Surveying the Kingdom of God

*The sermon manuscript below was generated from the recording by AI …

There’s a wonderful moment in C.S. Lewis’s Narnia story where, uh, winter is just starting to fade backwards, and one of the animals says, “Aslan is on the move.” There’s great excitement among all the Narnians. Aslan’s on the move. And what’s quite interesting about that is for, for years and years and years, of course, they’ve been under a winter that never ends. “Always winter and never Christmas,” they say, which sounds very dreadful for children. But it’s always winter, it’s always cold, and their movements are always small. The Narnians don’t do much. They don’t go out. They’re limited in their ability to work whatsoever for the sake of Narnia. But the second Aslan begins to move, what do we see but the Narnians begin becoming active. They get out, and they work, and they’re pushing, and they’re fighting, and they’re gathering together, and they’re doing the work of the kingdom of Narnia.

You know, there’s a lot of senses in which we’re seeing something a little bit like that now here in our story. We remember, don’t we, that Nehemiah has spent 3 months praying, fasting, weeping, seeking God’s face in, in somewhat passive, if you understand what I mean, passive dependence. He hasn’t been out there trying to take over the world, right? He’s been on his face before God, seeking God’s face, waiting, like the Narnians in winter, waiting for God to move. And in our last passage, we saw, we saw the Lord move, didn’t we? We saw the doors get opened up, and Nehemiah walked through them with bold confidence, and he was granted his heart’s desire because God gave him success. And now, in our story, we begin to see The Lord move, and because Nehemiah knows The Lord is moving, what is Nehemiah doing? He’s moving too. He’s active. He’s busy.

You see, he had been dependently waiting. Now he’s dependently acting, because he knows he’s been raised up for this very moment. This is his calling in life, and he must not fail his duty. And so as we walk through the story, I want to highlight just 3 different things for you.

The first thing I want you to see is Nehemiah’s intentionality, Nehemiah’s very much high-level intention. You could say that- that passive, a person with pass- that person that is passive but has understanding is really pathetic. You know what I mean? A person who’s passive but has understanding, they know what they should do, they have all the answers, but they do absolutely nothing. You’ve probably met these people in your life before. They know everything. They know the best financial advice, they know how to start a company, they know how to run a family, and they do none of it, and it’s all just a little bit pathetic. That’s one extreme.

On the other extreme, you have people who are extremely active but incredibly ignorant. They have no idea what they’re doing, but they’re very busy, and they just shoot stuff in every different direction hoping something works, and those people are perilous. A- and sometimes we can feel like we see them in our society, don’t we? A, a marvelous example of this is, unfortunately, in our education system, where our government and our Ministry of Education decided it would be a fabulous idea to start having large classrooms with lots of children in it. “This’ll be surefire good to work.” And they very quickly found out, “Oh, it turns out it doesn’t work. Well, I guess we’ll just change it back again.” This is ignorance, right? It’s uninformed ignorance, but lots of activity and achieving ultimately nothing except to damage those around you.

But the third type of person is what we find in Nehemiah, a person who is active with understanding, and that person is powerful, a person who has understanding as it says in Chronicles of, I think it was the Reubenites. They were men with understanding who knew the times and knew what was needed, and the strength and courage to do what needs to be done. That’s Nehemiah here. He’s a man of conviction and a man of courage.

And so he’s given the all-clear to go forth, and the first thing you need to notice as we see his intentionality is that he travels in style. Did you see it? In verse 9, “The king had sent with me” Remember, this is like a journal, right? “He sent with me the army and horsemen.” Now, that might not strike you as particularly interesting unless you’re familiar with the Book of Ezra. Now, if we had worked through Ezra and Nehemiah like a lot of preachers do, you would’ve found out that Ezra gets offered a guard. Think it’s in Chapter 9, maybe earlier. Ezra gets offered horsemen and troops to protect him, because the way is dangerous, and Ezra says, “No, I don’t need any guards because The Lord is on my side.” You see, he had boasted to- to the king already that The Lord would achieve His purposes, and so he didn’t want to then take a guard and undermine that claim and make his God seem to be weak like the gods of the nations. And so he boldly marched forth with gold upon gold and silver and treasures out into the wilderness surrounded by Bedouin people that would come and steal from you, with not a sword in hand.

But Nehemiah, on the other hand, very intentionally says, “Yes.” He says, “Yes, I want a guard,” the reason being that Nehemiah is coming as a very different person to Ezra. Ezra came as a priest to rebuild a temple. Nehemiah is coming as a governor to res- to presume and assume a position of authority, right? And so he’s coming fully aware of the opponents surrounding him in order to make a statement. It’s very intentional.

Uh, and by, by the side, it’s just worth noting that sometimes 2 very godly individuals will do completely different actions, and neither of them are wrong, which is a reminder to us we should be very slow to judge other people, because we do not know the heart nor the calling of God upon their life. And sometimes we may disagree with the actions that other people take. Maybe Nehemiah disagreed with Ezra, or maybe when Ezra saw Nehemiah coming in with his troop, maybe Ezra disagreed with Nehemiah. But, but let us leave each servant to serve the Lord according to his conscience. But that’s an aside.

He travels in style, but we also see that he approaches in secrecy. And so in verse 12, we’re told that he arose at night, he and just a few men with him, and he told no one what the Lord had put in his heart, and he sort of snuck around, didn’t he? He didn’t blow the trumpet and walk around going, “Hey! I’m exploring the walls. Everyone come, come, 1, let’s make a march out of it. Let’s have a picnic halfway around.” No, he goes out with secrecy by night, and this is very intentional, because firstly, he doesn’t want to sell himself early, right? His goal is to rally the people of Jerusalem to a work. His goal is to get the people of God moving, and so he needs to do things in the right time and in the right way. But he’s also aware that he’s surrounded by enemies, and the last thing he wants is to be foiled while he’s simply trying to walk around a city, to face opposition before he can get the hearts of the people around him involved.

The, the third thing we see with his intentionality is that he explores for the sake of sympathy. You see, the people of God here in Jerusalem, they had lived surrounded by the reality of destroyed walls, right? They had never lived in a city with This had been their lot for a long time. And, and Nehemiah, the foreigner, coming in from Persia, some far away s- place with his soldiers, you can imagine people being like, “Oh, that’s fine for you to say, Nehemiah. You can go back to Persia and be happy. You don’t even understand the situation we’re in. How can you expect us to rebuild a wall? You don’t even know how bad it is.” And so Nehemiah explores in order to enter into a taste of the suffering of God’s people so he might know and fully understand.

You see, uh, the, the greatest way to understand a person’s suffering is, is to walk in their shoes, right? Is to enter into that with them. You can say that you sympathize with a person that is, that is sick or is struggling with mental illness, but till you sit with them in a hospital, till you sit with them while they consider ending their life, you don’t really begin to understand the nature of their suffering and sorrow. But when you do, that other person looks at you completely different. And I know this from a pastoral perspective. The people who have, who have never suffered and I’ve never had to care for in my, in my pastoral ministry, I’ve tended to have the weakest relationship with. But those who have suffered, those who have struggled, those who have lost loved ones, those who have marriage problems, those whose children have been wayward, all of the different problems we go through, and have welcomed me in to minister to them and care for them, those whose suffering I’ve entered into, there is a relationship forged that can’t be easily broken. Some of you understand what I’m talking about you, about, because some of you are those people.

And so when you enter into someone’s suffering, it creates a relational connection that can’t be broken, and so Nehemiah’s communicating to them, “I’m here with you. I understand. I see. I get it.” Th- there’s one more thing. He, he, he surveys for the sake of strategy. See, he’s still formulating a plan, right? Like, his goal is to come and rebuild the wall, but he’s intentional. So the first thing he does is, “Well, I need to know what’s broke so I can fix it.” And he begins this, this survey round. We can’t know exactly, because the place names don’t match, and obviously the city of Jerusalem today looks very different than it did back then. But to get a general idea of what it was like, he left the Western Gate of Jerusalem and he traveled counterclockwise. So, he went south first, went around the city. He got sort of about to the northeast corner. I’m doing it back to front, but you guys will work it out. The northeast corner, and as he got to the northeast corner, he couldn’t go any further along the walls because everything was destroyed, so he had to go out and around, and then eventually came back to the first gate again. So, he does a, a circuit around, and what he’s looking for how things are doing. Where, where is the biggest need? Where are things the most broken? Where do we need to put the most effort? What strategy is going to be required? What type of a plan do we need?

Why? I mean, he could have just turned up and gone, “Let’s get build the wall!” Why does he do all of this? Because activeness in the Kingdom of God requires intentionality. Christians don’t shoot off the hips. Sometimes we can fall into a trap of thinking, “Because I’m dependent upon God, because I’m praying, because God’s sovereign, I can just sort of shoot off the hip. I, I don’t have to think. I don’t have to plan.” You know, like, maybe you, you’ve heard the saying, “Let go, let God.” Used to be something that was very commonly thrown out there. “Let go, let God.” In other words, “What you need to really do to advance in the Christian life is to do nothing, and then God will come and fill the void.” But the Bible never speaks like that. Even take the most passive form of Christian life, meditation, and you’ll see if you go through the Psalms and through the Old Testament, meditation is incredibly active. You are seeking God through meditation. You are not passively being an observer of God, and the same is true in the way we build the kingdom. We trust God, and we plan. We trust God, and we labor with all of our mind and all of our heart.

W- we talked a little bit about the idea last week, didn’t we, of having a, a 10-year plan and a 500-year plan ’cause we’re intentional. We’re laboring to see a kingdom advanced, and it’s gonna take work in Karaka and wherever God’s providence takes us. It’s gonna take effort and strategy and thinking and, and long discussions. But all of it’s worth it. Why? Well, Martin Luther quipped it quite well. He said, “Farmer sweat is good sweat. House sweat is great sweat. But ministry sweat is the best sweat.” It’s a joy to work hard for the Kingdom of God, isn’t it? Yeah, it’s tiring, but it’s joyful tiredness, whether that kingdom work is in the church or in your home or in your workplace because every inch of this universe is kingdom, isn’t it? Every inch of the world is an opportunity for you to labor for the sake of the Kingdom of Christ in the world, to advance the kingdom of light, and to push back the kingdom of darkness.

And I think this is an encouragement for us. Each one of us is being given different gifts. Use them, intentionally. Don’t, don’t look down upon any gift. If it’s planning out events, well, do it. If it’s buying nice things for the church, whatever it is, do it with all your might. If it’s on the piano, if it’s greeting at the door, if it’s doing the flowers, do it with intentionality and effort and striving. Don’t give it 20%. Give it 100% of your effort because isn’t the Kingdom of God worth your best?

And so, he labors forth with intentionality as he sets the scene. but then the second thing you need to see here is that Nehemiah comes and brings motivation. See, as I said earlier, you remember that the people of God in Jerusalem have been living with no walls for a long time, haven’t they? They returned some 150 years earlier, and they’re probably very used to not having walls. They know their situation, but they’ve, sort of like Sardis, grown a little bit cold and a little bit sleepy as to their peril. And Nehemiah’s job is to come and inspire them, to motivate them, to wake them up, to do the exact same thing as Jesus in our sermon this morning. “Wake up! Wake up!”

You see, strong leaders inspire, don’t they? We, we love to talk about some of those famous speeches. Well, maybe, maybe it’s just me, but some of us love to speak of famous speeches, and so you can think of, “I have a dream.” speech. “I have a dream.” It’s the only part we know, and no one knows the rest of it. “I had, I have a dream!” says Martin Luther King, Jr. Think of Benjamin Franklin, think of George Whitfield, think of men using their voices to inspire. Think of, “We will, we will fight them in the hedges and in the ditches.” Monumental moments in history where leaders have inspired their followers to do courageous things, and this is what Nehemiah’s gonna do here.

And so firstly, he awakens them to the reality of their plight. Have a look at verse 17. He says, “Do you see the trouble we’re in?” It’s a question, statement, together. “Do, are you guys even looking to the situation we’re in? Jerusalem lies in ruins with its gates burned. Look, guys, we have no protection and we’re surrounded by people that hate us. Do you see the situation?” And it’s a little bit like in the beginning of Nehemiah. Do you remember? We thought about kingdom, being kingdom-minded, kingdom-concerned, and the fact that it’s so easy for us to become completely blind to the reality that the kingdom, humanly speaking, okay, humanly speaking, the kingdom of God is burning down around us in New Zealand, and we completely miss it. That’s what the people of God are like here, completely unaware, and Nehemiah comes and he awakens them. “Guys, open your eyes. Do you see the reality of what’s going on around us?”

But notice what he pinpoints. He doesn’t actually pinpoint security. See, that’s what you and I would point to, right? “Guys,” and I said it already, “Guys, you’re surrounded by enemies and you’ve got no walls.” Notice what Nehemiah focuses on in verse 17. “Let us build the wall of Jerusalem that we may no longer suffer shame, reproach, derision.” It’s the same word Nehemiah used right in the beginning. the same word he used before the king, “Why should I not weep? Why should I not be sad when my people suffer reproach?” Why? Why does Nehemiah focus upon this? Because every good Jew should know that the city of Jerusalem and the people of Israel in Jerusalem were to be a light to the glory of God. He’s not appealing to their shame, though he is, so much as he is appealing to the glory of God. Says, “Guys, don’t you understand? Wake up. Wake up and see. Don’t you understand that by our city being in this condition, the name of God is derided?”

You understand? This is what caused people in, in the olden days to build churches which were magnificent. It wasn’t, it wasn’t because they wanted to show off to all the other towns and see who had the coolest looking church. It was because they wanted to build something to the glory and honor of the Lord. They wanted to say, “My God is so glorious, we build this in testimony to His name, and we build it of stone that will never perish.” And so you go to Scotland now or you go to the UK now, and you walk around and you see these enormous buildings built to the glory of God, and they’re vacant, or they’re turned into brothels. And it’s tempting to say, “What a waste of resources,” except for the story is quite the opposite. The message is really our shame. We have shamed the name of the Lord.

He appeals to their sense for the glory of God. It’s like we sung, “Glorious things of thee are spoken, Zion city of our God.” Brothers and sisters, the same is true for the church. When we see the church in disrepair, it ought to break our hearts. Not because of the church, but because Christ’s glory is manifested in the church. When we see men, shepherds failing and falling, we shouldn’t gloat. We should be heartbroken because the glory of God is reproached.

But notice the other thing he does. He, he appeals to them with sympathy instead of authority. You know, he could say to them, “You guys need to get your A into gear! I’m the governor here now, and you’re building the walls. I’ll provide the resources. I’ve got the litters. I’ll get the beams, but you guys are gonna get to work.” But notice what he says. He says, “Come let us See what he does? He puts himself in their shoes. He says, “Come on, brothers. Come on, sisters. We have work to do.” And that’s us, isn’t it? We don’t stand in positions of authority and bark orders. We stand together, we lead together, and we advance together. And, and it is, it is sympathy shared. It is the plural “us”, isn’t it, that most motivates one another to faithfulness? It’s not so much when, when your father barks an order at you. You know, if, if a father says to his son, “You need to make sure you respect women.” I mean, I’ve said that to my son many times when he’s been mean to his sisters. When he was younger, please understand. I used to say to him quite often, “You need to honor women.” You know? But you know what speaks way louder than that? When I cherish his mother, when he sees me laying down my life for my wife, that sets a motivation. That lights a fire in a person’s heart, doesn’t it?

I mean, if you’re in, if you’re in a war and you see your commander jump on a grenade for the sake of your comrade, wouldn’t your heart just erupt and charge forth for victory? And so Nehemiah does. But, but notice most importantly, he inspires them by reminding them who is on their side, and this is really telling. Have a look at verse 18. He says And notice the order that he places these 2 things. “I told them of the hand of my God that had been upon me for good, and also of the words that the king had spoken to me.” Now, if you’re him, be honest with yourself for a second here, okay? If you’re Nehemiah, you have just been appointed the governor of the city, you’re trying to help people understand that it’s gonna be okay, you’re trying to get people on board with the building program, you have formal letters from the king providing you with all the wood you need, letters from the king providing you with protection, the king’s favor, even though previously the king stopped people building the temple, you’ve curried his favor, and you come to a people to inspire them. Let’s be honest. Wouldn’t your first thought be, “Hey guys, the king of the entire empire is on our side.” Isn’t it striking that Nehemiah doesn’t do that? Nehemiah says, “I told them that the Lord my God was on my side.” Isn’t that what he does? “I told them how God’s hand for good was on me.” In other words, “I have succeeded up ’til this point because the Lord was with me.”

Why does he go there? Because God is greater than King Ahasuerus. Man will fail. Building programs will fail. Government projects will fall over. The support of society will wane, but the Lord our God will never fail His people or His kingdom. You see, the ultimate inspiration for kingdom building is that which drove John Knox. When the Lord is on our side, we’re always in the majority. I know I’ve said it many times before, and I’m gonna keep saying it to you, because it’s true. “He who is in us,” Jesus says, “is greater than he who is in the world.” You need not fear. Jesus says, “I will build my church, and the gates of the opponents of God’s people,” that we’re about to see, “will never overwhelm it.”

What Nehemiah is doing for the people of Jerusalem, and I think what God is doing for you and I, is lighting a fire in our stomach. Because, as we saw this morning, there is always a perennial danger of sleepiness in the church, isn’t there? I’m not talking about Sunday afternoon service when it’s been a hot day and you’re tired. I’m talking about the temptation to coast through life. We perennially face a temptation to think that we can be neutral in the kingdom war, that we can just coast. “I- I’m not for the kingdom of darkness. I’m for the kingdom of light. I just don’t really do anything.” Brothers and sisters, you are either advancing or declining. There is no neutral place. And so the question is, which way are you going? Are you declining or are you advancing in the kingdom war?

And God, by His Spirit and His Word, is seeking to light a passion in our hearts. Ju- did you see? Purely by the providence of God, honestly, not by my wisdom, this morning we saw the negative application of this principle, and tonight God has given us the positive application of this principle. Why? Maybe God’s trying to tell us something. Maybe we’re f- we’re facing a temptation to become comfortable. I don’t know. I can’t read your heart. But God wants us to be passionate for His kingdom, passionate for the glory of Christ.

And you know, Nehemiah gets it, doesn’t he? Through his blood earnestness, there’s no, almost no one more blood earnest than Nehemiah. He bleeds conviction. You know, they said of, of Bunyan, “If you pricked him, he bled the Bible.” If you prick Nehemiah, he bleeds conviction. Look what happens. Verse 18. “‘Let us rise up and build,’ the people say.” They catch a vision, don’t they? They catch a vision for the glory of God and they want to work, they want to labor. It’s wonderful, isn’t it?

This intentionality and this motivation which produces wonderful results. There’s one more thing you must see, and we’re running out of time. But we’re gonna see lots more of it, so I can shortchange it now and we can come back to it later. And that is that whenever a work of God is underway, there is always kingdom opposition. Whenever a work of God is underway, there is always opposition. Abel has to have a Cain. David has to have a Saul, a Goliath, and an Ahithophel. Jesus has to have a Judas. Everyone in the kingdom of God, when they are doing the work of God, will face opposition.

And it starts in verse 10. It’s striking. Wh- when, when Sanballat and Tobiah I’m gonna explain these people in a second, but when Sanballat and Tobiah hear the news that someone’s doing something actually good for Jerusalem, it’s stated quite strong, it displeased them greatly. It’s actually understated in the Hebrew. I’d prefer the translation, “It was a great evil.” It was evil, a great evil, to them that someone had come to seek the good of the people of Israel.

Brothers and sisters, one thing you must understand. The world will always hate our work in advancing the kingdom. Th- I guarantee you there will be people who come here on the Lord’s day to use that pool and they despise us. They hate what we’re doing. You have to get your head around it, if you are gonna seek first the kingdom of God, you are going to be hated by the world. You will face opposition, and the opposition comes in the form of 3 men: Sanballat, Tobiah, Geshem.

Who are they? Just very brief- briefly. Sanballat is the governor of Samaria. He’s- he’s sort of north of Jerusalem. There is Tobiah. This is th- now this- this is probably the most painful. Let- let’s do him last. Let’s do Geshem next. There’s Geshem. He’s an Arab. He was the king of a place called Kedar, but he’s since become a governor of an area, because, well, guess what? Empires take over other empires. And so Geshem is a king over the area that used to be Moab and Edom, and he’s south of Jerusalem. So you’ve got Jerusalem, you’ve got Geshem down here, and then you’ve got Sanballat up here, and then you have Tobiah. Tobiah is a Jewish name, by the way. His name means Yahweh is good. It was evil that someone came to seek the good of the people of Israel said, “Yahweh is good.” Isn’t that a striking picture? Tobiah was, as far as we can tell, it’s hard to be sure, but Tobiah was a Jew who had effectively betrayed the Israelites and gone to the Ammonites to become a governor because he could get more power and more resources there. And, you know, as it is with anyone that betrays the people of God, they’re twice as much your enemy than anybody else, right? And Tobiah, he was east and northeast.

And so Jerusalem in the middle, water on the west, surrounded by the unholy trinity of Sanballat, Geshem, and Tobiah. And isn’t it amazing how people who have nothing in common all of a sudden become the best of enemies when they have a common cause? It’s like, remember that moment when, in the crucifixion of Christ, we’re told that from that day on, Herod and Pilate were best friends? Or you think of the Sadducees and the Pharisees who hated each other, but when it came to killing Christ, “Oh, we’re best buds.” “When it came to persecuting the church, we support one another.” Why? Why does this happen, and why should it not surprise you? Because it’s the same spirit at work within all of them. Because ultimately it is the devil, Who fuels these 3 men but the devil?

And so don’t be surprised when various trials come upon you, James says, but count it all joy. And I guess it’s a challenge for you and I, isn’t it? I think a challenge in 2 ways. Firstly, I think it provides us something to ponder on. You remember that moment when the sons of The 7 sons of Sceva in Acts 19? Maybe you can’t remember these people at all. It’s one of these weird obscure stories. The 7 sons of Sceva are busy driving out evil spirits, or they think they are, and then they run into an evil spirit that beats them and strips them naked and sends them running for their lives. Well, just before that happens, they say something. They say, “Jesus, we know. Paul, we recognize, but who are you?” And then it beats them.

And I guess wh- when you think about that story, one of the things I’ve often thought about is, what would an evil spirit say about me? Would it know me? Does the devil even care? Is he bothered whatsoever about us as a church and as individuals, or are we so worldly that the devil has no reason to attack us? I mean, why would he attack us if we’re worldly, right? The last thing he wants to do is ruffle our feathers. He wants to massage us into laziness. He delights to give us a bit of comfort so that we are lazy. If we are not facing opposition, it is not necessarily because we are being a blessing. Sometimes it’s a sign of faithlessness. Not always. We don’t seek to be persecuted, but it is worth pondering, isn’t it? Am I a threat to the kingdom of darkness?

But there’s another thing to briefly consider here, and that is that Nehemiah’s trust is not waivered, and neither should yours be. You know, the response of Nehemiah is, is very telling in what he doesn’t say. He’s a governor, remember? He’s got these letters. He’s got everything he needs, and, and just read verse 20 differently for a second. “Then I replied to them and said, ‘The King Ahasuerus has told me to rise and build.’” And by the way, Geshem, Sanballat, and Tobiah, he’s your king too, so you might want to listen up, buckos, because otherwise, I’m gonna write a grumpy letter to Ahasuerus, and you’re gonna get in a lot of trouble. I mean, that would’ve sorted them out real quick, wouldn’t it? But he doesn’t. He says, “The God of Heaven will make us prosper.” His trust, our trust, is in the name of the Lord our God who made the heavens and the earth.

Isn’t it just all through the Bible? Psalm 27, “Whom shall I fear?” “If the Lord is with us, who can be against us?” Paul says. “Be strong and courageous.” Why? ‘Cause the Lord is on our side, and so we can trust in God, though the opposition’s flare.

Well, I had a long list of applications, but we’ve run out of time. However, the Lord is not finished with us yet, and I trust the spirit of the living God to take these things and apply them to your heart, that you too might have, like Nehemiah and the people, a fire lit in your belly, and a unflinching resolve and trust in the Lord your God, that we might labor for the sake of the Kingdom of God until Christ returns or he takes us home. Amen.

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