The Heart of A Watchman - The Power of a Broken Heart

Instead of a joke today I have some funny thoughts:

The World’s Greatest Collection of Church Jokes: Nearly 500 Hilarious, Good-Natured Jokes and Stories 14. Preachings and Teachings and Stuff

Funny how tiring it is to serve God for one hour, but how quickly a team plays sixty minutes of basketball.

Funny how long a couple of hours spent at church are, but how short they are when watching a movie.

Funny how we can’t think of anything to say when we pray, but how easy it is to chat with a friend.

Funny how thrilled we get when a baseball game goes extra innings, but we complain when a sermon is longer than usual.

Funny how we want a front seat at a game or concert but scramble to get a back seat at church.

Funny how we need a two-or three-week notice to fit a church event into our schedule, but can adjust our schedule at the last minute for other events.

Funny how big one hundred dollars looks when you take it to church, but it’s so small at the mall.

Funny how hard it is to read a chapter in the Bible, but how easy it is to read one hundred pages of a best-seller.

Funny how hard it is for people to learn a simple plan of salvation, but how simple it is for the same people to understand and repeat gossip.

Funny how we believe what the newspaper says, but question what the Bible says.

Actually, those things aren’t really all that funny, but they should make us think about what is really important in our lives. Rather, if church and the things of God are MORE important than anything else in our lives. Do the things of God move our hearts?

We are talking about being a Watchman for God last week and the coming few weeks. Last week I asked the question, “Are you a Watchman?” We talked about how if we are surrendered to the Lordship of Christ then we are called to keep watch, to peer into the distance, to observe the signs of our time, and to stand for what is true.

A true watchman must be awake, ready, and always watching for the return of Christ. Our job while we are watching is to bring as many people into the kingdom as possible. Our mission is simple and comes directly from the mouth of Christ:

Matthew 28:18–20 NLT

18 Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. 19 Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. 20 Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

This is what it means to be a watchman. We are fulfilling what Christ told us to do while He is away.

Today I want to focus on the Heart of a watchman. The heart is what motivates us to do things for the Lord. Without our heart in what we are doing then we will not be good watchman.

In the Bible there is a man that truly had the heart of a watchman. His heart was what motivated him to do the work of the Lord. His name was Nehemiah.

Nehemiah is the expert wall re-builder in all of the Bible. Let me give you a short background of his book.

Many years before this book was written, Jerusalem had been destroyed. The Jews had been deported to Babylon, which would be located today in Iraq, and fifty years later the Jews had been allowed to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple.

For ninety years Jerusalem itself had sat in ruins. The city walls had been destroyed. The gates had been burned and the people were totally demoralized.

Nehemiah heard about the broken down walls and his heart was broken. And because of his broken heart he was moved to act.

When we look at the broken down walls in our society we must have broken hearts. Watchman have hearts that yearn for the rebuilding of lives through Christ.

I want to share a few things that will help build the walls we are called to build.

Our hearts must be sensitive to the reality of the situation

Nehemiah 1:1–3 NLT

1 These are the memoirs of Nehemiah son of Hacaliah. In late autumn, in the month of Kislev, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes’ reign, I was at the fortress of Susa. 2 Hanani, one of my brothers, came to visit me with some other men who had just arrived from Judah. I asked them about the Jews who had returned there from captivity and about how things were going in Jerusalem. 3 They said to me, “Things are not going well for those who returned to the province of Judah. They are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem has been torn down, and the gates have been destroyed by fire.”

Walls were very important in Nehemiah’s time. Walls were the only real means of protection of a city. Where there were no walls, there was no protection. In Jerusalem the people were defenseless, vulnerable to attack, and open to harassment. Because of this, the people were discouraged.

Whenever an army would finally take a city, the first thing they would do, would be to destroy the walls. Broken down walls were a disgrace. In this case, not only a disgrace to the people of God, but a disgrace to God Himself.

Let me just share with you how important walls can be. Think about it.

Walls Of Fidelity - Protect Marriage Walls Of Marriage - Protect The Family Walls Of The Family - Protect The Community Walls Of The Community - Protect The State Walls Of The State - Protect The Nation

Before you can ever solve a problem, you've got to understand it. You've got to honestly look and see the reality of the situation.

We live in a great town. I’ve got no complaints, but outside these walls there ARE problems that need to trouble our hearts.

Outside these walls there are people who see no importance of what we do whatsoever. They have no affiliation with a church whatsoever.

These are walls that need to be rebuilt. Does our heart care?

Outside this walls of this church, home after home after home there are marital walls falling down, financial walls falling down, and spiritual walls falling down.

Even in our own lives how are we doing? Can you say that you are building a strong christian home? Can you say that you are active in your relationship with Christ? Or are there areas that are starting to crack? Maybe you’ve recieved bad news this week and you are struggling this morning.

One of the first lessons we learn from Nehemiah is you can't solve a problem that you run away from.

You can't get the right answers until you ask the right questions of the right people, meaning people who will shoot straight with you.

That is what Nehemiah did with his brother because he wanted to see the reality of the situation.

Our Hearts must Share the Responsibility for the Situation

Nehemiah 1:4–7 NLT

4 When I heard this, I sat down and wept. In fact, for days I mourned, fasted, and prayed to the God of heaven. 5 Then I said, “O Lord, God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps his covenant of unfailing love with those who love him and obey his commands, 6 listen to my prayer! Look down and see me praying night and day for your people Israel. I confess that we have sinned against you. Yes, even my own family and I have sinned! 7 We have sinned terribly by not obeying the commands, decrees, and regulations that you gave us through your servant Moses.

Did you notice how Nehemiah used the pronoun, "We" rather than "They"? You will never solve a problem if all you do is try to find the blame and fix it on somebody else. The heart of a Watchman sees the reality of the situation and shares responsibility for the situation.

There are people today who are no longer married because they were more interested in fixing the blame than they were in fixing the problem.

Nehemiah could have easily said, "That is their problem, let them deal with it. I didn't have anything to do with it. I've never even seen Jerusalem. I don't even know those people."

I heard about two old ladies who had never flown in an airplane before and they were afraid of jet planes, but they agreed finally to fly in a prop plane. It was a double engine plane with about thirty passengers.

They took off and not long into the flight they heard a noise and one of the ladies looked out the window of the other side of the plane and saw that the right engine had stopped.

Her friend looked at her and said, "Oh no! What will we do now?" The other lady said, "I wouldn't worry about it. That is their side of the plane."

Have you ever shared the blame for something when you really weren't involved?

Have you ever taken the heat over something that directly you had nothing to do with?

If you have the Heart of a Watchman and you are you are going to rebuild walls, you've got to be willing to sit where other people sit and walk where other people walk and feel what other people feel.

There are two kinds of people who will come to Church. 1) There are those who will watch us build these walls and 2) there are those who will help us build these walls.

It will be easy for people to come to Church and say, “I didn’t start this church, I just come to enjoy a nice service”

Or you can come and say, "This wasn't my idea to start this church, but I would like to get in on it. I look around and see walls in my own community crumbling and falling apart. I know people whose marriages are disintegrating and here is a church that is wanting to help heal the hurting, give hope to the hopeless, a spiritual home to people who don't have one. How can I help?"

It’s a matter of the heart.

We can look at society in one of two ways. We can stand on the side-line and say, "Things really ought to be different" or we can get into the game and say, "How can I help make a difference?"

The truth of the matter is one of the reasons why we have a culture whose walls are falling in is because we the church have not done all we can do to get into the wall rebuilding business.

If our hearts are breaking for what breaks God’s heart then we will see the reality of the situation, share in the responsibility of the situation and finally, and I would say most importantly...

Our Heart must Turn to the Ruler Over the Situation

Nehemiah 1:4 NLT

4 When I heard this, I sat down and wept. In fact, for days I mourned, fasted, and prayed to the God of heaven.

When Nehemiah heard about the condition of Jerusalem the first thing he did was pray. There was nothing at that point that he could do, but pray, because at that time as you are going to see, he was in the wrong place with the wrong job working for the wrong person.

If you don't learn anything else from the book of Nehemiah, you had better learn this.

Whenever you face walls that are falling down, whether it is in your life, or the life of your family or in your job or with your friends, the first place to go to is God.

When you go to God's Word and you fast and you pray and you seek God's face, He will give you the solution to your problem.

It is important to notice how he prayed because it is one of the great prayers in the Old Testament. First of all, he reminds God of His revelation to His people.

Nehemiah 1:8–9 NLT

8 “Please remember what you told your servant Moses: ‘If you are unfaithful to me, I will scatter you among the nations. 9 But if you return to me and obey my commands and live by them, then even if you are exiled to the ends of the earth, I will bring you back to the place I have chosen for my name to be honored.’

He remembers a promise that God had made earlier to the people who were facing broken down walls.

He then speaks of God's relationship with His people.

Nehemiah 1:10 NLT

10 “The people you rescued by your great power and strong hand are your servants.

He was saying to God, these are your people, these are your servants, they are your responsibility and if you don't come through everything is lost.

He then spoke about God's redemption to His people.

What he was saying was this, "God do you remember how you redeemed your people when they were in bondage in Egypt and how You delivered them from that bondage into freedom? Guess what? The same people you redeemed yesterday are the people you must rescue today."

Now let me ask you a question. Why did Nehemiah remind God of all of this?

The reason why he recited God's promise back to Him was not to remind God, because God never forgets anything.

He did it to remind himself of what God had said and to remind himself that God does what God says He will do.

Nehemiah couldn't just quit his job and move back to Jerusalem. He needed three things from the king in order to rebuild the walls.

He needed the king's permission. The king had to authorize him to go and govern the city, so he would have the authority to rebuild the wall.

He needed the king's protection. It would be a dangerous journey and when the word got out that Nehemiah was going to be rebuilding the walls, the enemies of Jerusalem would make him a marked man.

He needed the king's provision. Without the materials and the money that would be needed the walls would never be rebuilt.

In other words, once our hearts break for the reality of the situation and once we are willing to share responsibility for the situation, the first thing we had better do is admit that we can't do anything apart from God and we had better seek out the ruler over the situation which raises a question.

In your life right now with whatever broken down walls you might be facing, what are you depending on God to do? I can tell you the answer.

The things you are praying for are the things you are depending on God to do.

Every broken down wall that you ever come to in your life is God's way of forcing you to focus on Him.

Once our hearts turn to God then and only then will we...

Stand as a Resource in the Situation

Nehemiah 1:11 NLT

11 O Lord, please hear my prayer! Listen to the prayers of those of us who delight in honoring you. Please grant me success today by making the king favorable to me. Put it into his heart to be kind to me.” In those days I was the king’s cup-bearer.

Now there is a surprising twist to the story.

Nehemiah waits to the last minute to tell us that he was "The King's Cupbearer."

I believe it was through Nehemiah's praying and asking God for the solution to the problem that God reminded Nehemiah of who he was and what he did.

You see, God had already given Nehemiah the answer and guess what? The answer was Nehemiah! Let me tell you why.

Don't get the idea that Nehemiah was just a butler or a chef or a dishwasher.

In ancient days, a king would take the person he trusted more than anyone else in the kingdom to be the cupbearer. Now it was his job to taste wine before the king would drink it and eat food before the king would eat it to make sure it wasn't poisoned. If the cupbearer drank some wine and dropped dead, the king would say, "I guess that was a bad year", but long live the king! In other words, Nehemiah was a man of unbelievable influence and power. He was the most trusted adviser to the king, the second most powerful man in the kingdom.

Nehemiah didn't know a thing about rebuilding walls. He was not a contractor, nor was he a builder, but he was the right man in the right place at the right time for the right job.

When God wants to accomplish a work, He always prepares His workers and puts them in the right place at the right time. That is why Nehemiah said in this prayer, "Make your servant successful today." Nehemiah didn't pray, "God send a miracle." He said, "God send me." He didn't pray for a miracle. He prayed for an opportunity.

I am going to give a thought about prayer that is going to shock you and it is going to reveal to some of you why you've had so much failure in your prayer life.

If you want God to answer your prayer, you've got to be willing to be a part of the answer. True prayer is when you are willing to make yourself available to be a part of the answer.

If you are a parent, it is not enough just to pray that your children will become men and women of character, you've got to pray for opportunities to build character into your children.

If you have a burden for unbelieving friends it is not enough just to pray that your friends will be saved, you need to pray for an opportunity to speak to them about your faith in Christ.

Nehemiah didn't pray for God to rebuild the wall. He prayed for an opportunity to rebuild it himself. That is the difference between dreamers and leaders.

Dreamers dream about things being different. Leaders determine to make a difference.

I also want to give you a warning. Answered prayer and rebuilt walls always come with a cost. Nehemiah was going to have to give up that corner office, that corporate card, the company chariot and go to a city he had never seen, to a people he did not know, take a two month trip across the dessert filled with danger and lay his life on the line.

But his HEART was broken. He couldn’t stand by. He was a watchman.

I believe there are times in every person's life where we have what I call "A Nehemiah Moment." It is that moment when you come to a fork in the road.

One fork leads to comfort and the other one leads to sacrifice. It is that moment when you have to decide whether you are going to serve yourself or you are going to serve God.

You've got to decide whether you are going to lay up treasures on earth or treasures in heaven. You've got to make up your mind whether you care more about your comfort or more about His kingdom.

You see the greatest ability that Nehemiah had was availability. There are no problems that people can't solve, but there are people unwilling to solve them.

My question to you as a congregation here in Eudora today is do you have the HEART of a watchman?

Do you see the reality of the world we are living in? Do you share in the responsibility of the commission Christ has given? Have you turned to God in prayer? Are you willing to stand as a resource?

Honestly, if we all had heart to rebuild this community, it would be done faster than you could ever imagine.

Nehemiah wasn’t a builder. He was a cupbearer. Yet, once he got to Jerusalem those walls were rebuilt in 52 days! Doesn’t that give you hope?

Well, it all starts with the heart.