Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro

How can you make sure you don’t waste your life?

Are you living only to serve yourself

That you live for something that actually matters instead of merely existing for 75-80 years going about your life day in and day out before dying in obscurity.

Now, almost all of us will die anonymously.

Chances are, we will never do something so important, so noteworthy, that it will place our names in a history book or cause us to be remembered even 150 years after our death.

But as we continue our study of Nehemiah in chapter 2:9-10, we are going to see that even though we might not be remembered in the history books, we can still use our lives for something that has eternal significance.

Nehemiah will show us that instead of living our lives to serve ourselves and bring glory to our name, God invites every single Christian to live for something far more important.

instead of wasting our lives, we can live a life that matters because God invites us join Him in his work to save sinners.

Context

Nehemiah had gotten a report that the Jews that had returned from exile were in danger and disgrace because the walls of the city had been destroyed.

This was a big deal because Nehemiah knew that God had brought his people back from exile so that they would worship him and be a light to the nations.

But now, God’s people and the Temple where he was worshiped was in danger.

So last week we looked how Nehemiah went to King Artaxerxes and was given permission to go to Jerusalem with the king’s blessing and supplies to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.

And this was proof that God was working in Nehemiah to bring glory to his name and save his people because And the king granted me what I asked, for the good hand of my God was upon me.

And the king granted me what I asked, for the good hand of my God was upon me.

God was working to save his people to be a light to the nations so that all the world might be saved.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

And Nehemiah leaves the king in Susa and travels to Jerusalem to join in God’s work to save sinners and begins with wise preparation.

1. Preparation to Begin God’s Work

Then I came to the governors of the province Beyond the River and gave them the king’s letters.

Now the king had sent with me officers of the army and horsemen.

10 But when Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite servant heard this, it displeased them greatly that someone had come to seek the welfare of the people of Israel.

9 Then I came to the governors of the province Beyond the River and gave them the king’s letters.

Now the king had sent with me officers of the army and horsemen.

10 But when Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite servant heard this, it displeased them greatly that someone had come to seek the welfare of the people of Israel.

On his way to Jerusalem, Nehemiah makes a quick stop to talk to the governors of the province Beyond the River.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

The province Beyond the River was the area located to the west of the Euphrates River

For the Persians who were east of the Great River, this area was ruled by regional governors who managed the day to day affairs of the region and collected taxes and tribute for the king and Persian Empire.

You have to remember the situation Nehemiah is walking into here.

The whole reason Nehemiah is on this trip is because, years earlier in , the people who lived in the Province Beyond the River convinced King Artaxerxes that the Jews were planning a rebellion against Persia when they tried to rebuild the wall the first time.

Because of this, Artaxerxes ordered that the wall be destroyed with “force and power” ().

So Nehemiah wisely goes to the rulers of these people groups to show that this time the Jews were building with the king’s blessing.

And to prove it, Artaxerxes had even sent with Nehemiah an army.

And after giving the letters to the governors Nehemiah notes that Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite servant were not happy about the king blessing the Jews rebuilding effort.

Sanballat was the governor of Samaria which lies to the north of Jerusalem and Tobiah was a powerful leader of the Ammonite people to the northwest of God’s people.

If you look at these regions on a map, Nehemiah is beginning the rebuilding effort on somewhat tenuous ground.

God called him to lead his people to rebuild the walls around Jerusalem so that God’s people would be protected, worship him, and be a light to the nations.

Then, before he even gets to Jerusalem, he has two men who lead people who border Jerusalem opposing him and the very thing God had called him to do.

This reminds us that following the Lord isn’t always doing the easy thing.

Some Christians assume that if God has really called them to do something, to some act of obedience, that it should just come easy.

And any time they face opposition they immediately assume that God isn’t faithful or that he is “closing a door” in their life

But Nehemiah reminds us that joining God in his work is to be engaged in a spiritual battle.

Following the Lord is an act of faith.

This is why Paul said in Romans that the righteous shall live by faith.

In other words, we live with a trust and dependence on God to accomplish his purposes in our lives.

When God has called us to do something we must persevere regardless what opposition we might face.

Whether the opposition is our own sinful flesh or sinful people who what to keep others out of the kingdom of God like Sanballat and Tobiah we press on in faith just like Nehemiah.

Now Sanballat the governor of Samaria is kind of the ring leader of Nehemiah’s adversaries throughout the book.

And why exactly are Sanballat and Tobiah so opposed to Nehemiah arriving to seek the welfare of Israel?

First off, this was a threat to their power.

If Jerusalem was given greater independence by having a wall, it might shift the balance of political power and influence in the region towards the Jews and they might lose their place.

To understand that we need to go back to the book of Ezra.

As the Jews were rebuilding the temple, the people of Samaria came to them and said “Let us build with you, for we worship your God as you do, and we have been sacrificing to him ever since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assyria who brought us here.”

3 But Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the rest of the heads of fathers’ houses in Israel said to them, “You have nothing to do with us in building a house to our God; but we alone will build to the Lord, the God of Israel, as King Cyrus the king of Persia has commanded us.”

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

Now the Samaritans were cousins to the Jews.

Basically, when Assyria conquered the northern kingdom Israel, they took most of of the Jews out of the land and took them into exile

In their place, they brought in pagan people groups to live in the land.

Some of the Jews who were left in Israel intermarried with these pagan peoples creating a new race called Samaritans.

You’ll remember Jesus speaking to the woman at the well in John 4.

Samaritans believed the worshiped the One True God of the Bible because they kept many of the traditions of the OT.

But they also blended in enough pagan worship practices that Samaritan worship become something distance from both Judaism and Paganism.

It would be like a Christian church joining with Buddhists and Muslims to create a whole new religion while still claiming to worship Jesus.

So in when these people come to offer the Jews help to rebuild the temple, the Jews flat out say not a chance.

The Jews were just now returning from exile which God had sent them to because they failed to worship him in spirit and in truth.

Instead of worshiping God as he had shown them, they turned to idols and mixed worshiped of God with their false gods just like these Samaritans had done.

Therefore, rightly desiring to be a people holy and set apart for God alone, the Jews rejected the Samaritan’s help and from their the Samaritan’s convinced Artaxerxes that the Jews were rebelling against Persia which led him to destroy the first rebuilding effort that Nehemiah is now trying to fix.

The point was simple, God’s people knew you can not mix the holy with the profane.

This is why Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life and there is no eternal life outside of him.

Its not like you can mix a little Jesus with a little karma and still claim to be Christian.

For God its the whole heart or nothing.

God has saved a people that are set apart from the world to worship him alone, and true Christian churches cannot claim to worship God while still valuing and loving the same things the world loves.

So Nehemiah, confident that God is the one who will ultimately accomplish his work no matter the opposition, leaves from there and finally makes it to Jerusalem.

So I went to Jerusalem and was there three days.

12 Then I arose in the night, I and a few men with me.

And I told no one what my God had put into my heart to do for Jerusalem.

There was no animal with me but the one on which I rode.

13 I went out by night by the Valley Gate to the Dragon Spring and to the Dung Gate, and I inspected the walls of Jerusalem that were broken down and its gates that had been destroyed by fire.

14 Then I went on to the Fountain Gate and to the King’s Pool, but there was no room for the animal that was under me to pass.

15 Then I went up in the night by the valley and inspected the wall, and I turned back and entered by the Valley Gate, and so returned.

16 And the officials did not know where I had gone or what I was doing, and I had not yet told the Jews, the priests, the nobles, the officials, and the rest who were to do the work.

11 So I went to Jerusalem and was there three days.

12 Then I arose in the night, I and a few men with me.

And I told no one what my God had put into my heart to do for Jerusalem.

There was no animal with me but the one on which I rode.

13 I went out by night by the Valley Gate to the Dragon Spring and to the Dung Gate, and I inspected the walls of Jerusalem that were broken down and its gates that had been destroyed by fire.

14 Then I went on to the Fountain Gate and to the King’s Pool, but there was no room for the animal that was under me to pass.

15 Then I went up in the night by the valley and inspected the wall, and I turned back and entered by the Valley Gate, and so returned.

16 And the officials did not know where I had gone or what I was doing, and I had not yet told the Jews, the priests, the nobles, the officials, and the rest who were to do the work.

After arriving in Jerusalem, Nehemiah goes on a secret mission at night to inspect the walls surrounding the city.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

Even though he knew that God is the one who had put it in his heart to restore Jerusalem and that God would accomplish this work, he did not want to present the people with a half baked plan.

If he was going to lead God’s people to accomplish this monumental task, he wanted to be sure he knew how to lead most effectively to accomplish God’s purposes.

Remember, Nehemiah’s mission was to restore Jerusalem to the city of God.

This was where God’s Temple resided on the earth.

It was the place where sinners could come and worship the Living God.

So Nehemiah rebuilding the walls was not just an act that would serve as protection for God’s people, but it also symbolized God building a people for himself to bear witness to his glory.

To be a light to the nations and proclaim the God would pursued sinners in order to save them.