Themes of the Bible: Vision (Nehemiah 1)

 

Themes of the Bible: Vision (Nehemiah 1)

If you have your Bibles, make sure you're flipped open to Nehemiah. I know we went backwards here, but as I mentioned a few weeks ago, we’re taking this study chronologically, and all the books of the Bible are not arranged that way. And, after six months together in this study, next week we make the jump into the New Testament. We're going to be in John chapter 1, for anyone who’s doing the homework and prereading. I'm glad we fit Nehemiah into this study. I originally wasn’t going to, but I’m glad we did, and you're going to see why in just a second.

Just a few weeks ago, Amos dropped a bomb on us. If you were here that week that we were in Amos 5, you know that he dropped a bomb. I felt the conviction personally, but I also spoke to people after giving this sermon at one of the churches were convicted by this call to do justice as a Christian. And that what that does is it exposes us in the sense of, we know that we could be doing more and we feel burdened like we should be doing more. This is especially true when you hear that rebuke God gives through Amos about being focused on your stone mansions and your lush vineyards and we realize how prosperous we are and how much we enjoy our vacations and all the things that we spend money on. And then you hear this call to do justice and you think, ‘well maybe I shouldn't be enjoying life as much as I am. Maybe all that money should be going to something else.’ It makes us uncomfortable, and that's why I had us read Nehemiah chapter 1. There is logic to all of this, the way that scripture fulfills other scripture and the way God has preserved these passages for us today. Why in the world should we read in 2021 about Nehemiah rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem? What does that have anything to do with our lives today? If you asked that question to yourself while reading this chapter this week, we're going to get into it and hopefully show why it’s important to us today.

Let me set the stage and give you the background. Who is Nehemiah? And where is Nehemiah? Nehemiah is one of the last figures to speak in the Old Testament. Now it's weird because I know he comes before the book of Psalms and all this other stuff that we've read, but you got Malachi and Nehemiah who are two of the last voices, and when they're done speaking you're going to have 400 years of silence from God, before Jesus enters the picture, which is what we're going to look at next week. So, 400 years of silence and then Jesus is going to show up on the scene. That's Nehemiah as one of the very last voices in Scripture before this intertestamental period. He is an official in the palace of the Persian king. That's his job. That's his role. Now this is about 140 years after Nebuchadnezzar has destroyed Judah. By this time, Ezra has already led the Jews in rebuilding their temple in Jerusalem, but the city walls of Jerusalem were still in ruins. Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed them, and nobody has fixed them. And so, the people, the Jewish people, the remnant that is still left there is under threat in Jerusalem. It's a very dangerous time and Nehemiah who is not anywhere near Jerusalem, he speaks to his brother, who is from that area, he and some other folks who were in that city and those are the first verses of Nehemiah 1. This is what it says, [Read Nehemiah 1:1-3].

Okay, so his brother gives this negative report about what's going on back there and that graphic depiction of what is happening to his people, God's people, and it moves Nehemiah emotionally and how do you know that? Well, the rest of the chapter, if you read it, the entire chapter is him begging God to do something about this situation, about the injustice that is being done to his people in his city? I want you to notice something. You remember when we were in the book of Daniel, and I said whenever Daniel in every situation, Daniel thought about two things. Thing one, he thought that what God thinks matters most, so in every situation, we should be consulting the Word of God to see what he thinks about the situation. But thing two, and this is the one that applies here, before we worry about anybody else, and trying to get other men to act in certain ways, or trying to get my family to do something, the way God acts is most important. What God does is more important than anything that man does. So, the first thing I'm going to do in this situation is ask God to move in that situation, then I'll worry about everybody else. That's exactly what Nehemiah does. When he's burdened by this report, the first thing that he does isn't to set up some organizational plan for how he's going to solve this problem. It isn't to get together other people that might feel the same way. The first thing he does is talk to God. He asked for God to move in that situation. And God is going to move in that situation. God is going to do something about the situation in Jerusalem, and he's going to do it through Nehemiah.

Okay, that's why we read this, because I want those of us who are desiring, when we hear the calling of Amos to the people, we want to do justice, those of us who are wanting God to use us. I believe that is exactly why God has preserved the account of Nehemiah, because this is demonstrating to us how that works in our lives. Nehemiah is going to be used for a specific task to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. But notice where God starts with him. You want to know how you know when you're being called by God to do something. A lot of us think, I wish that God would speak to me like He did with Abraham, “Dean, go to California Valley and preach the gospel.” That would be a pretty obvious thing to do, and I might object to it, but I'm going to go because God has specifically told me what to do. But look at verse 4 of Nehemiah 1. [Read Nehemiah 1:4]. See here, God burdens His servants emotionally. It seems weird to me that a guy is going to cry for months about the wall. That seems very bizarre to me. But for Nehemiah, he was moved by this whole situation emotionally. He knew about the city, he knew about the walls, but he was overwhelmed by this account, by the details and he couldn't get it out of his mind. He's living in the palace, but he can't stop thinking about this situation. This is not some emotional impulse where he watches a commercial and he sees the starving kids in China or Africa and he says, ‘That is terrible. That is awful. I feel so bad. So where are we going to eat tonight?’ That's not what's happening here. This is something that he can't get past.

Now, how do I know that? Verse one in the month of Kislev, in the 20th year of the king. Okay, but what does that even mean ‘in the month of Kislev?’ You can’t see how it's important until you get to chapter two. All of chapter one is Nehemiah asking God to move. And then in chapter two is when Nehemiah goes to the king to ask, ‘may I go back and do this in Jerusalem?’ And chapter two starts off this way, ‘In the month of Nisan, in the 20th year.’ Same year, different month. Why does this matter? Well, the difference between Kislav and Nisan is four months. It's the difference between January 1st and May 1^st. That is the time period, how long Jeremiah spends in prayer before God, asking Him to move, he waits on God and he prays for four months about this situation. And when the burden weighs on him and he is consumed by it, that's when he goes and he approaches the king. This is not an emotional impulse and then he rushes right out the door and then eventually that that impulse will fade.

Is there an application there for us? I think so. There's application even though this is not a new topic to Nehemiah. It's not like he'd never heard of it. God isn't bringing some new ideas and dropping it in his lap. God burdened his heart with an old problem, one that he knew was there, but never really paid attention to it before. I'm going to suggest to you that when you're being called by God, he will burden your heart with the situation that he is calling you to and it may not be a new situation, you may have been fully aware of the needs of the homeless people in our area. But now after all these years of knowing that, now you're burdened by it, and you haven't been able to stop thinking about it for the last three weeks since I mentioned it in the Amos sermon. That's what I'm talking about. It's not a new problem, but it's one that you have been made aware of and convicted of by the Holy Spirit. You may be already aware of the starving kids and you decided I need to do something about it. Maybe you've heard or you've seen a presentation by a missionary about what's going on on the other side of the world, or maybe all the news coming out of Afghanistan and you're feeling pulled towards doing something about refugees and people whose lives are being torn apart be war and famine and persecution. Maybe you know that there's a problem, but now all of a sudden, there's an emotional pull that wasn't there before and God isn't going to let that fade. He didn't let it fade for Nehemiah. I also want you to notice there were a lot of other problems facing the Jews. Yeah, their walls had been torn down, but to some of them. That was the least of their problems. They had a bunch of other problems going on. And he did not react to all of those problems. He didn't feel pulled emotionally to all of those other problems that the Jewish people were facing. God had called him to a specific situation. He waited on God in prayer. And God burdened him where He wanted him. That's important for us to understand. There are a million different injustices in the world, and you may not be called to do something for all of those. We can care about it, but we're not all called to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, or to be a foster family for orphaned kids.

The other Jews who were still in exile, they knew about this problem with the walls, and yet they weren't burdened by it. God wasn't calling them to go and lead this mission to rebuild the walls. That’s an application for us. Number one, you can't do something about everything. We should be concerned about injustice wherever it exists. You may not be called to do something specifically, but as Christians, you can pray, and you can pray for those who are called in these various areas. God will not call you to do everything because you cannot do everything. Plus, God wants to receive the glory. It's not for one man to receive glory for doing all of these great things. He uses his chess pieces all over the map. And when something great is done, He's the one that receives the glory for it. Chances are that your fellow believers will know the problem. Many among us know about these various injustices that exist and we will agree with you that it is bad, but you are the one that is burdened by. That doesn't mean that the problem isn't worth addressing just because no other Christian is doing it. Maybe they're not called to it. But you are. So don't ignore what God is doing in your heart. If you're the one being called, you have that burden being placed on your heart. If this starts happening, don't ignore it. We talk all the time about wanting to be used by God. Well, then listen, when God is moving and putting things on your heart.

God made sure that Nehemiah not only heard about the need through his brother, he made sure that Nehemiah felt the need of those people. He was weeping and he was fasting and he was praying for four months.

So, where does God want to use you? That's the question. But, I'm telling you, Satan will paralyze us with apathy if we let him. If the problems of the world are so overwhelming, it depresses us. It makes us feel unhappy. And so, what do we do? We retreat into our prosperous setting. We go back to our stone mansions and our lush vineyards. Jesus observed that very thing. Remember, when Jesus said this to his disciples, Matthew 9:36-38, “Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.’”

There's all of these problems, and yet the workers are so few. So few people that are willing to do something about this issue. If you want to do justice and glorify God, pray to be one of those workers. Pray that God would make you one of those workers going out into the harvest field. What do I mean by that? If you want to be used, pray to God that he would give you eyes to see the needs that surround you, and that you wouldn't be distracted.

How many of us do that? Pray to God that He will reveal to you people that you can minister to and pray for, to give you a heart that is open to feeling those burdens of other people? Are we doing that? Are we saying, “I want to be used by God but I don't know where he wants to use me.” Then pray about it. Say, “Father, give me eyes to see the needs and give me a heart that feels the burdens of other people that I can go and make a difference for your kingdom.”

Next, I want you to look at what Nehemiah acknowledges. Look at verses six and seven.

[Read Nehemiah 1:6-7].

Ultimately, the problem that the Jewish people were facing was not a lack of organization. Were they disorganized? Of course they were disorganized. But ultimately that wasn't the big problem. Nehemiah can provide organization. That's not their significant problem. Was the problem in a lack of resources? Of course they laked resources. But that wasn't the big problem. You know what the big problem was? The big problem was sin. And Nehemiah properly recognized the real struggle that the Jewish people have is not broken-down walls, it sin. This is exactly why you and I, and our approach to doing justice in the world is going to be fundamentally different than that of the world. There are way too many churches that are mimicking the world's ways of dealing with problems of injustice. How does the world deal with problems of injustice, they see something that's wrong and the only thing they know to do is to use manmade channels to solve it. And 99 times out of 100. What is the main channel? It's government. ‘We're going to write a law and that's going to solve the problem. We're going to fix the law with new policy. We're going to tax these people that have a lot and take a big portion of their money and we're going to set up a program to help these people over here who have less.’ Now, I'm not going to fault somebody for their intentions. But that is a worldly mind that is using worldly channels to try to solve a spiritual problem and it isn't going to work. You and I will react to problems of injustice fundamentally differently than the world does. And if you're not, if you're reacting the same way the world is, well, it's not going to work very well. We need to recognize that the heart of the issue is always sin. That's what you and I understand that the world doesn't get and the only resolution to sin is in Christ. So, when you ask, ‘why is there human trafficking’ you ask somebody in the world and they're going to give you a bunch of worldly reasons why human trafficking exists? But why is there human trafficking? Ultimately, because of sin. That's why there is a foster care crisis. Why is their drug dependency? Because of sin? Why is there war and refugee crises? All of these things that are leading to injustice, at the heart of it, is because of sin. And why is there domestic violence and why is there divorce? All of these injustices are because of sin. Ultimately, sin is at the heart of all of that. That is why you and I understand that if you simply change social conditions, by passing a new law or setting up a new government program, if that's all you do, you clean some cobwebs and leave the spider, and ultimately justice hasn't been done.

The book of Job teaches us that this life is not about your comforts and your blessings. You have not been saved so that you can live a comfortable life amongst religious freedom. We are saved to glorify God and further His purposes, regardless of the circumstances.

Nehemiah knew what God wanted. He knew God's vision. So, what about you and I? What's God's vision for us on this side of the cross? How does God want to be glorified and where does God want to be glorified today? Jesus said, “I will build my church and the gates of Hades is not going to overcome it.” The gates of hell itself will not overcome Christ’s church. He said, in essence, ‘I'm leaving. And in my place we I'm building this thing called the church, it will be made up of you, equipped by the Holy Spirit, and it will glorify the Father in heaven.” And then after the gospels record that, the rest of the New Testament is about building his church, which should make sense. That's what all the New Testament letters are, they’re admonishments to the church and warnings to the church, they are encouragement to the church, they're setting up church discipline in the way that we're to function as a body of believers. The whole thing is about God's church. It is through his church, that he's going to be glorified in the eyes of the world, and our acts of justice will have that vision. I'm not going out to do justice so that I can later get elected to office as someone who did something great for the local community. My vision shouldn’t be to go out and do something that brings me attention. My vision of justice is glorifying God. That's what I want to do. I want to go out and do this to bring glory to God. We know that He wants, His people, the church to do justice to our fellow man in order to glorify Him. That is what should motivate us.

Alright, before we're done, I have to mention this. Did anyone notice something that seemed out of place in this passage? The way that it finished. Look at verse 11. He gets done. He's pouring out his heart. [Read Nehemiah 1:11]. What is that? Imagine me getting done with the sermon, give a powerful prayer, then say, ‘I work for a land surveyor’ and then I walk off. It'd be the weirdest way to end a message. So, why does he finish by announcing his occupation that seemingly has nothing to do with it? I'm not trying to be overly theological, but I think there's a really important lesson there, which is why that's included in this passage. I don't think anything's by accident. So why tell us that?

Well, the cup bearer is a very high position in those days. It's like the butler to the king, which means he's out front. They are always handsome. They are always well trained. They're always trusted. They have a natural closeness to the king. They taste the king’s food, they drink the king’s wine. And so, if you’re the monarch, when you’ve got questions, it's the logical person you're going to turn to and say, ‘Alright, seriously, you heard that earlier. What do you think of that?’ In other words, he's essentially an advisor to the king. Cup bearers also in those days, in some cases, would bear the signet ring, the signature of the king. It’s a very trusted position and very high position of authority. So, what is Nehemiah telling us? In that little line, he's telling us that he ate the best food, and he wore the best clothes and he had a massive room. He had plenty of servants. This guy wanted for nothing in his position, and he gave it all up to make a treacherous journey to Jerusalem to do something very difficult, to rebuild these walls that a lot of people didn't understand what they were doing it in the first place.

 

And our reaction is this is, ‘Oh, okay. I see what a sacrifice he made. That must have been incredibly difficult for him.’ Yes, it's difficult in the sense that he had to give up the comforts of man to do it. Just like a missionary gives up the comforts of living a cushy life, perhaps even overseas in order to serve the Lord. Yes, that's difficult and facing a lot of hardship, not having access to great healthcare, or the best finances. That's a hardship for many missionaries. There's no question about that. But those things aren't their vision or focus of success anymore. You get what I'm saying? Nehemiah didn't care about his stuff anymore. He wasn't seeing this through man's eyes. He was seeing this through God's eyes. So as much as I say ‘that was a really difficult sacrifice,’ maybe it was because he had no other choice? Not that anyone was making him leave the palace life, but that he could no longer find happiness or contentment or joy in what he had been doing. He couldn’t find contentment if he wasn't doing what God had called him to do. So, he had no choice but to go, and he found happiness and contentment and joy in doing what God wanted him to do.

Everything Nehemiah embodied, is it not summed up in this command from the Apostle Paul? Philippians 3:7, “But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.” Have this attitude, have God's vision, let him transform your desires. Let Him and His glory be what brings you contentment and joy.

Let’s pray.