Reconstruction: fortifying our vulnerable places
Nehemiah 4:7-23
I bumped into some friends I used to play sand volleyball with at Luke’s basketball game last weekend. I hadn’t seen them in awhile. As the course of the conversation unfolded, I asked how they were doing with rebuilding their home. They said they were half-finished. They went on to explain that they had purchased a second storm-damaged home and had just finished rebuilding that one and were living in it. I asked about their home and they said that it was still just gutted and they hadn’t gotten around to working on it yet. Other things kept getting in the way like their son’s basketball game we were at and the fact that they were so tired. They didn’t know when they were going to get to work on the second house. Halfway is one of the hardest places to be. That always seems to be the place where things slow down. You can begin to see what the final project will look like and yet you also realize how much work is left to finish. You’re not quite where you need to be and yet you haven’t quite left where you’ve been. The work begins to loom over you. We’ve come to the point where the Israelites have labored on the wall and now the wall stands at half of its projected height. They’re halfway finished.
If we are honest with God, there are a lot of things in our lives which are halfway finished. We have half finished marriages and we just stop working and eventually quit, never experiencing the miracle of God in our lives or our marital relationship. Some of us have half finished educations and we had always planned on going back and getting our college degree but just never have made the commitment and sacrifices. Some of us have half finished goals. We’re at the midpoint of our careers and are beginning to realize that we’re not where we had hoped to be and we haven’t accomplished as much as we’d like. And you’re going through a mid-life crisis and wrestling with where you’re life is really headed. Some of us are half parenting and by the time the kids get to the teenage years, we’re about ready to throw in the towel. Halfway is one of the most difficult places to be.
Now the 4th chapter is about persevering through resistance and opposition. The closer you get to the finish line, the closer you get to God’s purpose, the greater the resistance will be. What started out with Sanballat, Tobiah and Geshem just disagreeing with the idea of rebuilding the walls has now escalated to potential warfare. Personal attacks focus on your weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Nehemiah realizes that the greatest weakness facing Jerusalem is having no defense and thus no wall. If the city of Jerusalem is ever going to get rebuilt then the walls or the defense of Jerusalem have to be rebuilt first. And what we will discover today is that if we are ever going to passionately and aggressive pursue God’s purpose, we first have to deal with the vulnerable places in our lives.
The first vulnerable place is fatigue. The people started out with enthusiasm and giving 110% but then they wear down and get tired. The thing about fatigue is that it makes us vulnerable in every area of our lives. There’s two dimensions to fatigue. The first is physical. Verse 10, “Meanwhile, the people in Judah said, "The strength of the laborers is giving out…" Simply put, the workers were tired. They had been working non-stop and were physically exhausted. The phrase “giving out” literally means “staggering, tottering, and stumbling.” They had nothing left to give. They were in need of rest.
The second is spiritual. While you can get by on physical fatigue, for awhile, spiritual fatigue is fatal. Spiritual fatigue occurs when the work of God becomes overwhelming and when problems and obstacles are looming large. Spiritual fatigue is more dangerous than physical fatigue because it can lead to moral and spiritual failures. It can cause you to doubt God and his calling on your life. It can cause you to question your relationship with God and His protection in your life. Jeremiah was a prophet in the darkest days of Judah. The Babylonians had captured Northern Israel and it was only a matter of time before Judah would fall. Jeremiah was called to proclaim words of judgment and warning to Judah’s king and religious leaders and they rejected him. The King would not listen to him. He was punished by the royal officials. The priests and prophets opposed him. Pashur, a priest, beat Jeremiah after hearing him preach the submission of Judah to Babylon and put him in the stocks overnight. All this for being faithful to God! Listen to the cries of spiritual fatigue from Jeremiah. Place scripture on screen “O Lord, you have enticed me, and I was enticed; you have overpowered me, and you have prevailed. But I have become a laughingstock all day long; everyone mocks me. For whenever I speak, I must cry out, I must shout, "Violence and destruction!" For the word of the Lord has become for me a reproach and derision all day long. If I say, "I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name," then within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot. For I hear many whispering: "Terror is all around! Denounce him! Let us denounce him!" All my close friends are watching for me to stumble….. Cursed be the day on which I was born! The day when my mother bore me, let it not be blessed! Cursed be the man who brought the news to my father, saying, "A child is born to you, a son," making him very glad….Why did I come forth from the womb to see toil and sorrow, and spend my days in shame?” Jeremiah 20: 7-10,14-15, 18 Spiritual fatigue can lead to less effectiveness and even turning away from God.
This is why Jesus always guarded against spiritual fatigue in his life. Now Jesus had prolonged workdays sometimes extending late into the night. On one occasion, Mark (1:32,35) writes, That evening, after sunset, the people brought Jesus all the sick and demon-possessed.” Just three verses later Mark points out, “Very early the next morning while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place where he prayed.” You can’t tell me that Jesus in all his humanness wasn’t worn out from working late in the night and when the alarm went off he wasn’t tempted to hit the snooze button. But here’s the thing: there was no alarm. Something in his spirit awoke him and he knew that he wasn’t going to be a blessing to anyone else if he did not re-connect with God, energize his spirit and thus guard against spiritual fatigue. The same is true for you and me. If we don’t take the time to be with God and renew our spirits then we will never be a blessing to others and God will not be able to use us as He could. Devotions or time with God should be one of the things we never miss out on in our lives.
The second vulnerable place is frustration. Frustration makes us vulnerable. I’ve found that when I’m fatigued, I become negative in my thinking and am apt to say or do things which I normally would not. The same was true for the Israelites: “There is so much rubble that we cannot rebuild the wall.” Verse 10 They’re halfway through rebuilding and they’re becoming overwhelmed by what remains to be done. They must have been saying, “This job is just more than we are able to do. Who are we fooling?” Sanballat’s words of ridicule and mocking were beginning to register and plant seeds of doubt in their minds. Suddenly, they’re beginning to see the glass as half-empy.
Now remember, opposition specializes in discouragement because when you are frustrated and discouraged, you return to the past. I’m sure they were encountering old broken rocks, dried-out mortar, and other debris that was underfoot. And it was everywhere. And they began to doubt whether it could be done. Just as they lost sight of their goal, we can lose sight of our goal when we have debris everywhere in our lives. Hebrews 12:1 challenges us to get rid of everything that causes us to be frustrated in our pursuit of godliness: “…let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with endurance the race marked out for us.” What’s the rubble and debris is in your life? A broken relationship, a possession you’re holding on to, or even an unhealthy habit. Is there a sin you’ve been playing around with too long? What’s holding you back from accomplishing God’s will in your life? Frustration can cause us to give up on the call of God and return to the way things were. Suddenly, moving forward becomes a lot more frightening than returning to the familiar.
That leads to our third area of vulnerability: fear. Verses 11-12. Fatigue always comes with its’ partner, fear. When you get tired even the smallest obstacle can seem large. We are more susceptible to fear when we are tired. As the great coach Vince Lombardi once said, "Fatigue makes cowards of us all." Now the threat was real and looming. Sanballat and his army were threatening to attack, kill everyone working on the walls and destroy their work. The threat was real and looming but you have to decide how you’re going to respond to it. Do you continue with your work God has given to you or do you decide to abandon it? Nehemiah decided to continue rebuilding the walls, armed the people and provided guards to protect them thus providing a sense of security for the workers. We have already learned that opposition is going to arise when we’re doing the work of God and seeking to build his kingdom here on earth. So, we had better prepare ourselves and fortify our vulnerable places! Ephesians 6:10-13 “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand” So how do we do that?
First, observe the Sabbath. Unless you spend at least a day away from your day job and your work at home, you cannot be a blessing to others the other six days and God can’t use you. The 4th commandment is one of the most disobeyed commandments in all the Bible. Now what is the Sabbath meant to be? The first thing is that you are to be totally away in mind, body and Spirit from your work. The second is rest. We don’t know scientifically or medically speaking the purpose of sleep but we do know this: you can’t function at your peak performance without it. The Sabbath is meant for you to rest and that doesn’t mean getting all of the honey do’s done for the week. If you don’t, you will pay the price and others will as well. Martin Moore-Ede “In The 24 Hour Society” writes about the impact of fatigue. Our most notorious industrial accidents in recent years—Exxon Valdez, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, the fatal navigational error of Korean Air Lines 007—all occurred in the middle of the night. When the USS Vincennes shot down an Iranian A300 airbus killing all 290 people aboard, fatigue-stressed operators in the high-tech Combat Information Center on the carrier misinterpreted radar data and repeatedly told their captain the jet was descending as if to attack when in fact the airliner remained on a normal flight path. In the Challenger space shuttle disaster, key NASA officials made the ill-fated decision to go ahead with the launch after working 20 hours straight and getting only two to three hours of sleep the night before. Their error in judgment cost the lives of seven astronauts and nearly killed the U.S. space program. And then he writes, We ignore our need for rest and renewal at the peril of others and ourselves.
The third purpose of the Sabbath is to re-connect with God. Why do we need to reconnect with God? Because if we don’t, then other gods will replace God as the center of our lives. Worship literally means worth-ship. We need to recognize the worth of God and acknowledge who God is. We need to re-claim him as our boss, our CEO and our Lord. But the ancient Jews also realized that worship was not enough. They spent the rest of the day in prayer, Bible study and allowing God to speak to them.
This is why God gave us the law of the Sabbath. There’s a difference between a law and a principle. A principle is something that you practice which will make you successful. A law is something God established in creation that if you violate it, it will do harm to you or others. Whether we like it or not, there are absolutes in life, like the law of gravity. Now, I know there are some people here today who don’t believe in absolutes so get with me after worship, we’ll both go skydiving, but I get the parachute. An absolute works whether you believe it or not. The law of the Sabbath says, "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work.” You need one day a week to rest, restore and reconnect for the week ahead.
Second, pray. Verse 9 “But we prayed to our God…” What’s the first thing you do when you are face of fatigue and frustration? You fight by praying. Ephesians 6:18, “And pray in the spirit on all occasions with all kinds of spirits, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.” Who is God putting on your heart and are you praying for them? It takes the entire community to stand up and plug these gaps. Now when Paul is saying to pray in the Spirit, some people think that means to pray in tongues. In this case, it means to pray in submission to the spirit’s will. In other words, pray what God calling you to pray about? Pray for whom God is calling you to pray? So we fight by praying. When you’re experiencing fatigue and frustration in your life, don’t stop praying! In fact, run to God in prayer. But it doesn’t end there.
Third, set in place a proactive plan. Nehemiah posted guards at the most vulnerable places along the wall. When there’s a threat you have to have a proactive plan in place. If you’ve been praying for your marriage and nothing has changed, what have you done under the guidance of the spirit to improve and heal that relationship? Many of us who are married set the relationship on cruise control after a few years. A study done a few years ago found that 95% of all marriages have no goals set for the relationship. That means the relationship becomes like a ship without a rudder. Whatever direction the wind is blowing and the waves are moving is where the marriage is headed. Is it any wonder that so many marriages are head for the rocks and breaking up? You’ve got to go to a marriage retreat, read Christian books on marriage together and discuss them, go see a counselor, go on a regular date night. If you’re in debt and the bills keep mounting and you’ve been turning that over to God, what have you done to get out of debt? Have you taken a course on Christian personal financial management? Have you cut unnecessary expenses or cut up your credit cards? Have you started making extra payments on your indebtedness? Don’t just pray about it, listen for God’s guidance, set a proactive plan and then pursue it. The whole point of prayer is to receive God’s guidance and then do it.
Fourth, avoid pessimists. When you’re fatigued, frustrated and fearful, be careful who you are listening to. Those most affected by fear were those who lived near pessimistic people. “Then the Jews who lived near them came and told us ten times over ‘Wherever you turn, they will attack us.’” Verse 12. If you want to limit the discouraging thoughts that bring fear into your life, then it’s best not to hang around with negative people. It’s like the old saying, “If you’re going to soar with the eagles, you can’t run around with turkeys.” We don’t have time to listen to naysayers in the city of New Orleans but the problem is that there are naysayers just about everywhere you go. The Jews, the children of God who were living too close to the naysayers came and told Nehemiah and the workers that it wouldn’t work and they were going to fail. Winning or losing begins in the mind. It’s why Jesus said, All things are possible to those who believe.” Mark 9:23 You have to pay attention to who you are listening to. Winning or losing begins in the mind. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Phil. 4:13 Pay attention to who you are listening to.
Fifth, you have to trust God and persevere. Verse 15 “When our enemies heard that we had heard of their plot, and that God had frustrated it, we all had returned to the wall, each to their own work” Success is a result of a lifetime commitment and work in the same direction. The problem is that when we get halfway there, we get fatigued and worn out and we quit. Halfway there is the hardest place to be. Nehemiah says to the people in verse 14: “After I looked things over, I stood up and said to the nobles, the officials and the rest of the people, ‘Don’t be afraid of them.’” Faith isn’t the absence of fear. Faith is going ahead and doing it anyway in spite of the fear because God has your back.
Image: http://www.charlieplumb.com/Brochure%20Shots.htm Captain Plumb #4
Charles Plumb was a fighter pilot in Viet Nam. He flew 75 missions before being shot down. He ejected and parachuted to safety but was captured and held as a Prisoner of War for 6 years. He now lectures on the lessons learned through that experience. One day, he and his wife were sitting in a restaurant when a man approached them and said, You’re Plumb. You flew jet fighters from the USS Kitty Hawk.” How did you know that, he asked. I packed your parachute! Plumb gasped in surprise and gratitude. He grasped the man’s hand who said, “I guess it worked!” Plumb assured him, it did. “If it didn’t, I wouldn’t be here today.” Plumb couldn’t sleep that night. He kept imagining what that man must have looked like in his white sailor uniform and how many times he must have see him and never acknowledged him, not even a “Good morning!” because he was a fighter pilot and this man was just a sailor. Plumb thought about how this sailor must have spent hours in the bowels of the ship carefully folding the silk and the strings, holding the fate of a man’s fate in his hands. And then Plumb asks his audience, “Who’s packing your parachute?” On his journey he needed many different kinds of parachutes, physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. He needed all of these supports before reaching safety and surviving his ordeal. And then he writes, Sometimes, in the daily challenges that life gives us, we miss what is really important, to recognize those who pack our parachutes. So who’s packing your parachute?
