Bromley Baptist Church 10^th Sept. 06 – Old Testament Heroes – Nehemiah.

Jerusalem was a disaster area. What had been magnificent was now rubble.

When Nehemiah heard about his home city, it so distressed him he was in severe danger of execution. No-one was allowed to look miserable before the King! However, he received the King’s approval to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the city and the people.

There’s much that I admire about Nehemiah (and a few things not to admire - one of these was his bad temper - his zeal sometimes overflowed into ill-temper!)

However the great things about the man -

• His need to pray - arrow prayers in the midst of need.
• His overcoming of his enemies - they couldn’t shift him or do more than slow him down.
• His wish to see the state of things for himself - not just go on the hearsay of others.
• His generosity - provision out of his own income for many people at his table.
• His wisdom - getting the people to build where the wall was closest to their homes.
• His wisdom - in getting his people to be prepared for fighting even as they built.
• His ‘Make Poverty History’ campaign - ch 5 –
• But I guess for me, the thing that makes him a hero is the way he inspired men and women to work with a zeal for the one job they had been called to.

Let’s get a sense of what Nehemiah was looking at.

1. The city was a ruin - so bad that his donkey couldn’t get round it. The Babylonians had begun, but the local vultures had completed the destruction.

2. And what had happened to the city and its walls was a metaphor for the people. The once proud people (and that was one of their faults) were scattered. Wave after wave of Judah’s leadership and entrepreneurs had been exiled into Babylon. The pile was left to the rest! That was the whole idea of exile. Conquer and divide. The exile happened some 150 years ago - no-one remembered the grandeur that was Jerusalem. They lost purpose, identity and aim.

3. Above all, the city was no longer the city of God it had once been. Ezekiel had seen the vision of the glory of God departing from the temple. He hovered over the threshold, then again over the wall before going off to watch what happened in the city from afar. And no-one called him back! What a picture of a fallen nation.

Nehemiah had not just the job of building the walls but a three-pronged job to do; to restore walls, morale and spirituality.

He prayed. He planned. He worked. He encouraged. He organised.

Chapter 3 looks like one of those very boring chapters in the Bible! Yet when you look at what it’s telling us it comes alive with real people and their families lugging stones, mixing mortar, cutting timber and creating doors and roofs.

Let’s look at chapter 3

There were 41 teams of people at work! - families, shopkeepers and tradesmen, priests and nobles all getting on and doing the work. Some may have had smooth hands to start with - some were goldsmiths, perfumers, merchants etc. Nehemiah inspired them to get to work in other ways.

Some rebuilt amazing lengths of wall - v.13

v.12 There was Shallum, son of Hallohesh, ruler of a half-district of Jerusalem, …with the help of his daughters.

And one family, not content to do one length of wall - took on two - Binnui - vv 18 and 24. They might only be short parts of the wall but this is unusual. Like many others doing short sections they could have just done the one.

So why is this apparently boring chapter so important?

• We see the leadership quality of Nehemiah
• We have a pattern of co-partnership that ignores status and human precedent - and where people just get on with the job. This isn’t just a book about leadership, it’s a book about membership and discipleship.
• We get a picture of the work of God’s Kingdom.

Leadership - Nehemiah’s leadership quality lay in inspiring, motivating and organising his people.

However, we have a picture here too of membership.

Yesterday at our leaders’ awayday we discussed what it was to be a member of a church.

There were several models suggested -

• Membership of a gym club. The prospective member is greeted the first time by a personal trainer who introduces you to the equipment, helping you set goals and check every 6 weeks how things are going and adjust the programme if it wasn’t right. There’s a contract entered into with the club rules being discussed and signed.
• National Trust member - pay your money, pick what you want from the book and visit as necessary - no relationship, no commitment.
• Membership of the AA - again no commitment except to pay your fees, just call on the emergency team when you’re in crisis and expect them to turn up in 45 minutes.

What’s your picture of God’s work?

Do any of these fit the picture of Nehemiah's team?

Ultimately - in all these there’s always the idea that I’m only there for me, what I can get out of it - the gym club - ‘cos I know it’s going to make me fitter, - The National Trust - a hobby activity, - the AA - insurance.

That’s the way people look on church or becoming a Christian. It’s good for character-building, a hobby or interest and it’s eternal life insurance!

Neither Jesus nor Nehemiah shows us any of these - he shows a people who are giving their all for God’s work which will benefit them it’s true but which will outlast them too and bring glory to God.

• They had a target to get on with their own commitment.
• But they had to work together - linking their piece of wall to the others - same specifications - thickness, height, match up at the joins. They had to build with the overall purpose in mind - a gardener might, for instance, want to build a rockery with a water feature instead of a plain wall!
• They also had to back up their neighbours if they fell behind.

That’s the picture that Nehemiah puts before us of building the kingdom of God.

Membership in Christ is a sharing in Him and His intentions and compassion for the world!

Excerpt from Bill Hybel’s book Courageous leadership, (Zondervan 2002) - pp22-23

Bill’s conclusion - “There is nothing like the local church when it’s working right…It’s potential is unlimited….No other organisation on earth is like the church. Nothing even comes close.”