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Oct 19, 2014

Working the Night Shift

Passage: Nehemiah 2:9-20

Preacher: John Repsold

Series: Rebuilding the City

Keywords: mission, passion, opposition, building

Summary:

Chapter 2 teaches us about the power of just one person's life when it is lived on mission for God. It shows us some of the challenges we will face as well as how to go about living as a person on divine mission.

Detail:

Working the Night Shift

Message#4 of Rebuilding the City—Renewing the Soul

Nehemiah 2:9-20

October 19, 2014

 

This past week, I happened to text Mikias at Eastern (EWU) asking how school was going. He informed me that their dorm fire alarm had gone off the night before…not just once…but continually from 12-3:00a.m.! That probably explains why his text was bordering on incoherent. J

 

How many of you have ever had to work the night shift before?

Who is doing it right now? (You have permission to snooze during the sermon if you need to. J) Our brother Mike S. flies the S.F. to Sydney and back route several times a month. Talk about mess with your internal clock!

 

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics about 15 million Americans work on evening, overnight or rotating shifts. And it’s hard on their health, too.

  • Studies indicate that working swing or night shifts disrupt the body's natural sleep cycle and can alter hormonal and metabolic balance.
  • Some studies have associated shift work with high blood pressure, increases in illness and injury, mental and emotional strain, even diseases such as cardiac problems, diabetes and cancer.

Shift work can be tough. But almost everyone here will pull a few “night shifts” along the life journey, whether it’s for employment or due to illness or just because your mind won’t stop working overtime.

 

We’ve come to a portion of the story of Nehemiah where he is pulling the night shift…at least for one night. In his day, I don’t think there really was any such thing as “the night shift”, unless you were the watchman on the wall. Pre-electrification days, just about everyone slept at night and worked in the day.

            But the one night-shift we’ll see today is really not what is the focus of this story. It’s more about the mission behind the man. It’s more about what drove Nehemiah to be a man willing to interrupt not only his normal sleep patterns numerous times but just about everything else in his life too. We’ve already seen in chapter 1 how his passion for the plight of his people in Jerusalem impacted his schedule. His spiritual preoccupation pinched his sleep patterns.

 

That’s the kind of thing that will happen when we’re people truly ‘possessed’ by our spiritual passion. When God is our highest desire, we will find Him messing with our sleep. But sleep may be the least of it. A driving spiritual passion will touch our work life, our family life, our leisure life…basically our LIFE!

            Many are the stories of men and women whose careers and lives were turned upside down in the normal flow of life simply because of their growing passion for God.

  • David was a shepherd when God tapped him to lead a nation and fight Goliath.
  • D.L. Moody was a shoe salesman when God asked him to become the greatest evangelist of his generation.
  • Peter was a fisherman when Jesus invited him to become a rock of an Apostle in Christ’s church.
  • Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, was a candy maker in S. California when God grabbed him to start what would become one of the largest Christian missionary enterprise in the world.
  • Saul was a maker of tents and Jewish aristocrat when he was tapped to become the leading first-century Christian missionary.
  • Dawson Troutman was a lumber yard worker before he started The Navigators, a premier global discipleship ministry.
  • Lydia was a textile manufacturer before she was a leader in the church of Thyatira.
  • And Nehemiah was a political appointee, a high-level cabinet official, when God’s call on his life totally rearranged his career and sent him into an entirely different spiritual orbit.

Our deepest life mission will always be what drives our actual life movement.

 

Let’s begin by picking up the story in Nehemiah 2:9. (ESV) At the end of the nearly two month journey from the Persian (today Iranian) citadel of Shushan to Jerusalem, Nehemiah records what happened next.

9 Then I came to the governors of the province Beyond the River and gave them the king's letters. Now the king had sent with me officers of the army and horsemen. 10 But when Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite servant heard this, it displeased them greatly that someone had come to seek the welfare of the people of Israel.

 

There is a tendency among us as Christ-followers to think because God has done something great a certain way before that He will automatically do it that way again. I’ve found the opposite to be true in my limited Christ-experience. Our creative God seems to like amazing us over and over again by doing great things in almost infinitely different ways each time.

            Nehemiah notes that the king had “sent with me officers of the army and horsemen,” (vs. 9).

[See chart of Ezra-Nehemiah Panorama.]

If you go back to the previous book of Ezra, chapter 8, vs. 22, you will find that when Ezra had made the same trip with 1,800 returning Jews roughly 14 years earlier (458 B.C.), despite the fact that he was carrying valuable treasures of the Jerusalem Temple with him, he had refused a military escort.

            When Nehemiah made the same trip in 444B.C., with no real valuables to make him a target, he made the journey with a full military escort. He wasn’t ashamed of the fact. He didn’t see it as lacking faith or being less spiritual than Ezra. For whatever reason, this time it was appropriate

 

APP: Friends, let’s not get caught in the trap of thinking we need to do God’s work like someone else has been called to do God’s work. You’re not less of a Christ-follower if you raise support for a missions trip by telling people of your need than if you had followed Hudson Taylor’s approach or never breathing a word of it to others and just praying about it until God answered. If God calls you to do that at some point, great. But if he asks you to share your need with people, that is just as spiritual and Christ-honoring. Let’s look for God to do a fresh thing at every juncture in life where we need his help.

 

APP: What is the “trip”, the “journey” of your life right now that needs the protective hand of God over it? Don’t get caught in the trap of thinking that because he did it one way before, that’s the way He wants to do it again. Instead, be open to a different way that can nonetheless be God’s provision for you.

 

In vs. 10, we’re introduced to a couple of characters who will be the antagonists for the duration of this book, Sanballat and Tobiah. Sanballat was the governor of Samaria at the time while Tobiah was apparently his side-kick secretary of state. And here are some of the very roots of why Jews of Jesus’ day despised the Samaritans so much. Not only had the intermarried with the pagan peoples making them spiritual half-breeds; they had actively opposed the rebuilding of Jerusalem and its temple when they had the political upper hand in the 5th century B.C.

            And just WHY were they at odds with Nehemiah? “It displeased them greatly that someone had come to seek the welfare of the people of Israel.” (vs. 10) Here was a defenseless, distraught and demoralized group of people living in vulnerable Jerusalem where almost anyone at any time wanting to make trouble could decide to raid their city, plunder their homes and really mess with their lives. Along comes Nehemiah, with a burden to better their lives, and he becomes the target of their displeasure and attacks.

APP: WHO has God placed on your heart whose life you are dedicated to seeing improve? Who has God given you a burden for their betterment? It might be as specific as a son or daughter, a spouse or neighbor. It might be as broad as an entire generation of people or a whole genre of culture. It might be a city or nation.

Take a moment to write down WHO it is in our world today you are passionate to see saved from the ravages of sin and built up into their eternal destiny? IF you don’t have “the welfare of” someone or some group in your heart yet, take the next 20 seconds to start making it your prayer that God will make someone’s wellbeing your spiritual passion.

           

Now, here’s the surprise. No matter what great good you want to see happen in others lives, there will be people who don’t want that good to happen.

  • If you want to help alcoholics get free of alcohol, there are going to be drinking buddies who are going to hate you and do everything they can to stop your attempts to help that alcoholic.
  • If you want to help your generation stop killing their unborn children and instead give them life and possibly adoption to a couple aching to have kids, there are going to be all kinds of people who are going to malign you, curse you and oppose you.

If you want to see drug addicts get off drugs, conflicted marriages find love and peace again, welfare recipients get steady, good-paying jobs, young people develop sexual integrity, retirees spend their skills and resources for kingdom enterprises…no matter what the good you have in mind for them, there will always be opposition from those who are not seeking the well-being of those people or are deeply confused and deceived about what that well-being actually is.

            Nehemiah anticipated that kind of opposition. He got letters from the king that would address some of it. But he didn’t know the names and faces of the players until he got into the battle and began to demonstrate his heart of compassion for the well-being of others. The same will probably be true with you. So don’t let it discourage or dissuade you. Evil never likes it when good people seek the good of others.

Nehemiah continues with the story in verse 11--11 So I went to Jerusalem and was there three days. 12 Then I arose in the night, I and a few men with me. And I told no one what my God had put into my heart to do for Jerusalem. There was no animal with me but the one on which I rode.

When we decide to help others, sometimes the best thing we can do is not come rushing in with our ready-made plan. Even leaders need to take some time to take the pulse of what is going on. While the task of rebuilding a city wall was pretty clear and straightforward, Nehemiah needed time to look it over first hand.

            And even though what he was going to do was something he was totally convinced God had “put in his heart to do,” he didn’t blab it around to everyone willing to listen. Here’s a man whose arrival certainly must have been big news in the Jerusalem Post. But he specifically chooses not to lay out all his intentions and ideas. Instead he chooses observation and silence as his first tools in the reconstruction process. .

 

APP: Even when we are dead sure that God has called us to something…that He has “put it in our hearts” to do something in this world…we would be wise to spend a good bit of time with the tools of observation and listening.

  • Parents, I don’t know about you but I need to find time and places where I can spend more time observing and listening to my kids. That’s why grabbing breakfast alone, once a week, with one of my children and just asking questions was so critical in helping me parent better.
  • Husbands and wives, God has “put it in our hearts” to vow our lives to each other. We all need to use the tools of listening and observing more than telling and talking.
  • Friendship: If God has “put it in our hearts” to extend friendship to someone, then we ought to seek to listen twice as much as we talk. Observe twice as much as we expound. Why do you think God gave us TWO ears and TWO eyes but just ONE mouth??? J

Building a wall is simple compared to restoring a life. Walls don’t move. Walls don’t get in moods…or go through adolescence. They don’t have addictions, try to hide, get caught in sins, carry around a bunch of hurts and hang-ups.

            Restoring people is another thing. The challenge is always changing because people are always changing. Watching and listening are two skills all of us need to grow in if we are to really be effective with the people God has called us to minister.

Q: WHO do you need to listen to more? Observe more? It will probably require a change of pace and plans. But it will yield a far superior product.

 

APP: Here’s another question from verse 11. What has “your God put into your heart to do?” The most important dreams and passions and visions in our lives are the ones “God has put into our hearts” to do. Those are the things you will sacrifice for. Those are the people you will put up with and persevere with. Those are the places you will get rooted in and stay around long term even when it looks like there is nothing but a mess of rubble that needs renovation.

            God will plant things in the heart of every one of his children willing to receive them. He will speak things into the hearts of every Christ-follower anxious to hear His voice.

            So what has God put in your heart for your family? Your place of work or school? What has God put into your heart about His church, about our city and nation?

            If you’re not sure or you have no idea, let me challenge you to start asking God to put some dream, some vision for the rebuilding of other people’s lives, in your heart. God wants to use every one of us to be engaged in the rebuilding of lives wherever we are. Who, where, when and how are all things we will need to seek God about and then step out in faith on in order to see God’s good plans for us become reality.

 

MOSAIC—Here at Mosaic, God has put in many of our hearts a desire to see the people of our city living, working and playing downtown know Christ personally and powerfully. We want to see downtown become one of the best places to encounter God in our city. We want to see every residential building with an ambassador of Christ praying for God’s work in their block. We want to see people caught in addictions set free by the power of Jesus. We want to see businesses and non-profits started and flourishing so people who today are drifting and a drag on society become productive, empowered and employed giving back to our community.

            If God has put these things and more in our hearts, then why should we not plan and dream and work and labor to see them become reality? We should, just as Nehemiah did for a city he’d never seen and a people he’d never known personally. God wants to put things into our hearts that are bigger than us and will change the lives and eternities of others.  

 

The rebuilding process in any life and particularly in our city will require that we face the realities about the extent of the devastation. Look what Nehemiah did one dark but hopefully moonlit night. Vs. 13--13 I went out by night by the Valley Gate to the Dragon Spring and to the Dung Gate, and I inspected the walls of Jerusalem that were broken down and its gates that had been destroyed by fire. 14 Then I went on to the Fountain Gate and to the King's Pool, but there was no room for the animal that was under me to pass. 15 Then I went up in the night by the valley and inspected the wall, and I turned back and entered by the Valley Gate, and so returned. 16 And the officials did not know where I had gone or what I was doing, and I had not yet told the Jews, the priests, the nobles, the officials, and the rest who were to do the work.      

 

Nehemiah saw firsthand the enormity of the problem. The circuit of the walls was more than a mile long, and the new wall needed to be three or four feet thick, and fifteen to twenty feet high. This was not going to be easy.

Neither is building the Kingdom of God in the 21st century. Ignoring the immensity of the problems in our city…or the life of anyone God has called us to be involved with in the rebuilding process…is not what God is asking. He wants us to take a seasoned, sober look at the challenges. But He doesn’t want us to be overwhelmed by them. He doesn’t show us the damage to discourage us from the task. He wants us to enter into the challenges of rebuilding lives and cities knowing that this is going to require God’s enabling and protection the entire distance.

APP: You a little scared of the size of the task before you? Feel a bit overwhelmed by what we’re trying to do as a church or what you see needs to be done in someone’s life you’re helping build? That is as it should be…so we will lean on God all the more. So we won’t try to do these things in our own wisdom and strength. So God will get the glory when the impossible becomes the eternal.

 

As this chapter comes to a close, Nehemiah takes the next vital step in renewing his city: he challenges prospective partners to join the rebuilding team.

6 And the officials did not know where I had gone or what I was doing, and I had not yet told the Jews, the priests, the nobles, the officials, and the rest who were to do the work.

17 Then I said to them, “You see the trouble we are in, how Jerusalem lies in ruins with its gates burned. Come, let us build the wall of Jerusalem, that we may no longer suffer derision.” 18 And I told them of the hand of my God that had been upon me for good, and also of the words that the king had spoken to me. And they said, “Let us rise up and build.” So they strengthened their hands for the good work.

 

Notice WHO got involved in rebuilding the city: everyone from priests to politicians, nobles to nobodies. Everyone had a part in this project.

            This is one of the wonderful things about projects that change people and whole communities. They become defining faith journeys for the people willing to jump in. They become like WWII was for “the Great Generation” of my parents—the defining battles that build the character of whole groups of people. They create the shared experiences that bond people together emotionally and spiritually.

            Just imagine what could happen to hundreds, even thousands of people living empty, desperate lives downtown when they encounter the people of God at numerous points of need in their journey. Imagine what it will feel like to watch Christ transform person after person who today may simply be a stranger you pass…or even avoid…on the street into a dearly loved brother or sister in your forever family. Imagine how despair and distress will turn to hope and joy in people whom our city may have given up on and who may have even given up on themselves.

            Such a restoration of lives will take everyone in God’s family, certainly everyone in God’s family downtown, everyone at Mosaic. War is the great leveler of people. And in the battle for the temporal lives and eternal souls of people, everyone has a place in “doing the work of the ministry.”

           

ILL: This past week, Eric and I spent 2 ½ days with about 50 other ministry leaders and pastors across the Inland Northwest praying for a Holy Spirit-sized move upon our community. There were men there I’ve been praying with for 22 years for a move of God. We’re more seasoned and in some ways more battle-savvy then we were 22 years ago.

            But we are also more determined, more convinced, more committed and more persuaded that God is in this. Something great awaits us. There is a new door of grace for our community IF we will seize the moment, define the day by our prayers, join together in unity of the Spirit in the bond of Christ and settle for nothing less than a historic move of God in this community.

            We’re not being called to just build a wall around some ancient city like Nehemiah; we’re being called to build a kingdom that never ends.

Ours is not a matter of bricks and mortar; it’s a matter of life and death.

We’re not talking about a few burned out buildings and broken down defenses; we’re talking thousands…tens of thousands…of peoples’ families, marriages, friendships, futures and souls that are teetering on the edge of emptiness, hopelessness, meaninglessness and boredom.

What we see of the tired and tattered nature of the human condition here on the streets of downtown is simply a more honest expression of the state of so many suburban peoples’ souls that are covered in middle-class camouflage.

 

Verse 18 sums up really all we need to have to step up and into this great work of rebuilding lives. 18 And I told them of the hand of my God that had been upon me for good, and also of the words that the king had spoken to me.

This is why we share week after week the glimpses of God we’ve had…or the downright God-encounters we’ve experienced. When “the hand of God us upon us for good”, we need to tell each other…and we need to tell others… about it. It’s not bragging; it’s making your boast in the Lord as the psalmist says (Ps. 34:2). It’s actually fulfilling the command to “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord,” (I Cor. 1:31; 2 Cor. 10:17).

Talking about where we see the hand of God on us or other people can have profound impact on others. Vs. 18 ends talking about the power just one person’s sense of God’s hand on them can have on an entire city.

“And they said, “Let us rise up and build.” So they strengthened their hands for the good work.”

            What exactly had changed in Jerusalem since Nehemiah had arrived? There wasn’t more money? The weather hadn’t changed. Nobody won the lottery…or got a new revelation from God…or defeated an old enemy. There was no building boom, no economic stimulus or recovery. No spiritual revival. No impending crisis. Critics, in fact, had doubled down on their attacks. Vs. 19 says,

19 But when Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite servant and Geshem the Arab heard of it, they jeered at us and despised us and said, “What is this thing that you are doing? Are you rebelling against the king?”

            As if it were not enough to be laughed at and despised, Sanballat and Tobiah began the rumor that Nehemiah was fomenting sedition. If you can’t discourage people with the overwhelming task God is calling them to, try using the power of government, policy and tradition to keep them oppressed right where they are.

            Apparently Sanballat and Tobiah hadn’t gotten the memo that the 20-year official edict to stop construction of Jerusalem had been rescinded. Or if they did get the memo, nothing like just starting rumors and inflaming suspicions about someone’s motives. These two antagonists must have been charter members of the “We’ve never done it that way before” club. Stuck in the past rebellion of the Jews and the past oppression of the king, these two tried to halt the actions of Nehemiah by impugning his motives.

Governmental abuse of power as well as false accusations can be threatening tools against God’s people. The news of just this last week contained two such national stories, one right here in Washington and one in Texas.

  • In Houston, Texas, the mayor, an avowed lesbian, had recently rammed through her city council an ordinance which allows people to use public bathrooms designated for use by the opposite sex. The measure is aimed at prohibiting discrimination based on “gender identity,” (not actual gender) which is now a “protected characteristic” under Houston law. Have we lost our minds?

Opponents had submitted 4 times the needed signatures for a referendum on the bill. In response, the mayor issued subpoenas to at least 5 pastors to give the city attorney any emails, sermons, letters…actually 17 different kinds of communication…that had anything to do with encouraging people to sign the referendum petition. I thought this kind of stuff only happened in communist countries?

  • Even sadder, in my opinion, was the resignation of Mark Driscoll from Mars Hill Church in Seattle this week. I don’t know Mark personally. I’ve heard him speak and been to one of their Acts 29 conferences. It doesn’t take 5 minutes of listening to him to figure out that humility is not his strong suit; strong leadership, sometimes shocking words, and his penchant to shoot any sacred cows on sight are. So why are people surprised and offended when they join his staff or church and see him relating to people forcefully and with no pretense of using kid gloves? I’m not excusing any unsanctified or unloving patterns he may still carry. But to destroy a man who has been used of God to reach for Christ one of the most difficult cities in America… perhaps in the world… over stylistic and personality imperfections is one of Satan’s oldest tricks in the book. Once again, judgmental and wounded people won over grace…and the kingdom of God got another black eye in the public’s view. (PRAY for Spokane Mars Hill plant.)

So back to my main question: What had changed in Jerusalem in the course of the week that turned a whole city from discouragement and apathy about rebuilding to determination and action?

            ONE MAN’s vision. ONE MAN who could point out to people that God was on the move and that His hand was on them made all the difference. That is why we must be telling each other about where we are seeing God move and work on behalf of lost people and His people.

 

SO…got any God-sightings? Any evidences this week or lately that God’s good hand has been placed on you or the body of Christ or someone you have been praying for and wanting to love to Jesus?

[Sharing time.]

 

  • Are YOU willing to become involved in rebuilding our city by building God’s family, His church, and putting your shoulder to the task of making this part of town the best place to meet God?
  • What has God put into your heart to do in this city for His kingdom? WRITE it down on a post-it-note and stick it on the wall over here (stage left).
  • What is your passion that puts you “on mission”? Could someone write out a one-line mission statement from watching your life over the course of a year, hearing what you talk about, seeing what you devote your time and money to? Maybe you need to go home today and spend some time with God talking that over, writing a few rough drafts of the mission you are on in life.
  • Are you willing to let God grab your life right where you are today, in the career you are in, and use that to accomplish truly great life-changing kingdom work? Let’s tell Him so!

 

 

 

 

Further Questions for Personal Application and Renewal

1.)    If you had to write out a mission statement for the life of Nehemiah from what we have seen in Nehemiah 1-2, what would it be? Looking at what you are passionate about in life, the dreams, hopes and desires God has put in your heart, how would you state your life mission in one or two sentences?

2.)    Nehemiah is not only a book about the great accomplishments of Nehemiah’s faith; it is a book about the great and persistent obstacles that he overcame with God’s miraculous help. What were the obstacles in just these first two chapters Nehemiah faced? What did he do to overcome them? Where do you see God intervening to help him?

3.)    What have been the major obstacles to you realizing the dreams and desires God has put in your heart? Where have you seen God work on your behalf already? What work have you had to do so far in the process?

4.)    Who are the people God placed in Nehemiah’s life to help him be successful? Who has God placed in your life who might form part of the group that eventually helps you fulfill God’s mission for your life?

5.)    Make a list of as many obstacles or challenges as you can think of to realizing your life mission. Which ones are internal (in your own thinking, emotions, will, etc.) and which ones are external (other people, physical, financial, team, culture, time in history, etc.)?

6.)    Read Nehemiah 2:18 about God’s good hand being on Nehemiah. Ask God to reveal to and remind you of the ways His hand of blessing has been on you up to this time. Write them down.

7.)    If you were to “rise up and build” (2:18) what God has for you to do to rebuild other people’s lives, what would it be? Specifically what “good work” would you need to “set your hand to” (get to work doing)?