Nehemiah: Perseverance, Flexibility, and Gospel

Well, before Easter and before Lent, we were going through the book of Nehemiah.

We had gone through Nehemiah 1, 2, 3, and then we hit Lent and we did Easter.

So we're back in Nehemiah today.

We're in Nehemiah chapter 4.

Nehemiah 4 · chapter mention

If you remember, Nehemiah lived in Susa, about a thousand miles from Jerusalem.

And he heard that the walls around Jerusalem were broken down.

This meant a lot to him as a Jewish person because Jerusalem was the center of his faith.

And so his city, the center of his faith, was vulnerable.

And so he decided he was going to do something about this.

Now here's what we had learned so far.

The book of Nehemiah takes place at the end of the period called the Exile in the Old Testament.

God's people had been conquered and had been taken away by other nations out of their own land into foreign lands.

And in time, people began to return back to this homeland, return back to Jerusalem.

And so here's a little bit of a timeline.

539 BC before Christ BC, King Cyrus of Persia defeats Babylon.

And the first wave of Israelites begin to return to Israel, and the people begin to rebuild the temple.

458 BC, Ezra, that's the book right before Nehemiah, before Nehemiah, is sent to Israel and begins to restore worship in the temple.

And then in 445 BC, we get Nehemiah is sent to Jerusalem to rebuild these walls.

That's where we're at.

Last summer we went with my college roommate's family up to his lake cabin in North Carolina.

Both family, tons of kids, out in the mountains, beautiful lake.

We arrived late afternoon, and as soon as we get there, my buddy's like, hey, we have time before dinner.

Let's go down to the boat, let's put the kids on some tubes.

Here's a picture of this beautiful lake up on North Carolina, some kiddos on tubes, beautiful, beautiful lake.

He's like, Oh, we got time to go down the lake before dinner.

We can go down, we can have fun.

So off we go, all the kids on the tubes, we're zooming, swinging them back and forth, launching them into the risking major injury to our children, the people we love the most in the world.

But as dads, it's like we gotta launch them.

How you know how far?

Can we hurt them?

Let's not hurt them too bad.

Let's hurt them a little.

And so we work our way all the way down the lake, and then we can see, and then the picture, you kind of see the clouds way down there.

Well, we didn't notice those clouds way down at the end of the lake.

And we get down there, it's like, oh, this is a major storm coming up.

So we're just like, all right, we gotta turn around, we gotta haul back.

And a wall of rain just started to chase us down.

Have you ever had a wall of rain chase you down?

And like you're a little kid, make it home.

And a wall of rain was just chasing us down, it caught up to us, and at first it was rain, it was like, oh, this is fun, and then and then it became hail, and like it was like it was like a somebody shooting you with a paintball gun, but like over and over and over.

So everybody in the boat's under under towels, curled up.

Uh the kids on the tubes are they're in fetal position, like in their life jackets, just trying to wait this thing out.

Just this huge storm.

And that feels like life a little bit.

That's a good metaphor for life.

The the mix of amazing, beautiful, and horrible.

Right?

A day on the lake, beautiful, amazing, and then hailstorm.

You have something you want to do, good grades, college, a better job, you know, a great church, investments, retirement, a garden.

Uh, you want to have a loving marriage, you want to have uh children who are reasonably kind and responsible in the world.

Like you want to have it, so you set out amazing, beautiful, and then hailstorm, right?

It life is that's what life's like.

It has this combination of amazing, beautiful, and a hail storm and something horrible.

Nehemiah 4 gives us the brutal truth, but it is a truth, that as soon as you start on a meaningful path, whatever that path is, if it is meaningful, Nehemiah shows us you will face obstacles.

It's just gonna happen.

It's the way that the world works.

Nehemiah 4.

We're gonna work our way through this entire chapter.

We're gonna read all of it in three different sections.

Nehemiah 1 through 6.

Now, when Sambalat heard that we were building the wall, he was angry.

All right, so we got some opposition here.

He was angry and greatly enraged, and he jeered at the Jews.

And he said in the presence of his brothers in the army of Samaria, What are these feeble Jews doing?

Will they restore it for themselves?

Will they sacrifice?

Will they finish up in a day?

Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish and burn ones at that?

Tobiah the Ammonite was beside him.

And he said, What are they what are they building?

If a fox goes up on the wall, he will break down their stone wall.

Hear, O God, for we are despised.

Turn back their taunt on their own heads, and give them up to be plundered in a land where they are captives.

Do not cover their guilt, and let not their sin be blotted out from your sight, for they have provoked you to anger in the presence of the builders.

So we built the wall.

And all the wall was joined together to half its height, for the people had a mind to work.

So point number one is this every meaningful purpose will have obstacles.

Right?

The jeers are coming.

Will they actually do it?

Will they work hard enough?

Do they have any idea what they're actually trying to pull off?

And Nehemiah teaches us expect the storm.

Expect the obstacle.

If you're attempting anything meaningful, anything meaningful in your life, expect an obstacle.

Don't panic when it happens.

It's part of the process.

It's just going to exist.

Point number two, we do not give in to obstacles.

We pray and work through the obstacles.

We can just look at the text.

Verses four and five, the obstacles show up.

Verses four and five, they pray.

When the journey gets tough, they pray.

And then verse six, they get back to work.

But when they get back to work, they're trusting in a source of strength outside of themselves.

I love verse six.

So we built the wall.

It's like an obstacle, you know.

Oh man, this is looking bad.

We're getting tired, it's not looking good.

These people are, you know, belittling us.

You know, you can feel the momentum coming down, the motivation come down.

And so let's stop, let's remember where our strength is.

Let's pause, slow down enough to remember where our strength comes from.

You pray, and you're all right, back to work.

Let's get back to work.

So we built the wall.

These people had perseverance.

Listen to New Testament verses about perseverance.

Perseverance for doing good.

Galatians 6, 9.

And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap if we do not give up.

Perseverance produces character and hope.

Romans 5, 3 through 5.

Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings.

Now why would we do that?

Knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character.

Character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

And last one, perseverance because of Christ's promises.

Philippians 1, 6.

And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

Now, back to Nehemiah 4.

We're going to see how all this connects.

How does our perseverance and lack of perseverance, or where do we turn when we lack perseverance?

How's all this tie together?

Nehemiah 4, 7 through 13.

But when Sambalat and Tobiah and the Arabs and the Ammonites and the Ashadites heard that the repairing of the walls of Jerusalem was going forward and that the breaches were beginning to be closed, they were very angry.

And they all plotted together to come and fight against Jerusalem and to cause confusion.

We tried like making fun of them.

Alright, we're done with that.

Now we're actually gonna go, we're gonna fight them.

Verse 9.

And we prayed to our God and set a guard as a protection against them day and night.

So that was the response of the Israelites.

Pray, we're gonna set a guard.

Verse 10.

In Judah, it was said, the strength of those who bear the burden is failing.

There is too much rubble.

By ourselves we will not be able to rebuild the wall.

So they're getting tired.

Verse 11.

And our enemy said, They will not know or see till we come among them and kill them and stop the work.

At that time the Jews who lived near them came from all directions and said to us, ten times, you must return to us.

So in the lowest parts of the space, behind the wall and open places, I stationed the people by their clans with their swords, their spears, and their bows.

So point number three is this we work hard, remembering the Lord.

In this section of the text, it says they're getting tired.

They're about halfway through.

And they're just starting to get tired, right?

Have you ever made it halfway through something meaningful?

There's just a point where you get tired.

There's a point where the obstacle is your own weariness.

And these people are losing heart.

And their enemies see that and decide to take force.

So what do they do?

What do the people do when they're losing heart?

They're under threat.

Verse 9 is their first response they have.

And we prayed to our God.

So prayer.

And then they do something, and we set a guard for protection.

So pray and get back to work.

Pray, set a guard.

And Nehemiah gives them encouragement along the way in verse 14.

He said, he looks at them and he says, 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.

So we pray, we work hard, and then we fight.

And we do all this remembering that we don't have to be afraid, because we have a source of strength beyond ourselves.

Last passage, verses 15 through 23.

When our enemies heard that it was known to us and that God had frustrated their plan, we all returned to the wall, each to his work.

From that day on, half of my servants worked on construction, and half held the spears, shields, bows, and coats of mail.

And the leaders stood behind the whole house of Judah who were building the wall.

Those who carried burdens were loaded in such a way that each labored on the work with one hand and held his weapon in the other, and each of the builders had his sword strapped at his side while he built.

The man who sounded the trumpet was beside me.

And I said to the nobles and the officials of the rest of the people, The work is great, widely spread out, we're separated on the wall, far from one another, and the place where you hear the sound of the trumpet, rally to us there, our God will fight for us.

So we labored at the work, and half of them held the spears from the break of dawn until the stars came out.

I also said to the people at that time, let every man and his servant pass the night within Jerusalem, and that they may be a guard for us by night and may labor by day.

So neither I, nor my brothers, nor my servants, nor the men of the guard who followed me, none of us took off our clothes.

Each kept his weapon at his right hand.

Point number four is this accomplishing anything meaningful will require flexibility.

In this text, we constantly see Nehemiah adjusting his strategy.

Vision is set, but the strategy is adjusting based on the situation.

This week I learned, maybe you didn't know this, I learned the most flexible person in the world is a 16-year-old in England.

Her name is Liberty Barrows.

Here's a picture of Liberty Barrows.

She actually, last year, real picture, that's all her same body, believe it or not, just curled up.

Last year, she's at the Guinness Brook of World Records for most splits in a minute.

That's amazing.

She can contort herself in all sorts of ways, adjust her body as she desires.

The advantage, of course, to flexibility, of any level of flexibility, is that you can adapt to a new situation.

Now, me, I got like hip flexor things going on, I got a shoulder thing, I got planar fasciitis in my left foot.

Anybody else got planar fasciitis?

We're all gonna get it.

If you're over 40, you're gonna get planar fasciitis at some point, and we can talk about inserts, we can talk about inserts later on.

I can talk to you about it.

Half of my life's just stretching, like just stretching to prepare to be normal, right?

As we grow, we become more rigid physically, emotionally, practically.

This is true in organizations, it's true in businesses, it's true in churches.

But to be healthy, we have to remain flexible.

And in our home, my wife over and over and over again says all the time flex or die, flex or die, flex or die, right?

Because we have to be adaptable to new situations and new people.

If not, if we just remain rigid, there's a death to that.

There's an inability to adjust.

Vision stays the same, but we're adapting along the way.

And that's what we see Nehemiah doing.

Nehemiah keeps the same vision, build the wall, build the wall.

He is laser focused on his vision.

It is not up for debate.

Nobody's gonna detour him.

He is there to motivate these people, strategize to build the wall.

That strategy is changing over time based on the situation and the scenario.

Here's what we say.

Let's sum it up this way.

They are reliant on God as the source of their strength.

They are committed to work hard.

These people have perseverance, these people have grit, they get back to work.

And then lastly, they are flexible in a new strategy for the same vision.

And whatever that vision is for you.

Godly marriage, great kids, great career, whatever the meaningful thing is, we pray, source of strength, get back to work, get flexible along the way.

And those are great lessons.

I just gave you some great lessons.

Aren't they good?

You're like, I'm ready, I'm ready to go accomplish something in the world.

And it's a gr that's a great set of lessons.

Like it is true, it is good, you should set yourself on it.

There's one big problem with it, and that is us.

We are the problem.

Because we don't always want to turn to God for strength.

We really enjoy doing stuff on our own, apart from God.

We don't want to turn to Him.

We usually overwork and become workaholics, or we underwork and we're lazy.

And we're much more easily rigid and stubborn than we are flexible and open.

So we're sinners, is what we would say.

We're self-centered and we don't tend to turn to God.

We're prone to wander.

So what do we do?

Well, the good thing about Nehemiah is Nehemiah is a story that gives us some lessons, but if that's all it is, it's just a moral teaching.

But it's a story in set in a bigger story, the story of the gospel.

And that's where Nehemiah points us into the New Testament, where the new Jerusalem is us, the church.

And we get to remember and reflect on just as Nehemiah is set to work on these walls in this Jerusalem, Jesus is at work in us, committed to us.

Set vision, laser focus on repairing us and restoring us.

If you remember back in Nehemiah 3, we talked about how the word repair is used 35 times in chapter 3.

Repair is the Hebrew word kazak, meaning to make firm or strong.

It has the idea of strengthening, encouraging, or making something strong.

One of my favorite shows is this old house.

Do you all remember this old house on PBS?

It's the OG home renovation show.

Like before Chip and Joanna, like before Hometown, that's the new one.

Hometown's the new one.

Like this is the original one.

It's not like one house in one show.

No, no, no, no, no.

We're not doing that.

It's one house for like 50 episodes.

And you are painfully detailed going through the entire house.

We're in season 46.

They're restoring a historic Massachusetts home that burned.

Here's a picture of the home.

They are presently restoring this burned up, broken down home.

And you could see that, and you could say, you know what?

If I'm honest, I kind of feel like that.

Or you definitely have felt like that at some point.

Just like the whole insides of you are sort of like burned up, broken down, worn down.

And they're gonna go step by step to restore that house back to beauty.

They have a vision and they have a plan for that house.

And they're gonna go step by step.

But as they do it, do you know what will happen?

And I know because I've watched so many of these seasons.

Problems.

Obstacles.

Right?

They just are.

Problem after problem, obstacle after obstacle, and what they're gonna do is they're gonna figure it out, they're gonna adapt, they're gonna be flexible, they're gonna get back to work.

And the house will go from broken to beautiful.

Here's another picture of a house in that same area of our country up in Massachusetts.

The house will eventually, this season, the house we're working on right now, will eventually become as beautiful as that.

It will be repaired.

Now, why do we keep loving shows like this?

Right?

I mean, these shows are on repeat.

I mean, it started with this old house in the 80s.

But like these shows are on repeat.

Chip and Joanna, Hometown, there'll be another one after Hometown.

Aaron and Ben will go away and we'll get a new couple, right?

Like over and over and over.

Why do we we love to see the broken repaired?

Our hearts long for restoration.

Our hearts long for the burned up, broken down parts of ourselves to be restored.

We are people who want redemption.

Now Nehemiah asks us this question: as we are the new Jerusalem that Jesus is working on, how can we, as people, be repaired from our broken parts?

How do we as people become strong?

How do we become people who could persevere?

And point number five is this Jesus repairs us, He rebuilds, restores, and protects us.

See, Jesus persevered through prayer when the obstacles hit.

Jesus prayed for strength.

He turned to the source of strength.

He remained vigilant when opposition to obstacles arose.

He did not shrink back.

He stood firm, he had his vision, and he never made a single mistake along the way.

And he finished the work on the cross.

So that he might be at work in us, so that we might be redeemed even before we're perfect.

But by his grace.

And he's at work in us.

Listen to Colossians 2, 6 and 7.

Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him.

So don't walk in wonderful, good lessons that put you to work.

As good as they are.

We're going to use them.

We want to use them.

But that's not where we rest our hearts.

We walk in Jesus, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

Right?

Twice in those verses, in him, not in our performance.

In him.

So we receive Christ and we walk in Christ.

We don't walk in our own great words.

That's an expression that we are in Christ.

He is rooting us, he is building us, he is establishing us.

Here's how we could say it to summarize.

Nehemiah shows us something about perseverance.

That's wonderful.

Let's learn it.

Let's embrace it.

Nehemiah shows us something about perseverance and then points us to Jesus, our forever gate, and he is our walls of protection.

If you have a question about this sermon or you would like prayer for anything, a pastor will be down front afterwards.

I'd love to speak to you.

Let's pray together.

Heavenly Father, we're so grateful for these lessons of perseverance.

Help us all the more to turn to you for strength, to confess and it meet our need.

Help us to get back to work.

Help us to become people who have work and proper placement.

That we don't overwork, but we don't underwork, but we're people of grit and perseverance who know how to get things done.

And help us to be flexible along the way.

And in all the ways we fail at those things, thank you for Jesus.

That He perfectly turned to you, He perfectly persevered, and He accomplished the work on the cross, that all of our sins and inabilities are forgiven, and we are righteous in your sake.

Help us to be people of redemption.

Help us to walk in you, rooted and built up in you as a new Jerusalem.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.