Responding Courageously To A Challenge

Title: “Responding Courageously to a Challenge” Type: Expos. – Series – PartII

Script. Neh. 1 Where: GNBC 9-17-06/ rw 1-4-15

Intro: One summer morning as Ray Blankenship was preparing his breakfast, he gazed out the window, and saw a small girl being swept along in the rain-flooded drainage ditch beside his Andover, Ohio, home. Blankenship knew that farther downstream, the ditch disappeared with a roar underneath a road and then emptied into the main culvert. Ray dashed out the door and raced along the ditch, trying to get ahead of the floundering child. Then he hurled himself into the deep, churning water. Blankenship surfaced and was able to grab the child’s arm. They tumbled end over end. Within about three feet of the yawning culvert, Ray’s free hand felt something—possibly a rock—protruding from one bank. He clung desperately, but the tremendous force of the water tried to tear him and the child away. “If I can just hang on until help comes,” he thought. He did better than that. By the time fire-department rescuers arrived, Blankenship had pulled the girl to safety. Both were treated for shock. On April 12, 1989, Ray Blankenship was awarded the Coast Guard’s Silver Lifesaving Medal. The award is fitting, for this selfless person was at even greater risk to himself than most people knew. Ray Blankenship can’t swim. (Paul Harvey, Los Angeles Times Syndicate)

Int: Just as Ray Blankenship responded courageously to this challenge, so must each of us in life so as to live victoriously for Christ.

Prop: Exam. Neh. 1 we’ll notice 3 ways we are to respond to a challenge in our lives.

BG: 1. Just as an attempt to get us to understand time frame, its been about 150 yrs. since Daniel and Hebrew children taken into captivity. Nehemiah, leading figure of the book. Nehemiah was cup bearer to Artaxerxes the Persian king.

2. In 538 bc Zerubbabel returns and begins rebuilding temple. In 458 bc Ezra returns. Now about 445 bc and Nehemiah will leave Susa, the capitol of the Persian Empire to return to Jerusalem.

3. today we see how the news of Jerusalem’s condition made to Nehemiah and his response.

Prop: Today we will see three ways we are to respond to a challenge.

I. Responding Courageously to a Challenge requires Passion. Vv. 1-4

A. Chapter 1 begins w/ Nehemiah being Faced with a Challenge.

(Two days ago in first drive TN scored on Hawks. Looked like sapped of all passion at that moment beaten.)

1. Alright, let’s see the Problem Nehemiah Faced: “A City w/no walls.”

a. In ancient times a city w/o walls and gates was a target with a giant bullseye painted on its back. Every bully nation and marauding band knew they were a soft target. Not only would this have a massive economic impact, it also disrupted worship. When you live in a place w/no walls everything gets in and nothing stays out. Here at the start of 2015 maybe we need to be thinking about the condition of the “walls” in our own lives and families.

b. v.3 – Hannani, Nehemiah’s brother lays in on the line and doesn’t sugar coat it: “The remnant there in the province who survived the captivity are in great distress and reproach…” Sometimes life just stinks doesn’t it? Sometimes no use to attempt to “sugar coat it”. Hanani comes to his brother and says: “Things in the old country are horrendous!” Someone needs to do something! During the Great Irish famine of the 1840’s the first individual to raise funds abroad for the aid of the starving was Gen. Hugh Gough, a Waterford native stationed in Calcutta. It was the nation of of India, before any others, including America and Canada, who first raised funds for the starving poor.

2. Courage is Required to Respond to the Truth.

a. Nehemiah sees the need. But we don’t know at first how he is going to react to such news. He lives hundreds of miles away. To do anything about this situation would result in a personal cost. At the very least a response to this distressing news would upset his comfortable life. Yet, in Nehemiah we see a man who realizes that sometimes it takes a bit of courage to respond to the truth.

b. I think that even as Christians we often do things in a worldly way. We make our plans, celebrating our cleverness and then ask God to bless them. The reality though is that we are standing in the midst of crumbling walls. Maybe we fail for a lack of courage because the task seems so daunting. Illust: “During World War I, a British commander was preparing to lead his soldiers back to battle. They’d been on furlough, and it was a cold, rainy, muddy day. Their shoulders sagged because they knew what lay ahead of them: mud, blood, possible death. Nobody talked, nobody sang. It was a heavy time. “As they marched along, the commander looked into a bombed-out church. Back in the church he saw the figure of Christ on the cross. At that moment, something happened to the commander. He remembered the One who suffered, died, and rose again. There was victory, and there was triumph. “As the troops marched along, he shouted out, ‘Eyes right, march!’ Every eye turned to the right, and as the soldiers marched by, they saw Christ on the cross. Something happened to that company of men. Suddenly they saw triumph after suffering, and they took courage. With shoulders straightened, they began to smile as they went. You see, anything worthwhile in life will be a risk that demands courage.”[--Gordon Johnson, “Finding Significance in Obscurity,” Preaching Today, Tape 82.]