Sermon Tone Analysis

Welcome

Good Morning!

I’m Pastor Wayne and I’d like to welcome you all to the gathering of Ephesus Baptist Church.

Today, you are here to worship God; to give glory to His name; to find your joy in the hope we have in Christ!

He continually does many wonderful things for us, things we don’t deserve, so be glad and exalt His name this morning.

May you revel in the steadfast love of God as we worship Him together for His glory and our joy!

If you are visiting with us this morning, we want you to know that Ephesus is an active faith community on a mission with Jesus.

Here at Ephesus, we are one people giving our all to love God, love others, proclaim Jesus, and make disciples in our generation.

We have a connect card in the pew in front of you.

I invite you to take one and fill it out!

If you have prayer needs, you can let us know about those as well.

I promise, our prayer team will lift you up soon.

You can place those cards in the offering plate when it comes around.

Scripture Memory

Opening Scripture

Introduction

Let’s briefly review what we have learned so far from Nehemiah.

In our first sermon in our series on Nehemiah, we learned that

Nehemiah is a story of rebuilding, refocusing, and revitalizing not just individuals, but whole communities and cultures.

Nehemiah reveals to us what God can do with a person who yields their life to the Will of God to promote the glory of God.

Nehemiah is living proof that God delights in using ordinary people to restore, to rebuild, to revitalize His people, His church, and His world!

In our second sermon, we learned that

We need to have a regular, honest assessment of our current realities, both personally and corporately.

God’s Word directed Nehemiah’s affections, and through prayer, God changed Nehemiah’s heart as he sought God’s will daily.

We learned that zealousness for the glory of God, like Nehemiah demonstrated, only comes from a sense of brokenness over God’s glory not completely filling every nook and cranny of our darkening society.

In our last sermon, we learned some important elements of powerful prayer.

We were reminded that prayer is essential for beginning and completing a great work of revitalization for the glory of God.

Brokenness: We learned that Prayer requires our brokenness over the lack of influence we exert for God’s Glory.

Praise and Adoration: We learned that Powerful prayer begins with praise and adoration in order to help us reorient our hearts by meditating on the character and nature of God.

Confession of Sin: We learned that Prayer grants us the power to do a great work for the glory of God, in proportion to us getting our hearts right before God.

No true work of revitalization can happen until we confess and repent of our sins!

Confidence in God’s Word: Nehemiah challenges us to pray based on an understanding of God’s purpose and will as found in his Word.

To build our prayer lives upon the promises of God.

Faithful Trust for God’s Providential Answer: Nehemiah’s greatness came from asking great things of a great God and attempting great things in confident dependence on Him.

Nehemiah believed God had placed him in the role of the King’s Cup-bearer for such a time as this.

That brings us to our message from Nehemiah for today.

Nehemiah is about to receive the commission he needed to carry out the enormous task of rebuilding the walls that God had placed within his heart.

As we think of the the burden of Nehemiah, we will see many similarities to the world we live in today.

Our concern is not with physical walls, but with the spiritual walls of our time that are in a terrible state of disrepair and there seems to be little interest in their revitalization.

I can assure you that this is not pleasing to our Lord.

His church across our land lies mired in ineffectiveness, apathy, biblical illiteracy, and even moral scandal.

He is looking for those who will rise to the occasion and seek to rebuild that which has been torn down.

Who will accept the call among us and seek to restore that which is in disrepair among us?

What I’m saying, ladies and gentlemen is....

It is time that God’s people begin to act like God’s People.

The Bible says in Daniel 11:32, “but the people who know their God shall stand firm and take action.”

So, who will be courageously committed to God’s Glory?

Who will be courageously committed to personal revitalization?

Corporate revitalization?

Community revitalization?

or more.

Today, I want to share with you Four Ways you can be courageously committed to God’s Glory!

May God help us; may God help me if we don’t live like the Bible prescribes.

Opening Prayer

1. Courageous Commitment to God’s Glory Requires Tactical Patience.

(2:1-4)

As I consider the life of Nehemiah, I see a man who was willing to stand for truth at all costs and was willing to make the necessary sacrifices to serve the Lord.

He was willing to roll up his sleeves and get busy doing what God had called him to do.

Consider the last part of his prayer in Chapter One.

He asked God to grant him mercy in the sight of this man.....today.

Nehemiah had prayed and prayed, now it was time to put action to his prayers.

It is the month of Nisan (April).

Nehemiah has been praying and fasting since Chislev (December).

Again, that is 4 months.

What I want you to understand is that Nehemiah did not act out emotionally concerning his burden for God’s glory.

No, he waited.

He was patient.

By the time he prays in chapter one, four months have passed and the waiting was over.

What was he waiting for?

He was waiting for the right moment to lay his burden at the feet of King Artaxerxes.

Even in his position, he could not just walk up to the King and speak about Jerusalem.

He had to practice tactical patience.

Tactical patience is the ability to hold back trying to do something that you know needs to be done because you know if you rush in you could ruin your chance to allow God to work ahead of you.

On this day, King Artaxerxes wanted wine.

Nehemiah was the Cup-Bearer, so he took wine to the king.

He had likely done this every day for the past few months.

Those previous times he had put on a happy face and delivered the wine like he was supposed to, but not this day.

Why today?

Commentator, Hugh Williamson notes that Persian kings regularly had special feasts; and according to Herodotus (9.110), at a certain feast, the Persian king showed special generosity toward his servants.

It is believed that the feast may have been related to the month of Nisan.

Also, there is an interesting note in verse 6 that says, (the queen sitting beside him).

This could be telling us a couple of important things that played into his decision to make today the day.

First, It was against protocol for the wife of the king to sit beside him while on the throne.

Because of this something different was going on here.

Second, Some believe that the word “queen” was also used for the queen mother.

The queen mother (or stepmother, in this case) would have been none other than Esther herself!

She would have been afforded the right to sit beside the king at feasts and other major moments.

Perhaps, Nehemiah believed that Esther would help to influence the king while he presented his request.

Listen Ephesus, if this is true, can you feel the mighty hand of God, providentially moving in the midst of this revitalization project?

If God is for us, who can be against us!

Today, having prayed over the matter and controlling his feelings up until now, Nehemiah let down his facade of happiness, and looked sad before the king.

This was a risky endeavor to be sure.

But it was all a part of Nehemiah’s plan of action.

He wanted the king to notice his grief on this particular day.

Why was this risky?

Persian Kings required all servants to look happy in the their presence (a compliment to the boss, you could call it), and failure to be happy before the king was thought treasonable, an insult to the crown, and could be punished with death if the king so decided, we can see why Nehemiah would have been afraid.

Add to that, It was Nehemiah’s job to protect the king from any assassination attempts through poisoning.

Any change in Nehemiah’s behavior or countenance would surely bring suspicion from an already paranoid king whose own father had been assassinated.

Furthermore, you can actually translate the word sadness as: “Why is your face troubled with ‘evil’ or ‘badness of heart’?”

Basically, the king says, “Nehemiah, something is wrong.

What’s going on here, do I need to call the royal guard?”