REBUILDING A BROKEN WORLD
It was a beautiful day that afternoon so I decided to go for a walk. I was in the city of Cochabamba Bolivia August 1986. For 3 months I had worked in a medical clinic as part of a summer missions trip. Today was an off day so I did a little shopping at the market and was relaxing . I had just bought an ice cream and was sitting on a park bench in the downtown square when I saw a large group of people coming towards me down the street with signs and banners. I thought to myself, “great – a parade!” and sat back to enjoy the show. As the parade came closer I tried to make out the words on the banner they were holding. I was still learning Spanish. The words seemed familiar “Matar Gringos”. I knew the word gringo meant foreigner – people like me. I didn’t understand the word Matar. I took a picture as the parade approached. Just then I noticed something. Everyone was staring at me. Then it hit me – Matar meant KILL. Unknown to me, weeks earlier American forces had entered Bolivia and began burning cocaine fields. Thousands of Bolivians were marching in protest and the object of their hate – Americans. People started pointing and shouting at me so I ran for my life. What I thought was a parade turned out to be a mob who wanted me dead. That sunny town square into riot zone as people burned flags and acted out in rage. Today too many Christians and churches are basking in the sun, taking the day off, blissfully unaware that the world around them is changing.
Nehe 1:1 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.
The setting is about 500 years before the time of Christ. God’s people had lived in Israel for centuries before. God had told them: “Obey Me and you’ll live in the land for a long time. Disobey Me and there will be consequences.” That’s what happened. The Babylonians came and conquered God’s people and took the people far away. But the discipline was ending. Several years before Nehemiah’s day, some of God’s people were given permission to return to Jerusalem to rebuild a broken down temple and a broken down city.
The attempts to rebuild the protective wall around the city (destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC) had been frustrated by some of ‘the enemies of Judah’ (Ezra 4:1, 7-16). As a result very few people lived in the capital city (Nehemiah 11:1). Jerusalem was a city of ruins.
Nehemiah lived in the royal city of Susa, the winter residence of Artaxerxes, the Persian king. Judah, the homeland of Nehemiah, was a thousand miles away. Nehemiah was the cupbearer to the king. He was more than a “butler”. A cupbearer held a position of great responsibility. At each meal, he tested the king’s wine and food to make sure it wasn’t poisoned. If he died, then the king wouldn’t. Doesn’t sound like a great job. But think. A man who stood that close to the king in public had to be handsome, cultured, knowledgeable, and able to advise the king when asked. Because he had access to the king, the cupbearer was a man of great influence.
“Vision for ministry is a clear mental image of a preferable future, imparted by God to His chosen servants, based upon an accurate understanding of God, self and circumstances.”
Nehemiah is a book about vision and leadership. We as a church have been praying that God would give us vision as we seek to lead the church forward. Vision in leadership is birthed out of several things:
1. Seeing the need. vs. 1-3 (Look around you)
Nehemiah questioned his brother who then told him what he had seen of the situation back in Judah. This shows Nehemiah was interested in his homeland. He had never visited Judah. He was born and had lived his whole life in Persia. Yet he wanted to know the true situation of his homeland. The first step in vision is seeing the brokenness around us. What is our situation.
This nation is a nation without walls. It was not a foreign enemy who tore them down by force – they were dismantled from within. We are a nation with tremendous needs and only God will be able to meet those needs. The problem is that we loose sight of the needs arond us.
You can’t know where you are going until you know where you are. This requires an honest and accurate assessment of our present situation, both in the community in which we live and the church. It is easy to get comfortable in our surroundings. When you first move into a new house you see the things that need to be fixed or moved. The problem is that the longer you stay there the less you see and do. What at first is a mess will eventually become normal if left long enough. We need to see our situation from God’s perspective. That requires fresh vision. Lord give us eyes to see!
2. Feeling the need. vs. 4 (Look within you)
The second step in having vision is to not only see the need but to FEEL the need. Are our hearts truly broken by the rubble we see around us. Are we touched by the world around us or do we simply watch it as we would a movie on TV – entertaining but not really real to us.
Dr. Tony Campolo said: “We are caught up in a particular point in our national life in which we are not only terribly materialistic, but worse than that, we’re becoming emotionally dead as a people. We don’t sing, we don’t dance, we don’t even sin with much enthusiasm. There is deadness everywhere. High schools are apathetic. Colleges are apathetic. Worst of all– churches are apathetic. If we are no longer alive– what hope is there for the world?”
Let me confess to you, I am not a very emotional person except when it comes to the lost. In University I remember attending a missions conference and not getting a lot out of it. I prayed that if God wanted me to be involved then He would have to give me a heart for the lost. He did. I suddenly had a new sense of urgency. I would see things on TV of kids starving in Africa and I was moved with compassion. This is why I went on that first missionary trip to Bolivia.
The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that’s the essence of inhumanity -- George Bernard Shaw
Nehemiah was broken over the complacency of the people of Jerusalem. They were living in ruins and they accepted it. They were willing to walk around the devastation instead of being concerned enough to do something about their situation. Nothing is ever going to change in your life or in the life of this church until we become concerned and own the problem. Some of us have become complacent about the way our life are going. You’re living with rubble and it doesn’t even bother you any more. Are you ready to allow God to do some rebuilding? If so, get concerned about the problem by listening to the facts even if you don’t want to hear them.
When was the last time your heart was broken by the things that break the heart of God. When you look around you do you truly see the need and is your heart truly touched by it.
Vision is born in the soul of a man or a woman who is consumed with the tension between what is and what could be. Anyone with vision will tell you this is not merely something that could be done. This is something that should be done. This is something that must be done! Vision is fueled by passion. Lord give us a burden for this community and the world!
3. Sharing the need
a. With God vs. 5-10 (Look above you)
Prayer is one of the overriding themes of the book and the secret to Nehemiah’s success. This prayer in chapter one is the first of 12 different prayers recorded in the book.
From the month of Kislev (November-December) when Nehemiah first got the news to the month of Nisan (March-April) when he went to the king is more than three months. It says that he wept and mourned and that he fasted and prayed for “some days” both day and night. He didn’t rush but took time to with God to clarify his vision. The format of his prayer is simple:
Adoration – vs. 5
Confession – vs. 6-7
Thanksgiving – vs. 8-9
Supplication – vs. 10
A big part of his prayer is confession. Nehemiah confessed his sin. He owned the problem. They were sins not simply of commission but of omission. Trying to hide our sins from God is impossible. He knows all about them. Numbers 32:23 reminds us that, “…you may be sure that your sin will find you out.” We need to recognize that all sin, those things we have blatantly done or carelessly committed, or things that we have left undone, must be identified and confessed.
A read a story about some Boeing employees who decided to steal a life raft from one of the 747s they were working on. They were successful in getting it out of the plant but they forgot one thing. The raft comes with an emergency locator that is automatically activated when the raft is inflated. So, when they took the raft out on the River, they were quite surprised by a Coast Guard helicopter homing in on the emergency locator. Their sin found them out.
b. With God’s people. vs. 11a (Look beside you)
After sharing your heart with God and clarifying the vision with Him, it is important to share your vision with God’s people. As Nehemiah prayed he was aware that many others were praying also that God would move and that the ruins would be rebuilt. As vision is communicated with others it brings excitement and momentum.
4. Meeting the need. vs. 11b (Look beyond you)
Nehemiah was willing to risk the wrath of the king by sharing with him what God had laid on his heart. He was willing to do whatever it took to meet the need and rebuild the brokenness.
Lisa Beamer heard her husband’s Todd’s last words – “Let’s Roll” on United Flight 93. His favorite quote was from Teddy Roosevelt – “The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena… who strives valiantly… who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”
I heard the story a college choir which was all set to present a concert in a large church which was to be carried live by a local radio station. When everything appeared to be ready, the announcer made his final introduction and waited for the choir director to begin. A tenor was not yet ready, however, so the director refused to raise his baton. All this time, nothing but silence was being broadcast. Growing very nervous, the announcer, forgetting that his microphone was still on and that he could be heard in the church and on the air, said in exasperation, “Get on with it, you old goat!” Later in the week, the radio station got a letter from one of its listeners -- a man who had tuned in to listen to the music from the comfort of his easy chair. When he heard “Get on with it, you old goat!” he took the message personally. He had been doing nothing to further God’s work, and this startling message was enough to convict him and get him going again. Sometimes we need a wake-up call, don’t we? Maybe you’ve received that call this morning and God is saying to you, “Get on with it, you old goat…or young goat.” Where are you in this prayer process right now?
2 Chr 16:9 For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.
We have to own the problem – to understand the need.
We have to be passionate about the problem – to feel as God feels.
We need to get on our knees before God with the problem – through prayer and fasting
We need to rally around the issue
We need to make a difference.
