In the month of Nisan in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was brought for him, I took the wine and gave it to the king. I had not been sad in his presence before; 2 so the king asked me, “Why does your face look so sad when you are not ill? This can be nothing but sadness of heart.”
I was very much afraid, 3 but I said to the king, “May the king live forever! Why should my face not look sad when the city where my fathers are buried lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?”
4 The king said to me, “What is it you want?”
Then I prayed to the God of heaven, 5 and I answered the king, “If it pleases the king and if your servant has found favor in his sight, let him send me to the city in Judah where my fathers are buried so that I can rebuild it.”
6 Then the king, with the queen sitting beside him, asked me, “How long will your journey take, and when will you get back?” It pleased the king to send me; so I set a time.
7 I also said to him, “If it pleases the king, may I have letters to the governors of Trans-Euphrates, so that they will provide me safe-conduct until I arrive in Judah? 8 And may I have a letter to Asaph, keeper of the king’s forest, so he will give me timber to make beams for the gates of the citadel by the temple and for the city wall and for the residence I will occupy?” And because the gracious hand of my God was upon me, the king granted my requests. 9 So I went to the governors of Trans-Euphrates and gave them the king’s letters. The king had also sent army officers and cavalry with me.
10 When Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official heard about this, they were very much disturbed that someone had come to promote the welfare of the Israelites.
Most big endeavors start with a simple idea. Richard and his brother Maurice had a simple idea of opening a small restaurant to serve hamburgers. They were quite successful which enabled them to open new restaurants. They were making a comfortable profit and were managing as much as they could handle. Their simple idea turned into a modest endeavor. Enter a man named Ray Kroc. Ray was able to see, not a few restaurants, but hundreds of restaurants. He purchased the franchise rights from Richard and Maurice McDonald and began to enlarge the simple idea into a big endeavor called the McDonalds Corporation. The McDonald brothers had a vision for one restaurant which became a few restaurants. Ray Kroc had a vision for hundreds of restaurants which has become 31,000 restaurants. Not even Mr. Kroc could have envisioned such a big endeavor.
Remember the congregational meeting we held in January to discuss approving the building plans? A relatively new attender to our church was at that meeting, spoke up and said, “It looks like there is a lot of wasted space in this building plan.” After a brief reflection, we all realized he was right so we did a fairly radical redesign of both floors of the building plan. He took a simple idea like wasted space and turned in into a much more functional building. It was right there in front of our noses, yet none of us could see it. We had been staring at the plan for so long we weren’t able to see anything else.
I think this is what it must have been like for the Jews living in Jerusalem. They had been staring at the broken walls and burned gates for so long, they couldn’t see anything else. They didn’t know any other way of living because they had always had broken walls. The walls were smashed and burned 140 years earlier by King Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC [The Lord] brought up against them the king of the Babylonians who killed their young men with the sword in the sanctuary, and spared neither young man nor young woman, old man or aged. God handed all of them over to Nebuchadnezzar. 18 He carried to Babylon all the articles from the temple of God, both large and small, and the treasures of the Lord’s temple and the treasures of the king and his officials. 19 They set fire to God’s temple and broke down the wall of Jerusalem; they burned all the palaces and destroyed everything of value there.
Nehemiah enters this scene in history in 445 BC. The walls had laid in ruin for 140 years. For seventy of those years the Jews were in exile in Babylon, but for the past seventy they were residing in Jerusalem and surrounding towns staring at broken walls very day of their lives. We can imagine that once in a while one of their leaders said to his wife, “You know Mary, we really should rebuild those walls one day.” But they never did. I can imagine that after the walls were finished, some sarcastic fellow could have said, “Well I could have done this just as easily as Nehemiah.” But no one did. Nehemiah only did what everyone else knew needed to get done, but only Nehemiah had the vision to see it.
There is a question that is often used to quickly uncover a person’s core values, and it is this: If you could do anything you ever wanted and be guaranteed success, what would you do? Ten years ago my answer to that question was that I would like to help plant a church. This question helps to uncover what you might like to do or would dream about doing. On one hand, this is a helpful question because it can reveal your life dreams and goals, but on the other hand, the question has a fatal flaw in it. Can you see it? The question assumes that you will be “guaranteed success”. That part of the question is essential to help you to dream, but it also handicaps the question. After all, if we could actually be “guaranteed success,” I might like to climb Mt. Everest or go flying off the Westby ski jump. But I will never do these or other things because of financial reasons and because of fear and anxiety. We make a serious mistake if we read Nehemiah’s story and falsely assume that he was “guaranteed success”. We know how the story turns out, so as soon as we start reading the story again, from our perspective, Nehemiah’s success is guaranteed. It’s a slam dunk. The wall gets built and Nehemiah saves the day.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Nehemiah did not have limitless financial resources. He was not free from anxiety and fear. He was not “guaranteed success” at any level, but still he moved forward in faith. Why did Nehemiah succeed where others either tried and failed or just plain failed to even try?
1. Nehemiah was a foreigner in a foreign land, that much was working against him, but he was a good example of faithfulness and integrity. It was this very faithfulness and integrity which helped him to earn the king’s trust. This is exactly what God had commanded for the exiles in Babylon. Tens of thousands of Israelites were slaughtered by Nebuchadnezzar and tens of thousands more were carried off to Babylon. But even in exile, God had a plan for them. The prophet Jeremiah wrote them a letter which read as follows. This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6 Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. 7 Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”
Daniel was the best example of someone who prospered greatly during all his years in exile. He rose to prominence and influence because of his character and integrity. Nehemiah followed after Daniel’s example and bloomed where he was planted. This is such an encouragement for us, because at some level, every person in this room has something in their life that has not turned out as they planned it: a relationship that fell apart; a career that has not taken off; children who have fallen away from the Lord; dreams that have slipped through your fingers; loved ones who have slipped from this life. Not everything had gone according to our plan. For some, the disappointments and hardships have been enormous, but we can take encouragement from Nehemiah, because his life was not easy. He was born into exile and lived far from his homeland. There was no temple at which to worship. There was no king of Israel to lead them. But despite being born as a foreigner in a foreign land, Nehemiah sought to obey God’s command to live with integrity and faithfulness in this foreign land, in turn, God prospered him and his eventual plans to rebuild the wall. As Nehemiah prayed for this foreign king and this foreign land, God redeemed his circumstances and turned them around for good.
One day this past week our family got off on the wrong foot. The kids were snapping and picking at each other and mom and dad’s patience were wearing thin. I pulled the kids aside (I won’t tell you which ones) and explained how we could redeem the day even though it started badly. The momentum of the day was headed down hill but if we admitted our collective selfishness and asked for God’s strength, the momentum could be reversed and the day could be redeemed. God is in the business of redemption. His great miracle of redemption is of course our salvation, but redemption does not end there. God is in the business of redeeming broken and hurting lives. God is in the business of redeeming years that have been wasted and even morning that have gone sour, as ours did. God’s sovereign plan was to send his people into exile—but their exile was ultimately part of their redemption as well. The exile was a necessary part of their redemption. Your life may not be where you want it to be or where you had hoped it would be, but it may very well be at exactly the place where God intended it to be.
2. This is seen even more fully in our second observation: Esther had probably been the step mother of King Artaxerxes. Esther’s husband was King Xerxes, the father of Artaxerxes, whom Nehemiah faithfully served. Esther may have been still alive when Nehemiah asked for the king’s favor. She may have still been reigning as “queen mother” and some scholars believe that she may have actually been in the palace. Wherever Esther was at this time, there can be no doubt that her influence had given even more visibility and support to the Jews. Just as Esther was placed in the king’s palace “for such a time as this,” so Nehemiah was strategically placed in the palace and earned favor with the king “for such a time as this.” We really have no idea what awaits us on any given day. If we are burdened by our circumstances and walk around with our heads hung low, we will miss the very reason that we have been placed in that circumstance.
3. Last week I mentioned a significant barrier to Nehemiah’s success had been the cease and desist order form King Artaxerxes. We know that the laws of the Medes and Persians cannot be repealed, so how was it that the king allowed Jerusalem to be rebuilt after ordering them to stop. The reason this was possible was because the original cease and desist order contained a loophole. Here again is Artaxerxes order.
I issued an order and a search was made, and it was found that this city has a long history of revolt against kings and has been a place of rebellion and sedition. 20 Jerusalem has had powerful kings ruling over the whole of Trans-Euphrates, and taxes, tribute and duty were paid to them. 21 Now issue an order to these men to stop work, so that this city will not be rebuilt until I so order.
Do you see the loophole? He wrote, “Now issue an order to these men to stop work, so that this city will not be rebuilt until I so order.” Artaxerxes left a clear loophole in his original order which would allow him to grant permission later to begin rebuilding. Here is a fascinating comparison to Daniel’s rescue from the den of lions. Remember that Darius could not repeal the order to have Daniel thrown into the lion’s den so God had to miraculously save Daniel by shutting the mouths of the lions. This is one of the best know miracles in all the Bible. But in Nehemiah’s situation, God did not save Jerusalem through his power over the lion’s mouth, but he saved Jerusalem through the pen of the king’s order. I believe that it is no less of a “miracle” of provision for God to have guided the pen of King Artaxerxes then it would have been for him to shut the mouths of a den of hungry lions. One is what we could call a “loud” miracle and the other is a “quiet” miracle, but both are just as much of the Lord’s doing.
As Proverbs 21 says, The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord; he directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases. God directed the heart of the king when he wrote the original order and God directed the heart of the king to grant all of Nehemiah’s requests. The problem is that we love to see the loud miracles but we constantly pass over the quiet ones. Countless people flock to miracle healing services because they want to see God perform miracles, yet we don’t see the millions of quiet miracles he is already doing. What do you call it when the Holy Spirit convicts you of a hidden sin? This is a quiet work of God in the supernatural realm. What do you call it when one moment you are filled with anxiety and fear and the next moment God grants you peace that passes all human understanding? I submit to you that this is every bit a work of the Lord as Daniel’s rescue.
4. Nehemiah succeeded because he discovered the intersection of fear and faith. Let me ask you a question. If you really have faith in God, does that mean that your faith will eliminate all of your fear? In other words, if God asks you to do something and you are afraid to do it, is that an indication that you lack faith? As Christians, our gut level response to that question is usually “yes.” We do not believe that fear is in any sense compatible with faith. Most of the time this is true. We all carry around with us big fears and small fears, hidden fears and obvious fears, and most of this fear and anxiety is a direct result of a small faith. Our God is a small god, therefore our faith is small and our fear is big. It is difficult to quantify such a thing, but I would estimate that most of our fear is present because most of our faith is absent—but not always. I believe there are times when just the opposite is true—our fear is the very evidence that we are about to take a step of faith.
This is precisely what happened to Nehemiah. Look at the first three verses again. In the month of Nisan in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was brought for him, I took the wine and gave it to the king. I had not been sad in his presence before; 2 so the king asked me, “Why does your face look so sad when you are not ill? This can be nothing but sadness of heart.” I was very much afraid, but I said to the king…” This might be my favorite part of the Nehemiah story. Check this out: the bold, visionary leader was afraid. The inspirational wall builder was afraid. The man whose story has been preserved in Holy Scripture and has been encouraging and inspiring believers for over two thousand years was “very much afraid.”
Nehemiah’s fear is even more shocking when we remember what he had been doing recently. When he heard about the broken and burned walls of Jerusalem, Nehemiah wept and mourned and sought a renewed vision for the glory and majesty of God. I don’t think he had a grand vision for the building project at first. I don’t see any evidence that God dictated the master plan to Nehemiah in the first few minutes of his weeping. I don’t think that God lowered blueprints in a sheet from heaven. I don’t even think Nehemiah borrowed his building plans from another church, like we borrowed ours. J Nehemiah sought a renewed vision of the glory of God and he did it over four long months of fasting and praying. At the end of those four months, I think he had a complete plan in mind. Verse twelve reads, “I set out during the night with a few men. I had not told anyone what my God had put in my heart to do for Jerusalem.” That was Nehemiah’s plan: what God had put in my heart to o for Jerusalem. Before he prayed he had a vision for God’s glory and when he was done praying he had a specific vision. His vision for the glory of God became a vision to build the wall
Remember last week I said that Nehemiah was not ordinary type of visionary? He didn’t go blazing ahead with his own ideas and his own plans. He began with a vision of God and his glory, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t a strong, visionary leader. When he was actually in Jerusalem leading the people through the building program, he demonstrated unbelievable leadership abilities. I would stack Nehemiah against 100 of the best leaders in the world—Christian or otherwise. He was a leader of leaders. He ad a vision for God’s glory followed by four months of fasting and praying which culminated in a specific master plan of reconstruction. Then why was he afraid? Why was this Godly, faithful leader “very much afraid”? The simple answer is because he was human. But in his humanity, Nehemiah had discovered the perfect intersection of faith and fear. Nehemiah demonstrates that faith is not always the absence of fear, but it is often acting in the presence of fear. Humanly speaking, Nehemiah had great reason to be afraid. There were numerous reasons why his plan wouldn’t work. There were endless ways that things could have gone wrong. There were countless opportunities for the king to punish him. The king very well could have viewed his request as a clear act of betrayal and sedition. Nehemiah, the great leader was spiritually prepared, he was mentally prepared, he captured a renewed vision of the glory of God and he developed a specific vision for rebuilding Jerusalem. But despite all of these things, Nehemiah “was very much afraid.”
Can you see how encouraging this is? It means that not all of our fear indicates a lack of faith. It means that like Nehemiah, we too can discover the wonderful intersection of faith and fear. But we must be very careful, for this is a dangerous intersection and we could get flattened like Yugo being run over by a Mack truck. If you are stuck in your fear or running away from your fear, this is not an evidence of faith. But if you are moving forward despite your fear, then you know that you are passing through this intersection of faith and fear.
Rich Maurer
July 27, 2008