In general, I really enjoy doing projects around our house – especially those projects that give a sense of accomplishment once they are completed. Over the years Mary and I have taken on some pretty big projects. We’ve done significant landscaping work on at least 4 different houses we’ve owned. At our last house I laid several hundred square feet of Saltillo tile. We’ve painted more walls and ceilings than I can count.
But I’ll have to admit that on most of those projects, it was a lot easier to get the project started than it was to finish it up – especially some of the larger, long-term ones. And the reason for that is that somewhere along the way, discouragement started to creep in. Maybe the project took a lot longer than expected or we ran into some unforeseen problem that added to the costs and the time required to complete the project.
So I guess it’s not really surprising that in a lifelong project like becoming a mature disciple of Jesus, that there are those times when discouragement finds its way into our lives tends to become a roadblock in that process.
That was certainly true for Nehemiah and his fellow Jews as they worked on rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. Last week in chapter 3, we saw how the whole community worked together as that building project got started. But it wasn’t too long until the people began to be discouraged. Some of that discouragement was a result of attacks from the outside, but most of it, as we’ll see, was really more internal.
But the good news, as we’ll see more fully as we go through chapter 4 this morning, is that God does provide us with the resources that we need to overcome discouragement and finish the work He has given us to do.
So once again this morning, I invite you to turn in your Bibles to Nehemiah chapter 4 so that you can follow along as I read the passage and as we work our way through that chapter.
The chapter begins with another appearance of the villains we first saw in chapter 2:
Now when Sanballat heard that we were building the wall, he was angry and greatly enraged, and he jeered at the Jews. And he said in the presence of his brothers and of the army of Samaria, “What are these feeble Jews doing? Will they restore it for themselves? Will they sacrifice? Will they finish up in a day? Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish, and burned ones at that?” Tobiah the Ammonite was beside him, and he said, “Yes, what they are building—if a fox goes up on it he will break down their stone wall!”
(Nehemiah 4:1-3 ESV)
In chapter 2, Sanballat and Tobiah had despised what Nehemiah had planned to do and they jeered at the Jews. But now that the construction project was actually underway and good progress had been made, their hold on their power was even more threatened than it had been earlier. So now they are angry and greatly enraged. So their jeering takes on an even more nasty and sarcastic tone. It’s not hard to imagine the men in the Samarian army who accompanied Sanballat laughing and making fun of the Jews as Sanballat taunted them with his sarcastic comments. And then when Tobiah joined in with some taunts of his own, the level of ridicule increased even more.
We are reminded here of a principle that we discovered a couple weeks ago – when we participate in God’s work we should expect that we are going face opposition.
And by now, we shouldn't be surprised at the way Nehemiah leads the people to respond to the opposition:
Hear, O our God, for we are despised. Turn back their taunt on their own heads and give them up to be plundered in a land where they are captives. Do not cover their guilt, and let not their sin be blotted out from your sight, for they have provoked you to anger in the presence of the builders.
(Nehemiah 4:4-5 ESV)
Nehemiah does as he has consistently done throughout the book so far – he makes prayer his first response. But you’ll notice a difference from his earlier prayers. He is now praying corporately rather than just individually. Notice the 1st person plural pronouns – “our” and “we” – at the beginning of the prayer.
Although we are not surprised at the fact that Nehemiah prays, the content of his prayer is certainly shocking. This is what is known as an imprecatory prayer – a prayer that calls down God’s wrath on the enemies of God. There are a number of these kinds of prayers in the Scriptures, particularly in the Psalms. To us this prayer may seem harsh and cruel, but to Nehemiah and his fellow Jews, Sanballat and Tobiah were not just their enemies, they were the enemies of God and therefore they deserved to suffer God’s judgment. This is not a prayer that seeks personal vengeance, but rather a prayer that arises out of a zeal for the glory of God and the success of His ways.
After he finishes praying, Nehemiah and his fellow Jews just ignore their enemies and get back to work.
So we built the wall. And all the wall was joined together to half its height, for the people had a mind to work.
(Nehemiah 4:6 ESV)
Not surprisingly, the enemies of the Jews become even more enraged once they saw that the people had just ignored their threats and that the work was proceeding well, with almost all the gaps in the wall repaired and the wall built to half of its final height.
But when Sanballat and Tobiah and the Arabs and the Ammonites and the Ashdodites heard that the repairing of the walls of Jerusalem was going forward and that the breaches were beginning to be closed, they were very angry. And they all plotted together to come and fight against Jerusalem and to cause confusion in it.
(Nehemiah 4:7-8 ESV)
Since their taunts hadn’t been successful in bringing the work to a halt, the enemies of the Jews decided to ratchet up their opposition a bit. By this time, Nehemiah and his people were surrounded by their enemies:
• Sanballat and the Samarians to the north
• The Ashdodites to the west
• Tobiah and the Ammonites to the east
• Geshem and the Arabs to the south
And all these enemies had joined together to plot to fight against Jerusalem with the idea of causing confusion.
And Nehemiah responded as we would expect:
And we prayed to our God and set a guard as a protection against them day and night.
(Nehemiah 4:9 ESV)
Once again you’ll notice that this is corporate prayer. But this time in addition to praying, Nehemiah takes the prudent step of also posting a guard to protect the people from their enemies. We’re going to come back to this idea again in some more detail, but for now note that Nehemiah and the people pray for God’s protection, but they also use their “sanctified common sense” and take the appropriate actions to protect themselves. So there is an appropriate balance between relying upon God and taking the necessary action.
But Nehemiah’s prayers don’t make the opposition go away. If anything the opposition had begun to have its intended effect of causing the people to get discouraged.
In Judah it was said, “The strength of those who bear the burdens is failing. There is too much rubble. By ourselves we will not be able to rebuild the wall.” And our enemies said, “They will not know or see till we come among them and kill them and stop the work.” At that time the Jews who lived near them came from all directions and said to us ten times, “You must return to us.”
(Nehemiah 4:1012 ESV)
The enemies had succeeded in getting the focus of the people off of God and the task He had given them and on to the difficulties that they faced. Here in these two verses we find three sources of discouragement that are often the very things that discourage us as well:
• Fatigue. The people had been working non-stop and their strength was beginning to fail them.
• Frustration. Not only did the people have to build the walls, they had to clear away all the rubble before they could even get to the walls to rebuild them.
• Fear. The people were afraid that their enemies would make good on their threats and try to attack or even kill them while they were working. In particular, the workers who lived closest to their enemies were afraid of what might happen to them.
But Nehemiah doesn’t panic. He puts into action the plan to set a guard to protect the people:
So in the lowest parts of the space behind the wall, in open places, I stationed the people by their clans, with their swords, their spears, and their bows. And I looked and arose and said to the nobles and to the officials and to the rest of the people, “Do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your homes.”
(Nehemiah 4:13-14 ESV)
Nehemiah put into place a very wise plan that allocated the scarce resources available to him in those places that were most vulnerable to attack. But he did something even more important. He encouraged the people by reminding them that God was with them and that they could depend upon Him as they protected their families and their homes.
With that plan in place and that encouragement, the people returned to their work:
When our enemies heard that it was known to us and that God had frustrated their plan, we all returned to the wall, each to his work. From that day on, half of my servants worked on construction, and half held the spears, shields, bows, and coats of mail. And the leaders stood behind the whole house of Judah, who were building on the wall. Those who carried burdens were loaded in such a way that each labored on the work with one hand and held his weapon with the other. And each of the builders had his sword strapped at his side while he built. The man who sounded the trumpet was beside me. And I said to the nobles and to the officials and to the rest of the people, “The work is great and widely spread, and we are separated on the wall, far from one another. In the place where you hear the sound of the trumpet, rally to us there. Our God will fight for us.” So we labored at the work, and half of them held the spears from the break of dawn until the stars came out. I also said to the people at that time, “Let every man and his servant pass the night within Jerusalem, that they may be a guard for us by night and may labor by day.” So neither I nor my brothers nor my servants nor the men of the guard who followed me, none of us took off our clothes; each kept his weapon at his right hand.
(Nehemiah 4:15-23 ESV)
The people worked even harder now that they had dealt with their discouragement. Instead of just working until sundown, they continued until the stars came out. And even after that they remained in Jerusalem all night in a state of preparedness so that they would be ready to deal with whatever their enemies might try to throw at them.
Once again we find that on the surface this chapter deals with the discouragement that came from opposition to rebuilding a wall. But as we’ve found consistently in the book of Nehemiah, the deeper issue is how God is building His people. So let’s use this chapter to help us learn…
HOW TO DEAL WITH DISCOURAGEMENT IN MY WALK WITH JESUS
If you’ve been a follower of Jesus for any time at all, you know that the journey to become a mature disciple of Jesus is not always easy. Although the mountaintop experiences are exhilarating, none of us can live there all the time. The inevitable valleys are never pleasant or easy, but if we’ll apply the principles we’ll look at this morning, God can certainly not only help us to endure the discouragement of those times, but He can actually use those valleys as important building blocks in developing a deeper relationship with Him.
Let’s look at six steps we can take in order to effectively deal with discouragement in our walk with Jesus.
1. Respond to God before I respond to the opposition
When we face opposition, our natural reaction is usually to immediately strike back at our enemies. Earlier in chapter 2, Nehemiah had responded to Sanballat and Tobiah but even then he didn’t directly address their threats, He merely reminded them that this was God’s work and that there was nothing they could do to thwart it. But it is interesting that here in chapter 4, Nehemiah never directly addresses the enemies that were making threats. Instead, the people prayed and asked God to deal with those enemies.
Sometimes we do need to take action against our enemies, but we should never do that until we have first take the matter to God in prayer.
I was reminded of this principle earlier this week, while I was working on the message. I had shared a blog posting that I thought did a very good job of exposing the dangers of the “prosperity gospel” using the Scriptures. Almost immediately, one of my Facebook friends posted that the articles was “full of misguided judgments and generalizations” and claimed that the author’s “ego has consumed him.”
My immediate inclination was to bombard him with Scriptures to prove my point and refute his ideas. And frankly, I could have done that pretty easily. But I decided it was probably better to practice what I was going to preach today, so instead, I took the matter to God. After I had prayed, I discovered that this particular person is a member of a church that belongs to a network of churches let by one of the nation’s leading proponents of the “prosperity gospel”. Once I understood that, I realized that starting a war on Facebook wasn’t really going to accomplish anything. I’m probably not going to change the other person’s mind. Only God can do that. So I prayed and asked God to do just that.
2. Remember that God is greater than my problems
This is one of those things that we know intellectually, but that we sometimes forget when we get in the midst of our discouragement. God was not caught off guard by the opposition to the building project He had called His people to undertake. But the people had to be reminded of that fact by Nehemiah.
When we face opposition one tendency is to fix our attention on ourselves. So we spend a lot of time trying to prove, justify and defend ourselves to our enemies. The other tendency is to become fixated on our opponents and attempt to bring them down a notch. But Nehemiah never does either of those things. Instead He encourages the people to keep their eyes on God because He alone is greater than whatever problems they might face.
That was a lesson Paul certainly learned as he dealt with his thorn in the flesh. Although God never removed that source of discouragement, He did make it clear to Paul that He was greater than that problem:
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
(2 Corinthians 12:9 ESV)
Once Paul got his eyes off his problem and back on God, he not only was able to move beyond his discouragement, but he was able to understand how God was using that thorn in the flesh to help him mature in his walk with Jesus.
No matter how overwhelming the trials we face may seem, God is greater than those problems.
3. Remove the rubbish
We saw that the workers were frustrated because of all the rubble that was in their way. Although it was hard work, that rubble had to be cleared away before the people could carry on with their main task of rebuilding the walls.
Often that is true in our lives. Our spiritual journey gets sidetracked or even brought to a screeching halt because of some rubbish in our lives that needs to be cleared out and removed before we can go forward. Sometimes that rubbish is pretty obvious – perhaps some sin that we are struggling with.
But other times the rubbish in our lives can be much harder to recognize. Sometimes it might be some habit or activity that is not inherently wrong but which is rubbish to us because it is holding us back from maturing in our walk with Jesus.
The writer of Hebrews points out the importance of removing anything from our lives that might be a weight that keeps us from running the race the way we need to:
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,
(Hebrews 12:1 ESV)
We are in an endurance race which is difficult enough if we aren’t weighted down with a bunch of rubbish. So why we should we make it any harder by hanging on to those things that hold us back?
4. Revise and reallocate as needed
Often when we face discouragement, our tendency is to want to bail on the entire situation. But Nehemiah and his fellow Jews avoided that temptation. Instead they chose to adopt a different approach to their task. They had to revise their plans and reallocate the limited resources they had.
Far too often, when we face opposition, we take the easy way out and just abandon what we’ve already started. While it is possible that is what God wants us to do, far more often that opposition comes from the evil one who is trying to dissuade us from doing what God has called us to do. So the solution is to make a careful evaluation of our situation and adopt a different approach.
If you’re experiencing difficulties in your marriage, the solution is not to bail on your spouse. But you both may have to change your approach. And you might need to get some help to do that effectively.
If you’re facing problems in your job, it may very well be that you don’t need to change your job. You may merely need to change your attitude and your work habits.
If you’re facing a dry time in your walk with Jesus, it doesn’t mean you should give up. But it does mean you may have to make some changes in your life so that you can spend time in His Word and in prayer and in genuine fellowship with other believers.
As some of you know, before I came to TFC I was a church planter. During the three or four years that I was involved in attempting to plant a new church in the Oro Valley area it seemed like we continually dealt with a lot of discouragement. So we decided as a body that it was time to change direction and our core group began meeting at our home on Sundays and going through the “Experiencing God” Bible study as part of our time of seeking God’s direction on how to proceed.
It was during that time that completely out of the blue Denny Howard, the pastor at TFC at the time, gave me a call and asked us to consider something that was way outside of any of our thinking. Out of that experience our fledgling church plant completely changed our approach and ended up becoming a part of TFC, where we could contribute our financial resources and our people to help strengthen this body.
5. Reinforce my weak areas
The people were particularly vulnerable to attack in the areas where the wall was lowest so Nehemiah allocated additional resources and people to reinforce those areas and protect them against attack. He also set up a plan so that even though the people were separated from each other as they worked on the wall, they could be summoned to the aid of their fellow Jews if they were attacked.
All of us have areas in our walk with Jesus where we are more vulnerable to attack. Perhaps it is an ongoing sin that we struggle with. Maybe it is a certain time of year or certain events that cause us to struggle with discouragement. For some of us it might be a particular relationship that is difficult to handle.
I think most of us probably have a pretty good idea of what the weak areas are in our lives. But it’s not enough to just identify those areas. We have to develop concrete plans to deal with those weaknesses and then put those plans into action. In most case that is going to require the help of others. We need people who can encourage us and hold us accountable when needed.
6. Refuse to quit
Even though Nehemiah and the people faced constant opposition, they never quit building. I think they understood that if they ever stopped, it would be very difficult to get started again.
It’s not enough to just begin well. We also need to finish well. Just ask the Green Bay Packers about that. Two weeks ago they held a 19-7 lead with less than five minutes to play in the NFC Championship game. But because they didn’t finish well, it is the Seattle Seahawks who will be playing in the Super Bowl today.
The apostle Paul certainly understood this principle:
Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
(Philippians 3:12-14 ESV)
It is natural to face discouragement in our walk with Jesus. Often we can’t control the outside forces that lead to that discouragement. But we can control how we respond in those times when we are discouraged. Because they did that well, Nehemiah and his fellow Jews accomplished that which seemed impossible and completed the building of the walls in only 52 days in spite of that opposition.
And if we’ll apply the principles that Nehemiah and his fellow Jews demonstrated here in Nehemiah 4, we can experience that same kind of success in our own lives. Not only can we survive the times of discouragement in our lives, we can actually thrive during those times as we allow God to use those times to deepen our relationship with Him.
