Nehemiah - Time to Pray (Part 2)
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Announcements:
Certainly! Here's a combined list of announcements incorporating all four items:
1. Series Continuation:
Good evening, everyone!
I hope you're all ready for another impactful night as we continue our journey through the book of Nehemiah in our series, 'Nehemiah - Time to Pray.'
Last week, we delved into the importance of prayer in our lives, and tonight, we'll be diving even deeper into this powerful theme.
Remember, this series will conclude next Wednesday, so let's make the most of the remaining time we have together!
2. Compassion International Fundraiser:
Attention, everyone!
Tonight is a crucial night for our Compassion International fundraiser to support Esteban.
We set a goal of $45.00 a month, and unfortunately, we've only raised $20.00 so far.
However, I believe in the generosity of our youth group, and I know we can make this happen tonight!
Esteban is counting on us, so let's rally together and make sure he continues to receive the support he needs.
Please be prepared to give as we pass around the money bin right now. Every contribution, no matter how small, makes a significant difference in Esteban's life.
Let's show him our love and support tonight!"
Great, thanks for providing the details! Let's incorporate them into the announcements:
3. Big 3 Youth Events:
Before we dive into tonight's service, I've got some exciting news about our 'big 3' upcoming youth events that you won't want to miss out on.
First up, we've got Meta 2024 happening from March 8th to 10th—mark your calendars!
It's not this weekend, but the next one, and trust me, it's going to be an unforgettable experience.
We're talking about joining forces with around 200 students from other churches in the area for what promises to be the highlight of the year. Registration is only $40.00, and the deadline to sign up is this Sunday.
Don't let this opportunity pass you by!
But that's not all!
We also have Mission Serve, a missions trip to Charlotte, NC, happening from June 16th to 22nd.
his is your chance to make a real difference in the lives of others, so don't miss out on this incredible opportunity to serve.
And finally, we have Fuge Camps taking place from July 10th to 14th in Ridgecrest, NC.
There are only two spots left, so if you want to be part of this amazing experience, make sure to secure your spot as soon as possible.
Keep an eye out for more details on all these events, and let's make sure our youth group shines bright at each one!
4. Durham Rescue Mission Dinner Service:
"And here's another chance to make a difference! We'll be serving dinner at Durham Rescue Mission on Friday, March 22nd. If you want to be part of this meaningful outreach opportunity, meet us in the church parking lot at 3:30 PM on the dot. It's a chance to spread love and kindness to those in need, and I guarantee it'll be a rewarding experience for all involved. Let's show up in full force and make a positive impact together!"
Feel free to adjust any wording as needed to fit the tone and style of your announcements. Let me know if you need further assistance!
Introduction:
Last week I showed you a clip from the 1989 movie, “Field of Dreams,” where a farmer heard a voice telling him that if he builds it, “he will come.”
It’s one of the most famous baseball movies of all time, and to this day, Major League teams play special games on the field in this movie because of the movie.
I want to show you another clip; it’s from later in the film, after the farmer has built the field and the ghosts of long dead players have shown up and started playing baseball on it.
But he’s running out of money, and his brother-in-law, who can’t see the ghosts, is telling him he has to sell the farm before the bank forecloses and he loses everything.
[Show Slide 2] Video clip: People Will Come - Field of Dreams https://youtu.be/7SB16il97yw (3:28)
“People will come.”
The farmer’s friend tells him to have faith, to keep going, to stick with this thing to the end even if it looks bad.
Which reminds me about what we’re going to read today in the book of Nehemiah.
Let’s review some of the details about the book that we went over last time.
Nehemiah is a tiny book in the Old Testament, recording Jewish history from around 2600 years ago.
It stars Nehemiah, a man who is known for being a man of prayer.
If you remember, Babylon conquered Israel at its capital city, Jerusalem.
The Babylonians destroyed it.
They tore down the walls, wrecked the homes, demolished and looted the Temple, and scattered the people.
Fifty years later, the Persians conquered Babylon, which meant Israel became a part of Persia.
And unlike the Babylonian kings, Persian kings allowed the Jewish people to return to Jerusalem if they wanted.
Nehemiah was part of a third group of exiles who made the long journey back to Jerusalem to start over, and he had a mission: to rebuild the walls surrounding Jerusalem.
When he arrived in Jerusalem, he went to the Israelites who were there and told him his plan.
They were hopeful and ready to go … but there was a catch.
Let’s dive into the story and see what that catch was:
19 But when Sanballat, Tobiah, and Geshem the Arab heard of our plan, they scoffed contemptuously. “What are you doing? Are you rebelling against the king?” they asked.
20 I replied, “The God of heaven will help us succeed. We, his servants, will start rebuilding this wall. But you have no share, legal right, or historic claim in Jerusalem.”
Wait, who were these guys?
Tobiah was the governor of Ammon, Geshem was the leader of a powerful group of Arab communities, and Sanballat?
He’s the real villain in this story.
He was the governor of Samaria.
You may remember how much the Israelites hated the Samaritans during Jesus’ time?
Well, that hatred went back centuries.
Jerusalem having the walls rebuilt would mean that the Israelites could become a people again, could start to have influence and power, could defend themselves against the likes of these three men and their forces.
They framed their opposition as protection for the king of Persia, but really, they were concerned about keeping their own power in that region.
20 I replied, “The God of heaven will help us succeed. We, his servants, will start rebuilding this wall. But you have no share, legal right, or historic claim in Jerusalem.”
Q. What sticks out to you about the way Nehemiah responds here?
Nehemiah faced them down.
He was confident in the mission God has given him.
“The God of heaven WILL help us succeed.”
Chapter three describes Nehemiah’s plan to pull it off.
He recruited most of the people living in what was left of Jerusalem to chip in.
It was like the farmer’s friend in the clip from Field of Dreams who said, “people will come.”
Just like the farmer was going to lose if other didn’t come and help, Nehemiah would succeed because others would come and help with their time, their money, and their physical work.
He divided up all the sections of the wall and assigned them to different families.
The priests started work on a section.
Hananiah, a guy who made perfumes, took a section (3:8).
Shallum and his daughters get a shoutout for taking on a section of the wall (3:12).
Malkijah rebuilt the Dung Gate (3:14).
Look, it’s not critical to the message today, I just wanted you all to know they had a poop gate, and some guy took on the responsibility to rebuild it.
Hey, not everyone gets a cool job.
Sometimes you have to be a janitor at Liberty.
And sometimes you have to build the poop gate.
But here’s the point, this was a massive job, and Nehemiah 3 is a massive list of all the people who came to help.
And stuff started happening.
Let’s check back in and see what that looks like:
1 Sanballat was very angry when he learned that we were rebuilding the wall. He flew into a rage and mocked the Jews, 2 saying in front of his friends and the Samarian army officers, “What does this bunch of poor, feeble Jews think they’re doing? Do they think they can build the wall in a single day by just offering a few sacrifices? Do they actually think they can make something of stones from a rubbish heap—and charred ones at that?”
3 Tobiah the Ammonite, who was standing beside him, remarked, “That stone wall would collapse if even a fox walked along the top of it!”
4 Then I prayed, “Hear us, our God, for we are being mocked. May their scoffing fall back on their own heads, and may they themselves become captives in a foreign land! 5 Do not ignore their guilt. Do not blot out their sins, for they have provoked you to anger here in front of the builders.”
6 At last the wall was completed to half its height around the entire city, for the people had worked with enthusiasm.
Sanballat, the bully, was shocked when he was not obeyed.
He thought his threats before had been enough to shut it down; he was shocked to find it hadn’t been.
So, he taunted them, like a bully.
When he threw out the line about sacrifices, he essentially said, “Do they think they can just pray it into existence?”
And he mocked their building materials.
They reused the stones of the original wall; those that the Babylonians had torn down and burned.
But here’s the thing, fire doesn’t ruin stone.
It probably didn’t look pretty, but they still had the needed material from the rubble of their city to rebuild the new wall.
3 Tobiah the Ammonite, who was standing beside him, remarked, “That stone wall would collapse if even a fox walked along the top of it!”
And of course, every bully has a sidekick chiming in.
Nobody likes you, Tobiah!
Shut your mouth!
Pick better friends!
4 Then I prayed, “Hear us, our God, for we are being mocked. May their scoffing fall back on their own heads, and may they themselves become captives in a foreign land! 5 Do not ignore their guilt. Do not blot out their sins, for they have provoked you to anger here in front of the builders.”
Did you see what Nehemiah did?
Q. What does Nehemiah do?
Instead of responding to the bullies, he prayed.
He turned to God.
He trusted God to be in control of the situation even if it looked bad in the moment.
He also trusted God to bring justice.
What do you do in moments of crisis?
Do you lash out?
Fight back?
Panic?
Or turn to God and trust Him to handle it?
Which is the better way?
6 At last the wall was completed to half its height around the entire city, for the people had worked with enthusiasm.
Progress! Look, this wasn’t some small fence between houses that they were working on.
This was a military grade defensive wall.
It was thick; so thick in fact, that back in those times, people would actually build homes inside a city’s walls.
It was a lot of work and this hodgepodge group of Israelites had put everything on hold to do it.
Which had Sanballat and his goon squad furious.
Word started getting back to the Israelites that they were planning on swooping in and killing them.
Nehemiah came up with a plan.
He divided the people into two groups; half would be fully armed, have armor, and be stationed all along the wall to protect against attack.
The others would continue the work but would also be armed so that if there was an attack, they could defend as well.
When Sanballat realized they knew his plan and had made moves to defend against it, he held back.
Time for smooth sailing, right?
Nope.
Chapter five reveals a new complication straight out of left field.
1 About this time some of the men and their wives raised a cry of protest against their fellow Jews. 2 They were saying, “We have such large families. We need more food to survive.”
3 Others said, “We have mortgaged our fields, vineyards, and homes to get food during the famine.”
Building this wall was taking time.
People had left their farms, their jobs, their income to do the work, and for those who were poor, they were out of resources to take care of themselves.
On top of that, it sounds like they had already had some desperate times due to a famine.
4 And others said, “We have had to borrow money on our fields and vineyards to pay our taxes. 5 We belong to the same family as those who are wealthy, and our children are just like theirs. Yet we must sell our children into slavery just to get enough money to live. We have already sold some of our daughters, and we are helpless to do anything about it, for our fields and vineyards are already mortgaged to others.”
It's exactly what it sounds like.
For some Israelites, their need was so desperate that they actually sold their children into slavery.
Horrific.
6 When I heard their complaints, I was very angry. 7 After thinking it over, I spoke out against these nobles and officials. I told them, “You are hurting your own relatives by charging interest when they borrow money!” Then I called a public meeting to deal with the problem.
8 At the meeting I said to them, “We are doing all we can to redeem our Jewish relatives who have had to sell themselves to pagan foreigners, but you are selling them back into slavery again. How often must we redeem them?” And they had nothing to say in their defense.
Nehemiah was livid to learn how bad the situation had become.
And what was particularly infuriating to him was the reality that it was Israelites putting other Israelites in this position.
Instead of following God’s commands to help those in need, the wealthy were profiting at the expense of the poor, taking advantage of their need to get their property and to make money off them, charging them high interest rates.
Did you know the same thing happens today?
The lower your income, the higher the interest rate you are charged for a loan.
Those who live in low-income areas tend to pay higher prices for basic needs like milk and bread.
In many ways, our systems make the rich, richer, and keep the poor, poor.
Our sinful nature tends to take advantage of those who have less, for our own benefit.
Part of Nehemiah’s anger was due to the hypocrisy of what they have been doing; on the one hand those with resources have been helping Jewish people be redeemed from being sold into slavery to foreigners, while at the same time enslaving these people to themselves.
9 Then I pressed further, “What you are doing is not right! Should you not walk in the fear of our God in order to avoid being mocked by enemy nations? 10 I myself, as well as my brothers and my workers, have been lending the people money and grain, but now let us stop this business of charging interest. 11 You must restore their fields, vineyards, olive groves, and homes to them this very day. And repay the interest you charged when you lent them money, grain, new wine, and olive oil.”
Nehemiah laid down the law.
He banned interest from being charged.
He made the greedy people give back the fields and properties they had taken as collateral.
He made them pay back the interest they had made off the poor.
In God’s economy, none of His children, His creations, people made in His image, should suffer while others are wealthy, or worse yet, be taken advantage of by those who have more.
And so, the work resumed, and the people continued to guard against attack.
They pressed on.
And then:
Nehemiah 6:15–16 (ESV)
15 So the wall was finished on the twenty-fifth day of the month Elul, in fifty-two days. 16 And when all our enemies heard of it, all the nations around us were afraid and fell greatly in their own esteem, for they perceived that this work had been accomplished with the help of our God.
The wall was complete!
But what do we learn from all of this?
What can we apply to our lives today?
I think there are two big picture things that stand out to me.
First, Nehemiah was a man of prayer; his commitment to prayer transformed him, it made him into (secondly), a man who reflected God’s heart more and more.
From these, there are two challenges for us in how prayer can change us as well.
The first way prayer changed Nehemiah:
1. Prayer Changes Our Response to Hard Times
27 “I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid.
Jesus gave us this incredible gift, His presence through the Holy Spirit.
No matter what we are going through, we don’t need to be controlled by fear because Jesus gives us the gift of peace.
Nehemiah showed us this peace when Sanballat and the others threatened the work and the people, and instead of responding in fear, he turned to God in prayer.
Prayer changes how we respond.
How do you respond to a crisis?
How do you respond when you’re afraid?
When you feel threatened?
Is it to lash out, to try and get revenge?
Or is it to pray to God?
Nehemiah’s natural response was to pray because he already had formed a habit of praying often.
If you want to be the type of person that responds during hard times with prayer, start praying regularly, for a few minutes a day.
Set your alarm five minutes earlier, take some moments at lunch, after school.
Find a regular time and build a habit.
That’s how you become a Nehemiah, and that’s how God changes your response to hard times.
2. Prayer Changes Our Response to Others
31 Those who oppress the poor insult their Maker,
but helping the poor honors him.
Nehemiah’s horror to how the Israelites had treated their fellow Israelites reflected God’s horror at any of His creations, His children, people who bear His image, being taken advantage of and abused.
As we regularly pray, our hearts become like Christ’s heart, we begin to look at the world differently, and we begin to see the value in others that God sees.
It changes how we respond to them!
It changes our hearts so that we have compassion, so that we not only refuse to take advantage of others, but that when we see injustice, we stand up for those being wronged.
Reading this passage should motivate us to pause for a moment and ask ourselves, how do I respond to the injustices happening around me today?
Am I okay with it?
Does it anger me?
Does it motivate me to make a difference like Nehemiah made?
Prayer changes us.
It’s an incredible gift to us, and one we need to prioritize in our lives.