Part 12: We Can Make A Difference! Series

Great Prayers of the Old Testament

Part 12: We Can Make a Difference!

Nehemiah 1:1-2:6

Sermon by Rick Crandall

Grayson Baptist Church - August 3, 2014

(Revised December 18, 2024)

BACKGROUND:

*Please open your Bibles to Nehemiah 1, as we focus on another great Old Testament prayer. Here God shows us the kind of difference His people can make. But remember that when we get to this part of the Bible, the Kingdom of the Jews has been conquered and carried away to Babylon. That terrible event happened because the Jews had rebelled against God for hundreds of years. They began to worship demonic idols, and participate in all of the evils that went along with those satanic religions.

*This Jewish Captivity happened about 600 years before Jesus was born. After 50 years, their new Persian rulers started to allow the Jews to return home to Jerusalem. And by the end of 70 years, they had rebuilt the Temple. But after 70 more years, the walls around Jerusalem still lay in ruins. This basically left the city defenseless, and that's when God moved a man to rebuild those desperately needed walls. His name was Nehemiah. He was a godly man, full of faith and faithful to the Lord.

*Nehemiah was also the Cup Bearer for King Artaxerxes. In ancient courts, the Cup Bearer was a person of high rank and importance. He possessed great influence, due to the nature of his duties and his frequent access to the king. (1)

*With this background in mind, begin reading at Nehemiah 1:1 And as we read, please think about the difference we can make in our world.

MESSAGE:

*Are you living your life with purpose? -- It really matters. Welch poet David Whyte put it something like this: "When people struggle through the weeds, pull back the moss, and read the inscription on my tombstone, I don't want it to say: 'He made his car payments.'" We were made for so much more than that!

*Purpose makes all the difference in the world. Andy Stanley once asked, "How many of you would be excited about spending all day filling bags with sand? No thanks, Right? -- But what if we were filling those bags to save our town from being flooded? Purpose makes all the difference in the world. Our lives can have real purpose and meaning. Our lives can matter. God used Nehemiah, and God can use us to make a tremendous difference in our world. (2)

1. FIRST: GOD WANTS TO USE OUR CONCERN.

*We need the same kind of heart-felt concern Nehemiah had in vs. 1-4:

1. The words of Nehemiah the son of Hachaliah. It came to pass in the month of Chislev, in the twentieth year, as I was in Shushan the citadel,

2. that Hanani one of my brethren came with men from Judah; and I asked them concerning the Jews who had escaped, who had survived the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem.

3. And they said to me, "The survivors who are left from the captivity in the province are there in great distress and reproach. The wall of Jerusalem is also broken down, and its gates are burned with fire.''

4. So it was, when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept, and mourned for many days; I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven.

[1] ONE OF THE FIRST THINGS WE SEE HERE IS THAT NEHEMIAH REALLY CARED ABOUT THE PROBLEMS GOING ON IN HIS WORLD.

*And that's something to think about, because if Nehemiah only looked at his own life, if he only looked at how things were going around him, everything seemed okay. He had a good job. Nehemiah served in the palace of the king! That was a prominent and very important job. And as long as he didn't fall out of favor with the king, Nehemiah had it made.

*But Nehemiah cared deeply for people who were living hundreds of miles away. He cared for people that he had never met, and that's the way God wants us to be. He wants us to care about other people.

*Jesus Christ wants us to be able to look beyond our own backyard and see the needs. When we look around here, things look pretty good. The walls aren't falling down. But there are people in our church family who feel like the walls of their lives have fallen down.

*And just beyond the walls of our church, it's much worse. There are all kinds of people with all kinds of needs, and the greatest need is Jesus Christ! People may be happy and healthy today, but they will never make it to Heaven without Jesus Christ. And they will never really have a life worth living without Jesus, so God wants us care.