WCF Sermon Series on Nehemiah

Nehemiah 1: Having a Heart for the Work.

“God’s work has never been easy, and in these last days it is getting more and more difficult to serve. The enemy is hurling his ammunition at us as never before and is setting his subtle traps where we least expect them. But the same great God who enabled Nehemiah to finish building the walls of Jerusalem will enable us to finish our course with joy and accomplish the work He has called us to do. There is no reason to quit or even to despair!” (Warran Weisbe: Be Determined. COmmentary on Nehemiah).

Nehemiah was the kind of person who cared.

He cared about the traditions of the past and the needs of the present. He cared about the hopes for the future.

He cared about his heritage, his ancestral city, and the glory of his God.

Nehemiah had a heart for the work of God and he revealed it in 3 different ways....

1. He cared for the people of God (Neh. 1:1–3).

“The words of Nehemiah son of Hacaliah: In the month of Kislev in the twentieth year, while I was in the citadel of Susa, Hanani, one of my brothers, came from Judah with some other men, and I questioned them about the Jewish remnant that survived the exile, and also about Jerusalem. They said to me, “Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire.”

Nehemiah was a cupbearer to the great “Artaxerxes Longimanus,” who ruled Persia from 464 to 423 B.C.

Artaxerxes(465-424 BC) was the son of Xerxes, otherwise known as Ahasuerus. Xerxes took the throne in 486 BC and he was the man who chose Esther as his queen in 479 BC.

Nehemiah means “The Lord has comforted.” He is identified as the “son of Hachaliah” to distinguish him from other Jews of the same name (Neh. 3:16; Ezra 2:2).

The Hebrew month of “Kislev” runs from mid-November to mid-December on our calendar; and “the twentieth year of Artaxerxes" was the year 444 B.C.

“Susa” was the capital city of the Persian Empire and the site of the king’s winter palace.

By way of background it is helpful to know that around 13 years separated the closing scene in Ezra and the prayer of Nehemiah in chapter 1. (compare Ezra 7:8 with Nehemiah 1:1; 2:1).

Jerusalem was a thousand miles away from Susa.

The Jews had returned to Judah almost a century earlier under the leadership of Zerubbabel, in 537 B.C., and others had returned with Ezra in 458 B.C. during The arrival of Ezra in Jerusalem during the “seventh year” of the reign of Artaxerxes.

Ezra the scribe and Nehemiah the governor knew each other and on occasions worked together (Neh 12:26). An example of this is given in Nehemiah 8 where we read about them standing alongside one another at the reading of the Law at the Feast of Trumpets.

Nehemiah’s memoirs span some fifteen years, from 445 B.C. to around 431 B.C. He arrived in Jerusalem in the “twentieth year” of Artaxerxes (in 445 BC). spending slightly more than 12 years there with at least two separate trips to Judea from Persia,

Derek Kidner draws a helpful comparison between the characters of these two men: ‘Ezra was a quieter personality than the formidable, practical Nehemiah; he does not leap out of the page as this man does.’

Clearly however, the nation owed a great debt to these determined men with their different personalities and gifts.

A cupbearer was much more than our modern “butler” (see Gen. 40.

The same word as the ‘butler’ of the Joseph story - Gen. 40:2ff.)

It was a position of great responsibility and privilege. At each meal, he tested the king’s wine to make sure it wasn’t poisoned. He also guarded the sleeping quarters of the monarch and acted as master of ceremonies at the king’s banquet!

A man who stood that close to the king in public had to be handsome, cultured, knowledgeable in court procedures, and able to converse with the king and advise him if asked (see Gen 41:1–13).

Because he had access to the king, the cupbearer was a man of great influence, which he could use for good or for evil.

That Nehemiah, a Jew, held such an important position in the palace speaks well of his character and ability (Dan. 1:1–4).

For nearly a century, the Jewish remnant had been back in their own land, and Nehemiah could have joined them; but he chose to remain in the palace.

It turned out that God had a work for him to do there that he could not have accomplished elsewhere.

God put Nehemiah in Susa just as He had put Esther there a generation before, and just as He had put Joseph in Egypt and Daniel in Babylon.

When God wants to accomplish a work, He always prepares His workers and puts them in the right places at the right time.

No doubt it was just another routine day when Nehemiah met his brother Hanani (see Neh. 7:2), who had just returned from a visit to Jerusalem, but it turned out to be a turning point in Nehemiah’s life.

This was a life-changing event for Nehemiah and it reminds us that we never know what God has in store, even in a commonplace conversation with a friend or relative and we should therefore keep our heart’s open to God’s providential leading.

Nehemiah’s caring heart is evident here. He was the king’s cupbearer successful and secure in his own life but his heart was not merely fixed on himself and his own comforts but on the work of the Lord.

He was well aware that his ancestors had sinned against the Lord and brought judgment to the city of Jerusalem and the kingdom of Judah but he drank deeply at the wells of Jeremiah’s prophecy when he gave this word from the Lord: “For who will have pity on you, O Jerusalem? Or who will bemoan you? Or who will turn aside to ask how you are doing?” (Jer. 15:5, NKJV). Nehemiah was the man God had chosen to do those very things!

Sometimes we prefer not to know what’s going on, because information might bring obligation.

To remain in ignorance can be a very comfortable place to be - “What you don’t know can’t hurt you,” says the old adage; but is it true?

“Practical politics consists in ignoring facts,” American historian Henry Adams said.

However as Aldous Huxley said, “Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.” Closing our eyes and ears to the truth could be the first step toward tragedy for ourselves as well as for others.

What we don’t know could hurt us a great deal! The slogan for the 1987 AIDS publicity campaign was “Don’t die of ignorance”; and that slogan can be applied to many areas of life besides health.

Nehemiah asked about Jerusalem and the Jews living there because he had a caring heart.

When we truly care about people, we want the facts, no matter how painful they may be.

What did Nehemiah learn about Jerusalem and the Jews?

Three words summarize the bad news: remnant, ruin, and reproach.

Instead of a land inhabited by a great nation, only a remnant of people lived there; and they were in great affliction and struggling to survive.

Instead of a magnificent city, Jerusalem was in ruins; and where there had once been great glory, there was now nothing but great reproach.

Of course, Nehemiah had known all his life that the city of his fathers was in ruins, because the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed Jerusalem’s walls, gates, and temple in 586 B.C. (2 Kings 25:1–21).

However, the decree of King Cyrus of Persia to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem (cf. 2 Chron. 36:22–23; Ezra 1:1–3) led to a group of 50,000 Jews, returning to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple and the city under under Zerubbabel and Joshua .

Unfortunately, the various groups of foreigners in the vicinity had hindered their work and the temple was not completed for 20 years (Ezra 1–6), and the gates and walls never were repaired. The temple was actually completed during the reign of Darius the Mede of Daniel chapter 6 fame, between 520 and 515 BC, as attested to by the prophets Haggai and Zechariah.

Nehemiah had hoped that the work on the walls had begun again and that the city was now restored. Without walls and gates, the city was open to ridicule and attack. (Note: Psalms 48, 79, 84, 87 to see how much loyal Jews loved their city).

Are we like Nehemiah, anxious to know the truth even about the worst situations?

Is our interest born of concern or idle curiosity? When we read missionary prayer letters, the news in religious periodicals, or even our church’s ministry reports, do we want the facts, and do the facts burden us?

Are we the kind of people who care enough to ask?

II. He Prayed for the People of God:(Neh 1:4-10).

When Nehemiah head about what was going on he began to weep, pray and fast (Neh. 1:4).

Nehemiah was “a man who prayed frequently about everything. Prayer was a habit for him, as we will see. But I suspect also that, in this case at least, Nehemiah prayed for the simple reason that no one but God could accomplish what needed to be accomplished if the walls of the city were to rise again.

Notice the mention of “night and day.” This phrase indicates the heaviness of the burden Nehemiah felt and his daily persistence in laboring over the way God was dealing with his people. This was a constant concern that he struggled with every day because the situation was so serious. He probably lost some sleep because he was earnestly praying for God to intervene to change the disgraceful situation in Jerusalem. Nehemiah was not a person who lightly said, “I’ll pray for you” and then quickly forgot all about it.

“Prayer made Abraham Lincoln the man he was, and for the same reason. He said on one occasion, “I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom and that of those about me seemed insufficient for the day.”

The world may not think that great aptitude and skill and enterprise makes a leader, but the Bible teaches that the first and greatest dynamic of a leader is his or her propensity to pray to and seek the help of God.

“When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven. Then I said: “O LORD, God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and obey his commands, let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer your servant is praying before you day and night for your servants, the people of Israel. I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father’s house, have committed against you. We have acted very wickedly toward you. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees and laws you gave your servant Moses. “Remember the instruction you gave your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations, but if you return to me and obey my commands, then even if your exiled people are at the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen as a dwelling for my Name.’ “They are your servants and your people, whom you redeemed by your great strength and your mighty hand. O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of this your servant and to the prayer of your servants who delight in revering your name. Give your servant success today by granting him favor in the presence of this man.”

Weeping for the people of God is an indication of godly character, as it was with Jeremiah (Jer. 9:1), Paul (Acts 20:19), and the Lord Jesus (Luke 19:41).

The Book of Nehemiah begins with “great affliction” (Neh. 1:3), but before it closes, there is great joy (Neh 8:12, 17).

It was customary for the Jews to sit down when they mourned (Ezra 9:1–4). Unconsciously, Nehemiah was imitating the grieving Jewish captives who had been exiled in Babylon years before (Ps. 137:1).

Like Daniel, Nehemiah probably had a private room where he prayed to God with his face toward Jerusalem (Dan. 6:10; 1 Kings 8:28–30).

Fasting was required of the Jews only once a year, on the annual Day of Atonement (Lev. 16:29); but Nehemiah spent several days fasting, weeping, and praying. He knew that somebody had to do something to rescue Jerusalem, and he was willing to go.

This prayer is the first of 12 instances of prayer recorded in this book. (See Neh 2:4; 4:4, 9; 5:19; 6:9, 14; 9:5ff; 13:14, 22, 29, 31.)

The Book of Nehemiah opens and closes with prayer. It is obvious that Nehemiah was a man of prayer who depended wholly on the Lord to help him accomplish the work He had called him to do.

Nehemiah’s prayer is both earnest and persistent as he pleads ‘day and night’ for God’s ears to be attentive and his eyes open to him. When we pray it is reassuring to realize that “The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their cry… he delivers them from all their troubles.”(Ps. 34:15, 17).

Speaking about the church’s ministry today, the late Alan Redpath said, “There is too much working before men and too little waiting before God.” It is essential that we bathe every aspect of God’s work in prayer.

There is an acrostic for prayer that you have probably heard: ACTS. In this acrostic, A stands for adoration, C for confession, T for thanksgiving, and S for supplication. Each of these is present in Nehemiah’s model prayer. In this prayer...

(a). There is Adoration - It begins with ascription of praise to God (1:5).

“the Lord God of heaven” This is the title Cyrus used for the Lord when he announced that the Jews could return to their land (2 Chron. 36:22–23; Ezra 1:1–2). The heathen gods were but idols on the earth, but the God of the Jews was Lord in heaven. The title is found four times in Nehemiah (1:4–5; 2:4, 20).

To what kind of a God do we pray when we lift our prayers to “the God of heaven”? We pray to a “great and awesome God” (Neh. 1:5, NKJV; and see 4:14, 8:6, and 9:32), who is worthy of our praise and worship.

His prayer acknowledges several great attributes of God: his sovereignty, love, faithfulness, and his ability to see and hear all that is going on, including Nehemiah’s prayer.

Whenever we are experiencing great affliction (v. 3) and are about to undertake a great work (Neh 4:19; 6:3), then we need the great power (1:10), great goodness (9:25, 35), and great mercy (v. 31) of our great God.

The God we worship big enough to handle the challenges that we face! The God of ‘great strength’ and a ‘mighty hand’ (1:10) heard the prayer of Nehemiah so that the walls of Jerusalem were restored in the remarkably short period of fifty-two days (Neh 6:15). For Nehemiah, “The greater God becomes to him, the smaller becomes his problem.’ (Cyril J. Barber).

Nehemiah is an example to us of the kind of spirit with which we approach prayer: “The self-sufficient do not pray; they merely talk to themselves. The self-satisfied will not pray; they have no knowledge of their need. The self-righteous cannot pray; they have no basis on which to approach God.”(Barber). A true leader is one who is not self-sufficient, self-satisfied, or self-righteous. On the contrary, he knows his need and is ready to humble himself before the One who alone is sufficient for it.

(b). There is Confession - It reminds God of His Covenant:

The word remember is a key word in this book (Neh. 1:8; 4:14; 5:19; 6:14; 13:14, 22, 29, 31) and Nehemiah draws upon this as he reassures us that God keeps His Word (1:5). The Lord had made a covenant with His people Israel, promising to “keep his covenant of love with those who love him and obey his commands.” Nehemiah asks God to remember this fact.

Nehemiah’s reference to Moses alludes to Leviticus 26:27–45 and Deuteronomy 30:1–5. He sees God’s past dealings with his people as a mirror of his future plans.

Covenant comes with blessing for obedience and cursing if disobedient - (Lev. 26; Deut. 27–30). This is why the city of Jerusalem was in ruins, and the nation was feeble because the people had sinned against the Lord. (See Ezra’s prayer of confession in Ezra 9 and the prayer of the nation in Neh. 9.) and this led to the greater part of Nehemiah’s prayer here being devoted to confession of sin (1:6–9).

“I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father’s house, have committed against you. We have acted very wickedly toward you. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees and laws you gave your servant Moses. Remember the instruction you gave your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations, but if you return to me and obey my commands, then even if your exiled people are at the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen as a dwelling for my Name.’

Twice Nehemiah confessed that the people had “sinned” (khataʾ = “missed the mark”) against God. To this he added that they had “acted very corruptly” (khabol khabalnu —an infinitive absolute plus a finite verb; NLT, “sinned terribly”), and had “not kept” (loʾ-shamarnu) the covenant stipulations that God gave through Moses.

So as we can see here, the God who promised blessing and chastening also promised forgiveness if His people would repent and turn back to Him (Deut. 30; 1 Kings 8:31–53). It was this promise that Nehemiah was claiming as he prayed for himself and the nation.

Note that Nehemiah used the pronoun “we” and not “they,” identifying himself with the sins of a generation he didn’t even know. It would have been easy to look back and blame his ancestors for the reproach of Jerusalem, but Nehemiah looked within and blamed himself! “We have sinned! We have dealt very corruptly!”

When one Jewish soldier, Achan, sinned at Jericho, God said that “the children of Israel committed a trespass” and that “Israel” sinned and transgressed the covenant (Josh. 7:1, 11). Since the sin of one man was the sin of the whole nation, it brought shame and defeat to the whole nation. Once that sin had been dealt with, God could again bless His people with victory.

How do we know that God forgives our sins when we repent and confess to Him? He has so promised in His Word. Nehemiah’s prayer is saturated with quotations from and allusions to the covenants of God found in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. see Deuteronomy 28:63–67 and Deut 30:1–10

Just as we remind the Lord of His promise in 1 John 1:9. Nehemiah asked God to forgive His people, regather them to their land, and restore them to His favor and blessing.

(c). There is Thanksgiving & Supplication - Nehemiah looks forward Confidently:

Having acknowledged God’s greatness, confessed his own sin, and reviewed God’s promises, he now lays his petitions before God: “O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of this your servant and to the prayer of your servants who delight in revering your name. Give your servant success today by granting him favor in the presence of this man” (v. 11).

Nehemiah is confident that his humble prayer of confession would be answered - Neh. 1:10–11: “They are your servants and your people, whom you redeemed by your great strength and your mighty hand. O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of this your servant and to the prayer of your servants who delight in revering your name. Give your servant success today by granting him favor in the presence of this man.”

Nehemiah had confidence in the power of God. God see His people’s needs, hear their prayers, and work on their behalf with His “great strength and...mighty hand.” Nehemiah knew that he was too weak and too insignificant to rebuild Jerusalem, but he had faith that God would work on his behalf.

Nehemiah also had confidence in God’s faithfulness. “They are your servants and your people” (v. 10). Though God has used Babylon to and alter the Medes and the Persians to chasten the people of God< He had not utterly forsaken His people! They were still His people and His servants. He had redeemed them from Egypt by His great power (Ex. 14:13–31) and had also set them free from bondage in Babylon and He would not let them down now that the city walls needed rebuilding.

The word ‘servants’ (1:10, 11) implies renewed submission to God. Redemption brings deliverance from sin but also demands obedience to Christ, whose precious blood was the price of our freedom (1 Cor. 6:19–20; 1 Peter 1:18–19).

Nehemiah was also confident that God would work in the heart of Artaxerxes and secure for the project the official support that it needed (Neh. 1:10). He wasn’t sure exactly how God would do this but as Nehemiah was isn such a unique and potentially influential position and as he needed the King’s influence, permission and resource for everything he did, he believed that God would providentially turn this to His own advantage. Nehemiah was raised for such a time as this, as are we - “I was the cupbearer to the King.”(v11).

Artaxerxes was an absolute despot, and it was not easy to approach them or convince them but Nehemiah knew that “the king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord; He directs it like a watercourse wherever He pleases” (Prov. 21:2).

Too often, we plan our projects and then ask God to bless them; but Nehemiah didn’t make that mistake. He sat down and wept (Neh. 1:4), knelt down and prayed, and then stood up and worked because he knew he had the blessing of the Lord on what he was doing.

God does “exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us (Eph. 3:20).

God often answers prayer by working in the one doing the praying! He works in us and through us to help us see our prayers answered.

While Nehemiah was praying, his burden for Jerusalem became greater and his vision of what needed to be done became clearer.

Often as we pray, God tells us what to do, when to do it, and how to do it so that God’s will is accomplished.

As we shall see in chapter 2, Nehemiah would formulate plans to go to Jerusalem to supervise the rebuilding of the walls. He knew that he would have to approach the king and request a leave of absence which could go down very badly with a King who could order your immediate and painful death if hew was unhappy with you.

This was a test of faith; but he knew that his God was a great God and would see him through.

God is still looking for people who have a heart for the work!

He is still looking for people who care, people like Nehemiah, who care enough to weep and pray and fast so that God’s help is secured and God’s people are blessed and God’s work brings Him glory and praise!

The sovereign God ordained that Nehemiah was the right man in the right place ready for his use. The whole of his life up to this point was a preparation for the role he was shortly to play in God’s purpose for the Jews. This plan embraced the salvation of the elect from all races.

Nehemiah the cupbearer did not forget his own people. He was prepared to forsake the luxury of a royal court and go to Jerusalem to help in the rebuilding of the city. When eventually he did go there he went as civil governor with the authority of the king of Persia.’

Nehemiah was a man who sought first God’s kingdom and his righteousness (Matt. 6:33). This ought to be the motivation of God’s people in every age.

Nehemiah ‘comes across as the ideal worker for God. The key words are prayer and work. He not only prayed and worked himself but he inspired his followers to do the same.’ (The Bible Outline).