Building for Our Future: Overcoming Obstacles

Introduction

We will be making your way to Nehemiah chapter 6, Nehemiah 6. Going to read that text in just a moment. I appreciate your diligence and following me in this three-week journey in the book of Ezra and Nehemiah. I have not left off of preaching from Romans. I just decided I wanted to do these all back to back. And so we’ll come back to Romans 11 at some point in the near future, if you were anxiously awaiting that chapter, which I’m sure many of you were. But I want to begin this morning in Ezra chapter or Nehemiah chapter six. And there’s a lot of text from Ezra and Nehemiah that we could use this morning to talk about where I want to go. And so I’ll probably end up paraphrasing quite a few of these.

But you can see, you know, Ezra 4 is a key chapter. Nehemiah 4 through 6 are pretty key chapters and talking about this idea of overcoming obstacles. And then kind of reading around a lot of that, you can find other great, I think, concepts and principles about this idea of building and about the obstacles that have to be overcome. And Ezra and Nehemiah is just a great story for this sort of thing. We talked before about laying a spiritual foundation. That was a couple weeks ago. And then last week we talked about working together to build as God’s people. And I purposely laid off some comments about obstacles till this week, because I know when to talk about it. And there are quite a few in the text.

And so there’s a lot to talk about here. Can’t even talk about it all this morning, but I’m going to give a general survey of some of what happened in the story and then draw some applications for us, things that we can learn, particularly from Nehemiah and the way he handles some of the obstacles that they dealt with in building the wall. Beginning in Nehemiah chapter 6 and verse 1, it says Now when Sambalat and Tobiah and Geshem the Arab and the rest of our enemies heard that I had built the wall, and that there was no breach left in it, although up to that time I had not set up the doors and the gates. Sambalat and Geshem sent to me, saying, Come, let us meet together at Hakaphiram in the plain of Ono.

But they intended to do me harm. And I sent messengers to them, saying, I am doing a great work, and cannot come down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and come down to you? And they sent to me four times in this way, and I answered them in the same manner. In the same way Sambalat, for the fifth time sent his servant to me with an open letter in his hand. In it was written, It is reported among the nations, and Geshem also says it, that you and the Jews intend to rebel. That is why you are building the wall, and according to these reports, you wish to become their king. And you have also set up prophets to proclaim concerning you in Jerusalem, there is a king in Judah, and now the king will hear of these reports.

So now come and let us take counsel together. Then I sent him, saying, No such things as you say have been done, for you are inventing them out of your own mind. For they all wanted to frighten us, thinking their hands will drop from the work, and it will not be done. But now, O God, strengthen my hands. Now when I went into the house of Shemiah, the son of Deliah, the son of Mehetable, who was confined to his home, he said, Let us meet together in the house of God within the temple. Let us close the doors of the temple, for they are coming to kill you. They are coming to kill you by night. But I said, Should such a man as I run away, and what man such as I could go into the temple and live, I will not go in.

And I understood and saw that God had not sent him, but he had pronounced the prophecy against me, because Tobiah and Sambalat had hired him. For this purpose he was hired, that I should be afraid and act in this way and sin, and so they could give me a bad name in order to taunt me. Remember Tobiah and Sambalat, O my God, according to these things that they did, and also the prophetess Noadiah and the rest of the prophets who wanted to make me afraid. So the wall was finished on the twenty fifth day of the month of Elul in fifty-two days. And when all our enemies heard of it, all the nations around us were afraid and fell greatly in their own esteem. For they perceived that this work had been accomplished with the help of our God.

Moreover, in those days the nobles of Judah sent many letters to Tobiah, and Tobiah’s letters came to them. For many in Judah were bound by oath to him, because he was the son-in-law of Shechaniah, the son of Erah, and his son Jehonahan had taken the daughter of Meshulam, the son of Barakiah as his wife. Also they spoke of his good deeds in my presence, and reported my words to him, and Tobiah sent letters to make me afraid. So I read chapter six because it kind of covers all the general points that I want to make this morning in some way. There are some places within the story that may cover some of these principles or points in a little bit more pointed or direct way, but they’re all present in Nehemiah chapter six.

And so it’s a great chapter to get started with this idea of if we’re building for our future, if we’re trying to lay a spiritual foundation, or trying to work together as God’s people, how are we going to overcome the obstacles that present themselves? One scholar made this statement, which I think is pretty pertinent to what we’re looking at in this text. He says, Opportunity and opposition usually go together. And the greater the opportunity, the greater the opposition. And then he quotes Paul from 1 Corinthians 16 9. For a great and effective door has opened to me, and there are many adversaries. Just the nature of how it works, it seems. Paul has great opportunity, and he has lots of people trying to stand against him.

1. Opposition Is Going to Happen

Ezra, Nehemiah, Zrubbable before that, they have great opportunity. They have a specific calling, like Paul from the Lord, to accomplish very specific goals and purposes. And so this opportunity is great, and yet from the very beginning, there are people presenting themselves as enemies and adversaries of the work that is going on. And so the place to start with this really is just the idea that opposition is going to happen. It’s inevitable. We aren’t going to begin a good work or a great work and just never have any kind of obstacles that get in the way, never have any problems that present themselves, and we just kind of cruise on through and everything goes perfectly fine all the time. That’s just not the nature of how life works.

But it’s certainly not the nature of how those who are opposed to the things of God work. I love chapter 6 of Nehemiah because we see how they’re trying to make the people afraid. They’re jeering at them and they’re mocking them and they’re trying to kind of wiggle their way into this relationship with Nehemiah to threaten him and even harm him physically. And then when we get to the end of the story, kind of get to the end before we go through even the beginning, when Nehemiah accomplishes God’s work, they are greatly afraid.

They see the things of God taking place, and that’s a threat to them. And so their response is to try to threaten the people of God, to mock them, to say their work’s not going to be effective, but then ultimately, when it is, they are the ones who are upset and afraid and worried. And so we see in the story that they are trying to keep God’s people from doing the very thing that then is going to affect them in a negative way because they’ve chosen to work against the will of God. And there’s all sorts of nuances and interesting aspects to what happens in the story, including them sometimes trying to be involved. Right? But Zerubbabel and Nehemiah in particular are a little bit too smart to allow these sorts of things to happen.

Because if you allow the opposition, if you allow the enemy in, and then you give them a say in what’s taking place, you’ve compromised your work. So the very beginning, Zerubel says, you have no right. You have no claim in this. We’re going to build this, and you’re not going to be a part of it. And then in Nehemiah chapter 2, when they hear about what’s going to happen, and Nehemiah has caused the people to be encouraged and to begin to want to rise up and build. Sam Bald and Tobiah, these two evil people, and Geshem, the Arab, they begin mocking and despising God’s people. I love Nehemiah’s response.

We his servants will rise and build, but you have no portion, no right or claim. Essentially, what he says is, this is none of your business. And we’re not interested in what you have to say. That’s a pretty important aspect of where I want to go here in just a few moments, but it’s a good beginning point for this reality that you’re going to have people who oppose great work. When God’s people are trying to do important work and good things, there’s going to be people who stand in the way. What we’re going to see in the text is it’s it’s not always what we might think. It really comes from two different places. There are external obstacles, which is primarily what I’ve pointed out so far, but we’re also going to see there’s some internal problems that also have to be dealt with.

2. Don't Let External Opposition Stop God's Work

Internal obstacles that sometimes may be the bigger problem in completing things or bringing things to completion in our work for God. But I want to start with this idea of external opposition. One of the great things about really it’s inserubable as well, although they have a little trouble with getting the temple built in a timely way, and it takes Haggai and Zachariah to come along and kind of push them to the finish line. But they actually still sort of continue the work, and there’s a lot of kind of bureaucratic things to jump through. They have to send letters and get letters back from the king, and there’s a lot of difficulty there, but they continue to do what God wants them to do, even in the face of a lot of the difficulty, even in the book of Ezra.

Nehemiah doesn’t slow down at all. I mean, he is a very different kind of character. And just as he we pointed out already, he’s not interested in what the enemies have to say or the adversaries. He just doesn’t want to even meet with them. He doesn’t have time for that. And so the point I see from Nehemiah, and what I get from the story, when he has this important work to do is that you don’t let external opposition stop God’s work. You don’t let people on the outside get in the way of accomplishing what God has asked us to do. An author, some of you may have heard of, Gary Thomas, made this statement. When a toxic person is attacking you don’t have to participate.

Sometimes we feel like we have to answer. Or we’ve got to go meet. You know, we got to go work this out. Sometimes the person’s just a complainer. Sometimes they’re jealous. And they’re angry and they’re trying to create problems, and they are not worth the time. And that’s essentially what Nehemiah tells them in our reading this morning in Nehemiah chapter 6. They come over and over and over. They’re sending letters. They’re saying, hey, we want to meet with you. We need to meet about this, Nehemiah. He says, I’m doing a great work and I cannot come down. I’m not interested. Why should I stop? Why should I stop this work and leave it and come down to you? Remember, you have no right, you have no portion, you have no claim.

I’m not interested in what you have to say or your position. You’re on the outside looking in. We have work to do for the Lord, and it doesn’t really matter what you say about it, we’re going to do it. This is what Nehemiah is telling them. Now, this escalates the scenario just a bit because they aren’t going to just quit, even after there are four letters that he rejects. And so as we read through the text, then they sin, which is kind of this kind of bullying move that people like to do. They send an open letter. You know, they’re going to let everybody know. We’re going to send this around to everyone and tell people the things that you are supposedly doing, which I love Nehemiah’s response to that as well.

But it’s interesting the way that they phrase this. They send an open letter in someone’s hand, a servant’s hand, and they say, It is reported among the nations, and Geshem also says it. I wonder who’s reporting this. I think it’s probably Sandbalat and Tobiah. I mean, he mentions Geshem as well. You know, it’s being reported, all these things that you’re doing, as if it’s like other people who are doing this. You know, there’s others who are worried about what you’re doing, Nehemiah. And actually, it’s them. They’re the ones reporting this. He mentions Geshem specifically, who has been mentioned already in the story connected to Samballat and Tobiah. These, this is how it typically works. The ones who are jealous and angry and upset, they’re actually the ones going around spreading all the problems.

They’re the ones who write this open letter and they say, oh, this is going to make it to the king, and we’re gonna everybody else is gonna find out about this. Yes, because you wrote a letter and you’re spreading problems. That’s the whole point. That’s what you’re trying to do. Nehemiah says, No such things as you say have been done, for you are inventing them out of your own mind. So here’s my point. As God’s people in this place, when other people have a lot of things to say or criticisms, or they want to send letters or do whatever they want to do, we have too great a work to be messing around with that. We are too busy and we need to be too busy doing the things of God to play into the inventions of other people’s own minds.

Open letters sent to colleges or sent about preachers or whatever it might be. And really, we have too great a work to get messed up in all that sort of garbage. We have important things to be doing as God’s people in this place to not get distracted by all the noise that’s going on somewhere else. And that’s exactly what Nehemiah is saying here. I don’t have time to meet with you and to deal with your problems. I’ve got stuff that I’m trying to accomplish here for God. We’ve got the Lord’s work that we’re doing here in building this wall. And these people have made it pretty clear over and over again that they’re actually trying to just get in the way. They’re an obstacle to the good work that’s going on.

They’ve already spent time mocking and jeering and threatening. So why would he give time to these people? I know the temptation, and some of this is not always bad that we think very evangelistically, and I think that’s a good thing, right? We want to help somebody see truth or whatever it is, and that’s good, and I’m not against spending some time trying to speak truth or say some things. And I want us to recognize too that Nehemiah, he doesn’t just completely ignore these people and never say anything to them. Right? He does give them answers. It’s just not what they want. They want a lot more, they want more engagement, and he does answer them and say, I don’t have time for you. I have more important things to do.

And so it’s not that we can’t ever give answers or we can’t ever say anything. Sometimes that’s the answer we need to give. What you’re doing is fruitless, worthless work. You’re trying to cause problems and trying to cause division, and that’s not what we’re after. Right? That’s an answer. And say we’re gonna stay busy with working together as God’s people in this place and doing what God has called us to do. That’s an answer. They’re not really owed anymore. They have no right or claim to what’s going on as God’s people in this place and what we’re trying to accomplish. And that’s essentially what Nehemiah is telling these people. Now, I do want you to realize that they have very much tried to involve themselves from the very beginning, all the way back in Ezra.

The first move that was made in all of this, probably the relatives of people like Sam Balat and Tobiah and Geshem, they come to Zerubbabel and Jeshua, and they’re trying to convince them. They say, Let us, this is Ezra chapter 4 in verse 2 let us build with you. For we worship your God as you do, and we have been sacrificing to him ever since the days of Esher Hidon, king of Assyria, who brought us here. And Zerubbabel and Jeshua say, You have nothing to do with us in building a house to our God. We alone will build to the Lord. They’re not interested in them being involved in this because they know they’re going to cause problems. Right? So their first ploy was to try to get involved, to try to work their way in and create problems from the inside.

And where we’re headed here in a little bit is just the idea of good judgment and discernment. And we see Zerubable Jeshua and Nehemiah, especially living with good discernment in the decisions that they’re making, seeing through the manipulation and the sorts of things that some of these people are trying to do, so that they’re not weighed down by unnecessary things around them as they’re trying to accomplish very important things for the Lord. And so we have to realize that the external opposition is going to be there, and we need to be prepared for it. The New Testament talks about this frequently. All who live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. There’s going to be people who work against us. Even in a passage like Ephesians chapter 6, which has some similarities in some ways here, it’s talking about us taking up the whole armor of God.

Right? And we see this in the story in a physical way. They arm themselves, they are prepared for the enemy. And Paul’s making a similar tight point, you need to prepare for these battles with cosmic evil and darkness. It would be a very immature sort of decision to think, well, I’ll worry about it when I get there.

Sometimes it’s actually not even anything that’s evil, which that gets a bit tricky. In chapter 5, which I may have more to say about this later. In chapter 5, there is a statement here, the people cry out to Nehemiah, and there’s some other issues going on as well, but it is exasperated by the fact that there’s a famine. So sometimes there’s just things out of our control from the outside that present opposition or obstacles to doing our work. And so if we wait for a convenient time to get involved or to do things, that’s just not going to happen. There’s always going to be something standing in the way. Here with these people, and they’ve got other issues going on too that Nehemiah addresses, but sometimes it’s just the things of life that happen, like a famine or some problem in the world around us that’s going to present some obstacle to us trying to accomplish God’s will.

And so I don’t really want to spend a lot more time there. And I think we have a lot of that around us in the world. Just incorrect philosophy, a lot of immortal behavior and actions and temptations that are brought on from worldliness. But I really think the bigger issue here in the story of Nehemiah is the way that the external influences infiltrate and cause problem on the inside. And maybe that is what deserves a little bit more attention. Warren Wearsby says Nehemiah would soon discover that his biggest problem was not the enemy on the outside, but the compromisers on the inside. A problem the church still faces today. Weirsby, you may know, has written kind of these commentaries on all the books of the Bible, so he’s written some on Ezra and Nehemiah, and there’s some great things he has to say there, but I think there’s a real accuracy to what he’s talking about here.

A lot of times we see or we recognize the external, the direct external influences, like the sandballots and the tobias. But unfortunately, they also work below the surface. They have influence in people’s personal lives. And this begins to surface and show up just as we read in Nehemiah chapter six in ways that may not be as obvious or direct.

3. Internal Obstacles: Fear and Discouragement

There’s really kind of two sorts of obstacles, I think, within the community. One is that people are afraid and discouraged. And that is caused by the direct influence of those external influences very often. But there’s also those who are influenced and compromised. And so I want to talk about both of those as we kind of work forward in the book and continue on. The first of these in the internal struggles is the idea of fear, discouragement, and I’m going to have another point in just a minute that deals with this other concept of the influence. So we’ll get there. But I want to start with the idea of the people who are afraid. In both stories, in building the temple and then building the wall, the people become discouraged.

You know, there’s building that’s happening.

They lay the foundation and good things are happening with the temple. Or they begin the work on the wall, and this good work is taking place. But somewhere along the way, people start to doubt. And they begin to have fears, they’re made afraid by these external influences. And so I think that the idea I get from Nehemiah is that the way we face those is with grace and with compassion. All of us have times in our life where we doubt or we have fears. Nehemiah is an extraordinary leader. Because he’s just an exceptional man in so many ways, and yet he still shows compassion for the people as they struggle through this. We’re so far removed.

I mean, when you’re talking about a group of people who’ve moved to this area, a lot of them aren’t even within the city yet, and there’s no wall. They’re completely exposed to the surroundings. I mean, from a security and protection standpoint, not very great. And so you can understand why there would be a lot of fear, especially when these rulers beyond the river all around them are saying, We’re going to come and we’re going to kill you by night. Probably most of us have never worried about that. I mean, maybe. Maybe have you ever been late at night where you kind of get up and you lock your door, and you’re like, just in case someone comes in, I want to make sure I hear that door rattle, or something like that.

I mean, we’ve got little fears and all that. But I mean, this is life for them. Nomadic people would wander around and they would raise cities and enslave the people. I mean, this is a regular type of incurrence in the ancient world. Not a very peaceful existence. And they’re in this city without a whole lot of protection. And they certainly have some concerns. Now people are beginning to threaten them and say they’re going to come and attack. And so in Nehemiah 4, verse 10, it says, In Judah, it was said, so this is kind of this widespread, right? Things, it’s like the Israelites when they start to grumble, you know, when they’re in the wilderness. This is how things happen. This can happen in a church, too.

You know, some grumbling start happening and it starts to spread. And then in Judah, it’s said, right? This is kind of going everywhere. The strength of those who bear the burden is failing. There’s too much rubble by ourselves, we will not be able to rebuild the wall. I mean, isn’t that pretty relatable? I just in just thinking about this story, and I’m I have no experience in wall building or ancient cities, other than seeing some of them as I’ve traveled in the holy lands. I’ve seen some cities, and so I at least have that concept. But just with that information, I’m like, man, that would be hard. I mean, that’s a lot. You got all this rubble everywhere, and you’ve got to rebuild this wall all the way around the city.

Now, some of you are way better at that sort of thing than I am. I’ve already told you that in the past. I just can’t imagine building walls around an entire city. That’s a lot of work. And they’re starting to feel the pressure. They’re saying we’re too weak. There’s just too much rubble. It’s too falling apart. We can’t do this, Nehemiah. And we certainly can’t do it by ourselves. Which I think Nehemiah would agree with.

But what he does here is, in patience, I think, and with compassion, he kind of stirs their mind to the purpose of what they’re doing. He reminds them of why they’re doing this. Right? Probably one of the passages you may be more familiar with in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah when he responds to this complaint. And sometimes complaints are legitimate. I want to make that clear. It’s not always that the complaints are not legitimate. It’s just it can be bill, it can build and it can spread. And Nehemiah realizes that he’s got to take care of it. And so he gathers the people, the nobles, the officials, all the people, and says, do not be afraid. I’ve got a plan. That’s where he’s headed. So he’s going to give them some confidence.

Do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord who is great and awesome. And fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your homes. Remember why we’re doing what we’re doing. That’s the message. Remember who it is you’re doing this for, and all the things he’s done before, and how he’s taken care of his people in the past. That’s where he starts. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome. And here’s the plan. We’re going to have everybody come together, and half the people are going to work on the wall, and the other half are going to be prepared for battle. They’re going to hold weapons and they’re going to be ready for if anything happens. And everybody’s going to sleep within the city walls, and we’re all going to help protect each other.

No, this isn’t a sermon about leadership, but there’s a lot of great leadership stuff within Ezra and Nehemiah. This is one of them. But the way he comforts fears is not by being ugly and mean and saying, I can’t believe you’re afraid. I can’t believe you would complain about anything. That’s not the way Nehemiah addresses this. And we’re going to see this as a habit of his. He listens to the things that they’re struggling with, and then he finds a way to answer it in an understanding and compassionate way. And he’s going to do all this with integrity. We see in the next story that the people are complaining again. I already mentioned the famine. This problem is a big one because of the famine, and it exposes a deeper issue, which is that the nobles and officials, which has been happening in Israel since before the exile, are taking advantage of the little people.

And so now, much like in Egypt, they’re crying out, and Nehemiah hears their cries. Again, he listens, he’s understanding. He confronts the nobles and officials and says, Hey, other people have oppressed us, but now you are oppressing our people. Why are you doing that? He doesn’t just ignore their concerns and overlook them. Sometimes complaints are legitimate. Just involves discernment and judgment. That’s what leaders have to do. And they lead by serving as well. Nehemiah says in the latter part of chapter 5 that although he could have taken his portion, he doesn’t. The governor’s portion, for twelve years, he doesn’t take all that he could. Here’s why. He says the service was too heavy on this people. He realizes the struggle and the difficulty and how much he’s asking of them, and he’s not going to take even what he could have taken.

4. Influenced by Worldly Thinking and Connections

He took what was needed. He took care of the people he had to take care of in his house, but he didn’t take everything he could have, just like the previous people who had done, who had oppressed the people. And so he’s leading by sacrificing himself and showing people what is more important, not his needs, but working for the purposes of the Lord. The second one of these is about the influence and the relationships and connections of the people on the inside.

God’s people can be influenced by worldly thinking and connections. We can’t be naive about that. Nehemiah, I don’t know if he always did this, but certainly in the stories we’re told, he sees through the manipulation and the bad motives. He is aware. I want to talk maybe about why he’s able to do some of this here in just a few moments. But in chapter 6, we’re given a few stories here actually of struggles on the inside. He goes to Shemiah, and it appears the prophets. I don’t know if Shemiah’s connected to the prophets or how all of these things work, but they’re mentioned together in this story. And Shemiah is trying to convince him to run to the temple in fear. And Nehemiah won’t do it.

And of course, he eventually figures out that it’s because Tobiah and Sambalat have hired him. Now, the more nuanced and difficult one is in the next part of the story where it says, it talks about building the wall, but then it says in verse 17 of Nehemiah 6, the nobles of Judah sent many letters to Tobiah, and Tobiah’s letters came to them. For many of them were bound by oath to him. Man. They’re bound to the enemy. Somehow they have worked into relationship with the adversary. And now it is affecting those on the inside. Fortunately, Nehemiah stands against it and he’s aware. But it’s no wonder why it had been 70 plush years since the wall had been constructed, and why at times the temple lay for years and years without going anywhere.

When you have your officials and your priests who were in league with your adversaries, that presents some big problems. But particularly interesting is verse 19. Have you ever experienced this, you know, in relationships and situations you’ve been in? It’s kind of humorous to me the way Nehemiah points this out in verse 19. You know, they’re married in. We’re going to see later on in the book, you’ll read about how the problem with intermarriage and how that’s created chaos within God’s people. But here he says, also they spoke of his good deeds in my presence. Have you ever had that happen? Somebody that you know is trouble. But there’s some connection between this person here and this person, and they want to tell you the good things they’ve done.

They’re trying to paint a little bit better picture. We know who Tobiah and Sam Ballot are. We’re given that information. We know they jeer and they mock at the things of God. They’re not interested in what God actually wants to accomplish. But the problem is these people who are on the inside have allowed themselves to be influenced by the outside. To such a degree that they begin speaking positively about the outside. They want to make sure that Nehemiah knows they do some good things. But Nehemiah is not buying it. He doesn’t fall into their deception. And so the warning for all of us is to not allow worldly influence into our hearts and into our minds and into the work of God’s kingdom. Do we find ourselves trying to please the world around us?

What will people say if we do such and such? That’s compromise. What will the world think of us if we don’t do this? Or we do that. I’ll tell you what Nehemiah would say about that. Who cares what they think? We’re going to do a great work. And we’re not interested in what the sandballots and the tobias of the world say. Are we concerned with looking out of touch or old-fashioned or unscientific or unenlightened? Are we worried about what other churches or preachers will say? Beware of alliances and influences. And what they do to damage, divide, to present obstacles for good work that’s happening in God’s kingdom. So how do we do this? Nehemiah, throughout the whole story, I’m just going to give you a few things to think about, and then we’ll be done.

5. How Nehemiah Has Judgment and Discernment

I’m going to talk about how Nehemiah goes about having judgment and discernment in these situations, at least from what we can tell. Nehemiah is a man of prayer. I mean, from the beginning of the story all the way up to where we’re talking about, even as he’s narrating the events, he’s constantly stopping and addressing God in prayer. Maybe one of the famous accounts of prayer that’s used frequently, right? Like you can pray in just a moment, right before he talks to the king. He says, I stop and I prayed, and then he starts talking to the king. Like that’s the point you’ve heard, right? Like you can pray in one second. Nehemiah does that here. And just it’s all throughout. He’s he’s praying for God’s favor.

He’s praying for God’s judgment on these enemies and the adversaries who are creating problems for God’s people and God’s work. Just over and over again in the story, he continues to stop and to pray. One of the great lines in this story, and just in chapter five, and I think I know this can help me. Maybe it can help you. He’s hearing about the injustice that’s taking place within God’s people. He says, I was very angry when I heard their outcry and these words. I took counsel with myself. He didn’t need other people. He just needed some time to stop and to think and to meditate, and I’m sure pray, because that’s what we see him doing all throughout the story. And sometimes we need those moments to take counsel with ourselves and make sure we’re not being influenced by the voices around us.

Nehemiah knows that some of the nobles, some of the priests, he knows some of these people are compromised. And he has to be careful what he’s listening to and the voices he’s hearing. And it’s not even necessarily that they’re bad people. Sometimes very good people can begin to be influenced because of their alliances to the world. This is why Paul says to not be unequally yoked to the world. It affects us in ways that sometimes we don’t realize.

And so Nehemiah at times had to stop and to meditate.

He trusted in God and in God’s favor to accomplish the good work that he had set out to do. And so the first thing he did is he trusted God, no matter what was going on around him in the world, and he prayed. That’s what he did first. And he does it throughout the whole story. The second thing is he refuses to act out of fear. Or to be reactive. Right? Shechaniah says, hey, come to the temple. They’re going to try to kill you. You know, a lot of us, probably maybe I would have been this way too. I don’t know. We’d be like, oh man, I gotta get out of here. I’ve got to take care of myself. And we would quickly find shelter or security.

Nehemiah is not going to react out of fear. That’s exactly what they want him to do. Because they want to smear his name. And they know that the people are afraid. And so if the leader then becomes afraid, then they can overtake them. And so as God’s people doing God’s work, I think we need to be committed to the idea of not reacting in fear. And there are a lot of opportunities to do that if we’ll allow it. A lot of obstacles to being with God’s people and doing God’s things. We’ve seen some of them in recent years. Where we can react in fear rather than faith and trust in God. And the third of these, I’m going to borrow a phrase from Jesus himself in Matthew 10 16 be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.

We aren’t supposed to be naive. We need to be aware. And we need to live in an upright and godly and righteous way. Even in a world that is perverse and chaotic and ungodly. And sadly, sometimes those things can even happen on the inside. That’s what Nehemiah finds, right?

Oh, the priests wouldn’t do anything wrong. The nobles would never do anything wrong. Nehemiah is not naive. He is discerning.

But he’s also upright. And so we kind of meld these ideas together. But the last point is the idea of dealing with internal problems and conflicts with integrity and with compassion. This is what Nehemiah does. He understands the problem, but he’s not going to compromise.

Conclusion

And so to the extent that all of us can commit to some of those ideals, the idea of praying and trusting. The concept of not acting out of fear. And the idea of being observant, being wise. We can avoid many problems, whether external or internal, as we’re trying to lay a foundation for our kids and for our families and for this congregation, as we’re trying to work and grow together. And remember our purpose. We talked about Ephesians 4 last time, that God has given us all these gifts, including evangelists and shepherds, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry. Until we all attain the unity of the faith. Right? That’s the goal. That we’re all workers and that we’re all coming together in unity to build in the Lord’s kingdom.

Maybe this morning you realize you need to be a part of that. I hope you do if you haven’t already. And you see the beautiful thing that God has done in bringing his people together and forming congregations like this in his wisdom for people to be encouraged and uplifted to do God’s work where they are, where they live. And if you know you need that, we want to help you. If you’ve not been baptized into Christ, that’s the place to start. Give your life to Jesus Christ, become his. Begin as a worker in his kingdom, doing his things, no longer focused on the things of the world, influenced by the philosophies and the ideas of the world. That’s where the New Testament goes with a lot of this.

But focusing on accomplishing things for the glory of God. Can we help you do that? Why don’t you come as we stand and we sing?