Build Back Godlier Again | Sunday, June 5, 2022

So I came to Jerusalem, and was there three days. Then I arose in the night, I and a few men with me. I told no one what my God had put in my heart to do at Jerusalem, nor was there any animal with me except the one which I rode. Then I went out by night through the valley gate to the serpent well and the refuge gate and viewed the walls of Jerusalem which were broken down and its gates which were burned with fire... And the officials did not know where I had gone or what I had done. I had not yet told the Jews, the priests, the nobles, the officials, or the others who did the work. (Nehemiah 2:11-16)

When God's people rise to do His good work, how should the righteous respond to a broken world?

A Jewish Story of a Restored Covenant

One thing we need to acknowledge is that this is a Jewish story. It is unique to the Jewish people, and many times it gets appropriated for other things—building projects and the like. But this is the story of the cause and effect of the Jewish people's obedience to the covenant made in Deuteronomy. God takes a nation that is in peril and uses a man, Nehemiah, to help restore that covenant.

To the best of my knowledge, Nehemiah had never visited Jerusalem. This wasn't a man restoring his hometown or acting on fond memories. It was simply him sitting at the feet of the Lord in prayer, with God stirring his heart and giving him a burden for the temple, for Jerusalem, and for how the people were faring. I believe that burden was placed there by God.

If we're not careful, we can look at this story and think they're merely restoring a wall, restoring buildings, restoring a nation. It's more than that. This is the process of how a covenant is restored—not because God did not keep His end of the deal, but because His people had not kept theirs. All the promises in Deuteronomy, including the negative ones, came true when they went after foreign gods. We are witnessing part of the restoration of the covenant between God and Israel.

Nehemiah the Cupbearer

Nehemiah is a cupbearer in Babylon, working for King Artaxerxes. Some might think that a bad job—if someone poisons the king, it could go very badly for you. On the other hand, if people know the king has a famous cupbearer, they're unlikely to attempt it, because you don't want an epic fail that gets you charged with the death of both the cupbearer and the king. The living standards in the palace were decent, and you were around powerful people, often regarded as an advisor and friend.

After preparing for over four months in prayer, when the time came for Nehemiah to answer the king, he was uniquely prepared. He spilled his heart about the condition of Jerusalem, and at exactly the right time, the king said yes to his request. By a miracle, Nehemiah is sent out to research and restore Jerusalem.

This is really the third run at restoring Jerusalem. Zerubbabel made the first run, and Ezra also made a run under the blessing of the king. The temple is built, though some lament it isn't as great as it used to be, but it is unprotected. They can't bring in the artifacts and worship God properly because the temple keeps getting ransacked. The work has gone on roughly a hundred years with little progress, and the people are discouraged, despondent, and defeated. The broken walls and rubble are physical symbols of what is happening spiritually—and Nehemiah clearly repents of it, taking the failure of the covenant upon himself and apologizing to God for both himself and the people.

Why Read a Story That Isn't Ours?

Since this is not our story—our country and our neighborhoods are not in this Old Testament account—we cannot make the Jewish story our story. But what can we take away that is beneficial? Why are we reading this book? The question is this: what should the righteous person's reaction be to the state of affairs in our place—our neighborhood, our state, our country, the things we see in the media and the people we interact with day to day? What should our reaction be to a fallen world?

Point One: A Sober Mind

It must have been quite a scene. Nehemiah rolls in with lumber and equipment, so people know something is going on. Yet he quietly surveys the situation. He goes out at night so as not to attract attention, taking only a small band of men and one animal. To see, for the first time, the failure of the people and the destruction of a once-great city must have been completely sobering for him—emotional, even.

For three days he is there, and being a man of prayer—he prayed over four months before he even addressed the king—I know he was praying. He sees a downcast, defenseless people who could be robbed at any time, and it breaks his heart and calls him to action. The one word that fits is sobering. He is thinking of the intentions of God and what God has for His people.

That brings us to point one: we must assess and react to the state of our world with a sober mind. Throughout the New Testament we are encouraged toward a sober mind. Titus 2:6 says, "likewise exhort the young men to be sober minded."

Sober-Minded About a Broken World

Today I got an email from California Fish and Game—I'm drawing my deer tags this year—and they congratulated me that we'd be celebrating Father's Day and Pride Month. What a combination from the state. It got me thinking: when I hear of Pride Month, what does that stir up in me as a believer who wants to be righteous?

I think of Billy Graham. So many times we're conditioned to think everything in America is pretty good, just a few crazy people causing trouble. But Graham said, when naming off the sins of America—and this quote will never leave me—"if God does not judge America, He owes Sodom and Gomorrah an apology." A powerful statement. To this day, even after his death, polls show he is one of the most respected men in recent history.

How do we think righteously about sin without falling into sin ourselves? As we look at the landscape of our news, we hear of things that by biblical standards are an abomination. Does our reaction become us versus them, or is it full of empathy—knowing that God loves these people and desires for them to live a life that honors Him and one day to be with Him? That is part of the job of the church.

The Church Under the Influence

Sober-mindedness, both in the biblical sense and in Webster's, means to not be under the influence of anything. One conviction I have—myself included—about the modern church is that at times we are under the influence. In recent years it has been disappointing to see that the drug of choice for the church, where we are not sober-minded and not thinking straight, is the area of politics. It is splitting the church, causing division, and taking away the peace and unity of the church.

The sad thing is that many of us are looking to politics to solve a spiritual, God-sized problem, and in doing so we actually dishonor God and turn away from Him. If we were truly sober-minded, I can be honest with you: there is not a president in recent memory who meets the qualifications of being an elder at this church, yet on a Sunday I can see dozens of people who do. The people we think will solve this problem if we just elect them are not the men and women God called to fix it. This is a God-sized problem.

Nehemiah is sober-minded. He is thinking of the task at hand with God's mission in mind. He is not posting on social media, stirring up arguments, or going down political rabbit trails. He is a man of action and a man of God—there is peace and calm to his spirit as he faces intense situations. He isn't just bathed in God's word; he's marinated in it. It is who he is.

A man or woman like Nehemiah will get their hands dirty. They are doers of the word, not merely hearers or repeaters. Recently I saw a video with Andy Stanley discussing the condition of the American church. He noted that many people had left churches they were happy with for more political organizations—the church wasn't political enough for them. He made a striking comment: everything on the far left and everything on the far right sells. It stirs people up and tickles their ears. But there are no solutions on the far left and none on the far right. The solutions are in the middle—not because it's lukewarm or halfhearted, but because that's where there is agreement, and that's where God is. As people on the right and people on the left move toward God, we move toward a solution. Nehemiah was that kind of man; he did not get distracted by opinions on the right or the left.

Point Two: God's Good Work, Not Reproach

Then I said to them, You see the distress that we are in, how Jerusalem lies waste, and its gates are burned with fire. Come let us build the wall of Jerusalem, that we may no longer be a reproach. And I told them of the hand of my God, which had been good upon me, and also of the king's words that he had spoken to me. So they said, Let us rise up and build. Then they set up their hands to do this good work. (Nehemiah 2:17-18)

Point two: the testimony of God's people should be God's good work, not one of reproach. Reproach means disappointment. The very purpose of God's covenant with the Hebrew people was that they would be an example to all the nations. The God of the Hebrews was famous in the Old Testament; even the pagans knew there was a God of the Hebrews.

In Deuteronomy 7:6-8, God lays out what He expects:

For you are a holy people to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for himself, a special treasure above all the people on the face of the earth. The Lord did not set his love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people. For you were the least of all peoples, but because the Lord loves you and because he would keep the oath which he swore to your fathers, the Lord has brought you out... from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.

The Hebrew people were to be a model—people were to look at their success, their protection, their conquest, and see that their God was part of their victories. They were also to see that in their failures they were unprotected, that the negative promises of the covenant came true as well, and all the nations knew this.

"Our Reproach"—Nehemiah's Leadership

Nehemiah is a very good leader, and he does something important here. Notice his words: we and us. It's personal. He doesn't say they and them. He takes responsibility for the people's actions, even though he wasn't part of the original crowd that drew away to worship idols. He forms a bond with them, calling it our reproach. He could have said, "those stinking Babylonians, look what they did to us," blaming the conquerors—but he plainly acknowledged it was their own disappointment before God. By putting himself in that same place, he had an immediate connection with the people.

Two Miracles

To borrow a line from one of my favorite movies—Maverick says, "we need two miracles." That's what had to happen for this story to be a victory. The first miracle was that the king had to send Nehemiah on the journey, with a blessing and the tools to make it happen. The physical and practical needs were met.

But the second miracle was the people themselves. They had to want to build those walls. They had to want to be restored into a right relationship with God. As a pastor, I know how hard it can be to motivate people into that relationship, because so much of it must come from within. They have to look at their predicament and look to God for answers.

That second miracle is the greatest miracle I've ever seen in ministry: when somebody's heart changes and they give their life to the Lord—when a man or woman takes everything they value and lays it at the foot of the cross and begins to do things God's way. That miracle happens in these people. It takes them out of a hundred years of despair, despondency, and depression—a long, slow, spiritual root canal—and gives them hope, focus, and a desire to restore the covenant.

Further on in this series we'll go deeper, but we too are given a covenant: the marriage covenant, a promise between a husband, a wife, and God. God takes it seriously, and so should we. God always gives us natural things to demonstrate spiritual things. As we continue through Nehemiah, watch for this, because marriage has so many of the same elements—rubble, broken covenants, forgiveness, and the hard work of restoration.

Point Three: When Good People Act, Opposition Surfaces

But when Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite official, and Geshem the Arab heard of it, they laughed at us and despised us, and said, What is this thing that you're doing? Will you rebel against the king? So I answered them and said to them, The God of heaven himself will prosper us, therefore we his servants will arise and build. But you have no heritage or right or memorial in Jerusalem. (Nehemiah 2:19-20)

He told it like it was. Point three calls to mind one of my favorite quotes: the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. One of my favorite bumper stickers says, "A green environment starts in your own front yard." There's great truth in that for the Christian life.

When the church and God's people are defeated and doing nothing, no one really cares or notices—maybe an occasional jab. But when God's people unite and begin to do the good work, suddenly the enemies of God surface. They disrespect, despise, start rumors, and accuse us of motivations that simply aren't true.

The lesson is this. The enemy fights hard to keep us from coming to Christ. But once we've come, that battle is over, so his tactics change. If he can make us sleepy, do-nothing Christians, he is quite comfortable—while he may not send you to hell, he can make you ineffective. You can come to church a couple times a month, drop an offering in the bucket, attend a Bible study, read your Bible, and still be a sleepy, ineffective Christian because you're not doing anything outside your own sphere.

Players on the Field, Not Fans

This is not a time in our country to be sleepy Christians, and we shouldn't be able to live with ourselves if we are. We're in a time when God wants players—people on the field—not fans. And this is a personal call. A nation is not transformed by events; it is transformed the same way the gospel spread—one person at a time, through personal conviction that people need Christ.

How do you do that? It seems like a big, uncomfortable call, but it starts small and is actually quite natural. Maybe your position today is that you're a mom at home pouring into your kids—you're doing the work right now. We don't need a pulpit or a thousand people to do the work of the Lord. It might be one person you take under your wing: the kid down the street with no dad who's never been fishing or taught how to fix a car; the girl in a single-parent home who doesn't know how to cook or pick out clothes, and maybe a lady could step in; the person nearby considering an abortion out of fear, and maybe you're the one willing to jump in financially and encourage them not to do something they'll later be sorry for. The opportunities to minister, to be sober-minded, to exhibit God's heart and have a testimony to people are limitless. It just requires that we be out there doing it.

There is a strong possibility you'll be laughed at, despised, or accused of having the wrong motives—of being a goody two-shoes. Take this thought into captivity and marinate on it, because Nehemiah had a good answer for his accusers, and it would be wise to give the same answer. He said, "The God of heaven himself will prosper us, therefore we his servants will arise and build, but you have no heritage or right or memorial." The modern-day version for us, when we are called to give a reason for the hope that lies within us, is that our God in heaven requires this of us, and we do it to bring people to Him.

Closing

I thank you so much. I pray that as you study this book it is a treasure and a guide to you, that you are convicted and encouraged to action, or perhaps affirmed by it this morning. I pray you are living a blessed week. Go with God. Until next week.