rebuilding the wall, part 2

When he heard about the wasted state of Jerusalem and the plight of its people, Nehemiah made up his mind: He would do something about it. Still, the fact remained that between him and the desired outcome stood a number of seemingly insurmountable obstacles. His response in the face of friction shows remarkable insight, forethought, courage, and determination. In short, Nehemiah’s story has much to teach us about making our visions a reality.

 

First, he knew that rebuilding Jerusalem’s walls required the approval of Artaxerxes. Nehemiah and his people were subjects of the Persian Empire. And while Persia was less heavy-handed toward its conquered peoples than Babylon had been, it had no less of a vested interest in keeping them under its thumb. Thus it was expected that the king would be, at best, unsympathetic to the Jewish cause and at worst, openly hostile. After all, reconstruction of the fortifications of a city with a long track record of defiance could be deemed less than politically expedient. Indeed, this appeared to be the leaning of Artaxerxes, who had earlier labeled Jerusalem a “hotbed of insurrection,” and summarily ordered that all rebuilding efforts be immediately discontinued (Ezra 4:19, 21).

 

The odds were stacked heavily against Nehemiah; there was small likelihood that the king would so drastically change his opinion. Yet Nehemiah took his case to God and asked for nothing less than a complete reversal of the king’s former position on the matter (1:11b). Perhaps he read and reread the words penned by Solomon some five centuries prior: “The king’s heart is like a stream of water directed by the Lord; he guides it wherever he pleases” (Proverbs 21:1, NLT). Artaxerxes was, to the world, a mercurial sovereign with the absolute authority of a god; to Nehemiah, he was a tool to be employed in the purposes of an all-powerful God.

 

What factors conspire to keep our church subjugated? What policies or attitudes need reversing so that God’s plans can be set into motion? Are we intentionally praying for that change?

 

Second, Nehemiah was not equipped for the task at hand. He was not a mason, military commander, or political strategist – all jobs which would be required of someone rebuilding the wall (and all of which he would later fulfill). But he would not be deterred. Instead of lamenting what he was not, he leveraged what he was. As royal cupbearer he did not possess great power, but he did have great opportunity for influence. His was a position of considerable trust, being a line of defense against assassination attempts; he tested the king’s food and drink to ensure it was not poisoned. Someone of a more radical bent might have employed this station to conspire to overthrow Persian rule. Not Nehemiah. He performed his duties to the best of his ability, believing that God placed him there for good reason. And by operating within God’s framework, he garnered favor with Artaxerxes.

 

It has been said that God does not call the equipped, but equips the called. Are we heeding his call to action, even when it seems that we may not have all of the pieces in place? Are we leveraging what he has given to us – money, facilities, manpower, etc. – to its fullest potential?

 

Then there was the issue of timing. Nehemiah was not given a well-defined timeline for action. He possessed only a general conviction that God wanted the rebuilding to happen. On the one hand, he had to be ready at a moment’s notice. And on the other, he had to possess nearly infinite patience. When the moment to act finally did arrive, five months had elapsed since he first heard of the walls. Depending upon his perspective, this may have seemed an eternity; perhaps he had wanted to start immediately. Or he may have wanted more time to prepare. Either way, Nehemiah conformed to God’s schedule. He watched for the opportunity and was ready to seize it when it came.

 

Are we willing to follow God’s timetable, even when we feel unprepared? If his timing doesn’t line up with our own, whose schedule takes precedence?

 

Last, Nehemiah had to contend with fear. In his telling of events, he freely admits, “I was terrified” (2:2). How would Artaxerxes respond to his request? There was no shortage of things to fear – the king’s displeasure, the possibility of losing his job, making waves, the magnitude of the undertaking before him, leaving the known and comfortable. But he did not allow his fear to cripple him. Just the opposite, he made his case boldly, even going so far as to ask the king to finance the project (2:8). And God blessed his bold faith: “The king granted these requests, because the gracious hand of God was on me” (2:8b, NLT).

 

Are we pursuing God’s plans in boldness? Or are we giving place to fears of rocking the boat, fears of where the funding will come from, fears of breaking new ground, fears of “we’ve never done it that way before”?

 

If our visions go unopposed, if they don’t give us pause, if they fail to raise questions and doubts, if they do not prompt us to face our fears, then they are not big enough. And if they are not big enough we need to trade them in for bigger, God-sized visions. And so I ask: What is God’s vision for us as a church? What monumental undertaking is he calling us to?

visions: rebuilding the wall, part 1

Recently, my thoughts have returned once again to the topic of vision. Where is God leading us, not only as a collection of ministries, but as a church body? A man named Nehemiah faced questions of a similar, pressing nature. And his memoirs offer us some invaluable wisdom.

 

Nehemiah was a retainer in the court of Artaxerxes, King of Persia. A Jew, he had been born into the captivity of his forebears. One day he received word from a friend who had visited their homeland. His report was grim; “great trouble and disgrace” had befallen their people. The wall surrounding Jerusalem was reduced to rubble, and its ten gates had been consigned to flames (Nehemiah 1:3).

 

The news brought Nehemiah to his knees. His life to this moment had passed entirely beneath the shadow of Persian sovereignty; he had never set foot on Judean soil. Yet his heart broke. Reduced to tears, he fasted and prayed for several days.

 

We might rightly wonder why this information was so devastating to Nehemiah. After all, it was not a new problem; the destruction of the Holy City, its Temple, and its walls happened some 140 years prior at the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon. Surely Nehemiah had heard the tales, passed down as oral history for more than three generations. But what disturbed him was that it remained that way. The debris and charred timbers lay there for over a century, bleached by the Palestinian sun and drenched by rains, and no one took notice – that is, until Nehemiah.

 

Yet the question remains: Why did he show such concern for a wall? The Temple had been rebuilt under the leadership of Zerubbabel, completed nearly 70 years prior. There was no question that as the center of faith and culture, the Temple – and not the wall – was the heart of Jerusalem. Still, the report was emphatic that the people were troubled and shamed. The reason for this lies in what the wall represented. Structurally, it was independent of the Temple complex; but psychologically and functionally, the two were intertwined. Not only did the wall insulate the city from attack, it also delineated it, imparting identity by marking its parameters. It was a symbol of the future, sending the statement that, “We are here to stay.” And perhaps most importantly, in protecting the Temple, it helped to ensure the continuity of worship from generation to generation.

 

This explains why Nehemiah was crushed, as if a sucker punch had knocked the wind out of him. He was deeply moved and grieved over the future of his people. Vision begins with recognizing a need. This man understood just how high the stakes were. He saw vulnerability and a hindrance to God’s work where others saw only ancient history or an eyesore. Do we see what others cannot? Do we look past norms and the status quo to the spiritual depths of our circumstances?

 

However, he didn’t linger in the impotence of mourning. He took his burden and convictions to God, took time to align his heart and priorities. In doing so, Nehemiah avoided the extremes of cowardice and foolishness. Cowardice laments a fact but does nothing about it; foolishness rushes in ahead of God without planning and preparation.

 

Nehemiah’s prayer reveals several additional reasons why walls collapse and remain in ruins (we have already covered lack of vision). The second destroyer is sin. God scattered his people because of their infidelity to him. When they began to worship other gods, committing spiritual adultery, he ceased in practice to be their God. Tolerance of sin, whatever the form, will kill a church. Often, it is not the highly-visible, “big ticket” offenses like extortion and extramarital affairs, but insidious ones like bitterness, mistrust, pride, and refusal to change. Note that God will not only allow a church to die but, as in case of Judah, he will actually close the doors.

 

A third wrecker is apathy: “Listen to the prayers of those who delight in honoring you” (1:11 NLT, emphasis mine). Sometimes the fatal blow is not sin of commission, but sin of omission – that is, not what is done, but what is not done. In this case, God’s people simply stopped caring. The covenant and Temple worship became mere ritual, on par with every other daily task and social obligation. This complacency not only led to the destruction of Jerusalem, it was also partly responsible for the wall remaining in disrepair for so long.

 

Nehemiah stepped past the surface issue and penetrated to the heart of the matter. By the grace of God, let us do the same. What “walls” lay in ruins among us? What is God calling us to build? What have previous generations begun, leaving to us to complete?

the fear of God

“You must fear the Lord your God and serve him.”

- Deuteronomy 6:13, NLT

 

Fear God: How are we to make sense of this statement? How can we reconcile it with the numerous fear nots found within Scripture? How might this sentiment be understood as congruent with other biblical statements which seem to indicate just the opposite? Consider, for example, the words of John’s first epistle: “As we live in God, our love grows more perfect… Such love has no fear because perfect love expels all fear” (4:17-18, NLT). Aren’t these two attitudes inconsistent?

 

Some would suggest that the variance is due to the differences in Old and New Testament theology. But while there is certainly a significant divergence between the covenants of law and grace, this is not a sufficient explanation. Even at the inception of Mosaic Law, a tension was apparent. Gathered at the foot of Mount Sinai, the people of Israel heard God’s voice and were terrified. Moses, God’s mediator, told them: “Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin” (Exodus 20:20, ESV). Don’t fear; God is just trying to make you fear. This verse embodies the seeming paradox which spans both testaments.

 

The simplest (and best) explanation is linguistic. The Hebrew word yare, which appears some 305 times in the Old Testament and is often translated as “fear,” carries nuances of meaning including awe, reverence, and respect. Its derivative, yirah, holds similar connotations and has at times been rendered “worship.” So in the above example, we might rightly understand the gist as, “Do not fear [yare], for God has come to test you, that the reverence [yirah] of him may be before you, that you may not sin.”

 

The language of the New Testament, Koine Greek, also sheds light on the issue. John’s assertion that love and fear are immiscible employs the word phobos, which is the etymological root of our word phobia. While God asks us to revere and hold him in awe, he certainly does not desire for us to be phobic of him, as a phobia is, “an irrational or very powerful fear and dislike” (Encarta Dictionary). Interestingly, Phobos was also the name of the personification of fear and the Greek god of horror. God, who is perfect love (1 John 4:16) exorcises the possession of the false god, fear. Consequently, our relationship with him is to be motivated by love, not terror.

 

To borrow a lyric from one of my favorite bands, “You can tell what you trust by the things that you fear.” Friends, let us stop kneeling at the shrines of fear – whatever they may be and wherever they may appear – because we trust in the God who conquered all there was to fear. Through Jesus, our inheritance is to “boldly say: ‘The Lord is my helper. I will not fear’” (Hebrews 13:6, NKJ, emphasis mine).

when God stands against us

“God, your God, is right there with you, fighting with you against your enemies, fighting to win.”

 

- Deuteronomy 20:4, MSG

 

There is a worship song called Open up Our Eyes whose profoundly simple message resonates with me. Over and again, it repeats the words, “Our God is fighting for us always / Our God is fighting for us all.” As of late, I’ve given much consideration to that statement. And I have realized that it speaks truth more deeply than we can know, though not in the sense we might immediately think.

 

At times, fighting for us means standing against us.

 

Balaam was a prophet. But as a man whose connection to God gave him something of a celebrity status, he was not above peddling his services to the highest bidder. As the people of Israel trekked toward the Promised Land, the king of Moab procured Balaam to curse them. So Balaam saddled up his donkey to meet with his would-be employer. Yet on the way, he encountered a detour: “God was furious that Balaam was going, so he sent the angel of the Lord to stand in the road to block his way” (Numbers 22:22, NLT). Scripture goes on to say that the angel stood there with sword drawn, ready to do whatever was necessary to stop him. “I have come to block your way because you are stubbornly resisting me,” the angel told him (verse 32). Needless to say, after a meeting with Jesus, the wayward Balaam had a change of heart and blessed the people instead.

 

Balaam’s is not a standalone occurrence. In the book of Revelation, Jesus dictated a series of letters to 7 of his churches. To Pergamum’s church he writes, “Repent, or I will come to you suddenly and fight against them with the sword of my mouth” (2:16, NLT). Why would Jesus say such a thing? This congregation had been infiltrated by false teachers who corrupted it with aberrant doctrine. Worse yet, the faithful tolerated their heresies. But Jesus would have none of it. So he sent them a message spelling out his intentions in no uncertain terms: “You are headed in the wrong direction, and I am prepared to fight if I must.”

 

It is imperative that we understand the heart which motivates this position. The portrait here is not of a God who is vindictive toward his people, seeking to punish their sin. Just the opposite, it reveals a God who seeks to vindicate them, proving them blameless. Even as he writes this, Jesus recalls the moment when, hanging on the cross, he absorbed the full wrath of God toward sin; he remembers quite clearly how he stole our sin. Not only did Jesus propitiate – that is, endure the penalty; he also expiated, meaning he removed the sin itself. When he said, “It is finished,” he left no condemnation and no sin to stain his people.

 

And so Jesus, intending to exonerate his already-ransomed saints, wields the sword of truth in their defense: “I removed your sin! So why are you returning to it? Turn back from believing these liars, those who would drag you back into condemnation, or I will wage war upon them.” Does this mean we no longer sin? Certainly not – and that is precisely the point. Notice that Jesus says to his church “I will fight against them.” There is a clear and important distinction here: “I will come to you and fight against them.” Within this body of the redeemed, there was still an element of worldliness and evil. And Jesus was willing to do whatever it took to purge it from them.

 

Pergamum, then, is an allegory of the individual believer. To a greater or lesser degree, each of us wrestles with the lingering residue of sin. Our responsibility is to repent of it, to oppose it, to fight against it. But when we openly embrace or tolerate it, as did the Pergamum faithful, Jesus must step in and do the fighting for us. When, on our journey to the land of promise, factions within seek to detour us from the straight and narrow for a path less demanding, our Savior himself barricades the way.

 

And I am so glad he does. I am grateful that his vast love for me leads my once-dead-but-now-alive Redeemer to wield a sword to excise the sin I cannot seem to kill. He is bent on making me holy, not only in my standing before God, but also in my daily life. He is furious in exacting vengeance on the sin that so easily besets me, and he is fierce in his devotion to me. This God who began a good work within me will continue it to completion (Philippians 1:6). “Our God is fighting for us always…”