Wednesday Evening Services 7 PM -A Holy Ambition - Nehemiah 1-2 - Pastor Ryan Nichols

Evening, how are you all doing? Man, I feel like with church camps and vacations and everything, I feel like I haven't seen you guys in a while, so glad to be back. You all want to stand with me and I'll open us up in a word of prayer?

Dear Heavenly Father, I just pray that you would just meet us here this evening, Lord. I pray that you would soften our hearts, that the words that we speak during these songs, God, would be a joyful noise, and that it would be a joyful noise that's glorifying you. God, you deserve all of our praise. I just pray that that would be the intent of everybody's heart here, God, is just to give you the glory and the praise that you deserve.

In your name, amen.

For giving us this opportunity just to humble ourselves before you, God. I just pray that as Ryan comes to bring your word, I pray that you just fill him with your Holy Spirit, give him the gift of teaching, Lord. God, let him speak with boldness through the power of your Spirit. God, I just pray that you would just continue to harden, soften each and every one of our hearts, Lord, that we can receive what you have for us.

Bibles to the book of Nehemiah, chapter 1. Nehemiah, chapter 1. So, this is the precursor, is that we are having some really fun technical difficulties tonight. You may have noticed that we've tried to strobe the lights, and it's working, so that's good. So, just know that if the lights start flickering, we paid the bills. It's okay. That's not the problem.

I don't know what's going on with the technical things, but we're just going to keep rolling the best we can here. So, hang with us. Ultimately, I blame the fact that it's been 105. That's what I think the ultimate problem is. But, all that to say, tonight we are in the book of Nehemiah. And so, as we approach the book of Nehemiah, it goes really in line. Of course, Ezra and Nehemiah are companion books,

because each of them represents a returning of the nation of Israel. Up to this point in time, what's taken place is that, first of all, you have the nation of Israel, as we talked about at the end of 2 Chronicles, that had been taken captive by the Babylonians. And the reason why they were taken captive is because of disobedience on the part of the nation of Israel. See, there it is, just as promised.

Captived by the Babylonians, because of the disobedience of the nation. And so, after they served their time in Babylon, God had made a promise that after 70 years, they would be able to return to the nation. Well, that return to Jerusalem ultimately took place in three different waves. The first two waves were given to us in the book of Ezra. The first one was under Zerubbabel,

as he went back to rebuild the temple. He took a group of the Jewish people back with him, and they rebuilt the temple. Halfway through the book of Ezra, we find that Ezra, who is a priest, went back and led a second return to the nation of Israel. And his job was to teach the nation of Israel what it looked like to walk with God, what it looked like to obey the law.

They have this brand new temple. Now, how do they live? How do they worship with this brand new temple that they have? So, he leads that second group that goes back. Well, there's going to be a third group that goes back that we'll read about tonight, and that takes place under Nehemiah. And Nehemiah is going to lead a group of Jewish people back, to rebuild the walls of the nation.

Now, the walls of the nation were really important. We'll talk about this in just a moment. But the walls of the nation had ultimately fallen down because of the destruction of sin in their lives, because of the destruction of sin in the nation. And so, I've entitled the overall theme of Nehemiah, Reconstruct the Self-Destruction, because it really is ultimately about rebuilding the walls of the nation physically, but also rebuilding the walls of the nation spiritually.

So, we pick up, and chapter 1 verse 1, and this is what it says, the words of Nehemiah, the son of Hekeliah. Now, it happened in the month of Chislev in the 20th year while I was in Susa, the capital that Hanani, one of my brothers, and some men from Judah came, and I asked them concerning the Jews who had escaped, and had survived the captivity and about Jerusalem. And they said to me, the remnant there in the province who survived the captivity are in great distress and reproach. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are burned with fire.

Now, I've entitled this first chapter, chapter 1, The Report and the Reaction. And so, Nehemiah will find at the end of the chapter is a cupbearer of the king, giving him a very important job within the kingdom of Persia. And as he's there in the capital, it's about the month, it says the month of Chislev, which doesn't mean very much to us. But what that means is it's somewhere around the November, December type time frame.

So, it's late fall, early winter there in the area of Persia, and he's actually in the winter home, and he's having a conversation. You can imagine what it's like. His brother and one of his friends has come back from Jerusalem, and I'm sure the conversation was great. You know, perhaps Nehemiah wasn't able to go back because of his royal responsibilities as the cupbearer, but though his body was in Persia, his heart was in Jerusalem, and he's there.

He wanted to know what's going on in Jerusalem. Tell me what it's like there. And while expecting a wonderful report about the condition of the nation, while expecting a wonderful report about how great things were going, instead he gets kind of a sad report about what's going on in the nation and what's happening in Jerusalem. Notice what it says again in verse 3.

It says, the remnant there are in the province who survived the captivity. They are in great distress. They are in great reproach. And the wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are burned with fire. He tells us four things. They're in distress. They're in reproach. The walls and the gates are torn down, and they are acting like survivors. I want to point something out to you.

That word's really important because God would have us not just live a life where we are surviving. Have you ever been in a place like that in your life where it's like, how's it going? Well, I survived today, right? Maybe some of you came in tonight. And you said, well, I wonder how I'm doing. Well, I survived today. Well, I survived the week. And unfortunately, too many of us live our lives as survivors,

much like the children of Israel are in this moment. And the reason we're living our lives as survivors instead of thrivers, which is what God ultimately has for us, that we are more than conquerors through him who has called us. Instead of living as conquerors, we live as survivors because the walls have been torn down. Because the structure of our spiritual life is not thriving.

It's not standing as it should. And that's what they find here in the nation of Israel. They are simply surviving and living in distress because the walls have been torn down. Now, walls at this point in time for the nation, any nation, any city-state, the walls were important because the walls provided a handful of things. The walls provided security. The walls provided safety.

The walls provided confidence. And most importantly, the walls gave identity. Because when you came to a city, you saw that the walls had surrounded it. And there was a certain identity of a city, knowing the greatness of the protection that was around it. And so for the nation of Israel, for the people living in Jerusalem at this point in time, they lost their safety.

They lost their security. They had no confidence. And quite frankly, they were struggling with their identity as a nation because there were no walls around the city. And can I tell you what was happening for them physically, I feel like was also happening for them spiritually. And we'll find that out later in Nehemiah. Because the walls physically were torn down

and they lacked their confidence and their identity in who they were as a nation physically. They lacked their confidence and their identity as a nation spiritually. And I have a question for you. What walls have been torn down in your life? Not in a positive way, but in a bad way. What spiritual walls, what spiritual structure, what spiritual strength are you lacking in your life?

Because you're lacking confidence in Christ, or you're lacking the security of who you are in Christ, or perhaps you're lacking the identity, of who you are in Christ. And much like the nation of Israel living in Jerusalem at that point in time, instead of being someone who is a conqueror, who is confident in who you are in Christ and moving forward in what God has for you, instead what you are finding is that you are simply surviving while also living in distress and reproach because the walls have been torn down. It's a good moment for that one, right? Yeah.

Thank you, Jesus. So this is how he responds, how he reacts to this report. Notice what it says in verse four. Now, when I heard these words, I sat down and I wept and I mourned for days, and I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven. And I said, I beseech you, O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God who preserves covenant and loving kindness for those who love him

and keep his commandments. Actually, we'll deal with that prayer in just a moment. I want us to focus in on the words of verse four. He says, when I heard these words, I sat down, I wept and I mourned and I fasted and prayed. This reaction is powerful on the part of Nehemiah because what Nehemiah could have done was say, that's a problem, someone should fix that.

You know, that's a real bummer. I hate to hear that. I hope that somebody can eventually go back and take care of that problem. Gosh, I hate to hear that. Well, I've got to get to work, so I'm gonna focus on the other things that I need to do. Well, I'm sure glad I'm not living there because that would be a real problem. For me, it's not a problem for where I am now.

No, he took that problem and he owned it like it was his own because he knew that his heart was in the nation of Israel. And if his people were broken, then he was broken. If the people that he identified himself with lacked confidence, then he lacked confidence. If they lacked their identity, then he lacked identity. And he immediately put himself in the position that they were in.

And he reacted in an incredibly positive way. And the way that he reacted was to allow the brokenness of the nation to affect the condition of his heart. And his brokenness began to move him. And he did something about it. He sat down and he wept and he mourned and he fasted and he prayed. You see, this godly reaction created in his heart a holy ambition. This godly reaction created a holy ambition in him

because when he heard what was going on, he was broken over it and he said, I just have to do something. I have to do something and I don't know what to do. Yet, so I'll do what I know how to do. I will start praying. How many of us want to do something and we don't know where to start? And so we just say, well, I can't do anything. And then we move on with our lives.

Do you realize that you can do nothing but pray until you've prayed? That prayer is the work that God is looking for first in the believers of Jesus Christ. This is where he starts. He starts with fasting and he starts with praying and he starts. Asking God to move in him. You see, holy ambition begins with holy brokenness. There's a fantastic book. If you have a chance to read it, sometimes it's sometimes it's actually a book that's

intended for kids, for teenagers and college kids. But I read it with a group of young men this summer and it really impacted my life. So you might consider reading this book as well. It's called Do Hard Things and it's written by Alex and Brett Harris. And in it, they talk about the fact that that if you ever want to do things for God, it starts with a holy ambition.

And that holy ambition starts with a brokenness of heart over something that you hear over something that that you see. They tell the story of a young man who who heard that that over in Africa, they don't have any clean water in many of the villages there because a missionary came and told about the condition of the water in the villages that they were going to minister to. And then it's really hard to minister the gospel to a group of people who are sick all the time because of bad water in their villages. And so he.

He did something small. He started something called Change for Change. He heard that that there is millions of dollars in spare change sitting in people's couches. And so he challenged people to collect change, bring that change to them, and then they would invest that change into providing clean water wells in Africa. Why? Because a holy brokenness created a holy ambition that turned into a holy movement in his life

and in the people that were around him. Isn't that amazing? What God can do through someone who just simply allows the human condition to break his heart for what's going on around him. This is what Nehemiah does. He begins to pray that God would move. And can I say this is what God has done for me. This is a quick testimony on my part. Again, I've had people ask me why on earth when you pastor a growing church, would you

decide to take on a whole other job working with kids? And I'm going to tell you why. Several years ago. I heard about another suicide that had taken place over on a bridge that no longer exists even here in our Kansas City, Kansas. And I'd been out of the working with youth for a really long time. And I don't know why, but for some reason it just it it just ached in my heart.

It just pulled at me like something I can't even explain to you because I always had a love for kids. I've worked with them since I was one of them. And and so I've just always had this love. And so what I started doing is that very last time I started going over and I would do my runs on that trail over by that bridge and I read because I just wanted to start praying over that area.

And I just remember I remember on one of those I stopped halfway back, not just because I was tired, although I'm sure that played into it, but I stopped halfway back and I decided I was just going to walk and pray. And my daughters were with me at that particular point in time, and I don't know what happened as I was walking and praying. The Lord just broke my heart and I just I just wept the entire way back because I realized that that we're losing it. We're losing a generation of kids because they have no hope.

We're losing a generation of kids because they have no direction, because they have no focus. And if I have to wear myself out in order to bring the truth to them, then that's what I want to do with my life. Then that's what I mean. I've only got one of them to use. I may as well use every bit of it that I can in the ministry of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It was from that point on that I knew nothing is going to stop me from doing that thing.

And it's not because I'm some great person, it's because God gave me a holy brokenness that provided a holy ambition. And so I'm following that holy ambition to the best of my ability. And this is what Nehemiah does here. And so it says Nehemiah started praying, and this is the prayer that he gives. I'm going to read the whole thing that we'll go back and talk about it.

So allow yourself, if you will, as we read through this, to put yourself in the position of Nehemiah and think about this prayer that he makes before the Lord. He says, I said, I beseech you. Verse five. I beseech you. I beseech you, O Lord, God of heaven, the great and awesome God who preserves the covenant and loving kindness for those who love him and keep his commandments.

Let your ear now be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer of your servant, which I am praying before you now day and night on behalf of the sons of Israel, your servants confessing the sins of the sons of Israel, which we have sinned against you. I and my father's house have sinned. We have acted corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments nor the statutes, nor the ordinances, which you commanded your servant, Moses. Remember the word, which you commanded your servant Moses saying, if you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples.

But if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though, those of you who have been scattered, were in the most remote part of the heavens. I will gather them from there and will bring them to the place where I have chosen to cause my name to dwell. They are your servants and your people whom you have redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand. 0, Lord, I beseech you.

beseech you may your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant to the prayer of your servants who delight and revere your name and may and make your servant successful today and grant him compassion before this man now i was the cupbearer to the king handful of things i want to point out to you about this prayer of uh of nehemiah here he starts off by remembering who god is take note of verse five he said i beseech you oh lord god of heaven the great and awesome god who preserves covenant and loving kindness for those who love him and keep his commandments why does he start off by remembering who god is and by remembering the covenant that he's praying the covenant that god has given why does he start off that way because he just put god back in

perspective where he belongs he just heard something that was enormously big for him in his mind the walls of jerusalem had been torn down he's been given a holy ambition that's in too big for him to accomplish himself and once you've been given an ambition that's too big for you to accomplish yourself the first thing that we tend to do is think that it's also too big for god and so what he did is he put god back in his place he put god back where he belonged as greater than all of the issues that he would ever face as the god who is able to do the most impossible things because he is the god of the heavens and the earth and he is the god who always keeps his covenant and his promise so the first thing he does is he remembers

god in his covenant but the second thing he does is he begins to confess sin he confesses the sins of the nation but i want you to notice what else he does he makes those sins his own there's a great humility in knowing that if the nation is living in sin that i am living in sin if the nation is going the way that it's going then perhaps there's something in me too that needs to be dealt with you see he does not look at the people and say i'm not going to do that i'm not going to do that i'm not i can't believe the way that they acted he says lord we have all sinned because that humility before the lord is one of the keys of our lives if we are to truly be connected with the father

and so he confesses not only the sins of the nation but he identifies himself with the nation as living in sin the third thing that he does is he begins to claim the promises of god or pray the word of god he says in verse eight remember the word which you have been given to me and i will command your servant moses saying you will scatter them if they disobey but also remember your word that if you if the people return to you you will keep your covenant and you will bring them back from wherever you've scattered them you see he he prays the truth of god's word i love to tell people and i learned this from my father when you read the psalms don't just read the psalms when you read the psalms you should pray the psalms

it if it says the word of god you should pray the psalms you should pray the psalms if it says to cry out to god then cry out to god if it says to praise the lord then praise the lord if it says to sing to god as long as you're all by your onesies sing to god if it says to thank god then thank god if it says to pour out your complaints before the lord pour out your complaints before the lord and now all of a sudden the psalms are not just a book that you're reading that was written by a man that lived thousands of years ago now the psalms are the cry of your own heart now those psalms belong to you the same is true with so many other truths of the word of god i don't know what i'm supposed to do

next really because in the book of colossians it says lord that you would reveal your will and wisdom and spiritual understanding that i may be able to walk worthy of you and be fully pleasing to you in every good work well i don't understand what god's word says that's great in the book of ephesians it says open the eyes of my heart lord that i may see wondrous things from your word open the eyes of my heart that i can know the truth of what your word has to say it's amazing how there are prayers throughout scripture and if you begin to own those as your own you are not only claiming the truth of god but you can be assured that you are in line with the will of god because it's in the word of god

and this is exactly what nehemiah does and then finally after he has remembered who god is and confessed sin and claimed promises he now makes requests oh lord could you ever be attentive to my prayer and and we're going to pray for you and we're going to pray for you and we're going to pray for you and would you give me favor in the sight of this man today so through all of this he hears this report and his reaction is to seek the face of god that brings us to chapter two chapter two is the answer in the action notice what it says and it came about in the month of nissan or nissan i don't know if that's where we got the car name from or not but anyway and it came about in the month of

nissan or nissan and it came about in the month of nissan or nissan i don't know if that's where we got the car name from and i took up the wine and gave it to the king and i had not been sad in his i had not been sad in his presence now i want to point something out to you and that's the month that this is it now when he heard the report we said it was november december type time frame the month of chislev which is around that time when he has this conversation with the king which is going to result in his trip to return to the king and he's going to have a conversation with the king and he's going to it's the month of nissan which is somewhere around the months of march april so he has been

praying for four months and i think that that's important for us to point out because when we just read this and just bypass that we go he prayed and the next day he went before the king and everything was great no no this was not a one-time prayer that he made this was a lifestyle that he lived for four months until god opened up the opportunity listen you can do nothing but pray until you've prayed and then wait for god to open the doors the problem that many of us have with holy there's one of two problems we have with the holy ambition either one we do not wait for god to open the door and so we try to kick it down ourself and then we break our foot the second

problem that we have with the holy ambition is that when god opens the door we don't take the step but the first problem we face is is we don't always wait for god to open the door because god goes you got time it's okay i remember when i when i came pastor here i was like okay i've got i've got so much to learn and there's so much to be done and i have no idea what i'm doing and i got really stressed out and i remember the biggest word that god gave me in the first year that i was a pastor here is he said and you've got nothing but time it's okay you just keep seeking me because you've got nothing but time and so i learned to not get in a hurry at that point in time and so this is what this is

what he does he takes four months to pray about this and that four months was laying the groundwork in the most powerful king in the world's heart to give him his request notice what says in verse two now remember he'd never been sad before him okay let's talk about what a cupbearer is real quick okay so the cupbearer had one job taste the wine before it was given to the king if it was poisoned you die and the king goes dodged a bullet on that one kind of literally right dodged a bullet on that one if you don't die life is good he gets to drink the wine right the king's in a pretty serious position he's the secret service if you will for the king but at this point in time in history not only was the cupbearer having that important

of a job he was almost an advisor to the king because if you think that the cupbearer is always at the right hand side of the king he's always there with him right so he almost becomes a trusted friend and advisor now one of the most important things when you're standing in the presence of a king at this point in time is that you always be happy why because if you look sad it means you probably think there's something wrong with the king and if you look too sad he's probably going to put you to death because he doesn't like that you don't like him this is just this is just history and so it says that's why he points out i'd never been sad in the king's presence before every time i was around the king i was like life is good i'm happy

you're a great king i love my job right but this time he's sad i wish he knows what the king says so the king said to me why is your face sad even though you're not sick this is nothing but sadness of heart commentary by nehemiah then i was very much afraid right like his heart just kind of drops it's like oh great i'm gonna die soon but he'd been praying so god had been preparing the way verse three i said to the king let the king live forever why should my face not be sad when the city the place of my father's tombs lies desolate and its gates have been consumed by fire the king said to me what would you request this is a bold statement on the part of nehemiah he gets really honest about what's going on he gets really honest

about what's happening is that this is exactly why i'm upset now remember jerusalem would have been a province of the kingdom of persia at this point in time so basically it says there's a part of your kingdom that has a problem and this is a bold thing for him to do and so he he goes there's a problem in jerusalem and the king says so what would you like now in that moment he's going to have to choose his words very wisely right and so he does the most important thing i want you to notice what it says so i prayed to the god of heaven you're going to notice that that phrase is used a lot in the book of nehemiah nehemiah is always praying he was a man of great prayer now do you think he had time

to say hang tight king i've got to go fast and pray for a little while no he's in the presence of the king the king just had to go fast and pray for a little while he's in the presence of the he has to get right to it which means that he has to what pray really fast he probably said lord help that's probably all it was and in that moment god's going to give him everything he needs and listen we need to understand something there's two types of prayer right there's prayer where you are down on your knees and you are intense and you are focused and you are you're pouring out your prayers to the lord because you got to just lay all of it out before him that's a very important

part of prayer and then there's what i call arrow prayers where in the moment you just got to shoot an arrow up to god and know that he heard that and you're going to pray for a little while and you're just as well as he heard anything else and you can trust the fact that god knows your heart and in that moment he gives you everything that you need i've watched it happen over and over again in my own life where when something intense is taking place and i don't have time to say hang tight i got to get on my knees for the next 20 minutes and pray about this no i've got 30 seconds to make a call on something i have to say lord help and trust that god's going to give wisdom

trust that he even hears those kinds of prayers and that's what he does he says so i prayed to the lord and then i said verse 5 if it pleases the king and if your servant has found favor before you send me to judah to the city of my father's tombs that i may rebuild it the king said to me the queen sitting behind him how long will your journey be and when will you return so it pleased the king to send me and i gave him a definite time and i said to the king if it pleased the king let letters be given me for the governor of the kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom of the kingdom of the of the provinces beyond the river that that they may allow me to pass through until i come to judah

and a letter to asaph the keeper of the king's forest that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the fortress which is by the temple for the wall of the city and for the house to which i will go and the king granted them to me because the good hand of my god was upon me he makes some pretty bold requests here right like it's a good thing he prayed about this first it's a good thing he'd been in prayer up to this point in time and then when he was asked god gave him the boldness in the moment that he needed to ask some really bold things what do you want me to do he said could you send me back to rebuild the walls he said i gave him a definite plan and i gave him a definite time then he said but also could you send some letters with me

basically letters of authority so that anybody who's like hey what the heck are you doing here i can show them this letter from you that says hey i can bring you some letters of authority here it's my certificate that says i can do what i want and so he says can i have some of those kinds of letters okay and he says and could you also give me letters for the king of the four or for the the guy who's in charge of the forest so he will give me timber to go and and build the walls that he's like all right we can do all of that he asked for big bold things why because he had a holy ambition that started off from a holy brokenness followed up with true prayer to the lord and god blessed the entire thing and so he says yes i'll do

it why because the good hand of god was upon him can you imagine not only the relieved feeling that he had when he left the presence of the king but also the overwhelmed feeling that he had because he just undertook one of the greatest projects he could have ever imagined in his life do you know how many walls i bet nehemiah has built up to this point in time i'm going to say zero i'm going to say zero walls i'm going to say zero walls i'm going to say zero walls i'm going to say zero walls he's built up to this point in time because remember he's not the king's construction guy he's the king's cupbearer and he just undertook one of the greatest projects he could have ever

imagined but god's hand was with him and he was ready to go so everything's exciting everything is great verse nine i came to the governors of the province beyond the river and i gave them the king's letter now the king had sent me with officers of the army and with horsemen and when sand ballot the horonite and tobiah the eminite official heard about it it was very displeasing to them that someone had come to seek the welfare of the sons of israel you had to know that there would be some sort of an issue right it was going way too smooth up to this point in time listen we have to understand something about when god begins to work oftentimes when god begins to work you have to expect adversity

you just need to be prepared for that you need to be prepared that with god's blessing is going to come attack from the enemy ask anybody that's ever done anything for the lord and they will tell you it was the greatest thing i've ever been a part of in my life and the most challenging thing i've been a part of in my life why because where god moves satan attacks where god moves the enemy is always going to want to come against it and sometimes he'll come against it in weird spiritual ways sometimes he'll come against it in the form of people more often than not it's in the form of people and there were two men who really didn't like what was going on their names were san valent and tobiah they were governors somewhere

in that similar region the region of samaria and they didn't like what was going on probably because they had a certain amount of control over jerusalem at this point in time and they didn't like to think that someone was going to move in and sort of mess up their game sort of mess up their system and so they are going to continue to prove throughout the book of nehemiah to be an issue a uh a burr in the saddle if you will of nehemiah and so this adversity is going to come against him so they uh they are not pleased with what's going on nehemiah doesn't let that slow him down he goes on to do his job we begin to see him move into action it says in verse 11

so i came to jerusalem and i was there for three days and i arose in the night and i had a few men with me and i did not tell anyone what god was putting into my mind to do for jerusalem there was no animal with me except the animal on which i was riding and so i went out by night went out uh at night by the valley gate in the direction of the dragon's well onto the refuse gate inspecting the walls of jerusalem which were broken down and its gate which were consumed by fire i passed by the fountain gate in the king's pool there was no place for my mount to pass so i went out went up at night by the ravine and inspected the wall and i entered the valley gate again and returned and the officials did not know where i had gone

what i had done nor had i as yet told the jews the priests the nobles the officials or the rest who did the work so he spends three days there i want to know what he did for the first three days we're not given the commentary on that my guess is he took three days to wrap his mind around exactly what was going on perhaps to think and pray knowing nehemiah to pray about how he should handle things and it must have been that god moved his heart to do something very interesting notice he didn't go do an inspection of the walls when everybody was watching first of all because he already had two enemies that he knew that he was dealing with that didn't like that he was there rebuilding the wall so he knew he needed to somewhat guard himself against them

but he also knew people and we all know that sometimes with people if they don't know the plan they can get a little bit fearful and so he kind of kept some things under wrap so one night

a small group of men but a trusted group of men and what he does is he begins to move around the city so that he can inspect what's going on so that he can expect what's inspect what has happened and exactly what the job looks like but notice he did not tell anyone why do you suppose he didn't tell anyone well i'm going to tell you why i think he didn't tell anyone because it's a whole lot easier to keep things under wraps and wait to get opinions later after you have already formulated for yourself than to invite a bunch of people in and have to deal with 3 000 opinions which is what he would have dealt with in the moment and so he gathered a trusted group of men around him

and that trusted group of men that could make decisions together went and saw what was going on i kind of wonder what his heart was like in that moment perhaps seeing all the places because remember he probably would have never seen jerusalem before and thinking i wonder what this must have looked like in its heyday probably having heard the stories of days and days and days and days and days and days and days and days and days and days and days and days and days and days and days and days and days and days and days and days and days and days and days and solomon and some of the great kings of israel at that point in time and and seeing the way that things look now perhaps that brokenness of heart that he felt when he first heard the news

was confirmed for him as he saw what was going on and and as he as he inspected the walls and as he inspected the situation he he began to formulate not only a plan but the vision for what the plan was supposed to look like i'm here to tell you right now it's really hard to move forward until god really gives you the vision and that's exactly what nehemiah was able to gather because he now had to convince an entire city full of people to do a job that was way too hard for them he had to convince an entire city full of people that the job that was going to be too hard for them was worth doing and that would start with that inspection with a trusted group of people and so that's what he does he goes around

he inspects and it says the officials didn't know that he'd gone down or what he had done so we move into verse 17 it says then i said to them you see the bad situation that we are in that jerusalem is desolate its gates are burned by fire come let us rebuild the wall of jerusalem so that we will no longer be a reproach i told them how the hand of my god had been favorable favorable to me and also about the king's words which he had spoken to me and they said let us arise and build so they put their hands on the wall and they said let us build the wall hands to the good work. You see, Nehemiah needed that time to himself with a trusted group of men to know exactly how to approach the people. This is what he does. He said, I said, you see the

situation that we are in. Sometimes the best thing we can do is point out to people, this is the situation that we are in. This is the problem that we have. And now we need to meet the problem. And so he presents, he says, you see the situation, the walls are burned down. We're a reproach to the people that are around us. Everyone's in distress. Now we need to do something about it. He created

the understanding of the problem so that he could show them that there was a solution that God had given to him. And so he tells them the problem. He says, and now let's rebuild the wall of Jerusalem so that we will no longer be a reproach. Now, while the job feels hard, the job is done. It is necessary. And as he leads them in this way and presents the necessity of the job,

this is what it says. They say, let us arise and build. So they put their hands to the work. Now everybody's excited, right? It kind of reminds me of when Moses shows up with Aaron to the children of Israel in Egypt. And they're like, God's heard, God's seen, and God's going to deliver. And everybody's excited, except they dealt with Pharaoh. So he's dealing with Sanballat and Tobiah. It says, but when Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah,

the Ammonite official, and they brought a buddy with them, and Geshem the Arab heard it, they mocked us and despised us and said, what is this thing that you are doing? Are you rebelling against the king? Listen, the first thing that the enemy's going to do is he's going to mock you. Somebody's going to be like, what are you doing? You're being dumb. Why would

you ever do that? You're being dumb. You're being dumb. You're being dumb. You're being dumb. You're being dumb. Why would you ever think that God would want you to do that? Why would you ever think that you are capable of doing fill in the blank here, right? Maybe you undertook to read through the Bible in a year and somebody goes, man, you could never do that. That's way too much

work. I would never do that. That's way too much work. Or maybe you decide you want to lead a Bible study. And somebody goes, you don't know enough how to do that. You don't really know what you're doing. I remember I got ready to go to Bible college when I was a senior in high school, graduated high school, and I was going to go to Bible college. And somebody,

looked at me and they go, you don't need college. You just need to start doing it. They were mocking me for the fact that I was going to Bible college. And I'm like, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life. I think I have actually told them that. But, but, but people are always going to mock you when, when God lays something on your heart and you have to learn to respond in faith.

Notice what it says in verse 20, he says, so I answered them and said, the God of heaven will give us success. Therefore we, his servants will rise and build, but you have no portion. You have no right to our memorial in Jerusalem. I love it. That's confidence and faith right there. He says, you know what? We're going to do it. God's going to do it. And you can't have any

part of it. That's the way you have to respond to a mocking voice is you have to say, God's still bigger than whatever it is that you're saying I can't do. Because I promise you, if God says we can do it, we're going to do it. And that's exactly what they're going to do in the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem. Amen. Father, we come before you and I just thank you for the time that we've had in your word tonight.

And Lord, I thank you that you kept the distractions at a minimum for us with the lights. And so, Lord, I just pray that as we go into the rest of this week, Lord, that we would take these lessons from Nehemiah and that we would, we would allow holy ambition to grip our hearts as holy brokenness begins to do its work. And Lord, that we would be men and women of prayer, but Lord, that we would also be men and women of action as you lay out for us what we are to do. And so God, give us vision, give us purpose, give us desire, show us what we are to do to be the people that you've called for us to be. We just thank you, Father, in Jesus name. Amen. Be blessed.