Nehemiah 1:1-11

Intro

Hey Y’all! How is everyone? Y’all good? Y’all making it? good, good.

Who is ready for the first football game this season? Im excited! We are tailgating this Friday at 5:30 in the parking lot, please come hang out with us it’s gonna be fun!

Okay so let’s play a game right now, lets play yelp review. Y’all ever use Yelp? if not, let’s play google review. But the thing we are going to review right now is human society on earth, basically, lets give reviews on how good Planet Earth is right now.

So show of hands, who is giving Earth 5 out of 5 stars, would recommend for vacation again, basically the Garden of Eden right now, who is giving earth 5 stars? Interesting, not me.

What about 4 stars, Service was good, but food was overrated, vibe was cool though.

How about 3 stars? just meh.

How about 2 stars, it smells like roaches and everyone seems sick.

Alright 1 star, staff was angry, someone coughed in my food, it was a horrifying hellscape.

Anyways, I’m going 2.5 stars right now, wasn’t great, could be better, sees room for improvement. Just a side note, i read a headline from a British paper who is like a 108 years old or something and all the headline said was, London’s oldest resident says “COVID, not as bad at WWI” which i just got a laugh out of that haha.

that’s beside the point, but what i think we realize is, this world is crazy, and this world is broken, there are some bright points, but this world is very far from being heaven on earth.

Context

And so tonight, we are going to start a new series going through the book of Nehemiah. We are going to see a man who is living in a very broken world, one that is more broken than this one right now. We are going to see how he followed the Lord through that brokenness and how the Lord is faithful in brokenness and suffering.

So with that, if you have a bible, open up with me to Nehemiah one, it is in the old testament, it is between Ezra and Esther. It can be kinda hard to find, so when you get there go ahead and mark that some how so you can flip to it more easily next week. If you don’t have a bible, and need one, throw a hand up and we will get one to you. Bring your bibles y’all.

Okay, so while you are flipping there let me set the stage for what is going on here in Nehemiah.

Nehemiah is written as the memoirs of Nehemiah, who was a Hebrew living in the court of the King. Basically this guy worked for the king, but the King was not a Hebrew king, this King was a king of a kingdom who conquered Jerusalem. They had wrecked Jerusalem, and took most of the Hebrew people back to Babylon or Persia, it was Persia by this time.

So Who is this Nehemiah Guy? Nehemiah we see when we read this in just a second that he was “cup bearer to the king” which sounds like a fancy title, and it was a pretty interesting gig to have, like it had good benefits, like you were always with the king, you basically held his cup that he would drink out of. You got to eat all of the same food that the King ate, you got to over see how it was prepared, all that good stuff. But that job was not jut so that someone would hold the Kings cup for him, this job had a security aspect to it, in his job description, he was supposed to die before the king, if the king was ever poisoned. So basically, the king wants some sweet tea, guy come over, pours it in to the King’s cup that Nehemiah is holding, Nehemiah then takes a big swig of it, and waits a second, to see if it was poisoned, to see if Nehemiah drops dead right there. So the job sounds fancy, but really Nehemiah was expendable, the king cared about Nehemiah, but could do with out him if he drops dead from stank sweet tea. So Nehemiah was like a normal middle class dude kinda. He worked for the big boss, the benefits were pretty good, but could die. He was a security guard basically.

So that is where we are at in Nehemiah, that is who Nehemiah is and what his role is.

So let’s read this passage together really quick. but before we do that, let’s pray for our time in the word tonight.

prayer

Okay, so read with me, Nehemiah chapter 1, verses 1-11

English Standard Version Chapter 1

1 The words of Nehemiah the son of Hacaliah.

Now it happened in the month of Chislev, in the twentieth year, as I was in Susa the citadel, 2 that Hanani, one of my brothers, came with certain men from Judah. And I asked them concerning the Jews who escaped, who had survived the exile, and concerning Jerusalem. 3 And they said to me, “The remnant there in the province who had survived the exile is in great trouble and shame. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are destroyed by fire.”

Nehemiah’s Prayer

4 As soon as I heard these words I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven. 5 And I said, “O LORD God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, 6 let your ear be attentive and your eyes open, to hear the prayer of your servant that I now pray before you day and night for the people of Israel your servants, confessing the sins of the people of Israel, which we have sinned against you. Even I and my father’s house have sinned. 7 We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, and the rules that you commanded your servant Moses. 8 Remember the word that you commanded your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples, 9 but if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there I will gather them and bring them to the place that I have chosen, to make my name dwell there.’ 10 They are your servants and your people, whom you have redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand. 11 O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant, and to the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name, and give success to your servant today, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.”

Now I was cupbearer to the king.

Prayer must be the Foundation

Okay cool, so what is going on here, in the first 4 verses we see an interaction take place between Nehemiah and some other Hebrew people. The had just come from Judah which is kinda near Jerusalem and Nehemiah has had zero news about the fate of the people from his homeland.

Imagine with me for a second, try to put your self in Nehemiah’s shoes for a second and see how he is feeling at this moment. Who has lived in Gray all their life? Okay imagine, having grown up here, a foreign country has come in and took almost all the people of gray away to another country, and then after years of not knowing what really happened to your homeland or the people left, someone has some information. you would be super interested in what was going on there. You would be like, GRAY? How is it, is it okay? What happened? Is the Dairy Queen still slingin’ blizzards? and the stranger looks up and is like, no, the DQ is not still slingin’ blizzards, gray was torched, the people there are barely getting by, the only thing untouched was the gray motel, because they thought someone had already destroyed it before they got there. But this would be bad news, this would wreck your day.

And this is what happened to Nehemiah the men from judah told him, “The remnant there in the province who had survived the exile is in great trouble and shame. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are destroyed by fire.”

This is not what you would have wanted to hear. And the description doesn’t even sound all that bad at first, like okay the gates are busted, and the walls were set on fire, that kinda stinks, but no this was a destruction that was more total than it sounds, archeologists can actually use this fire that these men talked about as a reference for how far back in history they are going in the strata layers. Like if you dig in Jerusalem deep enough, you will eventually hit some black dirt, and that dirt is actually ash, from the burning of Jerusalem. The Destruction of Jerusalem is total almost. This is Sherman rolling through Atlanta burning.

These people are homeless, and are struggling.

This broke Nehemiah. So what did Nehemiah do? Look at verse 4,

English Standard Version Chapter 1

4 As soon as I heard these words I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven.

Nehemiah’s first response to this grief, to this horrible news was not action, his first response was prayer. Im mourning and suffering, his first action is prayer. Now we see in the rest of the book he takes action, but the first that that Nehemiah does is pray. So this tells us something, if it was good enough for Nehemiah, is good enough for us, no matter what wee have going on, no matter what trails or suffering we see taking place, we must pray. Prayer, must be the foundation of everything that we do. if you are writing things down, write that down, prayer must be the foundation. anything that we set out to do, or anything that think needs to be changed, or any sort of suffering we may face, our first response needs to be prayer. We need to get to a point in our walk with the Lord, that prayer is the default response. For Nehemiah, this was the knee-jerk reaction. Prayer. And we will see this through out the book, prayer the default response for the people of God.

and if you are sitting there thinking, well i don’t know how to pray. that’s okay, you can literally in that moment say, “Lord, teach me to pray.” and congratulations, that’s a prayer. Prayer is not supposed to be this super hard thing that only super christians are able to do, but is the default for all followers of Christ.

Prayer is the foundation.

When we pray, we understand who is God

So let’s keep going, because let’s look at how prayer impacts us. Nehemiah wrote out his prayer, which if you have never done that, it is a good exercise in learning how to prayer deeper. SO let’s look at Nehemiah’s prayer. Read it with me.

English Standard Version Chapter 1

5 And I said, “O LORD God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, 6 let your ear be attentive and your eyes open, to hear the prayer of your servant that I now pray before you day and night for the people of Israel your servants, confessing the sins of the people of Israel, which we have sinned against you. Even I and my father’s house have sinned. 7 We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, and the rules that you commanded your servant Moses. 8 Remember the word that you commanded your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples, 9 but if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there I will gather them and bring them to the place that I have chosen, to make my name dwell there.’ 10 They are your servants and your people, whom you have redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand. 11 O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant, and to the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name, and give success to your servant today, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.”

Now I was cupbearer to the king.

SO first thing off the bat, why do we pray? Other than it’s a good idea to consult God about things, what happens to us when we pray? The first thing that we see here is that Nehemiah is putting God in perspective as to who God is. So when we Pray, we understand who is God. Write that down if you are taking notes, when we pray, we understand who is God. Look at what Nehemiah says at the start of His prayer, look at verse 5, “O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments,” We see here that Nehemiah is not God, nor is Nehemiah in control, but God is God and God is in control. We also see that when we pray, prayer puts ourselves in perspective, it shows us that we are not the King, we are not God. also when we pray, prayer show us that God is faithful, God is the one who is there. In any suffering, God is there, in any adversity God is there, in the good times, God is there.

Prayer is where we put in to practice everything we believe about God, it is where we are actually spending time with the Almighty God, as a child spends time with their dad. Prayer is where head knowledge of God meets heart knowledge of God.

We can read all the books about God, and come to church and in our head we can mentally know about God. it is like reading about cooking without never standing over a stove and actually doing it.

If we are not praying and spending time with the lord we are missing out on who he really is.

Prayer keeps us following after God

So let’s keep going, Nehemiah keeps praying and starts putting in to more perspective who he is before God. namely that Nehemiah needs someone to rescue him, the whole story of the bible from Genesis to Revelation is the story of God rescuing and redeeming His people. So why does Nehemiah keep saying he is a sinner, look at verse 6 and 7, Nehemiah says, “6 let your ear be attentive and your eyes open, to hear the prayer of your servant that I now pray before you day and night for the people of Israel your servants, confessing the sins of the people of Israel, which we have sinned against you. Even I and my father’s house have sinned. 7 We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, and the rules that you commanded your servant Moses.” This is Nehemiah tell God that he is not worthy but God is the only one who is worthy. So what does this have to do with prayer? Prayer keeps us following after God, if you are writing things down, write that down, Prayer keeps us following after God.

Nehemiah knew what needed to be done after he heard the report from Jerusalem. He knew that someone needed to go in a rebuild the city. Nehemiah knew but Nehemiah also knew that he need to see if that was God’s will. Nehemiah needed to not see if God was on his side, but if he was on God’s side. Too often we think we know what the mission is, but fail to involve the mission giver.

So I’m usually pretty bad about this, how many of you have ever tried to build something without reading the instructions first? Like furniture or even like legos thinking you can just eye ball it? This is probably more for the guys that the girls. Girls will read the instructions, most guys are like, “yeah, i got this, I see whats going on.” Usually I can do it. If it is small a thing I can probably figure it out. Like I built a small table for LL just by looking at a picture of it, cut all the wood my self and stuff, it turned out well. But this one time I thought I could wing it, and turns out I could not wing it. and I had take most of it apart to fix it.

We had just gotten married and moved here and we bought a white dresser for LL’s closet, so i stated building it, and was almost done, only to notice the smallest, slightest difference in how a piece was supposed to go on. it was with how the drawer mechanism works. So I had to unscrew some stuff, carefully disassemble some stuff and then put it back together. Any ways i didn’t consult the instructions, it knew what was supposed to be done. Kinda like the tree house last week, i just said to my self “i got this” and goofed and got really mad at myself.

But what if we ran our lives like that? Just thinking, yup I know exactly what is going to happen. Some of us do live our lives like that, and we do not involve Christ at all in the planning, or choices thinking we can do it.

And so what we see here in the passage is Nehemiah submitting to God what he is supposed to do here. He is involving the mission Giver, so that he can do it the way God intends for it to be done.

So the rest of this passage is Nehemiah setting up a conversation with the King that he works for. Nehemiah knows that he is going to have to go and get permission to do what he knows needs to be done. Look at verse 11, “11 O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant, and to the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name, and give success to your servant today, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.” Now I was cupbearer to the king.”

Now this is not Nehemiah asking the lord to grant him what ever he wants like God is the genie from Aladdin. The passage is not a reason for you to pray that the lord would give you a new corvette, or that you would be rich. This passage is about prayerfully seeking out the will of God.

and I love the last phrase in the passage, “Now I was cup bearer to the king” I love that phrase. Because it shows how God, put Nehemiah in a position to come along side God in the mission of God.

All that Nehemiah had to do is to be faithful here was at. Nehemiah was placed by God here to help carry out the mission of God.

God has taken this suffering and used it for His glory.

Why does this matter? What do we do with this?

Okay, so why does this matter, why are we talking about this? What do we do with this?

First off, this passage shows us that if we are followers of Christ we need to be consulting Him in the process. Like we said a few mins ago, this world is crazy, this world is broken, this world is in need of a savior. And very often, we like to see a need and try to meet that need, which is good thing. Your generation, my generation have kinda been known for the ability to try and change things, we are very vocal, if you don’t believe me pick a topic and get on twitter, you will see how vocal people are about everything. Now what I’m saying though is that we are pretty good at seeing a need for something to change, or be reformed and all that stuff. We want to try and build a world where it is the best possible version of itself. But too often we want to do it on our own terms. We want to make this world in our own image, one of my favorite preachers, Matt Chandler says, we want the Kingdom with out the King.

We want to se the kingdom of God come in to being, we think we know the secret to happiness and making a world better, but what has really screwed up this world is we really don’t like when someone else tells us how to do it. And that is not a new thing, that is a Genesis 3 thing, all the way back at the beginning. We thought that we can do it better that God.

So think about it in your own life, which kingdom are you in? Are you following for your own Kingdom where you are on the Throne, or are you following after your Kingdom where God is on the Throne? If you are a follower of Christ, the answer should be you are following the kingdom of God, if you are not a follower of Christ and you think that you can do this on your own, you will soon find out that this is not how that works, you will not be able to rule this world and your kingdom will come crashing down around you. If anyone on here does not know Christ this text is calling you to examine who sits on the throne of your life. Following Christ is not just a one time choice to go and get saved, but is a life long pursuit of God, joining in with the God in achieving the mission of God.

We are about to pray and sing one last song, while we are doing that, think about who you are you following? If you have any questions about what it means to be a follower of Christ, come talk to me, talk to someone in the band, talk to a friend, talk to one of the adults in here. Who are you going to follow, pray with me.

pray with me