Nehemiah 2:11 – 3:5
Before we get into this passage today, I’ve got an important announcement to make. It’s appropriate that I make it as we look at this passage about Nehemiah’s plan to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem.
I haven’t spoken to anyone else about this yet – but neither did Nehemiah, so I’m in good company. To some people it might come as a bit of a shock.
This church building has been here for a while. The meeting room is too small, the roof is too low for some people to see the screen. There’s very few smaller meeting rooms. Somebody said to me the other day that those gents’ toilets are a disgrace to us.
Given that, I want to announce this morning that we’re going to undertake a major building program. We’ll be adding another story here, transforming the hall, putting in state of the art audio-visual facilities, building new toilets with disabled access, putting in a new and larger kitchen. It’s going to look professional, inviting and be extremely functional.
It’s been estimated to cost just over a million dollars. Now we don’t have that money in our budget as you can expect. But reading Nehemiah has showed me that when you’re building for God and when he’s blessing you, and when the people of God are working together it will happen.
There’s already been some opposition. Our neighbours and council may have problems with the plans but they don’t have any claim to this house of God and the LORD will give us success. We should expect people like that to mock us and ridicule us and try to stop us but God will give us strength.
It would say it’s been an inspired choice by James Rogers to go through Nehemiah because reading this book has made it clear to me that we can build for God just like Nehemiah did – and God will grant us success.
Pause
I’m not being serious, in case you haven’t worked that out yet. I assume most people picked it up. Although our buildings do have some flaws, and although the toilets are in need of some love, I do actually quite like part of what we’ve got here. But far more importantly, that’s not the right way to apply the teachings of Nehemiah to Christians in 2008 AD.
You wouldn’t be alone in thinking that way, though. Nehemiah does take on a great building program and is blessed by God in this hard task.
I did a quick web search yesterday and found the a church in Chicago. They are currently running a building and fundraising project they’ve called the Nehemiah Plan. On their website it says that the plan is “Praise Temple’s fundraising effort to obtain the necessary funds for the purchase, building and/or development of its new location.” It then goes on to explain the reason it’s called the Nehemiah plan, and ends by inviting donations and by saying this:
“The spiritual implications of the book of Nehemiah are important for us. First, we turn to our King and pray for God to give us "success today." Second, we believe that He has the resources available to accomplish this great work. These resources are found in the people of our congregation and others who have a heart for our Ministry of Restoration. We believe that the Lord will speak to the hearts of our people and will direct them to share their resources to accomplish this work. Continue to pray and seek God that we will experience "success today!"
That’s the way the minister of the church has applied Nehemiah to his current church. Is he right?
Well, let’s look at Nehemiah 2 and 3, and see what some of the principles and practices of this Biblical building program are.
Last week we heard of how Nehemiah, after much prayer, was allowed to go to Jerusalem to rebuild the city. Artaxerxes the king even orders that he be supplied and sent soldiers with him.
At vs. 11, Nehemiah has finally arrived in Jerusalem. It would have been a long journey, so he rests and recuperates and prays for three days.
Then he goes out at night, alone on his horse, and surveys the damage. The Valley Gate, the Jackal Well, the Dung Gate, the Fountain Gate, the King’s Pool. And what he sees is devastation. Destruction by fire, piles of rubble. He comes back and only then speaks to the officials and priests in Jerusalem.
He tells them what he has seen and what God has laid on his heart. He tells them that the state of Jerusalem is a disgrace to them. And finally he tells them of how God’s gracious hand is upon this task – as has already been seen in the miraculous actions of the king. Their response is simple: Let’s get started!
The people of Jerusalem unite together in this good work. That’s what chapter 3 is really all about, with a small hiccup in vs 5 with a few nobles who are a bit too precious about their soft hands and don’t like being told what to do.
So, let’s summarise Nehemiah’s actions. After finding out about the trouble and disgrace of those in Jerusalem back at the beginning of chapter 1, he confesses and prays to God for four months. God hears him and answers his prayer by making Artaxerxes favourably disposed to him. Nehemiah travels to Jerusalem. He surveys the wall, he analyses the problem. Then he brings the people together to begin this good work. And throughout all this, there is a clear underlying assumption that God is behind this rebuilding. God is fulfilling his promises to Moses. God is gracious to Nehemiah with the king. God puts the desire in Nehemiah’s heart. And, according to vs. 20, “God will grant us success.”
In 1987, US President Ronald Reagan stood in front of the Brandenburg Gate of the Berlin Wall and gave a very famous speech. He said to the president of the then Soviet Union, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” He concluded his speech by assuring Gorbachev and the world, “This wall will fall. For it cannot withstand faith. It cannot withstand truth. It cannot withstand freedom.”
Of course, two short years later, the Berlin Wall did come down.
Nehemiah is about building a wall not tearing one down, but the inevitability of it is the same. But instead of Reagan’s appeals to faith and truth and freedom the assurance for Nehemiah is far more powerful. The God of heaven will grant us success – and no opposition no matter how strong, can stand against Him.
Does that mean that I can actually stand up here and proclaim with confidence that nothing can stand in the way of our new toilets and kitchen and second story because we are building for God and he will grant us success?
We may well want to embark on a building program as a church. And God may well bless that endeavor. But it won’t be because “well, he did for Nehemiah so therefore he’s obligated to St. Stephen’s, Lugarno.
Now, you might think that’s a bit tight. Nehemiah got a wall, why can’t we get a few new cubicles?
But that misunderstands where we stand as Christians this side of Jesus, this side of the cross, and it in fact massively undersells the promises that God has made to us which are far bigger and grander than a wall or even a Temple and a city.
You see, the assurance that Nehemiah had was based on God’s promises to Moses – we saw that back in 1:8-9, and on God’s promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob when he promised the Patriarchs the Promised Land. That land, and the holy city of Jerusalem bore the name of God’s people and the name of God himself. Its condition was a sign of God’s blessing or God’s curse and when the walls of the city were in ruins and when the dwelling place of God, the Temple, lay destroyed then the enemies of Israel could laugh at them.
Are our church buildings, or the church buildings of the Praise Temple of Restoration really the same as the Promised Land? Does the state of our gents’ toilets reflect disgrace upon the name of God and God’s people in the same way as the state of Jerusalem did in the OT? And might I add if you want to visit the boys’ toilets at my school you might find a greater appreciation for the toilets we have here! Our buildings may or may not be a barrier to growth, but that’s a central issue. They’re not Jerusalem.
The other major mistake I see people making when they read this passage and others like it, is their misapplication of vs 20. Remember, Sanballat and Tobiah are mocking and opposing the rebuilding effort. Nehemiah answers them by saying they have no claim to this land and by implying that they are in fact opposing God – which they were.
Here’s the modern day problem, though. It think I illustrated it at the beginning when I said that those neighbours and council who object to our monolith on a small Lugarno block of land were in fact opposing God and were persecuting us for our faith. I’ve heard plenty of people who talk like that. In fact, one church website I saw – and the church shall remain nameless – specifically asked its congregation to pray that the Satanic forces on the local council would cease their insistence that adequate parking be provided! – I kid you not!
Or take a more mainstream example. In an interview with Sarah Palin before the American election, James Dobson the conservative Christian social commentator said that George W Bush was so cricticed nowadays because “he had the courage to speak the name of Christ”, and then he said that people didn’t like Sarah Palin because of the “offense of the cross and that she’s an unabashed Christian”.
The effect of Dobson’s comments, if they were true, would be to make any criticism of a conservative Christian candidate off limits because it would by definition be gospel persecution.
That might be the case for some – but it sounds strangely like justifying incompetence, laxness and ill-discipline. Christians are not perfect and opposing Christians does not necessarily mean opposing God.
This is one of the main problems that Christian preachers have with applying the OT. They see God act in a particular way, they see faithful people following the LORD and they want to take that experience and that example and say “it’s the same for Christians now”. Sometimes it might be, but we need to understand that we are now in a fundamentally different time. Not culturally or technologically but theologically. We’re under new and better promises, a new and better covenant.
Which leads us to our final and most important distinction between Nehemiah and us. I’ve said that our church buildings are not temples nor are they the Promised Land. Opposing us doesn’t necessarily mean opposing God – we could just be wrong. That makes it sound almost as if we’re second class to Nehemiah, that he had God’s blessing but it’s a lot harder for us.
In fact, the very opposite is the case. The promises that God has made to us in Christ are better, greater and longer-lasting.
When Jesus says in Matthew 16:18 “on this rock I will build my church”, he’s not looking at a piece of ground and saying “here’s where the grand old cathedral should be built.” No, he’s looking at a person – Peter (whose name means rock) – and saying that through these apostles and through the gospel that has been entrusted to them to take to the ends of the world – through that the people of God will grow and mature and spread until all those whom the Lord our God will call are saved. That is God’s promise. He’s not building a temple or a wall or a city or a toilet block he’s building a people and he has a secured a place for that people to reside forever. That’s what 2 Corinthians 5:1 reminds us of: “Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.” You know that wall that Nehemiah built? It’s gone. You know the Temple built by Zerubbabel in Ezra? It’s gone. But for us God has built an eternal house in heaven.
We can take many things from Nehemiah 2 and 3, and from the example of Nehemiah himself. We should emulate his focus on prayer. We should be properly prepared to deal with problems. We should encourage people and put together a team who are dedicated to serving God in whatever they are doing. But most importantly we need to be reminded of the Lord God who makes all this happen.
Nehemiah encouraged the people of Jerusalem by telling them that the gracious hand of God was upon him. We see the gracious hand of God in our lives and in our ministries all the time. But do you know where we see it with the most clarity and glory? You know where it is. It’s on the cross as Jesus dies in our place so he can build his church and build our eternal home.
