03 Aug A holy discontent

Introduction to series

• Two types of people – which one are you?
  • Person A – planner, spreadsheets, Gantt charts, to-do lists, curriculum,
  • Person B – prayer, faith, trust God, vision, miracles, signs and wonders
• Entire traditions of Christianity have emerged out of these inclinations and biases. Because out of these “preferences” or leanings develop entire philosophies of ministry and even theologies – “God works through XYZ, and by implication not through ABC”
• Why am I talking about this? Because we believe that we are on the cusp of a significant move of God in the city and in our time. I believe that revival is on the way. The question is – what is our role in all of this and how are we to respond? Do we respond by getting busy planning or do we respond by getting busy praying?
• What I hope we will see through this series in Nehemiah, is that both are important and necessary. That as we work our way through this story of a city-wide revival and awakening, we will see both elements and dynamics at play
• In fact, this is one of the key themes of the book – the inextricable link between the material and the spiritual. In particular, Biblical revival is often preceded by a process of faithful, intentional rebuilding. While we hunger and pray for a sovereign, supernatural move of God, the story of Nehemiah reminds us that revival – far from being random – often comes to a people who are willing to repent, rise, and rebuild. This is the season we are in right now as a church – rebuilding, but not for rebuilding’s sake – we are rebuilding FOR revival. As we continue in this exciting season of renewal and transformation as a church, may this series stir a deep hunger in us to see God do it again — in our city and in our time.

Introduction to Nehemiah

• After centuries of disobedience and idolatry, God allowed his people the Israelites to be conquered by foreign empires and sent into exile – first by the Babylonians and then later the Persians. This was God’s judgment against Israel for their continued disobedience and failure to keep their covenant with him. It was a dark time in Israel’s history. The Babylonians under King Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the Holy City Jerusalem and burned the temple in 586 BC. The walls were torn down, the temple was desecrated, and many of the people – including all their significant leaders – were scattered
• But where we pick up in the story in the book of Nehemiah is that God’s people were returning from exile. By this time, Babylon itself had been destroyed by the Persian King Cyrus. And in 539 BC, King Cyrus issues a decree allowing exiles of all religions to return to their homeland in rebuild their temples. So the Jewish exiles in Babylon were permitted to return to Jerusalem and start the slow and painful process of rebuilding the city.
• There were three key leaders involved in the rebuilding process
  • Firstly, Zerubbabel – who leads the first wave of exiles back to Jerusalem and rebuilds the temple, which was completed in 516 BC. We read about this in the book of Ezra, chapters 1-6. (Sidenote: in case you didn’t know, Ezra is the companion book to Nehemiah – in fact the Hebrew Bible treats Ezra and Nehemiah as one continuous chronological narrative covering a time period of 100 years.) Zerubbabel starts the process by rebuilding the altar (for the offering of sacrifices) before then rebuilding the temple itself
  • Secondly, Ezra (priest) – about 60 years after Zerubbabel, in 458 BC, Ezra returns to Jerusalem and his focus is on teaching the Torah and rebuilding the community. We read about this part of the story in chapters 7-10 of the book of Ezra
  • Thirdly, Nehemiah. He comes back to Jerusalem 13 years after Ezra does, in 444 BC, and his focus is on rebuilding the walls of the city
• Now there’s two things we can observe from this:
  • Firstly, God is concerned not just with rebuilding the temple but also the walls and the city. In more recent history there’s been a big focus on building impressive churches – which isn’t necessarily a bad thing – but sometimes this can then result in us neglecting the rebuilding of the city. Next year I want to dive into this topic in much greater detail – what it means to be not just a church IN the city but a church FOR the city. But wanted to acknowledge this point here.
    • “Nehemiah reminds us that spiritual renewal and social reconstruction go hand in hand in the purposes of God.” (Christopher J.H. Wright, The Mission of God’s People)
  • Secondly, whilst our focus over the next 9 weeks is very much on Nehemiah, we have to remember that he’s just one person in a line-up of many players.
    • Similar to 1 Corinthians 3 where it says that Paul planted, Apollos watered but God brings the growth. It’s the same thing here. We can so easily tend towards thinking of ourselves as the protagonist in our own stories…but it’s more accurate to say that you have a chapter in a much larger story
    • For Jess and I we love the fact that we have stepped into leading a church that we did not start, we’ve inherited something and we will play our part in it to the very best of our ability, and God willing someday many years from now we will get to hand it on to someone else to steward.
    • What about you? Do you have an awareness of the chapter you’re in and the part you are supposed to play? What came before and what might come after?
  • So let’s begin…

The Passage

• Read Nehemiah 1:1-11
• Nehemiah was deeply affected by the news that he received. He could have easily ignored the report he received from Hanani and the men who came from Judah – after all, he wasn’t directly affected. He was physically somewhere else (“in the citadel of Susa” v1 – one of the main capitals of the Persian Empire, a wealthy imperial city located about 1,100km east of Jerusalem – both geographically and politically distant from Jerusalem). But I think he was affected for two reasons
  • He was worried about his people’s well-being – the wall gave them protection from their enemies and without it they were vulnerable to attack from foreign invaders
  • The glory of God was at stake. God’s name was being dragged into the dust. God’s reputation is tied to His people; we are His ambassadors. The world looked at them and questioned where their God was. In Lamentations 2:15-16 we read: “All who pass your way clap their hands at you; they scoff and shake their heads at Daughter Jerusalem: “Is this the city that was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth?”
• So what does Nehemiah do in response? There are four things, and he does them immediately. Here is his four-step action plan:

Step 1: Sit Down

• This is a hard one. This is something I am not good at doing! Jess gets annoyed at me about this all the time.
• The very first thing that Nehemiah does in response to the news he has heard is that he sits down. As opposed to rushing to find a practical solution. Later in the book we will see Nehemiah shine as a leader and an administrator, and we’ll have lots more to say about that. But before any of that, it’s fascinating to me that the very first thing we see Nehemiah doing is that he “sits down”
• And the importance of this point is emphasised even moreso when you consider how long this part of the rebuilding phase lasts for. How long did Nehemiah spend in this particular stage, in chapter 1?
• It says that for “some days” (v 4) Nehemiah mourned and fasted and prayed, which is not very specific. But if you look carefully, you’ll be able to figure it out. In 1:1 it tells us that this incident took place in the “month of Kislev”. And then the next chronological marker doesn’t appear until 2:1 – “in the month of Nisan”. According to the Jewish calendar this would amount to a period of 120 days. In other words, Nehemiah didn’t just sit down in a tokenistic way. This period of lasted for an extended period of 4 months
• But his sitting down wasn’t passive – in one sense you could argue that it was, but this is what he actually did during this time, and we read on.

Step 2: Weep & Mourn

• For the large part, “weeping” and “mourning” are pretty foreign concepts in our culture. On the one hand, as Australians we’re good at whinging and complaining – but that’s not the same thing. And on the other hand, we’re also trained/conditioned to avoid or move through negative emotions as quickly as possible. Let’s think positive, let’s look on the bright side, or let’s medicate and numb ourselves from pain. It’s similar in our Pentecostal tradition – we’re big on faith and vision – which is important and good, by the way! And there’s a time and a place for that
• But when we see Nehemiah here “weeping and mourning”, and doing so in a prolonged manner, it makes us feel uncomfortable. But part of rebuilding for revival is that we have to get comfortable with our discomfort. To be ok with sitting in the reality of the brokenness of the circumstances we find ourselves in. Before rushing to a solution and fixing the problem, we need to feel the weight of the problem and let it truly sink in
• What I’ve found in my own life is that if you settle, you won’t mourn. If your vision for your life is small enough, nothing will really bother you enough to the point of mourning and weeping. I’ve seen this happen so many times. And I get it! Sydney is a hard city to be in. Lots of people try to move here and then realise how hard it is and then leave. But even for those who stay, it’s so easy for aspiration and vision to be reduced to mere survival. To just get by, pay the bills, enjoy your weekend and 4 weeks of annual leave, and live a comfortable life.
• To be clear – I’m in the trenches with you in the everyday struggles of life. I’m a hands-on dad and father, ok? I’m not praying 24 hours a day. I get it. But I’m also saying that there is more. And I want my kids to see that too
• We need a vision for our lives that is bigger than our own survival and well being. This is what Nehemiah had. He was an ordinary man who God used to do something extraordinary in his city because he refused to settle. He allowed himself to be broken by the things in his city that broke God’s heart
• God’s problems should be your problems. You need to get yourself a burden. Are you burdened by something and is it the same things that burden God’s heart? As your pastor I want to say this, that I absolutely do not want you to live a burden free life. That’s what the world promotes as the goal – to live a worry-free trouble-free life, retire early, passive income, set and forget. It should bother you that:
  • Divorce rates – 48,700 divorces took place in Australia in 2023
  • Pornography
  • People disenfranchised from church
  • Suicide – the leading cause of premature death in Australia with nearly 9 suicides per day, 75% of those being men
  • Loneliness – nearly 25% of Australians and 37% of young Australians say that they feel “very lonely”, with “loneliness” being considered a public health threat killing more than 100 people an hour
• Don’t lower your standards to what the world is telling you – if the enemy can’t get you to sin, he will dilute your vision so much that it has no potency anymore
• As a church we need to learn how to weep and mourn. This is one of the “core competencies” of a church that is rebuilding for revival. May our tears become the seeds of a different future for this city
• May this church be the place where people with a shared burden for the city assemble and congregate

Step 3: Fast

• “Fasting is a hunger for God. It’s an exclamation point at the end of our prayers.” (John Piper) – fasting is an expression of urgency, desperation and spiritual longing
• The hunger in your body pointing to an even deeper hunger for God to move

Step 4: Pray

• A church that is rebuilding for revival is a church that takes prayer seriously
• We want to take a few moments to look at the prayer itself in verses 5-11. Outside of the Lord’s Prayer I would consider this to be one of the greatest models of prayer there is in the Bible. There are a number of things that stand out to me about this prayer:
  • Appealing to the nature and character of God – “Lord, the God of heaven, the great and awesome God” (v 5)
  • Appealing specifically to him being a covenant and promise keeping God – holding God to account – “who keeps his covenant of love” (v 5) and “but if you return…I will gather them” (v 9). This is what undergirds Nehemiah’s boldness in asking God for big things, because his confidence rests in the past record of the Lord’s faithfulness – God is always faithful to His promises, so if He said it, He’ll do it. And if he’s done it before he can do it again.
  • Boldness in telling God to listen to him – “let your ear be attentive and your eyes open” (v 6), “let your ear be attentive” (v 11) – evokes the Exodus context where Yahweh “saw” and “heard” the cry of the Israelites when they were salves in Egypt (Exodus 2:24-25) – “God don’t you see and hear what’s going on here?”
  • Confession of sin, including the sins of his forebears (v 6) – i.e. not just bringing the problems to God but acknowledging humbly that you are a part of the problem. We live in a culture of victimhood in which we are all becoming very proficient at all the things that have been done to us, but we aren’t very good at acknowledging our contributory guilt

Conclusion

• Keys to come up
• When Nehemiah hears of Jerusalem’s ruin, he doesn’t just move on with life. He weeps, he mourns, he fasts and he prays. He’s not indifferent – he’s burdened. And as we’ll see next week, that becomes the starting point of God’s rebuilding work in the city of Jerusalem. His heart reflects God’s heart – grieved by the reality and the consequences of sin, moved by compassion, and stirred to action.
• Ultimately, Nehemiah is a picture that points us forward to what Jesus would ultimately do for us. Jesus is the true and better Nehemiah.
  • Because like Nehemiah, Jesus also wept over Jerusalem. In Luke 19:41, we read: “As [Jesus] approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it”. But Jesus was weeping not just over the physical condition of the walls but over the spiritual blindness of its people.
  • Nehemiah confessed the sins of others as if they were his own. But Jesus went further and literally took upon himself the sins of humanity, as he was crucified on our behalf on the cross (2 Cor 5:21)
  • Nehemiah heard reports of the ruined city whilst in a far-off place, and he moved towards the ruins and the brokenness. He left his position of privilege in the palace and came to rebuild. Jesus vacated heaven, the ultimate position of privilege and condescended himself, coming to earth as a man, stepping into our reality, in order to seek and save the lost
• The good news is this – Jesus doesn’t just rebuild walls and cities, He rebuilds hearts and lives and people. Jesus wants to rebuild and revive our city – I am 100% confident of this – but maybe He wants to begin today with you
  • Where are the broken walls in your life? Are there places where sin, shame fear or spiritual apathy have created havoc or caused ruin in your life? Your prayer = “Lord, rebuild what’s broken in me”
  • For others – part of the rebuilding work He wants to do in you is by first breaking you, burdening you afresh. Your prayer – “Lord, break my heart for what breaks yours”

Discussion questions:

1. What struck you the most from the sermon?
2. Are you the planner type or the prayer type? Explain the strengths and weaknesses of each and why God uses both.
3. Out of the four things Nehemiah does (sit down; weep and mourn; fast; pray), which one is the hardest for you and why?
4. If you look at the brokenness in the context where you are right now (work, family, church, relationship, etc), what does it look like for you to have God’s heart in that situation?
5. How does the gospel break your heart for what breaks God’s heart?