Arise and Build: Lessons from Nehemiah Part 1 of 2

Introduction

Good morning. Our meeting, our gospel meeting with Leon Malden starts three weeks from today. And the topic is going to be about being becoming like Jesus. So what a wonderful topic that we need to be sharing with our friends and our neighbors and inviting people to come to hear the lessons that will be preached. I want to encourage us all to be thinking in advance and planning for that, just like you might plan for anything you might want to do, a vacation or whatever else. Try to make those those times available that we’re going to be meeting here as a church. Let’s be uplifting for Leon and be uplifting for one another. And I’d like to challenge us to do something that we did as a congregation when we had a special visitors’ day.

And that is to uh try to fill up all the names on the invitation board in the hallway directly down there. What we did was we invited people to come to a special service for visitors, uh, where the sermons would be uh based on very simple concepts. And uh every person that you invite, you would write their first name on a sticket note that was back there, and you would then put it in one of the spaces provided on the board, and there are five hundred spaces provided on the board. We didn’t quite fill it up halfway, but I didn’t give us a whole lot of time. I think we had two weeks. So this time we’ve got three weeks. And with a group of two hundred members or more, really, we ought to be able to invite five hundred people.

Um that that really isn’t much more than two people per person. So we we can do that. And uh, if if it is a person who is not a member of the church, then uh put their name up there. If it’s a member of the church, then that’s good that you invited them, but you’re not allowed to put their name on the board, okay? So, but there will be a set of instructions back there and stickers provided by Wednesday night. Right now it still has the old names up there. So let’s be moving toward that goal and praying and working toward that. Well, if there’s one thing that all churches have in common, it is that all churches want to grow. They desire spiritual growth, and they desire numeric growth.

But simply desiring to grow is not enough to make it happen.

One of the best books in the Bible for learning about church growth is a very unlikely book. In fact, it’s not even in the New Testament. It’s an Old Testament book. It is the book of Nehemiah. In Nehemiah chapter 2 and verse 18, I told them how the hand of my God had been favorable to me and also about the king’s words which he had spoken to me. Then they said, Let us arise and build. So they put their hands to the good work. The very principles by which Nehemiah helped the Jews to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem are the principles that we can put in force and put into action in order to build up the church of Jesus Christ. And to build up this church here at South Bumbi.

And so what we’re looking at is lessons from Nehemiah principles that specifically apply to how we can grow as the Lord’s people. Now let’s kind of back up chronologically from the time of Nehemiah. And back way up where we have the united monarchy. You have Saul, David, and Solomon. And as a result of Solomon’s sin and his idolatry, after he dies, what happens to the kingdom? It divides into Israel in the north and Judah in the south. And this happened and was about 200 years where these two were in coexistence there. But then the northern kingdom, because of severe idolatry and wickedness, was taken away in 722 BC by the world power who was Assyria. And the southern kingdom of Judah was left alone in the land for about a hundred and thirty-five years longer.

Judah had more righteousness in her. She had some good kings, but there was still too much wickedness during that time of Judah alone, and God was done with Judah as well in the land, and sent them away into captivity into the new world power, which was Babylon. And so that captivity would not last forever, but it would be as Jeremiah prophesied, a 70-year captivity. And in the midst of that time, in year 586 BC, Jerusalem was destroyed and burned with fire, and the walls were destroyed as well. And we fast forward to uh a new world empire, Persia. And we have Cyrus issuing a decree that all the peoples can return to their homelands and rebuild their temples. And the Jews were those some of those people.

And they returned back and they came to rebuild the temple. There were three phases, really two, and then the coming of Nehemiah. And so the first phase of the return was under Zerubbabel and Jeshua, the high priest. And the purpose of this first return was to rebuild the temple. That was the first priority. So they they got to work on it immediately, and then the work stopped. And then the prophets Haggai and Zachariah encouraged the work to be finished, and the temple was rebuilt, and it was finished, but nothing was done to rebuild the walls. Nothing was done really to rebuild the city itself. Well, then we have a second return under Ezra. And Ezra comes in about 458 BC, and he comes to teach the people how to worship God.

And about 1,500 Jews returned at that time. It was about 50,000 on the first return, and about 1,500 on the second return. And he taught the people, but still nothing was done to rebuild the walls. But then, some say about year 445, we have Nehemiah, who was a cupbearer for the king of Persia, and he obtained permission from the king to go to Jerusalem and rebuild the walls. And this was a gargantuan task, but with the help of all the people, with the principles that were laid down there, they rebuilt the wall in 52 days because the people had a mind to work. And it’s an amazing story. And so these same principles that Nehemiah used to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, we can put in place here to build up this church and to cause growth.

1. We Should Care

So what we’re going to do is over the course of two lessons, we’re going to look at ten principles. And today we’ll look at the first five. First one, number one, is we should care. This is the first principle. We should care. Nehemiah cared. If you go to Nehemiah chapter one there and begin reading in verse one, the words of Nehemiah, the son of Hakaliah. Now it happened in the month of Chislev in the 20th year, while I was in Susa, the capital, that Hanani, one of my brothers, and some men from Judah came, and I asked them concerning the Jews who had escaped and had survived the captivity. And about Jerusalem. They said to me, The remnant there in the province who survived the captivity are in great distress and reproach.

And the wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are burned with fire. He didn’t know about the status, you know. He couldn’t just go and look it up like we can today. And so when he found out about this, what was his response? Verse 4 when I heard these words.

And I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven. What was it that caused him to sit down and to cry and to weep bitterly about Jerusalem? It was that he cared. Why did he have to be so concerned? He wasn’t there. He was over here in Susa. He was fine. But he was concerned because these were his people and this was the city of God and it was in disrepair. And he cared, he was concerned about the matter. And that really is the very foundation upon which everything else that we see in Nehemiah happens. It begins the fact that Nehemiah cared. And if we are going to build up this church here at South Bumbi, it’s going to be because, first of all, we are concerned about the work and we care.

And if there is some problem, if something good is not happening, then we want to do something about it. We want to help. We want to pray about it. You know, if you’re a member here at this church, then I would plead with you to be concerned about what goes on here. To be concerned, to care about it. There are too many Christians that simply are complacent. They don’t care. They don’t care what’s going on at their congregation. They just show up and shake hands and leave and everything is fine, and they turn a blind eye to anything else. But what we need to do is we need to come and we need to help. And we need to take part. We need to be active in about this whole situation.

We need to be proactive. And that’s exactly how Nehemiah was. We should care about the state of affairs in the kingdom abroad and in this local church. Paul had a daily concern on him of the various churches in which he had worked. And we certainly need to consider how we can stimulate one another to love and good deeds. We need to be concerned about one another. And that’s the start of it all. How can a church grow if the members don’t care about it? And I don’t think that’s the case here. I think you do care. We should be concerned not just about the status of things now, but what’s this church going to be in ten years? Where is this church going to be in 20 years?

You know, this is a strong church. In the six months that I’ve been here, I have just been impressed with this church in a lot of ways. It’s not a perfect church. And there are weaknesses, but I think in in general, this is a thriving congregation. And it’s been that way for some time, my understanding. And this church has experienced growth. Did you not add on in this building? Well, sure you did, because there was growth. That’s a good thing. But just because this church has grown in the past, and just because this church is strong now, does not mean that this church will be strong in years to come. And so what we need to do is we need to start thinking about the future.

2. We Must Pray

We need to be concerned about where is this church headed? Is this church growing? Are we adding people to the Lord? Because what this church will be in ten years, in twenty years, will be largely the result of what we begin doing as a congregation today. We should care. That’s number one. Second principle, we must pray. We must pray. Nehemiah prayed, and we begin reading there in verse 4. I already read this verse. When I heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned for days. And I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven. He wasn’t only crying for days, he was praying and fasting for days. We hear about Jesus praying all night long, and we’re very impressed by that. And here we see Nehemiah praying for days.

That doesn’t mean he didn’t sleep. It doesn’t mean he didn’t eat, but it means this was constantly on his mind. He was so concerned. And he prayed about the matter. Read this beautiful prayer beginning in verse 5. I said, Beseech you, O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God who preserves the covenant and loving kindness for those who love him and keep his commandments. Let your ear now be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer of your servant, which I am praying before you now, day and night, on behalf of the sons of Israel, your servants, confessing the sins of the sons of Israel, which we have sinned against you. I and my father’s house have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against you, and have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the ordinances which you commanded your servant Moses.

Remember the word which 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 those of you who have been scattered were in the most remote part of the heavens, I will gather them from there and will bring them to the place where I have chosen to cause my name to dwell. They are your servants and your people, whom you redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand. O Lord, I beseech you, may your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant, and the prayer of your servants who delight to revere your name, and make your servant successful today, and grant him compassion before this man.

In chapter two, Nehemiah, of course, he was the cupbearer. You read that at the end there of chapter one. He was the cupbearer for the king. He would uh give the king his drinks and test the drinks and so on, so forth. And so there was a day where he was uh sad, and the king said, Well, why are you sad? You’re not sick. You’re just plain sad. And he says, Well, shouldn’t I be sad when the state of affairs are terrible back home? And so, look there in uh verse four. Then the king said to me, What would you request? Now, this is all happening in real time. So the king says to you, What would you request?

So I prayed to the God of heaven. I say to the king, if it pleases the king and if your servant has found favor before you, send me to Judah, the city of my father’s tombs that I may rebuild it. And he obtains permission and everything like that to go and do this. I just think that’s a beautiful example. He’s in the middle of a conversation. Have you ever done that? You’re talking to somebody and you’re in the middle of a conversation, and you want to respond the right way, and so before you respond, you just say a quick word of prayer. You don’t say that loud. You don’t say, excuse me, I’m going to go in the other way. You just utter this quick prayer.

God help me give me strength to answer the right way. Nehemiah was a man who prayed short prayers, and he prayed long prayers. He was a man of prayer. And so we need to pray these short prayers. We need to pray these long prayers. And specifically in the context of the lesson today, we need to be praying that way for this church here at South Bumby. Growth in the kingdom. It’s only possible with God. Remember when Paul said in 1 Corinthians, the third chapter, I planted, Apollos watered, but God gives the increase. So then neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything. But God, who gives the increase? Who is going to give the increase here? It’s out Bumby. It’s going to be God.

It’s not going to be the preachers. It’s not going to be the elders, the deacons, the teachers. It’s God who is going to give us our increase. And until we begin to trust in our God, that will not happen. We can put all these principles into place and we can work our hearts out. But if we’re not trusting in the Lord, we’re just spinning our wheels. And so trust in the Lord. And the way to do that is through prayer. We need to pray as Greg mentioned in the lesson earlier. Jesus in the model prayer, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. The idea of praying, Your kingdom come, if I understand it correctly, is to pray for the welfare of the kingdom, to pray that the kingdom that it might thrive and that we might be a part of expanding its borders, even here at the South Bumby Church.

3. We Must Plan

That’s a very basic element of prayer that needs to be part of our daily habit. Yeah, prayer is something we can all do. You might say, Well, I’m not one who can preach. I’m not one who can teach. Maybe you don’t even like talking to people. But you know what every one of us can do? We can talk to God and we can pray to Him. That is something every one of us can do, and we can begin doing that today. So begin by caring and begin by praying. Thirdly, we must plan. We must plan. Nehemiah had a plan. And begin reading with me in verse 11 of chapter 2. So I came to Jerusalem and was there three days. And I arose in the night, I and a few men with me.

I did not tell anyone what my God was putting into my mind to do for Jerusalem. And there was no animal with me except the animal on which I was riding. So I went out at night by the valley gate, in the direction of the dragon’s well, and on to the refuse gate, inspecting the walls of Jerusalem, which were broken down and its gates, which were consumed by fire. Then I passed on to the fountain gate and the king’s pool, but there was no place for my mount to pass. So I went up at night by the ravine and inspected the wall. Then I entered the valley gate again and returned. The officials did not know where I had gone or what I had done, nor had I as of yet, or as yet, told the Jews, the priests, the nobles, the officials of the rest who did the work.

What was he doing? He spent three days doing this. He came there to rebuild the wall, so what did he just show up and start building? He had to formulate a plan. He had to know what was going on. He had to know what the walls look like. And so that’s what he was doing. He was formulating a plan. And what we must do today as a church is we must have a plan if we’re going to build. We must have a plan. It can’t just be every man for himself. It can’t just be this impulsive thing. Growth that is sustained is not impulsive action. It is based on something that is planned. And so that’s what we as a congregation need to do is we need to plan to grow.

A church that fails to plan is planning to fail. And you’ve heard me say this before, you’ll hear me say it again. Zig Ziggler said, if you aim for nothing, you’ll hit it every time. And if we aim for nothing, if we aim for no growth, guess what will happen? No growth. We have to have a goal. We have to have a plan for that to happen. And we have to have understandable steps and reachable goals that we can all do together as a group to reach that because growth does not happen by accident. And a church that is not growing is really not going anywhere. And eventually that church will begin to shrink because it doesn’t remain static for long. That’s generally the trend. So we need to be a growing congregation, and we need to plan that if that’s going to happen.

Now, this church has a plan in the works. An evangelism plan. And I’m a part of that. And soon I want to teach that to you. I want us all to see what that plan is so that we can all begin to move together. You know, there’s a there’s a great power in teamwork. We’re a team. Why do you think birds fly in a V? It makes it easier to fly. Breaks down the wind thing. And I’ve read that when geese are flying in that V formation, uh, the ones in the back are honking to encourage the one up front. That’s what I’ve read. And the one up front, when he gets tired, will drop back, and one of the ones from behind somewhere will come up and take the lead.

They help each other, they work together. They don’t just all fly just wherever, however, as long as we’re kind of headed the same direction. They work together. And so teamwork makes our efforts more beneficial and more powerful. But having a plan is not enough. We can have a plan and look at it all day and say, now, isn’t that a nice plan? This church has a plan for evangelism. How about that? It will not work until we work it. We’ve got to work the plan. And that’s going to take sweat. That’s going to take doing. That’s going to take getting up and leaving and going to the city and putting yourself to work. That’s what we’re going to have to do if this church is going to be built up.

4. We Must Ignore the Critics

So we must plan. Number four, we must ignore the critics. Nehemiah and the Jews working with him had to ignore the critics. In Nehemiah 2 and in verse 19. Nehemiah 2 and in verse 19. But when Senbalat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official and Geshem the Arab heard it, they mocked us and despised us and said, What is this you are doing? Are you rebelling against the king? So I answered them and said to them, The God of heaven will give us success. Therefore we as servants will arise and build, but you have no portion right or memorial in Jerusalem. They didn’t let it stop them. These enemies. In fact, I don’t have it on the outline, but look at the first few verses of chapter 4.

Now it came about that when Sandbalat heard that we were rebuilding the wall, he became furious and very angry and mocked the Jews. He spoke in the presence of his brothers and the wealthy men of Samaria and said, What are these feeble Jews doing? Are they going to restore it for themselves? Can they offer sacrifices? Can they finish in a day? Can they revive the stones from the dusty rubble? Even the burned ones. Now Tobiah the Emonite was near him, and he said, Even what they are building, if a fox should jump on it, he would break their stone wall down. Oh man. Have you ever had somebody kind of talk to you that way? Doesn’t it make you just want to accomplish what you were setting out to accomplish even more?

Just adds fuel to your fire. Well, some people it doesn’t. Some people it stops. Some people believe the criticism. So there are going to be critics. There are going to be critics out there. But what about the critics within? Sometimes the critics come from a very unlikely source. Look in verse 10 of chapter 4. Thus in Judah it was said the strength of the burden bearers is failing. Yet there is much rubbish. And we ourselves are unable to rebuild the wall. That wasn’t coming from the enemy. That was coming from within. That was coming from Judah. We can’t do it. And so I’ll tell you, in building up this church, we very well may face criticism. You may face criticism out there when you’re trying to contact people, you’re trying to reach out to people.

You may be mocked for your beliefs. Hey, it happens. It’s happened to me. It’s not easy to get out there and try. The only way you won’t get criticized is if you just sit at home and do nothing. But when you get out there and you’re making an effort, people are going to criticize you. They’ll criticize you out there. And it may even happen sometimes from within. I hope that would not happen in this congregation. But sometimes when you set out to accomplish anything, there will be people among you who say that can’t be done and who criticize the work. And you know, it’s easy to be a critic. It is easy to criticize the preachers. It is easy to criticize the elders. It is easy to criticize the deacons.

5. We Need Every Member

It’s easy to criticize the teachers of our Bible classes who are doing their best. What we need is not critics. We need supporters. We need cheerleaders. We need workers, is what we need in this congregation. And so let us not be critics of one another, tearing one another down and devouring one another. But let us support one another and build up this church from within. But if there are critics that are slowing you down either from the outside or the or from the inside, just ignore the critics and keep working. That’s number four. Fifth and finally, we need every member. Did you hear that? We need every member. Nehemiah needed and used everyone he could possibly get involved. Not everybody participated, but he got the vast majority involved, apparently.

You look at chapter three, and I’m not going to read this whole chapter, but just begin reading it with me. Then Elisha, the high priest arose with his brothers the priests and built the sheep gate. And they consecrated it and hung its doors. They consecrated the wall to the Tower of the Hundred and the Tower of Hanail. Next to him the men of Jericho built, and next to them Zechar the son of Emri built. And on and on it goes. I’m not going to read the whole thing because then you might criticize me for not being able to pronounce all these names. But you think about if Nehemiah had come in and said, Well, I’m going to do is I’ll get one family at a time.

I’ll choose this family over here for this year. How long would it have taken to rebuild the walls? Forever. They may have never finished it. He didn’t do that. He came in and motivated the people, and he got every family to work. And he assigned positions, and they assigned jobs rather, and tasks in certain parts of the wall and certain gates to be working on, and everybody went to town. And when you do that, there is this movement, there’s this momentum and this excitement that you know what, guys, we’re doing this together. We’re getting somewhere. We’re not going to be stopped by anything. And that’s what he motivated the people to do. I love chapter 4 and verse 15. When our enemies heard that it was known to us and that God had frustrated their plan, then all of us returned to the wall, each one to his work.

And as a result of this effort, this team effort, they rebuilt the wall in 52 days. You look there in Nehemiah 6 and in verse 15. So the wall was completed on the 25th day of the month of Eloh in 52 days. When all our enemies heard of it, and all the nations surrounding us saw it, they lost their confidence, for they recognized that this work had been accomplished with the help of our God. The walls had been destroyed for some hundred and forty years or so. Since the first return when they rebuilt the temple. Well, when they first showed up, it had been over 90 years since that return. And something that had taken decades to finally even get started on was finished in 52 days.

How did they do that? That’s amazing. Because the people had a mind to work, and because every member was involved. That’s how they did it. Isn’t that an amazing thing? You think about the opportunities here in Orlando. I’m going to come over here like Greg. I had a yard sale. I should say my wife had a yard sale that I helped with a little bit yesterday because I was studying, but I helped some. And we got started really late, and I thought, you know what, we’ve missed the boat. But I’ll go put these signs up. And as soon as I was putting up the first sign, and I was still putting it in the ground, there was already a car turning down our street. And by the time I got back home, if I remember correctly, there was more than one car, and they just kept coming.

They were coming out of the woodwork. I said, I’ve never seen anything like this. This is crazy. And we did okay in that yard sale. But it brought to my mind, you know what? Orlando has a lot of people. We haven’t even scratched the surface of the surface. People out there are lost in Orlando, Florida. And we’ve got 200 people here. We have the power to work together as a team and to affect people out there, to convert people out there, not just to bring them here to be in this building, but to bring them in Christ to be saved. There is tremendous opportunity out there. Are we sitting on our hands? I’m asking that. I’m not charging you with that. Are we sitting on our hands when there is opportunity out here to do amazing things?

Things that maybe this church has never really accomplished yet. We could accomplish in a short period of time if we set our mind to it. And if we had a mind to work. Amen? We could absolutely do that with the Lord’s help. If we are going to grow, we need every member to get involved. I don’t care how young you are, I don’t care how old you are, I don’t care how inexperienced you are or immature you might be, I don’t care who you are, you can help in some way. I even take my children door knocking with me sometimes. And it helps. We need every member to be involved. You might say, well, I’m not important. I just don’t have, I don’t have the ability that so and so has.

What can I do that’s of any value? Can you pray? Remember. Can you do other things? Can you write letters of encouragement? Absolutely. Can you invite your neighbor to come to services? Doesn’t mean you have to teach them. You see, there’s something we can all do. And so Paul wrote to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, and I know we’re running short on time, but let’s turn and read that in 1 Corinthians chapter 12. Because in some places they don’t care about time. It’s just worship all day. But we’ll go a little over, I’m sure you won’t mind. 1 Corinthians 12 and beginning verse 14. Now, what was going on here is you had spiritual supernatural gifts that were going on in the first century.

And I don’t believe they’re still going on today, these supernatural gifts. But one of these gifts was speaking in tongues, and boy, they really like that speaking in tongues. I mean, that was the Cadillac of all of these supernatural gifts, and there was jealousy going on, and if you didn’t have that gift, then you didn’t feel that you had any good gift. And so Paul is saying, no, don’t feel that way. And we can apply these concepts across the board to any ability. Beginning in verse 14, for the body is not one member but many. If the foot says, Because I am not a hand, I am not a part of the body. Poor foot. It is not for this reason any less a part of the body.

You see, there’s some humor to this. And if the ear says, Because I am not an eye, I am not a part of the body. It is not for this reason any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, picture that. Just one big eye. Okay? Where would the hearing be? If the whole were hearing, now we’re just saying one big ear. Where would the sense of smell be? But now God has placed the members, each one of them in the body, just as he desired. If they were all one member, where would the body be? But now there are many members, but one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you. Or again, the head to the feet, I have no need of you.

Conclusion

And the context goes on. The point of this passage is it doesn’t matter what member you are, you are needed. Everybody is needed. Everybody is valuable and everybody is necessary. You have something to contribute to the work here. Whoever you are. And so let’s set our mind that we will do just that. So these are the first five of the ten principles from Nehemiah that we can apply to church growth. We must care. We must pray. We must plan. We must ignore the critics. And we need every member. Why is it that we want more members? Is it because we want more money in the collection plate so we can build a bigger building and have a better reputation in the town? Has nothing to do with that.

It’s because the more people we bring in, then the more people are being saved. And that’s the motivation. Why did Jesus come to the earth? Amen. To seek and save the lost. And that needs to be our mission. Not just to keep the saved saved, but to seek and save the lost as well. And that’s why Jesus came. If you’re lost, he came and gave his life for you that you might be saved. What more could he have done for you? Will you look at what he did and turn away from it? Or will you see what he did in giving his own life and say, I want to be his follower? I want to be a crucified disciple of a crucified Christ. If you want to be crucified today, if you want to die, then you have to bury your man of sin in the waters of baptism.

It’s a burial. And then you rise from that burial to walk in a new life as Jesus raised from the dead. If you would like to put on Jesus today and to continue to obey the gospel until the day you die, being saved by the grace of God and his mercy and through the Holy Spirit, you can do that today and have hope of everlasting life. Won’t you come this morning as we stand and sing the song of invitation?