Nehemiah 1:1-11

Background

• 586BC Babylon takes Jerusalem
• 539BC Persia overtakes Babylon
• Persia allows 1/3 Jews to return
• 445BC Nehemiah comes back with group to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem
• Nehemiah leads God’s people to live God’s Mission!

It begins with just one.

• A local church that responds to God’s leading is God’s strategy to change a list world. It often begins when God moves in the heart of one member. (experiencing God)

• It started with just one Abraham. And one Moses, and one Ester, one Daniel,

It starts with a regular person.

• Nehemiah is never mentioned in NT.
• Nehemiah is not a paid professional.
• Nehemiah is not a priest.
• Nehemiah is a cup barer
• The cup barer job goes to someone you wouldn’t mind dying, but you trust.

A person must gain a new perspective

Jerusalem had been in ruin for 141 years very little had changed since Babylon invaded in 586 destroying the city of God. What did change was Nehemiah’s heart. He had a the heart of Jesus for the city. Jesus wept for Jerusalem and Nehemiah does too.

The beginning point of doing something great for God is sensitivity.

• “God never blesses a tearless ministry.”
• God has never sent a revival in history where there have not first been tears
• The destruction seemed normal to them. When you grow up with things wrong, then wrong seems right.

God alone stirs the hearts of people.

If God has allowed you to see things differently it’s because he want you to do something about it.

• Don’t wait for someone else to get on board. He gave you the vision so you could lead the charge.

A person must pray.

• Nehemiah spent more time in prayer (4 months) than it took to build the wall (53 days).
• Nehemiah saw the problem then he prays 4 months.
• Build your prayer life on the promises of God.

We must resist the urge to go right to action.

• Sometimes we just need to pray instead of jumping into fixing the problem right away.
• Nehemiah was Pete the prayer before he was Bob the builder. You can create more problems by prayerlessly trying to fix things right away than you can by taking your time and praying about it for a little while first.

We must resist the urge to complain.

• If you’re majoring in complaining, you don’t even have time to minor in prayer.

• It would have been easy to blame the Jews who were already living in Jerusalem for not fixing the walls. “They are so not right with God, if they were they would be building God’s city.”
• Nehemiah doesn’t change his FB status to complain about the people who should have been doing their job and rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem a long time ago.

• Nehemiah doesn’t blog, He prays!
• Nehemiah doesn’t get on Topix anonymously, He prays!
• It is easy to criticize, but it’s hard to be a part of the solution.
• Criticizing takes a moment, helping be part of the solution takes days, weeks and sometimes years.
• Telling someone their stupid is easy, but helping them be more like Jesus is a lot harder.

• You might say you can’t help someone who doesn’t want help. That’s true, but Jesus helps people who don’t want help. Everyone that Jesus “helped” at one time or another didn’t want Jesus’ “help.”

A person must have a passion to be right with God.

This comes by admitting our own sin.

• Nehemiah admitted is own sin. He knew sin was the reason him and his people were in the situation they were in. He did blame “life.” He admitted that the exile and ruin of their city were the consequences of their sin.
• My problem is not other people.
• A great move of God will never happen in our lives when our prayers consist of confessing other peoples problems.
• My problem is my unwillingness to pray.
• My problem is my unwillingness to admit I’m wrong too.
• My problem is my unwillingness to trust God with my problem.

This comes by seeing God’s greatness.

• Nehemiah prayed to the “great and awesome God.”
• The attributes of God will give you great confidence for life.
• Every great leader in the Bible has a great view of God.
• God wants us to know and trust his greatness by praying bigger greater prayers for his name.
• It is a failure to trust the greatness of God to pray weak little prayers.
• We send up weak little prayers because that’s all we think of our God.

Joshua 1

When you are doing God’s will no man can stop you. V5

Because God will be with you. V 5

• The truth that God is with his Children is one of the basic things we often forget. He is with us so we can do God’s will.

Sin can hinder you.

• When you are doing what God wants you are unstoppable because God is unstoppable, but when we cease to do God’s will an infinite number of consequences or problems could take place.
• It was the sin of Achan in chapter 7 that kept them from defeating Ai the first time and lead to the death of som of the Israelites.

Courage is necessary for doing God’s will. V 7

because doing God’s will is hard.

• There is no such thing as a cowardly obedience. V 2

because Satan will attack

• He will attack through others opinions of you
• He will attack through others lies about you.
• He will attack through misunderstanding
• He will attack by trying to get you to doubt.
• He will attack by reminding you how bad you are.

God’s will equals success. V 7-8

Anytime we do God’s will it is a success.

• Even if the outcome does not seem good or feel good, when we do God’s will it is success.

You can be too far left and right.

• Being more conservative than the Bible and more liberal than the Bible are both a failure to follow God’s word.

If you don’t do God’s will you’re not godly.

Success comes by clinging to God’s word. V 8

Cling to his promises

Remember his warnings