Oakbrook Evangelical Free Church

Introduction:
The year is 445 B.C. 1000 years after Moses 400 years before Christ

The years of history the book covers are 445-431 B.C.

Back in the land after 70 years of exile. But the walls are broken down. The people are in trouble and living in disgrace.

When in exile, settled down to life in a foreign country. Some became prominent in the government. Nehemiah is one of those who had risen to a place of prominence.

2-3 milli Jews deported. Only about 97,000 returned to the land. (4%)

“I was lucky I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz (Steve Wozniak) and I started Apple in my parents’ garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4,000 employees. We had just released our finest creation—the Macintosh—a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew, we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge, and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating….

I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the world’s first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple’s current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Steve Jobs, 2005 commencement address at Stanford

“Strike when the metal is hot.”

Last week Nehemiah had received bad news.

~ the survivors are in trouble and disgrace.

~ The wall is broken down

~ Its gates have been burned.

I said last week that this story about Jerusalem and its broken walls is a wonderful illustration of damaged and ruined areas in our lives that need to be rebuilt, repaired and recovered. As we look at Nehemiah we learn valuable lessons for us

Last week – Nehemiah was weeping and praying over the ruins of J

Rebuilding real Broken Walls – Driven with a passion for God’s work!

15 years earlier – Rebuilt their worship center and spiritual renewal

Ezra 4:6-23 they’d tried to rebuild the walls earlier but failed.

Nehemiah learned of the conditions in Jerusalem that led him to request permission to return to Judah (2:5). He arrived in Jerusalem in 444 B.C. and within 52 days had completed the rebuilding of the city walls (6:15). He will serve as Judah’s governor for 12 years.

Step #1 –without rational-ization, self-defense, or shifting the blame Nehemiah makes an honest evaluation before God. The book of Nehemiah is designed to teach us that only with God’s help can we actually change and recover from the damage and ruin of the past. That is the central lesson of this book.

Notice what Nehemiah did not do: he did not complain, whine, or “see who could fix this problem.” He did not seek to blame or shame. He immediately did what he knew he could do – pray, and intensely seek God in this situation.

Any degree of self-justification by Nehemiah would have canceled out recovery. And if you and I try to excuse ourselves for what is wrong in our lives, we block our own recovery. Before God, in an open, vulnerable heart to heart with God, just admit it, declare it. This first step in God’s way of the process of recovery

Each of us will likely at one time or another in our lives find ourselves with broken down walls,

will have lost our way and

vulnerable to open attacks from destructive

still held in bondage to wrong attitudes or habits

Nehemiah was honest before God and prayed for help.

Expect God to do something! Be ready when the opportunity comes. It will likely be a process and will take longer than we think it ought. But the God we worship is an awesome God who answers prayer.

Rick Warren: “This is the first step anyone should take – prayer for guidance. Proverbs 28:26 “A man is a fool to trust himself! But those who use God’s wisdom are safe.”

I. Timing – His not ours!

Kislev – December

Nisan – April four months.

Tomatoes ripened on the vine taste much better than those ripen through the short-cut of being sprayed with CO2 gas to turn them red.

Not told why Nehemiah waited four months to bring to problem to the King. But we can figure out that the problem has not left Nehemiah’s thoughts for long. But not in a hurry!

Believe that God is at work.

Keep a notebook or journal of lessons learned.

Be patient with God and yourself!

Moses waited 14,600 days in the wilderness.

“Great souls are grown through struggles and storms”

Don’t get discouraged! Focus on the good that has happene

“Why does your face look so sad…”

“I was very much afraid”

With good reason.

Totalitarian king. Way to get rid of through poisoning.

Wine taster had to be trusted!

This is a moment of danger…but it is also a moment of opportunity!

God’s open door!

Spontaneous, silent prayer of the heart.

In his thoughts, without words a quick IM

Man of prayer, waiting for the right time.

Desires of the heart, hurts in our lives. Praying for help.

Where is God, why is it taking so long?

Timing is not often in our control. His timing, not mine.

Why would I try to control timing?

He is the One who knows the best time.

He is the One who knows when I really ready to take personal

responsibility. Job of a counselor to see if we are serious

buyers or merely being dragged along as window shoppers.

God is the One who sees around every corner and takes everything into consideration

His delays do not mean he is unwilling to help.

Over and over we are told to persevere in prayer! “watch and pray”

Luke 11:5 Friend at midnight rings the doorbell asking for 3 loaves of bread. “Go away, don’t bother me, the door is locked and my family is in bed. “Yet because of his boldness and perseverance he will get up and give me as much as he needs.

Ask…seek…knock.

Luke 11:11-13 ““Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? “Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? “If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”” NIV

II. When An Opportunity Comes, Be ready, don’t hesitate!

A. Notice his tact and humility

If it pleases the king

The city in Judah – doesn’t mention Jerusalem by name.

Where my fathers are buried. A passion of the kings.

Story: seminary, needed help, at just the right time…

B. Notice he has thought this through and is prepared.

Work at being prepared!

Lots of delays.

Use the “in the mean time” to get ready.

Ready for what? I don’t know but don’t be caught standing still!

Learn that it takes steps!

Building a dresser experience!

Classes.

Books.

Experiences! A life message!

In the mean time assess and use the gifts God has given you now! Don’t wait for the perfect place!

“If we are truly concerned about rebuilding parts of our life, we need to think seriously about what it will require. We must assess what we will actually need, what steps we should take, and what may be involved in changing our habits so that we can be freed to be what God wants us to be.”

Nehemiah teaches us that we must honestly face our situation!

1. Time it will take

2. Secure escort – military escort.

Illustration: Ukraine – lost luggage! Affidavit by attorney!

3. In the full authority of the throne of Persia!

We come with the full authority of the throne of Heaven!

If you want to change something in your life or want to see significant change made in someone’s life you will need to go / come in the full authority of the throne of heaven. This is where our confidence comes from!

Tim’s story!

Pregnant daughter

Prayed that the young man would be taken out of her life.

Wanted to go into the Marines and needed a signature.

Four months later! Three years later.

4. With God’s provision! From amazing sources.

III. Expect Opposition! 2:10, 19-20

For when ever the people of God say, ‘Let us arise and build,’ Satan says, ‘Let me arise and oppose.’” Allan Redpath

Nehemiah met two enemies

Sanballat the Horonite,

An Horonite is a devotee of the god Horon, a local deity of Palestine. This indicates this man was a pagan

A relative of Israel but a renegade son of Lot.

Tobiah the Ammonite.. Tobiah was a citizen of Ammon, which was the country that we now call Jordan (whose capital, by the way, is named Amman). Ammon was one of the tribes descended from Lot, the nephew of Abraham, and thus related to Israel but always an enemy of Israel. This records the first appearance in this book of the enemies of Nehemiah.

This situation sounds very much like normal Christianity. I have always enjoyed the definition of a Christian that says he is one who is completely fearless, continually cheerful, and constantly in trouble! It is often God’s way to let us face troublesome difficulties. But he also has unknown provisions waiting for us, as we will see in Nehemiah’s case.

Notice Nehemiah’s answer to them. 2:20

The form their opposition took is like our struggles.

1. They first “mocked and ridiculed.”

This is usually the first weapon the enemy employs. You may have felt it when you began to recover from your ruin. Your friends laughed at your desires to change. They may ridicule your religious convictions and resent your implied criticisms of their conduct.

2. Nehemiah’s enemies began to threaten and slander him with charges of rebellion and disloyalty. If ridicule does not work, then the opposition stiffens and becomes openly unfriendly and threatening. It is the next level of resistance which those who seek to rebuild

These are but pictures for us…something very real: the opposition and the resistance that we will experience from Satan himself. What was true of these opposing forces in Nehemiah’s case is true also of Satan. He is a usurper. He has no right to possess humankind. He has tricked us. He has bedeviled us and led us astray. He has confused, manipulated and misled us. Yet he has no right to do so. Jesus came to restore God’s property to him and to loose the hold of the devil upon the human race. That is what he does in our lives. So when we face resistance we must see it as allowed of God to strengthen us, but it has no real right to our lives. We do not have to be weak, failing, and unable to function. We are called to be free. That is the glorious note which the epistle to the Galatians states: “it is for freedom that Christ has set us free!” (Galatians 5:1a NIV).