“REBUILDING THE WALLS”
What do we do when facing troubles (Part 1)
Nehemiah 1:1-4
Pastor Jeff Seaman
Illus: Once, a man was taking a stagecoach across the country. When he went to buy his ticket, he was informed that first class seats were $50. Second class seats were $30. Third class seats were $20. The man looked in the stagecoach and all the seats looked the same to him, so he bought a third class seat. The man congratulated himself on saving money.
Well, after a while, the stagecoach started up a mountain road. After about 30 minutes, the bus came to a steep hill. The stagecoach stopped and the conductor stood up and said: "First class passengers, please remain seated. Second class passengers, get out and walk. Third class passengers, get out and push!"
The church around the world today has too many FIRST CLASS PASSENGERS —
People who just sit back and let others do the work.
And the church has too many SECOND CLASS PASSENGERS —
People who just walk away when there’s work to be done.
What the church needs is more THIRD CLASS PASSENGERS —
People who’ll get out and push!
People who will help with the work of the church.
People who will sacrifice some personal comfort and pleasure for the sake of the work of God.
Today we’re beginning a new series of Sermons from the book of Nehemiah.
And as we look at this Old Testament book, the theme for our series is going to be all about “Rebuilding The Walls”
The first thing we need to do in our new series is look at some historical background:
Way back, about 1,000 years before Jesus was born, David became king of Israel.
After David, his son, Solomon was king, but after Solomon, the kingdom was split in half: the southern half became known as Judah and the northern half was still called Israel. Well both these kingdoms had bad king after bad king. Both kingdoms were worshipping other gods and living immoral lives. But the northern kingdom was a little bit worse than the southern kingdom, so God punished them first.
God allowed the Assyrians to conquer the northern kingdom, but not the southern kingdom. But even after the northern kingdom was disciplined by God, the southern kingdom still didn’t learn their lesson, so God allowed them to be conquered as well — about 130 years later. But by that time, the Assyrians had been conquered by the Babylonians. So it was King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon who carried the southern kingdom away into exile.
Well, 47 years later, the Babylonian Empire was conquered by the Persian Empire under King Cyrus. So the Jews, who had been the slaves of the Babylonians, now became the slaves of the Persians.
So the events of Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther took place during the same period in Jewish history.
Actually, in the Hebrew Bible, Ezra and Nehemiah are the same book
because they’re basically telling the same story:
Ezra tells the beginning, Nehemiah tells the end, and the story of Esther takes place in between.
So, just so we’re clear, the Jews were carried away into captivity by the Babylonians,
but were allowed to return by the Persians.
Have I totally confused you? I hope not, but in any case, let’s take a look at our scripture for today — Nehemiah 1:2-4
Hanani,(Han-a-n-e) 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. 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." When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.
First, let’s look at Nehemiah’s response to the news that people and the city of God, were in trouble:
1. He sat down and wept. (This shows us his heart for God work)
Let me ask you this:
Do the things that break God’s heart break your heart?
When Nehemiah heard that the people of God were in distress, it broke his heart.
When he heard that the city of God was in trouble, he sat down and wept.
Do the things that break God’s heart break your heart?
"Well, (you might say) I don’t know. What kind of things breaks God’s heart?
I did some studying in the Bible last week to find the answer.
And as I looked in the Bible, several things stood out to me;
I found that God’s heartbreaks when his people are in trouble.
I found that God’s heartbreaks when his people disobey him.
I found that God’s heartbreaks when he has to discipline someone.
But one thing really stood out to me in my studying:
God’s heart breaks when his dwelling place is not honored as it should be.
2 Chronicles 36:14-15 — Furthermore, all the leaders of the priests and the people became more and more unfaithful, following all the detestable practices of the nations and defiling the temple of the Lord, which he had consecrated in Jerusalem. The Lord, the God of their fathers, sent word to them through his messengers again and again, because he had pity on his people and on his dwelling place.
Now, we know that the Church is not a building. We are the Church. The Church is the People of God, not a building. But what we see in the Bible is that God has a special place in his heart for the place where his people meet together.
When God became a man (Jesus), he went into the Temple courts and saw that the people had turned it into a marketplace, And do you remember what he did? He drove them away! because God has a special place in his heart for the actual building where his people meet together.
Nehemiah 10:39 — "We will not neglect the house of our God."
We all live in houses and we take care of them: we paint them and decorate them and plant flowers around them, but what about the place where we meet as God’s people?
We need to have the attitude of David:
1 Chronicles 17:1 — After David was settled in his palace, he said to Nathan the prophet, "Here I am, living in a palace of cedar, while the ark of the covenant of the LORD is under a tent."
King David wanted to be the one to build a house for the Lord —
A place where God’s people would meet together and worship God together.
And what he’s saying in this verse is,
"Here I am living in my own house, but the house of the Lord is a tent — it’s temporary."
Today, we might say the same thing:
"Here we are, each of us in our own house, but we have nowhere permanent to meet together as the Church."
We’re just renting this building, and, there’s no other place for us to meet.
Every one of us needs to be personally committed to the work of the Church
ILL. ROBERT MORRISON — 1st missionary to China/ on boat going/
cynical captain: "so, you think you are going to make an impression upon China?"
Morrison: "No, but I believe God will."
The Principle that stands out in our scripture today is that work of God begins with you.
Today there are around 40 million Christians in China. But it all had to start somewhere.
It all started with one man who said,
"Lord, I’m going to get your work done no matter what it costs me to do it."
Too often we wait for someone else to do the work when God is waiting for you to be the one.
The Sunday school needs a teacher
and we think, "someone else will do it."
But look at Nehemiah...
He didn’t say, "Hey! There’s a problem, who’s going to solve it?"
He said, "Hey! There’s a problem, I need to do something about it."
And in the work here: God wants you to be personally committed and personally involved in the work. And so we shouldn’t think, "someone else will do it..." we should be thinking, "What can I do?" "How much can I do?" "How much can I give?"
1 Corinthians 4:7 — For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? Everything you have;every talent, every possession, and he gave you these things so that you will use them in the work of his church.
James 4:3 — When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
God doesn’t give us talents so that we’ll just use them for our own pleasure.
God doesn’t give us money and possessions so that we will spend it on ourselves.
God gives us everything we have so that we will use it in the work of his Kingdom.
Every one of us needs to be personally committed to the work of this congregation.
If you have a refrigerator that’s only running at 50% efficiency, what would you do? (FIX IT!)
If you have a car that only works 40% of the time, what would you do? (FIX IT!)
If you have a business and only 30% of your employees are working, what would you do? (I don’t know, but you’d do something!)
And in the same way,
if only 50% of the members of this congregation are doing the work of God here, then there’s something wrong.
Every one of us needs to be personally committed to the work of this congregation.
And if we can learn one lesson from Nehemiah,
it’s that doing the work of God requires some personal sacrifice.
If we are faithfully doing God’s work, we should expect to make some personal sacrifices.
— Sacrifices of time.
— Sacrifices of money.
— Sacrifices of comfort.
We’re going to see in chapter 2 that Nehemiah actually goes to Jerusalem to get the work of God done.
He could have sent someone else.
He could have put someone else in charge,
but he didn’t — he took personal responsibility for getting the work done.
And he didn’t just sit around and wait for someone else to do it.
Anyway, when Nehemiah went from the Persian capital of Susa to Jerusalem, it was a 1,600 kilometer trip that took 51 days.
51 days on a camel!
51 days on a dusty, dirt road!
Nehemiah lived in the Royal Palace in comfort.
but when the work of the Lord needed to get done,
He sacrificed his own personal comfort
He sacrificed his own needs for the sake of the work of God.
Jesus also gave everything to do the work of his Father.
All twelve of the Apostles gave their lives for the work of the Church.
ILL. Earlier this century, there was a Chinese Christian named Lo Fook.
He heard that there were thousands of Chinese slaves working in the mines of South Africa.
So he sold himself as a slave to a South African mine for a period of 5 years.
When he arrived in South Africa, he was put to work as a slave,
but while he worked, he preached the Gospel.
Lo Fook died before his 5 years were completed,
but not before more than 200 of his fellow slaves had been saved through his teaching.
And the question that each of us must ask ourselves is:
How much am I willing to sacrifice for the work of the Lord?
Am I personally involved in the Lord’s work?
Do the things that break God’s heart break my heart?
Or am I too caught up in my own desires and my own work that I’m ignoring the work of God?
2. Nehemiah prayed. When you have a heart for the things of God, and you see them in trouble, it should make yon go to your knees.
When Nehemiah prayed he focused on two things:
1. He prayed that God would forgive them of sins that they have committed against
him. (V.s 6)
2. He prayed that God would give them success, by granting him favor in the presence of men. (V.s 11)
A few weeks ago we spoke on the prayer of Jabez, and how God answered him prayers. Today I am calling on the church to pray for this church, like Jabez prayed. He prayed that God would bless him, than he prayed that God would enlarge his territories, and that God’s hand would be on him, and to led him not into temptations.
Church we need third class passengers today, not first and second anymore, Gods work is to important to just sit by.
James 5:13-16
13Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. 14Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. 16Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
2 Cor 10:3-4
3For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 4The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.
3. He Fasted
How is fasting used as a spiritual discipline?
1. Fasting can be part of repentance. II Chron. 20:3 “Jehoshaphat was badly shaken by this news and determined to beg for help from the Lord; so he announced that all the people of Judah should go without food for a time, in penitence and intercession before God. (TLB)
When the nation was faced with disaster, Jehoshaphat called upon the people to get serious with God by going without food (fasting) for a designated time. By separating themselves from the daily routine of food, they could devote that extra time to considering their sin and praying for God for help. Fasting still can be helpful today as we seek God’s will in special situations.
2. Fasting can be part of prayer. Ezra 8:21 “Then I declared a fast while we were at the Ahava River so that we would humble ourselves before our God; and we prayed that he would give us a good journey and protect us, our children, and our goods as we traveled.”
