Can I Trust You With This?
PPT 1 Series Slide
PPT 2 Text: Nehemiah 1
Ne 1:1 The words of Nehemiah the son of Hacaliah. Now it happened in the month Chislev, [in] the twentieth year, while I was in Susa the capitol,
Ne 1:2 that Hanani, one of my brothers, and some men from Judah came; and I asked them concerning the Jews who had escaped [and] had survived the captivity, and about Jerusalem.
Ne 1:3 And they said to me, "The remnant there in the province who survived the captivity are in great distress and reproach, and the wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its gates are burned with fire."
Ne 1:4 Now it came about when I heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned for days; and I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven.
For the next couple of weeks we are going to look at Nehemiah and we are going to describe him this way:
He was a man who: Had a heart that cared, knees that bent, a mind that prepared, and feet that went. That is a pretty good summary of a pattern of behavior that will lead to God’s blessing and success.
It combines a perfect blending of the spiritual and practical. The spiritual: caring and praying, the practical: planning and doing.
Praying w/o caring usually doesn’t happen and if it does, it doesn’t last long. We pray about the things we care about. From the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. Caring w/o praying leaves God out of the equation and that is not a good thing to do if you want His blessing.
In the same way doing w/o planning usually results in less that stellar results, whereas caring and praying and planning and doing is probably a sign that God’s favor is already on it.
Originally I was going to title this message: A Man With a Mandate
I was going to make it a "rah rah" type of message to stir us up about being champions for God. Much in the same way as this little ditty:
I am part of the Fellowship of the Unashamed. I have Holy Spirit power. The die has been cast. I’ve stepped over the line. The decision has been made. I am a disciple of His, I won’t look back, let up. slow down, back away, or be still. My past is redeemed, my present makes sense, and my future is secure. I am finished and done with low living, sight walking, small planning, smooth knees, colorless dreams, tame visions, mundane talking, chintzy giving, and dwarfed goals!
I no longer need preeminence, prosperity, position, promotions, plaudits, or popularity. I don’t have to be right, first, tops, recognized, praised, regarded or rewarded. I now seek His presence, lean by faith, love by patience, live by prayer, and labor by power.
My face is set, my walk is fast, my goal is Heaven, my road is rough, my companions few, my guide reliable, my mission clear. I cannot be bought, compromised, detoured, lured away, turned back, diluted, or delayed. I will not flinch in the face of sacrifice, hesitate in the presence of adversity, ponder at the pool of popularity, or meander in the maze of mediocrity.
I won’t give up, shut up, let up, or slow up till I’ve preached up, prayed up, fasted up, stored up, and stayed up for the cause of Christ.
I am a disciple of Jesus. I must go till He comes, give till I drop, speak till all know, and work till He stops.
And when He comes to get His own. He will have no problems recognizing me. My colors will be clear.
That is the type of message I was going to preach, but as I considered the text I realized that I would be giving an out of balance message. In the same way that caring is wedded to prayer, and planning is wedded to doing, the man with the mandate has to be wedded with the God who is behind the whole thing. This story has the fingerprints of God all over it, it would be wrong to make out like Nehemiah was some superhuman Christian and that is how this all came about. The book of Nehemiah is not the story of the heroism of a man, but how a butler working in concert with God can affect the destiny of a nation.
So today this message is not entitled, "A Man With A Mandate," but I am entitling it, "Can I Trust You With Something."
PPT 3 Heart in hands.
In that picture on the screen you see a heart in someones hands, I want you to imagine that the hands are God’s, the heart represents something He wants done, and they are extended to symbolize that He is asking you "If He can give this burden to You?"
I believe that is the back story to the book of Nehemiah, and I will present some evidence to prove it. In Isaiah we hear God asking, "who will go for us?" You don’t hear such a statement in Nehemiah but I believe it is there nonetheless.
May I remind you of how the bible begins.
PPT 4 Scripture text
Ge 1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness [was] upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
Ge 1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
The Bible begins with darkness and night. This is the way the Jews still reckon time, the day begins at night, just like in the beginning of time. My point is this, God moved upon the face of the darkness and He brought forth beautiful change.
In the same way Israel was 160 years with broken down walls, and that didn’t change because of some super hero decided to do something about it. I believe just as God sent an East wind all night long upon the Red Sea and then the waters stood up in a heap. God sent an East wind into the heart of Nehemiah for an extended season, and the result was his burden, his praying, his planning and his going.
PPT 5 Scripture Text
Ec 11: 3 When the clouds are full of water, it rains.
As proof I want us to reread a portion of our main text again this morning and think about it for a minute or two
PPT 6
Ne 1:4 Now it came about when I heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned for days; and I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven.
I sat down and wept and mourned for days. How many guys do you know, that is how they would respond to the news walls in their hometown were knocked down and there was a lot of unemployment? Nehemiah’s response was over the top. He wept and mourned for days!!!! As cup bearer to the king he was probably already privy to the king. In all likelihood the king received reports about the different areas of his kingdom, and as his closest advisor Nehemiah would have known these things from hearing them before. What made the difference?
PPT 7 Golda Meir
Illus: Steven Spielberg made a move called, "Munich," it was about the assassination of 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team in the 1972 Olympics held in Munich Germany. There were 8 Palestinian murderers 5 were killed in a rescue attempt by German special forces, the other 3 were arrested, and later released when the terror group they were associated with hijacked a plane full of German people. Israel decided to hunt down and kill everyone associated with this attack. Israel had never before sent out assassination squads in the movie Golda Meir, Israel’s Prime Minister says that many in her government had asked for this kind of thing in the past, as a response to previous tragedies, and she always said, "no." but in light of the tragedy at Munich she says, "Today, I am hearing with new ears."
When Nehemiah’s brethren came back with the report on the deplorable living conditions in Israel, on that day Nehemiah was hearing with new ears.
There are two things involved in hearing with new ears.
PPT 8
1. We need to be soil in which God can deposit a burden.
2. We need to pay attention to those times we are hearing with new ears and respond.
1. We need to be soil in which God can deposit a burden.
I don’t think that Nehemiah was necessarily the only one God tried to enlist in this venture.
PPT 9 (Picture of heart in hands again with scripture)
Mt 22:14 For many are called, but few [are] chosen.
How many doors did God knock on before He got a response? God knocks on a lot of doors.
Can I trust you with this?
Will you pick up this responsibility?
Will you run with this burden of mine?
I Believe God has an assignment for everyone. What is yours? What is the burden He wants you to be a part of? Is there anything in your life, of which you can say, "I am hearing with new ears?"
There are several difficulties in answering this question.
The first of which is that God’s call often comes in casual conversation. The ears you hear with are determined by the type of spiritual soil you are. The call of God is never shouted, but to those whose hearts are tender, it will seem as a shout. The first parable is also the most important, Jesus said if you don’t understand this one, you won’t understand nothing I teach. What kind of soil are you? Lord, plow up my fallow ground, Lord remove my rocks, Lord get the weeds out of my garden!
You see I think God is always walking in His garden looking for soil in which He can deposit His heart. Nehemiah had a tender heart, and he worked in tandem with God’s burden. Nehemiah was a special man, special that he had a heart that was tender for God. All night long God’s East wind blew upon him, and that is why when the hears of Jerusalem there is an explosion of concern. The clouds had been filled, it was time they emptied. Nehemiah’s burden and calling did not happen in a vacuum.
In the 1970’s a group by the name of Blues Image had a hit song, most of you have heard it:
Blues Image 1 hit song. 1970
Seventy-three men sailed up from the San Francisco Bay,
Rolled off of their ship and here’s what they had to say.
"We’re calling everyone to ride along to another shore,
Where we can laugh our lives away and be free once more."
Ride, captain ride on your mystery ship,
Be amazed at the friends you’ve got there on your trip.
Ride, captain ride on your mystery ship,
Be aware of the things others just might have missed
No one heard them calling, no one came at all,
Cause they were too busy watching those old raindrops fall.
As a storm was blowing out on the peaceful sea,
Seventy-three men were sailing off into history.
Ride, captain ride on your mystery ship,
Be amazed at the friends you’ve got there on your trip.
Ride captain ride on your mystery ship,
Be aware of the world others just might have missed
In some ways that song epitomizes the thought many are called, the few are chosen I understand to speak about those who actually do something about the calling:
Jesus told a parable about the responses He sometimes gets: One guy says he’ll go and doesn’t, and another guy says he won’t but eventually does. It’s not the one who doesn’t go who is chosen, its the one who does.
So we said the first reason it’s hard to know if God is tugging at your heart is that His voice often comes as casual conversation, or a still small voice, and the second reason is what God wants is often a moving target. It is not usually one thing for life, but different in different seasons.
Lastly I said there are two things to do if you want to hear with new ears:
2. We need to pay attention to those times we are hearing with new ears and respond.
We respond not by telling God what we can’t do, but thinking and praying about what we can do.
Illus: David and temple. Some people like Nehemiah have a great burden for something, and when the opportunity they seek is denied them, they don’t know how to handle it, and they respond out of a broken heart and cry and take their marbles elsewhere. David said, I can’t do what I wanted, but I can still do something. He got the materials ready for his son Solomon.
If you can’t do what you want do what you can.
Close: Everyone has an assignment. Some of you are in the weeping and fasting stage about something, don’t quit. Jesus use me.
