Nehemiah had a Passion for the people of Israel
Nehemiah Prayed
He recognized God for who He is
He repented of Sins
He reminded God of His promises
He requested specific help
He did not let his Position hinder him
Slide 1
We got back from our vacation earlier in the week. It was quite a journey for us. We had a great time.
As I was thinking about the Journey that we took, I was thinking that each one of us are on a journey continually.
We are on the journey of life.
Just as my vacation took us through time and to different places doing different things,
the Journey of life we are on takes us through time and places, and brings into our path circumstances and people.
And just as our vacation had a destination, a place where we arrived at, our Journey has a destination, a place that we will arrive at.
Now everybody will end up somewhere on this journey of life.
On our vacation, we could have just hopped in the car and drove off. But we didn’t. We spent many hours planning our vacation. Looking at the things we were going to do, etc. We saw many of the things we were going to do ahead of time, in our minds eye.
The same way on this journey of life, some will just bop around, not really making any plans, not knowing where they will end up or what will be accomplished
While some will end up in a place they saw from a distance with their mind’s eye and pursued with a purpose and a passion.
And when they arrive there,
They will know that something has been accomplished.
They will know that they made a difference because they pursued their journey with purpose
It is not too often that we make a difference in something by accident.
Those who make a difference in this life that God has given us, make a difference on purpose.
God has put each one of us on this planet, at this time in eternity, for a purpose.
Do you want to just bop along and see what happens and arrive at a place where you look back and wish things were different?
Or
Do you want to pursue that purpose with passion and come to a place where you look back and see that God has used you to make a difference?
Keep tht question in mind as we begin looking at Nehemiah today.
Nehe who? You ask.
Nehemiah. He has his own book in the Bible with His name on it. It is 3 books before the Psalms, right before Esther and Job.
Slide 2
We are going to be looking at Nehemiah who was a man of vision and
see what we can learn about His life and
how God used him and
apply some of the things that Nehemiah did in his life to our own
so that God can use us to accomplish great things for His kingdom.
I want to give you a quick background and overview of Nehemiah so you can have the context of the situation.
Nearly 600 years before Christ, the Jerusalem had been destroyed and the exiles were taken to Babylon.
After nearly 50 years of exile some Jews returned and rebuilt the temple.
After another 70 years, a few more return to rebuild the city with Ezra.
After another 13 years, in 445 BC, is when Nehemiah gets word of how those in Jerusalem are doing.
Nehemiah 1:1-11 (p. 342)
1 The words of Nehemiah son of Hacaliah:
In the month of Kislev in the twentieth year, while I was in the citadel of Susa, 2 Hanani, one of my brothers, came from Judah with some other men, and I questioned them about the Jewish remnant that survived the exile, and also about Jerusalem.
3 They said to me, "Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire."
4 When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven. 5 Then I said:
"O LORD, God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and obey his commands, 6 let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer your servant is praying before you day and night for your servants, the people of Israel. I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father’s house, have committed against you. 7 We have acted very wickedly toward you. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees and laws you gave your servant Moses.
8 "Remember the instruction you gave your servant Moses, saying, ’If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations, 9 but if you return to me and obey my commands, then even if your exiled people are at the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen as a dwelling for my Name.’
10 "They are your servants and your people, whom you redeemed by your great strength and your mighty hand. 11 O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of this your servant and to the prayer of your servants who delight in revering your name. Give your servant success today by granting him favor in the presence of this man."
I was cupbearer to the king.
Do you have a vision for what God wants you to do?
Do you want to have a vision for what God wants you to do?
I think there are many people who think that the only people who have vision are CEO’s or Pastors or Presidents.
That is not true.
God can use people from all walks of life and give them a vision for the future.
A Vision to accomplish something for the Lord.
In fact, I bet there are many people here who have a vision for something
Vision is the ability
to see what could be,
to see things different and better than they currently are.
Goals and visions are similar yet different.
They both look forward to the future and see things better than they currently are.
But goals you can accomplish.
A vision can only be accomplished by God.
You don’t in yourself have the power to do it. God must be actively involved in achieving the vision.
In fact, He is the one who gives it to you.
God is the one who gave Nehemiah the vision to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.
I want to take a look at Nehemiah and see how he responded to God as God gave this vision.
The first thing I want us to see is that
Nehemiah had a Passion for the people of Israel
Slide 3
Nehemiah 1:1-4a
1 The words of Nehemiah son of Hacaliah:
In the month of Kislev in the twentieth year, while I was in the citadel of Susa, 2 Hanani, one of my brothers, came from Judah with some other men, and I questioned them about the Jewish remnant that survived the exile, and also about Jerusalem.
3 They said to me, "Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire."
4 When I heard these things, I sat down and wept.
Nehemiah had a Passion the people of Israel. He cared about them.
He cared about how they were doing
He cared about their survival
He cared about how they were getting along.
When he found out that they were in trouble and disgrace, he wept.
They were in a bad state and condition and it caused him to be in a bad state and condition.
I believe that Nehemiah’s passion for the people of Israel was given by God.
Have you ever had a passion for something?
Have you ever seen something or someone that you knew could be different?
You not only knew it could be different, it bothered you that it wasn’t.
Maybe it is an orphan, and your heart just aches for that child to be raised in a home with parents.
Maybe it is a group of homeless people that you just can’t get out of your mind. You know if someone would just give them a hand, they could experience a better life.
Maybe it is teenage girls in unplanned pregnancies. Your heart goes out to the girls and to their unborn babies and you just want to see them helped so bad.
Maybe it is the little kids of this church. You see a time during even this service where we could do so much more to help our little ones than we currently do.
May be it is for single moms
Or our seniors
Or our jr. highers
Or parents
Or our neighbors without Christ
Maybe you see a situation that you know in your heart
Could and should be different, better than it is and it bothers you that it is not.
Don’t ignore the burden you have.
That is the beginning of God putting a vision in your heart and mind.
This beginning is vital.
How we respond to this beginning will affect not only the situation, but it will profoundly affect us.
We see how Nehemiah first responded.
Nehemiah Prayed
Slide 4
Nehemiah 1:4b
For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.
He knew that the problem was way too big for him. He went to the One he knew could take care of the situation and prayed about it.
Now I want us to take a look at Nehemiah’s prayer here. I believe there are some important things that we can learn so that as we pray about something that God is burdening us with, we can pray effectively like Nehemiah did.
The first thing we see about Nehemiah’s Visionary prayer is
He Recognized God for who He is
Slide 5
Nehemiah 1:5
5 Then I said:
"O LORD, God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and obey his commands,
I believe one of the essential elements of effective, visionary prayer is first give glory to God. Nehemiah glorifies God by recognizing who God is.
This helps give everything perspective when we pray and it helps us to understand that we are not just reciting some words as an incantation.
Like Open Sesame!
No, it is not our words that have the power in these situations,
but it is our God who has the power to alter situations and the course of history.
When we first recognize God for who He is, we cannot help to glorify Him.
We see the apostles do this in Acts 4:24. When Peter and John were released from prison, having been arrested for healing a crippled man and preaching Jesus, they prayed and began their prayer like this.
Acts 4:24
24 When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God. "Sovereign Lord," they said, "you made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and everything in them.
They glorified God by recognizing an aspect of who He is, creator of everything.
Jesus, when He gives us a pattern for prayer in the Lord’s Prayer, says
Matthew 6:9
"’Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,
Your name is holy.
Nehemiah recognizes God as great and awesome and as a Promise Keeper.
When we pray, we need to recognize God for who He is.
As creator
As Faithful
As a keeper of His promises
As great and mighty
As powerful.
When we do this, we glorify God in recognizing it, but it also puts us in the mindset of recognizing that we are praying to a God who really can help us in our time of need or concern or with our situation.
When you pray start out by recognizing who God is.
A second thing Nehemiah did was
He Repented of Sins
Slide 6
Nehemiah 1:6-7
6. I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father’s house, have committed against you. 7 We have acted very wickedly toward you. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees and laws you gave your servant Moses.
Nehemiah doesn’t just give some milk toast confession.
“Sorry” (said like you don’t want to say it to a brother or sister)
No, He doesn’t just leave himself in as another person but singles himself out because he is repenting for himself and as a leader for the nation.
To be used by God and succeed in the vision that He has for us, we must be clean vessels.
Our prayers are hindered by sin.
We need to confess and repent of our sin.
1 John 1:9
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
Jesus purifies us from the sin that we commit in our lives and makes us clean. When we are clean, God will hear and answer our prayer.
James tells us that the
James 5:16
16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
For our visionary prayer to be effective we must confess our sins.
And be specific. Don’t just say forgive me of my sins.
Nehemiah acknowledged the wickedness of his sin and what they were. They had not obeyed the Lord in his commands.
When we confess be specific about what you are repenting of.
A third thing that Nehemiah did in his visionary prayer was
He Remembered God’s Promises
Slide 7
Nehemiah 1:8-10
8 "Remember the instruction you gave your servant Moses, saying, ’If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations, 9 but if you return to me and obey my commands, then even if your exiled people are at the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen as a dwelling for my Name.’
10 "They are your servants and your people, whom you redeemed by your great strength and your mighty hand.
Now I am going to tell you off the bat that God did not forget about his promises.
He is not saying to Nehemiah,
“Oh yeah, thanks for that, I nearly forgot.”
But God does like it when we know what His promises are and count on them and share them in prayer with Him.
When we do that, it means that
we know God’s promises.
we are counting on God’s promises
we are trusting God to be true to His promises.
We see this happen often Moses’ prayers.
Exodus 32:11-13
11 But Moses sought the favor of the LORD his God. "O LORD," he said, "why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians say, ’It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people. 13 Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self: ’I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever.’"
Moses a great man of God remembers what God himself has said and repeats it back to Him in prayer.
When we know God’s promises and His will, we are better able to confidently and effectively pray.
There are things we know about God.
Orphans
We know that God has a heart for widows and orphans.
Deut 10:18-19
18 He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing.
If you have a passion for orphans, and want to somehow minister to orphans, then pray and remember God’s promise to defend the cause of the orphan.
Seniors
If you have a passion for Senior citizens, then remember and pray what God says about the aged
Leviticus 19:32
32 "’Rise in the presence of the aged, show respect for the elderly and revere your God. I am the LORD.
His Church
Matt 16:18
I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.
(from New International Version)
You have said that you will build your church and that the gates of Hades would not overcome it. Use me to do that.
Remember the promises of God in prayer and what He says in His word.
Finally, we see in Nehemiah’s Visionary prayer that
He Requested Specific Help
Slide 8
Nehemiah 1:11
11 O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of this your servant and to the prayer of your servants who delight in revering your name. Give your servant success today by granting him favor in the presence of this man."
If God has burdened you for something and given you a passion about it and you sense that you have a vision for how it could be better than it currently is, you need to continue praying, and be thinking about how God could use you and then ask God to do it specifically.
This prayer we read of Nehemiah’s is his at the end of his praying.
For at least 3 months, possibly four, he has been praying and fasting and thinking and God has been working in His heart to show Him that he is the one that God has given this vision to and that Nehemiah needs to respond to it.
And finally, Nehemiah has come to the point of seeing that he is the one that needs to go to Jerusalem and rebuild the walls but as he has thought through it, he recognizes that the king has to be supportive.
So he prays specifically for that.
As you pray about something that may be burdening you, that you have a passion for, pray specifically for what it is that as you know and remember God’s word, you know will honor God.
Maybe it is a ministry of this church.
You know that God wants to build his church and you look around and see that this church is small with a small building and not many ministries.
Little Kids - Nursery
You know God wants to reach people and you have a burden for little kids.
Maybe it is for the nursery and you know it would glorify God and help build the church to have a great nursery.
Discipling others
Or maybe it is with discipling others. You know it would glorify God and help build his church if people were stronger in their faith, so pray that God would establish more Bible studies and that you might lead one or host one.
Helping Add more space
Maybe you see that there is quite a lack of space here and if we had more space, we could do more ministry and God loves people and if we could better minister to people God would be glorified and His church would grow with more people coming into the kingdom, so you ask God to use you to help build some more space here.
As God leads you and works in you, pray specifically for what you believe God wants you to do.
That is what Nehemiah did. As he prayed and came to the conclusion that he was the one that needed to go and that God wanted him to go, he still prayed that God would grant him favor.
We need to do the same if we are going to be people of vision.
Lastly
Nehemiah did not let his Position hinder him
Slide 9
In Nehemiah 1:11 we read that Nehemiah “was cupbearer to the king.”
What is a cupbearer?
Actually the cupbearer was a pretty important job.
In this day, the rulers just didn’t get voted out of office. The king was the king for life. To be removed from office they had to die.
There were those at times who would like to assist that process of the king dying.
To avoid that, the king would often have a “cupbearer,” someone who would bring him his food and drink but would eat and drink part of it first to make sure it was ok. If the cupbearer did not die, then the king would not die.
Now, as king, you would not want any old person in this position. You would want someone who was extremely trustworthy and who had your complete confidence. You would keep this person close to you so that you could trust him.
This is what Nehemiah was to King Artaxerxes.
This was an important position with many benefits to it.
In addition, he was about 1000 miles away from Jerusalem.
Nehemiah could have had a myriad of excuses for not going to rebuild the wall.
In our lives, we can have things that God places on our hearts that we just continue to make excuses for as to why it can’t be us, but it needs to be somebody else.
It is too big for me.
I have other responsibilities
I am not equipped to do that
It would take too much time
And on and on we could go.
Let me tell you something. If God is placing something on your heart and you just keep making excuses as to why it can’t be you, eventually your heart will become cold to what the Lord is saying and you are going to miss out on perhaps being a part of a great and mighty work of the Lord.
If the Lord is burdening you for something, He is going to equip you to do it.
I will tell you, that as I came on to the role of pastor here at Hickory Creek, I had a few apprehensions.
Lord, I don’t have enough experience.
Lord, I have not yet preached on a weekly basis.
Lord, there is too much that needs to happen in this church for it to be successful.
But I knew and believed this. God was calling me here. And as I prayed about it, I prayed that He would just open the doors for it to happen.
And He did.
And I will tell you. God is working in this church.
As we answer his call to the vision He puts in our life,
He equips us as we go
He strengthens us as we have need
He provides right on time.
Don’t just go through life without seeing what it is that God is wanting from you and following through on the work of planning and preparing.
See the vision and consider how you might be the one to be used by God to achieve it and bring glory and honor to Him.
Now there are some here who as they heard this message today, were specific things that came into their mind. I want to pray for you.
I want to pray that God will strengthen you to take that step He wants you to take.
Pray.
