Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

I want to welcome you again this morning - its exciting to gather together this morning and worship God as a church family.

If you haven’t been with us the last several weeks, we want to let you know that we are doing an overview of the Old Testament in 10 weeks.

We’ve done our best to pick highlights from the Old Testament to give you a picture of its overarching story.

And as we do that, we see time and time again that people struggle to remain true to God - to serve Him and serve Him only - even though He’s good, and forgiving, and overlooks a number of faults.

And so in the last several weeks we

discussed Moses and how God used him to deliver his people from slavery in Egypt, yet the people still struggled to trust God

talked through how Israel was led by judges, but then Israel wanted to be like the nations around them instead of following God’s plan and begged for a king, so they got a king to lead them instead of trusting in the leaders that God appointed and in doing so rejected God

And last week we talked through the prophets whose primary purpose was to remind the people who God is, the promises He had made, and what he had asked of His people Israel.

And if you take time to read through the prophets, you begin to realize that they spend a lot of time reminding the people that they need to turn back to God.

There’s a reason for that - they continually turn away from God!

What comes after the prophets continually reminding Israel that they need to turn to God is the Exile, in which God allows a foreign country to come in and conqueror the people of Israel and many of them are taken from their homeland to a strange place far away.

And this takeover happens in phases because a lot happens to the nation of Israel - there’s some infighting and some things happen that cause the nation to split into a northern kingdom and a southern kingdom.

Eventually, both north and south are defeated and the people are taken far away.

If you remember that’s when Daniel occurs - who we studied together in-depth last year.

And so the people of Israel had been conquered and taken to a foreign land.

But, it wasn’t without hope.

God had promised that the people would not be forsaken but would one day return from Exile.

So we find ourselves at the end of the Exile and there are kings who have become sympathetic to the situation of the Jews - these Jews who had been taken from their homeland - and those kings begin letting the Jews return home.

That is where we are as we look at Nehemiah - the end of the Exile.

Nehemiah is considered to be a part of the third wave of Exilic Jews returning home - and we have a lot to learn from Nehemiah.

What we are going to see in the overarching story of Nehemiah, however, is this:

“Things can look good on the outside, but lasting change starts with the heart - so we need to come to the God Who changes hearts.”

But before we dive in, let’s pray.

Rebuilding of the Wall (Chapters 1-7)

So Nehemiah is a guy that is working as a cupbearer for the king when one of his brothers who was in Judah comes back with this report:

And in response to this Nehemiah mourns and weeps for days and he finds himself praying, asking God for help and openly confessing that Israel has sinned and that he has sinned, but he asks for mercy from God and that God would grant them mercy with the King.

Nehemiah then says something that is a really a theological observation.

Here’s what he says:

And in response to this Nehemiah mourns and weeps for days and he finds himself praying, asking God for help and openly confessing that Israel has sinned and that he has sinned, but he asks for mercy from God and that God would grant them mercy with the King.

Nehemiah then says something that is a really a theological observation.

Here’s what he says:

Nehemiah 2:1-2

“Now I had not been sad in his presence” is Nehemiah’s way of saying that God had heard his prayer and that God had put it in the heart of the king to ask Nehemiah what was wrong.

One amazing thing about Nehemiah through this entire ordeal is he is constantly turning to God in prayer.

You’ll be happy to know that after Nehemiah told the king about what had happened, the king granted his request, which was to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the wall.

“Now I had not been sad in his presence” is Nehemiah’s way of saying that God had heard his prayer and that God had put it in the heart of the king to ask Nehemiah what was wrong.

One amazing thing about Nehemiah through this entire ordeal is he is constantly turning to God in prayer.

You’ll be happy to know that after Nehemiah told the king about what had happened, the king granted his request, which was to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the wall.

As Nehemiah does this, we find out that there a group of people that oppose any kind of welfare for the Jewish people and they speak out against Nehemiah and the Jews, whether its the rebuilding of the wall around Jerusalem or any other kind of progress for the welfare of the people of Israel.

Here’s a little taste of what they were saying:

As Nehemiah does this, we find out that there a group of people that oppose any kind of welfare for the Jewish people and they speak out against Nehemiah and the Jews, whether its the rebuilding of the wall around Jerusalem or any other kind of progress for the welfare of the people of Israel.

Here’s a little taste of what they were saying:

Now let me ask you something: how would you respond to this kind of opposition?

Here’s what Nehemiah said:

Now let me ask you something: how would you respond to this kind of opposition?

Here’s what Nehemiah said:

And you should know that they set out to build the wall and it was in a very organized manner.

Nehemiah took meticulous records and what becomes clear as you read through chapter 3 of Nehemiah is that this guy was an amazing leader - in fact I’d say he was one of the first executive pastors.

I’m serious - this guy knew how to organize people and inspire them to get things done.

Chapter 3 names the people involved in the work of rebuilding the wall and their exact tasks.

Each person who did work and the work they performed was important to Nehemiah.

That’s the mark of a truly great leader.

Through it all, they continue to experience opposition.

Look what we read in chapter 4:

And you should know that they set out to build the wall and it was in a very organized manner.

Nehemiah took meticulous records and what becomes clear as you read through chapter 3 of Nehemiah is that this guy was an amazing leader - in fact I’d say he was one of the first executive pastors.

I’m serious - this guy knew how to organize people and inspire them to get things done.

Chapter 3 names the people involved in the work of rebuilding the wall and their exact tasks.

Each person who did work and the work they performed was important to Nehemiah.

That’s the mark of a truly great leader.

Through it all, they continue to experience opposition.

Look what we read in chapter 4:

, ,

And here comes the opposition:

And here comes the opposition:

Neh.

4:8

But here is what Nehemiah has to say in the face of opposition, which is more than just words now…their lives are being threatened:

But here is what Nehemiah has to say in the face of opposition, which is more than just words now…their lives are being threatened:

Neh.

That is Nehemiah’s constant reminder - God has got this.

He will fight for us.

Do not be afraid because He is with us.

That is Nehemiah’s constant reminder - God has got this.

He will fight for us.

Do not be afraid because He is with us.

You should also know that Nehemiah was a humble guy that did not care much about personal gain, but watched out for the poor.

In his time in Jerusalem he challenged the wealthy people to watch out for those who were less fortunate and he even provided for the poor at great personal sacrifice.

In chapter 6 we learn of a plot to have Nehemiah killed.

Its clear that the opposition are feeling very threatened now - this appears to be a last ditch effort to take out the leader before the wall is completed.

So they start to make up rumors that might get him in trouble with the king and conspire to have him killed, but here is what Nehemiah says:

Do you see how, at his core, Nehemiah was a man who constantly turned to God?

He knew that He needed God to help him accomplish the task at hand.

He stands in an amazing contrast to what we see happening time and time again with Israel who constantly turns away from God and goes their own way.

Finally, at the end of chapter 6 the wall is completed.

And amazingly from here on out, we don’t hear anything else about the opposition except for this:

Neh. 6.

Even the surrounding nations, though they plotted to kill Nehemiah and the Jews, thought they hurled insults and discouragement their way, completed the task to which God had called them.

In the end, God was glorified.

Everyone recognized that Nehemiah came in the name of the one, true God and that it was with His help that He was able to accomplish his task.

At this point, the story shifts.

Nehemiah provides us with a long list of Exiles that had returned from Babylon.

Now, we tend to make fun of how we skip over these lists of names many times when we are reading.

Be honest - you’ve skipped over plenty of genealogies in the Old Testament.

But I want to just pause for a second and give you Nehemiah’s perspective on this list of names:

For Nehemiah, counting every group and their numbers was very important.

It was as if Nehemiah was saying this:

God fulfilled His promise in bringing us out of Exile and restoring us to our homeland.

We survived and this is our number.

God is faithful.

So far Nehemiah has done the following: