Ordinary People, Extraordinary Purpose - Nehemiah 1:1-2:8 (Sept 22) Myles Holmes

Hello and welcome to the Redemption Church Podcast.

We're a church in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada that exists to glorify God for the fulfillment of the Great Commission.

The spirit of the Great Commandment.

Thanks for joining us today.

Let's turn to the Lord in prayer.

Father, we bow before you, and God, we thank you that you are God who loves to speak to us.

And God, we take a great privilege to open up your word and to have copies of your words in our hands, Lord.

And God, we pray for your help.

Lord, we confess how often we fail to live according to your word, how often we fail to live up to the standard that you have set for us, Lord.

We confess it's impossible.

God, we thank you for Jesus Christ.

Thank you for the redemption we have in him.

Thank you for all the truth that we sang this morning, that truly his name is powerful.

It is beautiful.

And so, Lord, we thank you that he is here with us.

God, we thank you that you have a work you want to do in our lives this morning.

God, there's a purpose to be here.

And you have a word to give to us.

And so, Lord, we your servants, we say, speak, Lord.

Speak, your servants are listening.

We're ready for the transformation that happens when we gaze at the glory of Jesus Christ.

Lord, do a work in our midst, we pray.

I pray this all in the name of your son.

Amen.

Amen.

Purpose.

We love purpose in this society.

In fact, you could go on YouTube right now and type in purpose, and you would find, I'm sure, a lot of really motivating videos with great quotes about finding your purpose and the key to happiness through finding your purpose.

I looked some up this morning just to maybe tease your appetite.

Maybe you want to go home this afternoon, listen to some of those YouTube videos.

Well, here's what Buddha said about purpose.

Your purpose in life is to find your purpose and give your whole life to it.

Many of us are familiar with Steve Jobs in 2005, he had a commencement address that became pretty famous at Stanford, and there he said this have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.

They somehow know what you want to become.

And under both of these quotes, and really a lot of the quotes that you'll find surrounding purpose in our culture, is this idea that discovering your purpose and then living according to it is really the key to a fulfilled life.

And that the way to find your purpose is by looking inward and uncovering something that is already hidden there and is entirely different than the person you're sitting beside this morning.

Well, this morning, what God wants to do is step into that conversation.

Step into that pursuit of purpose that you and I are constantly on and speak to our true purpose.

Here's the issue: you and I weren't made for our own purpose, for our own passions, but for something far, far greater than that.

Augustine said this, speaking to God, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.

I don't wonder if this morning there are some of us here who can sympathize with that restlessness of heart that comes when our pursuit of purpose isn't aligned with the purpose for which God created us.

What I want you to understand this morning in God's word, and especially in the story of Nehemiah, is that God created you for something far bigger than building your own mini kingdom and fulfilling your own personal purpose.

God this morning, he calls us to an eternal purpose.

He calls us to turn off the show that is our life in which we are the main character and has a beginning time of our birth date and an end time of the day that we'll die.

And he calls us to tune into his show in which he is the main character and we are just background actors, and this show began in eternity past and it goes on to eternity future.

God's calling us to something so much more extraordinary than we could ever find and discover in ourselves.

It is the establishment of his kingdom.

In the book of Nehemiah, we find a man who lived for something far greater than his own personal purpose, even though Nehemiah really, you know, when it came to personal purpose and you know motivating lives, Nehemiah in the history of Israel was really a man who we would look to for encouragement.

He would be like the Steve Jobs among us.

He was a man who was really doing something for himself.

In fact, he was serving as the cupbearer to the most powerful man of the time, King of Persia, King Artaxerxes.

It meant he bore a lot of influence as the cupbearer.

Imagine this.

He got to taste the wine and taste the food before the king to make sure it wasn't poisoned.

You say, that's a horrible job.

I don't want that job at all.

And yet, in this day and age, this was one of the most powerful positions.

You were a trusted person.

Nehemiah could have written biographies, what it was like to live in what was the White House of the Persian Empire.

But even in the presence of the most powerful ruler alive, Nehemiah had his eyes set on another kingdom.

He was living for a greater purpose.

That's why we read in Nehemiah chapter 2, if you flip over there with me, look at the end of where we're going to get this morning.

Nehemiah 2 · chapter mention

At the end of Nehemiah chapter 2, verse 8, it says, And the king granted me what I asked for, for the good hand of my God was upon me.

Nehemiah 2:8

Here's what Nehemiah had done.

Nehemiah had discovered a way to live, a purpose to fulfill that if he followed, the good hand of God would be upon him.

This was a life that was directed and guided by God himself.

This was a life that was approved of by God.

And Nehemiah had found it.

That's what I want to understand with you this morning.

I want to look at Nehemiah's life and ask this: how do we find this extraordinary purpose for which Nehemiah lived for?

Nehemiah's story begins in chapter 1.

Notice there, Nehemiah's in, see there in verse 1.

He's in Susa, the citadel.

This is the capital of Persia.

One of the most influential places you could be.

And we're told there in verse 2 that as Nehemiah is there, one of his brothers comes running to him, and you can imagine Nehemiah's joy.

He hasn't seen his brother for years and years because his brother was one of the people who went with a group of exiles who left Babylon and returned to Judah.

Nehemiah is reunited with his brother.

You can imagine the tears, the hugging, and they're brothers, so I'm sure there was some wrestling in there too.

But of course, Nehemiah gets to the point: how are my people doing in Israel?

How is the kingdom of God being established?

If you've been with us as we've walked through Ezra, you remember the timeline of Israel and the turmoil they had faced up to this point.

140 years prior to this, Israel was, everything was going well.

Jerusalem was being built up, the first temple was thriving, they were worshiping, but then Babylon comes through.

And this was according to God's promise that Israel was exiled from Jerusalem.

Their strongest leaders, their brightest people were taken away.

Babylon had this idea that if you wanted to be powerful, then what you had to do was completely obliterate every single culture that you could.

Israel was no more.

Forty-eight years later, power shifted to Persia, and Persia had a different approach.

Isn't it funny that when world powers and government authorities switch, they often go flip-flop, don't they?

They reverse to the opposite kind of approach.

And Persia's idea of power was this: that if you could enable cultures, it was actually kind of smart, if you could allow cultures to survive in your kingdom, then those cultures would thrive economically and you could get more taxes from them.

And so in God's sovereignty, in the power shift from Babylon to Persia, Israel was allowed to leave Babylon to go back to Jerusalem and to establish temple worship there.

And so you can understand this is an exciting time for Nehemiah.

Temple is being built.

God's presence is restoring, is being restored to the middle of the people of God.

Surely Nehemiah knew the stories of what happened when God's presence was with his people.

He was told as a kid of what happened when God's presence was with Israel when they're crossing the Red Sea.

And Nehemiah was ready for the presence of God to be back, to see some astounding, amazing things to happen in the midst of Israel.

And yet, when Nehemiah's brother returns with word, his hopes are dashed.

Look what he says to Nehemiah in verse 3.

He said to me, The remnant there in the province who had survived the exile is in great trouble and shame.

The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are destroyed by fire.

Things are not good.

Nehemiah discovers that the mission that God has given to Israel has come to a complete halt.

Sure, they've built the house of the Lord, but what good is a house if it has no walls?

What good is a nation if it has no protection from the armies outside of it?

Temple's built, but it's not that impressive.

The city is still in ruins.

Here's what I want you to understand about extraordinary purpose that you find your extraordinary purpose when you are concerned for God's people.

You find your extraordinary purpose when you are concerned for God's people.

A mark of the mature, devoted child of God from the beginning of the Bible to the very end is concern for the progress of the kingdom of God in the lives of others.

Consider with me for a moment, Paul.

You remember Paul in Romans 9?

He says that because Israel has rejected Christ, he is under great anguish and turmoil.

And he even says that he wishes that he were accursed so that Israel could know Jesus Christ.

I mean, the greatest example of this is of Jesus in Luke 19 when he's walking to Jerusalem.

He's about to uh go on the triumphal entry where he will march to the cross.

And as soon as Jesus sees Jerusalem, what fills him?

What emotion is he filled with?

It's tears.

It's compassion for Israel.

Israel doesn't know Christ, and he is weeping as he looks over the city and sees how lost these people are who once walked in such nearness to God.

Here we see the mark of maturity in Nehemiah again as he it's it's the word the language is it's so descriptive.

As soon as I heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned for days.

Nehemiah, he just couldn't help himself.

He was so intertwined with the kingdom of God, advancing in his brothers and sisters in Israel, that when he heard it wasn't happening, he was driven to despair.

Well, here's what you and I need to do then, as we hear God's word this morning, is ask this question how concerned are you for the advancement of the kingdom of God in the lives of other people?

How tightly woven is your life in the life of other believers so that when they don't do well, you like Nehemiah, like Paul, like Jesus, are driven to great turmoil.

You are weeping over the lack of progress of other brothers and sisters in the church.

You know, increasingly we live in a society that is individualistic.

And I want you to understand that in this individualism, we we talk about it frequently because it is a great power in our culture that is working against what God wants to do in your life.

Individualism, it works against the establishment of God's kingdom rule in your life.

Our culture hasn't always been like this.

In fact, just this week, I came across an article, and it was an article about an old newspaper.

This newspaper was about 50 years old, and there's a picture of it in this article, and the this 50-year-old newspaper was a picture of a girls' gymnastic team.

And it was striking because the picture was there, and we're used to the names being there as well, but beside every name was the address of each of those girls on that gymnastic team.

Now, you and I, you know, I see your face right now, we hear that, and there's like this shock that is crazy, that at one point in time, not even that long ago, we were okay with just handing out, you know, our the address of all these girls to anybody.

And I want you to know I'm pretty terrified of that as well.

That's shocking to me.

But I bring that up just to say it's interesting that that in the span of a generation, we have turned from a society where that sort of community-driven nearness to each other, that openness to other people being in your business, was okay.

In fact, it was kind of normal.

This was regular for newspapers to do.

Now, I don't want to go back to that time.

I'm pretty happy that some things have changed.

But I do want to say this times have changed.

We are increasingly individual.

Remember 25 years ago?

People could show up to your house unannounced.

Isn't that kind of crazy to think about?

Because now if someone comes to your house, you have 911 dialed as you look out, you peek out the blinds, and you think that something like someone's about to break into this house, and it's it's just your uh rude, you know, brother-in-law who's who's there for some spaghetti or something like that.

All that to say we are increasingly individual, and that's neither a bad thing or a good thing, but I want you to understand that the the bad thing about this is that this individualistic mindset it seeps into the church so that what ultimately we look for in the church is a church that serves our individual needs.

And the sad reality is that many churches just they exist to do that, so that you can come in and you don't have to be known.

And many of the ministries are drop-in, drop-out ministries.

You don't have to really attend.

You kind of come as it serves you individually best.

And the benefit to many of these ministries is that you actually don't have to get involved because it's messy, relationships are messy, and to weave your lives into the lives of these other people is in many ways a nuisance, in many ways an inconvenience.

Worse than that is we have a view of Christian maturity, many of us, that is purely individualistic.

It's it's focused.

This idea of Christian maturity is purely focused on personal disciplines.

Well, I'm mature if I have a habit of personal prayer.

I'm mature if I have a habit of personal Bible reading.

And I want you to understand when that when the scriptures talk about maturity, it almost never talks about what you're doing individually, as important as that is, it almost always talks about the influence that you then have on other people.

So let me then say this as clearly as I can.

You know, by the power and the prodding of the Holy Spirit right now, what needs to be happening is some of us are realizing we're actually not as mature as we thought we were.

Even though we've been in the church for so long, we're still infants in the faith because we really don't have spiritual influence on other people and other people's lives.

And you know, Jesus, he told the church to do one thing, he told his followers to do one thing primarily, and it was make disciples.

And so the question then for us is this Am I concerned with other people's discipleship?

Am I concerned with the progress of the kingdom of God in the lives of other people?

So, what needs to happen?

Many of us in this moment, by faith and by the confidence that comes from knowing that the Holy Spirit is with us, we need to put the me monster to death.

Many of us need to make a commitment to stop the navel gazing and to show concern for the people of God, to spend our lives by pouring into them.

The reality is even, you know, as I study this text, I was driven to repentance with this understanding that individualism has seeped into my life as well.

That there are times where I find it easier just to cut myself off from the progress and influence of other people rather than to pour into them.

So in repentance, many of us need to beg for God's mercy and search our heart and ask God for the power to transform us in a way that transcends our individualistic culture so that we are pouring out ourselves for other people and prioritizing the kingdom of God being advanced in the lives of his people.

That's one thing we need to do.

But but notice how Nehemiah responds to this.

Nehemiah is broken for the people of Israel, but he responds by prayer.

He prays.

Not just for once.

We're told that this prayer session here continued for days, but by the time that the Lord actually answers this prayer in chapter two, we're gonna find that it's been four months where Nehemiah is still saddened by this fact, driven to prayer, praying consistently for progress in God's people, which begs us to ask the question do we pray for the progress of the kingdom of God in the lives of other people?

How's your prayer like?

Who have you prayed for this week?

There are many ways we can do that, but suffice to say we need to make a system.

We need to make a system where we are regularly lifting God's people up into prayer.

Here's my system.

I have cue cards.

And on the top there, I'll write a name.

And then I'm making little bullets of the things that uh I'm praying for for these people.

It's one of the most incredible, encouraging spiritual disciplines that I've partaken in because as you write the things you're praying and you return to them time after time, you really come to discover God is answering your prayers.

He's listening, listening, and he's maturing these people you are praying for, and he's doing it through your prayers.

And so I have a stack of these, and right now I'm transitioning in small groups, and so there's a whole new stack of cards that I'm gonna make as I try to influence the people in my small group and lift them up to the Lord regularly in prayer.

Whatever it is, we need a system to regularly lift up God's people in prayer.

This is what Nehemiah does.

He turns directly to God in prayer.

Well, this really illustrates the next way that we're called to live with this extraordinary purpose.

I want you to understand that.

Extraordinary purpose is consumed with God's person.

It's concern for God's people, but it's really consumed with God's person.

And we see this in Nehemiah's prayer here.

I love what A.W.

Tozer says.

I'm sure you've heard this before.

He says, what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.

What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.

So we ask why that is, and it's really because what you believe about God will dictate the way that you live for God.

So that if you see God as sort of this genie in a bottle that can answer your prayers, what will happen is when you really need God, then you're gonna pray.

But when you don't need him, you won't really use him.

Because you have this belief that God sort of is up in heaven and he lives to serve your needs, and so long as you don't need him, prayer isn't really a reality.

Maybe you don't view God as sort of this genie in a bottle.

Maybe it's it's more that God is this dictator and that he's focused on enforcing these rules in your life so that you live sort of in like this constant fear where you're afraid to approach God because you know things aren't right.

You know you haven't been living perfectly.

Suffice to say that what we believe about God really determines whether we are driven to God in the deep times of trial and crisis in our life, or whether we're driven away.

And Nehemiah here in this prayer, we're gonna see is showing us that he has this high view, such a high view of God that he can't help but to seek his face.

This would this is what needs to happen in our life is that we come to know God so greatly that, like we just sang about, we're it we see his name as so beautiful that we're just drawn to it.

There's no other choice.

What John Owen says, he says, the more we know God, the more we love him.

And the more we love him, the more we desire to be like him.

It's this biblical understanding that the when you grasp who God is, you are enthralled by the glorious picture of beauty you see there.

And Paul says that you are transformed by this glory from one degree to another, increasingly into Christ-likeness as you gaze upon the beauty of who God is.

In other words, you see this picture of God's glory, you believe this picture of God's glory, and you are transformed so that your heart then aligns with God's heart, your purpose aligns with God's purpose.

You want to be like God.

Oh, what is not what does Nehemiah even believe about God?

I want you to see this in this prayer.

See first that Nehemiah believes in God's greatness.

Look in verse 4, he refers to God as the God of heaven, but in verse 5, again, he prays, Oh Lord, God of heaven.

And then again, giving title to God, the great and awesome God.

Nehemiah understands where God is, that God is in heaven, and from heaven he rules over all creation, that God is above us.

Nehemiah also understands who God is, that he's great and awesome.

And so the question for us is this: what happens when we believe the place that God is in and the power that God possesses?

Well, when we believe both those things, we're driven to God with great optimism that he is able to accomplish great things in our lives.

And it begs us to ask the question how optimistically are we praying?

Yes, maybe we pray, but are you praying like small little things to God, or are you bringing big things to the Lord?

Trust him that you're not praying to some earthly power, you are praying to the God of heaven, the one who is great and awesome.

I love what one pastor says.

We don't pray small things to the God who can do all things.

God's driver Nehemiah is driven to prayer because he believes in God's greatness.

Notice, secondly, that Nehemiah believes in God's faithfulness.

Not only is God in heaven the great and awesome God, Nehemiah says he's the God who keeps covenant with those who love him and obey his commandments.

Nehemiah knows the Bible.

He remembers the story of Abraham when Abraham covenanted himself to, no, sorry, God made covenant with Abraham, and he said, I am going to give you a land, and I'm going to make your seed abundant so that your family is as numerous as the stars in the sky.

And then to bless that covenant, what God did was he sacrificed a cow and walked through the middle to say this, if I don't uphold my end of the covenant, then let me be like the sacrificed animal.

In other words, God had so committed himself to his people.

Nehemiah knows this that he said, if I don't fulfill this covenant, if I don't make my people progress, if I don't bring success to the people of Israel, then I am as good as dead.

I am just like the sacrificed animal.

This is one of the great comforts of aligning your purposes with God's purposes is you are tying yourself to a kingdom that cannot be stopped.

Dennis spent about five minutes here using the announcements to roast the leaves.

And I did not appreciate that, especially from a senator's fan.

And yet the reason why we tie ourselves to the Leafs, right, Leafs fan, is because they've got the greatest hockey player in the world right now.

And to tie yourself to that team, I mean, this is a piddly way to uh you know illustrate this, is to tie yourself to something great, a team that's going to do something.

Is Dennis in here?

Is he hearing this?

There he is.

And that's in such a greater way.

That's what we do when we tie ourselves to the kingdom of God, when we say, I'm gonna live for the kingdom of God, I'm gonna live for God's purposes.

What we are doing is saying this: I am on a team of which Jesus said the gates of hell will not stop the church.

Nothing can stop it.

The kingdom of God will advance, it cannot fail, it will succeed.

And so listen, what purpose do you want to live for?

Like you want to do something as grand as these motivational YouTube videos are saying, start a business.

Do something that makes it worthy for someone to write a biography about you.

And yet these businesses die.

These biographies collect dust on the shelves.

Nothing is as great as tying yourself to the kingdom of God, which has eternal purpose.

And for all of eternity, once this earth passes away, we will stand in heaven and we will look back to this kingdom and we'll say how great God was for the work that He is doing.

We get to tie ourselves to something that cannot be stopped.

Can to contribute to a kingdom that has eternal impact.

Third thing Nehemiah believes about God is in God's holiness.

And so in verses 6 to 7, you'll notice there he makes this prayer of confession.

And in verse 7, he says, We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments and the statutes and the rules that you commanded your servant Moses.

And Nehemiah comes to God with this understanding already that God is faithful.

He's tied himself to Nehemiah through covenant.

So where there's sin in Israel, God is expressly interested in removing that sin.

Notice that God's holiness doesn't drive the children of God away from God, it drives them to God.

Many of us have sort of legalistic understandings of God's holiness.

So as we consider the perfection of God and the purity of God, we we kind of shy away because we're so scared of how holy it is.

But you remember when Isaiah sees the holiness of God, what does he do?

He doesn't run away, he lies flat before the Lord and speaks to God and says, Forgive me.

Nehemiah's understanding of God's holiness draws him to God because he understands God is tied to his people, and God is in the business of removing sin from the lives of his people.

This is what God is doing in us.

God has a desire for your holiness, and we saw this last week.

You know, I you get a sense, especially as you're up here and you're seeing the reactions of the Holy Spirit moving in people's lives, of sin, that the Holy Spirit convicting people of sin.

You get this sense of the weight that we bear when we talk about our ongoing sinfulness, and yet this is what the Lord is doing in convicting us of sin, is he showing us he can deal with it.

Nehemiah is driven to God's holiness, believing that God has a desire to remove this sin from Israel, for Israel to be perfect as God is perfect.

Fourth, I want you to see here, Nehemiah believes in God's mercy.

Look at verses eight and nine here, after confessing their sinfulness, he says, Remember the word that you commanded your servant Moses, saying, If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples.

But if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there I will gather them and bring them to all the place that I have chosen to make my name dwell there.

Nehemiah knows the law, but he knows that even within the law, there were conditions for breaking the law.

You know, it's interesting that in the covenant of the law, the Mosaic covenant, you know, you want to talk about the covenants of God that were most about rules.

Even in the Mosaic covenant, there was a whole chapters, whole books, even Leviticus, devoted to the system of atonement because even as God gave the law, he was expressly interested in forgiving people for the way that they would break the law.

God is deeply interested in mercy.

This is why as a church we love the gospel.

This is why if you've been coming here for any length of time, you're you're starting to feel like, you know, this preacher, he's really got a one-trick pony up here.

He just talks about the gospel all the time.

And I mean, he should really move on to something else.

And I just want to let you know, like, it's never gonna happen.

It's never gonna happen.

We're gonna preach the gospel every week.

We're gonna talk about the forgiveness of sins through the cross every week in our kids' ministry and our youth ministry and our small group ministry and the sermon and every worship song we we sing is going to be about God's mercy through Christ because we believe this is the thing that draws us nearer to Christ.

The law, it exposes sin, but Paul says it is God's kindness in Jesus Christ that draws us to repentance.

So we preach the compassionate heart of Christ to sinners.

That if you're here and you're in sin and you turn to Christ, you will be received.

Jesus said he came to seek at the loss.

He came to seek at the loss.

Listen to this.

Belief in God's sovereignty in verses 10.

They are your servants and your people, whom you have redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand.

O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant and to the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name and give success to your servant today and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.

He calls out to the God who is in control.

And he knows who can fix the problem.

And so he's dependent.

He's dependent on God.

The question for us this morning is this does a belief in God's sovereign control over the universe make you dependent?

Do you believe this about God's person, that he is totally in control?

And let me suggest that the way you know that is you pray like Nehemiah, there's a consistency to your prayer life because every day you wake up and you're just the like deep, the deepest belief in your the core of your being is really like I have no control in comparison to God's control.

In comparison to God's power, I have nothing.

And so morning after morning, I am driven to God out of dependence, out of desperation.

Listen, you will never make a habit of reading the Bible and praying unless you sense that desperation in your core.

So again, we turn to God in repentance and we say, God, I've lived my life this week believing I can do this without you.

And the proof is in the fact that I haven't turned to you or I've struggled to.

Change my heart.

Change my heart, God.

I need heart change.

I need to believe that you are utterly in control.

And I'll prove it because prayer, it's the language of dependence.

Nehemiah has a concern for God's people, and he's consumed with God's person.

And when these two things are reality in your life, it leads to our third point.

And Nehemiah is confident in God's presence.

He's confident in God's presence.

And the beginning of chapter 2, Nehemiah finds himself at a critical moment.

Four months has gone by since he first spoke to his brother.

Nehemiah chapter 2, he finds himself in close proximity to the king.

Nehemiah 2 · chapter mention

Clearly, this is some sort of Persian festival.

And the attitude all around Nehemiah is of joy and of cheer.

And so it says there that in verse 1, King Artaxerxes, when wine was before him.

There in Nehemiah, he says, I took up the wine and gave it to the king.

You get the picture here, Nehemiah's at a party, but he's a Debbie downer at the party.

His, I had to make sure there was no Debis in our church before I said that.

Hopefully there's not.

If there is, I'm not talking about you.

He's a negative Nancy.

Okay?

There we go.

He's at this party where all, you know, the the Persian Empire is in its heyday.

And there is Nehemiah, his shoulders are slumped and his head is down.

He was in the most powerful position that you could possibly be as an Israelite.

I mean, his parents lived in complete poverty under Babylonian rule.

And here is Nehemiah in a position of trust and a position of influence, and yet, despite the privilege of his role, he's not interested in his own personal agenda and progress.

He's burdened by the state of Jerusalem.

Notice something important here.

If Nehemiah had been concerned with his own kingdom, then he would have not cared about Jerusalem.

He wouldn't have been downcast.

In fact, in that moment that he was, you know, at the biggest party in Persia, he he would have been looking around thinking, like, I've made it.

But he couldn't.

He didn't care about his own kingdom.

He was too deeply woven into the kingdom of God that when the people of God weren't succeeding, then he couldn't be happy.

Central to the desire of his heart was the progress of the kingdom.

And I want you to see this is what it needs to be like for every believer that it does not matter how well your life is going, it doesn't matter what your net worth is, it doesn't matter what your promotion you got, it doesn't matter how you are building up your kingdom, if the kingdom of God is not advancing in your circle of influence.

There is always ought to be, if you're consumed with the kingdom, unless you're caught up with worldliness, there is always this like bitter taste of God, would you just do a work around me?

What we're understanding here is that the work that God is doing in his kingdom always takes priority over the work that he is doing in this, that you are doing in this world.

It's your greatest concern.

And so, even though, in from many perspectives, Nehemiah has made it, he cannot be satisfied.

And the sad reality for so many of us is we find such happiness.

There's so much happiness that we're experiencing in this world that is so increasingly getting farther and farther and farther away from Jesus Christ.

Is your heart pricked for God's sake's kingdom?

Is your soul at times downcast for the lack of progress that you see in the church in this nation?

You cry out to God at times and say, God, would you do a work of revival?

Listen, you gotta understand that I am with you, that as I look at Nehemiah, I see so many differences that drive me to repentance in my own life.

So often I can get so addicted to comfort, can't you?

Can't you just get so addicted to comfort?

Isn't this North American world we live in so comfortable?

Isn't everything so convenient?

So that while souls around us are perishing, we're just sitting in our recliner and watching TV while people are perishing eternally.

And there's so much more at stake, and God is calling us through his word.

Stop caring about this kingdom.

It will perish and care about people's eternal comfort.

Live for a purpose so much greater than having a house with another garage in it, than having a car that's nicer than your current one, than getting a promotion, then being looked up to by your peers.

Live for something so much greater.

Be concerned with the kingdom.

Nehemiah has with God also allows them to be vulnerable.

So that in verse 2, when the king says to him, Why is your face sad?

Seeing that you are not sick, this is nothing but sadness of the heart.

Nehemiah says, Then I was very much afraid.

Of course Nehemiah is afraid.

This is the pivotal moment.

If this conversation goes well with King Artaxerxes, then Israel is saved.

But not only that, if this goes poorly, then surely Nehemiah's lost his job, if not his life.

Of course he's afraid.

What is it that allows Nehemiah in this time of great fear to be completely and utterly vulnerable and honest with the king?

It's the gospel.

It's the fact that he knows that he is fully known and fully accepted by God, and that nothing that can happen through this vulnerability can happen outside of God's sovereign control.

This is what the gospel hope of believing in God does for you.

It allows you to embrace complete vulnerability because you don't have to fortify the walls of your own kingdom to make other people think that you're better than you are.

Isn't that kind of a breath of fresh air in the world that we live in of social media where you've got to put your highlight reel on and make people think that you're doing a lot better than you are, and at work where it's like you better never embrace weakness, you better never embrace brokenness, you better always seem like you're better than you really are.

Put on this mask, this facade to make it seem like you're something that you're not.

And here in the kingdom of God, the very heart of it is that you are fully known and fully accepted by God, and that you actually can't enter the kingdom unless you bring brokenness, unless you bring lostness.

What does Jesus say again?

I came to seek and save the lost.

Listen, is your life together?

Are you walking in righteousness?

Then Jesus didn't come for you.

Jesus came for the lost.

He said, those who are well off have no need of a physician.

I came for the sick.

See, the way you enter the kingdom of God is humbly on your knees, recognizing that you cannot do it.

That means as soon as you enter the kingdom of God, you are fully known by God and you are fully accepted by God, so that when you're in small group and someone asks you about some specific sin, you don't have to be like, well, I better not tell these people because they might not accept me.

Who cares about that person?

You're already accepted by Jesus Christ.

This is entrance into the kingdom of God.

It allows you to be vulnerable because you're fully known and you're fully accepted, which begs us to ask the question Do you know that you're fully known and loved by Christ?

Maybe you're here and you don't know Jesus, you've never placed your faith in Jesus.

Maybe you're here and right now, if I were to ask you, well, you know, if you were to die, would you be accepted by Jesus?

You would say, I just I don't know.

I don't know if I would be.

I want you to know if you if you place your faith in Jesus Christ, you can have every confidence, even in the deepest, darkest areas of your life, that Jesus forgives you.

In fact, the darker your life is, the more reason there is for you not to be forgiven, the closer Jesus.

Draws to you.

That's who he loves to save.

The lost.

It's more glory to his name.

Do you know that you're fully accepted by Jesus Christ?

If not, today's the day of salvation.

You place your faith in Jesus Christ and trust that what we're saying about Jesus here is true.

He came to seek and save the lost.

The second thing I want to ask you is this: are you completely known by others?

Are there other people who know everything about your life?

I'm not saying like everybody.

I don't mean that you need to be, you know, as vulnerable with every single person as you are with the people that you're closest to.

But I am saying this that it is key for every believer to be vulnerable with at least someone.

And that if you're not, if you live your life sort of hiding in this shame, let me suggest that there needs to be a work of the Holy Spirit to press the gospel deeper into your soul so that you come to understand this.

I'm already fully accepted.

Jesus has already accepted me.

And so I can be vulnerable with people, even though they might not react the same the right way.

You know, let me suggest this.

We're launching many small groups this week.

Can I just suggest that if you are in that, you know, one of those people who are going in that small group, let this be a season of complete and open vulnerability.

You've been walking in darkness for way too long.

And it is time to bring those things that you have been coddling in the darkness into the light and walk in victory as God uses his church the way that he designed it to be used in your life to care for you and to mature you so that you can grow up into him who is the head into Jesus Christ.

Trust you can be vulnerable and God's going to protect you from your greatest fears and vulnerability.

King Artaxerxes asks Nehemiah what's wrong, and you can sense the fear that's gripping his heart.

You could imagine the music is playing in the Persian court.

There's celebration, and Nehemiah feels completely and utterly alone.

He's having this conversation with King Artaxerxes, and there's wine pouring, and there's music playing, there's laughter around him, but his soul is in despair.

It is impossible for him to be joyful when Jerusalem is in shambles.

He's too deeply woven into God's purpose of establishing his kingdom.

Nehemiah is aware of the stakes, and the king asks, What's wrong?

And so look what Nehemiah does.

He prays to the God of heaven and he speaks boldly to the king, requesting, requesting that the king would restore Jerusalem and give the materials and all that is required to build the laws, to build the walls in verses 5 to 8.

Makes a bold claim.

What is it that fuels Nehemiah's confidence in this moment of intimidation?

It's this that he knows he's aligned with God's purpose.

He knows that this is what God wants to do.

And when you've aligned yourself with the purpose of God, you can live with this confidence that when you are working to establish his kingdom, God is going to give the growth.

I love the parable Jesus gives of the farmer who sowed seeds in God's kingdom.

And what does he do?

He sleeps.

He sleeps this picture of confidence and peace and trust because he knows that he's sowing seeds in God's kingdom, and it is God who gives the growth.

So he asks, and in verse 8, we read it again, just like we began.

How do you and I cultivate this confidence in our lives?

While we align ourselves with God's purpose like Nehemiah did, we find ourselves concerned for God's people, consumed with God's person, and confident in God's presence.

Because Nehemiah, and you and I can do this too, had found full alignment with God's purposes.

You do that, and the tag over your life will be just like Nehemiah's.

The good hand of God will be upon you.

Let's pray together.

Father, we bow in your presence.

And Lord, we stand in awe of as we consider the truth that you, Lord, you want to use us to build your kingdom.

And God, even as we utter those words, Lord, we confess how often we've taken our eyes off the work and we've sought to build the kingdom of self.

And we've been so concerned with our own comfort, we've been so concerned with our own reputation.

God, that we haven't been concerned with your glory.

And so, God, we come in confession of that, Lord, and we we come because we believe that your mercy is for us, that you forgive us, and that you, Lord, in forgiveness, commit to using us again.

That, Lord, you will place your good hand upon our lives and use us to build your kingdom for your kingdom purposes.

And God, that's our prayer.

Lord, use us.

Build your kingdom with us, Lord.

Find here your servants who are proclaiming this, Lord, that we have no other purpose than to bring glory to your name, that we are aligned with the reason for which you created us, to bring glory to your name by making disciples.

God, it's what you told us to do, and so we want to do it.

So give us the power, give us the strength, God.

Pray this in the name of your son.

Amen.