Nehemiah
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Nehemiah is about
rebuilding - life after judgement
Esther had gotten them the right to fight back - but that didn’t mean there was no war. Jerusalem’s walls were in distress.
Calling - sacrificial serivce
Nehemiah had a great gig. Gave it up.
Courage in the face of opposition. Enemies inside and outside.
clear lines between the people of God and their enemies.
Division of labor for a common goal. Each fam had their section.
and ultimately - Jesus.
he laid down his life to serve his people despite the shame, despite being hated.
it is Jesus who, like Nehemiah, establishes Gods people, protects them, preserves them.
it is Jesus who, like Nehemiah, prays for God’s people, intercedes.
2:1 In the month of Nisan, in the twentieth 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.2 And the king said to me, “Why is your face sad, seeing you are not sick? This is nothing but sadness of the heart.” Then I was very much afraid. 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 fathers' graves, lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?” 4 Then the king said to me, “What are you requesting?” So I prayed to the God of heaven
Here we see some of Nehemiah’s Christ-likeness play out
he has a great burden for his people.
he’s willing to not only pray, but to lay down his life.
Nehemiah had one request - let me go home and rebuild.
note - this isn’t a safe trip. or even safe on arrival. walls had a purpose.
and they still do....
APPLICATION: POPE Francis recently said “building walls is not Christian”
well, it depends on what you’re doing.
but this is the common rhetoric today.
us vs. them language is socially faux pas
we shouldn’t alienate others with our actions or words
instead we alter our speach to “make space”
several prominant pastors lately have argued that we should whisper about certain sins so we can keep the church inclusive. not scare anyone away.
look. Christians can’t “make space” for those who refuse to repent. We can’t make space for secular frameworks or ideologies.
we can’t “make space” for every ideology that is suddenly culturally popular.
bridge building sounds better in our current cultural climate than wall building - I know. The spin has been applied.
**But think about this with me for a moment.
how much space do you want to make around your marriage bed?
none, right? You don’t want any space. You want walls.
Then how much space do we want around our marriage w/ Christ?
We build walls. Walls around our church, marriage beds, our covenants, our hearts.
we build walls everytime we preach. everytime we serve communion. everytime we discipline.
…when we marry or give in marriage.
when we have children, when we discipline our children.
Walls are essential for Christian community.
BUT THESE WALLS DO HAVE GATES!!
Don’t think we’re isolationists here. There are gates, and they are marked with “repent & believe”
SO WE SHOULD HAVE WALLS - but how do we go about building them?
We preach what is true and we REFUTE what is false.
Acts 18:28 - Apollos - “powerfully refuted the Jews in public”
to build a wall between what is true and false. right and wrong. good and bad. beautiful and ugly.
Francis Schaeffer calls it “pushing the antithesis”
Any season of reform requires pushing back against what is culturally accepted but wrong according to the Bible.
Thats normal.
AND TO DO SO - PUBLICLY
not exactly stylish - except for a few things.
AND POWERFULLY
passion, not quiet, not with a whisper, to be weak here is to compromise.
When we refute powerfully, publicly, like Apollos there is a danger of alienating from those we might not want to...
a danger of being persecuted
a danger of being misunderstood - written off
but the upside!
you serve God’s people. you serve those who wish to know these distinctions between the world and Christ’s church.
How can you persuade without disagreement? without refutation?
what if we help a believer not fall into a trap?
there is a downside to this, yes, but there is an upside as well.
And if you’re worried that you’re the only one building walls… refuting… you’re not.
the question isn’t will society/culture build walls. accept some/reject others.
the question is who. Who will be accepted and who will be rejected.
Christians build walls, refute, acfording to God’s standard. and ALL WHO CALL ON THE NAME OF THE LORD WILL BE…
but all who refuse to repent… perish.
we need straight clear strong walls.
and all of us have a part to play here.
Neh 3:1 Then Eliashib the high priest rose up with his brothers the priests, and they built the Sheep Gate. They consecrated it and set its doors. They consecrated it as far as the Tower of the Hundred, as far as the Tower of Hananel. 2 And next to him the men of Jericho built. And next to them[a] Zaccur the son of Imri built. 3 The sons of Hassenaah built the Fish Gate. They laid its beams and set its doors, its bolts, and its bars. 4 And next to them Meremoth the son of Uriah, son of Hakkoz repaired. And next to them….
Each of us have our portion of the wall. We all have our part of the mission.
in other words - we’ve got our specific callings.
not just pastors building churches, but we build families, we build businesses.
How do we build?
we love what Christ loves, and we hate what he hates.
we embrace his justice as our standard.
APP: And to carry our analogy farther...here’s the thing about walls
if there is a weak piece, everyone suffers.
think with me - the way you lead your family to Jesus has an effect on everyone else in this room.
our kids hang out. we hang out. our kids might marry one another one day.
what you let into your life doesn’t just affect you.
where you compromise doesn’t just affect you.
Neh 6:1 Now when Sanballat and Tobiah and Geshem the Arab and the rest of our enemies heard that I had built the wall and that there was no breach left in it (although up to that time I had not set up the doors in the gates), 2 Sanballat and Geshem sent to me, saying, “Come and let us meet together at Hakkephirim in the plain of Ono.” But they intended to do me harm. 3 And I sent messengers to them, saying, “I am doing a great work and I cannot come down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and come down to you?”
notice - the beginning is a call to talk. “come down. lets talk”
Nehemiah - no fool - won’t leave the work.
later they move on to scorn, mocking.
didn’t work
so they turned to slander - this worked for a little bit.
slander and gossip is always a stumbling block to the simple.
“that Nehemiah, he just wants to be your king.”
but not to those who know how to deal with it. Drive to the source. Deal with the person.
Then they tried entrapment. Phony friends. Pulling out all the stops, but God preserved Neh.
CHP 7 - wall finished but still work to be done. There is still rebuilding to be done.
they need more people. more time. where to start? They knew wehre to start.
Neh 8:1 And all the people gathered as one man into the square before the Water Gate. And they told Ezra the scribe to bring the Book of the Law of Moses that the Lord had commanded Israel. 2 So Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could understand what they heard, on the first day of the seventh month. 3 And he read from it facing the square before the Water Gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand. And the ears of all the people were attentive to the Book of the Law.
They built a special platform and they spent the day READING the BIBLE
people “amen”ed his reading, they lifted their hands, they bowed their heads
and the Levites instructed the people to help them understand the laws v8
Neh 8:8 They read from the book, from the Law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.
they didn’t only need the word, but teachers, and God had blessed them and given that to them.
and as they taught, much like as when you hear a right teacher, they heard things they had forgotten were there.
AND EVEN THEIR CALENDAR IS CHANGED/RESTORED v14
Neh 8:14 And they found it written in the Law that the Lord had commanded by Moses that the people of Israel should dwell in booths during the feast of the seventh month,
The reformation has begun. And where did it start? With a faithful man and the Word.
Where does the reformation start here? Much the same.
we cannot be obsessed with comfort, with peaceful living, with financial securtiy.
we have a mission. To reform.
And as we reform, our lives are changed, much like Israel
the sabbath was restored, a day of rest,
the tithes were restored, the mechanism by which God’s church is resourced
families were reformed and marriage with nonbelievers was forbidden
walls went up - not just around the city but around their households
and the culmination of all this reform? A party. A festival. The restoration of God’s festivals.
The rejoiced and celebrated their reformation.