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Jesus said that where two or three are gathered, that He would be in the midst of them. But do you know what else happens when two or three are gathered? Communication problems. Whether you’re talking about a church or a business or a team or a classroom, there are always communication problems. But it doesn’t just happen with large groups of people. Communication problems happen between friends. They happen between parents and children. They even happen between husbands and wives. Maybe I should say that they especially happen between husbands and wives. The fact is, we all have problems communicating, don’t we? Why do you think that is? Many times we have problems communicating because we’re just not really that interested in what the other person has to say. Sometimes we think we’ve got it all figured out and don’t really need their input or their help. Sometimes it can get so bad that we completely shut out others and go our own way. That can especially be a problem when we think we have a burden from God and nobody’s listening to us about it. We talk about one of the great things of our government is how the founding fathers built it around the idea of everything having checks and balances. Well, that certainly wasn’t an original idea of theirs. Because God does that. God gives us a series of checks and balances to let us know whether we’re on the right track or not. Every week that we’ve been in Nehemiah, we’ve talked about the burden that God gives people. We’ve talked about how you are to step out in leadership on the burden that God gives you. One of the questions that comes to mind is, how do you know if the Lord is giving you a burden that you need to act on… or if you’re just wanting to do something on your own? Here’s some good news for you. If you think that the Lord is burdening you with something, you’re not on your own. You’re not just left to some fuzzy feeling you might have. You’re not even left to a strong opinion about something. God gives us checks and balances to make sure that what we feel is truly a burden from Him and not just something we want to do on our own. It’s amazing to me when a person will come up and tell me that the Lord has told them about something that I should be part of. I’m happy for you that you think the Lord is speaking to you. But if He spoke to you about me, don’t you think He would have mentioned something to me about it too?
When you feel a burden about something… I’ve mentioned that it can be as simple as noticing something that bugs you. If you’re always seeing things around the church that need fixed, that’s probably your burden to step out in leadership to get those things fixed. That’s a fairly simple one. But what if your burden is something like the need for a new ministry? How does that work? That’s where the checks and balances come into play. The first place to go is Scripture. As we talked about this morning, God’s Word is objective truth. If something is covered in the Bible, then that is the first place to check. You need to make sure that your burden isn’t contrary to Scripture. But there are a lot of things that aren’t explicitly covered in Scripture, aren’t there? So what if your idea isn’t explicitly covered in the Bible? The walls of Jerusalem weren’t specifically commanded by Scripture. But Nehemiah was burdened to fix them. He didn’t get an audible command from God to go fix them. He was just overwhelmed by the need to go and fix them. Nothing in Scripture forbade him from doing it. So the next thing he did was to pray about it. He prayed about it and planned how he would get started if the opportunity came about that he could go. And then God opened the door for him to go. The king allowed him to go and gave him protection and provision to make it happen. So, following that example, you need to make sure your burden isn’t forbidden by the Bible. Then take it to the Lord in focused, concentrated prayer. Then look for an open door of opportunity. Then when you walk through the open door of opportunity, develop a plan for the work like Nehemiah did. Remember that he surveyed the situation by himself and thoroughly looked at the problem from every angle? He spent time on it by himself. He didn’t allow himself to be distracted by other people telling him it wasn’t going to work. He came up with a completely workable plan. And then he was ready to go, right? Not quite. Because there were still some checks and balances to go through. God doesn’t save us to be by ourselves, does He? He saves us to be part of His body. He saves us in community. We are the body and Christ is our head. One of the reasons we are saved into community is to give us a final check and balance. Here’s how it works. You feel what you think is a burden from God. You pray about it and seem to have peace. Then before you know it, doors of opportunity begin to open. You walk through those doors. Then the problem you’re burdened with is completely before you. You look at it and study it as thoroughly as you possibly can. You know it inside and out and from every angle. You come up with a plan that you think is completely foolproof. Everything is perfect. Nothing can go wrong. All that has to happen is for people to implement your plan and it can’t help but work. But then comes the final check. Then comes the time when you have to present your plan to the rest of the body. That’s what Nehemiah is doing in these two verses. He starts verse 17 by saying, “Then I said unto them.” Who is the “them”? “Them” is the group of folks he didn’t tell anything to during his midnight survey. They’re listed back up in verse 16. “Them” is the rulers, the Jews, the priests, the nobles or the rest that did the work. Nehemiah hadn’t talked to them the whole time. But now it was time to establish communications with them. This was the final check before the work could start. And here’s the frustrating thing about God’s checks and balances. If the people wouldn’t have agreed, Nehemiah couldn’t have continued. As a matter of fact, it would have been wrong for Nehemiah to try to continue. If God was the One who gave Nehemiah the burden… and Nehemiah confirmed that through Scripture and prayer… and he further confirmed it in the favorable circumstances he had seen so far… then don’t you think God would turn the people’s hearts to a favorable initial response in order to confirm Nehemiah’s burden? Now, that doesn’t mean that the response would continue to always be favorable. When difficulties come, people have a tendency to crave the leeks and onions of Egypt. But at least initially, the final check on God’s burden is the confirmation of the body. It doesn’t have to be a unanimous confirmation. It doesn’t even always have to be presented to the entire body. I’m sure the group Nehemiah spoke to was not the complete remnant. But they were representative. And because they were representative, they were the ones to provide the final check and balance on Nehemiah’s burden. So because of that, Nehemiah had to effectively communicate his burden to them. Last week we saw how Nehemiah developed the plan. Tonight, we see him communicate the plan. One thing I hope you’ll notice about the way Nehemiah communicated the plan to the people. He didn’t give them a sales job. He didn’t try to emotionally persuade them. This wasn’t a political speech. That’s not what is needed to communicate your plan to people. What is needed are the four steps that Nehemiah used. He shared the burden. He showed the necessity. He stated the authority. And he saw the response. First, Nehemiah shared the burden.
The first step to communicating your plan is to share the burden. Look there at the first part of verse 17. Nehemiah told the people, “Ye see the distress that we are in, how Jerusalem lieth waste, and the gates thereof are burned with fire.” Do you think that was necessary? Many of those people had lived there for their whole lives. Didn’t they know what kind of a mess they were living in? Probably not. Because when you live in a mess day after day, you kind of get used to it. It’s like what happens when you live next to the railroad tracks. People that come visit you might be really bothered by the noise of the trains. But you don’t even notice it anymore. You’ve heard those trains day in and day out for years. Now you can’t even hear them. The remnant that was living in Jerusalem had been there long enough that they didn’t even notice the mess they were living in. Wherever they lived was okay. The temple was in pretty good shape. Everything else was just in the background. They were comfortable with it. Nehemiah had to get them to move beyond their comfort to see what the problem was. He had to open their eyes to the real condition of the things around them. He had to get them to take their eyes off of their day-to-day routine and see that the world around them was lying in waste. The original word that’s used for waste pictures a dry, cracked, completely desolate wasteland. He wasn’t painting a rosy picture for the people. There was some shock in his words. But he didn’t wag his finger at them and tell them, “Look what YOU’VE been living in.” He told them about the distress “we” are in. He didn’t dump the burden on them. He shared it with them. We’re all in this together. Do you see the mess that we’re in? He clearly communicated his burden to them. But it wasn’t HIS burden that was going to fix THEIR problem. It was OUR problem. And the burden was theirs too. In the rest of verse 17, he said, “Come and let US build up the wall of Jerusalem.” He wasn’t presenting himself as some sort of outside consultant who had the solution to their problems. It was his problem as much as it was their problem. And it was his burden as much as it was their burden. He communicated the plan by sharing the burden. That was the first step. Next, Nehemiah showed the necessity.
The second step to communicating your plan is to show the necessity. What was the next thing that Nehemiah said in verse 17? He told the people what the real core of the problem was. The real core of the problem wasn’t that the wall was down. The real core of the problem was that they were a reproach. He said, “Come and let us build up the wall of Jerusalem, that we be no more a reproach.” What did he mean by that? The word for reproach literally means a source of scorn and ridicule. In other words, they had become the laughing stock of the other nations. They were scorned and ridiculed. They were a reproach. But to be a reproach implies an unspoken object. Who were they a reproach to? When the other nations ridiculed and mocked the condition of Jerusalem, who was the object of their ridicule? Was it the Jews? In a sense, but not in the fullest sense. You see, the Jews were known as the children of God. They were the people of YHWH. They were God’s chosen people. So, in reality, they weren’t the object of the nations’ reproach. God was. When the nations looked upon the wretched condition of Jerusalem, they mocked God. If they were the children of God and they lived like that, then YHWH must not be such a great God. It’s the same way today when a so-called Christian lives a life that lieth in waste and is burned with fire. That person isn’t the object of the world’s reproach—Christ is. If he carries the name of Christ and lives like that, then Christ must not be that big of a deal. Nehemiah pointed out the consequences of the way the people were living to them. He communicated that the waste they were living in wasn’t just a black mark on their name. It was a black mark on the very name of God Himself. Fixing the wall was a necessity. Not so they could live a better life. Not so they could have shiny new stuff. Not so they could be comfortable. If that’s all your burden is going to lead to then it’s really pretty worthless. Fixing the wall was a necessity so they could be a witness to the watching world. It was a necessity so they could show the world what a great and mighty and powerful God they served. The bottom line was, the necessity was so that they could bring God the honor and glory that He deserves and demands. Nehemiah communicated that to the people. That was the purpose for his burden. They were in a mess. They needed to rebuild the wall. And they needed to in order for God to be glorified in the presence of a watching world. Communicate your plan by showing how it is necessary. Not how it is necessary to make us comfortable or feel good or look important. But how it is necessary to make Jesus look good. How it will accomplish our mission to reach the world with the Gospel. Show the necessity. That’s the second step. The third step is to state the authority.
The third step to communicating your plan is to state the authority. One thing you can say about both Ezra and Nehemiah. They understood why things happened the way they did. In everything they did, they saw the hand of God in their lives. And they didn’t see it as heavy or oppressive or chastising. They saw God’s hand as good. Even when opposition came against them, God’s good hand was upon them. Even when they were fasting and mourning the condition of the people or the city, God’s good hand was upon them. No matter what they faced, they faced it knowing that God’s good hand was upon them. Now, it was Nehemiah’s job to communicate that to the people. That’s what he did in verse 18. Not only did he tell them that the hand of God was good upon him… he told them about how the king was behind him too. He stated his authority. You might think he was saying that God was on his side. Watch out for people who say things like that. Really, he was saying that he was on God’s side. He was on God’s side and the king was on his side. That’s pretty good authority, I’d say. Do you see what happened here? Because Nehemiah had received his burden from God… and because he had confirmed that burden in prayer… and because he had seen God open doors that could only be opened by God… because of all that, he had confidence that he was in God’s will. And when he had confidence that he was in God’s will, he could confidently tell the people that he was in God’s will. So, when Nehemiah laid everything he’d been through out before the people, they had a choice to make. They could either trust Nehemiah or not. If they trusted him that he was in God’s will, they had to follow him if they were to be in God’s will. Nehemiah clearly stated his authority. Not because he was the boss. Not because he was from the king. His authority was because he was in the will of God. And the people responded. Nehemiah shared the burden, he showed the necessity and he stated the authority. After he did all of that, he was able to do one more thing. He was able to stand back and see the response. That’s the final step.
The final step to communicating your plan is to see the response. So often we think of communication as one-way. Especially when we’re talking about leadership communication. But it isn’t. Communication is always two-way. If you’re not getting any feedback, you’re just talking. You’re not communicating. If Nehemiah would have finished talking to them and they would have just blankly stared at him, what would have happened? Nothing. If the people weren’t behind him, he couldn’t have done anything. That could have meant one of two things. It could have meant that Nehemiah was mistaken about his burden. If that was the case, then he would have needed to get back on his knees some more. Or it could have meant that the people were rebellious to God’s will. If that was the case, do you know what Nehemiah would have needed to do? Yell at them right? Berate them and beat them up and tell them how bad they are, right? Wrong. If the people refused to follow Nehemiah because they were rebellious then his response would need to be exactly the same as if he was mistaken about his burden. He would need to get back on his knees. Whether the problem was on his end or on theirs, his response would need to be the exact same. Take it back to God in prayer. But they did respond to him, didn’t they? The rest of verse 18 says, “And they said, let us rise up and build. So they strengthened their hands for this good work.” Their response was two-fold. First they said. Then they strengthened. In other words, they responded with their words. Then they responded with their actions.
Do you have a burden that you need to communicate? Maybe someone has communicated their burden to you and you haven’t responded like you should. Really, the question you need to ask yourself is… is the plan from God? Is it going to lift up the name of Jesus before a watching world? If it is, then why aren’t you on board? Why aren’t you on board with somebody else’s plan or why aren’t you communicating yours? Why do ministries go undone in the church? Why do needs not get met? Why do people in our neighborhoods not get reached? Why do children go untaught and remain unreached? Why do good programs fail and eventually disappear? It’s not because those things aren’t needed. It’s not because they aren’t God’s will. It’s because we either don’t communicate the plan or we don’t respond when the plan is communicated. Which one are you not doing? Which one do you need to start doing? Will you start tonight?
