Nehemiah 1–2

0:00 Well, one thing about being a preacher is that you never really know if a joke that you could tell in a sermon is well known enough that it's going to seem lame, or if there are enough people in the congregation that haven't heard it, that it's going to seem hilarious. It's a hard thing to judge, and so what I'm going to do is just refer to the joke this morning instead of telling it. I'm sure you've heard the joke about the guy who gets caught in a flood and he goes up the top of his roof and prays to God, Lord, please send me, you know, send me something. Help me, you know, open up the heavens and help me because I don't want to drown here. And as the floodwaters rise, first this Bigfoot truck comes through and he says, hey, jump into my truck. I can get us out of this flood. And the guy says, well, no, no, it's okay. God is going to rescue me. And so the truck goes on, you know, the guy shakes his head at him and he goes on. Well, then as the floodwaters rise, a little bit more boat comes by, a little rowboat, fishing boat, something like that. And He says, come on, jump in, we can get out before the waters rise any higher.

1:01 And the guy says, no, that's okay, it's fine. The Lord is going to save me from heaven. So the boatman looks at him in a funny way, takes on down the waters. Finally, as the waters are rising, just, you know, up to the man's chest as he's standing on the roof, a helicopter comes, and they drop down a ladder, and they say, come on up, get into the helicopter, and we'll fly you away to safety. He says, no, the Lord is going to save me from heaven. Well, just as the waters rise to just above his nose, and he can't tread water anymore, he looks up into heaven, and he says, Lord, I trusted you.

1:34 I thought you were going to save me from these rising floodwaters. How could I have had any more faith in you? And the Lord looks down from heaven, and he says, I sent you a truck and a boat and a helicopter, and you didn't get on any of them. Okay, clearly most of you have heard that joke. What you may not have thought about, though, is that inside that fairly lame joke, there is some deep theology hidden. The joke may not be meant to teach a lesson, but if you really pay attention to it, it kind of does. And that is that as Christians who trust in God, we don't have, in fact, a let go and let God theology. We don't believe that it's our job as Christians just to sit on our keisters and wait on God to do what God is going to do. Our faith is one in which, as Paul puts it, we work out our salvation in fear and trembling, and we do that because we know that it is God who is working in us. We work even as God is working. It's a trust God theology,

2:39 but it's not a let go and let God theology. We're beginning this morning a series in the book of Nehemiah in the Old Testament that is scheduled to take us, it looks like just, well, through Easter Sunday. I believe that's on April the 20th. And so through at least most of April, we're going to be looking at this Old Testament book of Nehemiah. In some ways, I think Nehemiah is one of the lesser well-known books of the Old Testament. It's not famous. It doesn't have these gigantic famous stories in it, like for example, Genesis or Exodus or Jonah and his big fish. And so if I asked you, just kind of sight unseen, I hope maybe some of you read the book or at least the passage for this morning in advance. But maybe if I had caught you before you even knew that I was going to preach on Nehemiah and asked you what the book was about, you might have some vague recollection that, well, I think it tells the story of maybe the rebuilding of a palace in Jerusalem or maybe it was the walls or something like that, right?

3:34 And I remember this famous image of the people working on whatever it was that they were rebuilding. They had a trowel in one hand to put the mortar on the bricks and they had a sword in the other hand because there were enemies that were trying to stop it. And I love that image of the sword and the trowel. You might also have heard preachers schedule a series on this book as a kind of background text for a church building program. You know, you preach Nehemiah about building with a sword in one hand and a trowel in the other, and you have a slogan on it, and you maybe even put stuff up here on the stage and say, together we build a new building for the glory of God.

4:15 Well, brothers and sisters, I am excited to announce to you this morning just kidding I'm just kidding we're not going to be launching a building project at least this morning and we'll certainly get to the trowel and the sword part of the story in a week or two when that comes up but there's more to this story than just a how-to manual on how to build church buildings this book plays a critical role in the storyline of scripture so as the story unfolds from Genesis to Revelation, this one is teaching and showing you certain things that are critical to that storyline. In fact, you're not going to understand the storyline entirely unless you see what Nehemiah is describing here. Because what you've got here is the story of a nation in ruins that's desperately trying to recapture its golden age. It's a story of courage and fear and faith of God's faithfulness to his people. But it's also surprising because as we make our way through it, you're going to see that it has a weirdly unsatisfying ending. This book definitely

5:21 does not end with a sort of, and they all lived happily ever after kind of thing. It really ends with a kind of, wait, what sort of ending? That's it? That's how the book of Nehemiah ends? That's what the people end up doing? That's how Nehemiah ends his life? What's up with that? And so the question becomes, all right, in the storyline of scripture with that very unsatisfying ending, what is that trying to teach us? What are we supposed to see in that happily or not ever after ending? That's what we're going to be exploring over the next five or six weeks. Let me give you just a little bit of background. Nehemiah is actually part three of what was once considered the unified book of Ezra-Nehemiah. It didn't used to be split up into two pieces, and we're not exactly sure when or why it got split. It probably had something to do with the size of scrolls and how heavy they got and all the rest. And so various books of the Bible would get sort of split up so you could write it on one scroll that wouldn't be too heavy to carry and then you write another part of it on another scroll that also wouldn't be too heavy to carry. That's probably what happened to it. We don't know exactly who pulled the book together but it's made up of several different

6:24 kinds of literature that are sort of stitched together. You've got lists and letters and reports And most interestingly, you have kind of diary accounts, personal narratives from both Ezra and Nehemiah in which they get to tell their own stories. Well, all these events take place in about 450 BC. So you're looking, if you think back to when Jesus lived, you're talking 450 years before that. Or if you put it all together, something like 2,500 years ago.

6:55 And what's important is that all of these events, 2,500 years in the making, they take place in the wake of a devastating defeat and exile of what were then the two nations of Israel. Now, you don't need to remember or understand a whole lot about that history. I mean, you'll understand the story of Nehemiah without having all that background. But you do need to understand a little bit about it, or you're going to miss the drama of the story. So up until this point, the Old Testament's been telling the story of the nation of Israel. And for the most part, it's been a disastrous story.

7:27 The nation of Israel just sort of careens from one disaster to another. They fall off every single cliff that they come up against, right? So eventually they might find themselves with a king. First there's Saul, then there's David, then there's Solomon. They have this great golden age under Solomon. They're the richest kingdom in the entire, you know, known world. It's just everything is going right for them. And then immediately after Solomon, they have a civil war. They have a really unwise king named Rehoboam. He causes the nation to break into two, and you've got the north and the south. Then, if you remember from our series through 1 and 2 Kings, you have a series of kings in both the north and the south, most of whom are disasters.

8:06 They're ungodly, they're sinful, they sacrifice their children to pagan gods. It's just a total disaster. And so after warning, after warning, after warning, God tells them, if you don't turn from your sins, if you don't repent and keep the covenant I made with you under Moses, I'm going to destroy you. Well, they don't repent, and so what happens is that they get destroyed. So in 710 A.D., the northern kingdom is conquered by the empire of Assyria, and it just kind of becomes no more. The southern kingdom of Judah persists for a little bit longer, but eventually it, too, is invaded by a new empire, Babylon, and those people are carried off into exile into the Babylonian empire.

8:46 Well, about 70 years or so after that conquering and that exile, a new king comes to power. his name is Cyrus the Persian he's managed to pull together the entire Persian empire he's sort of conquered everything and the last thing that he conquers is Nebuchadnezzar and his descendants in Babylon the whole Babylonian empire falls and Cyrus looks around having conquered the Babylonians and said oh you guys conquered this little kingdom called the Israelites well I'm a nice guy and so I'm going to allow those Israelites to go back home to their homeland so a small number of exiles in 538 BC, take up their camels and all of their possessions, and they head across the desert, and they go back to Jerusalem. Well, the events of Ezra and Nehemiah take place about a hundred years later, and it tells a story of what happens during this period of three rebuildings. So it's like an attempt to get the nation of Israel back up on its feet, and building is a really important

9:48 And part of that, because Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed everything. So in the first half of Ezra, you get the story of the rebuilding of the temple under this governor named Zerubbabel. Not a whole lot is said about him, but he leads the effort to rebuild the temple. And they build this temple, right, in the middle of the city. The second part of Ezra has this guy named Ezra, who comes, and his job is to reestablish obedience to the law. He's going to read the scriptures to them, teach them the scriptures of the Old Testament. He's going to get them back on their feet, right, back to obeying the Lord God.

10:20 That's the second part of Ezra. Then you've got Nehemiah, the whole book, which was meant to be sort of chapter 3 of this story of rebuilding, where Nehemiah, this new governor, comes to town, and his job is to do another rebuilding, and that is to rebuild the walls of the city of Jerusalem so that it could be an independent sort of capital city. Again, because you can't be an independent city if you don't have any walls because everybody keeps conquering you. So you've got to have walls, and Nehemiah is going to do the last thing, build the walls around the temple and the city, and he's going to establish it as a new capital.

10:52 So that's kind of the story that was supposed to be unfolding. The thing that's interesting about the story, though, is that it's not glorious like you expect it's going to be. It's like a complete about-face. It's a total 180, because as these things keep getting rebuilt, The temple, adherence to the law, the walls. It turns out that when they finish each part of this, they look at it and they go, huh, that is not very impressive. So when the foundation of the temple is laid and they start to rebuild it, there's this great cry and shout that goes up from the people, right?

11:28 Yay, the temple is gonna be rebuilt. But the old people who saw the glory of the old temple that was destroyed, they weep because their temple is pathetic. When Ezra comes back and tries to get them to adhere to the law again, they make all these promises, you know, Ezra, we're going to do it. We're going to put our names on the dotted line and we're going to have this obedience to the law of the Lord. And then within a chapter, you've got them breaking every law that is imaginable in the Old Testament law.

12:00 And the people who are godly just kind of sit back and go, that is wholly unimpressive. So that's the story over and over again in Ezra and Nehemiah. You have this great excitement about rebuilding. And then when it's finally done, it's like, oh, wait, we're failing, right? It's just one failure after another. The golden age is not being relaunched. Well, today we're going to be looking at the first two chapters of Nehemiah, which set the stage for the rest of the events to come. As we read it, I'm going to read the first two chapters because the story is just so good.

12:31 But I don't want you to miss how this is Nehemiah's own recounting of the story. You're listening to a guy who lived 2,500 years ago telling you about something that happened in his life that he knows is a big deal. And I think as you read it, you're going to find all kinds of things in it that you just kind of shake your head at. It's like, man, that is really no different than what I do on a daily basis. It's just so, so relatable. He's just such a dynamic guy, kind of jumps off the page right at us. So we get to know him in a way that I think is rare for ancient characters like this.

13:03 But let me read it to you. The words of Nehemiah, the son of Hakaliah. Now, it happened in the month of Kislev, in the 20th year, as I was in Susa, the capital, that Hanani, one of my brothers, came with certain men from Judah. And I asked them concerning the Jews who escaped, who had survived the exile, and concerning Jerusalem. And they said to me, the remnant there in the province who had survived the exile is in great trouble and shame. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are destroyed by fire. As soon as I heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven.

13:40 And I said, O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer of your servant that I now pray before you day and night for the people of Israel, your servants, confessing the sins of the people of Israel, which we have sinned against you. Even I and my father's house have sinned. We've acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, and the rules that you commanded your servant Moses. Remember the word that you commanded your servant Moses, saying, if you are faithful, I will scatter you among the peoples.

14:14 But if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though you're dispersed to me under the farthest skies, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place that I have chosen to make my name dwell. They are your servants and your people, whom you have redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand. O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant and to the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name. And give success to your servant today and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.

14:47 Now I was cupbearer to the king. In the month of Nisan, in the 20th year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was before him, I took up the wine and gave it to the king. Now I had not been sad in his presence. And the king said to me, why is your face sad, seeing you are not sick? This is nothing but sadness of the heart. And then I was very much afraid. I said to the king, let the king live forever. Why should not my face be sad when the city, the place of my father's graves, lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?

15:19 Then the king said to me, what are you requesting? So I prayed to the God of heaven, and I said to the king, if it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, that you send me to Judah, to the city of my father's graves, that I may rebuild it. The king said to me, the queen sitting beside him, how long will you be gone, and when will you return? So it pleased the king to send me when I had given him a time, and I said to the king, if it pleases the king, let letters be given to me, to the governors of the province beyond the river, that they may let me pass through until I come to Judah, and a letter to Asaph, the keeper of the king's forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the fortress of the temple and for the wall of the city and for the house that I shall occupy.

15:59 And the king granted me what I asked, for the good hand of my God was upon me. Then I came to the governors of the province beyond the river and gave them the king's letters. Now the king had sent with me officers of the army and horsemen, but when Sanballat the Oronite and Tobiah, the Ammonite servant, heard this, it displeased them greatly that someone had come to seek the welfare of the people of Israel. So I went to Jerusalem and was there three days. Then I arose in the night, I and a few men with me, and I told no one what my God had put into my heart to do for Jerusalem.

16:30 There was no animal with me but the one on which I rode. I went out by night, by the valley gate, to the dragon spring and to the dung gate, and I inspected the walls of Jerusalem that were broken down and its gates that had been destroyed by fire. Then I went on to the fountain gate and to the king's pool, but there was no room for the animal that was under me to pass. So I went up in the night by the valley and inspected the wall. And I turned back and entered by the valley gate and so returned. And the officials did not know where I had gone or what I was doing. And I had not yet told the Jews, the priests, the nobles, the officials, and the rest who were to do the work.

17:08 Then I said to them, you see the trouble we are in. How Jerusalem lies in ruins with its gates burned. Come, let us build the wall of Jerusalem that we may no longer suffer derision. And I told them of the hand of my God that had been upon me for good, and also of the words that the king had spoken to me. And they said, Let us rise up and build. So they strengthened their hands for the good work. But when Sanballat the Oronite and Tobiah the Ammonite's servant and Geshem the Arab heard of it, they jeered at us and despised us and said, What is this thing that you are doing? Are you rebelling against the king? And then I replied to them, The God of heaven will make us prosper, and we his servants will arise and build.

17:43 but you have no portion or right or claim in Jerusalem. It's just a great narrative, isn't it? I mean, you can just tell that this guy experienced this and lived it, and now he's telling you about it. And you can feel every part of the story. You can feel the tension in the palace. You can feel the quietness and breeziness of the night as he's walking around the city inspecting the walls. It's cinematic. But I think there are also things here that Nehemiah wants us to learn about ourselves and about the God that we serve. So the main idea, I think, is this.

18:15 That Nehemiah learned and that he wants us to learn. Everything you need and want in the Christian life, everything you need and want in the Christian life is created and fueled by knowing your God. Everything you want and need in the Christian life is created and it's fueled by knowing your God. Everything important. I want to give you three things that I think Nehemiah had or developed that were fueled and created by knowing his God.

18:47 Number one, Nehemiah's confidence in God was created by knowing him. Number two, his courage in a dangerous situation was created by knowing God. And third, his commitment to God's reputation was created by knowing his God. So point number one, we're just going to look at the first part of this story, Nehemiah's confidence in God. The story opens in verses 1 to 3 with Nehemiah encountering this little caravan of people. They're returning to Susa, the capital of the Persian Empire from Jerusalem. Susa was actually the summer resort of the Persian kings.

19:20 They had another more, you know, centrally located capital elsewhere in Iran. But Susa is in southern Iran. You can, in fact, go there today if you could get a visa. And you could see the ruins of Susa. You could see the ruins of the palace that they used to stay in. But anyway, this caravan of people come from Jerusalem. Nehemiah immediately inquires as to the well-being of the people there, right? So I asked them concerning the Jews, how are things in Jerusalem? And the news is not good. You can see what they say in verse 3. The remnant there in the province is in great trouble and shame.

19:51 The wall is broken down and its gates are destroyed by fire. All right. Now, it's important to understand that that is probably not talking about the walls that were torn down 100 years prior by Nebuchadnezzar. The fact that Nebuchadnezzar the Babylonian tore down those walls was old news. It was 100 years old, in fact. Everybody knew about it, and it wouldn't have caused any great sadness to hear that the walls that Nebuchadnezzar tore down are torn down. No, it's something different, and it's something that's really important, it turns out, to Nehemiah's own life and story.

20:26 See, what had happened, and all of this is told in the book of Ezra, just a couple of years earlier the people in jerusalem had actually started a program to rebuild those very walls but the surrounding governors who didn't want an independent city in the middle of them appealed to the emperor of persia this very emperor that that nehemiah is about to talk to they appealed to him and that emperor had given an order that the work should be stopped so a letter goes from the emperor all the way over to jerusalem and says you governors are right. I don't want a fortified city in my territory. That's a bad thing. And so you guys do whatever it takes to put a stop to these Jews and their building. So Ezra 419 says that as soon as those governors got the order, they, quote, went in haste and by force and power made them cease the work. By force and power. Well, I mean, apparently it was quite a bit of force and quite a bit of power that they used because according to the report of these people who are coming to Susa, they had pulverized the walls, they had set fire to its gates, and the city now was a smoking ruin.

21:29 Well, that whole thing just breaks Nehemiah's heart. And so in verse 4, he tells us that he sat down and wept and mourned for many days. Well, what do you think you can learn from that? And just the fact that Nehemiah is so eager to find out about his own people in Jerusalem, and the fact that when he gets bad news about his people, it hurts him, it causes him to weep and mourn. Well, I think it's simple, but I think there's something to learn there. Nehemiah obviously cared about the people of God. And he cared about the people of God, whether it specifically affected him or not. I mean, you don't know this about him yet in the story when you're reading it, but he's a high-level official in the court of the most powerful emperor in the known world, the emperor of the kingdom of Persia. His life is fine, and yet he weeps because his people are in pain. I mean, think about it. It wasn't the broken down walls and burned gates that made him weep. It wasn't that kind of just nostalgia for a city that he knew. It wasn't the broken

22:34 down city. It was the broken down people that did it. You look at verse 2. He says that he inquires first about the Jews. He inquires about the people and only then the city. If you look at his prayer in the rest of the chapter, the focus is on the people, right? Not so much the physical structures of the people. In fact, the only reason that he wants to rebuild the wall eventually is to protect the people. He had a genuine care for the people of God in Jerusalem. And I think that's a good but simple lesson for us. And I wonder if you can say the same thing about yourself, that we can see in Nehemiah. Do you genuinely care about the people of God in the same way? Do you genuinely care about the people of your church? Or is your church just something that you can get spiritual sustenance out of when you so decide to do so? You know, that's a basic mark of a Christian, right?

23:31 Basic mark of a Christian is to love the people of God, to love Christ's bride as much as you love christ himself my brothers and sisters i hope that marks us as a church i hope we are not and i hope we never become a church where it's the pastor's job just to kind of put out a buffet of spiritual benefits for you that you can take partake of whenever you want to and then walk away i hope that we as a church are always marked by a deep affection for the people of christ in this place and a fervent desire for good just like nehemiah was well when nehemiah hears the news he goes into this long season of mourning for the people if you if you compare the dates that are given in the in the chapter we're not going to do it because it's just it's just not that important i can do it for you later if you want to but four to five months he goes into this period of mourning but if you look at the text it turns out it's not just mourning i mean look at verse four he says i mourned right i wept for days it turns out for four or five months. And I continued, he said, not just mourning and weeping, but fasting and praying

24:31 before the God of heaven. So it's not just a period of mourning, it's a season of prayer. He starts to pray repeatedly and for a long time about this situation that's going on in Jerusalem. Remember last week we talked about how Paul, in describing the armor of God and the weaponry of God describes prayer, seems to think about prayer as this kind of mother of all bombs in spiritual warfare. Well, Nehemiah uses it here. And it turns out, and it's instructive, that he uses it for a long time. I think a lot of times as we read the Bible, we can get the impression that prayer is a kind of immediate thing. It's a sort of heavenly vending machine that if you put in your dollar bill of prayer, there comes the answer to your prayer.

25:20 immediately right I mean no vending machine would be worth its salt if you have to put in a dollar and then wait four or five months for the candy to drop out and so we don't think of prayer like that because we tend to think of prayer as a vending machine you put in your time you put in your words and out drops the blessing but many times it's not like that at all is it when you read the bible and sometimes people in the bible pray for years sometimes people in the bible pray for centuries sometimes people in the bible pray until the day they die for things that don't happen well nehemiah doesn't pray here for years or decades but he does pray for several months before anything happens and what he prays i think has important lessons for us about our own prayers let's look at what we learn from him in verses 5 to 11 we're not going to read it again we just did but look down through his prayer and just kind of let your eyes kind of see what he's doing there. He appeals to God in verse 5. He confesses sin there in 6 through 7. He recalls

26:22 God's promises in 8 and 9 and 10. And then he makes this very specific petition in 11. A few things we can learn from this. First of all, I want you to notice that Nehemiah knows the God to whom he prays. He knows the God to whom he prays. This isn't a prayer like the Athenians in Acts prayed with their, you know, quote, monument to an unknown God just in case we forgot anybody. It's not the kind of prayer that Nehemiah prays. He prays specifically to the God of the Bible, and he has no doubt about who this God is. Verse 5, I said, O Lord, Yahweh, that is, Yahweh, God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and chesed or steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments. All of those words in verse 5 are words that that Nehemiah is taking from the Old Testament, from the first five books of the Bible, in fact, the Pentateuch, and he's saying this isn't just any God.

27:19 This isn't just an abstract God. This is that God, the one named Yahweh, who is a God of covenant and loving kindness. That's the God to whom I pray. Those words were not true of any of the other false gods of Persia or anywhere else. They were words that revealed God's character in a unique way to the Israelites. Friends, I would encourage you to pray like that. Pray more specifically. If you want little tips for your prayer life, right?

27:50 You want your prayers to be more gritty. You want them to be more powerful. Do this. Pray like that. Pray to a specific God. Don't just say, oh God, or oh Lord, with a capital or a lowercase l. Pray to Yahweh. Pray to the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. Pray to God the eternal Son. Pray to God the eternal Holy Spirit. Use the words that Scripture uses about God to address him. Be specific, just like Nehemiah was.

28:21 Second, in his prayer, it's clear that Nehemiah knows his standing before this God. He knows his standing and acknowledges his standing before this God. So you look at middle of verse 6 all the way down through verse 7. What does he do in those verses? He acknowledges his and his people's sin. He essentially admits that he's got no standing whatsoever to come before God and ask for anything. He knows that if justice were to be done, he would waltz into the throne room of God and God would kick him out immediately.

28:53 You have no standing to be here. You're a rebel against me. You're a sinner against me. You and your people. I think we 21st century American evangelicals can sometimes think we're welcome in God's presence in prayer simply because we're human. Or we're welcome in his presence simply because we went to church this week. That it's somehow his job to hear our prayers and we've got every right to go to him anytime we want. But friends, that could not be further from the truth.

29:25 It could not be further from the truth. we are rebels against the God of the universe and we've got no right no merit no standing in his court whatsoever which is why when we pray we pray in Jesus name and you know what that means right I don't know if you've ever thought about it Christians do it all the time you know Lord do this and please do this and please do that and please do that in Jesus name we pray amen right we don't even give a second thought and yet when you say that little phrase which you should say in every prayer that you pray, at least once.

29:59 When you say that little phrase, what you're doing is showing to the God of the universe you're standing and you're saying, God, I do not, please hear me, I do not come and make this prayer in my own name. I'm not trying to have my own standing in your court. I'm not trying to plead with you to do something because of me. I'm asking this in the name of your beloved son. And that's it. We pray in Jesus' name, because it's only in Jesus that our rebellious little selves are invited by his death and life and resurrection into the presence of God.

30:39 It's only through him that we are declared to be righteous, because he is righteous. That we're declared to be justified, because he's justified. That we're declared to be welcome in the throne room of God, Because He, our Savior, is welcome in the throne room of God. That's why, for example, the author of Hebrews is so excited when he's thinking about all of this. Everything that Jesus has done by dying on the cross in our place, by rising again. He's thinking about all of it. And he's excited to be able to say, finally, so, therefore, because of all of this, let us go before the throne of grace with confidence.

31:19 not scared, not terrified, not timid. But that's only because we're not going in our own name. We're going in the name of the one who died to save us. Use that access. Third, Nehemiah prays God's promises back to him. He prays God's promises back to them. So in all the Bible, if you start reading about the prayers in the Bible and you start listing out strategies for prayer, Let's see what the great people of the Bible do when they pray.

31:50 In all of those stories, this is the one move that you're going to see godly people making over and over again in prayer. They say God's words back to him. They all do it. They say God's words back to him. And in verses 8 through 10, that's what Nehemiah does. Look at it. Remember, he says the word that you commanded your servant Moses, saying, and then he quotes the Bible. He quotes Deuteronomy chapter 30, where God promises the people, tells the people what's going to happen.

32:24 What he says is, look, you're going to disobey me. I'm going to punish you, scatter you to the four ends of the earth. But then you're going to start paying attention to me again, and I'm going to gather you back together, and we're going to start over. That's what he tells them is going to happen. It's a promise. And so that's what Nehemiah prays. He says, Lord, everything you said there seems like it's coming to pass. We disobeyed you. You scattered us to the four ends of the earth. Now, some of us have already gone back to Jerusalem. So, Lord, keep the promise that you made. Please continue to keep the promise that you made.

32:55 He prays God's words right back to him. You ever feel like you don't know what to say when you're praying? Lord, ah, you are just great. Lord, just lead, guide, and direct. Well, look, here's the solution. If you don't know what to say in a prayer, pray God's promises back to him. Lord, you promised that wherever two or three are gathered in your name, there you would be in the midst of them.

33:27 Do that for us today, please. Just do the thing that you've promised. You said that this gospel of the kingdom would be preached in all the nations of the world, and then the end would come. Lord, do that. Let the gospel be preached in all the nations, and then let the end. Just pray it right back to him. He's already promised. You want to know how to get a guaranteed yes to your prayer? Pray something that God has already said yes to. Pray promises back to him. Pray those promises for your kids. Lord, you said that whosoever would believe in Jesus Christ would not perish but have everlasting life.

33:59 Lord, let my kid believe in Jesus. And then save him. Pray it for church members. Pray it for missionaries. Pray for the nation. Pray God's promises back to him. That's what Nehemiah does. Fourth, Nehemiah prays specifically. He prays specifically. Notice that he doesn't just pray in the abstract. So over the months as he prayed, this plan seems to have formulated in his mind. And by verse 11, it's clear that what we've been reading here since verse 5, this prayer, this is not just a general summary of his prayers. This isn't just, you know, these are the kinds of things that I prayed for the four or five months that I was in this season of mourning and prayer.

34:33 No, this is a very specific prayer that he prayed on a very specific day. So look at verse 11. Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant, The prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name and give success to your servant today. This is a big day. And grant him mercy in the sight of this man. Now, at this point in the story, you've got no idea who this man is. What in the world is he talking about? Something's obviously about to happen today, and it has something to do with someone that Nehemiah is calling this man, but we don't know who that man is yet.

35:07 You don't get that until the very last sentence where he talks about being the cupbearer. But we know from the rest of the story that it's the king. It's Artaxerxes, the ruler of the most powerful empire on earth at the time. This man who could have Nehemiah's head chopped off at a whim. And yet look at what Nehemiah calls him. This man. I think there's some important stuff to remember there. Kings and presidents and governments stop at nothing to dazzle us.

35:46 To make us think through pomp and circumstance and glitter and red and gold and blue and white clothing that they are more than men. That they deserve our fear and even our worship. But in the end, friends, it's all just smoke and mirrors. Jorge Bergoglio may be Pope Francis with everything that attends that.

36:18 But on his deathbed one day, he is this man. You may think of Donald Trump as a world historical figure, either good or bad. But one day on his deathbed, he will be just this man who will face his God. Never forget that. See, that's what Nehemiah knew.

36:51 He knew that he served a God who ruled over everything. He knew that he served a God who loved his people with a never-ending covenant love. And he knew that he served a God whose hand moves the heart. of kings. And so what did he do? Knowing all of that, he put his confidence in that God. But what he was planning to do was dangerous in the extreme. Point number two, Nehemiah's courage and danger. So up to this point in the story, we don't know much about Nehemiah. It tells us in verse one of chapter one that he's a son of Hakaliah. Excuse me, but that doesn't mean much to us. We don't know anything about Hakaliah, and so it doesn't tell us anything about who he is.

37:31 And it's clear that he's a Jew. He knows the scriptures really well. And by the middle of verse 11, it's clear that he's got this plan to somehow remedy the situation in Jerusalem that's gone so bad. So he prays to God, give me favor with this man. You're still supposed to be wondering who this man is. And then he drops the bomb, right? Now I was cupbearer to the king. And all of a sudden, in your reading of the story, it's all supposed to click. You're supposed to go, oh, oh my goodness. This is a big deal. He's got some plan that requires him to have access to the emperor.

38:03 So that explains why he thinks he can get something done about this. And it explains why Nehemiah seems a little bit worried about the whole thing, too. See, the cupbearer to the king wasn't just a waiter. It was a really important position in the royal court. Your job was to curate the wine that the king and his family would drink at every meal. Your job, they would take a little bit of the wine from the king's cup, pour it into their left hand like this, and slurp it up, right? And then you set the wine in front of the king, and if you don't die, it's pretty good evidence that the king isn't going to die either, right? His poison was a pretty common way of killing off kings in those days.

38:36 Not just that, though. You were one of the kings in his private meals. You were one of his main conversation partners. So once the wine was chosen, you'd have a little bit of it yourself, and you'd converse with the king. So if you stayed in that position long enough, you could have some influence over even imperial policy. That's what Nehemiah had, and so he decides to use that influence and access for the good of his people. The story is told through the first half of chapter 2, and because it's told by Nehemiah himself, it's fascinating. It's just fascinating. It's like Nehemiah is sitting down with you after this thing happened where he could have gotten killed, right?

39:09 And he's going, let me tell you what happened here. This is what was going on in my head, and then I felt like this, and then I thought that, and then I prayed, and then I said this, and the king said that, and oh, it worked, right? He's excited as he kind of goes through and tells you about this near-death experience that he had. And what you see in this, like in between the words that are being said, as Nehemiah is telling you about his mind and his heart, you basically get a story of a man whose faith in God leads him step by step. In the midst of this like probably five-minute conversation, leads him, and you get to see it step by step, from fear at the beginning to prayer at the moment of truth to rock-solid assurance that God has been at work.

39:51 And you see the whole progression happen in his head. He starts out scared at the moment of truth. He prays, then he's got a rock-solid assurance that God has been working. And it's in that progression that we see Nehemiah's courage take shape. So let's look at it. If you look at verses 1 and 2 of chapter 2, Nisan, that's March and April. So it's been about five months since he got news about this. And Nehemiah goes into the king with doing his job with the wine and all that. And he looks sad. And that is not normal. You don't go into the king's presence if you're the cupbearer to the king and look sad. You're not supposed to do that.

40:22 Usually, you needed to come into the king's presence with a cheerful face. And so, because that's abnormal, the king notices and he asks. Now, so, you know, there's been an argument through the years about did Nehemiah look sad on purpose to sort of launch this conversation? Some people have said, yeah, of course he did, because he prayed. And he said, Lord, this day, help me to do what I need to do. And other people have looked at it and said, no, why would you do that? Well, I think he probably did. I think it's pretty clear that he had a plan today. Lord, give me favor when I do this.

40:52 And so he went into the royal room at that point looking to launch a conversation. I think he had a plan. But now that that moment is here, look at what he says. I was very much afraid. That's the end of verse 2. I was very much afraid. Why is he afraid? Well, partly he's afraid because being sad in front of the king was sometimes enough to get the death penalty. Like, you do not harsh the king's vibe. You do not do it. Maybe his wife can do that.

41:23 Maybe his kids can do that. You, the cupbearer to the king, you be happy. Right? You do not harsh his vibe. You could get the death penalty. Also, I mean, just if you're the king, some high-level courtier who's next to you, who's looking sad or angry or anything other than thrilled to be in your presence, could be the beginning of a coup d'etat. Right? If this guy's a little bit miffed, he may put something in my wine that takes an hour to work. You never know what's going to happen. So it's dangerous to be in a bad mood around the king. But deeper, it's deeper.

41:54 He's scared, not just because of that momentary thing. He's scared because Nehemiah knew what he was about to do. He was about to ask King Artaxerxes to reverse a policy that he had just made two or three years earlier. Remember that? Ezra 4, the king, this is Artaxerxes, sends a letter to the governors and says, put an end to it. I don't want a fortified city in my territories. Nehemiah is about to ask him to reverse that policy. And so he's scared. But he gulps hard and he goes on.

42:28 I was very much afraid. Verse 3, I said to the king, let the king live forever. Why should not my face be sad when the city, the place of my father's graves lies in ruins and its gates have been destroyed by fire? And then the king said to me, what are you requesting? This is the moment of truth, right? What do you want? Nehemiah, what do you want? I understand that you're sad. I understand that you're sad that the city of your fathers is in ruins. I know the history of that city, though. What are you asking me to do?

42:59 I have to ask him to reverse the policy. I have to ask him to change his mind in front of the entire empire and allow there to be a fortified city in the midst of his territories. He's never going to do it. It's the moment of truth. And then look at the second part of verse 4. So I prayed to the God of heaven and I said to the king. That's become one of the most famous lines in the whole book. Obviously because it's just a fascinating little line.

43:30 I mean, nobody could have told us this about Nehemiah's mind except Nehemiah. And there's nothing quite like it in all of scripture. You don't get anything like this anywhere else in the whole story of the Bible. And yet it's so true to life, isn't it? It's so relatable. Because in the midst of this super tense conversation that could end in his death, right in the middle of it, Nehemiah knows that this question, what are you requesting of me, is everything. And he's terrified because of what he's got to do. And so he says, Lord, help me.

44:01 And I spoke to the king. People have looked at that. They've called it all kinds of things. I think one of my favorites is people have called it an arrow prayer. It's just like, pling, off into heaven. I don't really have time to even say anything, but just, Lord, help me. And in an instant, the whole contents of your heart, fear and hope and longing and faith, all of it's communicated in this split-second volley to heaven. You can do that, you know. You can do that kind of thing.

44:33 You know, just pray in a split second. You don't even have to have words to it. It's just your heart. Ooh, Lord, help. But I want you to notice that it's not all Nehemiah does. This arrow prayer of his is built on a foundation of months of careful, deliberate prayer. And so here in the heat of battle, it goes up. And so he speaks. I said to the king, verse 5, if it pleases the king, if your servants found favor, send me to Judah, to the city of my father's graves, that I might rebuild it.

45:05 Well, from there, there's some more conversation. King asks how long he's going to be gone. It's clear Nehemiah spent some time thinking and planning because he's got some very specific things that he wants, right? Letters to the governors, letter to the keeper of the king's forest, because I'm going to need wood, all of this. In the end, the king grants the request. He says, okay, gives him everything he wants. But I want you to pause. I want you to see the progression so far. Nehemiah goes from being terrified of this situation in verse 2 to submitting that fear to God in verse 4 through prayer at the moment of truth.

45:36 From fear to submitting fear to prayer and to God. And by the end of it all, look what's happened in the last phrase of verse 8. The king granted me what I asked. Why? Because the good hand of my God was upon me. He's gone from fear to prayer to an unshakable conviction that God has been working on his behalf. All in the course of this conversation. You know, courage through the centuries has been given a lot of definitions.

46:07 Aristotle said that courage is not a virtue in itself. Courage is the shape that every virtue takes when it's pushed to the breaking point. Somebody else said that courage isn't the absence of fear, it's the determination to act in spite of fear. I think those are pretty good definitions of it. But however you define it, what I want you to see is exactly how Nehemiah ignited courage in his own heart at a moment of truth. He didn't just talk himself up, he didn't just pull himself up by his bootstraps and swallow hard and do what's got to be done.

46:40 He didn't deny his fear. He didn't call himself a coward for having fear. No, he took his fear, which was very real and very reasonable, and he submitted the fear to God. He reminded himself in this split-second prayer who God is and what God has promised. He forced his fear to bow to those realities. Listen, you're going to need courage to live the Christian life. you just are there are a lot of hard things in the Christian life and you're going to need courage to face them you're going to need to say and do and not say and not do things that are going to cause fear to rise in your heart brothers and sisters cultivate the kind of courage that Nehemiah had not a courage that finds its footing in your own strength and abilities that's not the point not one that calls yourself a coward for having fear fear is real, fear is reasonable No, but a courage that forces fear to bow to the reality of who God is and what he does.

47:44 Knowing God, that's what will fuel courage in your life. Here's the last thing. Nehemiah's commitment to God's reputation. Knowing God led to Nehemiah's commitment to God's reputation. Starting in verse 9, the story skips forward probably several months. We're likely in the summer here of that same year. Nehemiah arrives in Jerusalem. He's got this royal retinue of soldiers, definitely there for protection, of course, but also no doubt to put on a show. He's there to put on a show and say, look, you guys, I know that you were against building walls in Jerusalem, and I know that prior to this, the king told you to stop the building of walls, but you need to know that that policy has changed, and here are my soldiers to prove it, right?

48:28 So that's part of what's going on there. Anyway, Nehemiah arrives. He does an inspection of the walls by night in verses 11 to 16. There's no reason to go through the details there, but he basically goes out the east, or I guess goes out the west, goes around the southern part of the wall, all the way around up to the north. He has to abandon his animal, the donkey or whatever it was, because it couldn't walk on the mountain. So he abandons it halfway around, goes on around, comes back in, and nobody knows about it because he does it at night.

49:01 Then in 17 to 18, he speaks to the people. Look at that. I said to them, you see the trouble we're in, how Jerusalem lies in ruins with its gates burned. Come, let us build the wall of Jerusalem that we may no longer suffer derision. Well, this, of course, incenses the governors. They try a couple of tactics to nip this thing in the bud, right? They try ridicule. What is this thing that you're doing? This is ridiculous. Why are you trying to rebuild the wall? What's the point? And when that doesn't work, they turn to threatening him.

49:33 Are you rebelling against the king by trying to rebuild the walls of this city and inside the confines of his territory? Are you really trying to rebel against the king? Then in 20, you get what I think is the best summary of the entire theology of Nehemiah. Look at it. Then I replied to them, with all their ridicule, with all their threatenings, I replied to them, the God of heaven will make us prosper. And we, his servants, will arise and build. But you have no portion or right or claim in Jerusalem.

50:07 It's extraordinary, isn't it? God will make us prosper, and we will arise and build. And you see the two parts of Nehemiah's theology there, right? It's a theology, yes, that trusts God. God will make us prosper. And it knows that everything fails if God doesn't do that. But it's also not a let go and let God theology. Nehemiah's plan here is not just to sit around and just wait for the walls to build themselves or for angels to come from heaven and build the walls for them.

50:38 He knows that these people have to act. We will arise and build, but we will do so relying on God to prosper us. It's a tightrope, isn't it? Theological tightrope. And there are two ways to fall off of it. And you and I are going to be prone to fall off of that in our daily lives one way or the other. if not both. And there's some Christians who think it all depends on their work. I have to do this, I have to do this, I have to do this, and when it is done, it is mine to enjoy and take pride in.

51:14 God's just a bit player. There are other Christians who don't want to have to do work at all on anything. Career, family, friendships, church. We just want to sit back, let go, and let God. We just expect God to do it all. And if God don't do it, that means God didn't want it done. Friends, neither of those is what the Bible teaches. The Bible tells us again and again, not least here in Nehemiah, to get to work, to do good, to carry out the responsibilities that God has given us. But when all is said and done, when we look back at the hard work that we have done and know beyond a shadow of a doubt, it is God who has prospered me.

51:56 so so what was it just thinking about what was it that fueled nehemiah's confidence in god and his courage in that dangerous situation and then his commitment to do what needed to be done what was it it was the fact that he knew the god that he served and so that's the question for you Do you want all that good stuff in your Christian life? How well do you know you're God? Let's pray.

52:30 Our Lord, we thank you and honor you today for who you are and what you have done. We thank you that you are a God who calls us into your service. And yet, we praise you and honor you as the one who is the only one who prospers the work that we set our hands to. Lord, we pray that you would help us to remember these things and help us to remember them. because of what Jesus, our Savior, has done for us. We pray it all in His name. Amen.