1 These are the memoirs of Nehemiah son of Hacaliah. In late autumn, in the month of Kislev, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes’ reign, I was at the fortress of Susa. 2 Hanani, one of my brothers, came to visit me with some other men who had just arrived from Judah. I asked them about the Jews who had returned there from captivity and about how things were going in Jerusalem. 3 They said to me, “Things are not going well for those who returned to the province of Judah. They are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem has been torn down, and the gates have been destroyed by fire.” 4 When I heard this, I sat down and wept. In fact, for days I mourned, fasted, and prayed to the God of heaven. (Nehemiah 1:1–4, NLT)
I love the hope of our key verse in this series called Fresh Start. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 2 Cor 5:17
We all want to have a fresh start in those deep areas of our lives – where we are not simply surviving, hiding or blaming but becoming what God wants us to be.
Fresh Start is about experiencing a Holy Spirit Driven process where our internal world is remade, our inner beings – who we really are is changed in the likeness of Christ –
Our Fresh Start starts with deciding to follow Jesus – transformation happens the moment we believe. But God’s intent is now that we grow as a new creation – where we become great souls learning to be like Jesus, act like Jesus, love like Jesus…
But in this journey of understanding what a fresh start means we have to begin with some hard news.
- It is a willingness to face where we really are.
- To peer into who I really am.
- To honestly face what the conditions really are.
- A courage to understand what is broken, wrong and evil in my life.
- Though it is not a desirable thing to do we must be willing to look at the problems that are within in our lives.
We are going to learn from the book of Nehemiah to help us understand what a fresh start looks like. The story of Nehemiah is not just the story of leadership, it is the story of brokeness and the struggle to overcome it. Nehemiah’s leadership only comes to focus because of the bleak situation of Jerusalem.
I want to take you through a mini walk through the Bible to get a sense of where Nehemiah fits into the overall story of Israel. A quick timeline: Moses led the people of Israel out of Egypt and slavery to the Promised Land. That took place sometime around 1300 B.C., give or take 100 years or so. Then they occupied the Promised Land. Then there came kings—first Saul, then David. When David becomes king, Israel reaches its peak. Then came Solomon, and then begins a long, slow decline.
Finally, Israel is pretty much finished off as a nation by the Babylonians around 587 B.C. At this point Jerusalem is wiped out, and many Israelites are sent into exile, especially the upper classes. Sometime after this, the Babylonian Empire is defeated by the rising Persian Empire. This is good news for Israel, because a significant number of Israelites are allowed to return to the Holy Land. They are allowed to go back to Jerusalem. That’s the setting for our story.
So now Nehemiah comes on the scene – he lives in Persia, in the capital city of Susa, around 445 B.C. Now it has been over a century after the Israelites had been sent into exile.
He is serving in the Persian government as the cupbearer to the king of Persia. It is his job to taste wine before it is presented to the king—not to make sure that the wine is good enough, but to make sure that the wine has not been poisoned. You never had to ask a cupbearer, “How did your day go?” If they didn’t die, things had gone pretty well.
He is someone the king trusts, someone who has a lot of access to the king. So Nehemiah was doing very well for himself. He was well connected to the king, and on a successful career path. His life was going pretty well, until one day:
Nehemiah learns that Jerusalem is in great trouble – Enemies surround the city, the walls are in ruins, and morale is in shambles.
But the part that really concerns Nehemiah is that God’s whole dream of redeeming the world—of forming a redemptive community and having a covenant with them, of letting everybody on earth know that there really is a God who created each of us and that the earth is part of his story—that whole idea seems to be at risk. Neh. 1:3-6 (NIV)
“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.
Our Broken Walls: How do we respond to the problems in our lives? I want us to that for all of us we have a choice of 2 ways can choose 2 different ways.
The Whitewashing Way:
Until Nehemiah addressed the problem, the people of Jerusalem had accepted the broken walls.
The walls of Jerusalem had lain in ruins was not new news. It had been nearly 90 years since the people who had returned from exile. But any idea among the residents to rebuild was met with force — to the point that the residents of the city had given up. They consigned themselves to living as a broken people in a city of broken walls.
We are not so different are we. We have broken walls in us and around us. Relationships. Personal struggles. We have tried to change before. . . maybe many times and the resistance was too strong. We stopped.
When you get use to broken walls I think the temptation is to cover up the mess. Slap a little whitewash on the mess to help us get used to it.
Jesus talked about this “Whitewashing Way”
27 “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs—beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with dead people’s bones and all sorts of impurity. (Matthew 23:27, NLT)
This is from a section of Matthew’s gospel devoted to “woes” that Jesus says to people who engage in hypocrisy. Hypocrite is just the Greek word for “actor”– a person who pretends. Pretend is a great thing for children and even for adults in particular contexts (role playing for training purposes)– but as a life-model, Jesus didn’t really favor that. Listen to the words of Jesus:
When we have brokenness in our lives and in our relationships and we pretend that everything is okay, we are engaging in hypocrisy. We may excuse it because we are embarrassed and because we feel shame. Wanting to hide the reality of what is wrong is a natural reaction. But it is unhelpful because it doesn’t lead us anywhere.
Illustration: We may do it to feel comfortable…but I wonder if pretending is comfortable. Donna Freitas in her thought-provoking book The Happiness Effect, argues that the real downside of social media is that it demands fake happiness. She writes:
Because young people feel so pressured to post happy things on social media, most of what everyone sees on social media from their peers are happy things; as a result, they often feel inferior because they aren’t actually happy all the time … . students are becoming masters of appearing happy, at significant cost …. Many students have begun to see what they post (on Facebook, especially) as a chore—a homework assignment to build a happy façade.
A full 73 percent of the students she surveyed agreed this this statement: “I try always to appear positive/happy with anything attached to my real name.” Only 19 percent of respondents agreed that “I am open about my emotions on social media.”
Laura Vanderkam, “A Generation Living for Likes,” The Wall Street Journal (2-14-17)
It is hypocrisy because we are advertising to everyone that we have everything in order, when we don’t. We are saying we don’t need grace when we do. We are creating a false life instead of a new life.
John Ortberg calls this “image management”. We want to look better than we actually are. In fact we place great importance on that in our lives.
When we prettify our problems it leads to Chaos & Confusion – The change we need most is not in our circumstances, but in ourselves. If we simply cover up we are going to end destroying what we want to keep.
The Weeping Way
When Nehemiah heard the report from Jerusalem, it overwhelmed him emotionally and made him spiritually aware of his need for God.
I sat down and wept…
Our Teaching Pastor, Brent Hudson observes:
This is the reason we don’t want to stare our brokenness in the face. We know that when we truly see it — see it for what it is — our response will be like Nehemiah — Weeping and mourning. A deep sadness from the deep wells of our hearts. It hurts too much…it feels us with pain…and we all want to avoid pain…especially emotional pain.
13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance and dared not even lift his eyes to heaven as he prayed. Instead, he beat his chest in sorrow, saying, ‘O God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner.’ (Luke 18:13, NLT)
When we see our broken walls, God meets us there with a real hope for a new beginning.
The wisdom we learn from Nehemiah is not about weeping and mourning — that is just the natural response to not looking away.
The wisdom of Nehemiah is seeing his need for God and seeking him. Nehemiah’s lesson is clear.
When facing our brokenness,
don’t go to the whitewash, go to God.
Forget about image management. Forget about what others might say. Forget about everything else. Face the face that brokenness is bleak but in God, there is hope. But there is a self-awareness that is needed.
Think again of the story of Tax Collector and the Pharisee the temple. The Pharisee has employed the whitewash so well, he didn’t even recognize his brokenness. Instead of weeping and mourning and fasting and praying as Nehemiah did, he thanked God he wasn’t as bad as others. But Jesus reminds us that it was not the Pharisee who enjoyed God’s favour.
“But the tax collector stood at a distance and dared not even lift his eyes to heaven as he prayed. Instead, he beat his chest in sorrow, saying, ‘O God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner.’ (Luke 18:13, NLT)
When we see our ‘broken walls’ — really see them. See them as bleak and barren as they are. See them as the destructive energy that they are — it is in this moment that God meets us. It is in that honesty and helplessness of our broken walls that we finally have with a real hope for a new beginning…it is in that honesty of facing it that we discover something transforming. When we peer into the very heart of our brokenness we find Jesus on the cross — suffering with us and more importantly suffering for us so we can transcend the broken walls of our lives and experience new creation.
New beginnings starts with broken walls
As we move into 2018, I challenge you to face-in to a challenge that is far more significant that diet or organizational skill. Ask yourself…
- Where you are right now is that where you want to be?
- Where you are in our family, church, work is that where you believe God wants you to be?
- What is the new beginning God wants to begin.
- Where does the fresh start begin with you?
I challenge you, even as I challenge myself to open your eyes to the broken walls things that are really holding you back from a deeper more substantial experience of Christ in your life.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 2 Cor 5:17
Reflection Questions
- Why do we avoid or become complacent regarding our problems?
- Is there an area in your life where you are whitewashing instead of weeping? What are some ways that “prettify” our problems?
- Nehemiah didn’t just weep and mourn, he also fasted and prayed. What specific things are you doing to connect your emotional health and your spiritual health?
- What is the connection between facing your deepest problems and having hope?
- What steps can you take this week to honestly face your broken walls?