CROSSroads -- The CROSSroad of Concern -- Nehemiah 1

Introduction
I don’t know haw many of you know much about the Waller name. To be honest, I don’t know that much. But let me tell you a little of what I do know. There are basically two strains of Wallers in America. The first and most numerous is the British strain. The second and not so numerous is the Dutch strain. My family came offer from Holland so we are of the Dutch variety. But even with all the political turmoil in the Netherlands, I really don’t pay that close attention to what goes on over there even though they are “My people.”
That is not what we see in Nehemiah.

Describing the Biblical Text
We see our main character entertaining guests, namely his brother and others from Jerusalem.
It is amazing how such an innocent inquiry could have led him to such a heartfelt response.
“How are the folks back home?” was the question.
The answer: They are in bitter distress.
They are the shame or reproach of the land.
The walls of the city are ruined and gates are burned.
We see responses on several levels here.
They are emotionally whipped.
Their Character is defeated.
They cannot defend themselves.
There was no good news out of Jerusalem and it broke Nehemiah’s heart.

Narrate the Contextual application
In this text, Nehemiah had come to understand the idea of calling.
He had come to a place where he saw that ultimately his burden would become his mission.
Over the last several weeks, we have seen the idea of being called by God and what hat could and should mean in our lives.
I want to summarize the idea of biblical calling into one statement that I read in a leadership manual.
A call from God always is designed to move people from where they are to where God intends them to be.
God’s call to Abe created a covenant people.
God’s call to Isaiah readied a people for destruction and captivity.
God’s call to Jonah turned a pagan city to God.
God’s call to Simon, Andrew, John and James was the embryonic formation of the church.
Now we see the call to Nehemiah.
Yet, this call is different from all the rest in the sense that we don’t see a thus saith the Lord moment.
We don’t see God speaking to Nehemiah and telling him to go anywhere or to do anything.
But, we do see something else.
We see the burden of a man so intense that it drives him to his knees and it brings to the place of repentance but not for his sins, but for the sins of Judah.
He repents on behalf of his people.
His heart is so moved by the report of Jerusalem’s situation that he finds his knees.
Suddenly, Nehemiah went from being a casual inquirer to being a concerned leader.

Life Application (thesis)
As followers of Christ, we have been called.
Romans 8 makes that abundantly clear.
We would look at Matthew 28 and see a commission to make disciples through three things – going, baptizing, and teaching.
Everything we do as a church actually revolves around those three things.
So as you sit here this morning, you will be looking to answer several questions
1) Am I a goer, a witness, or a teacher?
2) How have I affected the moving of people from where they were to where God wanted them to be?
3) Do I have the burden to do what I need to do to fulfill God’s calling in my lie?
Hopefully your heart will know the answers to those questions as you leave this place this morning.
What do we then see about Nehemiah’s calling?
A calling from God requires that we concerned about the object of the calling.

SO WHAT!! (Outline)
How does that happen?
We see that it happened in Nehemiah’s case and he fell to his knees.
Nehemiah suddenly saw people in a different way.
This would be the first thing that we need to see this morning.
I have to see people the way Jesus sees them.

Grinch has a heart change
No longer hated whos

Think about this.
Nehemiah is praying for people that he never met.
These are people a thousand miles away and yet his heart is burdened.
He is weeping and is emotionally distraught over people he does not even know.
He is weeping tears for the souls of those people.

Nehemiah was a well to do man.
He was in the court of the Persian Kind and he had some authority and some power.
He had reached a station in life where he could be comfortable to live out his days and never have any worries.
Yet Nehemiah had not become jaded by cynicism and he had not become self-absorbed.
He had a legitimate concern for others and he wanted to see his fellow Jews as well off as he was.

The home folk were not doing well.
Hanani shared some pretty dismal news with Nehemiah.
First of all he described them as being in great distress.
What was being said was that their lives were nothing but misery.
Some of us can probably relate to that in some measure.
You lose your job or your family falls apart or your life for some unknown reason takes a turn to the south.
Misery happens to people
For Jerusalem, it was citywide.
Then Hanani dropped another bomb on Nehemiah.
They are in reproach.
They have no standing in the land.
Judah had become the laughing stock of the Middle East.
The city is in ruin and the plunderers can come and go at will.
There was really no good news to report which for Nehemiah was probably surprising since Persia had released the Jews from their captivity.
A number of the captives including priests had already returned and yet there was still anguish among the people.

I wonder how many of us when we look at the world around us see great distress.
I think all too often followers of Jesus are blind to the spiritual blindness that is all around us.
We look at people who are successful and beautiful and somewhere within ourselves, we begin to envy them.
Or we look at the gangs and the druggies and we go to great lengths to avoid those kind of people.
Or, we look at the people around us every day.
They are nice people. We work with them. We see their kids at basketball or football practice and they seem okay.
But, they are in great distress and they are in reproach.
If we see these people through the eyes of Jesus, our hearts would be moved.
All of a sudden you realize these people are not where God wants them to be and your heart cries out to God.
Then it happens. You come to the conclusion that you have not done all you can do to move the pretty people or the thugs any closer to Jesus.

But wait it has to start someplace doesn’t it.
It starts exactly where Nehemiah started.
Look at verse 4
Nehemiah went to God in Prayer.
This is our second point this morning.
I have to spend time in prayer for the people that Jesus loves.
That is no secret formula.
It is basic to the lives we ought to be living as followers of Jesus Christ.
But we don’t pray like we should.
Our prayers become wish lists and sick lists and we fail to ask God to make us useful to Him.
Our Prayer should be to be used by God because we are all goers.
Life takes us places every day but are we concerned with Jesus’ concern for the people we meet?

Nehemiah, when he prayed for the people of Jerusalem, he did so with some very poignant recognitions.
The first was that they had forsaken their covenant standing with God.
Nehemiah repented on their behalf.
“How does that work?” you might be asking.
Romans 9:1 gives us that answer.
The crossroad of concern is reached and the road achieved when we cease to be concerned for ourselves and start being concerned for others.
Our prayer lives become focused on how we can connect others to Christ rather than how we can be connected health, wealth, and happiness.
God does not want us to be happy, he wants us to be content in Him.
He wants us to be burdened for the things that burden Him and that only happens when we are contrite in prayer before Him.

Jesus said we are to love our neighbors as ourselves which is the second great commandment.
CS Lewis made the observation that every mortal human being is actually immortal.
They will either be an eternal glory for God or they will be in everlasting torment.
I would ask you to come to the altar this morning and pray for the calling to keep people from eternal torment.

There is distress all around.
Eternal Reproach faces most of the people we know.
Do we care enough to do something about it?