Nehemiah 2:11-20 Let Us Rise Up and Build February 11, 2018am www.newhopefwbc.com 1285 Ne w Hope R oad Joelton, TN 37080 6 1 5. 7 4 6. 6 4 0 3 READ Nehemiah 2:9-18 KIDS What four traits did Nehemiah s speech have? Probably one of the most-known, larger-than-life characters in modern world history is the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill. I have always had an affinity for the Bulldog of Britain, his was the first adult biography that I ever read when I was in the 6th grade. Churchill was the embodiment of English fortitude in a world that had tried time and time again to compromise with the deranged Adolf Hitler of the Second World War. Churchill s plan called for bold strokes in the face of the Reich s tyranny, and he sought to rally the empire to fight instead of entering into peace negotiations with Hitler after he had broken numerous truces already. It seems like our culture has fallen in love all over again with the complex man that he was, since there are a great number of movies, shows and documentaries that have hit the public eye about him even this year. Corey M. Minter Page 1 of 11
One of Churchill s greatest victories was not in war per se but in parliament where he often had to give speeches to back up his war-time agenda. At a particularly dark hour for Britain, when Germany had just rolled through France and nearly 340,000 British troops were trapped on the beaches of Dunkirk, France awaiting evacuation. With the waters swarming with the German fleet, that seemed nearly impossible until Churchill commissioned a fleet of over 800 personal watercraft to aid in the rescue. British yachts and fishing boats, alike, came to the rescue and brought the troops home across the 76 mile stretch of the Dover Strait. With that small victory under his belt, he addressed the nation who was war-torn and weary of fighting, even though WW2 had really only just begun a year earlier. We shall not fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France; we shall fight in the seas and oceans; we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air; we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be; we shall fight on the beaches; we shall fight on the landing grounds; we shall fight in the fields and in the streets; we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender... And, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, This was their finest hour. 1 The speech accomplished its purpose. England rallied behind their Prime Minister. They dug their heels in and persevered the London 1 The comparison between Churchill and Nehemiah is used by numerous commentators on the text. However, Charles Swindoll and Stephen Davey s works do it best: http://www.insight.org/ broadcasts/player/?bid=2438 and http://www.wisdomonline.org/cgi-bin/media_player.cgi?id=454 Corey M. Minter Page 2 of 11
bombings, and ultimately, won the war. Nehemiah is met with a similar task of rallying a complacent people to a job that seems insurmountable, yet he will meet it with the same resolve, and it will produce a favorable outcome. To catch you up on Nehemiah, he is really nobody special. He is a Jew serving as the wine-taster for the Persian king. Israel has been in captivity for well over 100 years, and even though they were allowed to return to Jerusalem to rebuild their culture, few did. Of those few, fewer were actually involved in trying to rebuild Jerusalem. The book of Nehemiah opens with Nehemiah hearing the report from a fellow Jew (Hanani) that the walls of Jerusalem were broken down, the gates were burned and the people of Israel (who had suffered defeat after defeat) did not care to even try and rebuild the wall/city even for their own safety and well-being. Nehemiah is pained by this and begins to fast and pray for a season that will ultimately be 120 days. As he prays, he is burdened that he could do something about it; so when he serves the king his food one day and is asked what is wrong, Nehemiah asks that he be allowed to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the walls and that the king would heavily invest in the venture. Miraculously, the king actually complies, gives Nehemiah a protective detail and makes sure that he will have all of the lumber to do the job. As we open up in the second half of chapter 2, the rubber meets the road. Nehemiah gets to Jerusalem, and we see how he starts this impossible task. Before we get into the passage, let s address this story s relevance to us today. I do not think that any of us are involved in building project of this Corey M. Minter Page 3 of 11
magnitude and importance. None of us are building a wall. So why is it important for us to study Nehemiah? Let s come at this from a more generic standpoint, instead of only thinking wall. Nehemiah sees suffering. The people suffering are HIS people. He does not know what he can do, but he knows that he must do something. As he prays, God reveals more and more the specifics of what he wants him to do. That is all of us. Take the wall out of the equation. We see suffering in the world, both physical and spiritual, and we know the King. As we pray, Your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven, God reveals more and more the specifics of what He wants us to do with our life. Each of us want to be successful and effective for God, but that does not happen by accident. By studying Nehemiah s life, we get a front row seat to seeing what God will do through the life one man who might not be especially talented, who may not have all of the knowledge he could but who is absolutely, 100% AVAILABLE to God. 11 So I came to Jerusalem and was there three days. For 120 days, Nehemiah fasted and prayed for God s will in Jerusalem. Check. He gets his commission, pulls up to the ruined gate and calls a press conference he pulls the permits for the job he meets with an architect he grabs a trowel nope. He spends three days in what most of us would consider inactivity. (It is possible that he arrived on or around the Sabbath, and so he observes the day of rest as God commanded). Corey M. Minter Page 4 of 11
Imagine Israel. Here they live in a broken-down city, and the most powerful king in the world who you pay tribute to has sent his cupbearer. You do not know why. He has not told anyone of his business there. Three days slowly go by and the Jerusalem imaginations must be running wild. Especially when you take into account Nehemiah s night-time rituals 12 Then I arose in the night, I and a few men with me; I told no one what my God had put in my heart to do at Jerusalem; nor was there any animal with me, except the one on which I rode. 13 And I went out by night through the Valley Gate to the Serpent Well and the Refuse Gate, and viewed the walls of Jerusalem which were broken down and its gates which were burned with fire. 14 Then I went on to the Fountain Gate and to the King s Pool, but there was no room for the animal under me to pass. The first couple nights, he and his entourage commissioned by the king make a practice of riding around the southern portion of Jerusalem. They do this without explanation. Then, there is a solo venture one night. 15 So I went up in the night by the valley, and viewed the wall; then I turned back and entered by the Valley Gate, and so returned. 16 And the officials did not know where I had gone or what I had done; I had not yet told the Jews, the priests, the nobles, the officials, or the others who did the work. He says he is examining the walls, but who does that at night?! That is probably the headline in the tabloids. I imagine they may be thinking worst case scenarios, but I do not know that things could get much worse. In all actuality, Nehemiah is preparing his heart. Corey M. Minter Page 5 of 11
1. Solitude Do not quickly pass over the spirituality of solitude. We are inundated with distraction. We wake up, and what is the first thing we do? 80% of us check our smartphone before we even brush our teeth. From the moment we wake up to moment we close our eyes again, we fill just about every second of our day with distraction. Here is Nehemiah alone (or with just a few people, intent or in-the-know of what they are doing there). Why Don t We Get by Ourselves More Often Inactivity we do not want to seem lazy. Out of the Loop we want to know all the drama. Uncomfortable It allows for a more intense time of investigating our hearts 2. Investigating When in verse 15 Nehemiah says that he is inspecting the wall at night, he invokes a Hebrew medical word that deals especially with probing a wound not only for why it happened but how it might be healed. He is not doing all of his investigating at night. I think it is safe to say that he does it throughout the day as well, but the idea here is that he is woken up at night with this on his mind. Oswald Chambers wrote that sleepless nights and waking up with a burden is the Penalty of Leadership. Now the time for action Nehemiah has well spent the last 123 days of his life in prayer and Corey M. Minter Page 6 of 11
fasting and solitude and investigation, but at some point, the vision must be voiced, the mortar must be mixed, the stones must be set. Churchill had to speak to the nation, to rally the troops and so must Nehemiah. Hear his speech: 17 Then I said to them, You see the distress that we are in, how Jerusalem lies waste, and its gates are burned with fire. Come and let us build the wall of Jerusalem, that we may no longer be a reproach. 18 And I told them of the hand of my God which had been good upon me, and also of the king s words that he had spoken to me. Nehemiah displays four traits in his speech that make it compelling, and I would like to use those four traits to push us into our mission field this week. 1. Honest You see the distress that we are in, how Jerusalem lies waste, and its gates are burned with fire Nehemiah neither butters them up or tears them down more. He states the truth. One of the worst things we can do is to act like everything in our world is OK. It s not. I have loved watching what little of the Olympic Games that I have been able to this week, but the thing that I find most disturbing is that every 2 years for a few weeks the world acts like everything is OK. We act like war and genocide and starvation are not perpetuated by many of the countries that we walk in with. We fake peace for a few weeks, and then we get right back to the real world as soon as the cauldron is snuffed out. Corey M. Minter Page 7 of 11
But we fake peace all the time spiritually. We look at our lives and think My sin is not that big of a deal. Or we might say, I m pretty sure my neighbor is a Christian. He s a pretty nice guy. A movie is deemed Christian if it has a positive message. We want all of our music to be encouraging. Hundreds of ministers will get up across our nation today and their sermons will never even come close to addressing the distress and desolation that sin has wrought in this world. How in the world can we fix the problem unless we first name the problem?! Sin has caused us great distress, and lives lay in waste, and the future of this world is that it will be burned with fire. Do not sugar coat it. This is a huge problem. 2. Inviting You see the distress that we are in, how Jerusalem lies waste, and its gates are burned with fire. Come and let us build the wall of Jerusalem, that we may no longer be a reproach. Nehemiah had every right to sit back and say Look what you did! Or more likely, Look what you haven t done! The wall is in shambles and you haven t done anything to fix it yet! What is wrong with you?!? After all, he had made something of himself. He was trusted by the king of Persia. He lived in luxury, but these people they lived in filth, and they were content to keep on doing so. Instead, Nehemiah gets down there with them. He says WE are in distress come let US build the WE may no longer be a reproach. Just like we do not need to sugar coat how bad a shape our world is in, the last thing we need is another armchair quarterback, politician, Corey M. Minter Page 8 of 11
pastor watching the game, news or world and saying People these days! Last time I checked, YOU are a people these days. We cannot just sit back and complain about the wall being broken down. We cannot just sit in our recliners and yell at someone to do the work. We have got to put in the sweat, pray, fast, plan and pray some more and invite people to get out of the distress. 3. Intrinsic that we may no longer be a reproach. I want you to key in on the WHY that Nehemiah gives the Jews about rebuilding the walls. Is it financial prosperity? No. Is it safety? No. Those two things are by-products. He says, That we may no longer be a reproach. You see six different times in prophecy (Psalms, Jeremiah and Ezekiel) God had warned Israel that their walls were going to be broken down and their gates destroyed and they would be a reproach (a punch line, a joke) to all other nations. However, with that warning of destruction, God also gave them the promise that if they would return to Him then He would bless them. In his study of this passage, Chuck Swindoll is careful to remind us of the two forms of motivation: extrinsic and intrinsic. Extrinsic is a motivation based upon external reward. It s not evil; it is just not mature. Claire wants a set of walky-talkies, and so Rachel is using extrinsic motivation. Clean your room, make your bed, empty the dishwasher, and you will get 50 cents today. Corey M. Minter Page 9 of 11
Intrinsic motivation, however, is a motivation based upon internal reward or fulfillment. Your boss will not pay you extra to be honest, but you ought to be honest. Nehemiah does not dangle the carrot of God s blessing in front of them. He merely says Let s do what God tell us to do so we stop making his name a punch line. The church does not operate extrinsically. As mature Christians we do not give prizes for the number of people that you invite to church or if you have perfect attendance (we may do that with children and students). We try to motivate intrinsically. Share your faith because of what Christ has done for you, and therefore, you want someone else to experience it. The Jews wanted to stop being a reproach because they were God s chosen people. In the same way, we live for Christ not because of a mansion on a hillside, streets of gold or anything like that, but because we are HIS people, and we love Him. 4. Personal 18 And I told them of the hand of my God which had been good upon me, and also of the king s words that he had spoken to me. Of all of the stories that Nehemiah could have reminded them of Abraham who looked for a city whose builder and maker was God, Joseph who God blessed for his faithfulness to Him, Moses who brought God s people out of a despicable situation, David who led them to years of prosperity, Solomon who built the temple of God Nehemiah gave them a personal example of God s grace in his life. Corey M. Minter Page 10 of 11
You may think, I don t have that great of a testimony God did not rescue me from a bottle or gang I mean it is nothing spectacular. It is. Every story of grace is amazing, and it will mean more because it is yours. Share it! 18 So they said, Let us rise up and build. Then they set their hands to this good work. Corey M. Minter Page 11 of 11