SPEAKER_00: Now we're going to dive into Nehemiah.
SPEAKER_00: Before we dive into Nehemiah, though, I want to kind of set a precedent.
SPEAKER_00: This is an Old Testament book that's kind of in the middle of a lot that's going on.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're going to take this first sermon and we're going to spend a hefty amount of time on the historical context of Nehemiah so we get a good understanding of what's going on, why are we here and why are we caring about this person named Nehemiah?
SPEAKER_00: And then I'm going to go kind of short devotional in the exegetical portion where we look at Nehemiah 1, 1 through 11 here.
SPEAKER_00: But then that should set the scene and context predominantly for the rest of the book, right?
SPEAKER_00: So the one of the reasons why we do sermon series through entire books of the Bible is because we're not trying to get it all done in this sermon.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to set the scene, we're going to build some context, and then we're going to push out into all that God has for us in this Old Testament book.
SPEAKER_00: So as we approach Nehemiah, chapter 1, and we have to ask ourselves one question.
SPEAKER_00: How did we end up here?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: How did we end up here?
SPEAKER_00: How do we end up with this man named Nehemiah who is getting this report from one of his brothers that the walls of Jerusalem have crumbled and that its gates are burned to the ground?
SPEAKER_00: This is a report that Nehemiah gets, and then his response to it, we're going to press into in the actual uh preaching portion.
SPEAKER_00: But as we understand, how did we actually end up here?
SPEAKER_00: Who is Nehemiah?
SPEAKER_00: Simply put, for the information that we have so far in chapter one, Nehemiah is an exiled Israelite who is the cupbearer to King Artaxerxes I of Persia.
SPEAKER_00: So there's a lot in that statement there, right?
SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to be an exiled Israelite?
SPEAKER_00: What does it mean that he's a cupbearer?
SPEAKER_00: Who is Artaxerxes?
SPEAKER_00: What is Persia, right?
SPEAKER_00: All these kinds of questions.
SPEAKER_00: What we have to understand is first, that statement, he's an Israelite in exile, or he's an exiled Israelite.
SPEAKER_00: What does that statement mean?
SPEAKER_00: For us to understand that, we really have to go all the way back to the book of Deuteronomy.
SPEAKER_00: And we have to look at something Moses wrote down in Deuteronomy's chapters 28 through 30, where he's prophesying over Israelite as God's mouthpiece, uh to that that he's prophesying judgment upon Israel, and he's promising future blessing all in kind of the same fell swoop.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: So this is Deuteronomy chapters 28 through 30.
SPEAKER_00: Moses prophesies the judgment of God that produces this dispersion, this state of exile.
SPEAKER_00: And along with that, the mercy of God.
SPEAKER_00: So the judgment of God produces the dispersion, but the mercy of God gathers them back into himself after a period of time.
SPEAKER_00: So let's look through kind of, we're not gonna read all of Deuteronomy 28 through 30.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna give you kind of the the highlights of this prophecy.
SPEAKER_00: So first let's look at Deuteronomy 28, verse 45.
SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy chapter 28, verse 45.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, this is Moses speaking, prophesying on behalf of God to the people of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: All these curses shall come upon you and pursue you and overtake you till you are destroyed.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes that he commanded you.
SPEAKER_00: All right, so so God's gonna inflict judgment to destroy Israel, and he gives us the reason.
SPEAKER_00: Uh because they were unfaithful.
SPEAKER_00: They did not keep his commandments and statutes.
SPEAKER_00: That's kind of the motivating factor uh for God.
SPEAKER_00: In 2849, he continues, uh, the Lord will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, swooping down like the eagle, a nation's whose language you do not understand.
SPEAKER_00: So so again, God's gonna bring judgment upon them.
SPEAKER_00: How is that judgment gonna come?
SPEAKER_00: So he's already promised that it's coming.
SPEAKER_00: He's given us the reason why it's coming, and now he's communicating to Israel how it's gonna take place.
SPEAKER_00: A foreign nation whose tongue you do not even understand is going to swoop in and destroy you.
SPEAKER_00: What they're doing, fundamentally, is they are being used to inflict the judgment of God upon his people.
SPEAKER_00: Let's understand God's sovereignty in this.
SPEAKER_00: Let's understand God's will in this and his good pleasure.
SPEAKER_00: He he is inflicting that upon his people.
SPEAKER_00: Then we read in uh Deuteronomy chapter 28, verse 64.
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord will scatter you, so this is this dispersion, right?
SPEAKER_00: The Lord will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known.
SPEAKER_00: Uh so so again, look at look at the sovereignty of God.
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna bring judgment, he's gonna destroy Israel through a foreign nation, he's gonna cause this dispersion, and in that he is going to permit their hearts to be given over to false gods and idols uh that have no power to save them or redeem them.
SPEAKER_00: Now we continue.
SPEAKER_00: This sounds great, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: If if we're gonna start opening up the floor to prophecy at Sacred Mission Church, let's not start here.
SPEAKER_00: That'd be a good, I would appreciate that, and I think everyone else would appreciate that in the long term.
SPEAKER_00: Let's continue though.
SPEAKER_00: Verse uh chapter 29, verses 24 through 28.
SPEAKER_00: Moses is still going.
SPEAKER_00: He's still, he's still he's still spitting bars, as they would say.
SPEAKER_00: All the nations will say, Why has the Lord done this to this land?
SPEAKER_00: Why has the Lord done this to this land?
SPEAKER_00: What caused the heat of this great anger?
SPEAKER_00: So all the nations are gonna look at Israel and they're gonna ask a question.
SPEAKER_00: What in the world did they do to deserve this?
SPEAKER_00: That that's how tragic and devastating their state will be, that the other nations will look on and say, What in the world did they do?
SPEAKER_00: And here's the answer.
SPEAKER_00: Then people will say, It is because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord, the God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt, and went and served other gods and worshipped them, gods whom they had not known, and whom he had not allotted to them.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, that's the reason the anger of the Lord was kindled against this land, bringing upon it all the curses written in this book.
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord uprooted them from their land in anger and fury and great wrath, and cast them into another land, as they are this day.
SPEAKER_00: As they are this day.
SPEAKER_00: So, so that this day, it predates the insertion of Nehemiah, right?
SPEAKER_00: So that this day that Deuteronomy is talking about, it predates the point that we enter into the history of Israel with Nehemiah, who we're talking about.
SPEAKER_00: So, so they have been scattered throughout the world, they are under foreign rulers, uh, they are experiencing the judgment of God because they've abandoned his covenants and they've abandoned his commandments.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but God's judgment is not the end.
SPEAKER_00: God being a God of steadfast love and one who does not break his covenant that he makes is going to promise in his mercy redemption for Israel.
SPEAKER_00: So not only was the judgment of God in his sovereignty, but also the blessing of God is in his sovereignty.
SPEAKER_00: Let's look at that in Deuteronomy 31 through 3.
SPEAKER_00: And when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse which I have set before you, and you call them to mine among all the nations where the Lord your God has driven you, and return to the Lord your God.
SPEAKER_00: So repent, turn your heart back to him, you and your children, and obey his voice in all that I command you today, with what?
SPEAKER_00: With all your heart, with all your soul, and the Lord your God will do what?
SPEAKER_00: He will restore your fortunes and have mercy on you, and he will gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you.
SPEAKER_00: So the sovereignty and the judgment of God is paralleled with the sovereignty and the mercy of God as he promises to gather them back in.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Nehemiah comes into play with the gathering taking place.
SPEAKER_00: That promise of God, where he said, I will bring those who have been scattered from the ends of the earth back into the land that I have given you.
SPEAKER_00: Nehemiah inserts as that has been taken place.
SPEAKER_00: That's where we're at.
SPEAKER_00: So we're in the promise of God, not in the judgment of God with Nehemiah.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the first experience of this judgment that we read about in Deuteronomy 28, it comes in the time of about 722 BC.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what happened: there was this army coming out of Assyria that invaded the northern tribes of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: So at the time that the Assyrians come in, Israel had been split into two kingdoms: a northern kingdom, which had the uh predominant ten tribes of Israel, and the capital of that northern kingdom was Samaria.
SPEAKER_00: Then you have the lower kingdom of Judah, which also incorporated Benjamin, and its capital was Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: So Israel was divided, northern kingdom, southern kingdom, Samaria the capital of the north, uh Jerusalem the capital of the south.
SPEAKER_00: In 722 BC, what happens is Assyria comes in and invades the northern capital and pushes most of the Israelites eastward.
SPEAKER_00: So they take over Samaria.
SPEAKER_00: Most of the Israelites are pushed eastward, and that's the first experience of this judgment that God delivers in Deuteronomy 28.
SPEAKER_00: Now, about 135 years later, the second experience of God's judgment happens in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: Jerusalem, the capital of Judah in the south, fell to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon.
SPEAKER_00: If you're familiar with the Bible to any measure, that name, Nebuchadnezzar, probably rings a bell, right?
SPEAKER_00: Because it's funny and weird.
SPEAKER_00: But he was a powerful king, ruler of Babylon, and it was Babylon along with the Chaldean army who came in as allies and overtook Jerusalem, the capital of Judah.
SPEAKER_00: And when they had done that, the majority of the Israelites were taken into captivity and enslavement and dispersed throughout the land of Babylon.
SPEAKER_00: Now, in both occurrences in 722 BC and here in about 587 to 586 BC, there were some Israelites who remained, who remained in the Northern Territory, specifically the capital of Samaria, and who remained in the lower territory, the lower kingdom, especially in the capital of Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: This is important because if you're again familiar with the Bible here, we're going to help kind of unpack this.
SPEAKER_00: Samaria being the capital sounds a lot like what?
SPEAKER_00: Samaritans, right?
SPEAKER_00: Samaritans that we hear about in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: These Israelites who stayed behind and started to intermarry non-Israelite people from the surrounding nations.
SPEAKER_00: And what they would say was that they actually uh uh diminished or tainted the pure blood of so the Samaritan people to Israelites were known uh as less than human.
SPEAKER_00: They were referred to as dogs.
SPEAKER_00: It was even uh understood that uh they would not receive the resurrection in the life to come, that God's judgment was so on them that they would not even be beneficiaries of the resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: So the Samaritan people come out of that whole movement, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Now, let's read 2 Kings 25, 8 through 10.
SPEAKER_00: Then we're gonna read the story of Nebuchadnezzar just real quick.
SPEAKER_00: So this is again about 135 years after the first invasion, we're in about uh 587 to 586 BC, in the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month, that was the 19th year of King Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon.
SPEAKER_00: Nebuzeradan, the captain of the bodyguard, a servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: And what did he do?
SPEAKER_00: He burned down the house of the Lord and the king's house and all the houses of Jerusalem, even every great house he burned down.
SPEAKER_00: And all the army of the Chaldeans, who were with the captain of the guard, broke down the walls around Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: So here's what we have in this judgment.
SPEAKER_00: Not only is the Israelite people dispersed and exiled out of their homeland, taken into captivity, but everything that they had built, everything that their identity was rooted in, was now in ashes.
SPEAKER_00: The temple that they had erected under King Solomon, where the presence of the Lord dwelt, uh where they were making sacrifices of atonement unto the Lord, where they worshiped the God of heaven and earth, was brought to ruin.
SPEAKER_00: And the walls and gates that fortified their city, that protected them, were crumbled.
SPEAKER_00: And so as they depart in captivity in exile, they look back over their shoulder at what once was.
SPEAKER_00: Now it's just ruins, burnt to the ground.
SPEAKER_00: In 539 BC, the king of Persia, his name was Cyrus the Great, he enters into the known land of Babylon peacefully.
SPEAKER_00: But this dude was deep, we would say, because he did not engage in any battle, but he conquered Babylon by just rolling in.
SPEAKER_00: So in peace and without engaging in battle, the king of Persia, Cyrus the Great, enters into Babylon, conquers the land, and incorporates Babylon into Persia.
SPEAKER_00: So all that was Babylon, of which the Israelites found themselves as captives under their wicked rule, now becomes Persian, and they find themselves under the rule of a Persian king named Cyrus.
SPEAKER_00: Now, there are aspects about Cyrus's reign and rule that were good.
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to read about that here.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to read about Cyrus here in about 538 BC, just a year after he took over Babylon, under his rule, the exiled Israelites were freed to go back to Jerusalem and reconstruct the temple that had been ruined.
SPEAKER_00: Let's read in Ezra 1, 1 through 4, and look at the sovereignty of God in the heart of wicked rulers.
SPEAKER_00: Watch this.
SPEAKER_00: In the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled.
SPEAKER_00: What did the Lord do?
SPEAKER_00: He stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and also put it in writing.
SPEAKER_00: Thus says Cyrus, king of Persia, the Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever is among you of all his people, the Israelites, may his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and rebuild the house of the Lord, the God of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: He is the God who is in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: And let each survivor, those who are in exile, in whatever place he sojourns, that is the kingdom of Persia, be assisted by the men of his place with silver and gold, with goods and with beasts, besides free will offerings for the house of God that is in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: Did you see the sovereignty of God in the wicked heart of a pagan king named Cyrus?
SPEAKER_00: God's promises cannot be thwarted by any earthly power.
SPEAKER_00: Let's understand that.
SPEAKER_00: That he stirred the spirit of Cyrus, that he even made a decree and wrote it down.
SPEAKER_00: Now, writing it down, that point is very special and particular to the story and how it plays out.
SPEAKER_00: So, what happens?
SPEAKER_00: All of these exiled Israels in the land of Persia, they start coming back home.
SPEAKER_00: Now, they have depleted in number greatly compared to their flourishing inside the land of promise that God had given them.
SPEAKER_00: So in their exile, they started to diminish, and they're not as great in number as they once were.
SPEAKER_00: But some of them start going back to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: And this is a very long period of time.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, this started initially back in 722 BC.
SPEAKER_00: We're currently in 538.
SPEAKER_00: So we're talking about a span of time here where there has now been generations of people born in exile who never knew Jerusalem, who had never seen the temple, who had never understood or known what the walls and gates looked like in their beauty and glory.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't know that.
SPEAKER_00: They were born in Persia.
SPEAKER_00: They were born in a different foreign territory and land, and they had not known what once was.
SPEAKER_00: So as they start journeying back into Jerusalem, the work of rebuilding the temple came to a completion in 516 BC under King Darius I of Persia.
SPEAKER_00: Now, inside of these uh uh ancient lands, we have to understand that that power and rule changed hands quite a bit.
SPEAKER_00: Uh through through death in battle, through death by assassination, power grabbing, all these different things.
SPEAKER_00: There's there's often times where uh the hand of rule switched quickly.
SPEAKER_00: And some men had uh the ability to have longer periods of reign and rule, and some men didn't.
SPEAKER_00: It just depends on how good you were, how powerful you were, how much people respected you.
SPEAKER_00: So in 516 under King Darius I, the temple is completed.
SPEAKER_00: But here's what we have to understand: even though in 516 the temple was built, the rest of the reconstruction efforts inside of Jerusalem had been halted and put to a stop because they had met opposition uh from within Persia in their efforts to reconstruct all of what Israel was.
SPEAKER_00: In Ezra chapter 4, we read about these uh people called the adversaries of Benjamin and Judah.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the adversaries of Benjamin and Judah, they were more than likely Samaritan people.
SPEAKER_00: And here's kind of how we know that.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, there's this man named Zerubbabel who's kind of leading up the reconstruction of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: He is an older, elder Jew who has gone back into Judah from exile, and he's leading a lot of this reconstruction process.
SPEAKER_00: And uh these adversaries, the Bible calls them, of uh Benjamin and Judah, come in and they ask Zerubbabel, can we help?
SPEAKER_00: Can we help rebuild Israel?
SPEAKER_00: And Zerubbabel says, No.
SPEAKER_00: And they respond back, Well, we've been here.
SPEAKER_00: We've lived in this land, we've even made sacrifices to your God.
SPEAKER_00: And we find out later in Ezra and throughout the story unfolding that these were Samaritan people who had intermarried and who was not only worshiping the God of Israel, but was also worshiping other gods also.
SPEAKER_00: So they were practicing uh uh this kind of pluralistic deism, uh worshiping false gods and intermarrying throughout the people of the lands around them.
SPEAKER_00: And so Zerubbabel says, No, you cannot uh help or assist in the rebuilding of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: So they get angry, and what they do is they make up this lie.
SPEAKER_00: And they say this they say, let us get together and get all these different powers, these governors and other people of authority inside of Persia, and let's develop a letter that we send to the king.
SPEAKER_00: And what we're going to communicate in this letter is that if the king allows them to build this city to completion, that they're gonna revolt against the king, that their motivation for building Building up the walls and the gates is to fortify themselves back to a strength where they can actually revolt against his kingship and power and dishonor him.
SPEAKER_00: So they write this letter in Aramaic, the Bible says, and they send it to a king named Artaxerxes.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I want to submit that there is confusion here historically and theologically.
SPEAKER_00: Where the position we take is that this is not the Artaxerxes that Nehemiah is the cutbearer for.
SPEAKER_00: In history past, throughout kings of Persia, they often daunted many different names.
SPEAKER_00: Articxerxes and Xerxes were the names that many other Persian kings were known by, of their multiple names that they would have.
SPEAKER_00: And so if you read through the timeline narrative cleanly, it makes sense that this is not Articerxes, the one of whom Nehemiah is the cupbearer of, but this is a different king named Surtis.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Serdis only reigned for about seven months.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, I said some of these kingships didn't last a long time.
SPEAKER_00: He only ruled for about seven months.
SPEAKER_00: But we get a glimpse in Ezra IV to the letter that was written to him that caused him to take action against the Israelites.
SPEAKER_00: So Ezra 4, chapters uh uh chapter 4, verses 23 through 24.
SPEAKER_00: Then when the copy of the King Artaxerxes' letter was read before Rehum and Shemshai, the scribe and their associates, there's a lot of S's in that, they went in haste to the Jews at Jerusalem, and by force and power made them cease.
SPEAKER_00: Then the work of the house of God that is in Jerusalem stopped, and it ceased until the second year of the reign of Darius, king of Persia.
SPEAKER_00: So why is all this important?
SPEAKER_00: Well, Artaxerxes, who Nehemiah is the cupbearer to, reigned after Darius.
SPEAKER_00: The temple was completed under the reign and rule of Darius.
SPEAKER_00: And so if this ceasing, this halting of official order had to be taken place, it had to be taken place before Darius.
SPEAKER_00: And we only had a couple of kings that reigned in between Cyrus, who gave them permission to start rebuilding the temple, and Darius, of whom they completed under his rule and reign.
SPEAKER_00: So there was this king named Cerdus, and he ruled over Persia for about seven months.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to submit, though there are differing and varying opinions, this is who they're talking about, that he went by another name, and Ezra was just simply using one of his other names in his narration and chronic uh chronologically working through the history of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: So when King Darius first had initially come into power, it was reported to him by certain men that the Jews were kind of slowly rebuilding the temple and going against the order of the previous king to cease all reconstruction efforts.
SPEAKER_00: That they were kind of under the radar trying to do what they could and rebuild certain things.
SPEAKER_00: And when they're asked, when the when the Israelites are asked by these men, by what authority do you have to do this reconstruction, they respond, King Cyrus made a decree that allowed us to gather back into Jerusalem and rebuild the temple.
SPEAKER_00: So, you guys still tracking with me?
SPEAKER_00: Everybody understand where we're at in the story?
SPEAKER_00: So what happened was these men went to Darius and they said, Look, the Israelites are kind of slowly reconstructing the temple.
SPEAKER_00: And when we asked them by what authority do they have to do this, they said there was this decree by King Cyrus of Persia that gave them the freedom and liberty to do this work.
SPEAKER_00: So what does Darius do?
SPEAKER_00: Darius says, All right, well, if that's true, let's find that decree.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, I said it was important to understand that the Lord stirred the heart of Cyrus, not just to make a verbal proclamation, but to write it down.
SPEAKER_00: You see the intricacy of God's sovereignty and his will.
SPEAKER_00: Well, what do they do?
SPEAKER_00: They searched the house of records and archives.
SPEAKER_00: They found the decree.
SPEAKER_00: On the Cyrus cylinder, they found it.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a historical cylinder that we can find today, this decree of King Cyrus of Persia.
SPEAKER_00: King Darius conducted the search for the decree, and when it had been retrieved and brought to him, he gave the Israelites permission to continue the reconstruction of the temple in full force.
SPEAKER_00: So, official construction of the temple starts in 536 BC, and that time they faced opposition and experienced a 16-year halt in their reconstruction efforts.
SPEAKER_00: The temple was then finished under Darius I in 516 BC, and in total, it took about 20 years to rebuild the temple.
SPEAKER_00: But that's with a 16-year kind of freeze in that.
SPEAKER_00: So we're entering the story of Israel in the scene of Nehemiah, about 69 years after the completion of the temple in 446 BC, in the 20th year of the reign of King Artaxerxes I of Persia.
SPEAKER_00: That's how we ended up here.
SPEAKER_00: That's Nehemiah.
SPEAKER_00: So, here in verses 1 through 3, we're brought into the story of Nehemiah.
SPEAKER_00: He's in Susa, which is this kind of capital area of Persia.
SPEAKER_00: And if you see, it says that it was in the month of Chislev.
SPEAKER_00: Chislev was this time in the calendar of around mid-November to mid-December.
SPEAKER_00: Susa was kind of like the winter retreat of the kings.
SPEAKER_00: Kind of like how we have snowbirds, right?
SPEAKER_00: Who go from Ohio to Florida during the winter time.
SPEAKER_00: These Persian kings would go to Susa during this month of Chislev of mid-November to mid-December as this kind of winter retreat.
SPEAKER_00: So Nehemiah's the cupbearer of the king.
SPEAKER_00: Wherever the king goes, Nehemiah goes.
SPEAKER_00: Because he has to make sure that there's no efforts to poison the king.
SPEAKER_00: He's a very trusted friend of the king, someone that he will receive counsel from and that he knows has his back.
SPEAKER_00: So Nehemiah journeys with him.
SPEAKER_00: He's in Susa, the capital.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if we understand kind of the difference between Sousa, which is due east of Jerusalem, it's about the same distance as Cincinnati to Jacksonville, Florida.
SPEAKER_00: All right?
SPEAKER_00: So how many of I know many of us, many of us have made that treacherous journey from Cincinnati to Orlando, right?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody in here?
SPEAKER_00: You've done, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: And uh and so Orlando's a little bit farther.
SPEAKER_00: But if you if you took a pit stop in Jacksonville and you like took a picture of the sign, oh, we're in Florida.
SPEAKER_00: Uh that that's kind of how far they would have to travel from Susa to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: But Susa's due east, pretty much, of Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: So this is where Nehemiah is residing, and he's visited by Hanani.
SPEAKER_00: He calls him one of my brothers.
SPEAKER_00: Now, now there's no inclination to understand or assume this as a blood brother.
SPEAKER_00: It's better to understand this as a kinsman, another Israelite whom he knew and had relationship with, comes to him with other men from Judah, and he asks them about two things.
SPEAKER_00: How are our people and how is our city?
SPEAKER_00: How are people and how is our city?
SPEAKER_00: You see, upon their visit, Nehemiah asked them about the Jews who had survived exile and the condition of Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: Nehemiah was an Israelite.
SPEAKER_00: We have to understand this, but he was born in exile.
SPEAKER_00: Again, there's no reason to understand or believe that Nehemiah had ever even been to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: Born in exile, a cupbearer to the king, it's likely that he had never even been to the land of Judah or visited Jerusalem in person.
SPEAKER_00: He was born in exile.
SPEAKER_00: Potentially had never been there.
SPEAKER_00: Definitely, definitely had never seen the Jerusalem that once was.
SPEAKER_00: We can know that for sure.
SPEAKER_00: He had never seen the glory of the temple, he had never seen the fortified city, he had never seen a if he ever did journey to Jerusalem in his life, he saw an ash heap and crumbles.
SPEAKER_00: That's all that he would have seen.
SPEAKER_00: They give Nehemiah a report, but it's a grim report.
SPEAKER_00: They say this when he asks, this is the report that they give the remnant there in the province who has survived the exile is in great trouble and shame.
SPEAKER_00: The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are destroyed by fire.
SPEAKER_00: We have to recall Ezra IV that these adversaries of Judah and Benjamin were shut down and assisting with the rebuilding of the temple.
SPEAKER_00: And what it says in Ezra IV is that when the order was made to cease reconstruction, it was done so by force and power.
SPEAKER_00: By force and power.
SPEAKER_00: So we don't think that they just rolled up and handed them a scroll and then Israel was like, okay, I guess we have to stop now.
SPEAKER_00: No, it's believed that that by force and power they came and they shut down even the beginnings of the reconstruction that had taken place.
SPEAKER_00: And so when when when uh Nehemiah is getting this report, yes, the temple has been fully rebuilt, but for 69 years the people of Israel have not been able to rebuild its walls and its gates.
SPEAKER_00: And the people there are in despair, in great trouble, and shame.
SPEAKER_00: In this 69-year gap between the completion of the temple and the report to Nehemiah, Israel had faced a lot of internal and external difficulties that kind of caused them to just quit.
SPEAKER_00: We read throughout Ezra that he actually, Ezra himself tried to re-establish the law of God, the Torah, in the hearts of God's people to produce fruitful obedience and righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: But they started intermarrying.
SPEAKER_00: And there gets all this messiness where Ezra calls them all to divorce and there's grumbling and complaining, there's outside difficulty that comes in.
SPEAKER_00: All this mess that we're not going to dive into this morning, it kind of creates this like apathy within Israel.
SPEAKER_00: And we see that in the evidence that yes, the temple's been re-erected, but not to its former glory.
SPEAKER_00: There's frustration in that amongst Israel, that they're angry that it's not what it once was.
SPEAKER_00: And then we still get this report 69 years later that the walls and gates are in ruin, destroyed by fire.
SPEAKER_00: We see this portrait of empathy and despair in this opening phrase of Hanani to Nehemiah.
SPEAKER_00: The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are destroyed by fire.
SPEAKER_00: As we look at verse 4, our kind of summary understanding of verse 4 is our response to circumstances exposes our reliance.
SPEAKER_00: Our response to circumstances exposes our reliance.
SPEAKER_00: Let's read verse 4 just to recap and understand how Nehemiah responds to this grim report.
SPEAKER_00: My people are in great trouble and shame, and the walls have been torn down and the gates destroyed by fire.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 4 As soon as I, Nehemiah speaking, heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven.
SPEAKER_00: What was Nehemiah's response to the circumstance?
SPEAKER_00: It was reliance on God.
SPEAKER_00: When we face circumstances in our life, the way that we respond exposes our reliance.
SPEAKER_00: Where does our reliance lie?
SPEAKER_00: Does it rely on God or does it rely in something else?
SPEAKER_00: You see, Nehemiah's response was reliance upon God.
SPEAKER_00: Here we're brought intimately near to the person of Nehemiah himself.
SPEAKER_00: This is the first time where we're able to see and understand this character of who Nehemiah is, the heart behind this name.
SPEAKER_00: He's a man whose reliance is deeply rooted in God.
SPEAKER_00: His response to the report of Jerusalem shows us his love for the people of God.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: He asks, How are my brothers who have survived the exile?
SPEAKER_00: And it's a response of intense emotion and weeping.
SPEAKER_00: He sits down in his place, almost like his knees gave out, unable to stand, and he weeps over their condition.
SPEAKER_00: Nehemiah loves the people of the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: We also see his reliance upon the God of heaven.
SPEAKER_00: So if his love for the people of God was a response of intense emotion, his response and reliance upon the God of heaven was a response of immense trust.
SPEAKER_00: He weeped and mourned and he prayed and fasted to the God of Israel for many days.
SPEAKER_00: You see, what's fascinating about this is that to turn to God for Nehemiah is his first response.
SPEAKER_00: It was the first action that he took.
SPEAKER_00: As soon as the report came to him and he was faced with a difficult circumstance, his first option was to turn to God.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't his last.
SPEAKER_00: And he is communicating in both word and work, in both petition and prayer, and fasting and denying his flesh that without the mighty hand of God, he and his people are hopeless.
SPEAKER_00: Then we move on to verse five through seven.
SPEAKER_00: We start to see the introduction of Nehemiah's prayer.
SPEAKER_00: So we're shown his response and his reliance upon God, and then we're invited into the prayer itself.
SPEAKER_00: In verses five through seven, what we see in Nehemiah's prayer is we have to be honest about God and ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: We have to be honest about God and ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what I mean by that.
SPEAKER_00: Here in verse five, we're able to be made witness of the first recorded prayer of Nehemiah.
SPEAKER_00: And he opens it with what?
SPEAKER_00: With confession.
SPEAKER_00: Nehemiah starts his whole prayer here with confession.
SPEAKER_00: He's honest in his confession about who God is, and he's honest in his confession about who he is.
SPEAKER_00: It's an honest confession about God and the people of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: First, he's honest about God.
SPEAKER_00: Let's look at this prayer.
SPEAKER_00: He says, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments.
SPEAKER_00: Nehemiah is only able to pray with confidence because he intimately knows and honestly confesses the truth of God himself.
SPEAKER_00: What empowers Nehemiah to go before God?
SPEAKER_00: It's the truth of God.
SPEAKER_00: That he is a God who keeps his covenants and has steadfast love for his people.
SPEAKER_00: God does not break his covenant promises.
SPEAKER_00: When he makes a covenant, he keeps it because his name is at stake.
SPEAKER_00: We've talked about this several times in other sermons past.
SPEAKER_00: His name is at stake if in any aspect of that covenant is broken.
SPEAKER_00: And then his steadfast love communicates that in his good pleasure and will, he establishes and sets his love upon whom he desires.
SPEAKER_00: And nothing can remove that from them.
SPEAKER_00: So this gives what?
SPEAKER_00: This gives Nehemiah confidence to pray because he's intimately aware and honestly confesses the truth of God.
SPEAKER_00: Great and awesome, keeper of covenants, steadfast in love.
SPEAKER_00: Our prayers have been power and experienced power when they're established and rooted in who God is.
SPEAKER_00: Look at the way that Jesus teaches us to pray.
SPEAKER_00: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name.
SPEAKER_00: What does Jesus teach us to do?
SPEAKER_00: He teaches us to start our prayers with power.
SPEAKER_00: Where does that power come from?
SPEAKER_00: By an honest confession of who God is.
SPEAKER_00: That gives us power.
SPEAKER_00: There's no power in the amount of faith that we have, there's no power in the eloquence of our words, there's no power in the persistence of our prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Our power begins when we honestly confess who God is.
SPEAKER_00: Because he is the answer of our prayers.
SPEAKER_00: Next, he's honest about himself and the people of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: He says this finally in the closing of verse 7 We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, and the rules that you commanded your servant Moses.
SPEAKER_00: His confession of self is brutally honest before God, because he knows before the creator of the universe, the God of heaven, he is unable to hide anything.
SPEAKER_00: He is exposed before the Maker of heaven and earth.
SPEAKER_00: So guess what?
SPEAKER_00: Just be honest.
SPEAKER_00: Just be honest with who you are and what you have done in your shortcomings and failures, in your unrighteousness, in your sin.
SPEAKER_00: Be honest as you come before God.
SPEAKER_00: It is the contrast of who God is and who we are that powerful prayers are able to be produced.
SPEAKER_00: In the contrast of who God is and the reality and honesty of who we are, powerful prayers are able to be produced.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because when we're honest with who we are, we won't be so reliant upon our own strength.
SPEAKER_00: Constantly, we are endeavoring to be reliant upon ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Our own strength, our own wisdom, our own power.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because if we're honest, we think too highly of ourselves than we ought to.
SPEAKER_00: But Nehemiah exalts the name of God, not the name of self, and he humbles the name of self before the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And in that equation, a powerful prayer is produced.
SPEAKER_00: Next, in verses 8 through 11, we see God's promises provide the strength to take responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: God's promises provide the strength to take responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: Now Nehemiah is going to draw from the faithfulness of God's promises.
SPEAKER_00: He says this remember the word that you commanded your servant Moses.
SPEAKER_00: And Nehemiah almost uh uh quotes from Deuteronomy chapters 28 through 30.
SPEAKER_00: The intimacy of Nehemiah with the word of God is astounding, and the leveraging that he uses in his prayer shows us that his prayer is rooted, again, not in his own strength.
SPEAKER_00: His reliance isn't in him, but he is he is he is calling on the God of heaven and earth who has made this covenant and keeps his promises to do what he said he would do.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Nehemiah's petitioning for here.
SPEAKER_00: And he quotes right from Deuteronomy 28 through 30.
SPEAKER_00: His intimacy with the word of God, what does it do?
SPEAKER_00: It enables him to petition to see the work of God.
SPEAKER_00: Let me say that again.
SPEAKER_00: Nehemiah's intimacy with the word of God enables him to petition to see the work of God.
SPEAKER_00: When we know God's promises, when we're intimate with his word, when we're able to know and recount what God has promised for his people, then we are able to petition God to fulfill those very promises that he has made to us.
SPEAKER_00: And it is only able to do that if we're intimate with the promises in the first place.
SPEAKER_00: The more we know God's word, the more we're gonna able to petition him to see the work fulfilled.
SPEAKER_00: Nehemiah knows the promises God has made to his people, and it is those very promises that gives him the strength now, at the end of his prayer, to take responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: So Nehemiah shows both reliance upon God and he strives to take responsibility to see something happen.
SPEAKER_00: I love this end of the prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Nehemiah kind of prays for these things.
SPEAKER_00: Of the master and who strives to accomplish his will.
SPEAKER_00: First, he asks for his prayer to be heard.
SPEAKER_00: God, bend your ear to your servant and hear my prayer.
SPEAKER_00: He asks for success for his mission.
SPEAKER_00: This is the first time we see Nehemiah's getting ready to take responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: He's getting ready to stand up and do what no one else has yet to be done in over 69 years.
SPEAKER_00: Nehemiah is going to take responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: And he asks for success for his mission.
SPEAKER_00: And thirdly, he says this give me mercy in the sight of this man.
SPEAKER_00: And then we have this weird insert.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, by the way, I'm a cupbearer to the king.
SPEAKER_00: So who is this man?
SPEAKER_00: It's Artaxerxes the first, who he was the cupbearer to.
SPEAKER_00: Give me mercy as I go before this man.
SPEAKER_00: Because I'm going to take responsibility for what has not yet been done.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to see the promises that you have made to your people fulfilled in my complete reliance upon you and my willingness and desire to take responsibility to see it happen.
SPEAKER_00: But I'm going to need the favor of the king.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to break into that in chapter two.
SPEAKER_00: So, what's our main idea this morning?
SPEAKER_00: I'm over time.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to power through this.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all ready?
SPEAKER_00: Y'all ready for a power devotional?
SPEAKER_00: Our circumstances should drive us to demonstrate reliance and take responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: When we face circumstances in our life, we automatically display where our reliance is.
SPEAKER_00: And often we fail to take responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: And those two things are catastrophic in our place in the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: Many of us, we demonstrate reliance on self or others instead of God.
SPEAKER_00: We demonstrate reliance on self or others instead of God.
SPEAKER_00: When you and I face circumstances in our life, right now think what's your first response?
SPEAKER_00: What's your first response?
SPEAKER_00: Is it to check your bank account?
SPEAKER_00: Is it to think through a solution and a plan?
SPEAKER_00: Is it to go and insert yourself in force in anger to put a stop to something?
SPEAKER_00: What is your first response?
SPEAKER_00: I can almost guarantee us that our disposition in default is that we expose our reliance when we face life circumstances because we put it first into us.
SPEAKER_00: We put it first into us.
SPEAKER_00: How often in our lives is prayer and fasting a last response?
SPEAKER_00: Is prayer and fasting a last response?
SPEAKER_00: You know what that is?
SPEAKER_00: That's a Hail Mary at the end of your failure.
SPEAKER_00: When we treat prayer as a last response, what we're saying is, God, at the end of my failure, I guess I'm gonna give you a shot.
SPEAKER_00: We'll see what happens.
SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of how we live life.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, God, I don't need you, right?
SPEAKER_00: That's our first response.
SPEAKER_00: God, I don't need you.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna do this myself.
SPEAKER_00: Then we struggle or we sin, we fall short, we fail, and then we're at the end of the rope.
SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, reliance upon God becomes a last resort.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, look, somebody said if I pray, maybe you'll hear me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna throw this up there and let's see, God, if you can do something.
SPEAKER_00: We're exposing ourselves when we face life circumstances, and we're exposing that fundamentally we just don't trust God.
SPEAKER_00: We don't trust that he cares about your state.
SPEAKER_00: We don't trust that he hears the cries of your heart, and we don't trust that he has any power to do anything about it.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, though, some of us we expect someone else to take responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: We expect someone else to take responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: How often do we play the blame game in life?
SPEAKER_00: How often do we find ourselves and how much of our time is taken up in grumbling and complaining instead of action?
SPEAKER_00: I think our society has cultivated a culture of blame shifting where we're gonna point fingers and we're gonna blame it on everyone else, and we're gonna murmur and grumble and complain, and we have so few people actually stepping up and doing something about it.
SPEAKER_00: Stepping up and taking action.
SPEAKER_00: Look, if we think that that the post-Christian culture is the end of the church, and we're just out here in the ocean trying to grab for straws to stay afloat, that that that the end of this whole thing, the church is dying, and it you know why it's dying?
SPEAKER_00: Because we have too many people in chairs grumbling and complaining about the state of the world instead of getting up, taking action, walking in righteousness, and demonstrating the light of the hope of the gospel to the world that we're at war with.
SPEAKER_00: That's why the church is at risk as long as its citizens stay seated.
SPEAKER_00: Simple as that.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna allow despair and hopelessness and bitterness and grumbling and complaints to be fostered within this community.
SPEAKER_00: No, this community is gonna be a community of Nehemiah's.
SPEAKER_00: When we see that the walls are torn down and the gates are burnt with fire, we just we demonstrate a deep reliance upon the God of heaven, and then we stand up and we take action and responsibility to see the promises of God flourish in this earth.
SPEAKER_00: That's the kind of community that we're gonna foster and create here at Sacred Mission.
SPEAKER_00: What would happen?
SPEAKER_00: What would happen in your life if you stopped waiting for someone else to do what you knew was right?
SPEAKER_00: You understand that's sin.
SPEAKER_00: It's the sin of omission.
SPEAKER_00: When you knew what was right to do and you didn't do it, that's sin.
SPEAKER_00: And too often we just sit there and we wait for someone else to take responsibility instead of finding the joy-filled responsibility ourselves of taking action to do what we know is right.
SPEAKER_00: The beauty of the gospel for us is this that in total reliance, though, in total reliance, Jesus took responsibility for our redemption.
SPEAKER_00: Though he is God, he relied on the fullness of the Trinity.
SPEAKER_00: And he demonstrated this in his earthly life.
SPEAKER_00: He was submitted to the will of the Father.
SPEAKER_00: He prayed and communed with the Father.
SPEAKER_00: He was led by the Spirit, he was filled by the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: You know what Jesus did?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus refused self-reliance.
SPEAKER_00: In his incarnation, he put on display for us how we should be and then accomplished for us how we fail to be, completely reliant upon God.
SPEAKER_00: And then Jesus took responsibility for our redemption.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus didn't wait for us to try and get it right.
SPEAKER_00: From heaven, he looked down and saw us in our state and knew that we would never be able to get it right.
SPEAKER_00: And so what was he willing to do?
SPEAKER_00: He was willing to step up, take action, and take responsibility, and in that we have the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: God crucified, buried, and risen again is a God who takes responsibility for the redemption, the good of others.
SPEAKER_00: Nehemiah was just a type, a shadow of one greater to come, who would rebuild the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: Christ Himself, who would come and take responsibility and total reliance upon God, and the kingdom would be rebuilt, and the gates of hell would not be able to prevail against it.
SPEAKER_00: That's the beauty and hope that we have in the gospel of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So what should we do?
SPEAKER_00: I'm closing it up.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, refuse self-reliance.
SPEAKER_00: Refuse self-reliance.
SPEAKER_00: You are not as awesome as you think you are.
SPEAKER_00: You're really weak.
SPEAKER_00: You're kind of dumb.
SPEAKER_00: I'm using third person talking to myself in a mirror, right?
SPEAKER_00: Man, I rely on self-reliance, I rely on myself so much, and I fail so much.
SPEAKER_00: My wife is a beauty, uh, an example of reliance upon God.
SPEAKER_00: My wife prays to find her car keys.
SPEAKER_00: That infuriates me with my with all of my heart.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I will not pray to find my car keys.
SPEAKER_00: I will flip the house upside down.
SPEAKER_00: The the sofa will be flipped upside down, the the children will be hung from the ceiling, pockets emptied out.
SPEAKER_00: I want to know where my keys are.
SPEAKER_00: And I get angry, and in my own reliance, I sin.
SPEAKER_00: You know what my wife does?
SPEAKER_00: She prays, and it's like an apple tag or a tile.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord's just like beep, beep, beep.
SPEAKER_00: And then she's like, Oh, the Lord showed me where they were.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, no, he didn't.
SPEAKER_00: You got lucky.
SPEAKER_00: That's how much I still refuse to rely upon God.
SPEAKER_00: That's how much of a jerk I am.
SPEAKER_00: No, God didn't hear your prayer.
SPEAKER_00: You just got lucky.
SPEAKER_00: Guys, we have to refuse self-reliance.
SPEAKER_00: It's not gonna get us anywhere.
SPEAKER_00: We wanna be a people who pray.
SPEAKER_00: We want to be a people who fast.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna start introducing over these next few weeks opportunities for us as the church unified to pray and to fast.
SPEAKER_00: And some of you like, I don't even know what that means.
SPEAKER_00: Great.
SPEAKER_00: Let's stumble through this together.
SPEAKER_00: But we're gonna provide some opportunities for the church gathered in unity to pray and fast, to foster reliance upon God.
SPEAKER_00: Our posture of reliance, hear this church.
SPEAKER_00: Our posture of reliance exposes where our deepest sense of trust is.
SPEAKER_00: It's as simple as that.
SPEAKER_00: When you face a circumstance in your life, your first turn to reliance exposes within you where your deepest sense of trust is.
SPEAKER_00: For many of us, it's a deep-seated trust in self.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a very limited trust in God.
SPEAKER_00: Number two, become intimate with God and his promises.
SPEAKER_00: Become intimate with God and his promises.
SPEAKER_00: As we displayed through Nehemiah's prayer, it is intimacy with who God is in his person and character and the promises that he has made by his name to his people that empowers Nehemiah's prayer.
SPEAKER_00: We need to be a people who love the Bible, who love to know God as He's revealed Himself, that searches the scriptures to know Him more intimately.
SPEAKER_00: That way we can have a more powerful prayer life because we're not petitioning based on the pleadings of our heart alone, but we're petitioning on his character and his promises.
SPEAKER_00: That informs our prayer, that shapes our prayer, that humbles our prayer, so that we might pray rightly to our Heavenly Father.
SPEAKER_00: Lastly, we need to take responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: I think I've already said it, church.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna be a church that takes responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna take responsibility to disciple our children in the Word of God, to pastor our homes.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna take responsibility to see righteousness cultivated and fostered in the lives of one another.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna take responsibility for the kingdom of God to expand within this area.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna take responsibility for the light of the gospel to go forth from among us.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna take responsibility that our homes become respites and refuge of gospel hope.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna take responsibility that our lives aren't crushed and ruined by the effects of sin.
SPEAKER_00: We are going to be a church who takes responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: And my prayer is that that is not only rooted in our own strength and striving, but it's established on the foundation of reliance upon God and trust in his promises.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.