Two hundred thousand miles from home. You can't pull over to a gas station. You can't take your spaceship into the garage, but you now know that you have two hours to keep your space ship from becoming a permanent tomb floating in outer space. Jim Lovell, John Swigert, and Fred Haise realized they were facing an elephant of a problem, but they kept their wits about them enough to realize that the way to solve their problem was the same way you eat an elephant - one bite at a time.
Has it ever occurred to you that the most important step your children ever take is the first one? Every parent dreams of being there the first time their child takes his first step. The reason why many people sit around and complain about broken down walls instead of rebuilding them is because they are unwilling to take the first step. Remember you can never take the second step until you take the first one.
God has called Nehemiah to take on a seemingly impossible task facing what appeared to be immovable obstacles. If you have ever been in that situation and trust me if you live long enough you will be, the only way that you will ever succeed is to be able to break down whatever it is you face into bite sized problems - small steps that you can take one at a time.
Nehemiah demonstrates for us in the events that take place in chapter 2 the four steps that guarantee success in practically any endeavor. In fact, these four steps have all been taken or else we wouldn't be here today. Cross Pointe would be just a figment of someone's imagination rather than a budding reality if these four steps had not been taken. If you are facing a wall that needs to be rebuilt, whether it is the wall of your marriage, the wall of your business, or the wall of your own reputation, these are four steps that begin your journey to success.
I. Step Back And Wait
There is an interesting detail given in verse 1. "And it came to pass in the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was before him, that I took the wine and gave it to the king." (Nehemiah 2:1)
Now what is so important about the month of Nisan? If you go back to chapter 1 and verse 1 the story begins here, "It came to pass in the month of Chislev in the twentieth year." Now Chislev was November. Nisan was March. Simply put, Nehemiah had been praying to the Lord for four months about his problem. You and I think we have done a great deal if we pray four minutes. Yet for four months day and night, without talking to anyone else, Nehemiah had been praying about this problem to the Lord.
He had not mentioned this problem to anyone else. He had not talked about it with anyone else. He had kept it as a matter between him and God. That is a very difficult lesson for us to learn because praying and waiting goes hand in hand. I want you to remember that waiting time is never wasting time. Many times the first thing you need to do when you face a problem is simply talk to the Lord and wait.
I know it is tough to wait in our microwave culture. We live in an "instant" world. We've got everything from instant coffee to instant mashed potatoes. Life travels at warp speed and it is getting faster by the day. Just this past week, there was this headline on CBC News:, "Physicists smash internet speed record." The column read, "Researchers have more than doubled the world speed record for internet data transfer. Scientists at the CERN Particle Physics Laboratory in Switzerland sent the equivalent of a full length DVD movie over the internet in about seven seconds."[1] Modern day life has one speed—FAST!
One of the things you need to learn about God is this - He puts a premium on patience. When you wait on the Lord, as you are praying to Him about a problem, you aren't wasting time, you're investing time. The Great Physician has a waiting room where He wants us to wait and trust Him until He tells us exactly what we need to do about a problem.
I know that raises a legitimate question. Why does God make us wait at times instead of giving us instant answers? The answer is really very simple, because God wants us to get on His timetable.
You see Nehemiah knew what we have a hard time remembering and that is - what could be and even what should be cannot be until God is ready for it to be. One of the greatest lessons I've ever learned about God is this - we are always concerned about time bu.t God is always concerned about timing. Galatians 4:4 is very interesting. It says this:, "But when the time was right, God sent His son." (Galatians 4:4, CEV)
God does not operate on your timetable. He operates on His. You may get behind God, but you will never get ahead of Him. If you do try to get ahead of Him the only place you will wind up being is out on a limb.
You see with God the what always precedes the how. What I mean by that is this. Nehemiah knew what God had called him to do and that was to rebuild the walls, but he had no clue how God would do it or when God would do it. He just had to pray and wait.
Some of you who came with me from Snellville will remember that it was five years ago that I first shared with you how God had put on my heart that we should begin a work toward the northern part of this county. Looking back, had you told me it would be a five year wait, I might have given up immediately. That is exactly why God wants to teach us to wait, because when God delays at least in our minds and God forces us to wait, He is building into us things like patience, perseverance, persistence and faith. Isaiah 28:16 says, "Whoever believes will not act hastily." (Isaiah 28:16, NKJV)
Haste makes waste. The first step you need to take whenever you face broken down walls is simply step back and wait.
II. Step Up And Ask
"And it came to pass in the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was before him, that I took the wine and gave it to the king. Now I had never been sad in his presence before. Therefore the king said to me, "Why is your face sad, since you are not sick? This is nothing but sorrow of heart.' So I became dreadfully afraid." (Nehemiah 2:1-2, NKJV)
One of the reasons why I love Nehemiah is that he is so transparent. In chapter 1, we see a Nehemiah of faith. Now we see a Nehemiah of fear. He had carried this burden for four months and for four months he had not complained. He had stayed faithful in his duties. He didn't pout. He didn't whine. He just went about his business, but the burden of God's call on his life had gotten heavier and heavier. Someone once said, "What is down in the well will come up in the bucket." He could no longer hide on the outside what was going on in the inside. He decided to let his feelings be known.
The reason why Nehemiah was afraid was that no one was ever to show sadness in the presence of the king. You were always to be upbeat and happy because your job was to make the king happy. If you ever made the king unhappy, he could put you to death immediately. Have you ever had somebody, "Bite your head off" when they didn't like something you said? The king could do that to Nehemiah literally. The king asked Nehemiah why he was so sad. Now the moment of truth had arrived. Very delicately he shares his burden with the king. "[I] said to the king, May the king live forever! Why should my face not be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers' tombs, lies waste, and its gates are burned with fire?" (Nehemiah 2:3, NKJV)
So far so good. Nehemiah has shared his burden, but then he gets the shock of his life. "Then the king said to me, What do you request?" (Nehemiah 2:4, NKJV)
The King just did the unthinkable—he gives a cupbearer a blank check—now what would Nehemiah do?
Nehemiah utilized one of the greatest weapons a Christian has in his arsenal as he faces the problems of everyday life. Listen to this next statement. "So I prayed to the God of heaven." (Nehemiah 2: 4, NKJV)
I call this a 9/11 prayer or what you might call a "microwave" prayer. You know the kind. You hit time, cook, five seconds, beep and send to God. Nehemiah shoots up an instant prayer asking God to give him the words to say.
That is a good thing for you to learn the next time the pressure is on, the heat is up, you're about to present the most crucial market proposal of your career, you're about to handle the most difficult customer in your business, or you're about to address a very sensitive problem with your spouse, before you do it - pray.
Nehemiah had done something else besides pray. He had also planned. You are going to see that in the response that he gives to the king. One of the greatest mistakes people make when they face problems is this. They pray for opportunities to solve the problem, but they don't plan as if they expect God to give them that opportunity. Nehemiah had prayed, but he had also planned. Listen to what he says to the king. "And I said to the king, ‘"If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, I ask that you send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers' tombs, that I may rebuild it.' Then the king said to me (the queen also sitting beside him), ‘"How long will your journey be? And when will your return?'" So it pleased the king to send me; and I set him a time. Furthermore I said to the king, ‘"If it pleases the king, let letters be given to me for the governors of the region beyond the River, that they must permit me to pass through till I come to Judah, and a letter to Asaph the keeper of the king's forest, that he must give me timber to make beams for the gates of the citadel which pertains to the temple, for the city wall, and for the house that I will occupy.' And the king granted them to me according to the good hand of my God upon me." (Nehemiah 2: 5-8, NKJV)
Nehemiah had thought the problem through. He knew he needed two sets of people to help him. First of all, he needed the governors of the surrounding lands he would be traveling through to give him safe passage. He also needed the keepers of the forest to give him the timber he needed to rebuild the walls, but he also knew the only one that could make either one of those things happen was the king. I am sure he remembered Proverbs 21:1:. "The king's heart is like a stream of water directed by the Lord; he turns it wherever he pleases." (Proverbs 21:1, NLT)
Well, Nehemiah was ready. He knew God would do His part and Nehemiah had done his part. God's part was to push things through. Nehemiah's part was to think things through, so he knew exactly what to ask for. First of all, he asked for an appointment. He says in verse 5, "I ask that you send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers' tombs that I may rebuild it." In other words, he was asking the king for an official appointment to the position of wall re-builder.
Then he asked for authority. Furthermore I said to the king, "If it pleases the king, let letters be given to me for the governors of the region beyond the River, that they must permit me to pass through till I come to Judah." (Nehemiah 2:7, NKJV) He needed a letter of authority proving he deserved safe passage in order to get to Jerusalem.
He then asked for an appropriation. "And a letter to Asaph, the keeper for the king's forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the fortress of the temple, and for the wall of the city, and for the house that I shall occupy." (Nehemiah 2:8, NKJV)
Nehemiah had already checked out the nearest Home Depot and he needed a purchase order so he could get the timber that he needed to rebuild the walls. Now think about what would have happened if Nehemiah had not planned anything. If he had just taken the laissez-faire attitude, "Well, I'll just leave it all up to God," he would have hardly gotten out of the city until he would have been stopped and sent back because he didn't have a passport or had he gotten safely through these other countries, when he got to Jerusalem, he would have had no means to get the materials needed to rebuild the walls.
Yet, even though Nehemiah prayed and planned, he kept the proper perspective. He says in verse 8, "And the king granted them to me according to the good hand of my God upon me." You look at any success you have had in your life and remember this: it was because the good hand of God was upon you. The reason why Cross Pointe is becoming a reality, the reason why we have been given lands and buildings and an unbelievable opportunity to make an impact for Christ is for one reason, "The good hand of God is upon us." When you know God is on your side and you know that He will do His part and when you have done your part, you can step up and ask.
III. Step In And Look
"So I came to Jerusalem and was there three days." (Nehemiah 2:11, NKJV) Now I find that interesting. Nehemiah gets to Jerusalem and quite frankly where I would have immediately jumped into the project and begun trying to make headway to get those walls rebuilt, Nehemiah did nothing. Now what he was doing, I am not sure. He was probably resting because it was a hard journey of several months. He was praying and he was still planning. Ecclesiastes 8:6 says, "There's a right time and way for everything." (Ecclesiastes 8:6, MSG)
For three days, Nehemiah was working quietly behind the scenes, not making any fuss, living under the radar, and not calling any attention to himself. Working quietly behind the scenes is very smart, but it is also scriptural. For thousands of years as you read the Old Testament you find that God was working quietly behind the scenes getting this world ready for the coming of Jesus Christ. Incidentally, don't get too discouraged when you look at what is happening in our world, because God is working quietly behind the scenes getting this world ready for the second coming of His Son.
After those three days, what does Nehemiah do?
"Then I arose in the night, I and a few men with me; I told no one what my God had put in my heart to do at Jerusalem; nor was there any animal with me, except the one on which I rode. And I went out by night through the Valley Gate to the Serpent Well and the Refuse Gate, and viewed the walls of Jerusalem which were broken down and its gates which were burned with fire." (Nehemiah 2: 12-13, NKJV)
In my version it says that Nehemiah "viewed the walls." The Hebrew word there means to "closely examine." It was a medical term used by a surgeon to describe an intense examination of a wound.
Nehemiah was finding facts. He was fixing his focus. He was doing his homework. The task was great. The circumference of the city was between one and a half and two and a half miles. The destruction was great and the project was going to be absolutely massive. Nehemiah wanted to make sure he had every fact.
There is a fine line when you face a difficult problem between getting into the paralysis of analysis on the one hand and on the other hand not doing your homework. The one thing you need to always remember when you face a problem - always walk before you talk. Always investigate before you initiate. I guarantee you as Nehemiah was investigating those walls he was always asking the four key questions of problem solving. First of all, the what question - What is the problem? The second question is the where question - Where do I need to begin? Then he asks the when question - When do I need to get started? Then he asks the who question - Who do I need to get involved?
Then he recounts this in verse 16. "And the officials did not know where I had gone or what I had done; I had not yet told the Jews, the priests, the nobles, the officials, or the other who did the work.” (Nehemiah 2:16, NKJV)
Nehemiah knew that leaders keep it low until everything is ready to go. Never count your eggs before they hatch and never ever share what you think ought to be done until you are sure that you know what should be done.
IV. Step Out And Act
Then I said to them, "You see the distress that we are in, how Jerusalem lies waste, and its gates are burned with fire. Come and let us build the wall of Jerusalem, that we may no longer be a reproach." (Nehemiah 2:17, NKJV)
Once again notice the personal pronouns, "We", "Us", "We." He was letting these people know up front who barely knew him that they were all in this thing together. Do you notice how he motivates these people to get off of their duffs and go to work? It was not the danger of broken down walls that he appealed to. It was the disgrace of the broken down walls. It wasn't just that the physical welfare of the people was at risk. God's glory and God's honor was on the line.
Nehemiah was saying in effect these walls need to be rebuilt not because they are broken down, but because broken down walls are a reproach to God's people and to God Himself.
The Jews were God's chosen people. They were meant to be a light to the nations. They were going to produce the Messiah and the Savior of the world, but one look at the city and one look at the walls and people were saying, "There must not be much to them and there certainly isn't much to their God." This was no, "Win one for the gipper speech." This was a "Win one for God" speech. Notice how the people responded,
And I told them of the hand of my God which had been good upon me, and also of the king's words that he had spoken to me. So they said, "Let us rise up and build." Then they set their hands to this good work." (Nehemiah 2:18, NKJV)
That could have been the end of the story and it would have simply read, "And they lived happily ever after", but that is not the way life is as you and I both know. Notice what happens next. But when Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite official, and Geshem the Arab heard of it, they laughed at us and despised us, and said, "What is this thing that you are doing? Will you rebel against the king?" (Nehemiah 2:19)
Do you know who Sanballat, Tobiah and Geshem were? I call them, "Vision vandals." These are the people who carry vision extinguishers around, always looking to douse any fire of enthusiasm that wants to do a great work for God. I've already told you that one of the things we ought to continuously pray for is opportunity, but I want you to understand this. When you pray for opportunity, you are going to get opposition. The Apostle Paul made an interesting statement in I Corinthians 16:9. He said:, "A huge door of opportunity for good work has opened up here. (There is also mushrooming opposition)." (I Corinthians, 16:9, MSG)
There is no opportunity without opposition. People who walk by sight will always be hostile to people who walk by faith. When you stand up in faith, others will stand up to fight.
One of the visitors who came to our church this past Sunday came up to me and pulled me aside and said, "Is it true that there were people who voted against you receiving this property?" I said, "Yes sir it is." You know what he said to me? He said, "How could anybody vote against going to the Promised Land?"
More importantly than opposition is how you respond to it and Nehemiah gives the classic way to do it: .
So I answered them and said to them, "The God of heaven Himself will prosper us; therefore we His servants will arise and build, but you have no heritage or right or memorial in Jerusalem." (Nehemiah 2:20, NKJV)
There are always three responses to ridicule, criticism, and cynicism. First of all, you respond with conviction. He said, "The God of heaven Himself will prosper us." You've got to believe the work you are doing is God's work. Then you must respond with courage. He said, "Therefore we His servants will arise and build." That is, you've got to believe that you are in the perfect will of God and as His people and His servants, with His good hand upon you, the work will get completed. Then you must respond with confrontation. He said," But you have no heritage or right or memorial in Jerusalem." In other words Nehemiah simply said, "You have three choices - lead, follow or get out of the way."
I was down at the beach enjoying some vacation time this summer and I was out in the ocean enjoying the waves and I noticed on the beach a little boy flying a kite. That kite was rising higher and higher and higher. I also noticed as the kite was rising higher, the boy was turning in a certain direction and then it hit me. Kites always rise against the wind, not with it.
You see the way to deal with fear and foes is to shift your focus from the fear and the foes to a Father who gives you His permission to do His work, His protection while you do His work and His provision to complete the work.
Nehemiah knew he and his project was in God's hands and that made all the difference. A basketball in my hand is worth about $19. In Michael Jordan's hands it is worth about $33 million. A baseball in my hands is worth about $6. In Roger Clemens' hands it is worth about $15 million. A golf club in my hands is worth about $100. A golf club in Tiger Wood's hands is worth about $50 million.
A rod in Moses' hands will part the Red Sea. A sling shot in David's hands will kill a giant. Nails in the hands of Jesus' can produce salvation for the entire world. You see it all depends on whose hands it is in. Thank God with Nehemiah we can put our problems, our concerns, our worries, our hopes, our fears, our dreams, our future, our families and everything we are, in God's hands and one step at a time with His help we can rebuild broken walls.
[1] www.CBC.ca/story/2003/10/17