Nehemiah - Sermon #2

What Kind Of God Do You Approach?

Text: Nehemiah 1:5

Introduction

RECAP: The book of Nehemiah opens in the Persian city of Susa in the year 444 BC. Later that year, Nehemiah traveled to Israel, leading the third of three returns by the Jewish people following their seventy years of exile in Babylon.

Nehemiah Chapter Two: Weeping over Humpty Dumpty (Nehemiah 1:2–4)

There is a fascinating book in our public library titled The Annotated Mother Goose. It records the interesting history behind many popular children’s rhymes. Although composed centuries ago, some of the rhymes and songs are still taught and memorized today.

Nehemiah Chapter Two: Weeping over Humpty Dumpty (Nehemiah 1:2–4)

What is nothing more today than an innocent and fun little ditty was once a mournful death chant. It originated in seventeenth-century London during a plague of the Black Death. Each line of the rhyme was a reference to the plague:

• Ring around the rosies—the small, red, rash-like areas which appeared on the body of an infected person.

• A pocket full of posies—the superstitious belief that sweet-smelling flowers would drive off the demons who brought the disease. Therefore, they stuffed their pockets full of posies.

• A-tishoo! A-tishoo!—the constant sneezing which accompanied the plague.

• We all fall down—another way of saying we all die.

This nursery rhyme was actually a gloomy chant which expressed unbelievable sadness and fear.

Nehemiah (Chapter Two: Weeping over Humpty Dumpty (Nehemiah 1:2–4))

This rhyme first appeared in print in 1803. Humpty Dumpty was an egg, which explains why, having fallen off the wall and broken apart, he could not be put together again. However, eggs do not usually sit on walls. So what exactly did this wall-perched egg represent? For the original rhyme maker, Humpty Dumpty was intended to be a symbol of the origin of life and the world of humanity. It was designed to lament the fact that humanity had fallen and was broken, and not even the most powerful people on earth—the king himself, his army, nor his wise men—were able to put the broken pieces of life back together again.

Before we quickly run off into Nehemiah’s prayer, we must take a little bit of time and notice a crucial element; he had a broken heart. You will find many times Nehemiah pleading from a passionate/broken heart for God’s attention.

Nehemiah (Chapter Two: Weeping over Humpty Dumpty (Nehemiah 1:2–4))

This was the prayer of Nehemiah. He was a man who desperately wanted the maximum attention of God. Yes, he was an ordinary man, but he had an extraordinary desire for God. We get a glimpse into who Nehemiah was before seeing what he did through the power of God. He—and others like him—have discovered the truth of God’s promise:“And you will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13).

Psalm 119:2 “2 Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, And that seek him with the whole heart.”

Nehemiah Two Important Questions

Why was this news so shocking to Nehemiah? After all, hadn’t Babylon destroyed Jerusalem and left it in disarray many years ago? Yes, but he knew the walls were under construction during the return of exiles under the leadership of Zerubbabel and Ezra. However, what Nehemiah did not know was that the building project was forced to a halt by enemies of the Jews.

Nehemiah Two Important Questions

So, Nehemiah was asking, “Hey, how’s it going under Ezra’s leadership? How are the walls coming along?”

Take note of FIVE STEPS we see from Nehemiah’s reaction to the news that prepares his heart to approach God.....

1) Contemplation

Have you ever heard news that just caused you to have to sit down?

What makes the receiving of that new different from other news?

Nehemiah heard this report with his heart.

You always hear from the heart what you keep close to your heart.

2) Compassion

FACT: According to the April 1999 World Monitor, preschool teachers, administrators, and child development specialists said that the most important thing for a child to learn is self-reliance. They said that children should learn self-reliance seven times more than the educators who said children should learn sympathy and concern for others. Stephen Davey, Nehemiah, ed. Lalanne Barber, Wisdom Commentary Series (Apex, NC: Charity House Publishers, 2012), 21.

Nehemiah was not indifferent towards the people & walls.....HE WAS BROKEN.

QUESTION — When was the last time you cried over your broken world? When was the last time you wept over the circumstances someone was facing?

3) Concern

“Mourned” = lit. to mourn for the dead.

The kind that lingers on and on.

Take notice of verse 4

Nehemiah Concern

E.M. Bounds, quoted in A Passion for Faithfulness by J.I. Packer, writes:

How few the men in these days who can weep at the evils and abominations of the times! How rare are those who are sufficiently interested and concerned for the welfare of the church to mourn! Mourning and weeping over the decay of religion, the decline of revival power, and the fearful inroads of worldliness into the Church are almost an unknown quantity.

4) Concentration

NOT MEANING he took off work to go pray and possible miss a few meals.

“Fasting” = he completely lost his appetite.

The burden was so consuming, he desire to eat was taken away.

5) Communion

The Hebrew word used here for “praying” = pleading, deep emotion and desperate lamenting before God.

He attitude was, “I must have God’s full attention.”

After comparing the date mentioned in chapters one and two, you learn that Nehemiah fasted, wept, mourned and prayed for FOUR MONTHS!!!

Nehemiah Communion

John Knox, the Scottish Reformation preacher and leader, used to weep and pray in the royal gardens of Bloody Mary, the queen who hated the Protestant Reformation. Referring to John Knox, she said that she feared his prayers more than anything on earth. He would pray in her gardens loud enough for her to hear: “Oh God, give me Scotland, or I die.”

Please take note of this:

Nehemiah had every reason NOT to be concerned.

He was born in captivity and had never been to Jerusalem. This means he never worship in the temple.

He had a great career in Persia; the king’s right-hand-man.

This naturally brings us to ask several questions:

Why travel a broken city eight hundred miles away?

Why go to a people he did not even know?

Why go to a problem he did not create.

ANSWER — For God’s glory to shine down upon Isreal, for people to experience restoration and to return to worship God.

CONCLUSION

Nehemiah Touching on Crucial Lessons

There are two crucial lessons to apply from opening the pages of Nehemiah’s memoirs:

1. If you want the maximum attention of God, you must first give your maximum attention to God. Do you want Him to be available to you? Are you available to Him? Do you want to move the heart of God? The question is can He move yours?

2. If you want the maximum blessing of God, you must be willing to receive the maximum burden from God.

Nehemiah Touching on Crucial Lessons

the average Christian really does not want the maximum attention of God? What he really wants to do is get by with giving God minimum attention. He would rather someone else be part of the solution. After all, the problem is not really that bad.

Galatians 6:2 “2 Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.”

Nehemiah was willing to be part of the solution! How willing are you????

Nehemiah Touching on Crucial Lessons

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.

Do all the King’s horses and all the Lord’s men

Care enough to put Humpty together again?