MESSAGE

FROM THE

WORD

DISCERNING THE NEED

Nehemiah 1:1-2:8

Series:  40 days                                                                                                                                       Message # 8

            On June 6, 1944, the greatest invasion in history began as allied forces stormed the beaches to reclaim Europe from the Nazis.  D-Day had taken months to plan and its implementation had finally arrived.  Our D-Day has finally arrived.  For the past six months we have planned, organized, prayed, trained, and hoped for God to do a great work in us and among us.  Tonight begins the official “40 Days of Purpose” campaign.  I have no idea what God has in store, but I believe that God wants to do a significant work in Simi Valley.  God’s will is that not one person living inside of our city should miss out on eternity with Him.  Whatever means we use to reach people for Him will be blessed by Him, as long as our lives are holy and our principles are biblical. 

            Tonight begins the entire campaign.  We begin with the potluck and will then watch an explanation of the “40 Days” campaign by Rick Warren.  Next Sunday I will preach an introductory message and then the next five weeks will have messages explaining each of the five purposes.  The final week will have a testimony time and a catered lunch.  Beginning next Sunday, seven home studies will begin throughout the week to go through the “40 Days” material.  We do not know the final results, but we do know that God’s desire for Simi Valley is for every resident to bow the knee to the Lord.  Our task is not to make them bow, but to give them to opportunity to voluntarily come to Him.  As we prepare our hearts to do God’s work, I thought it would be good to remind ourselves of what is required as we take this step together.  There was a time when a church campaign was major news in the community.  When Billy Graham came to his first Los Angeles crusade at the Coliseum, William Randolph Hurst ran his sermons on the front page of the L.A. Herald-Examiner.  If the pastor spoke at a city meeting, it was taken with great reverence.  To be called a “God-fearing man” was a sign of great respect.  However, that time is not today.  How do we go about the work of God in a culture that does not particularly want to hear His message?

            I want us to turn to the Old Testament and look at a time similar to ours and see how God’s people responded to the needs and challenges of that culture.  We read               NEHEMIAH 1:1-2:8             How do we go about doing a great work for God in a culture that wants to turn their back on Him?

            FIRST, WE MUST UNDERSTAND OUR LIMITATIONS.  There is nothing more humbling than to want to do a great work for God and know you are totally unprepared or unqualified to do the work.  Here was Nehemiah, His desire was to serve God, and he was in over his head.  Look at his resume.  It says that he “WAS THE SON OF HACALIAH.”  That probably explains a lot.  You might ask, “Who is Hacaliah”?  You would be asking the right question.  The answer is, no one knows.  This is the only time his name appears in the scriptures.  Nehemiah was the son of a nobody.  It may have been that he was a godly Jew, a hard worker, a respected member of the community, and a very nice individual.  All of those may have been true, but he was nobody special.  He was just a normal guy, trying to earn a living and support his family.  God loves to take nobodies and use them to do his work.

            We also see that his timing was nothing critical.   He writes this on the first day of the month Chislev, in the 20^th year.  That is a strange way of dating things.  Why didn’t he just write it was December 1, 445 BC?  They did not date things like we do.  They dated things from the reign of the king.  This was the first day of the moth Chislev (December) in the 20^th year of the reign of Artaxerxes.  What that says is the day was a normal day.  There was nothing unusual about this day.  Notice down in 2:1 we read, “IT CAME ABOUT IN THE MONTH NISSAN…”  This is the month of April.  He had heard some very bad news, had prayed all this time and it is now four months later.  This tells me that God is not always interested in getting things done today, but He is always interested in getting things done in His day.  Do you ever get frustrated because you want to do God’s will today and His plan is for you to wait?  When we first see Nehemiah, he is a nobody, in a nowhere community, waiting for nothing to happen.

            SECOND, WE MUST UNDERSTAND OUR CULTURE.  In order for us to minister to our society, we must understand where our society sits.  We need to understand the emotions, fears, hopes and dreams of the culture in which God has placed us.  The way the church reached people in 1950’s suburbia is totally different than the church seeking to reach people in 21^st century Watts.  Or for that matter, Beverly Hills.  The church must determine the culture in which it resides and then seek to reach that culture in a way that is understood.  One of the most popular shows on the Food Network is called “Iron Chef”.  Two excellent chefs are brought into Kitchen Stadium, given a secret ingredient, and then told to prepare five dishes from that ingredient.  The secret ingredient could be steaks, mushrooms, pizza dough, seafood, or vegetables.  The chef cannot plot strategy until the ingredient is known.  The church is an “Iron Chef” in a sense.  The church is given different ingredients, as it were, depending upon the culture in which it sits. 

            Notice what took place with Nehemiah.  We read               VERSES 2, 3                We need to understand that this is during the time of the Babylonian Captivity.  The Jews had been removed from Israel and taken to Babylon.  The books of Daniel, Jeremiah, Ezra and Nehemiah fit into this time period.  Nehemiah knew that things were not great, but he did not know of the total picture.  The Jewish culture was in absolute shambles.  When he heard this he began to weep.

            What is the condition of our culture today?  On one hand you might say that things are looking up.  Crime is down; unemployment is down, the Dow is over 10,000 and a host of other issues indicating that “happy Days are here again”.  On the other hand, one can look at 35 % illegitimacy rate, high taxes, banning of religious expression and Islamic terror as issues of concern.  Most of us get this issue wrong.  The issue is not the rise of homosexual rights, the rise of the stock market, or the election of a candidate.  The only issue that should be of concern is what we might call the “righteousness poll”.  The Bible says,      PROV. 14:34 Nehemiah understood this because Nehemiah saw the sin that had caused the Jews to turn from God.  This led to God’s judgment on a culture. 

            The issue is not whether the culture is going liberal or conservative.  This is why the nomination of Justice Roberts is important, but not critical to the future of America.  Our problems are not legal in nature, so they cannot be solved legally.  Our problems are primarily spiritual.  God’s people have turned from holiness to pragmatism (that is, what works).  We have turned from Biblical solutions to secular solutions.  We have turned from God’s way to what’s popular.  Nehemiah understood this and wanted to correct it.  As we begin our “40 Days” campaign, we are seeking to understand the culture in which we live and apply God’s answers to it is a way the culture can understand.

            THIRD, WE MUST UNDERSTAND OUR MOTIVES.  Why do we want God to move in our community?  Many want God to do so because they want crime to go down, because they think their taxes are too high, or because they can tell people they go to the church where the action is.  Those are all selfish motives.  When Nehemiah learned of the plight of his people, he began to pray.  I believe he prayed for the four months from December to April.  Notice the motivations that were a part of his prayer.

            His first concern was the glory of God.  Nehemiah calls Him “THE GREAT AND AWESOME GOD…”  Whatever Nehemiah did, He wanted it to be seen as an act of an “AWESOME GOD”.  We have seen this in Acts 2 as the church sensed an “AWE OF GOD”.  This is the greatest struggle most believers, hence most churches have, do we promote our church or do we promote God?  Does God receive the glory, or do I?  When people walk into and out of our services, do they think “what a nice church” or do they think, “What a great God”?  His motive for acting was to honor God.  One of the primary reasons we are involved in “The 40 Days of Purpose” is because God receives the glory when people turn to Him.

            His second concern was the people of God.  In verse 6, he prays for, “THE SONS OF ISRAEL…”  It is always good to pray for people.  It is especially good to pray for the people of God.  If you aren’t sure how to pray, just begin to pray for believers around the world.  One of the reasons we are involved in “The 40 Days of Purpose” is because people need to come into a right relationship with Jesus Christ.  Nehemiah was straight forward with the reasons God’s people were in trouble; that their sin had caused God to remove His hand of blessing from His people. 

            His third concern was the word of God.  We read                VERSE 8           When all is said and done, the issue always comes down to what does God’s word say?  This is the heart of our culture war today.  Has God’s word spoken, and is it relevant is the most important issues facing us today?  It drives the ACLU as they fight to remove the cross and the 10 Commandments from public display.  It is the issue over same-sex marriage, abortion, illegitimacy, education, judicial appointments, taxes, and right to die legislation.  The question asked by the serpent in the Garden, “HATH GOD REALLY SAID…” is just as critical for our culture as it was for that first culture.

            This is why the battle for Genesis 1 is so important.  Many Christians have caved on evolution and then lost every other battle.  If Genesis 1 is not correct, then God’s plan for marriage, family, culture and every other issue is up for grabs.  One of the primary reasons we are involved in the “40 Days of Purpose” is because it has such a high emphasis on scripture.

            His fourth concern was the work of God.  We read VERSE 11                  Nehemiah’s last concern as he poured out his heart to the Father was “MAKE YOUR SERVANT SUCCESSFUL…BEFORE THIS MAN”.  There is a lot of discussion in the church over the topic of success.  What does that mean?  Some address this in the financial arena.  God wants you to be successful by giving you the biggest house on the block.  God never measures success based on a bank account or on a mortgage.  God always bases success on the expanding of God’s blessings over His work.  Nehemiah wanted to expand the work of God and he knew that he had to go through the king to make that happen.  Notice a very important aspect of this.  Nehemiah began to pray for God to work in December.  God delayed until April before He moved.  We need to pray for God’s work to move forward, but we need to be willing to wait for God’s timing.  It is now time.

            FOURTH, WE NEED TO UNDERSTAND OUR RESOURCES.  It is a wonderful idea to make wonderful plans, but you have to have the resources to carry out that plan.  Have to ever gone to bake something only to discover half way through the process that you are out of some key ingredients?  That is the point here.  Before Nehemiah acted, he checked his resources.

            His first resource was his own influence.  We read about his brother.  He had influence in his family.  He resided in the city of Susa.  He had some influence in a small part of his community.  Regardless of where we live, we have influence if we choose to take it.  If we are involved in the PTA, sports program, church, school, or neighborhood, we can have an influence on how things are done.  There is one other area of influence he had.  We read       VERSE 1:11c    He was the cupbearer.  That sounds like a pretty menial task, but it wasn’t.  He was the individual who brought the king his food.  He would then taste the food to check for poison.  For this reason, the king would often have Nehemiah stay for the meal.  It is amazing what things are shared over an informal meal.

            His second resource was prayer.  There is no more powerful weapon in the world than the prayers of God’s people.  We read                      JAMES 5:16, 17               What does holy prayer do?  It accomplishes a great deal.  We are in the midst of a decaying culture.  Paul wrote                 PHIL. 2:14-16            In the midst of this culture, we have political elections and judicial nominations.  What should our response be to this?  We read                1 TIMOTHY 2:1, 2            You may remember that we had a recall election last year and changed governors.  The result of that decision was the veto of a bill this week which would have approved same-sex marriage.  We need to be involved in our culture, but mostly we need to pray for God to move in our culture.

            His third resource was his preparation.  It is amazing how lucky prepared people are.  The Boy Scout motto of “Be prepared” is very appropriate.  For four months, Nehemiah was praying for God to move and when the king asked                       VERSE 2:4                    Nehemiah was ready.  Have you ever prayed for God to do something for you and when He did you were totally unprepared to deal with it?  When you pray, you also need to prepare.  Nehemiah prayed and then expected God to answer.  He was thinking through what would be necessary to accomplish His desire.

            The fourth resource is a holy life.  This is implied in a wonderful phrase at the end of our passage.  We read in Nehemiah 2:8c, “THE GOOD HAND OF MY GOD WAS ON ME”.  I love that phrase.  Up until this time, the judgmental hand of God had been on His people.  What C.S. Lewis referred to as “Severe Mercy”.  The severe mercy was to be replaced by the “good hand of my God…”  That only comes about when we walk faithfully before God.  We read                 1 CHRON. 16:9a             Do you want the support of God?  It begins by having a heart that beats for him.  That is why James tells us that powerful prayers come from righteous men and women.

            What would you like God to do in your life, on your block, in Simi Valley, our state, nation and world?  Are you concerned about our culture, Islamic terrorism, immoral activities and a dozen other practices?  What are you going to do about it?  Why not participate in the 40 Days of purpose campaign and see what God does?

This message is from the teaching ministry of Glen Jackson, pastor of Faith Christian Church in Simi Valley, CA.