Rebuilding Our Faith Series #1
Hebrews 11:13-16

REBUILDING OUR FAITH

The book of Nehemiah is like a gift dropped from heaven so that we could gain a glimpse of how God can work miracles in desperate situations. This situation in the post exilic era was desperate. The former nation of Israel was now in shambles ready to join a host of other nations in the archives of ancient history. Already in the time of Nehemiah, decades had passed since their capital was captured, burnt down and the people deported. The book of Nehemiah speaks about one solitary spark which relit a small flame of hope for the nation which otherwise would have been snuffed out. One has to understand when we talk about rebuilding a wall, that it is not the wall that is so important. The wall's importance is only as important as what stood behind the wall. The more special the watch case, the more expensive the watch. The more guards about a home, the more valuable the goods and people within are esteemed.

Archaeologists tunneling along the Western Wall in Jerusalem have discovered 5 enormous building stones that helped form the foundation of the temple that stood during Jesus' time. The largest is 55 feet long, 11 feet high and 14 feet wide. Weighs 570 tons. Large stones were used to prevent earthquake damage to the Temple Mount. (CT)

What made the walls of Jerusalem so valuable is not the walls themselves, but what the walls would protect: the heart of the nation of Israel. Or later as we find, it is the heart of God's people the Jews.

So you can imagine what desperate despair sacked the people after their capital city was torn down and the people literally dragged far away as modern day Iran and Iraq. Hope was dismissed as fancy; faith was tossed about as an old man's dream. It is not the history of Israel that made Israel a nation, but what God did in time and place in the lives of these men. "His Story" literally became history. If one has doubts about the historicity of crossing of the Red Sea, then all one needs to do is to turn to these post-exilic books written 1000 years later for testimony about the glory of the God who restores the same stubborn people. For what happens in the book of Nehemiah is a parallel of the book of Exodus. Each is a bare flame pointing to the coming torch of Christ in which God would "love the world." Let us compare God's people in Moses' time with the time they were in Persia in Nehemiah's time.

• In Egypt the people of God were merely a displaced people, but the Israelites in far away Susa, Persia were cast under the wrath of God for their idolatry.
  
  
• The Israelites in Egypt were a small homogenous group living in the land of Goshen of the world empire of Egypt, but in Nehemiah's time they were scattered about in far away foreign empires.
  
  
• The Jews in Egypt focused around a hope, a promise to their forefather Abraham, but the memories of the Israelites in the post-exilic times were stained by the massacres of their people, the destruction of the temple and the glorious kingdom of David and Solomon smashed.
  

The question for us to ponder is whether it is easier to start from scratch or to rebuild. If we were talking about mere buildings, perhaps we could think it would be a close runoff as to which would be easier. But when it comes to what the walls would protect, the heart of the nation, only a pure miracle could rebuild the Israelite nation. The remaining Jews were spread apart in a huge area under the rule of pagan families. These Jews did not have much faith. Some aged fathers might cry out from past memories, but their young just cared about getting on in society. Their faith had to be rebuilt just like the faith of our lives today.

Today I would like to introduce the book of Nehemiah to you. Although the physical rebuilding of the walls is the theme through the first half of the book, we will discover and more clearly be aided by focusing on another thread which is interweaved throughout the book. This theme centers around 7 "Remember" prayers. At first, these prayers stand distant from each other without any obvious significance, but later on they come standing on the shoulders of the prior one. The difference can be seen in calm days where waves casually arrive at the shore with stormy days where the winds send their pounding waves one after another with their strong force. God has His purpose from the beginning of the book, but it can be easily missed. The building process can absorb one's attention away from the purpose of the construction. This arrangement of prayers helps point us to the spiritual rebuilding of their faith rather than a mere reestablishment of an organization such as many sociologists consider Christianity today. They consider the organization to be the key to the religious movements. They believe that as a man has no soul that a city or a nation has no soul, nor does Christianity. In fact, they could not be more mistaken.

Indeed there was a wall that needed to be rebuilt. We should not be ignorant of physical needs. Our families need homes; our church needs things to function well. The city needed a wall. But I would like to now tell the whole story of Nehemiah less we get distracted with its physical and material presentation in the first chapters. As we go along I will point out the seven "Remember ______" prayers. Please fill in the word or words that follow the word "Remember." They are neatly organized in the provided outline. (See detailed chart of "Remember.")

We can see the beginning of the restoration of Jerusalem's walls found in the way Nehemiah responded to the news about the "broken down walls of Jerusalem and its gates burned with fire" (1:3). This led to a desperate prayer and our first "Remember" statement in 1:8 which was a clear remembrance of the word which God had promised to Moses. Nehemiah called upon God to remember His own promises. From the impossible situation in chapter one, came a clear breakthrough in chapter two where Nehemiah asked and got permission to rebuild the wall. We doubt that Nehemiah planned on asking the emperor; God planned it in response to his sincere prayer. So in chapter 2 we find the miraculous jump to inspection of the walls of Jerusalem and the rallying of the people to build her walls. Starting in chapter 3 we find the actual building of the wall right to the end of chapter 6.

A good story always has a good plot as does Nehemiah. As they are building the walls, they face opposition. Chapter 4 had one opposition plan foiled as the people rallied together. Chapter 5 started off with a number of other problems including usury and famine. But Nehemiah risks his life facing the leaders in a big congregational meeting and the chapter closes with the second "Remember" statement in 5:19. This is one of the "Remember me, O my God for good"" statements that will be repeated. He was living by principle for the sake of God's work. He called on God to recognize his sincere efforts. Chapter 6 again sees another plot develop, this time from outside enemies. This leads to the third "Remember" statement in 6:14, "Remember, O my God, these works of theirs." It is here that Nehemiah brought the works of the wicked to the memory of God. And early on in the book in 6:15 we see the actual wall fully built only 52 days later.

Chapter 7 first mentions the gates being hung and then begins to list the first wave of returning exiles. The soul of the city needed to be established. In chapter 8 Ezra the scribe reads the book of the law to the people. Chapter 9 was the congregation's repentant response for their past sins followed by chapter 10 where the leaders signed their signatures on the covenant to keep the law as well as special rules they made. Chapter 11 follows the spiritual renewal of Jerusalem with the actual restocking of the city with their people. Chapter 12 mentions the leaders who are responsible for different aspects for the city. Chapter 13 is the last chapter of the book and stands as the great pinnacle point of the book with four of the seven "Remember" statements.

The first "Remember" statement for purifying the leaders is in 13:14 where he asks God to "Remember me" for his good deeds. Nehemiah again stood firm on the sabbath issue. Then in Nehemiah 13:22 he says "for this also remember me." Clearly these tasks were not easy to do in a newly rebuilt and fragile community. The 6th "Remember" statement is in 13:29 where Nehemiah is still doing his acts of purification as the governor of Jerusalem. He says, "remember them" that is, remember the defiled priests for their wicked ways. And then lastly, in the very last words of the book are "Remember me, O my God, for good." Here Nehemiah in setting all His work before the Lord sets himself before the Lord as fulfilling his duty. In a sense he is like Moses and Joshua and even as a type of Jesus who restored the worship of the one true God back to normal.

What we see here is not only the rebuilding of a wall but a rebuilding of the community of God's people. Isn't there a computer game where you can construct a city. It is far over-simplistic in that it concentrates on buildings rather than the interplay of leaders. The cleaning of streets is more important than the cleansing of the people's heart and their common devotion to its one cause.

The book of Nehemiah is also similar to the book of Revelation where the people of God are getting ready for their heavenly worship. God's people are being called from every nation to gather before Him. They are to put off their old ways and their old patterns of living. God's ways will now dictate how they are to live. For God's people to be pure, they need to be called to regularly live according to this heavenly pattern now while they are on earth. Whenever we treat Christianity as a religion or man made organization with its man-made charter, then it defies its purpose. Whenever we as Christians, stand back and live out our lives just adapting Christianity to our own lives, we have totally denied what Christianity means and stands for. Jesus brought about a cause great enough to demand a radical change of life.

A Christian cannot live a comfortable life on earth because of his heavenly call. A Christian cannot live an independent life on earth because he is called to function in the community of believers. A Christian cannot live an undiscerning life because he is repeatedly going to be attacked by his enemies. A Christian cannot live what he feels because there are principles that he is committed to live by.

Nehemiah stands like an apostle, a man who was commissioned to establish God's kingdom. He was a man who lived by God's Word. A man who prayed without ceasing. Although in such a high and honored position as the Persian king's wine cupbearer, he never seemed to flinch before man. But before God, he regularly poured out his desperate needs before his Sovereign God. As a model of faithfulness, he bravely lived according to God's Word, but ever dependent on God's great mercy. He summarized his life with the word "remember." For he was as an intercessor calling to God's mind what He should do here on earth. He reminded God of His promises, as well as his own expectancies of what should be done.

The challenges we will face as we go through this book are numerous. We are not able to skim over this powerful life of Nehemiah. The walls might be a significant physical development of this book, but we would be blind to see the rebuilding of our faith as merely analogous to that of building a wall. As we go through this book, we must remember that unless we are going to open our lives up before God to be rebuilt then we are just playing games. In a sense, we will only proceed to chapter 6 and never pass the finish line. For God is not very concerned with the structure on the outside if the heart of the matter has been removed. We have seen people grow up and get old and then die. In the end of their lives, people say they did this and that. But if they have never been part of the eternal kingdom of God, then they are only an empty structure that never found its purpose of life. Their bodies, their walls were torn down because they had nothing inside. It is hard for the young to think that life is anything more than their bodies. They are so fascinated by the building up their towers that they think life is centered about them. How foolish! For it is these very walls that will be torn down. Sin culminates in death, the final tearing down of these walls.

God is calling us to live as pilgrims and strangers on earth, not as residents. Because we belong to a different kingdom, we live by its rules even when they put stress on our walls. Our destiny is not here. Because we have life from above, we are quite willing to let this body go, for we have stored up treasures in heaven just like Nehemiah - Remember me - remember what I have done. Even though Nehemiah built this city up from its crumbling stones, we see a man stilled before the presence of God. His life was not what he had but what God was preparing for them.

Today, as we start this book, I would like us to think through some serious questions on who we are, what are we living for, and what are the most important things we value in life. I want us to evaluate our dedication to these matters that God through Nehemiah has brought to our attention. Would you, for example, have been one of the exiles that came back to Jerusalem to work hard and labor? Risking all for your faith? Some of us have grown up in Christian homes and are just like these exiles. God is putting before you a choice to join or not join the community of God's people. Many of you are more interested in going to movies then prayer meetings. You are more concerned with doing what your friends do than what God's Word says. If you live this way, one day God will show you the bankruptcy of your heart and tear down the walls so that you cannot fool anyone. Listen to this earthquake report.

TOKYO (Reuter) Earthquake rattles Kyoto Buddhas 1/16/95- The earthquake that shook central Japan Tuesday damaged religious artifacts in the ancient capital of Kyoto, the Kyodo news agency said. In Sanjusangendo, a temple famed for the beauty of its wood carving, six of the 1,001 thousand-handed statues of Kannon were left lop-sided by the quake. Kannon is a Buddhist goddess of mercy who is supposed to appear to people in need. In Koryuji, one of Japan's oldest temples, three statues of the Buddha fell over and two others were damaged. In Seiryoji, part of the halo of the Amida Nyorai, the Buddha of the western paradise, fell off and five other Buddha statues were also damaged. A crack appeared in the wall of a five-story pagoda in Daigoji, and the buildings of Tofukuji, Rokuharamitsuji, Kodaiji and Ninnaji were also damaged. The quake also damaged some Buddha statues in Horyuji in nearby Nara, a temple that is the world's oldest wooden structure.

I am telling you that if you are going to be a Christian, let it not be done because you want to do what everyone else will do. No. You will not cut it as a Christian. You will never dedicate yourselves like these people did to rebuild the walls. You will never be able to weep for the city's sins let alone your own sins. The enemy will sweep you off your feet, tossed as a wave by the lusts of the world. You must remember it was God who brought the enemy to tear down the walls of Jerusalem. Don't stake your life on these things. They will fade away; you will perish. But instead put your hopes on the eternal kingdom of God. Store up things for this eternal kingdom now. The walls of this corruptible state will be torn down. God will give us a new body one day to gloriously portray His inner glory.

Many of you say you believe in Jesus Christ, but honestly are not following Him. You would choose to live as a normal person rather than give up your home, life, friends for Christ. But God is calling you to come out of the world and belong to Him.
Will you make Him your truest treasure?
Will you prize what He prizes?
Does your faith need rebuilding?

I think so. Make sure you rebuild it firmly and squarely on the teachings of God's precious Word. For the just will live by faith, not by sight.