Nehemiah Goes into Action (Part 2 of 2)

When you are facing a seemingly impossible task, when should you take action? If after you have spent time fasting and praying you still have fear, does that mean you should wait? That you need to pray more?

You're not trusting God? Well, here are the answers today on Truth for Life as Alistair Begg takes us to the book of Nehemiah. We're in chapter 1 verse 5. Now I want for a moment this morning to consider this prayer with you as it is therefore as in chapter 1.

And then to move immediately into chapter 2. One of the questions that is often asked, especially by younger believers, is, How do you pray? Well, one of the things that has been helpful to many of us, and certainly in my life I've used it since I was smaller, is to use the little acronym, or acrostic, ACTS. A-C-T-S. And the four words that build from it, adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication. And I want to show you from this prayer that the ACTS acronym works in relationship to Nehemiah's prayer. The fourth element in prayer is what we refer to as supplication.

That's the S in the word ACTS. Adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication. And this supplication comes in verse 11. O LORD, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of this your servant, and to the prayer of your servants, who delight in revering your name.

And here it comes, it is as bold as it is specific, and it is as reverent as it is clear. Give your servant success today by granting him favor in the presence of this man. He asks specifically that God will give him favor in the presence of his boss. I have this boss.

I'm going to talk to my boss the first chance I get, and, Lord, I'm talking to you first to see if you couldn't be at work in his life, because I know that would make a big difference. However, if we do not believe that God is able to work in the heart of a pagan king or in the mind of a pagan boss, then we will be on our feet all the time in human ingenuity trying to find ways to make it happen. But when we truly trust in God, we can shut up on our feet and open up on our knees, so that we will discover that God moves man through prayer. When I don't believe that he moves man through prayer, I will be constantly on my feet trying to move man myself. It's a great challenge.

Great challenge for our church. Now, there is an obvious link between the length of time that Nehemiah takes seeking the face of God and then the specific way in which he approaches the face of Arctic Xerxes. And what I'd like to do is give you just five words now that charts our progress through the first ten verses of chapter 2. Verse 1 of chapter 2 reads, In the month of Nissen, in the twentieth year of King Arctic Xerxes… What in the world does that mean?

You read one of those phrases and you say, Aha, so now, that's good. In the month of Nissen, sounds like a car. In the twentieth year of King Arctic Xerxes, what does that mean?

I haven't a foggiest idea. Let me tell you what it means. You can write across your Bible, One day in April, four months later. Now, this is significant, because it reminds us of the amount of time that Nehemiah has been prepared to stay in the waiting room. He's obviously a very purposeful kind of character, but he recognizes that unless he waits upon the Lord, he will never renew his strength. Unless he waits upon the Lord, he will never mount up with wings of his eagles. Unless he waits upon the Lord, he will never walk, run and not be weary. Unless he waits upon the Lord, he will never walk and not be faint. Lord, I want to walk and not be faint. I don't want to wait upon you. Lord, I want to fly like an eagle. I don't want to wait upon you.

Lord, I want to be able to soar up on the hills, but I don't want to wait upon you. The Lord says, You can't do it. Some of the things that we face as a church family are so elementary.

They are so obvious. And fundamental at the heart of it all is this, we can go no further than our dependent commitment to God in prayer. It is fixed with God that a work which is not founded upon prayer will never be accomplished. Okay?

But with God, all things are possible. Now, four months later, he comes before the king, he's doing his thing, which is bringing out the drinks. You know what his job is?

He's the cupbearer. He gets a little drink of everything that the king and the queen are going to drink. Which is good, insofar as the stuff is good. If of course it happens to be poisoned, now Maya is in deep trouble. But long live the king. That's the way it's supposed to go. As I've said, it's a great job for someone who likes culinary things and a high-risk experience, because that's exactly what it is.

He takes the wine in, and he gives it to the king. And notice this little phrase at the end of verse 1, I had not been sad in his presence before. How long have you been working in your present job? Every single day you've gone into your job, have you ever looked, like, really bad? I mean, have you ever been—your secretary said, So what is wrong with you, Mr. X or Miss X or Mrs. X?

And you just look like nothing on earth. Or are you a very joyful person? Did you go about your business daily, happily, thankfully, joyfully, prayerfully?

Nam, I obviously did. A long time in the service, and he had never once looked sad in front of the king. Now, there was a good reason not to look sad in front of the king, in fairness to ourselves, because if you look sad as a cupbearer, that may be an indication of a sinister plot. It may be that you're looking pained in your face, because as you give him the stuff, you know he gets it, he's gone, and so the king would look at the cupbearer's eyes very carefully, make sure that he wasn't reading any funny business in his eyes, because if he had sad eyes, there may be a sinister plot, and a sinister plot, you get this.

So he had never been sad in the king's presence, but he was sad today. So the king conducts an investigation. That's the first of five words.

These are very brief. Relax. Word one, investigation. Look at it in verse 2. So the king asked me, Why does your face look sad when you're not ill? Okay, that's the first thing. You come down, you've got this white face. You don't look really good. Question, Are you ill? Answer, No, I'm not ill. Well then, if you're not ill, what's wrong with you? It's got to be something inside of you that's making you look like this on the outside.

And it was. There's something in that's coming out. Who in your office, you can read people's insides without taking X-rays on the basis of what's outside. Especially if you have any kind of discernment of human personality at all. You can tell something's up.

And now, Maya is living and revealing himself in such a way that the king conducts the investigation. This can be nothing, he says, but sadness of heart. Why does your face look sad when you're not ill? This can be nothing but sadness of heart. So he knows now there's either a girl in it, or he lost money somewhere, or something went bad on him.

Because his heart is bust up. Okay? Investigation. Second word, consternation. First phrase, the last phrase of verse 2, I was very much afraid. I like this. I love this, actually.

This is my favorite phrase so far. In chapter 2. I was very much afraid. Because it reveals the down-to-earthness of Nehemiah. I told you at the beginning that he's an ordinary guy with an extraordinary task, right? He's not Mr. Fearless. He's not Mr. Successful. He's not Mr.

Triumphant. He's not Mr. Never Have the Blues. He's just Mr. Nehemiah. And although he has been so much looking forward to the opportunity to say what he's about to say, when he gets the chance to say it, his tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth. He begins to perspire, and he is honest enough to say, The king said, So what's the deal? And I said, I'm scared. You see, seeking God in prayer doesn't remove our natural fears.

It may allay our fears, but I'm not gonna remove them, because we still live in the world we live in. You see those rock climbers in Yorkshire, and they go up these great limestone faces of rock, and you say to yourself, My, they must be the bravest people in the world. They don't seem to be afraid.

Talk to them. They're scared. So what is bravery? Bravery's not the absence of fear. Bravery's the conquering of fear. And with the help of the Lord to whom he prayed, although he was afraid, he goes for it. Now, the Pharisee in us says, Oh, wait a minute, Nehemiah, I wouldn't have been like that. After all, if I had been fasting and praying and mourning for four months, and the king had spoken to me, I wouldn't be afraid. Yeah, you would.

First of all, we wouldn't have been praying for four months to start with, right? Consternation. Thirdly, explanation.

So he gives the explanation. I said to the king, May the king live forever. Good start. Especially with your boss.

You want to tell him? I'm a very nice boss. May you live forever. And may you be in this job forever?

And let's just start there. But in actual fact, without blowing it by, it's an expression of respect. And what he says is, May the king live forever. He gives honor where honor is due. Sometimes when we think in terms of our Christian responsibilities and our concerns for righteousness, especially in relationship to the pagan world, we fall foul of an absence of respect. We don't give respect where it should be due. It is true that these people and their actions deny God's law and denigrate him, but nevertheless, God has instituted government for the punishment of those who do wrong and for the well-being of those who do right.

He is sovereign in his purposes, and therefore the president is the president, and the vice president is the vice president. So we have no mandate to do anything other than to say, Yes, sir, Mr. President, may you live forever. Now, we can say under our breath, May your policies go down a drain. But we've got to say, May you live forever.

Because they're worthy of respect, and some of us are so concerned for righteousness that we're very unrighteous in the way we endeavor to talk about our righteous concerns, and then our lives say so much that our words cannot be heard. Now, the interesting thing is that now Nehemiah reveals his passion. He reveals his passion.

Why should my face not look sad when the city where my fathers are buried lies in ruins and its gates have been destroyed by fire? I think he blurted it out. I mean, I don't think he said it slowly. I think he just got it out.

Why should my face not be seven? And the guy goes, Hey, what do you want? See, Nehemiah was a man with a mission, a person with a purpose, a guy with a goal, a fellow with a focus, a bloke with a burden.

He knew what he was on about. You're a salesman, and you have one product line, and someone says, What's your deal? You tell them. This is my product line. This is what I want to do with it.

If someone asks you and you don't know, you're not a salesman, and you ought to be fired. Nehemiah, what's the deal? You haven't been in looking like this before. I see your face is sad.

What's the scoop? Scoop is, my face is sad, because Jerusalem is smashed up, and I don't like it. Then verse 4, Well, what do you want? God is at work in the pagan king. God is at work in the pagan king. If Nehemiah had messed up the first question, Why is your face so sad?

Then he never would have had the follow-on question. So are you with me? Investigation on the part of the king, consternation on the part of Nehemiah, explanation on Nehemiah's part, and now application on Nehemiah's part.

What is it you want? Then he does a little arrow prayer, then I pray to the God of heaven, and I answer the king. O Lord, here we go. All that stuff we've been talking about for four months, it's coming down. We are going now. All right?

Now, if he hadn't been talking for four months, he would have had nothing to rely on. And that's where some of us are. There'd be no prayer, no planning, no prayer for planning, no planning prayer.

Okay? So when we go, we go cold. O Lord, help! And God in his mercy sometimes intervenes, but we go much more confidently, far more strongly based, if we have a backlog of four months of anticipated praying that goes along with it. So, he didn't have to go into a big, long explanation to the Lord. He said, Okay, Lord, here we go. And so he applies for a sabbatical leave. Verse 5, If it pleases the king and if your servant has found favor in his sight, let him send me to the city in Judah where my fathers are buried, so that I can rebuild it.

Now, the quality of his service is obvious in the response in verse 6. Because with the queen sitting beside him, the king said, How long will your journey take, and when will you get back? Now, if you and I apply for a sabbatical leave, and they basically say to us, Oh, you can have as long as you want, I mean, you can have forever if you want, then you know they're not keen to have you back. You go into your boss and say, I was wondering, I forgot a three weeks leave of absence, and your boss says, Why not three months? I mean, why not three years? And why not three forevers? Why not just clear off?

Okay? When your boss says, Well, wait a minute, I'm prepared to think about it, but when are you coming back? Then you know that your service is valued. And now my service was valued. And so it pleased the king to send me, and so I set a time.

And he enters in a contractual obligation in terms of when he will return. Realizing that the hand of God is on him, he gets on a roll now. And so he says, Right, well, here we go, Lord. We'll get through the whole business now in a oner. Okay, king, I want to go. You're going.

Two, I'd like to have some letters to the governors of Trench Euphrates so that they will provide me safe conduct until I arrive in Judah. Hey, Nehemiah, how did you think that up? Boy, can you think on your feet. You think fast, Nehemiah.

You're good. And I said, Nehemiah, I've been thinking about it for months. Well, I got down on my knees, and I prayed to the Lord, and he began to stir in my heart. He made me really sensible.

He made me really practical. And in my spirit, I knew if I don't have a passport or the first point of entry, they'll send me back to Susa for one. So I knew that when this day dawned, not only was I going to ask if I could go, but I was going to ask if I could have letters so that I wouldn't get stuck to the first border. Secondly, and he asks in here, he was going to have a letter for Asaph, because Asaph wasn't just going to be throwing lumber around to any old Tom, Dick, or Harry. And so he would need a letter, which he got, so that he would have timber to make the beams for the gates of the citadel by the temple for the city wall and for his house.

He already knew he was going to have a house. Do you ever come up across these Christians and say, Oh, I don't care about these things. I don't know about these things. Spirituality is impracticality. I take my children and just walk out in the streets and show how holy I am.

Bogus nonsense. Nehemiah said, If I go to Jerusalem, I'll have to stay somewhere. I'm not just going to gatecrash on somebody, so when I ask for wood for the walls, I'll get some for a house. I'll put a little house together in Jerusalem.

I'm going to have to somewhere to stay. And God was gracious, granted my request. Verse 9, So I went to the governors of Trench, Euphrates. I gave them the king's letters.

And as a little bonus, the king also sent army officers and cavalry with me. Hey, heavy duty. You get a limo and a whole bunch of cars going in front of you. The Harleys with the stuff going in front. They're coming down. The people going, Who's this? He said, Wait and we'll see when he gets out. Door opens out.

Nehemiah! Yeah, we're going through. No, you're not going through.

You need papers to go through. Oh, yeah, the papers? You mean, like, from Arctic Xerxes? Yeah! Okay. Drive on! Drive on! Hey, Asaph, get some of the trees in the back of this operation, would you please? We're going to Jerusalem, not without the papers, you're not. Oh, you mean the Arctic Xerxes papers? Yeah.

So, do you think Nehemiah had a big head? What was the explanation? Verse 8's the explanation. Because the gracious hand of my God was upon me. What's the explanation of your life to this point? God's gracious hand. Why are you still breathing? God's gracious hand.

Why do you still have usefulness in the kingdom? God's gracious hand. Why does our church exist? God's gracious hand. What is the future of our church? God's gracious hand.

What can we hope to achieve? God's gracious hand from start to finish. It was God's gracious hand. Was Nehemiah practical?

Intensely. Did his theology make him impractical? No, his theology made him more practical.

None of this nonsense about, because you trust God, you don't do anything. He trusted God and did everything. He did everything, and he trusted God. Swindoll says of him that he was marked by four things. He was marked by the fact that he realized his own limitations. He turned to God in prayer, he organized and implemented a plan, and he pressed on, despite opposition.

That, incidentally, is the fifth word, which I didn't mention. When you get to verse 10, you find that he's opposed. Sanballat and Tobiah will come back to these characters, unsavory characters, didn't share his vision, didn't share his dream, so they decided they would oppose him. Any time that you do something for God, you'll be opposed. Any time that you walk with the eyes of faith, you will be opposed by those who walk with the eyes of sight. And the opposition may be so severe that you figure you'll never achieve it. And the reason why some of us are less than what we might be is not because of the absence of God's power.

It's because we just have not focused and realized that God is willing to use an ordinary person like you and me in my office, in my street, in my home, in my school, in my environment. The first time—with this I close—the first time I ever went to an American football game was in Bushy in Hertfordshire in England. They were playing football there because it was a U.S. Air Force base, and I'd never seen anything like it in my life. It was a sunny afternoon, and I watched, I hadn't a clue what was going on, and I was also intrigued by the cheerleaders.

I'd never seen cheerleaders before. It wasn't because of how they looked. I don't remember how they looked, but I remember what they said, and I remember they had these ridiculous things that they shook while they were saying what they were saying. And this is what they were saying. The team would run up and down the field, and they said, in an American accent, they said, you can do it, you can do it, you can, you can.

Remember I said this? You can, you can. As opposed to you can, you can.

Or if you come from London, you can, you can. So they said, you can do it, you can do it, you can, you can. And they couldn't do it. They couldn't do it. They stunk.

They couldn't do anything. They said, you can do it, you can do it, you can, you can. I said, we've got a major gap here between this sideline stuff and what's going on on the field. That's exactly what we've got in the church.

We've got a major gap between the Word of God by the Spirit of God, which unlike the cheerleaders, they're just talking off the top of their heads, but God's Word says, by my Spirit, you can do it. You can do it. You can. You can. You can witness to your boss.

You can love that person in your office. You can make a difference in your school. You can build a wall. You can affect the kingdom. You can make an impact in your generation.

Just you. Why? Because of the gracious hand of God that rests upon those who, like Nehemiah, are prepared to come to him in humble dependence and prayer. May God make us those kind of people and increasingly make Parkside that kind of church. You're listening to Alistair Begg on Truth for Life.

Alistair returns in just a moment to close today's program. Now, because this is Pastor Appreciation Month, there's a study we want to let you know about that we think your pastor will find encouraging. It's called The Basics of Pastoral Ministry. It's an online series of messages designed to help pastors and church leaders navigate the challenges of pastoral ministry and the pressures they face from the surrounding culture. Alistair covers a number of key topics for how to establish a Bible-based ministry, things like how to preach expositionally, how to lead your church, how to deal with difficulty or opposition in your congregation, how to cast a vision. You can work through them at your own pace.

Each module has a corresponding study guide that you can download for free. Use the search bar to find the basics of pastoral ministry when you go to truthforlife.org. In addition to the Bible teaching you here on Truth for Life, our team works very hard to select books we can recommend to you to help you dive deeper into a particular topic. Today, instead of a book, we want to recommend a video.

It's called Revival, the Work of God. It's a two-hour documentary film that explores how God has used ordinary men and women to spark gospel renewal throughout history. The film will take you on a journey throughout periods of great revival like the Reformation, the Evangelical Awakening, the Isle of Lewis.

You'll see key locations that played an important role in church history. The documentary comes on a DVD. There's also a streaming link.

That way you can choose your preferred viewing method. Ask for the revival documentary today when you donate to the teaching ministry of Truth for Life at truthforlife.org slash donate. Now here's Alistair to close with prayer. Our Father, we want to ask you this morning that you will take these principles, convince us of their rightness, and empower us by your Spirit to live as Nehemiah did.

Despite the opposition he faced, despite the consternation within his own fearfulness, he was prayerful, he was thankful, he was joyful, he was bold. Hear our prayers and let our cry come unto you. And may grace and mercy and peace from Father, Son, and Holy Spirit be the abiding portion of all who believe, today and forevermore. Amen. I'm Bob Lapine. Thanks for joining us today. I hope you're able to worship with your local church this weekend. On Monday, we're going to find out why rest is actually an important part of the work we do for God. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.