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Feb 08, 2015

Weaving A Fabric Of Strength

Weaving A Fabric Of Strength

Passage: Nehemiah 6:15-19

Preacher: John Repsold

Series: Rebuilding the City

Keywords: miraculous, divine, help of god, alliances, agreements, impossibilities

Summary:

How much of what we try to do in life really requires the help of God? This passage looks at the need to pursue things that require divine intervention as well as the need to break unholy alliances and build holy alliances through our church and family lines.

Detail:

Weaving a Fabric of Strength

Nehemiah 6:15-7:73

February 8, 2015

 

How many experiences in your life can you look back on and say that unless God had helped you, it wouldn’t have gotten done?

It was Paris, 1924.  It was “the Games of the VIII Olympiad” or the 1924 Summer Olympics.   Johnny Weissmuller (of old-time Tarzan movies) would win three gold medals in swimming and one bronze in water polo.  The “Flying Finns” would dominate the long distance events. And Great Britain would make a clean sweep of the 100, 400 & 800 meter races, taking gold in each with runners Harold Abrahams, Eric Liddell and Douglas Lowe respectively.

Eric Liddell, made famous to a new generation in the movie Chariots of Fire, went on to be a missionary to China in 1925 until his death in 1945.  The last two years of his life were spent in China in a Japanese internment camp for missionaries and other expatriates.  He was quickly recognized as a leader, not for his athleticism, but for his gentle and kind spirit.  While fellow missionaries formed cliques, moralized and acted selfishly, Liddell busied himself by helping the elderly, teaching at the camp school Bible classes, arranging games and by teaching science to the children, who referred to him as Uncle Eric.

One of his fellow internees, Norman Cliff, later wrote a book about his experiences in the camp called "The Courtyard of the Happy Way" in which he detailed the remarkable characters in the camp. Cliff described Liddell as "the finest Christian gentleman it has been my pleasure to meet. In all the time in the camp, I never heard him say a bad word about anybody". 

Langdon Gilkey, who also survived the camp and became a prominent theologian in his native America, said of Liddell: "Often in an evening I would see him bent over a chessboard or a model boat, or directing some sort of square dance – absorbed, weary and interested, pouring all of himself into this effort to capture the imagination of these penned-up youths. He was overflowing with good humor and love for life, and with enthusiasm and charm. It is rare indeed that a person has the good fortune to meet a saint, but he came as close to it as anyone I have ever known."

His last letter to his wife and 3 daughters living in Canada during the war was written on the day he died. Liddell wrote of suffering a nervous breakdown due to overwork. He actually had an inoperable brain tumor though overwork and malnourishment may have hastened his death. Liddell died on 21 February 1945, five months before liberation. According to a fellow missionary, Liddell's last words were, "It's complete surrender.”

Eric Liddell was THE most popular athlete Scotland has ever produced, according to the public voting for the first inductees for the Scottish Sports Hall of Fame in 2002.   But it wasn’t until 2008, just before the Beijing Olympics, that Chinese authorities revealed something unknown even to his family until then.  Eric had actually refused an opportunity to leave the camp during the war, and instead gave his place to a pregnant woman. Apparently, the Japanese and British, with Churchill's approval, had agreed upon a prisoner exchange.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Liddell, Feb. 6, 2015]

By his own admission, what Eric Liddell did both in the Olympics and in life as a missionary and prisoner of war, he did through the power and enablement of Jesus Christ.  It was that divine-human partnership that enabled him to do extraordinary things.

That’s where we left Nehemiah and the Jews of Jerusalem last week in Nehemiah 6:16 (NLT).  They had just completed a task almost everyone around them considered impossible.  Listen to Nehemiah’s own words about the event.  15 So on October 2 the wall was finished—just fifty-two days after we had begun. 16 When our enemies and the surrounding nations heard about it, they were frightened and humiliated. They realized this work had been done with the help of our God.”

Thus my original question:  How many experiences in your life can you look back on and say that unless God had helped you, it wouldn’t have gotten done? Frankly, I wish I had more.  But if you’re here today, you’ve still got life and breath, and you still have the opportunity to establish a legacy like that… God still has an opportunity to bless you by helping you with something that, for you alone with your resources and strength, cannot be done without God’s intervention. 

            Living in a culture of wealth and where so many of life’s basics may come so easily for so many, it is far easier to just coast along, satisfied with the status quo.  That’s what Henry David Thoreau called “living lives of quiet desperation.”   His famous quote actually comes from a piece he penned called “Civil Disobedience and Other Essays.”  It reads, “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.”

            Not Eric Liddell.  Not Cupbearer to the King, Nehemiah.  And I hope it can be said of every one of us some day—not John, not Mikias, not Jody, not Dave, not you!  God has not run out of miracles he wants to do.  God has not filled up the quota of people He wants in his kingdom.  He hasn’t depleted the list of divine-human works he wants done in this generation.  If we aren’t seeing things that make people say, “There is no way in the world they could have done that if God wasn’t working on their behalf,” then we simply are not stepping out boldly enough in faith and into the darkness. 

ILL:    Some of those steps of faith into the darkness of life may come in a moment you least expected or planned for.  A few weeks ago my son Andrew was sharing about how engaging in Faith Promise giving as a kid has helped him take larger steps of faith today.  And he made the comment, “I hope that someday I’ll have enough faith to ask God to raise someone from the dead.”  Andrew, that caught me off guard…and has been rumbling around in my soul ever since.   

So this week I came across a news story that caught my attention.  Listen to what happened a few weeks ago when one mother dared to ask God for something only God could do—a miracle.  [video news story found at http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/02/05/he-was-dead-for-45-minutes-doctors-are-absolutely-stunned-and-shaken-after-teens-miracle-recovery/]

This is why I’m nervously excited about what we are trying to do as a presence of God’s church downtown. 

  • We don’t with our own resources have the ability as a small congregation to triple our lease commitments and get serious about purchasing a $1.2 million dollar piece of real estate downtown…but “with the help of God”, we can.
  • The statistics and odds are all against us starting, not 1 or 2 or 3 but 4 new businesses-as-ministry in Spokane in the next 8 months.  But “with the help of God” anything is possible!
  • We don’t have as a church or individuals the clout or fame or personal talent to start a Mosaic Center in the heart of our city that God will use to grab the hearts of today’s youth and young adults and change marriages and families for generations…but God can!

Like Nehemiah and the walls of Jerusalem, it will take a TON of work!  It will wear us out, break us down, threaten our stability and draw the ire and fire of people who hate to see God’s church and kingdom advance in Spokane.  But when it is up and functioning and serving hundreds and thousands of residents of Spokane month after month, year after year, someone is going to say, “There is NO WAY you could have done this if God wasn’t on your side.” 

Don’t think that this is just some starry-eyed preacher yanking some obscure principle out of some dusty Old Testament history book.  This is Jesus’ heart and passion, plain and simple. 

Four times in three of the Gospels of Christ’s life we have Jesus himself calling us forward into the impossible-with-man, possible-with-God scenarios of life. 

  • Matthew 19:23-26—Jesus has just challenged a rich man to go and sell all he has and give to the poor and then come follow Him.  The man leaves very sad…and leaves Jesus very sad…because he can’t part with his wealth to grab a hold of Christ.  And Jesus tells his disciples this:   “I tell you the truth, it is very hard for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. 24 I’ll say it again—it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God!”25 The disciples were astounded. “Then who in the world can be saved?” they asked. 26 Jesus looked at them intently and said, “Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But with God everything is possible.”

            Changing and rescuing a human heart from false gods like money or fame or personal freedom or addiction IS impossible without God.  But EVERYTHING that is good, righteous, holy, loving, pure, kind…and a million other wonderful qualities of God…IS possible. Listen….

  • Mark 10:27—Jesus looked at them intently and said, “Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But not with God. Everything is possible with God.”
  • Luke 1:37—The angel, Gabriel, speaking with Mary about the birth of Jesus and John the Baptist, said, “For nothing will be impossible with God.”
  • Luke 18:27—But He [Jesus] said, “The things that are impossible with people are possible with God.”
  • Ephesians 3:20-21—Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

Impossibilities in our lives are not there to drive us into despair; they are there to lift us into faith.  God can and does and longs to make possible our “impossibilities”.  Yes, they will take work…and lots of it.  Yes, they will take sacrifice…perhaps our life itself.  Yes, they will feel like they are going to be the undoing of us.  But NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE WITH GOD!!!

            There is a scene in Chariots of Fire that displays that very attitude and heart in the athletic part of Eric Liddell’s life.  It’s the way he approached running…and it’s the way he approached life.  In this scene he’s running a race in Scotland and Harold Abrahams, his English competition and the man who would win the 100 meter gold at the 1924 Olympics after Liddell refused to run in the Sunday qualifying heat, is the fellow in the grandstands.

Video:  Eric Liddell-- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4e5Xfmc8zQ

Ever feel like Liddell?  You may not look very “pretty” running your race, arms flailing and head tipped back.  You may feel like you’ve been knocked out of the race at some point.  You may think it is impossible to finish well. 

NOTHING is impossible with God…nothing.  But it will require everything.  It will exhaust you.  And it will demand that God work in ways you and I cannot.

APP:  Take one of the slips of paper in your bulletin,. 

  • What looks or feels impossible to you right now?  What “race” are you struggling to stay in…or run well…or finish triumphantly?  A marriage?  A career?  A course of study?  A relationship?  Impossibilities in our lives are not there to drive us into despair; they are there to lift us into faith.  
  • What sin seems impossible to overcome?  What keeps tripping you up time and again?  Are you ready to ask God, every day of your life if necessary, to enable you to see this impossibility become reality? Write it/them down. 
  • Maybe you’ve allowed life to become so “safe” and “risk-free” that you don’t even have any “impossibilities” you are praying about and working hard for any more.  Maybe you’ve allowed yourself to get bumped out of a race you know deep down God wants you to run.  Write down a simple prayer.  Ask God to give you a dream that is so beyond you that unless He shows up, it won’t happen.   
  • Everyone:  Start praying daily about it.  Decide you won’t give up until you see it happen…or collapse on the track of life as you meet Jesus, whichever comes first! 

(Invite people to write out these things, turn them into a prayer, and sometime in the next 20 minutes of worship and communion and giving, come and put one copy on the cross.  Symbolically you are

1.)    Giving that impossibility to God again by faith.

2.)    Telling God that you are willing to go to the cross, die to self…and never give up until life is done…to see this impossibility become reality.  Do so symbolically at the cross here today.

COMMUNION/WORSHIP/OFFERING

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Anybody here ever find yourself wondering, “If what I’m trying to do is God’s will or plan for my life, why does it take SO much work?”  “Maybe I’m trying to force something here?”  “Maybe I’ve made a wrong turn somewhere.” 

            If you read the concluding words of chapter 6, you could certainly see how Nehemiah might be feeling the same way.   After all, where do you find any direct command to anyone to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem in his day?  His passion for that project flowed out of hearing about the horrible state of affairs in Jerusalem from other Jews (Neh. 1:1-4).  He essentially received a personal update and was moved (by God?) to tackle something no one had attempted for a hundred years.  He hadn’t even seen the situation first hand. He had never even seen Jerusalem since he was probably born in Persia. But God had built a passion in his heart for his people and for the glory of God in a distant place.   

            APP:  Is this not what God seeks to build in the heart of every one of His children?  It bothers us when the people of God in any land are disgraced, broken down or taken captive by the forces of this world.  And we are called to live for the building of a City we have never seen, for the glory of a King we will serve forever.  And it is a vision that should captivate and direct the rest of our lives.     

So listen to the summary of what was going on behind the scenes in Jerusalem during the entire rebuilding project.  Nehemiah 6:17ff

17 During those fifty-two days, many letters went back and forth between Tobiah and the nobles of Judah. 18 For many in Judah had sworn allegiance to him because his father-in-law was Shecaniah son of Arah, and his son Jehohanan was married to the daughter of Meshullam son of Berekiah. 19 They kept telling me about Tobiah’s good deeds, and then they told him everything I said. And Tobiah kept sending threatening letters to intimidate me.

            Here’s the deal.  There had been some strategic and influential alliances that had been forged between Nehemiah’s detractors and the people of Jerusalem.  Some of it went back to marriage alliances; some of it went back to old agreements and alliances.

            The net effect was that there was this incessant stream of negative communication flowing between the people Nehemiah was trying to lead and his arch-rival, Tobiah.  Oh, on the surface it all sounded so nice and sweet.  Vs. 19--“They kept telling me about Tobiah’s good deeds, and then they told him everything I said.”  

You know, you’ve seen this kind of chatter in churches before.  The words themselves sound innocent enough, but the net effect is to sow suspicion or dissension among God’s family member.  These people were pushing for Tobiah’s leadership, a man they had known and were comfortable with.  Never mind that he had failed for his entire lifetime to rebuild the City of God, Jerusalem.  Never mind that the people of God were vulnerable to the attacks of anyone wanting to take advantage of them.  These talkers may not have even been criticizing Nehemiah’s leadership.  But the real end game of their talk was to support someone who was clearly not supportive of the rebuilding of their city. 

            This is a very real danger wherever someone new, with fresh vision and fresh fire for accomplishing something God-sized for other people shows up on the scene.  If Tobiah had been God’s leader for the time, he would have at least started building the walls years before.  He would have mobilized the people, cast the vision and done whatever he had to in expending himself and his own resources to see the project through to completion.  But he hadn’t…and he wasn’t about to let someone else do it. 

            APP:  Someday I’m going to be too old and too tired to lead God’s people in rebuilding Spokane for Christ.  God’s going to raise up other people who have that passion, that heart, the vision and the energy to tackle the challenges in a new way.  So let me serve you a warning right now?  I never want to hear anyone who has been a part of Mosaic undercut, criticize, murmur or play politics with the new leadership God will raise up in Mosaic and in this city.  In fact, I’ll be cheering you on from my wheelchair…or heaven… if any of you are still a part of Mosaic.   And I’ll be delighted if you want to put any or all of the resources we’re putting together right now at someone else’s disposal who is Spirit-led, God-ordained and not afraid to risk it all for the Kingdom of Christ.

            One of the saddest things I see today in downtown Spokane is empty monuments of churches that were once filled with Christ-seeking, God-fearing, Spirit-led, spiritually passionate people…but now sit empty 90% of the time with a few people rattling around inside like b-bs in a box car.  It’s happening all over Europe today with some beautiful cathedrals and churches.  And it will happen all over America in the next 3 decades unless we see a spiritual revival in the church and an awakening among the lost.  

            Chapter 6 ends by telling us that there were certain “ties that bind” in Jerusalem that just shouldn’t have been.  Marriages that tied one family to another years before were now impacting the lives of thousands of other people.  But rather than recognize how bad past allegiances were for the present and future of the nation, these folks let themselves become a potentially lethal source of resistance to the new work of God. Rather than become sources of strength and encouragement for the work at hand, they became tools of trouble, a distraction at a time when focus was needed. 

            If you go back to Ezra 9 & 10, you will find that making ungodly marriage alliances had been one of the weaknesses of the Jews.  They had been led astray prior to the Babylonian captivity by intermarrying with the pagan nations in and around them.  Little by little those alliances led to idolatry and serving of false gods. 

Ezra the priest had returned to Jerusalem to bring a spiritual renewal and revival among the dispirited residents of Judah in Jerusalem.  But when he arrived, he found that the people had started doing again the very thing that had led to their exile:  they were intermarrying once again with pagan peoples.  Ezra’s remedy after a time of serious public repentance was radical to say the least.  He called on those who had married foreign wives to separate from them.  This process took some three months (Ezra 10:16-17) to do.  It was a problem that would resurface some 12 years later (according to Neh. 10:30) and again 30 years later (Neh. 13:23). 

APP:  Here’s the obvious lesson for us today.  There exists for every child of God a constant temptation to enter into unholy alliances.  I’m not just talking about Christ-followers marrying non-Christ-followers, though that is certainly in view as well.  I’m talking about agreements we make in our personal lives that step-by-step bring us under the power of ungodly or of-the-world influences.  I’m talking about influences perhaps someone else in our family line made with ungodly forces that now hold sway over our lives. 

  • Anger and depression have always been unholy forces in my family history.  I feel their pull far too often.  I give in to their power more frequently than the Holy Spirit wants. 
  • Every family has their “alliances”.  For some it has been sexual unfaithfulness, for others physical or verbal abuse. For some it may be slothfulness, and for others it might be workaholism.  Self-destructive actions, addictions, a critical heart…or some unreasonable fear…the list is long, but the alliances are always damaging to the forward progress of the work of God in a life, a family, a church or even a community. 

The wonderful thing is that we don’t have to continue in these alliances.  We don’t have to be slaves to our personal, family or even church histories.  When the Spirit of God points out a problem connection, we can decide to break the alliance.  We can choose to change allegiances to the life of the Spirit.  

            APP:  This is what our Changing Lives ministry and other recovery groups throughout the week are all about.  Most of us can’t break these old alliances or form the new allegiances needed on our own.  We can’t see the damage they are doing or even be honest enough with ourselves without pulling the curtain of secrecy back on our lives in the presence of truly godly, loving people who will call a spade a spade but also lend a hand in love.

            So let me encourage you not to grow accustomed to unholy alliances with any attitude or action or person God has called you to break.  When the Holy Spirit or the Word of God points out a problem, own it, confess it, and get in relationships with God’s people that will help you day after day, week after week form new allegiances with God and His character.  The Kingdom of God, the people of God, your family and the Spirit of God will all rise up and bless you for fighting the good fight and leaving to the next generation a blessing instead of a ball-and-chain. 

PRAY

Study Questions:

1.)    What can you point to in your life, history or experience that you would say was clearly accomplished due to “the help of our God”?  (c.f. Nehemiah 6:16) 

2.)    Even during the miraculous rebuilding of Jerusalem’s walls in just 52 days, there were ongoing struggles with long-standing, unholy alliances between families (see Nehemiah 6:17-19.)  What are some of the “unholy alliances” with character defects, sins or patterns that have existed in your family (natural or spiritual) background that may still be affecting your ability to move forward into spiritual strength?  What do you think you should do to break those old “alliances”?

3.)    Nehemiah 7 gives a number of “fibers of strength” that ran through the cloth of God’s people committed to rebuilding their nation’s life. Discuss each of them and how they relate to the present status of a.) your personal life, b.) our church life and c.) our national life.

  1. 7:1 tells of appointed gatekeepers, singers and Levites.  The Temple/spiritual leaders were assigned security positions along the wall.  Who or what are the gatekeepers and spiritual leaders in a.), b.) & c.) above?  How strong is the protection?  What might need to change to in how we guard the perimeter of a, b & c?
  2. 7:2 speaks of a passing of leadership from Nehemiah to others. What can we do to insure that the next generation of leaders in b) and c) are godly? 
  3. 7:3-4 talk about adjustments to business, commerce and security that needed to be made because there was a shortage of residents.  As our small, growing fellowship of Mosaic seeks to rebuild and protect our city spiritually, what do you think are the most important protective actions we can take spiritually?
  4. 7:5-68 list tons of people, families and places (similar to Ezra 2).  If the same kind of list were made of the people of God in Spokane who are here to build God’s kingdom, what role(s) would you like it to record that you are involved in for our King?  
  5. 7:70-72 record the ongoing generosity of God’s people towards the maintenance and progress of the nations’ spiritual life.  If God is keeping a book of our giving to the progress of the spiritual life of our nation, what would you like it to record about your giving practices? Mosaic’s?