Overcoming Opposition Series

Overcoming Opposition

Series: When It’s Time to Move FORWARD

Brad Bailey, May 23, 2021

Intro

My added welcome to you. I am so glad we can have this time to allow God to lead us through this season.

In all of my years as a pastor... this is without a doubt the most unique season of leading lives I have ever known. I think the effects of this pandemic-effected season are both strange is their subtlety but also their significance. I think many people find there is no normal that we can simply return to. It’s like the normal pattern of life just stopped...and we’re is a strange state in which we have various activities that we can do... but we’re neither back to normal nor living in anything we really feel is a new normal. We may be doing things... but there is still a strange, suspended state of pause, in terms of having direction. And the word I continue to believe God has for us...is FORWARD.

As I consider that word “forward”... I am drawn to realize that God is the unchanging center of life....and He wants us to embrace that His calling is what we can live into. We existed in His love a year ago...and we will exist in His love a year from now. We were called into life with Him a year ago and we will be called into life with Him a year from now. He wants us to know that what matters most...is what lies ahead of us. Whatever God has for you...is still to come. The only place we can join God...is in what he is still doing.

So we have been allowing God to speak to us about how to move forward through the Biblical Book of Nehemiah. This Biblical book is in the Old Testament and it is the historical testimony of how after the city of Jerusalem had remained in ruins for years after it’s destruction... Nehemiah calls those living amidst it’s rubble to take up a remarkable process of restoring the city.

And last week we engaged the third chapter which captures HOW they could fulfill such a massive restoration. Every section of wall and every gate was divided among the people. What we see is the power to rebuild something new when everyone grasps that they have a part to play.

And so they begin to build what seemed impossible... and now we come to the next lesson... which involves the reality of opposition.

When we seek to move forward in the will and work of God... we should expect that it will face obstacles...and that will include opposition.

And that is what now unfolds as we pick up in chapter 4 of the Biblical Book of Nehemiah. So we’re going to move through this chapter rather quickly...and draw out some practical truth along the way. Beginning with verse one we read...

Nehemiah 4:1-3

When Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall, he became angry and was greatly incensed. He ridiculed the Jews, 2 and in the presence of his associates and the army of Samaria, he said, "What are those feeble Jews doing? Will they restore their wall? Will they offer sacrifices? Will they finish in a day? Can they bring the stones back to life from those heaps of rubble--burned as they are?" 3 Tobiah the Ammonite, who was at his side, said, "What they are building--if even a fox climbed up on it, he would break down their wall of stones!"

Here we see the opposition rise up. We were introduced to these groups in chapter 2...when Nehemiah came from the Persian capital to Judea and Jerusalem. These are the governors of the adjoining territories... representing the Samarians and the Ammonites.[3] When the Persian empire had conquered the whole region... it was it’s policy to allow the various different people to maintain some freedom as long as they were loyal and paid taxes. The Israelites had been a unique power... and their capital city of Jerusalem had been destroyed...and the Persian king had initially decided to have it’s restoration cease... feeling uncertain of what loyalty the Israelites would have. So the neighboring governors had enjoyed decades of enjoying being in a superior position to the people of Israel and Jerusalem. So now... you can imagine how these neighboring people felt... when Nehemiah shows up... with the royal Persian cavalry escorting him, carrying letters from the king with official authority to rebuild the city...and access to royal resources to help. After years of being able to scoff at Israel... left in ruins... these nearby leaders now feel threatened by the potential restoration of Israel’s city.

And behind these earthly political dynamics... there is something higher involved. Jerusalem represented that the reign and rule of God... through a people He had called out to be a unique people to Himself ...through whom He would bless the whole world in time. So in restoring this city and it’s temple the people are restoring the desire to be God’s covenant people. Restoring their communal life with God...was going to elicit opposition.