Trusting God To Do The Work

Trusting God To Do The Work

“Trusting God To Do The Work”

(Overview of Nehemiah)

Series: REBUILD

Rev. Todd A. Linn, PhD

Henderson’s First Baptist Church, Henderson

[Video Intro: 45 seconds]

We’re starting a new series this morning called REBUILD.  Rebuild.  Most of us can relate to that word, rebuild.  Textbook definition: “To build (something) again after it has been damaged or destroyed.”  To build again after something has been damaged or destroyed.

Some of us are in the middle of personal rebuilding projects.  Many of us are rebuilding our lives.  The walls have broken down and the gates have burned, and we’ve made a mess of things and we’re rebuilding ourselves in anticipation of better days.

Some of you are rebuilding your spiritual walk.  Last week you’ve been applying the words we learned from Romans 6: “I’m dead to that.”  And you’ve been working on rebuilding your walk with God, your purity, your growth in holiness, rebuilding your devotional life.

Others of you are rebuilding in other areas.  Rebuilding your discipline—taking in what is healthy and avoiding what is harmful.  Maybe you’re rebuilding your job, your organization, your house, your home.  Rebuilding a marriage.  Rebuilding a relationship.  Rebuilding a family.  Rebuild.

The Book of Nehemiah is about rebuilding.  The walls of Jerusalem are broken down and the city gates have been burned.  Scattered stones and bricks and charred wood are lying everywhere and somebody needs to do something.  And a guy living a thousand miles away learns about it and has the courage to say, “I’m going to talk to God about this.”  And that man, Nehemiah, leads one of the most daring and deliberate rebuilding projects to bring glory to the One True and Living God.

And this book that we’re studying—the Book of Nehemiah—is a reading of Nehemiah’s personal diary or journal about how it all happened.  And what we’re going to discover in Nehemiah is not only the need for rebuilding the walls around the city of God’s people, but the rebuilding of God’s people themselves.  Nehemiah is about both physical and spiritual rebuilding.  

Let me invite you to find the Book of Nehemiah in your Bibles.  It’s in the Old Testament, so that’s the first part of the Bible.  And while the events of Nehemiah really occur at the end of the Old Testament period, you find it closer to the beginning.  It’s right after Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, then you have Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther.  Just before Job and Psalms.  Kind of confusing because the events of Nehemiah occur at the end of the Old Testament period—or as we’ll see, during what we call the post-exilic period, post exile, after the exiles of God’s people.  Some of you are reading through the chronological Bible and you’re seeing this, that the order of the books, the canonical order, is not necessarily the chronological order.

What I want to do this morning is read the first few verses of Nehemiah and then we’ll pray and do an overview of the Book.  That’s pretty much what we do when we start a series.  We look at the main divisions, themes, teachings and background, to help us have a good foundation for our study.  So let’s get started!

  • Please stand in honor of the reading of God’s Word.

1 The words of Nehemiah the son of Hachaliah.

It came to pass in the month of Chislev, in the twentieth year, as I was in Shushan (or Susa) the citadel, 

2 that Hanani one of my brethren came with men from Judah; and I asked them concerning the Jews who had escaped, who had survived the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem. 

3 And they said to me, “The survivors who are left from the captivity in the province are there in great distress and reproach. The wall of Jerusalem is also broken down, and its gates are burned with fire.”

4 So it was, when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept, and mourned for many days; I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven.

  • Let’s pray to that God right now: “Father, as we begin this new series of messages through Nehemiah, give us grace to learn.  Holy Spirit, be our teacher this morning and rebuild what is broken down in our lives.  Point us to Jesus Christ our Savior, in whose name we pray, amen.”

Alright, big picture here for a moment.  Let’s get an understanding of the background of Nehemiah.  Where does this book fall in the history of God’s people?  Check out this visual, first slide.

So you see on the left, some of the first few books of the Bible there.  The history of Israel begins in the Book of Genesis.  In Genesis 12 (about 1900 BC), God makes a promise to Abraham.  Remember?  God says, “I’m going to bless you and make you a great nation.  And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

And that covenant is renewed from time to time.  And progressing through the years through Joshua, Judges, and 1&2 Samuel we get to King David and it’s about 1000 years BC.  Then you have David’s son Solomon and the times of the kings, 1&2 Kings.  And then something happens you’ll remember.  The kingdom divides.  About 900 BC. Two kingdoms.  Divided into North and South.  Ten tribes to the North are called Israel or Samaria.  The two tribes to the South are called Judah.

And the people have broken God’s covenant time and again.  They were unfaithful to God and began worshiping other gods.  And God raises up enemies to bring punishment upon His people.  And in 722 BC the Assyrians invade Israel and they invaded the city and took the Israelites away into captivity.  You can read about this in 2 Kings 17.  The Assyrians exiled the people in order to separate them from one another, forcing them into other geographical areas so that they would intermingle with other peoples and lose their identity and strength. 

Here’s a picture of the Assyrian exile.  Second slide.  So you see Israel over here to the left at the base of the Mediterranean Sea.  And 722 BC the Assyrians invade the Northern Kingdom, Samaria, and carry away the 10 tribes of the Israelites into captivity, scattering them to the north in the Assyrian Empire.  So let’s go back now to the previous slide.

First slide again.  Now many of you know there were two captivities.  The first one was the Assyrian captivity of the Northern Kingdom of Samaria.  The second was the Babylonian captivity of the Southern Kingdom of Judah at Jerusalem.  This was in 586 BC when King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon invades Jerusalem, destroys the temple, and carries away two Southern tribes, carrying them away to Babylon.  You can read about the Babylonian captivity in 2 Chronicles 36.  Last chapter of 2 Chronicles.  2 Chronicles 36.  Nebuchadnezzar robs the temple of its treasures, destroys everything of value, burns the palaces, and burns down the temple.  He destroys the walls that went around Jerusalem.  He killed both men and women the few who remained were taken away into captivity to Babylon.   Let’s check out the map of Babylon.

Third slide.  Following the rivers, they took them up north along the Jordan and then east along the Euphrates river, resettling them in Babylon, a massive empire that reached into present day Iraq and Kuwait up to the Persian Gulf.  This was a sad time.  This was when Psalm 137 was written.  That’s the one that goes: “By the rivers of Babylon we sat down and wept.  And we hung our harps on the willows.  We couldn’t sing.”  Babylonian captivity.  Let’s go back to the previous slide again.

First slide again.  The Babylonian captivity lasted 70 years.  It lasted until the time of Ezra and Nehemiah.  Ezra is also the name of the Book of Ezra, just before Nehemiah.  Ezra was a contemporary of Nehemiah and there’s a bit of overlap of the events of Ezra and Nehemiah.  So again, Babylonian exile 586 BC.  70 years of captivity.  

70 years later, 536 BC, something wonderful happens.  There’s a new empire in town, the empire of the Medes and Persians.  The Persian Empire was massive, including present day Iran and spread east as far as India.  And God raised up a King named Cyrus.  Cyrus was not a believer, but God worked through Him to accomplish His will.  How many of you know Proverbs 21:1?  “The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will.”  So God turns Cyrus’ heart and causes him to issue a decree allowing the Jews to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple and the city walls.

Third slide again.  There were three “waves” of Jews returning to the land to do the work.  The first “wave” was led by a guy named Zerubbabel, head of the tribe of Judah during this time.  You can read about him in the Book of Ezra.  Ezra 1-6.  Then, the second “wave” of Jews comes 70 years later led by Ezra.  And you can read about that in Ezra 7-10.  Now, we’re up to Nehemiah.

Nehemiah will lead the third “wave” of God’s people to Jerusalem.  In fact, Nehemiah will make more than one trip, perhaps several trips, from Babylon to Jerusalem over a period of 20 years.  But his work begins in 445 BC.  We know that because the book opens with the date.  Very first verse.  Ready to go back to our Bibles?  Check it out, verse one:  

1 The words of Nehemiah the son of Hachaliah.

It came to pass in the month of Chislev, in the twentieth year, as I was in Shushan (or Susa) the citadel,

Chislev corresponds to our mid-November to mid-December.  And the twentieth year corresponds to the twentieth year of the reign of King Artaxerxes.  And we’ll be reading about him in Nehemiah.  But that makes it the year 445 BC; 13 years after Ezra arrived in Jerusalem.

Now we don’t know much about Nehemiah.  He’s name’s pretty cool.  The Hebrew Nechem Yah, from Yahweh.  Literally, the “Comfort of Yahweh.”  I like that name.  And he’s “the son of Hachaliah.”  We don’t know anything about Hachaliah.  There’s no long listing of prestigious pedigree here.  I like it when God works through common folks, don’t you?  Just a regular guy.  Spiritual empowerment is more important than physical pedigree.  Okay, Nehemiah’s a regular guy, but he has an important position.

In the last verse of chapter 1, Nehemiah tells us what his position is.  Anybody know?  last verse, verse 11.  Last sentence of the last verse: “I was the king’s cupbearer.”  That sounds like the king’s butler or something.  But it was more than that.  Cupbearer to the king was a position of high office in the royal court.  The cupbearer had personal access to the king.  His chief responsibility was both to choose and taste the wine that the king drank.  He tasted it to demonstrate that it wasn’t poisoned by some enemy of the king’s.  

Man, if I had that job, I’d have a couple of guys under me.  Like I’d choose the wine and have them take a sip or two first, right?!  Get a little buffer there between us.   He doesn’t die, and he doesn’t die, then I’ll take a sip.  Maybe he did that!  

So we read that Nehemiah is in Shushan or Susa as most of the translations have it. Same place.  Susa is the capital city of the Persian Empire, located the furthest point east in the Babylonian Empire.  And Susa is the King of Persia’s winter residence.  It’s the winter resort of Persian kings.

So that’s where Nehemiah is when the book opens.  In essence he says, “I’m sitting in the palace in Susa, minding my own business, it’s just a regular day, and it came to pass, verse 2:

2 that Hanani one of my brethren (fellow Israelite) came with men from Judah; and I asked them concerning the Jews who had escaped, who had survived the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem. 

An entire sermon could be built upon Nehemiah’s question in verse 2.  He asked them concerning the Jews.  He asked.  He cared.  He wanted to know how they were doing.  How are things going in Jerusalem?  How’s everyone getting on?  He cares.  He’s one of those guys who asks questions more than he talks about himself.  Don’t you like people like that?  Compassionate.  Caring.  

So he asks, “How are things in Jerusalem?”  He doesn’t know.  It’s a thousand miles away and there’s no internet or FOX NEWS.  He’s having to ask folks who have traveled from there.  How are things?  Verse 3:

3 And they said to me, “The survivors who are left from the captivity in the province are there in great distress and reproach (disgrace and shame). The wall of Jerusalem is also broken down, and its gates are burned with fire.”

When the first couple waves of Jews returned to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple, they faced immediate opposition.  It took 20 years to get the temple restored, but the walls and gates were never finished.  This is what Nehemiah learns.  The walls are broken down and the gates burned with fire.  

Walls are critical to the safety and security of a city.  The walls represented the strength and protection of God.  Many of the psalms talk about the walls of Jerusalem and the people of influence and favor gathering at the city gates (eg. Psalms 48, 79, 84, and 87).  So the walls are still broken down and unfinished and the people are in “great distress and reproach.”  Nehemiah cares.  Verse 4:

4 So it was, when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept, and mourned for many days; I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven.

And from verse 4 on we learn how the cupbearer becomes the wall builder.  In fact we’ll watch Nehemiah go from cupbearer, to wall builder, to governor.  But we would miss so much of this book if we thought it were only about rebuilding walls.  It is about more than that.  In fact, there are two important divisions in the book.  You may wish to make a note of this just to have a very basic framework of the book:

Two (2) Main Divisions of the Book:

  1. Reconstruction of the Walls (Chapters 1-6)

      [Physical Rebuild]

  1. Reinstruction of the People (Chapters 7-13)

      [Spiritual Rebuild]

First half is largely about a physical rebuilding and the second half is largely about a spiritual rebuilding.  Rebuilding the walls and rebuilding the people.  And rebuilding the people takes more time.

Rebuilding the walls happens in record time.  We’ll be reading about that in the weeks to come.  All of the walls of Jerusalem rebuilt just inside of two months; a record 52 days.  Incredible!  Rebuilding the people, however, takes much more time.   Spiritual reformation always takes time.

Very quickly I want to address the subtitle of our series; the message within the message.  The series is entitled REBUILD.  But this is not simply a book about man doing the work of rebuilding.  Many have taken the Book of Nehemiah and used it simply to teach man-centered leadership lessons or how to build a team.  But the Bible is not primarily a book about man.  The Bible is a book about God.  So Nehemiah teaches us to trust God to do the work.  We trust God to do the work.  We’ll see this throughout the book, trusting God to do the work in at least three ways:

**Trust God to do the Work of…

1) Forgiving our Sin (forgiveness)

Nehemiah recognizes that sin is the reason the walls have come down in the first place.  The sin of God’s people turning away from God.  Spiritual unfaithfulness.  Nehemiah teaches us how to confess our sin to God and ask forgiveness.

We’ll be reading, for example, about a couple bad guys who come against Nehemiah and try to disrupt the rebuilding process.  These guys are Sanballat and Tobiah.  They just sound like bad guys, don’t they?!

Sanballat and Tobiah were bad dudes, but Nehemiah doesn’t ask God to utterly destroy them or to destroy the godless nations surrounding Jerusalem.  In the opening chapter Nehemiah asks God to forgive the sins of his own people.  It was Judah’s sins that caused God to bring the Babylonians to Jerusalem and lead His people into exile.  

We’ll see that the book opens and closes with confession of sin.  And any lasting work in our lives will begin and end with confession and prayer.

By the way, Nehemiah teaches us a lot about prayer.  He’s praying right after he learns the news about Jerusalem.  Verse 5, where we’ll pick up next time, begins with Nehemiah’s first prayer.  He prays several times throughout this book.  His prayer life anticipates what the Apostle Paul will call “praying without ceasing” in 1 Thessalonians 5:17.

Sometimes he prays longer prayers like this one in chapter 1, word-saturated prayers of confession.  Sometimes those short “bullet prayers” or “arrow prayers” we pray hurriedly when necessary.  Like chapter 2 when the king asks him a question and he wants to answer wisely.  Nehemiah 2:4-5: 4 Then the king said to me, “What do you request?”  So I prayed to the God of heaven. 5 And I said to the king, “If it pleases the king…”  

A short, arrow prayer, like shooting a quick arrow up to God.  Nehemiah prays a lot of those arrow prayers.  We should pray those all the time!  Going into an important meeting, we bow our heads and quickly say, “God, help me” or “God, guide me.”

Trusting God to do the work of forgiveness, of forgiving our sin.  Secondly, we’ll be learning about trusting God to do the work of:

2) Empowering our Service (empowerment)

Nehemiah trusts God to do the work of rebuilding in and through the people.  For example, no sooner do they get to the work of rebuilding when the bad guys try to discourage them and keep them from the work.  In fact, their enemies begin to threaten their lives so Nehemiah positions the people around the wall so that half of them are working and the other half are standing with swords, spears, and bows.  

And Nehemiah tells them that in the worst case scenario of needing to defend themselves, that the trumpet will sound, rallying all of God’s people together to battle.  And he makes this really cool statement in chapter 4, verse 20:

Nehemiah 4:20: “Wherever you hear the sound of the trumpet, rally to us there.  Our God will fight for us.”

Those six words, “our God will fight for us,” those six words say everything about Nehemiah’s trust in God to do the work in and through His people!  “our God will fight for us.”  He will empower our service.  We don’t do this in our own strength.

It’s easy to do things in our own strength.  You don’t have to be strong to do things in your own strength.

Couple weeks ago Michele and I were sitting together on the couch and she took my arm and said, “Wow, you’re getting some muscle,” and then she said, “Oh, that’s your elbow!”  Built my self-esteem!

You don’t have to be strong to do things in your own strength.  And from man’s perspective, it may even be considered successful.  Yet it was Jesus who said in John 15:5, “Without Me you can do (how much?) nothing.”  Nothing.  Even if it looks like “something” to others.  No credit for what is done in our own strength.  Trust God to do the work of empowerment.  

That sure is true for living the gospel!  When we sing those words in “All I Have is Christ,” we say, “the strength to follow your commands could never come from me.”  As Christians I’m not strong enough and you’re not strong enough to live the Christian life without continually relying on the Holy Spirit to empower us.  Our God will fight for us. 

Trust God to do the work of empowerment.  Empowering your service.  Empowering everything you do.  Finally, we must trust God to do the work of:

3) Reforming our Souls (reformation)

The Book of Nehemiah is not just about rebuilding walls.  It’s also about rebuilding our souls, bringing true spiritual reformation to the people of God.

One of the things we’ll see is that Nehemiah has an unassailable trust in the Word of God to bring reformation to the people of God.  Not only will we see that in his prayer life, a word-saturated prayer life, but also in his belief in and trust in the sufficiency of Scripture, the Bible.

Nowhere is that more evident than in Chapter 8.  And we’ll be reading about the people gathering together in the open square and calling for Ezra to read the Book of the Law to the people.  Look at Nehemiah 8:2-3:

“So Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly of men and women and all who could hear with understanding on the first day of the seventh month.  3 Then he read from it in the open square that was in the front of the water Gate from morning until midday (how long? from morning to midday)…”  Trust in the authority of the Word of God to bring about spiritual reformation in the people of God.  

Look at Nehemiah 8:5-6: 

“And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was standing above all the people; and when he opened it, all the people stood up.”  (Sounds an awful like what we do here, doesn’t it?) 6 And Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God.  Then all the people answered, ‘Amen, Amen!’ while lifting up their hands.  And they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground.”  Others are also enlisted to explain the word of God to the people…

Pick up again at Nehemiah 8:8-9:

“So they read distinctly from the book, in the Law of God; and they gave the sense, and helped them to understand the reading.  9 And Nehemiah, who was the governor, Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, ‘This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn nor weep.’  For all the people wept, when they heard the words of the Law.”

The Word brought conviction upon them!  When was the last time you wept as you read the word of God?  

So we’ll be learning about trusting God to do the work of spiritual reformation by reading and understanding the Word of God.  

The rebuilding of the people takes longer than the rebuilding of the walls.  This book is so brutally honest.  It actually ends with the people of God still struggling with sin in the last chapter.  Nehemiah is faithful.  He sticks with them and continues to lead them and ask God to do the work of spiritual reformation in their lives.  We too need to stick with folks when they struggle.  Spiritual reformation takes time.

Nehemiah was faithful.  And we can be grateful.  Because through the gates of this rebuilt city and its rebuilt walls would one day enter the very One who would take away the sin of the world, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ came into the world to make possible the rebuilding that every one of us so desperately needs.  Jesus Christ himself is the chief cornerstone (Ephesians 2:19-22; 1Peter 2:5-6).  He’s the most important building block in the wall of your life.

The walls of your life have come down and the gates have burned, trust Jesus to do the work of rebuilding your life.  Have you allowed a crack in your wall, a little sin to creep across your wall like poison ivy that grows and wraps itself around you, confess that sin and repent.  Turn to Jesus this morning. Trust Christ to do a REBUILD of your life.  Say to Him, “Lord, here am I.  Rebuild my life today.”

  • Let me invite you to bow your heads as we prepare to respond to God’s Word through song…confess sin, trust Christ, follow Jesus in baptism, response room.  “God, as we prepare now to sing our hymn of response, give us grace to trust you to do the work of rebuilding in our lives through your son Jesus Christ, amen.”  Now stand and sing, and respond however you need to respond.

RESPONSE: “Lord, Here Am I”

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