Nehemiah: Be Committed

Nehemiah: Be Committed  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented   •  41:46
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Introduction

Turn to Nehemiah 1:1-4.
Have you ever picked up a new book and started reading it, only to find out that you were missing valuable context because you had jumped into the middle of a series?
As a reader, I am a stickler for reading a series of books in the proper order. I want to read them in their chronological order or in the order the author intended for them to be read.
One of my earliest memories of this was when as a child I read a children’s series called, The Sugar Creek Gang. The books weren’t closely affiliated with each other, but I enjoyed seeing the young man, the main character, slowly grow up as the series progressed. I liked to know the life experiences he had already learned as he entered another adventure. It just didn’t feel right to read one book where he was a teenager and then the next where he was back to his childhood years. In other words, I wanted to know the historical context when I began reading a new book.
Knowing the historical context makes a great difference when picking up a new book and perhaps it is no more important than in Old Testament books like Nehemiah. We could dive right into the text this morning and begin seeing some principles of application that we could live by, but we would miss something else that is vitally important. By the time we finish this book, I want you to have a heartfelt appreciation for Nehemiah and for this history about his life and his people.
Read Nehemiah 1:1-4.
Verse one contains three valuable pieces of information:
We are introduced to Nehemiah, the man who is the primary character of this book.
We are given a timestamp for this history - “the month [Kislew] in the twentieth year.” This isn’t using our calendar, obviously, but we’ll be able to convert it with a little study.
We are given a place - Shushan the palace. Now that doesn’t mean much to us 21st century Americans, but it’s important because Shushan was like the Washington DC of his day. It was one of the primary seats of government for the Persian Empire.
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Time
“Imagine the Cubans of Miami and many other American cities suddenly being granted the opportunity to return to Cuba to a dilapidated Havana, a wasted-away infrastructure, a poverty-stricken countryside. How many would return? Would they have the patience to rebuild their beloved country if they did return? How would they react if pockets of communists waged guerrilla warfare? In many ways that would be a picture of what happened to the Hebrews who had been resettled in Babylon and Assyria in what was called a captivity…” but over the course of seventy years it slowly became home. - New Illustrated Bible Manners and Customs - Howard Vos, page 320
That was the reality faced by Nehemiah and by the Jewish people of his day. They were a subjugated people living in a foreign land, but they were in danger of settling down and making it their forever home. Here’s how it all came about:
In Genesis chapter twelve, God commands a man named Abram to depart from Ur of the Chaldees, which is the area of modern-day Iraq. Now remember that location because it matters to the story of Nehemiah.
Thanks to Joseph, Jacob, and his family moved to Egypt. They lived and grew there for about 430 years (Exodus 12:40.) In 1446 BC, God lead Moses and Israel out of Egypt on the Exodus to the Promised Land. They would conquer some of it and then the judges would rule for several hundred years.
About 1000 years before Christ, Saul became the first king of Israel. This was a big change because it put Israel on the map of the middle east as a political and national entity. David and Solomon lead Israel to the height of their glory, but in 930 BC, the kingdom split into northern and southern kingdoms.
In the years that followed, God allowed three great empires to rise and fall in the Middle East in the region called Mesopotamia. Each of these empires would radically affect the history of Israel.
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Assyrian Empire
Babylonian Empire
Persian Empire
The Assyrian Empire conquered the northern kingdom of Israel in 722 BC.
The Babylonian Empire, conquered the southern kingdom of Judah in 586 BC. which had overcome the Assyrian Empire about 30 years earlier. Most of the Jewish exiles, like Daniel, were taken back and settled around the city of Babylon. Do you know where that was? Modern-day Iraq, about 100 miles from Ur of the Chaldees, the native city of Abraham.
Isn’t it amazing that God temporarily moved Israel in captivity back to the very region that Abram had once called home? The same land that God sent Abram out on a journey was the same land that received his descendants back again in captivity and would eventually release them again. Nothing was haphazard about Israel’s rise or fall. Nothing was ever out of God’s control. He was moving the chess pieces of regional and world empires just as He intended to move them! I’ve just outlined about 1000 years of human history, but through it all I see the sovereign hand of God!
Application: If God can be working His plan over the course of 1000 years of human history, don’t you think that God can work His plan in your life even when it seems like everything is going wrong? Surrender to His plan! Let Him do His eternal work! He’s got it all under control.
Now here’s where it gets interesting. Cyrus the Great, a Persian king, conquered Babylon in 539 BC. With a new ruler came new government policy. Cyrus did the opposite of the Assyrian and Babylonian empires and allowed many conquered peoples to return to their homeland! This was a great opportunity for the Jews, but they had lived for 70 years in Babylon. They were like the Cubans of Miami! They had built houses and businesses. Some wanted to return to Jerusalem, but many did not. Only those that believed God’s promises of blessing would risk the sacrifice of returning to destroyed Israel.
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Zerubbabel lead about 42,000 Jews to Israel in 538 BC.
Esther began as queen under the reign of Ahasuerus/Xerxes in 484 BC.
Ezra the scribe returned to Israel with another group of Jews in 458 BC.
Nehemiah returned to Israel in 444 BC. This occurs in Nehemiah chapter two. Artaxerxes began to rule in 464 BC, so the twentieth year of his reign would have been 444 BC.
There’s another clear takeaway from this history: the Bible fits together as a whole! It was written by one Supreme Author and only He could write something like the story of the Bible.
This also amazes me: no matter how far and wide the Jewish people were scattered, God did not allow them to be completely dissolved as a people group. Despite these captivities, the story of human redemption would go on and be fulfilled through the Jewish Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ!
Not only were the years before Nehemiah’s life important, but so were the years that followed. Nehemiah lived towards the end of the Old Testament era. In other words, he lived during the final years of God’s Old Testament revelation by the prophets. He was a contemporary of Malachi, the last book and the last prophet of the Old Testament. Malachi preached around 435 BC. After Malachi, there would be 400 years of Divine silence before another prophet would arrive with a new message from God. What would that prophet say? “Repent! For the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” That was the cry of none other than John the Baptist, the forerunner of the Messiah.
And so we see the time of Nehemiah.
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Place
If I were to set a globe in front of us, give it a spin, and then tell you to put your finger on the location of Shushan, it’s not likely that any of us could place it. Certainly none of us have visited it. Why? Because today it lies in modern-day Iran.
Next slide here: map of the Middle East
Next slide here: map of ancient Persia
In the time of Nehemiah, Shushan was the winter residence of the Persian king - generally from October to May. In the summer, temperatures were as high as 140 degrees in August. During that time the court was moved higher into the mountains to escape the heat.
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Primary character - Nehemiah
Nehemiah’s name means “Yahweh comforts or encourages.” As we’ll see throughout the book, he was a man of great faith and commitment.
When the story begins in Nehemiah 1:1, Nehemiah was faithfully serving as the king’s cupbearer.
“This was an office of trust; tasting the king’s wine and food, the cupbearer stood between the king and death.”
D. C. Martin, “Nehemiah,” in Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary, ed. Chad Brand et al. (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2003), 1182.
This Jewish man, this man of a subjugated people, was serving as a high-ranking official in the court of the most powerful king of the middle east. He probably was living a comfortable life. He probably had all of his needs met and then some. He probably was not looking for a career change or for anything to shake up the status quo because his was quite comfortable.
The status quo changed when Hanani and some other Jewish men came back to Shushan. Notice what Nehemiah did when he welcomed them back to the capital city.
Instead of treating them to a grand tour of the capital and instead of taking them to the finest restaurants or telling them of the latest court intrigue, he asks them a question. Nehemiah doesn’t wait for them to share a report, he asks them regarding the welfare of the Jews that had returned to the homeland and to Jerusalem.
Nehemiah’s character is revealed in these opening verses in this way. He lived a comfortable life in Persia, but he hadn’t allowed himself to get complacent. Instead, his heart was moved by the dire circumstances of those Jews that lived hundreds of miles away!
In our modern world, politicians are frequently accused - often with good reason - of being far removed from the lives and interests of their constituents. While the politicians busy themselves with meet and greets in Washington, the average people back on the farm in the home district are largely forgotten.
Just this week I was reading stories of that nature regarding the crises and the fires spreading across Los Angeles in California.
Now come back to Nehemiah: that was the exact mistake that he was at risk of making here. Far from asking about the welfare of the poor Jews back in his homeland, he could have been cold and heartless towards their needs. He could have been high and mighty - too busy with the affairs of the Persian court to care about the little folk back in Jerusalem. But that wasn’t Nehemiah at all! His heart was moved! He was moved to weep, moved to mourning, moved to fast and pray for his people!
Application: Christian, let your heart be moved for others! Let your heart be moved for their lost souls chained by sin! Let your heart be moved by their needs! Let your heart be moved by their hurt and their pain! Nehemiah did not close his ears or his heart to the needs of his people! His heart was moved at the pain and suffering that others were experiencing. Don’t insulate yourself from other’s problems, pains, and difficulties. Learn to walk with them through their problems. When someone hurts in the church, quietly hurt with them. When someone weeps in the church, weep with them. Let your heart be moved.

Conclusion

“Pastor Tim, I thought Nehemiah was all about Commitment.”
Well, it is, but before there could be great commitment there needed to be a great stirring of the heart. It was from that stirring of the heart that Nehemiah’s commitment to restore the walls of Jerusalem would spring forth.
And so I challenge you today, Christian, be moved in your heart, so that you can be committed to Christ, committed to your local church, committed to your marriage, and committed to building godly families.
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