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Jan 09, 2011

Vision Blueprints

Passage: Nehemiah 1:1-4

Preacher: John Repsold

Series: Fresh Beginnings--Nehemiah

Category: Nehemiah--Fresh Beginnings

Keywords: new beginnings, self-assessment, history, future, renewal

Summary:

Honest, Spirit-led self-assessment is important to charting the course needed for the future. This message introduces a 5-week series in which we will be looking at some of the spiritual practices that were employed by Nehemiah in helping God's people get a fresh start to God's call upon their lives.

Detail:

Vision Blueprints

Series:  Fresh Beginnings—Nehemiah

January 9, 2011

INTO:  In just a few weeks, President Obama will address the nation and deliver his 3rd annual presidential “State of the Union” message.  It will happen on January 25th, actually Groundhog day too. 

Someone recently commented on the irony of that when they said, “It is an ironic juxtaposition of events: one involves a meaningless ritual in which a [warm, likeable creature with no ability to predict the future emerges from hiding]…to prognosticate about the future while the other involves a rodent.”  J

The beginning of a year is always a good time to take a look at the state of things whether it is nationally, locally and personally.  It’s also a good time to get refreshed about what our priorities and plans are going to be for the upcoming year. 

So for the next 5 weeks, we’re going to be looking at what God has to say about the state of his “nation”/his people AND what He might want us to do about it.  We’ll be doing this through the O.T. book of Nehemiah. 

Just for your information, what is the  book of Nehemiah in our Bibles was actually the second part of the same book in the earliest Hebrew manuscripts we have.  Ezra and Nehemiah were treated as one book but understood to be written by two different authors. It wasn’t until Origen in the 2nd-3rd century A.D. that this one book was split into two.  (Maybe that’s because Ezra was a priest and Nehemiah was a politician (of sorts). J  Reminded too many people of a joke, “So this Rabbi and this politician go into a bar….”)

Judah had been in captivity for the 70 years prophesied by Jeremiah in Jeremiah 25:11 decades before.  The Babylonians had destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple around 605 B.C.  Then, when the Persian king Cyrus overthrew the Babylonian empire in 539, in accord with his policy of encouraging subject people to return to their homelands, he issued a decree in 538 B.C. allowing the Jews to do the same.  About 50,000 of them did return under the leadership of Zerubbabel.  It took them 23 years to rebuild the Temple (515 B.C.).  Ezra, a priest with a passion for spiritual revival, went to Jerusalem about 58 years later in 458 B.C.  Another 13 years later, Nehemiah’s part of the story begins in 445BC. 

Nehemiah is a man with a passion for the people of God  to be all they can be.  He’s passionate about seeing God’s people be protected, be respected, be in love with God and experiencing the complete measure of what God wants his people to be and do.  He’s a man who will be able to size up the state of affairs, bring them to God, cry out for God’s solutions and wait for God’s plans.  He’s got a lot to teach people like us what has to happen in order for God’s people to realize God’s vision for their lives. 

We pick it up in Nehemiah 1:1

1 The words of Nehemiah son of Hakaliah:

   In the month of Kislev [Nov-Dec.] in the twentieth year [of King Artaxerxes reign, i.e. 445BC], while I was in the citadel of Susa, 2 Hanani, one of my brothers, came from Judah with some other men, and I questioned them about the Jewish remnant that had survived the exile, and also about Jerusalem.”

So Nehemiah starts asking some questions about what 2 things?

1.)    The people of God in Jerusalem (“Jewish remnant”)

2.)    The city of Jerusalem itself. 

Anyone here have family roots some place other than Spokane?  Nehemiah’s family roots were in the land of Israel.  It was “family property” that had been promised to the Jews by God.  But God had also promised them that if they turned away from Yahweh and worshipped false gods, they would be driven out of the Promised Land for a period of time until they repented and came back into the land as God-worshippers again. 

Imagine that your parents had raised you from day 1 to someday return to your family property in some other city so you and your whole race of people could once again experience God’s blessings.  So you grow up dreaming about what life could be like under God’s blessing in that place. 

            Then, one day, you run into some friends of yours who have just gotten back from that city. What are you going to ask them about the city?  What are you going to want to know about life there?

  • “How’s so-and-so doing?”
  • “What’s the city like nowadays?”

Q:  Let’s bring this home for a moment.  If you were visiting good friends back in, say, Chicago, and they asked you, “So, what’s the condition of Spokane these days,” what would you answer them?  How would you describe the state of the city currently?

Here are some of the hard statistical data about the immediate area surrounding Mosaic Fellowship: (99204 zip):

  • 81% rent (state average is 35%)
  • Every sq. mile has about 7500 people.  We live in THE most densely populated area of our city.
  • Median age = 31 years old
  • Average of 1.7 people/household (State = 2.5)
  • Average household income is 40% less than WA state average.
  • People here give 40% more to charity than our state average (5.3% vs. 3.5%)
  • Half as many families live here as the state average (30% vs. 66%)
  • 25% more unmarried partners here (8.2%) than the state average (6.1%).
  • 3 times as many people live below the poverty level than our state average (35.3% vs. 12.3%)
  • There are as many single parent households (684) as married couple households (685).
  • But there are almost 4 times as many single women households (535) as single men households (149).
  • 10% don’t speak English at home (6% Indo-European; 2.3% Spanish; 1.2% Asian/Pacific).  Bosnia & Herzegovina are the highest foreign-born resident population (16%) tied with South Central Asia (16%) followed by Canada (12%)
  • 66% have lived in the same house/apt. for more than 5 years.
  • The most popular FIRST NAME among deceased individuals in this zip code was…John! J
  • 93% higher total crime risk here than the national average.  100% higher rape risk; 150% higher burglary risk; 80% higher larceny risk; 74% higher theft risk.
  • There is a 1000% higher chance of road construction and knee-deep potholes in the downtown corridor than the national average!  J  (Not really.)

In our congregation currently, chances are your neighborhood looks different than the downtown neighborhood.  That’s not a bad thing.  (Address the reality of downtown churches:  there is no church downtown that draws the majority of its financial support from members in the downtown area….none!  Most ministries to the downtown area either 1.) have a congregation that commutes in to minister here or 2.) are supported heavily by outside financial resources—denomination, donors, etc.)

Notice what the response of Nehemiah’s friends was to his question.  Nehemiah 1:3—“They said to me, “Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire.”

Here’s the 1st major point in this text today:  If we are to realize God’s potential for us, we must make an honest assessment of our surroundings and our hearts. 

What does Nehemiah learn about the PEOPLE of God who are in Jerusalem? 

  • In great trouble—internal: personal issues, families, etc.
  • Disgraced—external: how they are viewed by the people living around them.

Q:  What was so important about the walls and gates of a city in Nehemiah’s day?  How did not having walls affect people at their personal and family level (“in great trouble”)?

  • Without walls you were constantly at risk.
  • Without walls you were constantly vulnerable to abuse by others.
  • Without walls you were open to attack, to robbery, to marauding bands, to anyone who wanted to take advantage of you.
  • Lack of walls was a sign of a people’s poverty, disorganization, poor leadership. 

It would be like living in a house with no doors and broken out windows.  It tells you a lot about the condition of the people living inside, doesn’t it? 

Proverbs 25:28 says, “Like a city whose walls have been broken through is a person who lacks self-control.” 

Maybe that’s how you feel today.  You may look back on your life and you see there are places where the walls have been broken down. Maybe you feel like you lack the ability to resist destructive attacks. You may have fallen victim to sinful habits that you now find difficult, if not impossible, to break. You may have been overrun by others who seem to take advantage of you in a relationship…or financially…or sexually.  Your life may now be overrun by anger or hatred or bitterness or hyper-sensitivity.  You may have control issues that destroy close friendships you long for.  You may be overrun by addictive behaviors like anger or gossiping or pornography or substance abuse or work. Fear, anxiety or depression may come ravaging through your life unbidden and unwelcomed. That is the kind of ruin that is described here.

How about we take a few moments of silence to let God identify any “broken-down walls” or “burned gates” in our lives?  How about asking God to point out where we might be “in great trouble” or “disgraced”?  Don’t run from this.  The only way we can begin to get healing and help is if we see our lives as God sees them.  Just be still and let God nudge you or whisper something.  It may not be what you expect so listen carefully and quietly.  [Take 60 seconds of silence.]

But then there was the “outside” factor too.  They were disgraced before the surrounding people and the world.  Why did not having walls around their city cause them to be disgraced?

  • It was a reflection on the gods of a people.  Weak people = weak gods.  Strong people/city = strong gods. 
  • Because Jerusalem was no longer an orderly, safe, thriving place, the people were not safe, thriving or respected. 

How well God’s people are doing reflects on the God we serve.  If our life together as God’s people is in shambles, we’ll be “disgraced” and we’ll dishonor the name of the God we serve.  But if God’s people and the life we share together is filled with God and his blessing, then God and the church will be honored. 

So let’s ask the honest question for both God’s people as a whole in our city and our local church in particular.  Is the life of God’s people, the church of Jesus Christ in Spokane, honoring God or being a disgrace to Him?  Do our neighbors see the signs of God at work in His people when they look at us and the church…OR do they see broken down families, people and churches? 

What is the state of the church in Spokane?  How would you describe it to someone who hadn’t been here for 20 years and was deeply interested in God’s people in this community? Is God’s church in this city growing or declining?  Getting stronger or weaker?  More holy or less holy?  More positive impact in our city or a negative impact?   

What seems to be doing better/well? 

  • + = About 400 individual congregations. (1 church per 1,000 people)
  • + = A new surge of church planting going on in the last 10 years (20-40 new churches).
  • ??? = Downtown?  Fewer churches yet more “ministries.” 
  • + = Doing more to train the next generation (Moody, Whitworth, Master’s Commission, etc.)
  • + = stronger and more service-based ministries.
  • + = greater networking and intra-church cooperation.
  • + =

What’s not going so well/disgracing the name of Christ?

  • - = Less than 18% church attendance in Spokane.
  • - = Little statistically discernable growth (evangelistic/new believers) from the unchurched community.
  • - = We’re losing the younger generation at an unprecedented rate.
  • - = holiness/righteousness of life is suffering—divorces, sexual impurity in the church,

APP:   As church leaders we are constantly trying to take an honest and spiritually-minded assessment of Mosaic.  Sometimes it’s pretty painful.  Sometimes God forces it upon us.  We step back and have to acknowledge that we aren’t as far along or as healthy as we really wish we were.  But only when we are willing to look at where we are “broken down and burned up” can we make healthy changes that will lead us into better life. 

EXAMPLE 1:  Over a year ago we had to face some spiritual dry-rot in our leadership.  We’d put some people in places of leadership where they abused the trust.  We lost some of God’s money and resources because we weren’t as healthy as we needed to be.  Some people left.  We had to tighten our belts and get brutally honest with ourselves in leadership.  It was painful and discouraging.  But it was really needed.  And I can tell you honestly today that there is more regular accountability, more frequent “speaking the truth in love” among leaders.  That’s healthy.

EXAMPLE 2:  Last year facing the sense of disconnectedness and lack of shared life in Christ together, we felt God was leading us to really tackle this problem, this “broken-down-ness” in our church.

  • Tried monthly Fellowship Potlucks after church.  People ate and ran.  It didn’t really change things.
  • We’ve been trying to do more person-to-person interaction on Sundays in our worship times together.  Still people tend to “talk-and-walk”. 
  • Then we started the Alpha Course.  For most of us who have been a part of that, it’s really changed the nature of our relationships.  Spending 12 weeks plus a weekend retreat with people I used to just blow by on a Sunday morning has changed not only how we relate but how we feel about each other.  Now when I see people who were in my group, I may stop and ask them how a certain issue is going or what has happened with that relationship we were praying about. 

EXAMPLE 3:  After a couple of years in existence here as a church we took a look and realized that we’re really not carrying out God’s heart to “make disciples of all people.”  God wants to grow His family and he wants to do it through us.  One of the ways He has done that in every culture and generation of His church is by reaching our own personal networks of relationship (family, friends, neighbors).  Another is often by local churches reaching the local neighborhoods God has put them in.  In our case that would be here downtown and the lower South Hill. 

RESULT: Local neighborhood—we started praying about the specific apartment buildings near us.  God has just begun to open doors. 

  • Last month a Men’s Bible Study began in the Wall St. Apartments just south of us. 
  • In 11 days we start another Bible study in the Cooper-George near Deaconess. 

There are dozens of opportunities like that within 6 blocks of us here.  But each one requires a handful of people willing to invest time, love and their lives in other people on a weekly basis.   

            On the “networks of relationship” side of things, again ALPHA is becoming that mechanism whereby ALL of us can invite people we’ve been praying for and living around to search out the claims of Christ and ask the questions that may be keeping them from becoming a Christian. 

APP:  Get in groups and do the “positives/negatives” honest, Spirit-led assessment of Mosaic from your perspective.  How are we experiencing the blessing of God?  Where is our strength?  Where might our walls and gates be broken, crumbling or non-existent?  Where do we seem to still need him to do some real building, healing, blessing?  After all, this is YOUR church so God can speak just as much to you about it as he can to me or anyone else in leadership. 

[Pray, let groups work, and then share insights after 5 minutes of group time.]

So the 1st step towards strengthening a city, a nation, a soul or a church is to make an honest assessment of our lives and our surroundings.  That takes time, usually quiet times with God.  That takes listening to God, seeing through His eyes.  That takes Spirit-led insight and whispers.  That’s why “Sabbath spaces” are SO important in our lives…daily, weekly, quarterly, annually.  Look at the Sabbaths and festivals God gave Israel as a nation and you’ll see a clear precedent for what we as God’s sons and daughters and as His church should be doing.

The 2nd issue in becoming the people God wants us to be can be seen in Nehemiah’s response to his friends’ “State of the Nation” report:  let yourself feel God’s heart for the condition of your life/Christ’s church/this city.

This may take a little time.  It may start with a jolt, but that doesn’t mean it is something that happens in one church service or one quiet time or one counseling session.  Here’s how it happened to Nehemiah. 

Nehemiah 1:4—“When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.”

“Some days?”  Well, from the chronology given in Neh. 2:1, we know that it was actually about 4 months of processing the information before God put him in a place where he could take overt action that would change the future of God’s people.  Four months of “sitting.”  Four months of “weeping”.  Four months of “mourning” and “fasting” and “praying,” all “before the God of heaven.” 

            Nehemiah certainly continued to do his work as a cup bearer to the king.  He kept working and resting, eating and sleeping, talking and walking.  Life kept moving along, but he let the information he had received change the implementation God made in his life. 

Transformation of God’s people comes when we allow ourselves to feel God’s heart for a place/situation/people.  That “feeling” or “identifying” with the need will frequently come in the same place or through the same experience Nehemiah had: in the spiritual practice of PRAYER. 

NOTE:  please don’t “turn me off” right now.  You might be thinking, “Oh boy.  Here goes John again riding that hobby horse of prayer.  Wake me up when he’s back down on terra firma with something practical.” 

First, I’m not going to teach on prayer today.  I will do that another Sunday in this series, however. J

Secondly, the reason I keep returning over and over again to this matter of prayer as your pastor is the same reason a marriage counselor returns over and over again to the issue of communication with a troubled marriage.  There is a direct correlation between healthy communication and a healthy marriage…just as there is a direct correlation between a sick marriage and sick communication. 

The same can be said for our relationship with God.  Prayer is both speaking and listening.  Prayer is communication between us and God. 

  • Good communication = good relationship. 
  • Poor/weak/non-existent communication with God = poor/weak/non-existent relationship with God. 

It’s not rocket science!  There is something very moving about prayer that really connects us with God.  What do I mean? 

ILL:  Having lunch with a brother in Mosaic this week, we got to talking about feeling things as men.  He mentioned that he never used to tear up or cry much at all before meeting Jesus.  But since he’s begun growing in his relationship with God in Christ, tears come both publically and privately, out of joy and out of conviction and sorrow.

Coincidentally, I’ve personally observed how this brother has grown leaps and bounds in the experience of prayer over the past few years.  His encounters with God are not limited to a scattered church service here or there or a prayer list every morning.  His whole life has become peppered with experiences of prayer which are really encounters with God. 

Invitation to PRAYER:

  • Thursday mornings
  • Sunday mornings
  • Daily time with God

Next week:  we’ll be looking into chapters 2 & 3 about the importance of developing a PLAN of ACTION for growth, rebuilding and whatever it is that God puts in our hearts to do plus how to practically put our shoulder to the work of ministry in God’s family. 

RECAP: 

  • In your “honest assessment” of the state of your soul, would you have to say that Jesus is not the Lord or Savior of your life?  Is it time to put your life and faith in Jesus, surrender control and let God do the rebuilding and repair needed?

COMMUNION:

            It’s a time to allow the Holy Spirit to do what we’ve been talking about all morning—make an honest assessment of the state of our lives. 

1.)     Any “broken walls” that are leaving my life vulnerable to attack?  Any “burned-out gates” where I need to rebuild and re-hang doors that let good influences in but keep destructive influences out?  What is the state of my soul?  Has last week held more good rebuilding or more destructive tearing down? 

2.)    What does God want me to feel about the state of my own soul or His church?  Sorrow for sin?  Joy over grace?  Sadness about ongoing weakness?  Passion for the honor of God’s name in this city…my workplace…my school? 

Allow God to use this time of communion with Him to be a time of communication from Him to your heart.