Nehemiah 1 –

Today we start a new series: the spiritual principles that emerge from Nehemiah, one of the bible’s great leaders.

In particular we will see that Nehemiah was a prime example of someone who put structures in place to achieve God’s will for his life. Especially a structure of prayer.

These were both personal structures in the way he approached life and organisational structures in the way he managed a huge civil engineering project which he completed in record time

History records that Nehemiah was a man who build one of the greatest walls in history.

• <ppt> Offas dyke – was supposed to keep out the marauding Welsh
• <ppt> Hadrian’s wall – was built to keep out the marauding Scots
• <ppt> Berlin wall was built to keep the east Germans in
• <ppt> And the great wall of china was built to keep out the Xiongnu people who threatened invasion from the north.
• <ppt> Here is the wailing wall of Jerusalem which is still a potent symbol of Jewishness for the people of Israel

Nehemiah was a Jew, passionate about God who was living in a foreign land.

Who was Nehemiah <ppt>

<ppt> Nehemiah started out in life as a butler but God had other ideas.

<ppt> he ended up as a leader of God’s people and a project manager

In fact few leaders achieved what Nehemiah accomlished in such a short time

why? – one of the main reasons is that he was a man of earnest prayer! This was one of the personal structures he had in his life. It was a framework around which other things happened

Nine prayers recorded in this book, most of which is Nehemiah’s personal journal.

• he poured his heart into it.
• we pick up his heartbeat – his joys – his frustrations
• and his journal is peppered with his praying

This first prayer is long and carefully worded

• others are mainly urgent prayers to meet a specific need. – ‘arrow prayers’

However the common pattern is that N is very confident that God hears and responds to his praying – although not always in the way we would expect!

As we go through the book of Nehemiah we will see that it would often have been the easiest thing in the world of Nehemiah to give up.

• He had opposition on every side! From inside and outside and a lesser man would have given up in despair.

So the primary question for today – What made Nehemiah one of the world’s great examples of a man who walked with God?

To dig into that we need to know about

Nehemiah’s background

Notice that

He was a member of an oppressed minority

Possibly born in exile

• so he knew what it was to be part of a hounded group.
• It would seem that his parents sought to keep up their Jewish tradition by giving him the name Nehemiah – ‘The Lord comforts’.

He was successful in his imposed homeland

Risen to the top of the tree – cup bearer – one of the most important posts in the land

• in his hands was the safety of the head of state. – therefore the appointment was not made lightly.
• it was a position that he could not obtain through influential friends – it was the gift of the King himself.
• appointed on the basis of stable character, sharp eyes, intimate knowledge of palace intrigue.
• And since his own life might depend on it too, an attention to detail.

Spiritual principle: bloom where you’re planted! >>>

He was prepared to hear and obey God’s voice

Many of these qualities were to be taken by God and used in the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem. He was like a butterfly just ready to emerge from his cocoon – perfectly formed, but never having tried his wings

Important spiritual principle here

• in God’s economy – no experience is ever valueless – even though we may not be able to explain it at the time.
• Our experience are often a training for what God has further up the road for us.

N’s training for God’s task was in the palace at Susa. – watching men, guarding his position, understanding the motives of people as they are displayed in their actions.

BUT (you may say) what about bad, bitter, experiences?

• As we yield them to Him – repent deeply of any sin that we’ve got caught up in – God is even able to use them to our good.

It may take time, it may involve the help of trusted friends,

it will involve praying

But I believe that God can even turn the bitter experiences of life for our good.

Romans 8:28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him,

How come?

When the Lord makes good come out of tragedy or tough experiences, He is recapturing Satan’s ground

part of His grace – unmerited generosity.

When people come to talk to me about tragedies in their lives, one of the most common questions is “Why?!” Why did God let this happen? Why did it have to be me?

• It’s a perfectly natural question and the honest answer is ‘I don’t know why’
• but what I do know is that the One who saw it happen, and was with you in the happening
• the One before whom no action or attitude is ever hidden

And He is good to his children

So what made Nehemiah one of the world’s great pray-ers?

He allowed trauma to be a messenger from God not a missile from Satan <ppt>

Nehemiah’s praying was rooted in reality

And it starts with a traumatic BOLT OUT OF THE BLUE

• We sit in our cosy worlds and in a matter of a few minutes we are bounced out of our lethargy when momentous news reaches us.
• Our world can be shaken by the information we receive
• Actually, to be more precise, it’s shaken by our reaction to it.

It is said that anyone who as alive when John F Kennedy was assassinated can remember what they were doing at the time

• same is true of with first landing on the moon Princess Diana’s death, or the destruction of the twin towers
• However, when momentous news has to do with someone close to us it affects us more deeply.

Nehemiah was concerned for the state of the land <ppt>

Jerusalem was N’s spiritual home. – The centre around which his life revolved. So it was more than just the geographical city that mattered to N – it was the people that city represented.

“those who survived the exile are in great trouble and disgrace” v3

However, there is a deeper reality

N was concerned with the reputation of the Lord

• that was intimately bound up with His people
• here they were, living in an indefensible city, and being derided by other ethnic groups living in the surrounding region.

So if N was going to do anything, he was going to do it because God’s reputation was at stake!

the importance of being earnest

His true feelings were not hidden

N now experiences a flood of emotion

v4 <ppt> “When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven”

Look at what happened to N!

• Sat down => his physical strength left him
• Wept => he could no longer keep a cheerful face – so intense was his feeling for God’s land, God’s people and God’s reputation
• His whole being was gripped with the seriousness of the plight of Jerusalem.

Have you ever felt like that?

• a burden in prayer has been laid on your heart so heavily that all you can do is sit down and weep before the Lord?
• A Catholic writer calls it ‘the gift of tears’
• it continued this for “some days”

I’m not saying that we should only pray when we feel strongly about something

• e.g. Mrs. J O Frazer “When I’m driest, then I most need to pray”

But when our hearts burn within us that God wants to do something then we must pray

e.g. John White

Years ago in a daily prayer meeting missionary prayer-letter files were passed around. One morning my file contained a letter from a missionary in the Philippines. In it she described her hospitalisation in Manila for spinal tuberculosis. Her condition was serious and at the time called for a prolonged period in a sanatorium in a body cast. Unexpectedly (for the woman was a stranger to me) I was not only profoundly shaken but found myself virtually insisting that God heal her right away.

My prayer was remarkable in that I did not believe such healing was possible, and so I was astounded both by the content and the urgency of my own prayer. I suppose you could say that the Holy Spirit was allowing me to ‘see’ two realities – the need of the young missionary, and God’s power to do something my theology and medical experience told me was impossible. To the astonishment of her physician, this woman in the Philippines was miraculously healed that same day

… and soon after became my wife.

(See “Excellence in leadership” THI/WHI/350)

What had happened in N? God has shown him two realities

Nehemiah’s twin realities <ppt>

• a) God’s ideal of how his people should be
• b) the actual state of how they really were
• this brought tension <ppt> between God’s vision

Jerusalem restored –

once again displaying God’s glory

so that people would say “if their God is like their city – then He’s awesome! ”

… and the current reality

a city derelict and in shambles

he cried out to himself “Lord it ought not to be like this!”

In so doing,

Nehemiah grasped the true nature of God

v5 “O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps the covenant of love with those who love him and obey his commands”

This is not simply a flashy preamble to make his prayer sound good!

• it’s an expression of N’s faith in the Lord

Faith is not a feeling (although it involves feelings).

• It is the act of relying on someone who is both able and willing to do what I ask of them.
• “is anything too hard for the Lord?” >>>

His faith rests on the character and personality of God

• God of heaven
• No higher authority
• Great and awesome God
• No words can describe him, no mental concept can completely define him
• Whatever I think God is like – he’s greater!

Keeps his covenants

>>>

If this prayer shows N’s faith in the Lord, then it also shows his persistence

• his whole being was dominated by this burning desire to see God do something for several days
• Waking or sleeping it was always in the back of his mind
• It’s likely that this prayer was not just uttered once
• it’s a summary of what went through his heart over those few days.

v6 “let your ear be attentive and you eyes open to hear the prayer your servant is praying before you day and night for your servants the people of Israel”

This is why a prayer diary is useful >>>

Scripted praying >>>

Nehemiah’s confession

(he understood the people)

v6 “I confess the sins that we Israelites, including my father’s house, have committed against you”

He confessed the sins of the people as if they were his own

• N’s life wasn’t free from sin, but this is more than that!
• he’s confessing, on behalf of the people, sins of rebellion and rejection of the Lord that he hadn’t personally committed.
• He’s saying “Lord, I AM one of your wayward people, I confess that we have turned against You”

It is almost as if

Nehemiah held God to ransom

Nehemiah claimed God’s promises – always a good path to travel in prayer!

Key word is in v8 “remember” – in so doing he was taking hold of God’s promises!

e.g. When our children were at school we’d often hear ourselves saying things like:

• “if home work is completed by eight o’clock you can watch “the Bill” on TV”
• 8 o’clock comes, all the homework is complete – But I don’t let them turn the TV on
• They object – “Hey, Dad – you promised that if our homework was done we could watch the Bill!”
• there’s insistence in their voices – they’re indignant that what I promised is not being delivered

and they’re right!

That’s Nehemiah here! “Now look here, Lord, you promised!”

Nehemiah 1:18 “Remember the instruction you gave your servant Moses, saying, `If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations, 9 but if you return to me and obey my commands, then even if your exiled people are at the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen as a dwelling for my Name.’

The Lord takes this kind of praying very seriously indeed.

It was this which led to

Nehemiah’s unbelievably, irresponsibly, unreasonably short shopping list

If it was me I’d be asking for everything from the first sentence of prayer!

But he had more insight that Ian White! He asked for what he thought he needed – and the request was a tiny one!

v11 “Give your servant success today by granting him favour in the presence of the King!”

Now – in the light of all that has gone before in this prayer we might find the smallness of his request something of a surprise.

• Why such a sledgehammer to crack a nut?

The lessons is this

the major achievement of prayer is not the shopping list

prayer is never a monologue

We know he wept for days and if we compare 1:1 with 2:1 we see a gap of four months!

• Therefore this prayer represents the traffic between God and Nehemiah over a period of 4 months.

When you pray next, ask “Lord – how do you want me to pray? What are you asking of me?

• We think we know what we should pray for (an of course we should use our minds to think it out carefully – as N did)

but there is place – a larger place – for us to spend time carefully asking the Lord what he wants of us in our praying.

e.g. Napoleon –

• high vantage point –
• captains listening to him –
• brilliant strategist –
• “seize that barn at all costs”
• apparently trivial – but it was the key to the whole battle

We need to listen to our heavenly commander in prayer.

[recap]

Pray