Nehemiah 1—God Renews His People By Sharing His Burden

Nehemiah 1 (ESV) — 1 The words of Nehemiah the son of Hacaliah. Now it happened in the month of Chislev, in the twentieth year, as I was in Susa the citadel, 2 that Hanani, 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, and its gates are destroyed by fire.”

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.

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.

8 Remember the word that you commanded your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples, 9 but if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there I will gather them and bring them to the place that I have chosen, to make my name dwell there.’

10 They are your servants and your people, whom you have redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand.

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.

What Nehemiah (The Book) Is About

As much as Nehemiah is the central character, the book of Nehemiah is about God—another instance of God working hard to renew his people.

God loves his people. He had called Abraham centuries earlier to establish a people that would broadcast his goodness and glory to the world—one nation for the nations. And eventually, this nation was meant to bring forth the Savior, the Messiah who would save his people from their sins.

But after their exodus from Egypt and establishment in the land, Israel constantly struggled to follow God. He had covenanted himself with them, but though they said they would keep that covenant, they did not. Their light was dimmed, and the nations could not see God's glory.

So God was forced to do what he had promised he would do—he brought his disciplinary judgment upon them by scattering them among the nations. For seventy years, God said, the people would inhabit Babylon.

But God had promised a king named Cyrus would arise to send them back to the land. And, many generations before the events in Nehemiah, Cyrus came. He commissioned the return of God's people and the rebuilding of God's temple.

But, though they tried here and there, the city that housed God's temple was never rebuilt. Threats from enemies and letters from foreign kings stopped them in their tracks. Rather than courageously push through the difficulties to get the job done, the Israelites settled for a meager temple inside a broken down city on a hill. The city that was meant to be a lighthouse penetrating the darkness with God's glory was reduced to a crumbled and uninhabitable wasteland. Some could have even falsely concluded that the God of Israel was like the Jerusalem—weak and unable to thrive in their modern times.

So God began doing what God always does: he renewed his people. He stirred up and sent Nehemiah to get the job done—to renew his people.

One day in Caesarea Philippi, Jesus told Peter and his disciples that he would build his church, and that the gates of hell would not prevail against it (Matthew 16:18)—that's what the book of Nehemiah is about. God's church in that era—the people of Israel—needed to be built. And God would do the building. So God would do all he had to do to renew them.

Gates And Walls

And this was important work. Without gates and walls, God's city and people were not what they were meant to be—the city and people who broadcast God's glory to the world. The city and the people went hand in hand.

In a similar way, when God's church and people are not what we are meant to be, God's glory is not broadcast to the world. So God works hard, as he has in every generation, to renew his people—Nehemiah shows us how. Each chapter and episode will bring us a new facet to God's work of renewing his people—of renewing us!

And I wonder how many of us might feel a need for God's renewal today? Without being an alarmist or doomsayer, I think it's safe to say these past couple of years have been taxing. It's been like living with a pulsating migraine headache—your normal life goes on, but an ache that you can't shake goes with you. Many of us need personal renewal. Many of the relationships, experiences, or places that we used to go for life and comfort have been altered. The din of division pervades every part of life. We might not be able to identify what's wrong, but we know we could use God's renewal.

I am convinced the church needs renewal as well. As individuals, we come together to form the church. And as much as we need renewal individually, we need it corporately—together! And I believe God wants to take us as a church into a renewal of his presence and purpose—nothing and no one can satisfy us as God can! So I am immensely excited to talk to you about how God renews his people as we study Nehemiah together.

Today, we will think from this first chapter about how God renews us by sharing his burden with us. This is a mandatory first step. He shares his burden with us. How so?

He Reveals The Gap (1-4, 6-7)

The Setting

The first thing God does is reveal that gap that exists between what we are and what we could be. Nehemiah introduces the story by telling us that it was the winter month of Chislev, that it was the twentieth year King Artaxerxes reigned, and that he was with Artaxerxes at the winter palace of Susa.

This means that a book all about rebuilding Jerusalem and renewing Jerusalem's people begins about a thousand miles from Jerusalem! Nehemiah was living in (and serving) the Persian empire. He will become the governor of Jerusalem during this book, but the story starts in a land far, far away.

Nehemiah's Question

While there, Nehemiah's brother Hanani shows up with some men from Judah (where Jerusalem was the capitol city). Nehemiah asked them about the remnant of Israelites in the land and the condition of Jerusalem. Hanani's reply broke Nehemiah's heart—"The remnant there in the province who had survived the exile is in great trouble and shame. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are burned with fire" (3).

I believe this encounter—and Nehemiah's question—were the outworking of God's providence. God brought Hanani to Nehemiah. God stirred Nehemiah to ask this question. God worked in Nehemiah care and concern for the city and the people.

God's Gracious Revelation

For God to renew us, we must see the need for renewal. So God designs ways to share his burden with us, to show us what he sees.

And, with Hanani's reply, Nehemiah was hit with the truth. The glorious city of Jerusalem, a city he'd read about in the Scriptures and daydreamed about while in a foreign land, was nothing but rubble and ruin. And the people there—the ones who could do something about it—were doing nothing about it. The city David captured and Solomon glorified was an ash heap of crushed dreams.

Brothers and sisters, it is good and gracious of God to reveal the gap between what could be and what is. Consider a doctor who runs lab work on their patient's blood. When the labs are done, a report is given, complete with normal ranges stated next to the patient's numbers. The normal range helps the uneducated and uninformed patient understand where his numbers might be far off from what they should be. The lab results demonstrate the gap between the ideal and reality.

God also diagnoses our condition and will show us the gap between the ideal and reality. The Bible describes God as "he who searches hearts" (Romans 8:27). If you are in Christ, the Spirit of God resides within you, searching and knowing you. According to Romans, the Spirit brings his informed intercessory petitions to the Father—and since this is the Spirit of God we are talking about, Father God is primed to respond to the Spirit's requests. And sometimes, the Spirit will try to wake us from slumber just as he woke Nehemiah. He will show us the broken walls and burnt gates.

He might reveal the gap between what could be and what is by allowing you to fail. He might reveal the gap by allowing emptiness. He might reveal the gap by exposing sins that you've quietly justified—but once others see and know them, you become mortified. He might reveal the gap with a still, small voice. He might reveal the gap by snapping you into a vision of his holiness, giving you a better perspective than you get when you measure yourself by others.

But, one way or another, God will reveal the gap when one exists. And it is his mercy and grace to wake us up from The Matrix of numbed self-congratulatory existence and into reality.

He never does this to decimate us. He does this to give us life. He wanted Saul and Judas and Micaiah and Demas and Samson to respond well once they realized the gap. He wanted them to respond like Peter and Mark and Isaiah and David did when they realized the gap in their own lives.

Part of receiving God's renewal is living with the joy of God's pleasure on your life because you are in Christ—along with the knowledge that there is a gap between what you are and what God is remaking you to be.

We should not be comfortable with the gap ("I am who I am"), but we should be comfortable in the gap ("God is remaking me")—comfortable with a continual discovery of our limitations, weaknesses, frailties, failures, and sins. Comfortable with the Spirit bringing specific conviction into our lives.

Nehemiah's Confession

All this is what made Nehemiah pray the way he did. He was not driven from God when he heard the condition of the city—instead, he owned it and ran directly to God. He sat down and wept and mourned for days. He fasted and prayed before God (4).

And when he prayed, part of his prayer was a confession. He confessed the sins of the people of Israel (6). But he took it a step further—he said Israel's sins were sins "we have sinned against you" (6). He said, "Even I and my father's house have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, and the rules that you commanded your servant Moses" (6-7).

When Nehemiah saw the gap between God's ideal and their reality, he confessed their sins to God.

The city didn't need to be lying there in ruins. Initially, it had to be destroyed. God's prophets had foretold that King Nebuchadnezzar from Babylon would destroy the city. But they had also said that seventy years later, another king named Cyrus would arise to send them back for a rebuilding effort. It all happened just as God had said, but Nehemiah is checking in on Jerusalem nearly a hundred years after Cyrus.

Small efforts to rebuild had been thwarted—those are documented in the book of Ezra—and now Nehemiah is over a century and a half removed from the original destruction of God's city. And still, God's people had not gotten their priorities together and rebuilt. Somehow, someway, even Nehemiah was negligent right along with everyone else, and he was ashamed. So when he saw the gap, he confessed his (and the nation's) sin to God.

A Gospel-Community Knows Its Tendencies

It's here that I would like to highlight the importance of developing a community that sees the need for and possibility of ongoing confession. Need in that none of us is fully reshaped into Christ's perfect image yet. Possibility in that the gospel message teaches us to acknowledge and bring our sins to God that he might deal with them. Part of this is through confession.

James said:

James 5:16 (ESV) — 16 ...Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.

John said:

1 John 1:9 (ESV) — 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

And the psalmist sang:

Psalm 38:18 (ESV) — 18 I confess my iniquity; I am sorry for my sin.

And when we speak to God and one another this way, we are shaping our identity in line with the gospel. Rather than walk around in Pharisaical self-approval, we can honestly share our weaknesses and imperfections with our friends in Christ. And this confessional community will help keep us dependent upon Christ and free from the burnout so many experience in church. The pressure to be perfect is impossible to bear—but because many never discover a healthy gospel-oriented community, they burn out. Let us be like Nehemiah—see the gap and confess.

He Refreshes Us In His Nature And Promises (5, 8-9)

But there is no way we will turn to God when our gaps are revealed if we have the wrong ideas about him. Fortunately, Nehemiah knew God, and it seems the fresh report he received from his brother somehow caused God's nature to leap off the pages of Scripture and into his experience.

In Nehemiah's prayer, it is clear he was conscious of God's power, love, and promises. He called God the "Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments" (5). He appealed to God's promises by recalling how God had told Moses, a thousand years earlier, that if Israel was unfaithful, he would scatter them among the nations, but gather them back to his holy place if they returned to him and kept his commandments again (8-9). Much of what he said about God to God is a mashup of some passages from Deuteronomy. But there, at that moment, the things Nehemiah had read about God were coming to life.

And God does this today—for those who know him, there is something about seeing our gaps that reminds us of who God is. We know he is powerful—we've read all about it. We know he's love—we've read all about it. We know he is a promise-keeper—we've read all about it. But when we come face to face with our gap, when he shows us his burden and vantage point, God also wants to refresh us in his nature and promises. He wants us to draw on his power so we can shore up the gaps. He wants us to lean on his love despite our sins. And he wants us to expect him to fulfill his promise to help us shore up the gaps.

It is an odd thing about us: God seems to be most real to us when we are face-to-face with our limitations. When did Frodo most want Gandalf's presence? When did the Narnians most crave Aslan? When did Luke most miss Obi-Wan? When in situations where their limitations were felt.

The Psalmist said:

Psalm 94:18 (ESV) — 18 When I thought, “My foot slips,” your steadfast love, O LORD, held me up.

Remember Peter? One night, Jesus walked on the Sea of Galilee past the boat his disciples were in. When Peter recognized it was Jesus, he asked Jesus if he could walk out to him, got out of the boat, and began to walk on water! But when he saw the wind and waves, he was afraid and started to sink. He cried out, "Lord, save me!" (Matthew 14:28-30).

Peter's story is often our story. We are cruising along, thinking pretty highly of ourselves. Then we see the reality around us (and within us) and start to sink. But it is in that moment—when our foot slips—that the Lord becomes big to us again. Peter looked to Jesus at that moment. He saw the difference between himself and his Lord. And when we slip, we also have a chance to see the nature of our God.

And in Nehemiah's day, he'd become conscious that the foot of the nation had slipped. They weren't the city on a hill, broadcasting the light of the world to the nations. You might feel something similar today, that the church and its people have become known for things other than a deep commitment to Christ and a passion for obeying his word. But in the slippage, there is God. No matter how far down his people tumble, he is unshaken and unchanged—and his love remains!

He Reminds Us Of Our Identity (10-11)

The funny thing about all this is that as much as the gap reminds us who God is, it reminds us of who we are. Yes, it shows us our weaknesses, but it also calls us up to the new identity God has given to us in Christ. God uses even our failures to remind us of our identity.

Nehemiah became conscious of his identity—and the identity Israel—once he heard of the broken walls and burnt gates. It jolted him. "God has better plans and purposes and dreams for us than that," he thought.

This is why his prayer refers to Israel as God's servants (6). He knew they were part of God's household, meant to serve the world by serving God. He said, "They are your servants and your people, whom you have redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand (10). Though the events of Exodus were ancient history at this point, Nehemiah was sure God had delivered them over and over again because they were his people. He even told God the scattered Israelites were his—your outcasts (9).

Nehemiah was jolted: We are God's people! We are meant for more than this! We have a greater purpose and destiny! I want back in on God's plans for us!

All this got at the heart of what God was doing through their exile. Once they were removed from the safety and comfort of their homes, the Israelite people had to figure out who they were. In exile, far from home, in cultures that weren't conducive to their relationship with God, they had to be refreshed in their identity. Who are we? How should we live?

Near the end of Paul the apostle's story in Acts, he and hundreds of others were shipwrecked. They spent many nights in a wild storm. They kept on lightening the load until only the people and broken boards from the ship remained! (Acts 27).

When we begin to see things as God sees them, when we receive his burden, when we discover the gap between what should be and what is, we have an opportunity to get in touch again with the essentials of our faith. Last year we considered the exilic form of Christianity Peter proposed in 1 Peter, and one of the results of exile is getting in touch again with what it means to be a Christian. Everything else that has attached itself unnecessarily to our Christianity can be thrown overboard. Only the essentials remain.

This reconnection with our identity in God is what was happening to Nehemiah that day. We are God's servants! We are his people! He has a plan for us! And a broken city with feeble worship is not it!

But notice that this sense of identity was firmly rooted in what Nehemiah understood about God. When God's children know God, then they can begin to know and understand themselves.

My identity does not begin when I begin to understand myself. There is something previous to what I think about myself, and it is what God thinks of me. That means that everything I think and feel is by nature a response to God… -- Eugene H. Peterson, Run With the Horses, pg. 39

We live in a world pursuing self-achieved identity. But our identity as God's children is not achieved—it is given to us through Christ. This is crucial to understand because the self-achieved identity must also be self-sustained. If it is an earned identity, it must be a maintained identity. But in Christ, our identity is secure.

Even in the midst of their folly, Nehemiah knew who he and the Israelite people were—they belonged to God.

A Christ Figure

This refreshed identity is what made Nehemiah's last action in this episode a fitting one. He prayed, "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" (11).

In this closing moment, we are let in on Nehemiah's position in the royal court. At the very least, being King Artexerxes' cupbearer meant he was entrusted with keeping poison off the king's menu. But there are indications that in the ancient Near Eastern court, the cupbearer was a lofty position of great power and influence—and certainly wealth and ease.

Over the months Nehemiah prayed, he became so in touch with his identity as one of God's children that he prayed a prayer of volunteerism. What I mean is that Nehemiah's willingness to get uncomfortable, to sacrifice it all, to leave his position of prestige so he could help God's people flourish, is such a biblical attitude. Like Abraham who left his position of comfort to launch out into the unknown with God, or Moses who considered his position in Pharaoh's courts as nothing in comparison with having God, or Esther who realized it would be better to perish for God than retain the throne without God, Nehemiah became willing to lay down his life.

But this attitude—and the attitude of Abraham, Moses, Esther, and many others—is not just a biblical attitude, but a gospel attitude. All those figures from the Old Testament era prefigured Jesus, the One who truly left it all for the sake of God's people.

And, as Nehemiah got in touch with his identity as God's child, he began behaving like God's Son. He thought about the position God had given him—cupbearer to the king—and realized he was to use that position for God's glory.

The same ought to occur in us. As the Spirit reveals the gap in us between what could be and what is, we should consider the love and promises of God. And as we turn to God in humble confession, adopting a daily posture of dependence on him, we will be reminded of who we are in Christ. Soon, with the identity God gives us fresh in our minds, we will realize that "the firstborn of many brethren"—Jesus!—laid down his life for us, and we will want to lay down our lives as well. We will want to do what we can—in God's strength and power—to shore up the gap.