“Vision & Purpose In Christian Service”

“Vision & Purpose In Christian Service”
Nehemiah 1
Rev Nicholas Yeo

Life has a purpose; God has His purposes through our lives; For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Eph 2:10); if our lives are adjusted to God in every detail, He can achieve His purposes thru us. David (Psalmist) says, I desire to do your will, O my God (Ps40:8); Lord's Prayer, Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven (Mt 6:10); Jesus said, Yet not as I will, but as you will (Mt 26:39); series of messages on Christian service in next few wks using Nehemiah. Esther,

Ezra, Nehemiah – most recent in historical dating (ca 400 BC).
EZRA – 1st 6 chpts: rebuilding of temple; last 4 chpts: restoration of worship;
Nehemiah – 1st 6 chpts: reconstruction of Jerusalem walls; last 7 chpts: reinstruction of God's people.

Nehemiah a historical book, but we will emphasize upon the spiritual lessons that are here for us all.
Key word here is “wall” (v3); also in the 6 chpts. Today's cities generally have no walls; famous Berlin Wall broken down; Great Wall of China in ruins, have become tourist spot; however, some places build walls to separate, like the Israeli walls separating the Palestinians, the fences along certain boundaries between nations to prevent illegal entries of people; in those days, walls built around cities: Jerusaslem, Jericho, Gath, Jabneh, Ashdod (2 Chr 26:6 He [Kg Uzziah] went to war against the Philistines & broke down the walls of Gath, Jabneh & Ashdod); All these cities were fortified with high walls & with gates & bars, & there were also a great many unwalled villages (Dt 3:5). Walls signified power, protection. Absence of city wall meant people were defenceless against their enemies.

But walls also signified beauty. (Future glory of Jerusalem: Isaiah 60:18, No longer will violence be heard in your land, nor ruin or destruction within your borders, but you will call your walls Salvation and your gates Praise.) Wall built around city impressive-looking; so wall = witness & testimony. There is a wall to be built around the city of our soul; a testimony to be erected around our church; a wall of witness & testimony to be built around the whole Kingdom of God in all the world. And this must be our concern.
Now, whether we are basically concerned with bldg the wall in our own soul, or with bldg the wall of our church, or with building the wall of the Kingdom of God throughout the whole world, we will discover that there will be warfare, troubles, opposition, & vigilance; & there is no winning without warfare / no triumphs without troubles / no opportunity without opposition / no victory without vigilance. Because, whenever the people of God say, Let us arise & build, Satan says, Let me arise & oppose.

1. Let Us Observe The Preparation.
Nehemiah's bro. & some other Jews returned from brief visit to Jerus & gave tragic report of broken walls: v3 They said to me, "Those who survived the exile & are back in the province are in great trouble & disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, & its gates have been burned with fire." pressure & burden in his own heart: v4 When I heard these things, I sat down & wept. For some days I mourned & fasted & prayed before the God of heaven. Why did he weep & mourn & fast & pray? He knew God's real purpose for people in Jerusalem. Nehemiah not the last to weep over Jerusalem; one day our Lord Jesus wept over that city, & mourned & prayed & sacrificed His life for it.

Hundreds of people ever since have wept & mourned & fasted & prayed when they understood the revelation of the conditions as they really are.
 
Lesson :Load is not lightened unless first felt pressure in own soul; no one is ever used of God to bring blessing until God has opened his eyes & made him see things as they are; Nehemiah was called to build wall, but first he had to weep over the ruins.
Christian work is not a hobby; if so, it leads to failure; look at ruins before Christian service; look at absence of Christian teaching in schools or groups before you get involved in SCFs or uniformed organisations; look at poverty of Christian instruction & influence in young people before you start Bible School teaching or Children's Church or Children's Hour; then look at the people who are more interested in the fleeting pleasures of sin than in the life that Jesus said He would give abundantly to those who would seek after Him.  

Look & weep.
Jesus (Mt 9:35-38) had compassion on the crowds; ..like sheep without a shepherd; ..“The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” (In mid-60s while a school teacher, my concern on lack of national full time workers in Christian service; prayed; sent to be a pastor; am retiring next year: constitutionally, GPM.. and constitutionally, bodily;) But Lord still sending out workers. And in your current various occupations, when you sense the calling of God to serve, respond to that call.
Do we see self-satisfaction (complacency) in ourselves? Are we not concerned with the cold state of things in our lives? Do we see a great inertia in ourselves to move into Christian service? These are ruins, like the ruins of the Jerusalem walls; God's purpose for Jerusalem was that its walls should be Salvation & its gates should be Praise (Isa60:18) & these symbols of Salvation & Praise were lying in ruins. Is God calling some of us to weep & mourn over the ruin of these emblems in our lives? We are called to mourn over the failure of many of us who are supposed to live lives which reflect Jesus Christ.
Look at ourselves. Wall speaks of witness & testimony. Need any mourning? our wall of separation? prayer life? Bib St? walk with God? personal devotional life? consistent testimony before others? Christlike life? Do these lie in ruins in God’s eyes?

2. Let Us Observe The Prayer.
Vision of ruin, brokenness & need; temptation to say: Helpless, hopeless, don’t attempt to do anything about it. Tendency for conflict & discouragement to set in; but observe Nehemiah's prayer; quite clearly a man fed on Word of God;
The prayer is given in the structure of God's revelation of Himself; that kind of prayer can never fail; sets name of God on one hand, O Lord God of heaven (5), calls himself & people as your servants (6,7,8,10,11), & on other hand calls the kg of Persia as this man (11).
Nehemiah knew his inadequacy, & unworthiness for the task; first, must gain favour from kg; then apply for leave of absence to go to Jerusalem for job God was calling him; even though he had great influence in royal court & in position of responsibility, an impossible thing to happen unless God intervened.
Nehemiah's prayer of confession included himself in the confession of sins of his people; he grounded his prayers on God's past dealings with Israel: [RD 1:8 "Remember the instruction you gave your servant Moses, saying, 'If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations, cf Lv26:33, “I will scatter you among the nations & will draw out my sword & pursue you. Your land will be laid waste, & your cities will lie in ruins.”
RD 1:9 “but if you return to me & obey my commands, then even if your exiled people are at the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there & bring them to the place I have chosen as a dwelling for my Name.” cf Dt30:4,5, 4 “Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the LORD your God will gather you & bring you back. 5 He will bring you to the land that belonged to your fathers, & you will take possession of it. He will make you more prosperous & numerous than your fathers.”
RD 1:10 “They are your servants & your people, whom you redeemed by your great strength & your mighty hand.” cf Dt9:29, “But they are your people, your inheritance that you brought out by your great power & your outstretched arm."] Nehemiah grounded his prayers in God's past dealings with Israel, & saw in those things a mirror of all God's future plans.

Lesson: Whatever our ruins may be, we can go back to God's past dealings; we ground our confession & prayer on the cross / blood / empty tomb / ascended Lord; the cross sets us free from bondage & condemnation, disarmed demonic strongholds; the blood brings forgiveness & cleansing from sins, deliverance from fear of death, reconciliation with God, it brings life & healing, & it destroys the devil who has the power of death; the empty tomb shows that the purposes of God can never be frustrated, the empty tomb shows a new & changed life that can be lived in Jesus Christ; the ascended Lord shows his supremacy, the giver of life, the giver of power, the one who will be with us to the end of the age; then we will see in these things the mirror reflecting all God's purposes for us & for this world of ours.
In prayer exercise, am still a learner; prayer is battering not chattering; prayer is battle not prattle; prayer is working not wording; prayer is warring not boring; prayer is fight not flight; prayer is rooted in promises of God & in covenant of the blood; we have reasons given to us by God in his Wd why he should answer, & we can read them there. That's why Nehemiah's prayer was answered – based on God's purposes & God's promises; our prayers ought to be like that, so that God's purposes may be realized; but more often we hear prayers just asking God to bless the work, to bless the sick ones, to keep us plugging along, to keep the work going.
But we can look back to a place where Jesus died & shed His blood & rose from a tomb & ascended into heaven, & we can know He is coming again. Surely He did not do all that to leave us living as we are today; or to leave our churches weak & inadequate in their impact & insufficient in their witness.

Conclusion
Nehemiah was prepared for service even though it may be at the cost of his life. He could have remained in the comfort & ease of a life serving an earthly king & advising an earthly king. But he was prepared for service of God.
The principles of Christian service are similar. We are prepared to serve the Lord only by sacrifice. We are fit for the work of God only when we have wept over it, prayed about it, & then we are enabled by Him to face the task that needs to be done.