Hand Me Another Brick - Part 2: Leading from Your Knees

This week in our continuing Bible class series on Nehemiah, we focus on Nehemiah's prayer recorded in Nehemiah 1. You may remember from my last post that Nehemiah has just found out about the remnant of God's people that had returned to Jerusalem to rebuild the city and, most importantly, the temple. The report that he has received is not good. The people are in "great trouble and disgrace", primarily because the wall around the city of Jerusalem lies in ruin. Nehemiah knows that if he can just get to Jerusalem, he can lead the people in rebuilding the wall, which would be a great step toward reestablishing themselves as a nation of God's people. I concluded the last post by pointing out two marks of a great leader that we see in the character of Nehemiah:

1. A good leader concerns himself with the problem. It was easy for Nehemiah to ignore what was going on in Jerusalem. He had a great job 800 miles away, and there were plenty of people already in Jerusalem to start building the wall. Why should he even care? He cared because these were God's people in distress. He knew that something needed to be done, and he wanted to be a part of it.

2. A good leader gets personally involved in solving the problem. Immediately, Nehemiah began fasting and praying. He knew that it would be hard for him to get to Jerusalem right then, but he knew that he could take the problem to God.

With these being said, I can now add one more characteristic of a good leader:

3. A serious leader goes first to God with the problem.

Have you ever heard anyone utter the phrase, "Well, there's nothing more than we can do except pray"? I know I have. I've even said it a time or two. Why is it that we always look at prayer as being a last resort? Are we so self-centered to believe that we can solve all of our problems without God?
Nehemiah didn't see things this way. He knew that there was nothing he could do on his own in order to get to Jerusalem. It all depended on God. This is a characteristic of Nehemiah that we will continue to see throughout the book. Whenever he is facing a crisis, Nehemiah drops to his knees.
Now, let's take a closer look at Nehemiah's prayer:

NE 1:4 When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven. 5 Then I said:
"O LORD, God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and obey his commands,

Normally when I am praying to God in a crisis, I bring my request up immediately, as in, "Lord, PLEASE HELP!!!" But notice that Nehemiah doesn't do that. Nehemiah praises God first. He knows that the only one who can get him to Jerusalem is God, so Nehemiah puts things in proper perspective by placing God on the highest place and himself far, far below. Now that he has praised God, he can get on with his request, right?

Wrong! Look at what he does next:

NE 1:6 let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer your servant is praying before you day and night for your servants, the people of Israel. I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father's house, have committed against you. 7 We have acted very wickedly toward you. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees and laws you gave your servant Moses.

What is he doing? He's confessing his part in the problem. Nehemiah knows that if he is to bring a request before God, he must do so with a clean heart. He could have easily blamed someone else for the situation that his people back in Jerusalem were in. After all, it was his ancestors who sinned against God, not him or anyone of his generation. But Nehemiah doesn't do that. Why? Because he knows that he is no better than anyone else. By bringing this request to God, he is not only representing himself, but all of God's people, past, present, and future. As a nation, they had sin in their past that needed to be confessed before God, so Nehemiah takes it upon himself to do it. Now that he has praised God and confessed sin on behalf of his people, he can move on to his request.

Wait a minute! He does one more thing first. Check this out:

NE 1:8 "Remember the instruction you gave your servant Moses, saying, `If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations, 9 but if you return to me and obey my commands, then even if your exiled people are at the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen as a dwelling for my Name.'

NE 1:10 "They are your servants and your people, whom you redeemed by your great strength and your mighty hand.

I don't believe that Nehemiah is just "reminding" God of what he'd said in the past. I believe that the reason Nehemiah quotes Leviticus 26 to God here is because he wants to express his faith in God's promises. He knew that when God makes a promise, he keeps it. So, Nehemiah claims the promise of God that he made to Moses and his people long ago. Nehemiah truly has faith that God will keep it.

Finally, after praising God, confessing his sins, and claiming the promise of God, Nehemiah gets to the reason for his prayer: to bring his petition before God:

NE 1:11 O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of this your servant and to the prayer of your servants who delight in revering your name. Give your servant success today by granting him favor in the presence of this man."

Nehemiah knows that, in order to go to Jerusalem, he must ask permission from his employer, the king. Nehemiah is King Artaxerxes' most trusted servant, his "right-hand" man. He can't just walk into the throne room and ask the king for 3 years off to travel 800 miles and build a wall. He knows that the only way the king will allow him to go is if God changes the king's heart.

In the next chapter of Nehemiah, we will see his prayer answered, but more about that next week. In the meantime, let me conclude this post by pointing out 4 great things that prayer does for us:

1. Prayer makes me wait. If I'm trying to accomplish something and I stop to pray about it, I can't work and pray at the same time. I have to stop relying on my own abilities for a few moments and talk to God about it.

2. Prayer clears my vision. Have you ever been so confused that you couldn't do anything right? Often when I find myself in that situation, I'll stop what I'm doing and pray about it. Amazingly, once I finish praying and go back to work on whatever I'm dealing with, my confusion is gone. I'm able to handle it because my vision is clear.

3. Prayer quiets my heart. You know, it is physically impossible to worry and pray at the same time. I've tried it. It doesn't work. You have to stop worrying in order to start praying. When we pray, God replaces our anxiety with a calm spirit.

4. Prayer activates my faith. I always feel more confident facing troubles after I've prayed. Maybe this is because I know that God is with me. When I don't pray, I'm very negative everything going on around me. Prayer makes me confident that I am not alone in my trials.

Once again, I ask you to PLEASE PRAY for this class that I am teaching, and pray for me as we continue to study this great book together.

God Bless!

--Eric G.

Hand Me Another Brick - Part 1

This past week, I was given the opportunity to begin teaching an adult Sunday School class at Vaughn Park. The class is called Hand Me Another Brick, based on the principles taught in the book by the same name that was written by Charles Swindoll. Although the title of the class and many of my points are coming from Swindoll's book, the majority of the class is coming straight from the text of Nehemiah, an Old Testament book that many of us who have grown up in the Church have overlooked. I mean, let's be honest, do YOU remember a "flannelboard" Nehemiah in Sunday School class? Me neither.

But Nehemiah was a fascinating person. He is also one of the best examples in our Bible of what being a great, Godly leader is all about. Through this class, our goal is to learn how to be the kind of leader that God wants us to be, whether it's within our Church family, our household, on our college campus, or even just in our own lives. Over the next several weeks, if you'll indulge me, I'd like to share the high points of our class here online.

Our study began this week with a quick historical overview of what has happened to God's people up to the events recorded in Nehemiah 1. To avoid going into too much detail, let me just explain it this way: God's people had this habit of following God for a few generations, then falling away from him. Finally, after centuries of this "up and down" relationship with his people, God had had enough, and he allowed the nation of Israel to be defeated by the Babylonians. The Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem, which was the center of culture for God's people, and carried off the people as slaves.

Now, fast-forward a couple of generations. Babylon is defeated in battle by Persia, and King Cyrus of Persia decides to allow these Israelites to go back to Jerusalem and rebuild their city. Within a period of 93 years, 2 groups go back to the ruins of Jerusalem to begin rebuilding the temple. These events are covered in the book of Ezra.

This brings us to the book of Nehemiah. Here's the text:

NE 1:1 The words of Nehemiah son of Hacaliah:
In the month of Kislev in the twentieth year, while I was in the citadel of Susa,
2 Hanani, one of my brothers, came from Judah with some other men, and I questioned them about the Jewish remnant that survived the exile, and also about Jerusalem.
3 They said to me, "Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire."
4 When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.

Why are the people in Jerusalem so discouraged? By just glancing at the text, it's easy to come to the conclusion that they are troubled by the protective walls around the city lying in ruin. They don't have the security of a wall to protect their families and, more importantly, their temple. But I think the problem runs deeper than just the lack of protection. They are feeling guilt.

Notice the wording in verse 3: "Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace." Have you ever done something that you were ashamed of? Sure you have. All of us have. And often those shameful acts stay with us for a long time, don't they? Even after all has been forgiven and everything has been made right, there are often still scars that remind us of what we did wrong.

When God's people looked out at where their walls used to be, they were reminded of the time that God turned his back on them because they had turned their backs on him. Nehemiah saw that something needed to be done about this, because the only way they could truly be God's people again was to rebuild the walls that represented their relationship with God. So what does Nehemiah do about it? He fasts and prays to God.

We will discuss Nehemiah's fasting and praying next week, but to wrap up this week's lesson, I want to share with you some final thoughts. Already, within just the first 4 verses of the book, we are seeing some marks of a good leader in Nehemiah:

1. A good leader concerns himself with the problem. It was easy for Nehemiah to ignore what was going on in Jerusalem. He had a great job 800 miles away, and there were plenty of people already in Jerusalem to start building the wall. Why should he even care? He cared because these were God's people in distress. He knew that something needed to be done, and he wanted to be a part of it.

2. A good leader gets personally involved in solving the problem. Immediately, Nehemiah began fasting and praying. He knew that it would be hard for him to get to Jerusalem right then, but he knew that he could take the problem to God. We'll study more about what he said to God next week.

As you can see, we had a great start to our class this past week. I ask you as you read this to continue to pray for our class and for these posts online as we continue to study God's word together.


God Bless!

--Eric G.