4.3.30 6.20.2021 Nehemiah 2.9-20 Review
Restoring Hope by Renewing our Focus • Sermon • Submitted
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Entice: To properly prepare for a long and difficult task you need to have some way of assessing how long and difficult it will be. What we is need a kind of ecclesiastical/cultural "going-stick". In Horse Racing in the UK, contested mostly on turf, they have this stick with markings on it to determine the "going" or condition of the track. A trainer walks the course with his "going-stick", sticks it into the ground to determine how soft or hard it is. This gives him the information he needs to determine how hard the running will be and if it will have an impact on his horse/horses. And ultimately whether or not to run or scratch…he is determining the size and scope of the project. He is conducting a review of objective conditions to help with the decision.
In a broken culture, with a limping Church, we need a reliable review process. We need A going-stick.
Engage: Our job as believers is to focus on the Church, to fix what is broken, reestablish that which has fallen into disrepair, and to strengthen those things which have been weakened by cultural contamination and our recent catastrophe. You can't fix it it if you don't know where it is fractured, the nature of the injury, and why it was injured. You can't strengthen something if you don't know it's weakness. You cannot protect something which you cannot define. These are the issues which confront Nehemiah in…
9 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.
10 But when Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite servant heard this, it displeased them greatly that someone had come to seek the welfare of the people of Israel.
11 So I went to Jerusalem and was there three days.
12 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. There was no animal with me but the one on which I rode.
13 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.
14 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.
15 Then 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.
16 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 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.”
18 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.
19 But when Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite 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?”
20 Then 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.”
Expand: This passage might seem too historically contingent and isolated, thus irrelevant. No, no, no, no! This is the perfect passage for our time! The walls need rebuilt and strengthened. We need clear demarcations of what faith is and is not. This passage reminds us that hard work is…hard work. We need to take the necessary time to know what solution we are applying to which problem. Nehemiah set out from Persia with a plan, a purpose, a program, a prospectus…but he had not actually laid eyes on the problem. How many times have we actually damaged something or made it worse because we did not take the time to review the situation?
Excite: There are issues confronting the Church in our time and place. We are constantly reassessing and recalibrating. To rebuild you have to sort through the rubble and rekindle your purpose. I am confident that days of empowering ministry lie ahead of us. And like Nehemiah before us…
Explore:
We have to review the damage if we want to reverse collapse and actually repair what is broken.
We have to review the damage if we want to reverse collapse and actually repair what is broken.
Explain: Nehemiah reminds us of how effective it is to ask the right questions.
Question #
1 How Broken is the System?
1 How Broken is the System?
1.1 What Kind of break?
1.1 What Kind of break?
1.1.1 Clean break?
1.1.2 Compound?
1.2 How Complicated?
1.2 How Complicated?
1.2.1 social (Not everyone was happy with what Nehemiah was doing)
1.2.2 Economic (Only beast of burden was the one Nehemiah rode from Persia)
1.2.3 Material (Broken and burned walls mean timber, and stone.)
2 How Big is The Job?
2 How Big is The Job?
2.1 What is before us?
2.1 What is before us?
Quantity and Quality.
2.2 What resources do we have?
2.2 What resources do we have?
18 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.
3 How Bad is the Opposition?
3 How Bad is the Opposition?
3.1 Who is opposed?
3.1 Who is opposed?
3.2 Why are they opposed?
3.2 Why are they opposed?
3.3 Is there a compromise?
3.3 Is there a compromise?
Shut Down:
Believe it or not this kind of an exercise is ultimately Biblical and Theological. Our culture only looks to the past to find excuses for contemporary conflicts. It won't address the damage so it cannot come up with a solution. God doesn't work like that. The cross acknowledges sin so that it can be forgiven. The empty tomb faces the question of death squarely and defeats it. The Bible exposes deception with the truth. And Nehemiah rebuilt Jerusalem after he examined the debris to find out what had been torn down.
Listen to me Church! The culture needs us. The lost need us. The world needs us. For us to be of any help we need to mount up and go survey the damage..not of the culture, but of the Church. Then in an attitude of prayerful repentance we can clear the debris, proclaim the empowering vision of God, and become the redemptive community Jesus intends for us to be. Are you willing to join me in asking these hard questions, so that we might move forward together in partnership with Christ? RISE UP O PEOPLE OF GOD! BE DONE WITH LESSER THINGS! GIVE HEART AND SOUL AND MIND AND STRENGTH, TO SERVE THE KING OF KINGS!