Bible Guys Classics: Nehemiah 1:1–11

You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a

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That's it. You were born for this.

Yeah, my little jingle. You know, I can't believe that

just became a thing.

Yeah.

I don't know. It just somehow happened.

I think that's only second to what made Chris mad.

I don't think so.

What made Chris mad is the top. People literally wait

on the edge of their seat.

That is so not true. You're just like Jeff. You're

just like Jeff. You're just like trying to puff me up. So, hey, well, hey,

good morning. We are the Bible Guys. This is Wesley.

I'm Chris. And today we're your Bible Guys because Jeff...

is out there actually traveling. Where is he at? Mexico?

No. Well, he was.

He came back.

Now he's in Africa.

Now he's in Africa. Holy Christmas. That is just crazy.

A short flight, you know, a couple of hours.

Yeah, just a few. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But he works

also for an organization called the Timothy Initiative, which focuses

on planting churches around the world that don't know the gospel.

They focus on regions that have never heard.

It's pretty unbelievable. Yeah, I think that's amazing. Yeah.

So anyway, so this is two weeks in a row

that we have a guest, but that's okay because Platinum

Edition is, people love Platinum Edition. So, hey, today we

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Yeah.

So you want to, you want to tackle it?

It says, what's something you thought, and this is from

Sarah K by the way. So Sarah K, if you're watching.

Hi Sarah K.

Thank you for this question. What's something you thought was

totally normal until someone told you it absolutely wasn't.

Yes.

Yeah, do you have anything for that one? I have

a small one.

I have so many. I have so many. Yeah, do yours.

So mine is super small. The first thing that comes

to mind is ketchup.

Yeah.

So when I first got married, okay, don't judge me.

I just want to say this. When I grew up,

we put the ketchup just in the cabinet, in the cupboard,

in the kitchen.

After you opened it.

After you opened it. Wow. Yeah, we never put it

in the refrigerator. And when I got married, my wife

is like, what are you doing? Are you trying to

kill us? This has got to go in the refrigerator.

Are you trying to kill us?

That's so good.

But it's like, no, we always just put the mustard

and the ketchup just in the cupboard. That's just what

we did.

That's so funny.

So, yeah, I discovered that was not a normal thing.

No, no, not after you open it. Yeah. Yeah, because

you can put it in there beforehand. Yes. So that

is so funny. So I got one for you. So

I grew up Italian. Well, I mean, obviously I'm still Italian.

Let me clarify that statement.

Yeah.

My dad's German. My mom is Italian. Yeah. There was

zero German culture in our family.

Yeah.

The only culture was Italian.

Yeah.

I no longer am a part of that culture in

my normal household. So that makes sense that I said

I grew up Italian because I'm still Italian, right? It's like,

you changed? Yeah, but it was so Italian in Youngstown, Ohio. Yeah.

And it so is now, right? I mean, just, you know,

but anyway. The point is, is that, you know, it

was always all Italian all the time. So for, consequently,

all through the entire city of Youngstown, for Christmas, people

make Italian food. And so there's so many Italians, it's

so normal to say, oh, what'd you have for Christmas meal? Well,

we have ravioli or we had manicotti or gnocchi, whatever

it is, right?

Yeah.

So that was just a normal thing. And then I

went to college and I remember being, you know, in

Missouri and the Midwest and And I remember somebody saying

something like, oh yeah, for Christmas we had like ham

and turkey. And I said, what are you talking about?

You're like, what is this?

I said, that's Thanksgiving food. Yeah. And they said, they said,

what do you eat for Christmas? And I said, ravioli.

And they go, what? And I was like, doesn't everybody?

I was like, but it's because everybody, I knew all

my friends.

Yeah.

That would be a normal thing. Right. And, uh, and

not saying that everybody's Italian from Youngstown, cause that's not true.

But a lot of the Italians hang out with Italians.

Yeah.

So for my group of people, it certainly was.

Yeah.

Right? So anyway, I thought it was normal until it wasn't.

Yeah, that is hilarious.

But I got a funny one too. It's very quick.

Yeah.

My youth pastor used to sing very famous songs that

everybody else across the nation knows. You know, in my

little youth group growing up, we always had the same jingles. Yeah.

And most of them now you would sing with kids ministry.

Yeah.

But back then with high school ministry, that's what we

used to do. Like for instance, you ever heard the song, Oh,

you can't get to heaven on roller skates. You ever

hear that?

No, I've never heard that one.

Oh, you can't get to heaven on roller skates. Oh,

you can't get to heaven on roller skates. Oh, you

roll right past those pearly gates. All my sins are

washed away. Praise the Lord.

No, I don't know that one.

So anyway, in my group of church people, they sing that, right?

So anyway, for some reason, my pastor used to take

very popular songs and he would change them how he

saw fit.

I see what you're saying.

And there would just be a little bit of change.

Yeah.

And so we would know them, we would know all

the songs, but the rest of the world knew them

like that.

Yeah.

They would know the normal way. So this song that

I just sang to you has on the third chorus,

it goes, can't get to heaven on, there's a pause,

can't get to heaven on roller coaster. skates is a pause, right?

For some reason, my pastor's saying, oh, you can't get

to heaven on roller skates. Oh, you can't get to

heaven on roller skates. Instead of on roller skates.

He got theatrical with it.

Yeah, he's like on roller skates. I don't know why,

he just changed it. And apparently I'm the only human

and the people in my church are the only humans

who know that song, but know that version of that song.

So I'm at Baptist Bible College, We're sitting around with

a group of like 200 people. And he's like, hey,

everybody know this one?

Oh, he's going for it.

And he goes, and he gets to that part, he goes,

on roller. And everybody pauses. It's really quiet for a second.

And I'm going, on roller skates.

And everybody looks at me like, what is this guy doing?

What is he saying? Yeah. And I'm like, what? And

by the way, I found out that it's like 10

different songs. I learned 10 different major songs wrong.

And it's like, what?

Oh, that's good. Whenever I'm singing them with people, I

realize I'm like, he did it again. He embarrassed me again.

Yeah? Oh, man, that's good.

Changed it.

There it is.

So there's my thing.

Oh, that's good.

Yeah, that was super embarrassing. And you know what else

was embarrassing?

What was that?

This moment where Nehemiah had to go before the king

and ask him this really dangerous thing.

Ding!

There it is.

We're going to say it worked.

It worked.

We're reading Nehemiah.

Yep, Nehemiah. Chapter one. Which, by the way, Nehemiah is,

in a lot of ways, a pretty obscure passage for

a lot of Christians.

Yeah. Right?

I mean, there's not a ton of sermons on Nehemiah.

There's not a ton of history. So if you don't

know who Nehemiah is, he was a cupbearer to the king.

Just to give you a little bit of context before

Wesley reads. So like Babylon had taken over the world, right?

Remember the story of Daniel where they had stolen all

the goods from the temple and they had taken all

the princes and everything. And then they took people all

the way up to Babylon and And so there was

like this exile of the Jewish people and this whole

captivity thing. Well, it was over. Everything was over. And

so they had allowed people to go back to Jerusalem

in waves. And some people had gone back, but they

had discovered that Jerusalem was in ruins. In fact, the

city walls were down. It was unprotected. And of course,

the city that's unprotected is open for siege. And so

these people who are trying to rebuild their lives Uh,

you know, we're talking like a whole generation or so later, uh,

you know, for them trying to get their footing and

their culture and their people. And so Nehemiah was a

Jew and, and, and he was, uh, he was, you know, uh,

he knew and remembered, uh, as a boy, uh, you know, his,

his great city and his father and his, his family

and everything else. And, uh, and so now he's an

older man and he has favor working for the king

as a cupbearer. And, and he had, he's about to

learn something about Jerusalem. And he ends up basically going

to the king saying, will you please allow me to

go back and rebuild the walls around my city? Will

you please allow me to do that? And so that's

the story of Nehemiah. Yeah. That's it. Yeah.

So let's dive in. That's Nehemiah chapter one, verses one

through 11. It says, in late autumn, in the month

of Kislev, in the 20th year of King Artaxerxes reign,

I was at the fortress of Susa. Hanani, one of

my brothers, came to visit me with some other men

who had just arrived from Judah. I asked them about

the Jews who had returned there from captivity and about

how things were going in Jerusalem. They said to me,

things are not going well for those who return to

the province of Judah. They are in great trouble and disgrace.

The wall of Jerusalem has been torn down and the

gates have been destroyed by fire. When I heard this,

I sat down and wept. In fact, four days I mourned, fasted,

and prayed to the God of heaven. Then I said,

O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God

who keeps his covenant, of unfailing love with those who

love him and obey his commands, listen to my prayer.

Look down and see me praying night and day for

your people Israel. I confess that we have sinned against you. Yes,

even my own family and I have sinned. We have

sinned terribly by not obeying the commands, decrees, and regulations

that you gave us through your servant Moses. Please remember,

that you told your servant Moses, if you are unfaithful

to me, I will scatter you among the nations. But

if you return to me and obey my commands and

live by them, then even if you are exiled to

the ends of the earth, I will bring you back

to the place I have chosen for my name to

be honored. Verse 10, the people you rescued by your

great power in strong hand are your servants. Oh Lord,

please hear my prayer. Listen to the prayers of those who...

Listen to the prayers of those of us who delight

in honoring you. Please grant me success today by making

the king favorable to me. Put it into his heart

to be kind to me. In those days, I was

the king's cupbearer.

So first of all, what a great way to start

a chapter.

Yeah. Right.

I mean, just an unbelievable, uh, you know, epic setup

to what is about to unfold. And if you want

to go back and read the rest of Nehemiah, uh,

what a great story and what a great accomplishment that

God has done through Nehemiah, which by the way, did

you know that the wall of Nehemiah is still there today?

Yeah.

And, and, uh, they've uncovered this wall and honestly it,

it looks like children built it. It is not a

work of architecture. It is thrown together with rocks and

mud and mortar, and it does not look flat or polished.

It's like, how is this thing still standing? And it

has to be that God wants to preserve this unbelievable symbolism,

what this represents. Everything done in the Old Testament is

a model for us on how to behave, or it's

a foreshadowing of what God wants to do in our lives.

And so this importance of Nehemiah's wall that he ended

up building in such a small amount of time is

a great accomplishment, but God's still today, 2,700 something years later.

In fact, I think it's even more than that, isn't it?

Nehemiah is a couple thousand years old, isn't it? No, no, no. Isaiah, Nehemiah... Wait,

I don't actually have my Siri on because I don't

want the buzz.

Yeah. All right.

I'm doing this in the microphone. Hey, when was the

book of Nehemiah written? Here's an answer from BibleHub.com. Okay,

445 B.C. So 2000... 400 years ago-ish, right?

Yeah.

So, and that wall still- It's still there. It's still there.

Isn't that amazing?

Yeah.

Yeah. That's awesome.

There are two things early on that I want to

dissect a little bit as we get into this. In

verse five, it says,' Then I said, O Lord God

of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps his covenant.'

And I like that line right there. The fact that

God is a God who will do what he said

he will do. If God said he will do it,

we can take that to the bank. It's certain, it's sure,

doesn't matter what it looks like. There have been times

in the Old Testament where God may have told a

group of people to take a village or to take

a town. And they're like, well, God, we're outnumbered. If

God told you to do it, he will equip you

to carry out what he told you to do. So

God is a God that will keep his covenant. So

when you're reading the Bible, keep that in mind. I

think that's super important to know that if God promises

us something in the Bible, he will do what he

said he would do. And that gives me great confidence.

But the other thing in there in verse six, it says,

I confess that we have sinned against you. And I

absolutely love that. Pastor Kevin here at Heritage Church where

we both attend, he says, when you mess up, fess

up and fess up fast. Don't try to hide it.

God saw you when you did it. So there's no

hiding it or trying to put it away or no,

that wasn't me. Yeah, everyone knew, all of heaven knows

that it was you. Just fess up, come clean to God.

And if you confess your sins to him, he is

just and faithful to forgive you for your sins and

cleanse you from all unrighteousness.

Yeah, that's right.

So I love that.

That's great. 1 John 1.9. First that was ever quoted

to me, by the way.

Yeah.

By my wife, nonetheless. You know, it's some context to

that prayer as well. So the two things you mentioned

in that prayer that were awesome is the fact, the

first thing that Nehemiah said was, I want to recognize

God that you're a God that keeps your covenant. Well,

think about the context. So, excuse me, Nehemiah is among

a group of people that were most likely very discouraged

because their whole people were exiled. Yeah. We're talking people

were captured, kidnapped, slaughtered, killed, imprisoned, chained. I mean, just

all these different wicked things.

Yeah, they've lost everything.

They've lost everything.

Yeah.

And yet... What Nehemiah is acknowledging is his responsibility. And

he's acknowledging his people's responsibility because he's a God. He's a, yeah,

our whole people, some of them are mad at you.

Some of them are mad that, you know, our lives

are so terrible. But understand that I'm recognizing you warned us.

Yeah.

Right? This is you keeping your covenant. You said... that

if we dishonored you, that we would be scattered among

the nations. And guess what you did? You kept your promises.

And then he says, we have sinned, and he's acknowledging

his responsibility. Now, I think that's important because the context

is he's acknowledging the fact that even his family had

their part in dishonoring God, right? Like he's responsible part

in part for the exile and the capturing of Jerusalem

and the walls being burned down So when he hears

that the city walls are destroyed by fire, he's thinking,

I did this. These are consequences in part to my

sin and my family's sin. So he's like, God, even

though I can complain, I can look at how bad

my life is, we can all do that. We have

to acknowledge our part in it. You warned us. We

didn't obey. So you're a covenant keeper. You did exactly

what you said. And guess what? I own my responsibility.

We are sorry for what we've done. And then what

does he do is he sort of capitalizes on God's faithfulness.

He capitalizes on then God's promises. And he says, God,

you said this, but God, guess what? You also said this.

Yes.

Right? So you said this as a warning, but you

also said this as a promise. If we came back

to you, then you would be with us. Look at me.

I'm praying for my people. You see me, you see

my earnest prayer. You see my sincerity, my heart. I'm

weeping because I'm broken over this and I am coming

to you and I'm asking you to keep your promises.

And so therefore God, here's my request. And then he

goes to God with his request, right? Ask the kingdom

to be favorable to me. And what an unbelievable request.

But Nehemiah backs it up with scripture. And he reminds

himself of God's promises.

Yeah, and I would say, Chris, that's super important, and

it's very subtle. He had to know the promises to

bring the promises up.

That's right.

Which means that... He had to know the scriptures, which

is why it's so important for us to read the

Bible daily, to know what those promises are, to know

what God said he would do, and to know what

God said to avoid. Because it's, yeah, it's good to

know what blessings he will give you, but it's also

good to know what to avoid. But you only get

that from reading God's word on a consistent basis.

That's right. Yeah. I have a motto that I've always

lived by. So my number one spiritual gift is faith.

which is odd for a skeptic. I'm a skeptic at heart.

But actually it's true. Every time I take the spiritual

gifts test, there's a spiritual gifts test you can take online.

Actually several versions of it, but you can Google it

and find a free one. But I took a spiritual

gifts test actually on and off throughout my whole life

and almost always. Faith is either number one or number two.

But it manifests itself in my life during struggle. So

like whenever I wrestle with something, whenever I'm having a

hard time with something, whenever something very big is going

through my life, faith just rises to the top. And

I have a lot of faith and confidence. So God

has given me that as my gift. And sometimes it's

hard when the struggle is small. When it's bigger, faith

seems to be more prominent. When it's smaller, I get

caught in the weeds. And so yesterday, I was actually

talking with someone on our staff, and I was very

discouraged and disappointed in some things. And I always want

to focus on my part. Whenever I feel like God

has called me to do anything, I feel like if

I've not done my very best, then I feel like

I've let God down, right? And so I was talking about,

you know, it doesn't matter, but I was just talking

about how I feel like I have not done my best.

And these are mistakes that were avoidable. And these are

mistakes that should not have been made. And I was

a part of it. And the person I was talking to,

I said, he was a part of it and we

were all a part of it and we should have

done better. And, and God asked us to do this

and we didn't do our part, you know, and I

was just super discouraged. And I'm like, what are we

going to do? What are we going to do? You know,

And just like you said, you have to know the promises, right?

You have to know the promises. So last night I

went home and I'm praying. I'm like, okay, God, like, okay.

I vented. I had some discouraging moments. It's like, okay, God,

let's pray through this. And God reminded me of all

the promises that I already know. And through the years,

I have formulated a motto from these promises. And I

love this motto. And so I texted it to him

this morning.

Yeah.

And I said, hey, God reminded me. And I said,

here's my motto. God is bigger than, not surprised by,

and in control of all circumstances.

Yeah, that's true.

And so you take all those promises and lump them

in a big bowl of stew, right? You can call

that pot that God is bigger than, not surprised by,

and in control of all circumstances, right? So think about

how that applies to your life.

And that's good, Chris, because I think sometimes because we're

surprised by it, whatever it is for the listeners, we

think that it caught God off guard. It didn't catch

him off guard. He's God. He's all-knowing.

One of my best friends made fun of me one

time when I was worried about something. And he goes, Chris,

do you actually think God's on the throne? Going, oh, no.

Yeah.

Oh, no, I didn't expect this.

Yeah.

How am I going to get out of this?

Like, oh, man, how did that happen?

And I don't know what I'm going to do to

fix it. Yeah. It's like I always laugh when I

think about that. And since then, he's passed away. He's

in heaven laughing with me now. But yeah, think about

how that applies to your life. God is bigger than,

not surprised by, and in control of all circumstances. So

which means bigger than, means your problem is not bigger

than God's ability to solve it. Yeah. Right? Not surprised

by means he's not on the throne worried like you are.

And it's not like he's trying to figure out a

solution in the same way that you are. Yeah. And

then in control of means that God can and is able,

and in a lot of cases wants to do great

things to fix these things, if we just align with

his will, go to him, trust him, depend on him,

lean on him. And eventually you got to get to

the point to where you open your hands and say, okay, God,

that's it. I recognize at this point, regardless of how

we got here, which, you know, again, I can talk

about my part, my ability or inability to do, you know,

what I should do or didn't do what I didn't

do all that. You know, you can talk about that

all day.

Yeah.

But the reality is in every circumstance of our lives,

we have to recognize only God can do what God's

gonna do, right? So only God, I can't manufacture, you know,

hearts being changed as a pastor, neither can you. You

can't manufacture miracles. You can't manufacture, you know, blessings. And

in great things, none of us are in charge of

any of that.

Yeah, that's God's side of the fence. That's his job responsibility.

Yes. And so you just sort of, you're reminded and

you say, okay, God, remind me, this is all you

and it has been the whole time anyway.

Yeah.

Right? I mean, I'm doing my part only because you

asked me to, but in the end, you're in control.

So anyway, it's a great reminder for all of us. Yeah.

And I would say if we could leave the listeners

with a challenge, I challenge everyone watching just to take

five minutes, five minutes per day reading God's word. And

start in the New Testament. Start with the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke,

and John.

Yeah, I would even go further and say start with John.

Yeah.

Start with John and move your way forward.

Yeah, yeah. And that's a great place to dive in,

to begin to soak in God's Word and get His

Word on the inside in your heart.

Yeah, that's great. That's great. But hey, that's a great

place to end. That's our time. And hopefully we'll see

you again on The Bible Guys.