Lesson
6: Nehemiah
I must
confess. I haven’t written a lesson in
about 5 weeks. In fact, I contemplated
have a 5 week study instead of a 6 week study because I wasn’t sure if I could
make time to do another lesson before we get to it…(we are on Lesson 3
on-line…yikes!).
But
conviction has set in and I have repented and turned from the sin of
disobedience (or in my case partial obedience which is completely the same
exact thing as disobedience!)…and here we go.
Week 6. I can’t believe week 6 is
here already. We look at Nehemiah. I did the Priscilla Shirer study of Nehemiah
over the summer, so he is fresh on my mind.
It was fabulous by the way. I
highly recommend you do it someday.
Nehemiah
has several lessons included for us.
Nehemiah became an important leader in the history of Jerusalem. But he wasn’t an obvious choice of leader. He was serving as the cupbearer to the king
in Susa. You normally don’t think of a
leader as a servant, do you? This story
excites me because it shows us that God will use people in all sorts of trades
to lead His people. It doesn’t have to
be only a pastor or a teacher to lead people to know God and work to in His
Kingdom. Servants get to lead too. And if you’ve read my first book then you
also know that sometimes He lets accountants be creative.
What do
you dream of doing in God’s Kingdom? Do
you want to teach adults? Lead
children’s choir? Maybe even mentor
youth? Write down your secret dream job
in God’s Kingdom.
I will
share mine too. My secret job is to
speak/teach. Nothing excites me more
than being invited to speak about my first book. Partially because it gives me an opportunity
to sell them and 100% of the money goes to a college fund for my friend Tammy’s
13 year old daughter. And partially
because I get to tell people that God will use ANYONE to accomplish His Will. You don’t have to be talented if He tells you
to do something. You only have to be
obedient. He will do the rest through
you.
I think
Nehemiah absolutely got that. Let’s dig
deep this week and see what we can learn from our friend…the cupbearer.
Side
note…I am uncertain if this will be the last lesson in this segment of
study. Please join me in praying over
this project and whether the Lord wants me to continue it or focus on something
else. Who knows…maybe my secret dream is
to speak but His Plan is for me to write…whatever Your Will Lord…whatever Your
Will.
Lesson 6 Homework Day 1: Pray and Fast FIRST!
Start
today by reading Nehemiah 1 (whole chapter).
Nehemiah
has a burden for his home land. What is
the burden? (vs 3)
In my
Bible I have one sentence underlined and then one phrase underlined four
times. Look at verse 4. Here is the part I have underlined “…For some
days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.” Verse 5 is where I have the four underlines
for emphasis “Then I said…”
The
wall of Jerusalem was broken down. I
don’t know where you are from (hopefully this study is reaching well beyond my
Bible Study Group…), and maybe you are not from a particularly small town, like
mine, but you probably feel loyal to your hometown. I am willing to tell you without a shadow of
a doubt that there are residents in this small town that would rebuild it in an
instant if anything ever catastrophic happened.
We saw it in neighboring small towns a few years ago when a tornado
leveled a streak through this county.
Everyone worked together to clean up and build back.
Can
you name a time when you saw your town folks come together to clean up or
rebuild something?
Nehemiah’s
burden for his homeland prompted him to do a couple very important things. Things that we need to pay attention to and
then imitate!
Read
verse 4 again. There are five things
listed that Nehemiah did immediatelt upon hearing the news of the broken
Jerusalem. List them.
1
___________________________
2
___________________________
3
___________________________
4
___________________________
5
___________________________
His
first two responses were to sit down and cry.
He is a man after my heart. I
love a fellow tear shedder. Now all of
us might not respond with tears and that is certainly ok. Some people deal with tragic news in many
different forms. If you know me well,
then you know that is likely to be my first response. I am not ashamed to shed tears. I tell my friends all the time that while
they will battle ulcers one day, my tummy will be in good shape for shedding
all the stress through tears. J
Next
it lists mourning. How do you think
mourning is different than sitting down and crying?
I
think the difference is the time and the attitude. I cry when I mourn, but my husband does
not. In losing loved ones, I have seen
“mourning” all over his stone face, but he never sheds a tear. Crying runs dry, but mourning can last a
spell (as Granny Capps would say). There
is a distinct difference when someone is in a season of mourning. You don’t have to ask them…you just know by
the expression they wear and the sentences or silence they make.
It
is his next two responses where I think we ALL need to imitate. You can ignore the sit down and cry if you
must, and gloss over the mourning, but please pay attention to the fasting and praying. And the order they fall.
What
is fasting?
I
told our pastor last week that I think my generation is misled and misinformed
when it comes to fasting. I always hear
people talk of fasting around Easter.
And the list of things they are “giving up” for Lent. First, I believe the Bible tells us not to
talk about our fasting plan. Turn to
Matthew 6:16-18. If you have a Red
Letter Bible, please note the entire passage is RED! I believe Jesus is telling us clearly that
fasting is between us and God, and not our friends and relatives.
Second,
I believe my generation is confused on what the “giving up” must be replaced
with. I read several articles on-line
and all of them agreed that to fast is to give up something that you can
replace with focusing on hearing from God.
I have had friends give things up and replace them with other
non-spiritual things. For example,
someone gave up Facebook and yet remained Twitter crazy in the same amount of
Facebook time a day. Someone else turned
it into a diet plan (that one was me…I confess). Someone else gave up chewing gum. Do you honestly think you can redirect the
time and energy you spend chewing gum praying and meditating on God’s
Word? I think giving up a 30 minute tv
show to read your Bible and pray is much more in line. What do you think? What are some examples you can think of for
fasting?
Now
we get to verse 5. Write the first three
words:
Then. Not before.
Not during. But then. This indicates to me that Nehemiah had spent
time mourning and fasting and praying BEFORE he even opened his mouth out
loud. If the purpose of fasting is to
hear God, do you think Nehemiah already heard from God before he prayed out
loud? Yes or No?
_______________
I
think absolutely. I think Nehemiah
already had been comforted by God before he even started the prayer out
loud. I think Nehemiah had prayed in his
spirit long before he opened his mouth.
There is a difference. Think
about it a minute. How often do we get
the order correct? Do we fast and pray
and then open our mouths? I certainly
don’t. Most times I open mouth first and
regret what comes out! By fasting and
praying in his spirit, Nehemiah was already on the same page as God.
This
is one characteristic we need to practice to learn. Try it.
Think of a situation you are burdened by and lets commit to fast and
pray in our spirits for a time before we open out mouths to say a word to God
or anyone else. Do you think you can do
it? I think we can together.
Stay
tuned dear friend, Nehemiah has a lot to teach us in a short amount of
time! See you tomorrow!
Lesson 6 Homework Day 2: Remember God’s
Faithfulness Out Loud
We aren’t going to get very far in our
Scripture reading today. Please review
Nehemiah 1:5-11. Yesterday we looked at
Nehemiah’s approach to God. He sat down
and cried and mourned and fasted and prayed and THEN SAID…
Today we will look at what he said. It will show us another characteristic we
should be trying to imitate. The way
Nehemiah starts the prayer indicates something very important. As Nehemiah begins to pray, he does not
immediately jump to his request. He does
a couple things first:
1 – He calls on the Lord by three different
names:
A
– LORD
B
– God of heaven
C
– the great and awesome God
I
am sure Nehemiah could have merely picked one name, but instead he uses
three. Why do you think he does
that? (There is no right or wrong
answer).
I
think Nehemiah was making sure that God knew how much Nehemiah respected and
feared the Lord. I think it was out of
reverence that Nehemiah listed multiple names for God.
The
next thing Nehemiah says is something we should certainly take notes
regarding. Write out the things Nehemiah
says in the second part of verse 5.
“…keeps
his covenant of love with those who love him and obey his commands”.
Nehemiah
is reminding God of the promise God has made to His people. Not because Nehemiah thinks God has forgotten
but because Nehemiah is counting on God’s faithfulness to the promise! Nehemiah is speaking to God, but the opening
of the prayer is for Nehemiah’s benefit instead. Nehemiah is strengthening his own faith by
reminding God of His promise.
I
think there is a valuable lesson for us in this one verse. Don’t miss it.
Have
you ever started a prayer by reminding God of His faithfulness and mercy? If so, briefly describe it.
By
recounting the faithfulness and goodness of God, we build our own faith. We strengthen our faith because we remind
ourselves that God is good and faithful.
The
next couple of verses Nehemiah said something else interesting. Look at verses 6-7. Nehemiah confesses the sins of the
people. Do you think Nehemiah does this
because God doesn’t know the sins of the people?
(I hope
you said no). God is all knowing so he
absolutely knows the sins of His people.
But He also expects us to confess our sins to Him. And Nehemiah’s prayer is a great
example.
What is
the first word in verse 8? __________________________
Why would
Nehemiah need to remind God of anything?
He doesn’t. But he does. And interestingly, he isn’t the only Bible
character that does. Flip to 1 Chronicles
20:5-12. Notice that king Jehoshaphat
does the same thing as Nehemiah. He
reminds God how faithful God has been and then asks for his help. (Side note: the last sentence in that
scripture segment is probably my all time favorite…I cry that one to God
regularly!)
Today
is short…we learned two things from the prayer of Nehemiah. 1) Cry out to God using more than one of His
Names/characteristics 2) Reminding God of His faithfulness can build our faith
and encourage us.
Enjoy
the short day J
Praying
for you this week!
Lesson
6 Homework Day 3: What do you do against opposition?
I
cannot believe we are halfway through the last planned lesson. Where has the time gone? I hope you are still enjoying the
lessons. Please share the link so that
others can go through it as well. I
believe God has shown us some great characteristics to imitate and I want to
pass it along to as many folks that will listen.
Alright,
if you don’t know the story of Nehemiah, you probably want to do some extra
credit reading J. Read Nehemiah chapters 2 – 4 if you do not
know the story. If you are familiar, you
can skip to chapter 4, but I highly recommend the extra credit even if you are
familiar.
Today
we want to look at Chapter 4. Nehemiah
and his builders are being bullied.
There is no other way to describe it.
Have you ever been the subject of bullying? It hurts. It is scary.
And it makes you discouraged, lonely, sad, frustrated, etc. Sanballat and Tobiah are just mean. They are the kids on the playground that
pulled your pig tails, or took your snack, or told you that your dress was
ugly. Just mean. And for no apparent reason. The Jews were not threatening them in any
way. They were just minding their own
business and building back their broken wall.
How
does Sanballat describe the Jews? See
verse 2.
Feeble. They called the Jews feeble. Webster’s defines as “lacking physical
strength”. My children use the word
wimp when they are calling each other feeble.
And eventually the wimpy one snaps on the bullying one and I have to
break it up. We don’t like to be called
weak, do we?
What
else did they say? (vs 2-3)
Can’t
you see them? Smugly talking down to the
Jews like they were lower class, and weak.
Have you ever experienced that kind of bullying? How have you responded when folks have
ridiculed you or a project that you were working on with all your heart?
I
have to confess, I haven’t responded as elegantly and innocently as
Nehemiah.
Read
verses 4 and 5. Nehemiah simply tells
God. He tattles to God and asks God to
handle it for him. Nehemiah knows that
he is doing what God has instructed him to do and therefore Nehemiah knows that
God has his back. If God tells you
clearly to do something, you can bet He will see you through it. You might face opposition and the enemy might
try to make you doubt what you are doing, but if you are certain you are in
God’s Will, you must press on. Stay on
the path and ignore the chaos around you.
This
section of scripture teaches us something else about opposition and bullies and
the enemy. They don’t give up
easily! Verses 7 and 8 record the anger
of Sanballat and Tobiah and all the Arabs, Ammonites and the Ashod men. They were angry because the Jews ignored
them. The Jews were not ugly back to
them, they just simply kept working.
That is so odd to me since the Jews were minding their own
business.
Now…take
note that the bullies multiplied.
Another lesson I want you to see clearly is that if you are operating in
God’s Will and accomplishing His Work, the enemy will be mad. He will be so mad that he will multiply. You will face more opposition and spiritual warfare
than you can imagine. Sometimes from people you trusted the
most. Don’t lash out at them. Go to God.
Take a lesson from Nehemiah. What
do the Jews do next? (vs. 9)
Notice
the Jews still haven’t lashed back at anyone.
I taught my kids Proverbs 20:22.
Look it up and write it here:
One
more…Exodus 14:14
I
think it is clear throughout the Bible that these two scriptures represent what
God desires when you face opposition. First
pray. Then move forward in God’s
will. Protecting yourself (if necessary)
but without lashing back at the opposition.
See
you tomorrow…
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