One Holy Passion
Nehemiah 1
February 11, 2001
¡§The Trouble with Rubble¡¨
A Timeline to Understand Nehemiah
(B.C.)
722 Assyria conquers the Northern Kingdom (Israel)
606 Babylon carries off first captives from Southern Kingdom (Judah)
598 Daniel and companions carried to Babylon
586 Jerusalem falls; temple is plundered
538 Persia, under Cyrus, conquers Babylon
537 1st Jews return to Jerusalem from Babylon
516 Temple is restored
479 Esther becomes queen of Persia
458 Ezra leads 2nd expedition to Jerusalem from Babylon
445 Nehemiah rebuilds the walls of Jerusalem
Nehemiah, the man
¡§The book thrills and throbs and pulsates with the tremendous force of this man¡¦s will.¡¨ G. Campbell Morgan
„h A man of responsibility
„h A man of vision
„h A man of prayer
„h A man of action and of cooperation
„h A man of compassion
„h A man who triumphed over opposition
„h A man with the right motivation
¡§In every generation,¡¨ wrote Ray Brown, God equips trusted servants for effective leadership.¡¨ Was there ever a need for Nehemiah in his generation!
Things had been pretty good in Israel under Saul, David, and Solomon, the first three kings God had given to the nation. Following the death of Solomon, however, a bloody civil war ensued which resulted in the division of the nation into two separate kingdoms: Israel, or the Northern Kingdom, and Judah, the Southern Kingdom. Israel quickly turned to the worship of other gods and so, as God had promised, they were conquered by an outside force, Assyria, in 722 B.C. The goal of the Assyrians was to destroy any sense of identity on the part of conquered peoples, and so they would take captives and disperse them throughout their empire, all the while moving captives from other nations into newly conquered space.
Judah was able to hold out longer, but a little over a hundred years later, they began to be invaded by the Babylonians, who made three forays into the land beginning in 606 B.C., with the final one in 586 B.C. when they plundered the temple and took all but the poorest of Jerusalem into captivity. About five decades later, Cyrus led Persia to conquer Babylon. Cyrus had a different philosophy from the Assyrians who had conquered Israel; instead of hauling captives away in order to assimilate them into a new societal structure, his idea was to allow them to stay at home, and worship their own gods. He even sent some captives back to their homelands, his reasoning being that these peoples would be more favorably disposed toward his government if he allowed them a reasonable amount of freedom. The first group of captives set off for Jerusalem the following year in 537 B.C. under Zerubbabel. Some eighty years later, Ezra the priest led another contingent of people back to Jerusalem, followed thirteen years later by Nehemiah in 445 B.C.
Ezra and Nehemiah are joined as one book in the Hebrew Bible, which makes sense since they are really two parts of the same story in most respects, and here is the theme: God remembers and restores! He had promised just this through his prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and Ezra/Nehemiah form the two-part story of Him making good on His promises.
Nehemiah came to Jerusalem, as we shall see, as a civil governor (as opposed to Ezra, who came as a priest); Nehemiah had the authority of King Artaxerxes I of Persia to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, but his story is one which involves building on two levels: the literal building of the walls and the spiritual building of the people. As J.I. Packer put it, ¡§Nehemiah, through God, built walls; God, through Nehemiah, built people!¡¨
As we study this great OT book, we will find many touch points, but I mention two major ones today:
„h There are significant parallels in the book of Nehemiah between the job he did building walls and the job God calls us to do of building the church. As I pointed out two weeks ago, the church is the one thing Christ promised to build, and He uses us to do that building. Ironically, at the same time, we are that building! We can learn much from a wall-builder about church-building!
„h There is also much to be learned from Nehemiah on an individual level. God is in the life-restoring business! Jesus is our Redeemer, and our Restorer! If your life is a mess (and to one degree or another, at one point or another and in at least in some senses at all points!) our lives all are in that boat, God wants to do a rebuilding project in us!
Let¡¦s look at this fascinating book! Notice first
i. The Report to Nehemiah ¡V vv. 1-3
Let me translate verse 1 for you: Chislev is likely December, of the 20th year of the reign of Artaxerxes, and Susa was the winter capital of Persia. Nehemiah had been born in Persia and lived there all his life, but while Susa was the capital of Persia, Jerusalem was the capital of Nehemiah¡¦s heart. We can understand this: even today, there are people who live in this country, even having been born here, whose hearts long for their ethnic homeland, whether or not they¡¦ve ever been. Without the benefit of CNN, the only way he could learn of his homeland was through word that came from fellow Israelites who were in the know. Verse 2 records that his love for his homeland and his people caused him to care enough to inquire about their well being. One question shaped a destiny; God was working in the heart of Nehemiah to cause him to ask, and he was open to the leading of God when the answer came.
Hanani, his brother, is able to give a sad report:
A. The Remnant
These folks, this little portion of God¡¦s people who would be the future of the nation, were in great distress. In the Hebrew that word connotes ¡§misery¡¨ and ¡§calamity¡¨. It was a terrible situation for these folks.
B. The Ruins
The place was a heap of rubble; all around the people lay the evidence of war. The Babylonians had raped and pillaged the landscape, and there it lay. Without walls, the city was open and vulnerable to attack; a main mechanism of defense was rendered useless.
C. The Reproach
Perhaps this was the worst of it; there was great disgrace because of the situation they were in. Imagine what the neighbors must have thought! ¡§Those Jerusalemites, they claim to know the living God, yet they live in that broken-down rat trap of a town! If their God is so powerful, as some of them want to claim, then can¡¦t He do something about the slums they live in? And if they cared for His glory, they wouldn¡¦t stand for the situation to go on as it is!¡¨
And this broken-down Jerusalem might be an apt metaphor for the lives of some of God¡¦s people! You look at your life and you see places where there are breaches in the wall. You¡¦ve become vulnerable, effectively defenseless, to the attacks of Satan. You¡¦ve fallen victim to sinful habits that have you in their relentless grip to the point where you wonder if you¡¦ll ever find freedom. A root of bitterness or anger has sprung up in your life, and you just can¡¦t seem to shake it. There is shame, or there is the feeling of betrayal, or there is any of a number of things that bring you reproach in the secret place of your heart. Maybe no one else is even aware of the ruin, but you know it¡¦s there.
What¡¦s more, there are some Christians who seem to want to give up, who feel that there is no way out, no victory, and that throwing in the towel is the only viable option. They¡¦ve become accustomed to the ashes; happy living amid the heaps; resplendent in the rubble. They¡¦ll just make the best of the status quo (Latin for ¡§the mess we¡¦re in). The people of Jerusalem had lived in the rubble for over seventy years, and there is record of only one instance in which they attempted to do anything about it!
But just as it was not God¡¦s will for the people of Jerusalem to live in the reproach of the rubble, so it is not His will for you either! Perhaps today is the day, by the grace of God, when you ask God to give you the wisdom and power to rebuild your broken walls!
ii. The Response of Nehemiah vv. 4-11
Remember, here is a man who had been born and raised in Persia and, as we¡¦ll see more next week, had ascended the ladder to a position of influence and closeness to the ruler of the nation. He could have lived in ease and not lifted a finger to do a thing about the situation¡Xand he might well have even had good company! And yet the first thing we notice about his response is that it is
A. Passionate v. 4
Look at what the Word says: ¡§he sat down¡¨. This was a custom of mourning to the Jews; they would sit on low stools as a sign of abasement and dejection, of being brought low by some circumstance.
He ¡§wept and fasted and prayed¡¨. Here was a seriousness, a solemnity, a deep concern; here was a man, despite having the personality of an activist, knew he must call out to the One who could truly and ultimately do something about the situation: God!
Warren Wiersbe said, ¡§What makes people laugh or weep is often an indication of character.¡¨ What caused him to weep? The Bible says he prayed beginning in the month Chislev, and then in 2:1 we see that his prayer was answered in the month Nisan. This was at least three months later. What gave rise to such persistence in prayer and fasting and weeping?
I believe that Nehemiah was passionate about people whom he had never seen. Why should we care about the Uzbek people? Why should we pray for them? Most Americans and even most Christians will live a lifetime and never have any idea that Uzbekistan is a place on the map with 17 million people there, only 1000 of which or so are believers. Nehemiah could have been comfortable, but when he learned of the distress of these people, he got passionate about the need.
But more importantly, Nehemiah was passionate about God. This was his ¡§one holy passion¡¨: the glory of God! Here is the root issue: Nehemiah was passionate for the glory of God. It consumed him. All through the book this comes through time and time again.
Someone has said, ¡§There are many things in life that will catch your eye, but only a few will catch your heart. Pursue them.¡¨ Nehemiah was engaged in the passionate pursuit of the glory of God. Let me ask you today, what are you passionate about? For far too many of us as believers, we acknowledge God, but our passions are for the things of this world!
B. Prayerful ¡V vv. 5-11
Effectively the rest of this chapter is the record of his prayer. We learn a lot about this man and how he thinks of God from this prayer. We know his theology. Now, that¡¦s a word that is a borderline dirty word for some people. ¡§We don¡¦t need theology; we just need Jesus!¡¨ is the sentiment. Well, that might sound good to you, but please don¡¦t buy it! In a nutshell, our theology is simply what we think about God, and defined that way, theology is way important! And something else is true as well: we are all theologians! If we think about God other than He has revealed Himself to be, we become idolaters! Nehemiah believes objective truth about God; in our day, with such an emphasis upon the subjective, there is a word here for us. Today, in the minds of many, ¡§how I feel about God¡¨ has become more important than Who God has said He is! David Wells, in his book God in the Wasteland, comments that ¡§the church¡¦s identity vanishes when transcendence melts into immanence and where theocentric faith (faith centered on God and objective revelation) becomes anthropocentric faith (faith centered on therapeutic interest in the self).¡¨
What do we then see of his theology in his prayer? Nehemiah believes God to be
„h Sovereign
„h Majestic
„h Holy ¡V The light of His holiness exposes our sinfulness.
„h Loving
„h Attentive
„h Merciful
„h Awesome ¡V One to be feared and reverenced.
„h Faithful ¡V God had promised to return His people to the land when they obeyed Him, and since that is just what Nehemiah intended, He knew God would keep His Word!
C. Penitent vv. 6b-ff
A sense of the awesomeness of God reveals the depth of our sinfulness. Instead of blaming others (even though more blame lay with others than it ever could have with Nehemiah), he identifies with his people and names himself as one of the guilty. Packer said, ¡§Godliness is founded upon repentance right from the start.¡¨ Repentance involves an about-face that gets beyond mere sorrow or good intentions; impenitent believers will be out of earshot when God calls them to serve Him!
Hey, if there is ruin and rubble in your life, face it! And face it with an honest admission of any role you played in the ruin! Nehemiah said, ¡§we have acted corruptly!¡¨ There was a failure to obey God, and Nehemiah faced it head-on.
But then he calls God to remember His own Word and His own promises. God had promised cursing to those who disobeyed, but blessing to those who kept His Law and sought His face. Nehemiah prayed in accord with Scripture¡Xthe clear implication of which is that he knew Scripture well enough to have a thorough grasp on it. And He called God to keep His end of the bargain, which was not presumptuous at all, because he knew God to be a covenant-keeping God! Uncertain of the future, Nehemiah remembers the past, and then takes prepares the final step of his response.
D. Participatory v. 11b
I don¡¦t believe that Nehemiah sat down and thought things through on the level of ¡§well, will I or won¡¦t I? Should I get involved in this, or should I leave it to someone better qualified?¡¨ I don¡¦t believe that Nehemiah viewed himself as having much choice in the matter; I think that he understood that the choice had already been made for Him by God! And you know, don¡¦t you, that you are called by God--already! He has called us to believe in Him; He calls us to live holy before Him; He calls us each to serve Him. As a man of God, Nehemiah knew he had to be a man of action.
The question is not, ¡§shall I pray or shall I do?¡¨ For Nehemiah, that was a false dichotomy. He is encouraged by God¡¦s former mercies; he is now emboldened by God¡¦s present grace. And he knows that others are joining him and will join him in the work, thus he prays in the plural.
In his book Halftime, Bob Buford speaks of how God used an atheist to change his life. We shouldn¡¦t presume that God couldn¡¦t do such a thing! He tells of meeting with a strategic planning consultant named Mike who, having taken a look at Bob the Christian¡¦s life and finding it to be a jumble of good intentions, conflicting ambitions, unfulfilled dreams, and undertakings devoid of organizing purpose, asked Bob one question: ¡§What¡¦s in the box?¡¨
Bob asked Mike to explain, and Mike related the story of how he had worked with the folks at Coca-Cola regarding their plan to launch ¡§New Coke¡¨. They had told Mike that the driving force, the mainspring of their business, was ¡§great taste.¡¨ They had done blind taste tests and found that people preferred the taste of New Coke to standard Coca-Cola. Shortly thereafter, they introduced New Coke to the world and you know the story: they launched one of the biggest marketing debacles of all time!
Soon they called Mike back, at which time he suggested that they had chosen the wrong thing to put in the box when they said ¡§great taste¡¨. After several hours, they decided that they had to put something else in the box: ¡§American tradition¡¨. Pulling traditional Coke off the shelves was akin to criticizing motherhood and apple pie!
Bob said he had to get to the place where he realized that he had to decide what was in the box, and his answer was ¡§Jesus Christ¡¨. Mike said, ¡§I¡¦ll help you with the strategic organization of your life, but first you¡¦ve got to tell me what¡¦s in the box.¡¨
For Nehemiah, the answer is clear: God was ¡§in the box!¡¨ The living of his life centered around that about which he was most passionate, that which was in the box: the glory of God. Hey, what¡¦s in the box for you?
Bringing it Home:
„h What are you passionate about? Is God ¡§in the box¡¨ in your life?
„h What are the areas in your life which need the restoring work of God? Have you recognized the ¡§trouble with the rubble¡¨ in your own life?
„h Is your tendency to rush into the project or to rush into the prayer room?
„h Is your God big enough to handle the problems you are facing? In other words, does your faith need to be built?
„h As applied to the building of this church, and recognizing that passivity is not an option for the obedient, what role(s) are you willing to play?
