nehemiah 1:6). iii. It is clear that Nehemiah encounters something of a wave of emotion upon hearing about the existing problems in Israel. Scripture says, when I heard this I sat down and wept (Nehemiah 1:4). Nehemiah s strong emotion pours out of him, and this emotion expresses itself in the following time in fasting and prayer. In the book of Nehemiah we see Nehemiah s prayer. This prayer focuses on the nature of God, on repentance, and then refers back to God s promises over the people of Israel. c. The Response i. Although in a hasty read of the first couple of chapters of Nehemiah, it appears Nehemiah immediately goes into the king, there s actually a period of over six months before Nehemiah has an opportunity to respond externally to address the problem. In this time, I believe Nehemiah was praying, fasting, and internalizing the problem to such an extent the king began to notice it on Nehemiah s face (Nehemiah 2:2). ii. Sometimes the tendency for each of us is, after feeling a burden from the Lord, to rush right in to tackle the problem. Nehemiah was interesting in that he didn t respond tangibly to the problem right away. Although he fasted and prayed immediately, Nehemiah has this long season of waiting before he is actually sent to answer his prayers. I believe that Nehemiah was transformed during this season of waiting, and eventually, when God knew

5 that Nehemiah was prepared, opened up the doors of favor for Nehemiah. Even when the doors opened, Nehemiah was cautious about moving forward in his own flesh (Nehemiah 2:4). iii. They (we) spend more time in analyzing, in collecting materials, and in hard thinking than on prayer, on seeking God s mind, and on waiting for the power from above. (Watchman Nee) iv. Nehemiah eventually gets sent back to Jerusalem to rebuild the walls. The resources of the king were at Nehemiah s disposal. Upon his return, Nehemiah goes out at night to survey the work, and when he gets back, he speaks to the people about their situation. v. The people respond positively and I believe this is a miracle in the story. Can you imagine if a servant of the king (someone definitely not suffering from the same opposition and circumstances) comes into town and starts to tell you, You see that bad situation we are in? If someone came into most communities in America and said something like that, especially if they conveyed a cavilier attitude, they would be kicked out of the city on their head. vi. I believe Nehemiah was able to successfully mobilize the people because they saw in Nehemiah that he was there to help them not compete with them or to propagate his own self-serving agenda. 3. Making This Practical a. Our Problem i. I want to suggest that our big problem really boils down to mankind s relationship with God. While there are a lot of big problems, and while we should be involved in addressing these problems as the Church, the bottom-line

6 conflict is that we live in a spiraling world of lost people. ii. Scripture points to a perfect, unified, peacefilled world prior to the introduction of sin. Humanity was fully engrossed in relationship with God. When humanity turned from God, this relationship was necessarily severed. The result is that today, our physical bodies parish, we toil and fight over limited resources, and we rule over each other. In a context where relationship with God was in perfect order, all else was in perfect order. In other words, there were no problems! iii. When we see our neighbors and the world around us and consider the perishing and the hurting, we should aggressively be looking to solve these problems. Nonetheless, we must remember that the big problem actually is man living apart from God. b. Our Attitude i. While I do believe Christians should be willing and ready to go out into the world, I believe that prayer is the necessary prerequisite. ii. Just like Nehemiah, something happens when we stop to pray. First, we realize this is our problem, because it is something that is tragic in the eyes of God. A world divorced from relationship with God is the biggest issue of injustice that exists today. This injustice is our problem; we are the people of God sent to illuminate the glory of God. iii. When we pray for the world, we no longer stand in accusation of the world. I can no longer condemn or hate a brother [or sister] for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me. His face that hitherto may have been strange and intolerable to me is transformed through intercession into the countenance of a brother for whom Christ died (Bonhoeffer, Living Together).

7 iv. Second, when we pray I believe God looks down and can easily identify the man or woman who can be used to address the problem. A person who prays is a person who has learned to look beyond the vanity of their humanity, and who has learned to lean on the all-sufficient grace and providence of God in their lives. v. It is much easier for me to imagine a praying murderer, a praying prostitute, than a vain person praying. Nothing is so at odds with prayer as vanity. (Bonhoeffer) vi. I believe that one of the reasons prayer is so vital in our churches, in our schools, in our lives, in our prayer closets, is that it postures our hearts in an attitude that directly combats humanism. Prayer protects us from bitterness, keeps us sober-minded in relation to the lost, and keeps us from being overly inflated in our own egos! In prayer we are actively practicing the fundamental belief that apart from God we can do nothing! c. Our Response i. Pray and Serve the Church 1. I think this message about rebuilding walls and prayer is very attractive when we talk about it in regards to praying and serving the lost. I believe where sometimes we fall short is when it comes to the Church. 2. So often we view the church down the corner (if we go to church still) as misaligned or just missing it. Rather than just taking a I m gonna fix it type attitude, what would happen if we just started praying for the local church? What happens if we started serving them? What happens if we served a church that wasn t ours? 3. The walls are broken down in our churches, but we oftentimes would rather debate than work together. What would happen if we simply committed that for the good of us all,

8 we would work for the good of us all, unto the most dynamic expression of God s glory in this city? 4. I encourage you start praying! You might find you actually get a burden from the Lord for that charismatic church or conservative church down the road. 5. Serve the Church as well. The Church is intended to show the world who God is. If we cannot love and serve the Church, how do we expect to love and serve the world around us? Find some place to build the wall here locally or a place to contribute to what the local church is doing. Let s be like Nehemiah and own the problem as our own! 2. Pray and Serve the Lost 1. Secondly, pray and serve the lost. Begin to pray for the lost in our community and look for ways to be the answer to your own prayers. Ask the Lord to give you a heart for the lost! 2. Pray for those who are distressed, beaten, and abused. Begin to pray for the homeless downtown and pray for the needy in our own midst. Where are the Nehemiahs who will sit down, pray, fast, and weep simply for the nations? 3. Serve the lost as well. Start to take practical steps to serve those who are lost. Reach out in love to those around you! Volunteer with a ministry that ministers to the broken in this city or in the nations! 2012 Every Home for Christ 640 Chapel Hills Dr. Colorado Springs, CO H160S1112