Sermons

It's good to be back, everyone. Good to see you all. If you would turn in your Bibles to Nehemiah chapter 2. I don't know if these are words that will live on in infamy, but they caught my ear right before going up. At this time, we're going to turn it over to the VBS children. I mean, that is always what you want to hear on a Sunday morning because you have no idea what's going to happen.

We just, we just had our VBS week this past week and it's in the kindness of the Lord to get to come here, getting to see what you were doing here and just the timing of both groups doing it. So sweet to, to just look at the future when you see our kids up here, and praising God and the investment in them, and that's something to just rejoice in right away. This morning, also, lots to rejoice in here.

A lot has happened in the past year here, as I can tell. This place has been taken over by Ireland, apparently. There's nothing else to be said about that, Kent. You leave one year, and then you come back, and Andrew's here, and I know Steven and his family are here, and Matt's on his way.

But that's just exciting times for your church, and so I'm cheering for you and excited for you as well. Your fellow Southerner from North Carolina, bless your hearts. I mean that actually. Uh, it's also a joy to get to join you in the study of Nehemiah. What a wonderful book.

And I've been listening the last two weeks to Andrew leading off and then Austin preaching. And it feels fitting because when I was in the doctor ministry program out at master seminary, uh, I was studying under Andrew and Austin. Uh, those two guys were running the doctoral program, and I was literally running the donut program. So, they were in the front of the room with, with, uh, all the information and the speakers coming in, and I was the donut guy in the back, making sure all the men were well fed. And those are both solid men and stout preachers and faithful pastors, so it really is an honor and a pleasure to step into the pulpit after them. And then, of course, thank you, elders of Trinity Bible Church, for having me back.

Our family loves getting to come down here in the times that we've been able to get out of small-town Hickory into big-town Dallas. And lots of changes around here. Hickory is still the same. I think I gave you a big update last year was we were getting a Whataburger. Check this out. We now have two. And bless their hearts, they will both be out of business in a month, because we just don't have enough people to support two Whataburgers. And we support a lot of Chick-fil-A's. We have 46 for a population of 46,000. So, if what you're eating hasn't once clucked in its life, it won't make it in hickory. So sorry, Whataburger. Well, we're going to pick up where Austin left off last week at the end of chapter 1. So, if you would stand for the reading of God's word, I'll just read a few verses into chapter two to kind of set the scene and then we'll walk through the passage together.

(Scripture reading) And it came about in the month of Nisan in the 20th year of King Artaxerxes that wine was before him and I took up the wine and gave it to the king. Now, I had not been sad in his presence. So, the king said to me, why is your face sad though you are not sick? This is nothing but sadness of heart. Then I was very much afraid. 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? Then the king said to me, what would you request? So, I prayed to the God of heaven." (End)

The grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of God endures forever. You may be seated.

Well, chapter one. Nehemiah was alerted to the mess Andrew called it. What a mess it was in Jerusalem.

Verse three, the city is broken down, and its gates are burned with fire. And it said in verse four, “I heard these words and I sat down and wept and mourned for days. And I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven.” And so that's where it began. Nehemiah is evidence of a heart for God, does not immediately run to the throne of Artaxerxes, but he runs to the throne of grace when he hears this troubling news about God's city, the city of Jerusalem broken down and gates burned with fire. And so, he prayed, as Austin showed you last week, what a model prayer. He prayed and he confessed and he pleaded and he trusted and he waited. He waited.

That's the white space between chapter one and chapter two. In the waiting room of the Christian life. Have you ever been there? It's not the most comfortable place to be. I think Nehemiah would rather be moving ahead, as we would like to be oftentimes. Something bigger, something better. offering our prayers up to God and our petitions, and as he writes, beseeching the throne of God, his ear to be attentive to the prayer of his servants, and nothing. Or so it seems.

He's waiting, and it's the Christian life, once you've lived it for a while, it's the stop and go of the Christian life. It's sometimes you feel like you get into that fast lane. You drivers of the freeways around here. We don't have a fast lane in Hickory, it's all two lane. The stop and go, you're in the fast lane and then you're in a traffic jam.

I mean, just the back and forth of the Christian faith is where Nehemiah is. And yet, that is, according to God's good and gracious plan, exactly where and how He grows our faith. Because we're doing what Hebrews 11 says, we're hoping in something we can't see. And so, we continue to pray, as I imagine, that model prayer that Nehemiah remembered and wrote down. I'm sure, as it said, he wept and he mourned for days, and he fasted and prayed. I'm sure that was for days. But this is where we pick up with him in chapter 2. And nothing seems to have changed.

But before we look into that, Andrew gave us that reminder that Nehemiah is not primarily a story about the stop and start of a building project in Jerusalem or in Dallas. It's the story of our lives, isn't it? This is the journey all of us are on. It's personal. When you can take a passage like this and you say, but Lord, this is not just true at a wide level, this is true at a personal level for me.

And that's one of the most powerful things, one of the most, there's so many powerful things about the preaching of the Word of God when you truly trust it, do its work. But one of them is when you're in a narrative in the Old Testament. My church and I, we've been going through 1 Samuel. And the amazing way in which people say, Adam, I know that sermon in 1 Samuel, you know, we're talking thousands of years ago.

And it's like God was just speaking to my ear the entire message. That's exactly what I needed to hear. And I'm going, it was? About God delivering Saul into David's camp? What does that have to do with you? And this lady wrote me this long email. It was like God was just the whole time saying, this is what you need to get through this week to face your enemies. And she did.

And I think you're seeing that, or we'll see that as Nehemiah unfolds, is how God can bring a message to you personally about your own faith journey that we're all, I guess you could call, under construction from the day we come to Christ until the day he brings us home.

One of my favorite heroes of church history is Hudson Taylor. He was one of the key instruments in God's hands to bring the gospel to China. He wasn't the only one, but in the 1800s, he was one of the key players in that. And from time to time, I'll take out his autobiography and re-read it. Because when I think about a journey of faith and somebody trusting God one day at a time, one step at a time, one prayer at a time, I don't know if there's a more encouraging hero of the Christian faith to read than Hudson Taylor. That it would invigorate you to read how his life was really lived, resting confidently in his, I don't know if he would say it was his favorite verse, but it was one of them.

Philippians 4.19, "my God will supply your every need in Christ Jesus." And he took that promise to the bank every day. He is well known for saying, "God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supply." And so, phrases like that were coming to my mind as I was studying Nehemiah.

So much of Hudson Taylor's life was constantly saying, God, I want to put myself at your disposal. I am your servant, and I know that if Philippians 4:19 is true, and I believe it with everything in me, you will supply my every need. And he was saying this not once he was over in China, he was saying this years before he even went.

And as I was studying Nehemiah 2 and trying to see the outline of this chapter, another one of his statements came to my mind as I was reading his autobiography this summer. One that I think captures the essence of this chapter and really will be the framework for us to look at it today.

It was when he said this, “there are three stages in every great work of God. There are three stages in every great work of God. First, it is impossible. Then it is difficult. And then it is done.” And I, you know, I'm just reading this chapter and looking at the movement of the action, and I found myself saying, yeah, I think that's right here. So, our outline this morning, and again, these are hooks to hang our thoughts on just as you would walk through this chapter and maybe remember it.

We'll talk about the impossible and then the difficult and then the done. The first section, verses one to eight, will be the process of an impossible entreaty. the process of an impossible entreaty. So, let's look at that first, and then we'll talk about the other two, the difficulty of the progress, and then the done deal of providence. But first, let's look at verses 1 to 8, the process of an impossible entreaty.

When Nehemiah recalls the exact month, it was that verse 1 happens, that's four months since he had heard about the devastation in Jerusalem. So, four months have gone by since he prayed, four months of waiting for God to move some way and somehow that he would see it.

Back in 1:11, he said, if you look at the text, "oh Lord, I beseech you, may your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant and the prayer of your servants who delight to revere your name and make your servant successful." What does he say right there? Eventually? He says, "make your servant successful today." And so here we are, 120 days later.

He was hoping that God would give him an answer that day and grant him compassion before this man, as Austin highlighted, this man. Not the king, not that he was trying to be disrespectful, but Psalm 118 says, "My trust is in the Lord. My trust is not in men nor in princes but blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord." And so, Nehemiah has this wonderful prayer, and at the end he says, today, and yet, like many of us with important prayer requests, heaven seemed silent until this day. Now, he gives a note about his faithful waiting when he says, I went before the king, I took him some wine, and I hadn't been sad in his presence.

So, what's going on here? Well first, Nehemiah is faithful in his waiting. He keeps going about doing his job. And that was no small thing to be the cupbearer to the king. You had to be trustworthy; you had to be skilled. It makes me think of Proverbs 22:29 "Do you see a man skilled in his work? He will stand before kings, not before obscure men." I try to teach that proverb to my sons. You know, to be skilled. You never know how God can use that. In Nehemiah's life, the skill he received put him at the right hand of the king. King Artaxerxes, potentially the most powerful man on the planet at that time. And here is Nehemiah carrying out his daily duties before him.

I was watching the end of The NBA finals last night, I hope you'll forgive me for that, I am an East Coast kid, and it ended in enough time for me to get a good night's sleep, at least it seems so far. But I was watching it with my 13-year-old son, and the MVP was asked after he won, hey, where does your confidence come from? You just seem so cool, calm, and collected out there. And the MVP of the finals last night said, my confidence comes from my work ethic. All the hours I put in. When I'm out there, I just know I did the work.

And I think of that when I think of a guy like Nehemiah, and you read this story. He had a work ethic. He was trustworthy. He would bring that wine before the king. And in reading a little bit about that in this past week, kind of the nature of this job, he would have to actually bring the cup and the wine in front of the king. So, this was a process. He would have to wash. the cup he was going to use in front of them, so the king knew no funny business. And then he would often, not even use another cup, he would take the wine and pour it into his own hand and drink it from his hand. And then he would wait to see if he keeled over.

I mean, what a job description you got to be the cup bearer. Here's your job, pour the wine into your hand, drink it in front of the king, and wait to see if you die. And this is what Nehemiah did in front of Artaxerxes every day. This was his job, but he was good at it.

Same routine, day after day, until verse two, that routine gets interrupted. One day, God's hand of favor starts to move. The king notices something different. He asks him, why is your face sad, though you're not sick? This is nothing but sadness of heart, and that's interesting, because Nehemiah just gave you a detail at the end of verse one. I have not been sad in his presence. Why mention that? Well, because Nehemiah, though he was fasting and praying back in verse 4 for months, and you could imagine truly doing that, committed to fasting and praying, that might have an effect on your appearance.

Even though Nehemiah, when he's coming into work before King Artaxerxes, he is saying, I did not let it show, and I wasn't going in there trying to get my boss to notice I'm miserable at the job. That's essentially what he's saying there. I wasn't overdoing it. I wasn't exaggerating it.

I was trusting this to the Lord, and I was just going in and doing my job, and yet the king who knew Nehemiah well enough, had spent enough time with him, knew something was off. Which makes you go, how did King Artaxerxes, this godless emperor, know that something was off? And you could come up with a lot of human explanations.

But I like Proverbs 21.1, “The king's heart is like channels of water in the palm of God.” This is how God's work is being done here. It's that King Artaxerxes notices and wants to ask Nehemiah how he's doing. Why? Because the king's heart is like channels of water in the hand of the Lord. The most powerful man on earth is a stream running through whose fingers? God's fingers.

And so, Nehemiah says, “then I was very much afraid.” Well, why would he be afraid? Think about that. Why would Nehemiah, rather than suddenly be excited, oh, he finally asked. Four months later, answered prayer. Well, because if you're this powerful of man and you notice something's off in your most trusted cupbearer. Is he up to something? He looks different today. Wow, what's wrong with him? Or it could have been fear of, what am I gonna tell him? Should I tell him I wanna go back? And so, he said to the king, verse three, “let the king live forever.” First, he was humble with this king. He said, “let the king live forever,” his response. And then he said something very honest. “Why should my face not be sad?” Wow, what a word. Why should I not be sad? I don't think he was putting that back in the face of Artaxerxes, but he says, why should I not be sad?

Why, when the city, the place of my father's tombs lies desolate, and its gates have been consumed by fire. And he just opens his heart up to the king. He tells him, this is why I'm sad. His hand had served the king many times, and now he is maybe opening his hand up to be served by the king. And so here comes the big turning point, the hinge of this opening section. The king then said to him, well, what would you request? He probably didn't see that coming, that this king now wants to know, what do you want, my servant?

And so as one preacher said, “Nehemiah takes a deep breath of fervent prayer.” Do you see that right there? So, I prayed to the God of heaven, and then boom, he has to speak in verse five. I just love that line. Nehemiah takes a deep breath of fervent prayer. The kind where you are, I remember one seminary professor used to say this to us, when you're sharing the gospel, you are praying out of one side of your mouth and preaching out of the other side. It's that silent prayer, and that's what Nehemiah takes it all in.

It's maybe 1 Thessalonians 5:17 example, “praying without ceasing,” or in Ephesians 6.18, “an action with all prayers and petitions, pray at all times in the Spirit.” Where you've been praying about something, you've been committing something to the Lord, you haven't seen an answer about it, and then suddenly, God's hand is moving and working, and now this opportunity comes, and you might not have been prepared on that very day and that very moment, other than you take that deep breath of fervent prayer, and you do what? You speak up. It reminds me of the time ten years ago this summer, I was pastoring in Hickory for the first five years of graduating from seminary, and then I wanted to do the Doctor of Ministry program to go out and grow some more under the teaching of some of the teachers there.

And I didn't know what that was going to look like. Without me knowing, a few people had alerted Dr. John MacArthur, who was the president of the seminary at the time, and trying to start a new initiative at the time of who I was. He didn't know me from Adam, even though I'm Adam. And a friend had passed my name on to him that I might be good for a job and might be interested in moving back to Los Angeles. And again, I had never spoken to him personally in the time I was in seminary, and so I'm praying about this thing. My friend then alerted me.

He said, Adam, I gave John your number. And again, to me, this is like, you know, if you could have a hero of the faith, a living hero of the faith at the time, of course it would have been Dr. MacArthur, and to know that he now has my number. And then it's just the waiting game. Is he actually gonna call? And so, I'm just going about my business and working, and then I get an unknown number on my phone. And I answer it, and the first words I hear are, Adam, you've been targeted.

And I took that deep breath of fervent prayer, because I had no idea what I was going to say once John was on the line. And I think about it in this moment. You think you're prepared for the moment, you've been praying about something, and then the time comes for you to speak up.

And this is verse 5, so the response of Nehemiah, he said, “if it pleases the king,” again, there's that humility, “and if your servant has found favor before you,” he's being respectful, he says, “would you send me to Judah to the city of my father's tombs that I may rebuild it?” And so there it is. It's this respectful, humble ask after four months of waiting and praying and fasting, this one prepared statement that's just gone in a moment.

And maybe as you reflect on that, you think sometimes the hardest parts of our faith growing, just come down to such a simple line, just whatever it is that's going on in your life, and you don't know if you're prepared for it. And then just this thing that seems so complicated can get resolved in just this simple act of faith, just to say what it is that God has put on your heart to respond honestly and truthfully and humbly in the moment.

And that's what Nehemiah does. And all this time, he has no idea what the response of the king is going to be. The king then said back to him, the queen sitting beside him, you get that detail. So, this may suggest this was a private meal, the king and queen are there together, how close Nehemiah was with them.

And he just asked him a very factual question that any good boss would want to know, how long are you going to be gone? I mean, notice how big these things can seem in our minds. Nehemiah might be thinking, oh, you know, King Artaxerxes is going to want this complex layout of all these ideas I have. And he just goes; how long will you be gone? When will you be back? Probably because he's such a good worker. That's the main thing that Artaxerxes just wants to know about this.

And then how quickly it resolved. So, it pleased the king to send me, and being prepared, I gave him a definite time. So that's what the king wants, that's what Nehemiah gave him. It was no lack of faith in Nehemiah in all this time of praying and waiting to have actually been prepared with a plan. Notice verse seven. “And I said to the king, if it please the king, let letters be given to me for the governors of the provinces beyond the river 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, and may he give me timber to make beams for the gates of the fortress.”

I mean, he has been what? praying about this fervently for four months, but he's also been preparing. And sometimes we think God's sovereignty and our responsibility are enemies that need reconciled when they're not. They go hand in hand here. He has been prayed up, and he is also prepared for this moment. And what does the king do? The king grants it to him. Why?

God's sovereignty at the end of verse eight, “because the good hand of my God was on me.” And so that's the resolution of this first part, this what looked like an impossible treaty for a while to Nehemiah gets resolved in what, the king granting this request? But ultimately, Nehemiah traces it to the source at the end of verse eight. None of this is happening if the good hand of my God wasn't with me.

So maybe the first takeaway from that section is when we think we're in some impossible endeavor, when what seemed possible now feels impossible because there's no answer from heaven in its silence is these two essential disciplines of the Christian life.

Persistent prayer and readied obedience. Persistent prayer and readied obedience. Pray hard and be ready to act. One of the things that I love about Hudson Taylor's biography or autobiography, that these two words would summarize him in his own words. Everything, when you read his story, Hudson Taylor, everything that he reports seems to fall into those two categories. He was faithful and persistent and earnest in prayer, and he was always preparing at the same time. When he tells a story at the beginning of the autobiography, he talks about even his salvation, first and foremost, was a matter of persistent prayer of his mother and sister.

That he was a church kid, but he wasn't converted. And it was his mother who went away for a holiday. And he was 15, and he was under conviction that something wasn't right in his life. And while his mother was away on holiday, and she had, I guess, margin in her life. Moms, you can identify that. You might not get a holiday to get away. You might get, like, a one-hour, you know, trip to Target. But she felt, I could use this time. I so want my son to come to Christ.

She used her time away to pray. And she just prayed continually until he writes that she had a sense that God had answered her prayers. Not only was the mother praying, Hudson Taylor's sister had been praying for a month every day, had put it in her little journal to pray for her brother to be saved. And lo and behold, the mom comes back from the holiday, she goes to talk to Hudson Taylor. He runs to tell her that while she was gone, he came to Christ, and she said, “I already knew. The Lord had confirmed it in prayer.” Now, I don't know exactly how all that works out. All I know that when Hudson Taylor looks at his life, his story of salvation, he saw it happened through the prayers of people that loved me.

Even him going to China. He said he came to find out seven years after going, he went in 1853. Talking to his father later that his father, before Hudson Taylor was born, 1830, prayed, “God, if you give me a son, would you send him to China?” 23 years later, he leaves to go to China. Seven years after leaving, finds out that was his father's prayer for his life.

So, whatever he saw in his life, he first would say, oh, this was the result of persistent and faithful prayers, and yet at the same time, he wrote this in his biography. He wrote, “my parents told me to use all the means in my power that I can to develop all the resources of my body, mind, heart, and soul, and then wait prayerfully on God.” Do you see the preparation there?

So even when he had it on his heart to go to China, which a lot of people in his time thought that was crazy, he said, you know what, I gotta study up on this thing. So he started studying up and found the best gateway to get into China at that time was to be a medical missionary. So, he goes and starts studying medicine. And then he says, you know what, but I'm going to probably have a hard life over there.

So, you know what I'm going to start doing? Rather than sleep on a bed, I'm going to actually just start sleeping on the floor. So, my body will be prepared for this. And you know, when I'm over there, I don't know how quickly money might come in, so I want to start getting used to having to pray for God to supply my every need.

And so, he would start then just giving his money he was earning, it was a small amount on the side, as an apprentice to a doctor, giving that towards mission so that he could just get used to praying for God to send him what he needed to pay the paltry amount he was paying somebody to sleep on the floor in a small apartment.

Do you see those two things working together so wonderfully in that example? It was persistent and faithful prayer, but it was also preparation for the day that it would come. And that's where we end in this first section of Nehemiah. The process of an impossible entreaty was both prayerfulness and preparedness. Now let's move into the progress of a difficult investigation. First, it seems impossible, then it's just difficult. So, 9 thru 15, God's hand opened a door at the end of verse 8:9-15, Nehemiah's gonna walk through it, but in that there comes new challenges.

And I think we can relate because sometimes when we see what looked like an impossible prayer being answered, the rest we feel like is gonna be smooth sailing, but what happens, instead of calm waters, we feel like we get blown into even choppier waters.

So, verse nine, “then I came to the governors of the provinces beyond the river, gave them the king's letters.” So, he's just doing what he thinks he should be doing. He got those letters. The king had sent him out commissioned with officers of an army and horsemen, but immediately opposition. Sanballat, the Horonites, and Tobiah, the Ammonite official, heard about it, and it was displeasing to them that someone had come to seek the welfare of the sons of Israel. Opposition arises immediately. Enemies emerge without warning.

Sanballat, he was the governor of Samaria. He emerges in this letter as Nehemiah's chief political antagonist, appearing 10 times in the narrative. His Babylonian name meant the god Sin, S-I-N, has saved. Not a great name for your kid, but it was a Babylonian god, Sin, the god of the moon. And it underscores his pagan roots. And then Tobias, or sorry, not Tobias. Apologies to any Tobiases in the crowd. Tobiah, the Ammonite official, that was his right-hand man. He's referenced 14 times in this book. And he's commonly identified as the governor of Ammon. He serves as the principal ally to Sanballat.

But of course, in this there's another opponent behind it, and as one pastor said about this, Satan is smart enough not to waste his efforts where there is no threat to his program. That's what verse 10 is about. Why are these two characters suddenly emerging in the story? Because Satan is smart enough not to waste his efforts where there is no threat to his program. This is the Christian life, when God's hand can move people forward in expectation, we should also expect some pushback.

Maybe you recall 2 Corinthians 2:11, Paul writes, “so that no advantage would be taken of us by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his schemes.”

Have you seen that in your life? When God is working, maybe some prayer gets answered, it looks like something good is happening, you're excited for it, and then all of a sudden, opposition to it. And you're wondering why that would happen, and in some ways that helps us see maybe there is something good happening here, and now I'm actually what? I'm actually facing schemes of Satan that are trying to what? Discourage me from this great endeavor God has put on my heart.

Now, I was thinking about that, you know, I've seen it in the last seven years I've been back at my church, where there's this idea that you know, people will ask me, you know, probably on a yearly basis, if I catch up with them, like a Kent or somebody, how are things going at the church?

And naively at the beginning, when I would just see good things happen, I'm like, it's great. Everything's great. It's, it's stable. And then I'm telling you within a month or so, some bomb goes off, some big thing happens in our church. And I, after the first couple of years of this happening, I would start to think, well, maybe that was, that was me being, you know, chastened for being arrogant or presumptive. And as elders, we would talk about it, and then sometimes we said, well, maybe that actually is true. Our church is stable, and it's growing in strength, and a good thing is going, and now what?

We should actually expect Satan to be seeing a threat, and there would be opposition that would arise, which also got me thinking about this. Not being ignorant of the enemy's schemes when you're trying to move forward in what God has called you to do presupposes that there is something for the enemy to scheme against. Something that you might have big plans and prayers for, or do you? You know, it sometimes might move us to say, you know, I haven't felt any opposition in my life for a long time.

Maybe that's a good reflective question to ask. Well, am I moving in any direction for the Lord right now? Or have I slowed down? You know, have I plateaued? You know, am I? Sure, brother. I mean, it's just, it's sometimes a good examination question. You know, am I just kind of putting it in neutral that I just feel like everything's kind of easy right now?

And one pastor, as he was preaching this, asked this, or made this observation. There are those earnest Christians always looking to do something. And then there are those who aimlessly say they have nothing to do. Now this was a pastor who had been in church for 40 years. And he had said, sometimes you see those two categories. There's those earnest Christians always looking to do something and in looking to do something, you may face some opposition. But then he said, there are those who are just aimlessly saying, yeah, I just have nothing to do. And so, we see in this endeavor, in this difficult investigation that Nehemiah is taking and he's undergoing that immediately he faces opposition. Why? Because he has something he's going after.

Moving on to verse 11, he gets to Jerusalem. That would have been, there's no exact estimates on where these two cities were in relation to each other, but some would estimate anywhere from 700 to a thousand miles. So, it was a long journey to get to Jerusalem. Maybe it makes sense.

Nehemiah just gives a detail verse 11. So, I just chilled for three days, you know, took some time to rest. And then he arose in the night, and just with a few men with him, he did not tell anyone what God was putting into his mind to do for Jerusalem. He wasn't trying to make a big deal about this. He wanted to go and survey the scene. He said, I had no big entourage with me in the middle of the night, except some animal with me, and I was riding on it.

And then he goes into the details of everything he saw, I think so he could bring the listener into this to say, wow, this expectation he had, this hand at work that he's now going to do is a faithful investigation, but it would have been discouraging.

Look at verse 13. The walls are broken down. The gates are consumed by fire. He passed by the fountain gate and the king's pool. Look, he goes, there was no place even for my animal to pass through. It's that broken down. He's bringing you into the story with them. He goes up at night by the ravine to inspect the wall. He goes back again and returns. This is a desolate, dark situation. It's discouraging.

And yet, he has one last task in this faithful investigation there in verse 16, is the officials of the city did not know where he had gone or what he had done. And now listen to this, “nor had I told the Jews, the priests, the nobles, the officials, or the rest who would later do the work.”

What is that showing right now? Well, I think verse 16 is cranking up the tension. You know, he's naming this assortment of Jews here, and they all sound important, don't they? There's priests, there's nobles, there's officials. And it's the narrative's way of asking, you know, after he gets through all these other oppositions, when the work is difficult, the work itself is gonna be trouble. He has some trouble, some characters in verse 10, looming in the shadows.

But last, certainly not least, might be a leader's greatest challenge, which is to actually get people to follow you. It's one thing to have people to oppose you and say that they don't like your ideas. It's one thing to see that whatever you're endeavoring to do for God might be difficult, but maybe the greatest challenge of a leader is, will I actually get my own people to get behind me? Are they just gonna immediately write me off?

And so the tension in the second section has built this difficult investigation, has progress, he has made it there, and then he names all these people, but it leaves you with him standing there saying, I hadn't told anybody yet, I wanted to survey the scene and take it all in, but the question is, will anybody actually get behind me? Last section, the providence of a done deal, verses 17 to 20. First, it seems impossible, then it seems difficult, and then it gets done. Nehemiah convenes the people that were all standing there in verse 16, the same group of people, it goes, he writes, “then I said to them, you see the bad situation that we are in.”

He speaks with an unvarnished honesty, and that has been characteristic of him in this chapter, hasn't it? He didn't give any fluff to Artaxerxes to try to exaggerate the case, nor does he do it with these people that don't know him from anyone. No manipulation, no minimizing of anything. He communicates with a humility befitting a servant of God.

And look what he goes on to say. The most important thing comes at the end. It's not about the situation itself. Jerusalem is desolate and its gates are burned by fire. Then he says, “come let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem.’ And he gives him the motivation.

Because you always have to get to the motivation, the heart, so that we will no longer be a reproach. A reproach before whom? Before the nations who are observing Israel's condition in exile all these years? Before adversaries like Sanballat and Tobiah who mock the God of heaven when his covenant people are scattered?

This matter for Nehemiah was more than just rebuilding city walls; it was the vindication of God's name and His fame and His glory that had long been gone. And I think that tells you a lot about Nehemiah as a leader, that it wasn't about him, it was about God.

And I guess that, to me, as I'm preaching through 1 Samuel, it's just so much of learning from the life of David is coming into my mind. You know, because we all rightly revere David, as it says about him in the Scriptures, “he was a man after God's own heart,” right? And sometimes we ask the question, though, what does it mean to be a man after God's own heart? A woman after God's own heart? It sounds like such a high and, daunting thing to live up to, but I could tell you this, you know, we're now in chapter 26, we've been in it a year, so we're going slow, as you might imagine, verse by verse exposition, and I went into it having never preached it before and saying, who is this David character, and what does it mean that he was a man after God's own heart, and I could say this after a year spent in Samuel. It's that the singular quality of David's heart for God, from the moment he comes on the scene in chapter 16 is this.

For David, it was about always putting God's honor over everything else. It's about, same thing that it's about for Nehemiah. The people of God would no longer be a reproach to the nations around them. The nations that mock the living God. So, when David comes on the scene in chapter 17, And he finally speaks up, and you finally hear him say something. You've been told about him in chapter 16. And then when David comes to the battle lines, and you hear him speak in verse 26, and he asks these soldiers who have been standing around for 40 days and 40 nights, twice a day, for Goliath to come out and do what? Mock the name of Yahweh.

And he shows up here, a man after God's own heart, and he looks and he says, “who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should taunt the armies of the living God?” And then he gets a hearing with Saul in verse 36. He comes to Saul and he says, I'll go out and do it. And he tells Saul, your servant has killed both the lion and the bear and this uncircumcised Philistine. He will be like one of them since he has taunted the armies of the living God. Are you seeing a pattern here in this man after God's own heart? What he really has a problem with deep down. And then he goes out to face the giant.

And he says, “I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have taunted.” Verse 46, “this day the Lord will deliver you into my hands and I will strike you down so that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel.” That's Nehemiah, that's David. These are men, these are leaders, and for all of us, it's an encouragement that when it comes down to being people after God's own heart, first and foremost, is Nehemiah comes before these people and tries to motivate them, and he says, come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem so that we won't be a reproach.

What he's saying is, look, this is bigger than you, this is bigger than me, this is bigger than us. This is about God's glory. In His name being vindicated. Look what he goes on to say in verse 18, “and then he tells them how the hand of my God has been favorable to me.” So, what he's trying to move people with is not some polished plan, he's not some magnetic leader, he doesn't have some slick vision. What moves God's people in this scene is hearing about God's glory being restored and Nehemiah telling them God has already been at work here.

His hand has been favorable to me. And that's my favorite part of this chapter because I think that's what true godly encouragement is about. A great leader helps dispirited saints see the invisible hand of God in the visible mess of their lives. If you want to think about what makes a great leader, and I think you could apply that in any dimension where you are in life, as a parent, as a worker, as a disciple maker, that a mark of a great leader that is moved by the glory of God, he helps dispirited and discouraged saints see the invisible hand of God in the visible mess of their lives, because that starts to get their eyes off of this and up to the God of heaven. That He can work in this thing.

It's back to what Hudson Taylor said, God's work never lacks God's supply. So, Nehemiah points out to them in verse 18 how God's already been at work, prayers have been answered, patience has been rewarded, favor has been granted, courage is being supplied. And our hands, guys, could now get something done because God's hand is with us first. And so, he says this all to them and look at their response at the end of verse 18. Let us arise and build. Just like it seemed so simple back with the king. In verse six, so it pleased the king to send me. It just resolved itself that quickly. Look at verse 18, it resolved itself this quickly for Nehemiah. Then they said in one unison, let us arise and build, and they put their hands to the good work.

The task is not even started. The adversaries we're gonna see in verse 19 and 20 remain present, but the most vital work to endeavoring something for God has already begun because it's begun where? In the heart. It's begun in the heart. Their faith has been strengthened by divine encouragement.

And then, you know, the chapter ends with Sanballat and Tobiah, and now they had Geshem the Arab hear about it, and they come and mock and they despise, and they say, what is this thing that you're doing that you're rebelling against the king? But see, Nehemiah responds to them in person in verse 20 with a grounded and settled conviction. He doesn't hide; he doesn't draw back. He says to them very plainly, the God of heaven. Notice the continuity of faith in Nehemiah's life in this chapter. From always being able to look and see God's favorable hand and now speaking to these enemies, he says, you know, the God of heaven will give us prosperity and success. And we will arise and build.

But then he says to them, how bold of him, but you have no portion right or memorial in Jerusalem. You're being left out of this equation. We're not even factoring you in. Why? Because you have no right to where God is leading his people back to be. God's hand at work gave him some courage. He doesn't sound like the beginning where he was much afraid in this chapter. Now he has been strengthened. He has seen the provision of God that's been a reinforcement to his faith. And nowhere in this chapter did Nehemiah ever put God to the test. In fact, you know, God was testing him because that's how God grows our faith.

And that brings maybe this text home to challenge us just with some questions. These are just some maybe heart-reflective questions for you today. First and foremost, it's always good. I was talking to Kent and Amy about this yesterday, just over breakfast, how it's good to see God's providence in our lives, to look for it in small ways and large, just to encourage us. And it could seem like a small thing when I just said, as Amy and I were talking, VBS, oh, so you did this Emerald Crossing because, you know, Andrew, Ireland, you know, Like, he was behind us, he was like, no, this was just, as we go through the Answers in Genesis VBS curriculum, this was the year that it just so happened to be. It just so happened to be. Well, it may seem small, but those are small providences that add up to what?

Our faith being strengthened, that God is not unaware and detached in a thousand different ways. So maybe it's just good to start, ask yourself today, hey, where's God's good hand of providence and work in my life right now? Second, where is he strengthening your hand through the difficult process of a trial? Even if maybe you've seen Him answering prayer, where could you identify and maybe even use that to share with somebody else to ask them to pray for you, encourage you, where He is strengthening your hand, where you're feeling weak but you're seeing Him, even if there's nothing changing in your circumstances, that He's bringing encouragement to you.

You know, just a month ago, I found myself in a discouraging place. And of all places, I was preparing to preach 1 Samuel 24, a passage that emphasizes God's perfecting through His providence, and yet there I was, personally discouraged. I came into work that Friday. It had been a hard week in our church, and I came in with a heavy heart, and here I was, trying to finish a sermon on encouragement for the congregation. I was inwardly discouraged. And so, I'm sitting there, and it's 8 a.m. in the study, and it's quiet.

And I'm looking at my bookshelves, and there's about 1,000 books. And I just, Lord, help me find something that I could just pull out and draw encouragement from today. And so, for whatever reason, I keep saying, for whatever reason, and we know God's providence is in this, I look over, and I have that section of Puritan paperbacks. And so, I go over and I'm looking and I see a title that, as I'm talking about Providence, I see John Flavel, “The Mystery of Providence.” And I don't know when the last time I had looked at that book, so I pull it out. One book out of a thousand I could have picked. And then I open up to the first page.

And the entirety of his argument in this book on the mystery of providence starts with a verse in Psalm 57. Now if you read the superscript of Psalm 57, guess what part of David's life it has to do with? First Samuel 24. Now I hadn't caught that all week in my study.

So, I'm preparing, and then I pick this book on providence, one out of 1,000, and then 348 years ago, John Flavel decides to write this book based on Psalm 57 too. “I cry out to you, O God most high, the God who accomplishes all his purposes for me.” And I sat there, and before even reading anything into that first chapter, I said, out of 1,000 books I could have picked, And for John Flavel, out of 66 books in the Bible, he could have chose, and out of those 66 books, he picks the Psalms, and out of 150 Psalms, he picks Psalm 57. And then as I'm praising God and thanking him for bringing me to that book that morning to bring me encouragement of the God who accomplishes all his purposes for me, I stop and I say, I wonder what the chances are.

So, I did the math. So, math people, you could check me later. One out of a thousand times one out of 66 times one out of 150 came out to the probability of about one in 9.9 million odds that that would happen because he knew what I needed that day. He knew I needed that encouragement that He was that aware of my life. And He's that aware of your life as well.

Philippians 2, 12 and 13 is a wonderful New Testament passage about seeing both God's hand at work and then our hands going to work. And we'll end there where Paul writes this. So, “then my beloved,” Philippians 2, 12, “just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”

Let's pray.

(Prayer) Father, we thank You this morning for Your Word. We thank You that Your timing is always perfect in our lives. In the case of Nehemiah, all you needed was four more months in his life, and that was enough for him to pray and to fast and for you to answer. And so even this morning, Father, with the saints in this room, there are some who are praying right now for something, and they've been waiting on it, and that they would at least leave here today knowing that you are there and that you care. Maybe there are some in here this morning that have seen Your answer to prayer, but now we're facing an opposition, a difficulty that this text today would encourage them to continue to persevere. And for others who are in here encouraged today who come in and they've seen Your hand at work, that they would then be those who like Jonathan did to David in a time of weakness, he went and he strengthened his hands and the Lord, all these things we know You can do through the power of Your Word and we praise You for it. Amen. (End)

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