God-Centered Kingdom Concern

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

Well, maybe you’ve heard of some of the different ages throughout history. Uh, I was really bad at history, but actually, I was bad at pretty much all subjects, mainly ’cause I didn’t listen or do any work. But I played a computer game, and in the computer game, it t- played through the history of the world, and there’s the, there’s the Bronze Age, and there’s all these different ages.

I wonder if you’re aware of what age we’re in right now. We are in what they call the Information Age, the age of information. Started around about 1970, 1980, because you know what started in 1970? The internet. And with the internet came a spreading of information like nothing seen throughout history. It takes a long time to send a letter from New Zealand to England, in case you’ve never done it before. When you’re doing it by ship, it takes a whole lot longer. And so, you can imagine, if you were a missionary coming to New Zealand and someone wanted to write you, you would have to wait a very long time before you heard the latest update from Aunt Sue back in England.

We are in the age of information, which means we are bombarded by information constantly, right? News and shocking stories. They don’t really surprise as mu- us as much as they used to, because we see them all the time. Every day on the news, on the internet, on X, on Facebook, we’re bombarded with, “This happened. Can’t you believe it?” And on YouTube, you can watch endless numbers of what’s called reaction videos. Now, if you don’t know what reaction videos are, it’s very exciting. It’s someone else watching a video. That sounds enthralling, doesn’t it? I have no idea why people watch them. But you can watch a video of somebody else watching a video and reacting to something. And so someone will find some interesting news story, and then they’ll sit there and watch. And you’ll see them going, “Oh!” And making commentary on

Well, we get to do that today. We get to see a reaction, uh, not in video form, but in the word of God. We get to see the reaction of Nehemiah to the latest news update that he receives from a brother and some friends.

And this text, these first 4 verses are really important, and, and that’s why I didn’t wanna take them along with the whole chapter, but rather to pause on them because they provide us with an opportunity to challenge a particular temptation that I think all of us probably have, which is to not be that overly concerned about the state of the Kingdom of God.

I’m not saying we don’t care at all about the Kingdom of God. We’re commanded to seek first the Kingdom of God and we want to do that, and so we’re concerned about maybe Reformation Bible Church or Churches of Friends, or Friends in the Kingdom, maybe New Zealand, but how many of you have thought about the state of Christianity in Mumbai? How many of you thought about how the kingdom is doing in Greenland? Or whether there’s even a church in Greenland? I have no idea, which shows I’m not very concerned.

And so this, this text challenge us, challenges us to, to come back to first priorities.

Let’s see ’em.

The first thing we have to observe is the condition of Nehemiah, the condition Nehemiah finds himself in. It’s quite striking. You see, the condition of an individual can, can sort of help us pre-judge what sort of reaction they’re gonna give, right?

We found this out, uh, in a quite a odd way when we went door-knocking on Thursday. We were sort of talking afterwards and one of my daughters shared this story. She went up and knocked on a door with me, and as she knocked on the door, the door opened up. I didn’t even notice this. She was the one with the flyer, it was her turn, ’cause we just took turns, and she knocked on the door. The door opened up and there was a lady standing there with a T-shirt that said, “Team Satan 666,” on it. And we were Uh, I didn’t even see it. And my daughter told me immediately. She just went, “Oh, this person’s never taking a flyer.” There’s just not a chance, right? It’s like, Team Satan, come on. Talk about the worst odds on the face of the planet, that this is the person you get. And she says, “This is for you.” And the lady goes, “Thanks.” Takes it. “What is it?” we’re from a church. We’re inviting people to come along to church.” She goes, “Oh! Thank you so much. That’s wonderful.” Was just very excited. She took it inside. Then we walked off and we went, and she said, “Did you see the T-shirt?” I’m like, “What T-shirt?” She goes, “The Team Satan T-shirt.” I’m like, “No.” “I can’t believe the person took it.” And we were just amazed.

Why? Because even though we’re told we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, we do, don’t we? And one of the things we were talking about after Thursday was that, you know, we, we sort of began to say, see generalizations, that often people with very fancy homes and nice cars and boats, they weren’t that interested, but people that were looking a little bit in a rougher situation, they were often very welcoming and warm.

And, and, you know, we can think the same thing when we come to Nehemiah. So let’s have a look at his context and maybe that might inform us of how he’s gonna react.

Firstly, when you look at Nehemiah you see a Jew who’s in a very Persian world. Nehemiah records all of the information in verse one in Persian terms. He doesn’t use Jewish months, he uses a Persian month name, Chislev. He refers to the 20th year probably of king, the King of Persia. He’s talking about being in Susa, the Citadel. Everything about Nehemiah’s world is what? Persia. He knows nothing else. He’s been in Persia his whole life. He was born there. He is Persian, through and through. He is cultured and he is used to speaking and breathing and living Persia.

Secondly, he is a Jew in a very comfortable place. Do you notice where he is? We’re told that he is in Susa, the Citadel. Now, of course, you all know what that means, right? No, you don’t. Okay. Well, Susa, the Citadel was like the winter house of the king. So when it started to get a bit, bit chilly, Chislev by the way is pretty much where we are right now, November, December. And in Persia, it’s just starting to cool off. And as it’s just starting to cool off, well, why stay in a cool place? You might as well, if you’re a king, you can have as many houses as you want, right? So he goes to his lovely Citadel in Susa where it’s a bit warmer. And so Nehemiah, he’s living in this lovely warm home with the king. Yeah, he’s a slave, but he’s very comfortable. He has everything he needs provided for him. He’s not lacking in food. He’s definitely not lacking in wine because he’s a cupbearer and he has to drink it for the sake of the king. He’s not lacking in anything.

But he’s also a Jew in a very prominent position. He’s the cupbearer. Now, maybe children, you don’t know what a cupbearer is, or young people, a cupbearer, his job is obviously to bear the cup, but his job is also to pour the wine out and drink it, right? Why? Uh, because dictators are terrified of being poisoned. That’s right. Yeah, it’s very similar to the oligarchs in Russia. They say that Stalin had something like 7 bedrooms, and no one knew which bedroom he would be sleeping in. He would make the cook eat half of his meal before he ate it in front of him, and then he’d sit there and watch the guy to see if he curled over and died before he ate it. And the, the Persian king is, is just as fearful in his life. Someone could slip a s- slip some poison into his wine and so Nehemiah’s job was to pour out into his hand. He didn’t get to drink from the cup. He had to pour out into his hand and drink the wine in front of the king to make sure it was clean.

Now, you might not think that’s a very prominent position, it doesn’t sound that fun to be the poison tester. However, being in that position meant what? He was constantly in earshot of the king. He got to have, like we’ll see in ver- in chapter 2, he gets to have conversations with the king. He’s around the king all the time. When all the diplomats are having their important meetings, he’s right there with his goblet, testing for the king, drinking for the king, giving him more wine. He has an inside ear of the king. So he’s in a very, very prominent position and, and I want you to imagine for a second, you’re the Jews

Now in Ezra 4, which is about this time, in Ezra 4, Artaxerxes, the same king few years earlier, the same king had stopped the building of the temple and he was not being favorable to the Jews. Now, put yourself in the position of the Jews. Artaxerxes is not particularly being helpful, and enemies are trying to persuade him against you, and you’ve got a guy on the inside. You’ve got a Jew on the inside, right? Well, the last thing you want is for him to leave. I mean, the last thing you wanna do is disturb his position, to disturb the place he has. And if you’re Nehemiah, you probably don’t want that either. If you’re a slave of the king and you start getting toey, you probably gets, get less heady. And so Nehemiah risks losing his head if he refuses to follow the line. And so he probably doesn’t want anyone asking any questions or poking anything. He’s got a very comfortable existence and he’s enjoying life.

And so the last thing you want to do is start getting passionate about another cause, especially passionate about another kingdom, right? And you know this in your workplaces, it’s much easier if you just follow the company policy. That was true during COVID, wasn’t it? It was much easier if you just sat in your bubble and did nothing for the rest of your life. Everyone patted you on the back and told you you were a good citizen.

And so Nehemiah, the last thing he wanted was something to disturb his peace and tranquility. And I, I guess there’s a challenge here for us to consider, and that is, you know, what things, what things in our lives, in our context might we be tempted to hold onto very dearly and not give up for the sake of the Kingdom of God. Are there things in our life, you know, maybe, maybe 95% you’re very happy to say, “Yep. Lord, if you want t- take this, take it. I will give it all up, but just, just this one thing. All right? This is my special thing.” Maybe it’s, maybe it’s your husband or wife. You say, “Well, it’s a good thing.” Yeah, it is a good thing, but do you treasure this thing more than you treasure the Kingdom of God? Because what did Jesus command us to do? “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.” And so, it’s a question of idols, isn’t it? What, what things come to mind in your heart that you would not willingly lay down to take up your cross and follow Jesus? You need to be able to spot them, to spot the temptation.

For Nehemiah, it could’ve been his privileged position, his lovely, comfortable, easy boy, his lovely, warm residence, or life in a country he’s only ever known. What is it for you? What is it for me?

And so we see Nehemiah’s condition, but the second thing we have to see to begin to see the response is the condition of the Kingdom of God, the condition of God’s Kingdom.

You know, that one day, Nehemiah is doing his work and he, he hears news. His brother’s in town. It’s his blood brother, Hanani. Hanani’s in town, and a bunch of men from Judah are with him. Nehemiah, his immediate thought is his heart and his mind turn to Jerusalem. He never, ever forgets Jerusalem. And so you’ll notice they didn’t come and report to him. Have a look at the text. “Hanani, one of my brothers, came with certain men.” That’s all it says. They came. It doesn’t say they came with a report. It doesn’t say they came to bring news. They just came. And Nehemiah asks them concerning the Jews. He reaches out to them, “Brother, Judahites, please, what’s going back on in the motherland? What’s going on back at home? I need to know what’s going on with God’s people. I need to know what’s happening with the Kingdom.” He’s passionately concerned. He’s never forgotten Jerusalem.

We’re gonna sing Psalm 137 later on, which is a- an ugly Psalm, but it’s the Word of God. Just, if you turn there quickly, it- it reflects a lot exactly what’s going on inside of Nehemiah’s heart and mind. This was a Psalm written after Babylon had butchered everyone’s family and carried people off to exile. Think about Zedekiah and his family, right? It’s ugly. War is ugly.

In Psalm 137, we read the word as- w- these words.

“By the waters of Babylon, there we l- sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our lyres, for our captors required of us a song, and our tormentors mirth, saying, ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion.’ How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill, let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy.”

“If I forget the Kingdom of God” Because that’s what Jerusalem represents, right? “If I forget the Kingdom of God, let my hand lose its skill, let my mou- uh, tongue stick to the roof of the mouth.” He never forgets.

He’s like Queen Elizabeth II. One of the striking things about Queen Elizabeth II, she had an incredible memory for people and things in their lives. So she would meet diplomats and, and have like a 5-second interchange with them and meet them again 15 years later, true story, and run into the same diplomat and share the name and the details of their last engagement, 15 years later. Incredible mem- she never forgot things like that.

Well, Nehemiah never forgot the Kingdom of God. Though he was in comfort, though he was in a prominent place, though he was in Persia, even though he was born in a foreign land, his mind always went back. His heart always went back to another kingdom. Why? Because Persia’s not his home. Even though he lives there, it’s his house, right? But it’s not his home. He’s a pilgrim and he’s wandering through looking for a far better place to remain in.

And so he asks them and he gets an update of the state of the Kingdom of God.

Firstly, he’s told there’s a remnant, but they’re in a province. There’s 3. The remnant, they’re in the province. Now that might not mean very much to you, but Israel never used to be a province, right? What was Israel? It was a country. It was its own nation. But now Judah is nothing but a province under an earthly king. They had lost all of their civil power. They were under the authority of the nations.

There was a remnant that was in a province, and there was a remnant that was in great evil. The ESV uses “great trouble.” The word ra’ah means it can mean lots of things. I think here it’s more like evil. They’re in a really evil situation. Not that they are evil, but they are surrounded by evil. You see, Jerusalem is sitting surrounded by enemies, and there’s nothing they can do about it. And they’re harassed, and they’re mistreated, and they’re afraid. They are surrounded by evil.

But not just surrounded by evil, they’re filled with shame. He says, “They’re in great trouble” verse 3, “and shame, reproach.” They’re the laugh of the land. Why? Because the devil loves to reproach the Kingdom of God. He heaps shame upon Israel and upon Jerusalem because the glory of God is manifested in the Kingdom of God as it’s visible upon this earth. This is why the devil loves to shame the Church of Jesus Christ, because every time he heaps scorn and shame upon the church, he seeks to malign the glory of God. It’s not about you or the church. It’s about God and His glory and His majesty.

But then they’re also vulnerable. They’re a remnant, a remnant in vulnerability. They’ve, they’ve got no walls. They’ve got no gates. They’ve got no way of protecting themselves. They’re exposed. And so they’re surrounded by enemies with shame and reproach, and they’re in a province, and they don’t have an army, and they don’t even have walls. It’s like saying you live in Manurewa and you don’t have a door lock. It’s not a great context, right? But that’s the state of the remnant.

And why is this important? Because I think it, I think it raises a question in our mind. What is the state of the Kingdom of God in New Zealand? If we, if we were to have someone come here today who was an expert on the church, and we were to say, like Nehemiah, “How, how are the, how are the exiles in New Zealand doing?” what would we hear? Would we not hear of, of churches who have forsaken true doctrine? Would we not hear of churches whose godliness clearly shows that their purity has been thrown out the window? Would we not hear of churches who practice things that God would say are an abomination to Him? Would we not hear of churches that don’t even read the Bible? The amount of Christians I’ve run into that have walked into churches I’ve been preaching in, and they’ve come up to me afterwards, and they’ve said to me, “This is amazing.” My bi- The Ch- The Bible never gets read in my church. Churches with no prayer meetings, churches with no prayer in general, churches where heretical songs are the only songs that are sung.

Now, how many faithful churches are there in New Zealand when you compare it to every church in New Zealand? We are filled with rank liberalism, warm, feely good churches, and churches with no doctrinal backbone. And I don’t say that to degrade them, I say that to state reality.

If we were to consider the state of the New Zealand church as a whole what would our reaction be?

Well, let me ask you a different question. Do you even care? Or deep down inside, are you actually not that overly fussed because you’ve got a little family that you love to belong to? Because we can do that, can’t we? Blinkers. Just turn a blind eye to everything else around us and say, “Well, that’s okay ’cause me and my house, we’re quite happy here, and we can ignore the, the other churches down the road, and we can ignore everything else, and we don’t need to worry about it.”

Now, this is very different than the slander I was talking about this morning. What I’m talking about is, do you have a heartfelt love and care for the Kingdom of God in New Zealand in its broadest extent? Because you should. Do you know why? Because the glory of God, I said it already, the glory of God is manifested in the Kingdom of God as it is visible upon this Earth. And so to the degree that the Kingdom of God flourishes in New Zealand, to that degree, God is glorified in New Zealand. Now, He is glorified in His judgment, too, but particularly His glory is manifested in the Church of Jesus Christ.

This is why we’re called to pray, “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Your name,” and how does it get hallowed? By Your kingdom coming. So we long for the kingdom to come, and when we look around and we see it declining and suffering, our hearts should feel broken. When a church is snuffed out, its lamp stand taken away, how should we respond?

Well, let’s have a look at what Nehemiah does.

Our third point is that we see Nehemiah’s God-centered response.

I wonder if you remember the story in the Old Testament, in 1 Samuel 4, when, when the ark gets captured. This is before Samuel grows up, right? Eli’s the priest. The ark gets captured, and as the ark gets captured by the Philistines, the news comes back to town, and the runner runs in with dirt on his head, and Eli, who’s blind, says, “What happened? Tell me about the ark, my son.” Because that’s all he really cares about. “Tell me about the ark!” And he says, “Both of your sons are dead, and the ark of God has been captured.” And the text says when he hears that the ark of God is captured, Eli falls backwards off his chair and dies with a broken neck, and his daughter-in-law goes into labor and dies, and the child is called Ichabod. The glory of God has departed.

This reaction, horrible reaction to the glory of God which was present in the Ark of God being taken by enemies, it felt like their whole world was being turned upside down.

What does Nehemiah do?

Now, don’t forget as we consider this response, who Nehemiah is. There’s context, right? Privileged position. Comfortable life. He can just serve quietly, maybe be an influence for good.

When he hears the news of the Kingdom of God, what does he do?

Well, the first thing he does is he sits down. Now, this is not, “I took a casual seat on a chair.” This is what happens when someone calls you up and says, “Jude just jumped off a cliff, and hit a log, and broke his neck in the river, and he’s dead.” That was one of my friends growing up, one of our family friends. And grief hits you like a, a ton of bricks and you can’t stand any longer. You just need to sit down. You can’t You literally cannot stand. When you’re overwhelmed by grief, all you can do is, is sit and be lost.

We saw a strange picture of this today. We were driving home. You know how you look in your rever- review mirror sometimes, and you see the person behind you? And I, and I saw her, and she was driving a little bit erratic, and I thought, “This is seems strange.” And I was watching her as I was driving along, and I realized she was weeping. She took her glasses off, just wiping tears away, and she’s yelling into the phone cam- car audio system. And she’s speeding up to me and slowing down, speeding up to me and slowing She’s overwhelmed with grief. I’ve got no idea why, of course, but she’s just overwhelmed in grief.

This is Nehemiah. He’s overwhelmed in grief, so he sits down, and he weeps, and he mourns. This is not a casual tear. He is grieved to the very center of his being. Tears, as the psalmist says, “Tears are his food day and night.” And he mourns over the state. It’s not a casual, flippant, “Oh, it’s sad, church disappeared.” He’s heartbroken, like the death of a child. He is overwhelmed, and then he takes to action. He’s not passive. He’s not indifferent. He’s not pragmatic. He’s not an activist. But he does the greatest thing he could ever do. Text tells us in verse 4, he prays, and he fasts, and he seeks the God of heaven.

Out of his grief, out of his sorrow, out of his heartbroken reaction to the state of the Kingdom of God, he does the only thing he knows, and that’s to seek the face of God, to seek the King. And he falls down before the Lord, and weeping, and fasting, and prayer, and grief, and mourning.

And you might be tempted to ask the question, how long? That the Hebrew says, “Days.” That’s all it says, “Days.” Well, we have an we have an idea, because in chapter 2 we’re gonna find out it’s the month of Nisan before he speaks to the king, which is about 3 months later. Now, I don’t think he fasted 3 months straight, or he probably wouldn’t have made it to month 3, I’m assuming, unless he has a much better fortitude than I do.

But notice, just notice the end of chapter 1. “O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant, and to the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name, and give success to your servant today.” He’s been praying that for 3 months. “God, do it today.” And God says, “Not yet.” Now, he doesn’t know that. But what does he do? He wakes up in the morning, he falls upon his face, and he says, “God, do it today.” And then he goes to work. And then he comes home, and he says, “God, do it today.” And after today, and today, and today of prayer, and fasting, and weeping, God comes to his aid.

The greatest response that you can have to the state of the Kingdom of God is to seek God’s face. Prayer is not the thing we do with our last resort. You know, we say this sometime, and I understand, and, and I think it’s well-meant. We say, “Well, all I can do is pray, you know, ’cause I’ve tried everything else. All I can do is pray at this point. I’ve tried converting my son. I’ve reached out to him. I’ve slapped him around the head a few times. None of it seems to work.” I’m, all I can do is pray.

Well, guess what? When you first started, all you could do was pray, and then go and do all the rest of it. Power is not in your working, but in your working with the help of God.

This is so important for us, brothers and sisters, because we sit here like a little pinhead on a map, and people walk past us out to use the pool, when it’s not weather like this, and they think we’re loonies. Do you understand that? You know, “Wha- look at the weather. It’s sunny, it’s beautiful. Why would you be sitting here listening to some dude in a suit talk for 40 minutes?” And then when it’s days like this, they say, “What morons. They go out when it’s raining. They could be sitting at home in the fire.” Well, not hopefully in it, but before the fire.

What have we got? We’re not very rich. We’re not very successful. We’re not very powerful. We’re not very beautiful. We’re not very talented. What have we got? Nothing. But the Lord our God is on our side, and He who for us is greater than he who is in the world. And with God on our side, as John Knox put it, “We’re always in the majority.” Though the nations rage and the kingdoms plot in vain, our God laughs, because His purposes are never thwarted.

This is what delights my soul about this church, is that the vast majority of us are on our faces every Wednesday, seeking God. Why? Because we can’t save anyone. We can’t grow the church. We can’t do anything. All we can do is say, “God, help us. Do the work. Do it today. Do it today.” And every Wednesday, “Lord, do it this week.” And when no one comes in here new next week, you know what we do? We say, “Lord, bring someone new next week.” And the next week, “Do it next week.” And one day, God will open the floodgates of Heaven, and He will bring what is good.

Let me give you one wonderful illustration of this. There was a minister in the 1700s. He read the story of Lazarus. Do you remember? Lazarus being raised from the dead. And there’s this little comment, it says that people seeing Lazarus, many of them believed in Jesus. Well, that’s not surprising, isn’t it? He was dead a few minutes ago. And so he begins to pray. He says to himself, “We need a Lazarus. We need a Lazarus who gets saved.” And everyone says, “What? He was dead last week. I saw him down at the pub every night. He was dead as a doornail, and here he is in the Church of God. We need a Lazarus.” And so he started praying, “God, give me a Lazarus. Give me a Lazarus this week. Give me a Lazarus,” day after day. Then he said, said to the church, “Church, we need a Lazarus. Here it is in John. We need a Lazarus. Let us pray for a Lazarus.” And they prayed every day and every week and every month. And after a year to the date, a man came in the door and got saved, and it began a revival. Because people said, “Him? He got saved? He’s a Christian? Well, there must be something worth listening to there.”

I don’t know if we’ll need to labor for a week or 5, or 6 months or a year or 10 years. Or maybe we’ll have to labor till I die and our grandchildren will raise up stones and build a church and see the Kingdom of God advance into this place and into Pukekohe and into Central Auckland and see the nations bow before the Kingdom of God and the King of kings. I have no idea, but God does.

So let us not grow weary. Let us not be discouraged, but let us labor with our faces to the ground, and then go about our jobs like Nehemiah, seeking first the Kingdom of God.

That’s what it means to seek first the Kingdom of God, that you would long for its establishment more than any other kingdom, more than your own. As we love to sing on Wednesday nights sometimes, “I’d rather have Jesus than silver or gold. I’d rather have Jesus than sit on a throne.”

When Jesus Christ becomes your all in all, and when you love his bride who he died for, seeking first the Kingdom of God actually becomes really, really easy and natural, because it’s the desire of your heart.

And finally, Nehemiah here, at the end of the day, is a wonderful example of the Lord Jesus Christ, isn’t he? Because Nehemiah will not be the last person to weep over Jerusalem. As Jesus wanders in towards Jerusalem, he weeps and he says, “Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how long I have longed to gather you like a chick under my wings, but you were not willing.” And so that same Jesus would go to the cross and he would pray for Jerusalem, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they have done.” Why? Well, it’s Philippians 2, isn’t it? “He who dwelt in glory above did not count equality with God as a thing to be grasped, but humbled himself to death, even to death on a cross.”

You see, Nehemiah, in all of his glorious place, is willing to risk it all for the sake of the Kingdom of God. And so too our Jesus gives it all up and lays it all down for the sake of the Kingdom of God, and so he is highly exalted as King of kings and Lord of lords.

And brothers and sisters, I hope you know this is our story. We give everything up in order to gain that which we cannot lose.

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