Small People, Big God

Nehemiah 4:1-6

Big Idea:  We can be secure in our weaknesses knowing who we are in Christ.

I.          Introduction

A.       Secular

1.         Went into a store the other day where I saw a two year-old playing.  He immediately looked up at me like we were the best of friends and confidently said, “Hi!”

2.         Didn’t have time to talk, but I’m sure we could have gotten along like we knew everything about each other.

3.         He possessed a certain amount of confidence and assuredness that many of us lack as older people.

B.       Personal

1.         As we get older, we begin to hear things, read things, experience things and think things that chip away at our confidence and create emotional insecurity in us.

2.         Can start very early

a.         Too much or not enough discipline at home

b.         Too much or not enough love at home

c.         Perhaps we were mistreated or abused by someone we loved and trusted

d.        Or we’ve seen our parents fight too much

3.         Sociologists say that the pre-teen and teenage years are the toughest

a.         Bodies are going through changes physically and hormonally that make us susceptible to teasing

b.         Peer pressure forces us to make decisions that others may react poorly against

c.         On top of all that, we have to worry about keeping up with the latest fashion trends.

4.         It doesn’t end when we graduate High School

a.         The pressure to perform and compete and compare ourselves to others extends the rest of our lives in every area of life.

b.         What car we drive, what job we have, how much we’re paid, who we’re married to, and how smart, cute and obedient my kids are compared to yours.

5.         As you can see, insecurity affects all of us.

6.         What’s difficult is that insecurities show themselves in a variety of ways.

a.         On one extreme, you can have the shy, disengaged person that simply keeps to herself.

b.         On the other, you can have the boisterous, loud person who’s everybody’s pal.

c.         You can have a person who is weak-willed and won’t stand up for himself in any situation.

d.        Or you can have the person who is domineering and degrading, constantly trying to bring people down to her level.

e.         Insecurities can be seen in jealousy, outbursts of anger, controlling others or in a person being an adulterer or a drug addict.

C.       Biblical

1.         In King Saul’s life, his insecurities led withdrawal

a.         When it was time for him to be announced as king over Israel in 1 Samuel 10, he was hiding in the baggage room.

b.         Later, his insecurities showed themselves in rebelling against God’s Word

i.           The Lord through Samuel gave Saul clear directions in how he was to engage Amalek in battle in 1 Samuel 15.

ii.         Saul disobeyed and the kingdom was torn from him and given to David.

2.         Gideon was so insecure in Judges 6 that even though the angel of the Lord told him that he was a mighty man of valor who had been chosen by God to defeat the Midianites, he doubted God and it took three miracles before he started to believe Him.

3.         Peter’s insecurity caused him to sink like a rock and Paul’s insecurities caused him to persecute the church.

4.         Insecurities exist in everyone, it’s only how they show themselves that’s different.

D.       Textual

1.         In Nehemiah 4, we see the issue of insecurity come up in a very profound way.

2.         Let’s see how Nehemiah handles it and what God has to say about it.

II.       Exposition

A.       Enemies Taunt (1-3)

1.         Sanballat’s taunt (1-2)

a.         Sanballat got a report that the people of Judah were continuing to work on the wall.

i.           Sanballat was the governor of Samaria, and as such was not stationed in Jerusalem.  He wasn’t personally aware of what they were doing.

ii.         Once he got the report, he became fiercely angry

a)         Literally reads “he burned with anger until he grew in vexation”

b)        The reason he got so angry was that he was in charge of this area.  And now this guy named Nehemiah comes in and stirs up the people to do this thing without seeking his permission.

c)         Remember in chapter 2, Nehemiah had King Artaxerxes’ permission, but Sanballat probably saw that as going around and above him, so I’m sure he felt disrespected.

b.         He threw jeers and taunts at the builders in front of his comrades

i.           Increasing his responses to their progress

i)          When Nehemiah first came to Jerusalem, Sanballat and Tobiah had heard of it and were displeased, but didn’t say anything (Neh. 2:10)

ii)        After Nehemiah stirred up the people to join together to build, Sanballat and Tobiah, with Geshem the Arab, jeered at them and accused them of insubordination and insurrection against the king (Neh. 2:19).

iii)      This time, once they hear that the building is actually underway, the reaction increases.

ii.         Attacks them verbally in five different areas.  He taunts them with questions:

a)         “What are these feeble Jews doing?” – attacked their strength

b)        “Will they restore it for themselves?”

i)          Better said, “Do they think that they can accomplish this themselves, without any professional help?”

ii)        Remember who was building the wall: priests, Levites, goldsmiths, perfumers, government officials and merchants.  No mention of stone masons or building contractors.

iii)      Attacked their ability

c)         “Will they finish up in a day?”

i)          Or, “Do they have the stamina and fortitude to see this thing to completion?”

ii)        Attacked their zeal

d)        “Will they revive the stones…”

i)          The stones were made of limestone, which gets very soft when it is burned (cf. 1:3)

ii)        Attacked their materials

e)         “Will they sacrifice?”

i)          Intentionally saved this one for last.

ii)        Or, “Do they think that their effort will be acceptable to God, so that He will come down to help?”

iii)      Most scornful and disdainful and mocking taunt

iv)       Attacked their God

2.         Tobiah’s taunt (3)

a.         Tobiah was a leader in neighboring Ammon, but was apparently junior to Sanballat.

b.         His taunt was a piling on insult that attacked the strength of their wall.

3.         The purpose of these taunts was to make the Israelites feel inadequate in what they were doing, so that they would stop building the wall.

B.       Nehemiah Prays (4-5)

1.         Nehemiah and the people building the wall hear of these taunts

2.         Nehemiah takes action by praying to God

a.         He asks God to serve vengeance on their enemies, even to the point of making them suffer the same punishment of exile that they just came from.

i.           Nehemiah’s not asking for personal vengeance

ii.         Instead He is asking God to vindicate Himself and His people.

b.         He then gets to the heart of the matter

i.           Nehemiah realized that the taunting, even though it was directed at them, was really an attack against God.

ii.         In fact, the third taunting question from Sanballat revealed just that.

iii.       Therefore, Nehemiah tells God to not forgive their sin

a)         Their sin was to mock God, and presume that He wouldn’t help His people perform the task that He had given them to do.

b)        Not just this one sin, but never forgive any of their sins

i)          Because God in His righteousness has been stirred to anger.

ii)        Because the people were becoming demoralized and would therefore potentially discontinue their work.

3.         Nehemiah wisely puts the act of vengeance into the hands of God and continues to focus on the task at hand; which was getting the people to build the wall.

C.       People Build (6)

1.         As a conclusionary note, so that we know the ineffectiveness of the taunts, all the breaches in the wall were closed and the wall was built up to half its original height.

a.         One source states that the wall, when finished, was over 1.5 miles long and up to 20 feet tall and 9 feet thick.

2.         Also, and more importantly, the people were unaffected by the attack and kept their hearts and their minds to the task at hand.

III.    Implication/Application

A.       Transition

1.         As I said at the beginning, the idea of insecurity is seen in our text in a very profound way.

2.         We can see it in Sanballat and Tobiah, but we also see how they try to produce insecurity in the Jewish people so that they would give up on their building project.

3.         It’s in this context that I want to talk a little about spiritual warfare.

B.       Spiritual Warfare

1.         In a nutshell, spiritual warfare is about two kingdoms in conflict

a.         On one side we have the kingdom of God, and on the other side we have the kingdom of Satan, which is comprised of everyone who is against God and His people.

b.         This is not a physical battle so much, like we see in movies and news reports

i.           This is one that takes place in the spiritual arena.

ii.         Ephesians 6:12 says that “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

iii.       We Christians are in a battle, and it’s important that we know that.

c.         To be clear, although this battle pits Satan against God, this is not a battle between equals.

i.           God is the sovereign Creator of all things and Satan is one of His created beings.

ii.         However, that doesn’t stop Satan from engaging in combat.

iii.       And although he can’t defeat God, he can certainly try to take as many casualties and disrupt as many works as possible.

2.         Tactic:  Insecurity

a.         We need to understand that we are in a battle, and we need to understand that one of Satan’s tactics is to make us feel insecure.

i.           When we feel insecure, what’s really going on is that we are doubting the grace of God and sureness of His Word.

ii.         We are listening to what other people say instead of  listening to what God says.

iii.       Quite literally this is the oldest trick in the Book

a)         In Genesis 3, Satan comes up to Eve and says, “Did God actually say…?”

b)        When Eve stumbles in her answer, Satan tells her that if they would just listen to him and eat the fruit, he would make them just like God.

c)         And they bit.

b.         The hard part about overcoming insecurity is that there is an element of truth in it.

i.           The truth is that we’re not perfect; we do have some flaws in us

ii.         At face value, the taunts that Nehemiah and the builders heard were true.

a)         They were weak

b)        They didn’t have special abilities

c)         Their material wasn’t the best

d)        The wall wasn’t the strongest

iii.       They could have easily looked around at each other and said, “You know, they have a point”, and then given up.

iv.       Even though they seemed small in the eyes of the taunters, they had a big God with them.

C.       Who we are in Christ

1.         In order for us to overcome personal insecurities, we need to be secure in our relationship with Christ.  We need to look at ourselves through His eyes, and not anyone else’s and rest our faith firmly on His sure Word.

a.         We must first have a relationship with Christ.

i.           Not just a “Yea, I know who He is”, or “Yea, I think He’s pretty cool” attitude

ii.         But a realization that sin is keeping us from a relationship with God, and that the only way to have it wiped out is to come to God and by faith, thank Him for allowing Jesus to pay the penalty of my sin by dying on the cross, asking for His forgiveness, and having the confidence that by His sovereign grace, He will do just that.

b.         Secure in our salvation

i.           We are saved by His grace, not by our efforts, or our works (Eph. 2:8-9).

ii.         Therefore, because we can’t earn it, we can’t do anything to lose it.

a)         Jesus says in John 10:28-29, “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.”

b)        Paul asks in Romans 8, “If God is for us, who can be against us?”

c)         Then he says, “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor power, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom. 8:38-39)

c.         Secure in our position

i.           As we come to Christ in faith, we are no longer what anyone else sees.

ii.         We are a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17)

iii.       We have been adopted by God and have become heirs to His Kingdom (Rom. 8:14-17)

iv.       We are declared righteous, without the flaw of sin

a)         1 Cor. 6:11, “But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”

b)        We may not be perfect in all that we say and do, we do have flaws in our abilities and in our personalities, but we are forgiven, and God looks past our flaws and actually uses them for His glory.

c)         Jesus said to Paul in 2 Cor. 12:9, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

d)        So Paul could say, “When I am weak, then I am strong.”

d.        Secure in our protection

i.           Because we’re in a battle, God has given us as believers supernatural weaponry that we can use.

ii.         2 Cor. 10:4 says that “The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds.”  Enemy fortresses.

iii.       The weapons are the armor described in Ephesians 6.

a)         Satan will try to make us insecure in our salvation; thinking we can lose it, so God has given us a helmet of salvation

b)        Satan will try to make us insecure in our righteousness; believing that God won’t forgive my sin, so God has given us a breastplate of righteousness

c)         Satan will try to make us insecure in our faith; thinking that God can’t or won’t help me when I need Him, so God has given us a shield of faith

d)        Satan will try to make us insecure in our ability to share Christ with others, so God has given us shoes  make us ready to share the gospel of peace

e)         Satan will try to make us insecure and doubt His Word, so Gofd has given us the belt of truth and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.

iv.       He has given us the armor, and He has also given us our orders.

a)         We are to stand and pray.

b)        Three times in this section we are told to put on the armor and stand.

i)          Not engage.

ii)        Not fight.

iii)      Stand secure, “praying at all times in the Spirit” (Eph. 6:18)

e.         Secure in our salvation, in our position and in our protection

f.          Secure in the outcome

i.           We need to know that the battle is the Lord’s.

ii.         This is God’s battle, and when Christ was raised from the dead, we knew that battle had been won, death and Satan had been defeated, and we can be confident in the final victory.

IV.    Conclusion

A.       Nehemiah saw through the blustering and taunting of his enemies.

1.         He knew at the core, this was a spiritual battle, and so he went to God in prayer.

2.         And then confident in God and His promises, he stayed faithful to his task.

B.       Satan knows all these truths.  But he’s banking on you not knowing them.

1.         He wants to throw little darts at us to get our eyes off of Jesus and onto ourselves.

2.         He wants us to doubt God and His promises and purposes for us.

3.         He wants us to feel small and insecure.

4.         But don’t let him.

C.       Remember that God is big, and in Christ you are secure

D.       And keep glorifying God by doing what He wants: growing mature in Christ.

V.       Pray

A.       Psalm 123:3-4, “Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us, for we have had more than enough of contempt.  Our soul has had more than enough of the scorn of those who are at ease, of the contempt of the proud.”

B.       Psalm 25:3, “Indeed, none who wait for you shall be put to shame”