Restored Within Series

Restored Within

Series: When It’s Time to Move FORWARD

Brad Bailey, May 30, 2021

Intro

An added welcome to each of you gathering today... as well as those who may be engaging at a future time.

Welcome as we continue our focus on how to rebuild our lives...and families...and our communal calling as a church... in this time and place. We are allowing God to speak to us through the Biblical Book of Nehemiah. This book is a testimony of how a people rebuilt their lives after everything seemed lost.

As you may recall... long ago God called out a man named Abraham to leave everything and go to a place God would lead him...and that through his descendants... God would create a great nation...through whom he would make Himself known and bless the whole world. That is what formed the Jewish people and the nation of Israel. And so as we come to this point centuries later... when they had turned away from God... and were conquered... and their city was destroyed and they were sent into exile... they were profoundly a lost people. As exiles... they lost their identity...they had no place to call home in this world.

Nehemiah leads them in rebuilding... rebuilding their city... and rebuilding their identity.

A couple weeks ago we allowed chapter 3 to speak of how they divided every section of the wall...and every gate...and assigned part to a group. We saw the power when everybody played a part.)

Then last week in chapter 4 we saw how the opposition arose against them. This arises again in chapter 6 with some final attempts by that opposition to try and trick Nehemiah... to draw him away...which leads to these words in the sixth chapter.

Nehemiah 6:15-16

So the wall was completed on the twenty-fifth of Elul, in fifty-two days. 16 When all our enemies heard about this, all the surrounding nations were afraid and lost their self-confidence, because they realized that this work had been done with the help of our God.

“So the wall was completed...” This was no small statement. These walls of Jerusalem were vast and high walls and gates were enormous. It was a goal that was hard to imagine and easy to laugh at. And after months of ridicule and taunting... all those who had been in opposition... trying to deflate the people... to intimidate the people...now recognize that this wall was rebuilt with the help of God... and it SILENCES them. It’s a powerful testimony. [1a]

The city of Jerusalem...that had been in ruins and rubble for decades... had been restored.

And this would seem like the natural point for Nehemiah to end this account. To say, "It’s done!..Nehemiah...signing off...” But it’s not the end. Why? Because...

Restoration involves outer and inner change.

It doesn’t help to just restore the outward structure if there isn’t any change to what’s inside. The city was restored...but the people weren’t.

And it’s true for all our lives. We can all enjoy getting some new clothes...to help us feel different... and while they may help us enjoy a new look....we’re still the same person inside them.

Or if our body suffers an injury...it’s vital to restore the outer wound... but there is also a need restore any inner infection.

Well, Nehemiah knew they if you want to restore your life... your family...your mission... it will involve restoring the structure that supports that life...and the inner health that maintains that life. He knew that in the past Jerusalem had a wall... it’s original wall....and yet the people had failed at the life within those walls.

So he knew that a new wall, like a set of new clothes, would not be the answer for the Israelites for the long term. It may help in the short term for them to see that things can be different, but something else needed to be going on as well. They needed some internal reconstruction.

And that is now what they embrace. Let’s see what God has for us as we engage their restoration in chapter 8.... starting with the first three verses.

Nehemiah 8:1-3

All the people assembled as one man in the square before the Water Gate. They told Ezra the scribe to bring out the Book of the Law of Moses, which the LORD had commanded for Israel. 2 So on the first day of the seventh month Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly, which was made up of men and women and all who were able to understand. 3 He read it aloud from daybreak till noon as he faced the square before the Water Gate in the presence of the men, women and others who could understand. And all the people listened attentively to the Book of the Law.