Introduction

Everyone likes a good underdog story. Its seems to be in our DNA to want to root for one least likely to win.

We love movies like Remember the Titans, Braveheart, and Miracle on Ice which tells the story of how the 1980 US Olympic hockey team improbably beat the Soviets and went on to win the gold medal.

Bible stories like David and Goliath, Daniel in the lion’s den, and Gideon defeating the Midianites with just 300 soldiers inspire us with their messages of faith and courage.

History is full of examples of ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

The book of Nehemiah tells another one of those stories of how an ordinary man full of faith accomplished an amazing task against all odds.

I chose this as one of my Brown Paper Passages because it inspires me to dream about what God might do through us if we have the same level of passion, faith and tenacity that Nehemiah had.

Many people are pretty good at seeing what’s wrong but not many are willing to put everything on the line and pay whatever the price to make it better.

As we’ll see in Nehemiah’s story, God uses ordinary people to do incredible things, often in the face of some pretty stiff adversity. It’s really not accurate to view Nehemiah as an underdog since God was for him but from a human perspective his chances of success didn’t look very promising.

I sub-titled my message “You can’t climb the mountain on the smooth side.” I heard that sentence years ago from some old preacher and it stuck with me.

He was preaching out of James 1 on how God sometimes uses adversity to build our faith. I find it generally true that doing big things requires lots of work and sacrifice and overcoming adversity. If slaying dragons and overrunning castles was easy everyone would be doing it.

What might God do through the people of TEC if we had the character and faith of a man like Nehemiah?

It is my hope and we will have bigger gospel-filled aspirations for our community, and the world, than just unlocking the doors to this building next Sunday and the Sunday after that and the Sunday after that. ECS is one example of us doing just that.

As we go through an overview of the first few chapters of Nehemiah, I will be pointing out some key character traits I see in the kind of person who makes a difference. I pray that these traits be present in us as a local body of believers and are growing.

Historical Context

To better appreciate the story of Nehemiah we’ll look briefly at the history leading up to his time.

The account recorded in Nehemiah takes place some years after the Babylonian Exile. For many years Judah had ignored God’s warnings given through his prophets and acted very wickedly so he decided to punish them.

The punishment would come in the form of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon destroying Jerusalem and taking most of the Jews captive back to Babylon. From start to finish the exile was going to last 70 years but it was going to take the first 21 years to fully execute it.

It starts in 607 B.C. when Nebuchadnezzar forced King Jehoiakim of Judah into becoming a vassal of his. Vassal is just another word for puppet. In addition, he took many of Judah’s finest young men captive including Daniel, Hananiah (Shadrach), Mishael (Meshach) and Azariah (Abednego).

Three years later Jehoiakim gets tired of being a puppet and rebels against Babylon but instead of looking to God for help he turns to the Egyptians for support. His rebellion lasts about seven years until Nebuchadnezzar arrives on the scene and lays siege to Jerusalem.

This time Nebuchadnezzar takes full control of the area, completely loots it, and takes most of Judah’s population back to Babylon. He leaves behind the poorest people and appoints the Jewish king Zedekiah to be his next puppet ruler. If you are keeping score we are now about 10 years since the exile began.

The situation stays like this for nine years upon which time Zedekiah decides he has had enough of Nebuchadnezzar and he rebels. Things are about to go from bad to worse. Zedekiah ignores the fact that Judah is in the middle of God’s judgement and despite the prophet Jeremiah’s repeated warnings not to resist, Zedekiah decides to join a pagan coalition made up of Edom, Moab, Ammon and Phoenicia to try and defeat Nebuchadnezzar.

The plan doesn’t go too well for Judah or Zedekiah. Nebuchadnezzar lays siege to Jerusalem one more time. Zedekiah is forced to watch as his sons are killed before him and then his eye balls are plucked out of his head and he is taken captive. What’s left of Jerusalem is laid to waste, the houses are burned and the temple is completely destroyed and more people are taken away to Babylon. Only a tiny remnant of very poor people is left to farm the land.

It will be another 50 years before God allows the Jews to begin returning to Jerusalem. By the end of the exile Persia has conquered Babylon and the Jews are under Persian control. God supernaturally directs the heart of Cyrus, the king of Persia, to allow some of the Jews to return to Jerusalem and start rebuilding the temple. That is pretty amazing in itself. The year is 537 B.C. – 70 years after the exile began.

For the next 69 or so years the people go about rebuilding the temple. You can read about that period in the book of Ezra. In fact, Ezra and Nehemiah can be read together to get one complete picture from when the Babylonian Exile ends to when temple worship and practices are fully restored in the temple.

By now, in our history review, King Cyrus is gone. King Darius has come and gone and Persia is now under the reign of King Artaxerxes. In Artaxerxes’s 7th year as king, Ezra the Scribe moves to Jerusalem and sets about putting the temple in order.

Nehemiah’s story picks up 13 years later in the 20th year of the reign of Artaxerxes. This would make it about 445 B.C., 92 years after the first Jews were allowed to return to Jerusalem.

One observation we can make from this history lesson is that sin often has multi-generational impact. Ezra and Nehemiah are dealing with the consequences of sin that occurred more than 100 years prior.

Key Players

Like any good story we have a protagonist and a couple of antagonists. Nehemiah, of course, is the protagonist while Sanballat, Tobiah and Geshem the Arab are the main antagonists.

We are told in the opening verses that Nehemiah was King Artaxerxes cup-bearer. You might be thinking that wasn’t a very significant position. What does a cup-bearer do all day? What does the job description say – Bear the King’s cup? How boring would that be?

Actually, cup-bearer was a pretty high ranking position in the royal court. To start with, he had to be very trustworthy. Part of his job was to make sure no one tried to poison the king. It came with a certain degree of authority in the court along with pretty decent pay.

Very few actually ever rose to this level of responsibility. We don’t know how old Nehemiah was while serving as the cup-bearer but we do know he was serving during Artaxerxes 20th year when he requested permission to take a leave of absence to go rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.

We also know that he was a contemporary of Ezra. Their time in Jerusalem would have overlapped although each one had a different purpose for being there.

Sanballat the Horonite

Sanballat was probably originally from a town in Moab and was most likely a Moabite. At the time of Nehemiah he lived in Samaria and served in some local leadership position under Persian rule.

Tobiah the Ammonite

Tobiah was an Ammonite leader, possibly even a governor in Ammon. He had business dealings in Jerusalem and, being the political person he was, he was married to a daughter of one of the Judahite leaders and his son was married to the daughter of another Judahite leader.

Through these relationships he was able to curry favor with the Jewish high priest, Eliashib. Eliashib’s grandson, contrary to Jewish law, was married to Sanballat’s daughter.

Through his connection with Eliashib, Tobiah was able to negotiate a deal to lease the temple storerooms and run his business from there. This would also have been a serious violation of temple use.

When Nehemiah arrived in Jerusalem one of the first things he did was to throw all of Tobiah’s belonging out of the storerooms and restore the rooms to their proper use. To say Tobiah was miffed would be an understatement.

Geshem the Arab

We don’t know much about Geshem other than that he was probably an Arab chief and he was aligned with Sanballat and Tobiah for his own political ends.

Remember that all of the players at this time are still under Persian control.

So then, we have a Moabite, an Ammonite and an Arab. It sounds like the start of a bad Middle Eastern joke.

You can see why they were not excited to see the Jews rebuild Jerusalem. They were opposed to the Jews politically and religiously. They were probably also afraid of the Jews becoming a military threat since Moab, Ammon and Edom were all adjacent to Jerusalem.

Whatever their motivations were, it was clear that they were not happy to see the temple being restored.

The first 6 chapters of Nehemiah tells the story of how God used him to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. As we survey these chapters I’ll focus on the character traits Nehemiah exhibited and that any believer who wants to make a difference today should have.

The Story

Chapter 1 of Nehemiah gives us the first four traits of someone who makes a difference. They see the problem, they are passionate about the problem, they confess their sin first, and they rely on God for strength and wisdom to do something.

The Problem

1:1 The words of Nehemiah the son of Hacaliah. Now it happened in the month of Chislev (kiss-lev), in the twentieth year, as I was in Susa the citadel, 2 that Hanani (Ha-nay-ny), one of my brothers, came with certain men from Judah. And I asked them concerning the Jews who escaped, who had survived the exile, and concerning Jerusalem. 3 And they said to me, “The remnant there in the province who had survived the exile is in great trouble and shame. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, hand its gates are destroyed by fire.”

The story starts when Nehemiah receives distressing news about Jerusalem. The text tells us it was the Hebrew month of Chislev when the news reached him. This would make it somewhere in November or December on our calendar.

At the time he was living in the city of Susa which is the modern day city of Shush in Iran and located about 1000 miles from Jerusalem.

Nehemiah’s brother, Hanani, describes in detail how the walls of Jerusalem are in ruin and the remnant of the Jews that was left there are in complete disarray. Remember, Nebuchadnezzar had left only the very poor behind when he leveled Jerusalem. You can imagine what kind of spiritual and sociological condition the people would be in after many years without any real leadership and first under Babylonian then Persian rule.

It is likely that Nehemiah had been raised hearing stories of what Jerusalem was like in its glory days but all of his life he had only known Jewish life under captivity.

The Passion

4 As soon as I heard these words I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven.

Nehemiah would have been born some time after the Babylonia exile. There is no record that he ever visited Jerusalem and given the distance between Susa and Jerusalem it is reasonable to assume he had never been there. Everything he knew about Jerusalem would be just the stories he had been told.

Nevertheless, the news about Jerusalem hits him like a ton of bricks. This shows several traits of a person who makes a difference. First, they can see the problem. They recognize when something isn’t right and second, they care deeply. They are passionate about the problem before them. Lots of people see a problem and might even rail about it for a while but they soon become distracted or indifferent and forget about it. This was not the case for Nehemiah. It consumed him. It burdened him. He sat down and wept and mourned and fasted for days.

Notice that his passion wasn’t just aimless fretting and fussing. It drove him to get on his knees before God and pour out his heart. Hand-wringing is useless in times of crisis. People who make a difference pray earnestly and repeatedly.

The Penitence

5 And I said, “O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, 6 let your ear be attentive and your eyes open, to hear the prayer of your servant that I now pray before you day and night for the people of Israel your servants, confessing the sins of the people of Israel, which we have sinned against you. Even I and my father's house have sinned. 7 We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, and the rules that you commanded your servant Moses.

One of the candidates currently running for President this November promises to make America great again. In a recent interview he commented that he can’t recall a time ever needing to ask for forgiveness. That is the comment of a prideful and arrogant person.

Another trait of the person who will make a difference is that they are humble and confess their sin first. God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. You can’t expect God to use you for anything if you don’t think you need his forgiveness.

Nehemiah could have rightly blamed the mess the Jews were in on all the sins his forefathers had committed. He wasn’t alive when the sins that triggered the exile took place. But rather than try to shift the blame he owns his sin, the sins of his fathers, and the sins of his people.

It says night and day he was confessing “the sins of the people of Israel, which we have sinned against you. Even I and my father's house have sinned”

There’s a truth that sin is never completely a private matter. In some sense our personal sin affects, and is borne by, those in our various spheres of influence. Notice Nehemiah’s use of ‘we’ and ‘I’ even though his wasn’t personally guilty of all the sins he was confessing.

The Plea

11 O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant, and to the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name, and give success to your servant today, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.” Now I was cupbearer to the king.

Having spent much time in prayer and repentance an idea begins to formulate in Nehemiah’s mind but he is going to need lots of courage, and planning and blessings from God to pull it off.

It is one thing to be able to see a problem and to feel passionately about it but without God’s help that’s about as far as Nehemiah will get. After having confessed his and others sins he pleads with God to grant him success with his plans.

The person who makes a difference understands how vital it is to soak their plans in earnest prayer. Psalms 127:1 states the principle this way “Unless the LORD builds the house, the builders labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain.”

Some might take this verse as a call to “Let go and let God” but that is not what it is saying. Builders and Guards are still necessary but without a utter dependence on God they will not succeed in their labors.

So far in the story Nehemiah has seen the problem, felt passionate about the problem, gone to God in penitence for his, and others, sins, and has petitioned God to bless his plans.

That brings us to chapter two where he starts to put his plan into action.

2:1 In the month of Nisan (Ny-san), in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was before him, I took up the wine and gave it to the king. Now I had not been sad in his presence. 2 And the king said to me, “Why is your face sad, seeing you are not sick? This is nothing but sadness of the heart.” Then I was very much afraid. 3 I said to the king, “Let the king live forever! Why should not my face be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers' graves, lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?” 4 Then the king said to me, “What are you requesting?” So I prayed to the God of heaven. 5 And I said to the king, “If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, that you send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers' graves, that I may rebuild it.”

It is now the month of Nisan. This is the equivalent of March or April in our calendar. Four months have gone by since he first got a report from his brother.

We can learn from this that Nehemiah didn’t just throw up a quick prayer to heaven and then run out to execute his plan. He spent lots of time thinking and praying and pleading with God before he made his first move. This shows patience as another virtue of the person who makes a difference. Some messes are years in the making and they don’t lend themselves to quick fixes. There has to be the right kind of tenaciousness in our hearts when it comes to making a difference.

Luke 18 tells the parable of the widow who persisted in seeking justice from an ungodly judge until he finally relented and gave her what she wanted. Jesus asks if a godless judge will respond to persistence how much more so will our Father respond to our persistence. So often we have not because we ask not.

Clearly Nehemiah had carried his burden for four months. So much so that he could no longer hide his sadness from the king. At first, when the king notices his sad face Nehemiah was afraid. Why?

Serving as a cup-bearer was an honorable position but it was also a tenuous one. You served at the pleasure of the king. Any offense could get you dismissed or worse. Remember the cup-bearer Joseph met in prison who was eventually executed. All he had done was offend the king and it cost him his life.

Showing sadness in the king’s court could have easily offended Artaxerxes hence Nehemiah’s fear at the king’s question. This shows another trait of the person who makes a difference. They are willing to take personal risks when pursuing what God has called them to.

With some trepidation Nehemiah explains what is bothering him and asks for a leave of absence along with access to some of the king’s resources to go rebuild the wall (Vs. 6-8). In verse 8 we read “And the king granted me what I asked, for the good hand of my God was upon me.”

We might be tempted to think that having “the good hand of God upon” him meant that it was easy street from there on out but that was not the case.

Before Nehemiah even reaches Jerusalem (vs 9) he runs into opposition from Sanballat and Tobiah (vs 10). It says it displeased them greatly that someone was seeking the welfare of the Israelites.

Add ‘not afraid of opposition’ to our list of traits of the person who makes a difference. As we move along in the story we’ll see the opposition to Nehemiah take numerous forms as well as intensify.

He finally arrived in Jerusalem after months of planning and travel. Perhaps sensing trouble, Nehemiah spent his first few days in Jerusalem surveying the situation by night and sharing his plans with no one so as not to arouse suspicion (vs 11-16).

Once his survey work was done and he had a plan in mind he met with the other Jews and shared the plan (vs 17, 18).

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.

These verses provide a basic formula for success in any God-honoring endeavor: A clear vision + a solid plan + the “good hand of God upon us” + “hands strengthened for good work.”

We know “God helps them who help themselves” isn’t in the Bible but we can’t escape the fact that God usually uses people as the means to His ends. That means another trait of the person who accomplishes much has to make the effort to strengthen their hand for good work. That can include things like getting an education or otherwise developing skills, gifts and talents so that they can be put to good use when the time comes.

As excitement grows for the project so does the opposition (vs 19-20).

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?” 20 Then I replied to them, “The God of heaven will make us prosper, and we his servants will arise and build, but you have no portion or right or claim in Jerusalem.”

Realizing that simple disapproval hasn’t dissuaded Nehemiah, our three antagonists up their game by accusing Nehemiah of fomenting rebellion against the king. If those charges had been true it would have meant the death penalty for Nehemiah but, again, Nehemiah rebuffs their false accusations and puts all his trust in God.

Chapter three gives lots of details about the rebuilding the wall. We won’t spend any time there tonight. I did try to find out how long the wall was that Nehemiah rebuilt so we could appreciate the magnitude of the project.

One source I read said that archaeologists believe the city area that the wall enclosed was about 1.5 square miles. If we assume the city was roughly the shape of a square that would make the wall 3 miles long!

Other sources describing the wall during the Ottoman Empire put the length at 2.5 miles. The average height of the wall was around 40 feet. Whatever source of information you believe, it was a huge project and Nehemiah and his workers did it in 52 days once they started building.

When Sanballat found out how much progress they were making on the wall he became furious. He and Tobiah resort to mocking and insulting but Nehemiah is unmovable and continues to trust God in the midst of the adversity.

4: 1 Now when Sanballat heard that we were building the wall, he was angry and greatly enraged, and he jeered at the Jews. 2 And he said in the presence of his brothers and of the army of Samaria, “What are these feeble Jews doing? Will they restore it for themselves?10 Will they sacrifice? Will they finish up in a day? Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish, and burned ones at that?” 3 Tobiah the Ammonite was beside him, and he said, “Yes, what they are building—if a fox goes up on it he will break down their stone wall!” 4 Hear, O our God, for we are despised. Turn back their taunt on their own heads and give them up to be plundered in a land where they are captives. 5 Do not cover their guilt, and let not their sin be blotted out from your sight, for they have provoked you to anger in the presence of the builders. 6 So we built the wall. And all the wall was joined together to half its height, for the people had a mind to work.

Having failed to stop Nehemiah with false accusations and verbal assaults, Sanballat, Tobiah and Geshem start to rally a group of trouble makers to come and attack the workers. Nehemiah gets word about the pending attack and organizes the people to defend themselves even as they continue building the wall (vs 7-14). You can imagine the tension that must have been mounting. The people were working at a feverish pitch to get the job done and on top of that they had to be ready at a moment’s notice to do battle.

Nehemiah had his hands full just keeping the people’s spirits up. In verse 14 he says to the people “Do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your homes.” Nehemiah’s courage and faith are pretty remarkable. This shows another trait of the person who accomplishes much. They inspire others in hard times through their faith and determination.

The rest of chapter four describes how the people continued working on the wall sometimes with a trowel in one hand and a sword in the other. This battle readiness succeeds in keeping Sanballat and his buddies from attacking.

Chapter five introduces a problem that arose among the Jews. Sometimes the hardest problems facing us are not external but internal. Before Nehemiah arrived and became governor the previous governor and nobles among the Jews had been charging the people heavy taxes on their basic needs. It was so bad the people were mortgaging their fields and homes just to get enough grain to feed their families and in some cases selling their children into slavery.

When Nehemiah heard about this he was furious and gathered the nobles and publicly shamed them with a good tongue lashing. Verse 8 of chapter 5 says when he was done with them “They were silent and could not find a word to say.”

The previous governor of Jerusalem had enjoyed a stipend from Artaxerxes and on top of that he had extracted a daily ration of forty shekels of silver from the people even though they had very little money. Even the governor’s servants would lord it over the people adding insult to injury.

As the new governor of Jerusalem, Nehemiah instituted a new policy. Neither he nor his brothers would take from the governor’s allowance.

Not only did he not take from the allowance he was entitled to but he started feeding people at his own expense.

5: 17 Moreover, there were at my table 150 men, Jews and officials, besides those who came to us from the nations that were around us. 18 Now what was prepared at my expense for each day was one ox and six choice sheep and birds, and every ten days all kinds of wine in abundance. Yet for all this I did not demand the food allowance of the governor, because the service was too heavy on this people. 19 Remember for my good, O my God, all that I have done for this people.

This shows another trait of a leader. They make the greater sacrifice on behalf of others.

Our time is running out so let me summarize the rest of Nehemiah up to the completion of the wall. Even though Sanballat and Tobiah weren’t having much success in stopping Nehemiah it didn’t keep them from trying.

In 6:2 we see Sanballat and Geshem trying to get Nehemiah to come to a meeting where they plan to kill him. Nehemiah says sorry I’m too busy for you right now.

In 6:6 we read that Sanballat sent servants five times to Nehemiah with letters accusing him of rebelling against Artaxerxes and trying to set himself up as King of Jerusalem.

In 6:10-13 Sanballat and Tobiah ask a buddy named Shemaiah (Sheh-may-ah) to request a meeting with Nehemiah inside a forbidden area of the temple under the ruse that people are trying to kill him. Their intention was to be able slander Nehemiah once they got him to go inside the part of the temple he wasn’t supposed to. Again, Nehemiah didn’t fall for it.

In 6:14 Sanballat and Tobiah tried intimidating Nehemiah by having the prophetess Noadiah and other prophets make false prophesies to scare Nehemiah.

And finally, in 6:17-19 Tobiah gets some of the nobles of Judah to write letters to Nehemiah praising Tobiah and writing about all the good he was doing hoping that this would curry favor with Nehemiah.

All these attempts to distract or discourage Nehemiah fail and the wall is finished in the month of Elul (August/September) in an amazing fifty-two days.

Through all types of opposition Nehemiah never wavers. His trust in God is absolute. This reveals another trait of the one who makes a difference. They fear God and not man. Isaiah 2:22 says “Do not fear man whose breath is in his nostrils.” Nehemiah refuses to let the fear of men get him off track from the mission God has called him to.

Why were Sanballat and Tobiah so ardently opposed to Nehemiah? Verse 6:16 gives us an answer. “16 And when all our enemies heard of it, all the nations around us were afraid and fell greatly in their own esteem, for they perceived that this work had been accomplished with the help of our God.”

It’s interesting that the other nations perceived that it was God who enabled the wall to be built, not just some crazy determined Jewish cup-bearer.

That’s how it should be – God gets the credit and the glory for what he enables us to accomplish.

The book of Nehemiah is an amazing story of how God moved a Persian king to allow a Jewish cup-bearer to take a 12 year leave of absence to rebuild the walls of a potential rival kingdom and how that cup-bearer did it in the face of overwhelming odds stacked against him. All this took just nine months from the time Nehemiah first heard a report of a problem and finished the building the wall.

To recap here are the traits we saw from the life of Nehemiah that we should emulate as we seek to take on the challenges God has for us:

1. Recognize where problems exist 2. Be passionate about fixing the problem 3. Confess your sin first 4. Pray earnestly and regularly for wisdom and strength 5. Be patient in the process 6. Be willing to take personal risks 7. Be ready to face major opposition 8. Work to “strengthen your hand” for the task 9. Inspire the faint-hearted with faith and determination 10. Make the biggest sacrifices 11. Persevere confident in God’s ability to see you through 12. Fear God and not what men can do