Pastor Zach Pummill • June 06, 2021

Sermon Overview

NEHEMIAH 1:1–2:6

In this passage Nehemiah is devastated by the news of Jerusalem and how the city walls lie in ruin. How does Nehemiah respond to this devastation and how does God meet him there?

Sermon Transcript

Today, we begin the book of Nehemiah and we enter the next phase in this story of return. Here's what you're going see. You're going to see Nehemiah start this chapter as one thing and by the end of the chapter, is something else entirely. We get a chance to witness his transformation before our very eyes, and we get to see how God repurposes Nehemiah.

So as we begin this morning, here's my question for you: how can you know when God is at work in your life? How can you know when God is beginning a new work within you?

That's an important question. It's a good question, because don't we believe that God is always at work? He's always doing something, yet how do we know when He is? He doesn't send invites. There's no notification that's going to show up on your phone that says, "Hey, it's me, I'd like to make you an offer you can't refuse." So how do you know when God is beginning a new work within you?

Because when we look at the cross, we can say so easily and quickly what Jesus has done. But does the cross teach us what Jesus is actually doing now? So how do you know when God is beginning a new work within you?

I want to answer that question this morning by giving you three different vignettes. I want to give you three different profiles of three different individuals crossing thousands of years.

And the first vignette I put before you is me. I want you to travel back in time 12 years to 2009 in a magical place far, far away called Uptown in Dallas. It was the first day of my seminary career. Greek 1, day one, I sat in the back. So the first thing I'd like to draw your attention to is, really, just how awesome I am. It's difficult, I spent a week trying to find the vocabulary to quantify and express the greatness that entered the room that day. You see, humility was good and all but it was really meant more for people that didn't know as much as I did. Because I was destined for greatness. Certain that God had placed the calling on my life to revolutionize the Church and usher in a golden age. It was a future obviously filled with book deals, international speaking requests, and an invitation to the world to come unto me all who are weary and heavy laden and Zach will give you rest.

If you don't believe me, you can ask Marq, he was there. He sat in the front row that day, because evidently he needed to learn something. And I'd find out that Marq was the guy you know, a great guy, a really nice guy. But he wasn't really worth my time because Marq pastored a small church, and he seemed content doing that, so to me he was the type of guy that just set his sights way, way too low. And I couldn't imagine in what universe I'd ever have any involvement with his church.

And then I was invited to attend a church formerly known as Trinity Harbor. So I visited. I found really sweet people but it wasn't for me. A small church in an un-influential suburb is never going to make a dent in the world and I needed a bigger platform. And of course, Melissa really enjoyed all of this by the way.

I spent the next couple of years not building relationships, I built a network - built a network based on what others had to offer me. I used people. I used them like rungs on a ladder for my own self-promotion. And then I found two mentors that I idolized that took me under their wing and made promises to give me opportunities to use me to be a part of building something great. Finally, two men that saw my potential and what I had to offer. So I hitched my wagon to them. I did what they did. I talked like they talked. I dreamed like they dreamed. I wanted to be like them. So that's vignette number one. An arrogant, self-confident, self-righteous glory-seeker that was one 100% convinced of his own virtue and his own Christlike greatness.

Now, how do you think God would enter into the life of this person and start a new work? What would it look like for him to begin a new work when a person views the world and themselves like that?

Well as it turns out I know that story pretty well. It started when he let everything fall apart. It started when he brought destruction, one brick at a time. It was ‘promises made’ were not ‘promises kept.’ I began to feel used, like a rung on a ladder. I started to feel like the way I wanted everyone else to feel towards me, being used to worship at the altar of another. And I would learn that both had moral failures, they both left a destructive wake of relationships as they left ministry. And so years later, when I came back to this church to visit, I no longer wanted to go into ministry. I was done. I spent my evenings thinking about getting my old job back and calling my boss or looking at different film schools to apply to.

But truth be told, I was scared. I was scared that I would become the very thing I idolized. I was awakened to something so dangerous within me because what made me any different? In them, I saw the logical conclusion to all of the desires that were thriving and growing in my own heart. I was scared. I was awakened to something I'd never seen and I saw how dangerous it was.

And so how can you know when God is at work to make you something new? It's when He destroys your illusions and He awakens you to reality. It's when He destroys your illusions about who you are, about how you view the world and the story you live inside. It's when he opens your eyes to the way things really are. And maybe right now you just thought, "Illusions? I don't have any illusions." My friend, that's the greatest illusion of them all.

Because if you think that, or we think that sin is just nothing more than just bad actions or bad things that people do every now and then, then you can rest assured that you are sitting comfortably inside the magician's trick. And you have bought the extra large popcorn and that really tasty big box of Mike and Ike that are so addicting, you're taking it all in. Because sin is a magician.

And the Bible tells you a story from the very beginning of how we live by illusion and ignore reality.

If you go back to the very beginning to the fall in Genesis 3, what is Adam and Eve's first response to sin entering the world? The very first thing they do is they hide. They hide. Their eyes are opened and they do not like what they see. So they hide from one another, they hide from God, they hide from themselves. They don't want to see who they are, they don't want to see God or each other, and they don't want God or the other to see them. And so they start living by their own illusions, they start casting blame, they start pointing the finger, they start covering themselves in fig leaves and they do everything that they possibly can to ignore the reality of their existence. And they are convinced 100% that they understand the world in which they now lived.

And we cannot claim that the Bible is our story and we cannot claim to live by it unless we recognize and embrace what it's telling us, their story is our story. Sin operates no differently in our own lives, promoting illusions that we know who we are, we understand the world, we see everyone and everything in 20-20. And those illusions take on all sorts of different forms, an infinite number. It takes on forms like "my kids are doing fine. My marriage is going great. What was done to me in the past doesn't affect me anymore, I've moved on. I'm not addicted, I could quit anytime I want to." And sin creates within us a massive unwillingness to see reality. And the sanctifying, life-changing power of God works within us to remove those illusions, so what? So that we might see. So that we might see ourselves the way He sees us. So that we might see the world the way He sees it.

And so how do you know when God begins a new work within you? It's when He destroys your illusions and awakens us to reality.

And when He does, that's hard. It's painful and it's disorienting. And I know hearing that can sound scary, as though God were motivated by some sort of destructive cruelty towards you. That truth just seems to reinforce the idea that God is just always just about ready to make that other shoe drop, because he wants to crush you. But my friend, that is not true. Yeah, He's not safe. Yes, He brings destruction, but He doesn't leave you there. Because look at the cross. We look at the cross and we so quickly remember what Jesus has done, but we don't often allow it to shape what we know that Jesus is still doing. That the cross reveals to us the power of God that's at work within us. And yes, there are times where even though God's destructive blow to the power of sin in our life, feels like death for a moment, it leads to new life. That destruction is the beginning of how God repurposes us and remakes us into something new.

So how can you lay hold of that work? How can you cling to it and know that God is making you something new and to be open to it?

Well, to see that, we needed a second vignette this morning, which is Nehemiah himself. And it's a curious moment in which Nehemiah wants us to meet him, it's in this exact moment. We meet him in the exact moment when his illusions are shattered and he's awakened to the reality of the world.

So for context, 90 years have passed since the first exiles have returned home. Nehemiah lives in Susa, which is modern day Iraq. He's an exile baby, born and raised in Babylon. And one day one of his brothers returns from Jerusalem and Nehemiah is excited to hear about the news that he brings about his motherland, wanting to hear good news and good things. But instead, he hears news that he didn't expect. He's told that the people in Jerusalem are living in great danger and shame because the city walls lie in ruin and the gates are destroyed by fire. And that reality hit Nehemiah like a ton of bricks, and it says he sat down and he wept and he mourned for days. That's how Nehemiah introduces himself. That's the invitation, he wants you to come and sit with him in his devastation. And he wants you to see what God has done in his life.

Because why was this such crushing news for Nehemiah? Part of it's because he knows the promises of God. God already told His people that when He brings His people home out of exile, He will make them dwell securely. And that he will plant vineyards and they will flourish in Jerusalem and Israel will be filled with life and fullness and joy. And so Nehemiah expected to hear news about Camelot, a flourishing utopian city - his city - rebuilt to her former glory, but instead the city is a haunt and the people live in danger and they live in shame.

And it's hard for us to identify with this type of connection to a physical place in our modern transient world. But just imagine for a second that we got an update from Ananth just this week and he told us how in the deep forest all of the water wells were busted and pulled from the ground, and all of the churches were burned with fire, and the children's home lied and ruin. That'd be personal. It would also be theological. That's something that would make you look up.

And Israel is living in shame. They're living in shame because they're a laughingstock, they're a punchline. They're mocked with things like, "Hey, Israel, where's your God? He can't even rebuild his own city? This, all this is supposed to be the city where your God dwells? Doesn't seem like a God worth believing in." Do you not hear the same subtext every time you see an article talking about the beautiful ways in which these old church buildings are being renovated into restaurants and luxury condos? "Where's your God? He's a thing of the past, time to make way for something new."

And Nehemiah feels the crushing weight of reality when his illusions are destroyed and he learns the way that things really are. He sat down and he wept and he mourned for days, why? Because having your illusions removed is crushing and disorienting. That's why we don't want to see reality, it's because we know how much we have invested in those illusions. Now, it's certainly true of me all those years ago when reality hit, it made me feel so disoriented. I felt so lost because I was so certain of how the story would go. I was so certain of who I was, so certain of what I was supposed to do, so certain of the story I lived inside, and then, completely untethered. Because in that moment, I realized so much of my life was built on nothing more than the sand of illusion and all of my hopes, all of my expectations were tethered to it. And so of course, when those illusions are removed, you wonder, "God, where are you? What have I been doing all this time? What are you doing? Who am I? What is my life really about? What story do I really live inside?"

Those are disorienting questions and those are the exact questions that Nehemiah had when his eyes were opened and his world was turned upside down. Because that's precisely the point. That's the point. Because it's through those questions that God met Nehemiah. It's through those questions that God began to rebuild his life on a completely new foundation. God did not leave Nehemiah in the destruction, He used it to repurpose him. And this prayer we see in Nehemiah 1 comes at the end of these many days of fasting and prayer. So how long was it? How long did he fast and pray?

Now, if we put the calendar together, it was four months. Four months. It's an entire semester. It's a football season. Four months of searching and wrestling with God, which just challenges us with the simple question to really survey our own hearts and to recognize that so often, I don't think we experience God because we're not willing to search for God. When reality hits, it's easier to grab the remote, busy ourselves with shopping or the next project to jump into than it is to search for God because this world has trained us to want life-change with next-day delivery options and Buy-It-Now buttons.

And we have a Bible that tells us that is simply not how God works, ever. He makes us search for him. He draws us in. He wants us to move towards Him. And the Bible tells us over and over and over again that there is something profound and unexplainable that happens in that pursuit and wrestling with him. And it's something that no one can experience for you. It's something you can only experience for yourself. It's something that's only between you and God. And something profound happens to Nehemiah in these four months of searching and wrestling. And I don't know what he experienced in those four months. I don't know what he experienced in those four months any more than I would know what you would experience if you wrestled with God in those vexating questions.

But what he prays in this prayer gives us a glimpse of what he experienced. It gives us a picture that summarizes those four months of wrestling. He encountered the great and awesome God who keeps his covenant and steadfast love. He owned the story and the sins of his people. He didn't sugarcoat it and pretend like it was a thing of the past and it didn't matter anymore, he's willing to face the reality of Israel's failures but he was also willing to see his own. He owned his own sin and his own failures and he pointed the finger at himself. He did everything opposite of what the fall taught us how to do. It's because when he met God, he was willing to let go of his illusions and he was willing to see what God wanted to show him. And it's in that searching, in that wrestling, that he awakens to a deeper reality of who God is and who he is, because he met God there. And he comes out of that a different man. He also comes out of it with a new purpose.

And we know he comes out of it with a new purpose because of what he says at the end of his prayer. It's almost easy to miss. He says, "Give success to your servant today and grant him mercy in the sight of this man." Who's this man? What does he need success with?

Nehemiah obviously feels that as though he has a job to do, he set his heart to a new purpose but he knows that only is going to happen if God does the impossible. And so what is it?

And Nehemiah doesn't tell us until chapter 2. And this new purpose requires him to make a very bold request. Because when he's with the king, the king asked Nehemiah, "Why are you so sad?" And Nehemiah says, "It's because the city of my people is lying in ruin and the gates are burned with fire, and my people live in shame." And so King Artaxerxes says, "Well, Nehemiah, what are you requesting then?" It says in that moment, Nehemiah stops and he prays. That prayer had to be so short, so quick, throwing up a quick prayer to ask God to be with him. A prayer so short that it's powerful in its simplicity. It's the shortest prayers that are typically the most powerful. God, please be with me. God, please help me. God, please be here. This new sense of purpose also came with the new sense of dependence upon God to bring about what he felt he was called to do. And so he prays it in his heart and then he says, "I want to go to Judah and I want to rebuild the city of my fathers."

Now, that's a bold request, why? Because Nehemiah is the cupbearer of the king and that's a big job.

The cupbearer was the one that tasted the food and the drink before the king to make sure it wasn't poisoned. And the Persians were known for how much, for how influential, the cupbearers were in the kingdom. They were known for how prominent of a position that cupbearers held in the life of the king. Nehemiah was the one person that King Artaxerxes trusted most. Nehemiah was the one person who determined who had access to the king. Nehemiah was his most trusted adviser and confidant with unlimited access to Artaxerxes. And so like Joseph, he most likely is the second most influential person inside of the Empire and the king trusted him with his life every single day. Every meal he ate, every bite he took, every drink he had, he trusted Nehemiah with his life.

So how do you think the king would hear Nehemiah's request to leave? That invites a lot of scrutiny, a lot of dangerous scrutiny. Is this a trick, Nehemiah? Is there something going on? You know, trying to leave me vulnerable? You're goning stab me in the back? Is this part of some plan? Who are you working with? Who's behind this? I could put your head on a pike anytime I wanted.

But no, none of that happens because God was with Nehemiah. Nehemiah made his request and the king says, "I'll give you everything you need, how long will you be gone?" Nehemiah begins this chapter as one thing, but now he's something else entirely.

And do you see what's happened? Do you see how God moves Nehemiah from a place of illusion to a place of new vision? Excuse me. Goodness, gracious. It's not the first coughing attack I've had in a worship service, as some of you remember. God moves Nehemiah from a place of illusion to a place of new vision and purpose. Because Nehemiah's illusions about the world and the story he lived inside, they were shattered. And through that he saw reality but in that devastation, and through that wrestling, Nehemiah actually sees. He sees who God is, he sees who He is. And through that, something within him changes. Now he's ready to participate in the purposes of God in a way that he never was before. Now he's ready for a new story, a new life, and a new purpose.

And all throughout this series, this is what the story of exile and return has shown us all along. It's a story that begins with destruction, the destruction of the temple and the city to remove Israel's illusions about who they are, what they're about and their purpose in the world so that they would see reality. But that destruction was just the beginning of the story. It was the beginning of God rebuilding his people so that they might fully participate in his purposes, and become the people that they were created to be, so that they would experience a new life that only He could offer to them.

And this isn't just a history lesson of what happened thousands of years ago, this is a story that the Scriptures testify over and over again how God enters our story and He begins a new work, when he destroys those illusions so that we might see. And in that we become repurposed and made new.

You see Jesus go after the illusions of Nicodemus that he thought he understood everything about the kingdom and he leaves the conversation that night with his world turned completely upside down.

He goes right after the illusions of the woman at the well who thought that her satisfaction and hope and joy can be found in the love of a man, and Jesus says, "You've had five husbands, it doesn't work does it?"

You see Jesus go right after Peter's illusion who believed the illusion of his own devotion. He said, "I will never deny you, Lord, I'd die for you." And yet Jesus shows him reality when He says, "Peter, before the night's over, you're gonna deny me three times. You are not who you think you are."

But Jesus doesn't leave them in that devastation. He repurposes every single one of them. He moves them from that place of illusion to having a new vision of who God is and who they are, and out of that new vision, they come to find a new life and a new purpose. Because Nicodemus began a journey where he would later boldly identify with the crucified Christ. And it's implied that he lost everything because of that. And the woman at the well went and told everyone in her village, everyone she knew, to come and to hear and to listen to this man who showed her a deeper reality. Peter would awaken to the reality of who he was, but through it, he would awaken to the reality of who God really was. And it was through his failure that God would rebuild the world. And each of them were remade out of that devastation.

And they participated in the purposes of God in a way that they never could before. And the Scriptures testify that this is how God works. This is the power of the cross at work within us. And friends, this is also how God has worked among us.

Because our third vignette this morning, you've already heard, is Pam. But I wanted to tell her story from my vantage point. I remember the conversations in that conference room back there, where she talked about her views of the world, and how problems just needed the right solution. We just needed to figure out what the issue is so that we can fix it. And the reason it hasn't been fixed is because the right solution has not yet been applied. But I also vividly remember when all of that came crashing down. Jesus knows the exact brick to pull out to make it all topple like a house of cards.

We were walking in the Kalighat and I heard "Zach! Zach!" I turned around and I saw Pam walking towards me very quickly, but she kept looking back because she was trying to keep her eye on something and I had no idea what was going on. And she was visibly shaken and she told me about the little girl. She said, "The little girl that was with me, she let go and then she'd turned around and she walked away! We have to go get her! We have to go find her! What if someone grabs her? What if someone takes her? What if she never makes it home? What if someone hurts her? She's all alone!" And I said, "Pam, this is her world. She knows how to get home, you have to let her go." And there are a few moments in ministry when you can see on someone's face what God has just done in their heart. And that was one of those moments. It was a moment with the devastating realization: "I can't fix this."

And I asked Pam to share later that night with the team. And when the time came, she said she couldn't, she was still way too raw and confused and in a fog, and of course she was. But she did say this in her tears, she said, "You told us that coming here we would realize that they are the gift to us, but this feels like a curse. I did not expect a broken heart."

That was devastation that felt personal. That was devastation that was theological and the wrestling had begun.

And yet out of that wrestling, something happened that I can't explain and neither can Pam. It was nothing more than the beginning of the mysterious repurposing power of God at work. Because Jesus awakened her to the reality of the world and those illusions came crashing down, but in that, something new was happening. In the Kalighat that day, Jesus was taking Pam by the hand and moving her from the place of illusion to new vision, showing her a world that so desperately needed Him. A world of problems, problems so big in fact, that maybe it really does require the death of God to remedy and restore.

He showed her what it means to share his sorrow for the world and to be acquainted with his grief. He showed her what it means to be close to the brokenhearted and near to the crushed in spirit.

And right now you're thinking, "How could there ever be life found in those feelings?" It was those feelings that drove your Savior to the cross so that you might know his joy. And it's that same Savior that meets you in that devastation so that you might also experience the death that He experienced so that you might awaken to the life that he has for you. And somewhere in that mystery, there's a new purpose, because Pam found that too.

The part of her story that I asked her not to tell, and she didn't want to tell, was that she did come home and would eventually become a CASA advocate, a court appointed advocate for disadvantaged children in devastating situations. Something she'd never think that she would have done. Now, she wanted to come alongside girls who suffer, those who need a voice. Now, she sees with new eyes all those little girls that so desperately need someone to come and hold their hand. Now, she sees all those little girls that don't have a hope, unless someone's heart breaks for them. And now, she's able to participate in the purposes of God in a way that she never would before because she sees the world with a little bit more of Jesus's eyes, and feels a little bit more of His heart for a world that He gave His life to save. And make no mistake, this is not an arrival story. For Nehemiah, this was just the beginning.

And for Pam, that new story has only just begun because she will tell you that she's still wrestles and she still struggles and she still wonders and she still searches. But she does know that life looks different on the other side, and it's the life she wouldn't trade for anything in the world because she knows that Jesus has shown her a new life and a new world and a new way. And she finds herself walking more closely with Him, and in the end, isn't that really the point?

The fourth vignette this morning is a story I can't tell, it's your story. And it's a beautiful story.

There's new life and there's new purpose. It's a story where Jesus will come near, He will grab your hand and He will lead you home. And it's a story that begins with the simplest of prayers: "Jesus, help me see."

Let's pray.