Digging Deeper In The Word

That will forever be one of my favorite songs. Because I think it may be the song that I've heard my mom seen more than any other song.

She used to sing that a lot when I was a kid. And I love it.

Okay, well guys. You were here for Sunday school. You get me again.

I appreciate y 'all being here. And if I can get my notes to cooperate, we'll get started.

We are going to be in Nehemiah chapter one. And I'm going to do something that's a little bit different than what we're used to.

I'm going to teach a lesson. But it's almost a dual purpose type thing we're going to learn something from the word.

But we're also going to try to learn how to learn from the word.

All right. If I had to name this message, it would be something like digging deeper or nerding out over scripture.

All right. Because that's what we're going to do today. The things I'm going to share with you have absolutely transformed the way

I read the scripture. They've helped me to understand so much more of God's word than I used to understand.

And it does a lot for me. It causes me to find links in the scripture that I've never seen before.

It helps the story just kind of come to life. I find myself getting swept up in the environments it describes.

The feelings that are experienced by the people on each and every page.

And best of all, it helps me to learn something new about God. The one who wrote the story in the first place.

And it makes me feel closer with him. So I want to share with you the thing that's helped all that happen for me.

Does that sound like something worth hearing about today? Good. All right.

So let's do it. Now, please understand, these are not rules that I'm going to give to you.

All right. If you want rules for interpreting and reading God's word, use the ten rules of proper

Bible interpretation. And those rules are always going to trump the tips that I'm going to share with you today.

All right. Those come first. The rules come first. No exceptions. We must be exact and purposeful with God's word and not allow ourselves to be too cavalier.

OK. So for that reason, when speculating, which I will do some of, I will try to be clear that that's what

I'm doing. All right. These tips could be considered derivatives of some of those rules.

And so they tend to complement the rules pretty nicely. For the sake of time,

I will simply refer you to our website. If you want to get a copy of the Ten Rules of Proper Bible Interpretation, you'll find them on parkmeadowschurch .com.

Under the Written Studies tab, top right, it says

Ten Commandments of Bible Interpretation. So if you'll click that, you'll get the rules. Follow those rules. You'll have a great study buddy for really unpacking

God's word. But these are the things that I have used in my personal studies to just get curious and to feed that curiosity.

And really, that's tip and trick number one for you. OK. So I'm going to go through a whole bunch of things that I think, and most of them are questions that I think we should ask when reading the scripture.

And I want you, if you have a way to write them down or type them into your phone, I want you to make a list real quick. Because then what you'll see is as we go through Nehemiah 1, and I'm just going to use that chapter for the purpose of I really love

Nehemiah. It's one of my favorite stories in scripture, especially chapter 1 is one of my favorite stories.

Because when I've used these methods, if you will, when studying, it really brings

Nehemiah to life, at least for me. So hopefully it will do that for you. We will only go through chapter 1, and you're going to have to read the rest of Nehemiah to find out the end of the story.

Does that sound good? All right. So first, be a curious person.

Just get curious. Whenever you open God's word, sit there and ask the

Lord to make you curious. And when you read, think from a mindset of curiosity.

Question it all. And I'm going to help you with some of the questions that I think we should ask as we go through.

Also, assume that everything means something, and it's important.

Everything means something, and it's important. These seem like no -brainers, right?

This one especially. It's the Bible. Of course everything means something. But when we read through Scripture, we often just kind of glaze over things that seem like just, all right, it's just a little detail.

And we might like that it's a little detail, but sometimes the little details bring some of the biggest lessons.

And so I want you to assume that every single thing that's in the word of God means something, and that it is important.

I don't believe the Holy Spirit is an inefficient being.

I believe he is very efficient. He will will and work to do his good pleasure, and it always gets accomplished.

God is never disappointed in his tasks.

He always gets it done. And so because he's so efficient, when he decided to write a love letter to you and me in an owner's operator manual for our time here on earth,

I believe he was very efficient, and he packed so much more into that book than you could possibly imagine.

None of us could imagine how much there is in that book. In fact, I think we're going to continue to learn about that book when we are in heaven.

I don't think we will just automatically all of a sudden be all -knowing. I think he's going to continue to teach us from age into age.

We're going to continually learn more. So be curious. Assume everything means something and that it's important, and then ask some of the following questions.

Now, this list of questions is not exhaustive. Be creative and ask your own questions.

But these are some of the questions that I find myself asking as we go through Nehemiah 1. Who is that?

That's one of the questions. All right? Let's write that down. We're going to come back to it. What does that mean?

That's another question. Why did it say that? What time is it?

Why did that happen? Where is this place?

What is not being talked about? What have other people found in this passage?

What other biblical concepts or passages does this make me think of? Now, some of these are long, so you may be typing curiously.

How many of y 'all are already behind? It's okay. I plan to go through the list twice, so you have a little bit of time.

And would I have said it that way? So we'll go through the list one more time because I want you to have all these, and we'll bring them back up as we go through.

First one is, who is that? The second one is, what does that mean?

The third one is, why did that happen? I'm sorry.

Why did it say that? That was the third one. It doesn't have to be in this order, but I want to make sure

I get the same order so you don't accidentally get one twice. Why did it say that? Or you can say, why did it say it that way?

The fourth one is, what time is it? It's going to be important. That one's actually going to be really cool.

Why did that happen? Where is this place?

What is not being talked about? That's one of my absolute favorite questions to ask anytime

I'm reading any of the Scripture. What's not being talked about? What have other people found in this passage?

What other biblical concepts or passages does this make me think of?

Or you can just say, what else does this make me think of? That's one of my favorite questions

I've learned to ask because of something Brother Myron taught me. He said that he knew a man who's a very famous motivational speaker named

Charlie Fantastic Jones. He lived in the same town as Charlie Fantastic Jones.

He would go to Charlie's bookstore, and he would ask Charlie questions to learn from him.

And Charlie once told him, don't write down what's important, what you think is important by what you hear.

Don't just write down what you hear because it sounds important. Write down what that makes you think of.

And then finally, would I have said it that way? All right, do we have the questions?

For the most part, we got them all down? All right, here we go. Proverbs 25 .2

tells us, It is the glory of God to conceal a thing, but the honor of kings is to search out a matter.

So what we are going to do is we read through Nehemiah 1. We are not just going to take everything at its face value.

We're going to dig deeper. We're going to nerd out over the Scripture a little bit, and we're going to find things we never would have expected to find just by reading the first chapter of Nehemiah.

It's going to be really cool. All right? Nehemiah 1 .1, King James Version here.

The words of Nehemiah, the son of Hakaliah. Okay, there's our first phrase.

When you read this, what do you typically do with a passage like that? You typically, you know, okay.

What did it just tell us? It told us who wrote the book. Now that's important.

Don't get me wrong. I don't want to downplay the importance of how, of knowing who wrote the book.

Like that's super important. So good for you if that's what you got out of it.

You got something important out of it. But whoa, hold on. Slow down. Look at how it's written.

The words of Nehemiah, the son of Hakaliah. Who's that Nehemiah?

There's one of our questions. Who is that? Well, he's the guy who writes the book, right?

And it tells us something about Nehemiah. In case you're wondering who Nehemiah is, he's the son of Hakaliah.

Okay, great. Who's Hakaliah? See, stop, slow down, ask the question.

Who's Hakaliah? And then go search for the answer. You're not going to find much on Hakaliah, I'm going to tell you now.

Like go looking for it. There's very little about Hakaliah. But what did

I say? Assume everything means something, and it's important.

What if the fact that there's not much about Hakaliah is actually important? That tells us we know very little about Hakaliah, so why did the

Holy Scripture tell us that Hakaliah is

Nehemiah's dad? If that's all it wanted us to know, because it's pretty much all you're going to find, is that Hakaliah, he's

Nehemiah's dad. So why? I guess that's one of the questions

I should have put in there, right? Just constantly ask why. Well, we don't know much about Hakaliah.

Only what's plainly written. That he is the father, and Nehemiah is the son. Why does it say this?

Because it means something, and it's important. When someone tells you who their dad is, what do you think of?

Okay, so if I told you, hey, my dad is David Huber I, right?

I'm David Vincent Huber II. But what if you and I met for the first time, John? Right? And I said, hi, my name's

Dave, son of Dave. Right? I told you who my dad is.

What might you think? Which Dave? Okay, Dave Huber.

That's my dad, right? You might find it curious that I told you who my dad is, especially if it's the first time we met, right?

But what would it make you think of? Must be important, right?

Or it must be important that you told me who your dad is. Would you maybe be inclined to tell me who your dad is?

You know why? Has anyone ever done something for you, and you almost felt compelled to do the same thing for them?

Right? Like we do this all the time. Like if somebody offers to pay for your food, what do you say?

Okay, well, I'm going to get you next time. Right? Like that's actually a law that God placed into the universe called the law of reciprocity.

And what it means is like when you do something for someone there, it makes them almost feel like indebted, which there's a whole almost obligated.

There's a whole nother sermon that we could preach on that because we tend to think of gifts as debts and they aren't always right.

We shouldn't think of them that way. But because of the way man is, we feel like, oh, now I got to do it.

So like, let's do that with the scripture here. All right. Let's let the scripture change how we are thinking and how we approach it.

Nehemiah wrote this chapter for whoever's going to read it. The Lord ordained that we would be reading it today.

So Nehemiah has told us who his dad is. So let's think about who our dad is. Now we might be thinking our earthly father and that's okay, but we have another father, don't we?

Okay. Okay. So Pop brings up the idea of knowing who the father is invokes lineage that has to do with identity.

See, if somebody told you what, who they are and who their father is, the first thing you'll probably be thinking is, gosh,

I hope I don't forget this person's name. That's just how we are. I hope I don't forget their name.

What did they tell me about their dad? But then you might think of, oh, my father.

When someone tells me who their dad is, I often or tells me something about their parents.

Maybe they come to me. Hey, can you pray for my parents and stuff? I almost always think of my parents because I'm like, oh, like they have parents and they're concerned about their parents.

Right. And sometimes that happens with me. Okay. We may never know more about Hecaliah than that.

He is Nehemiah's dad, but it is reason enough to pause and consider that if we belong to Jesus, then we too are sons and daughters.

And just like Nehemiah starts his story from that perspective, a son of the father, we too should start our story with our identity in the father.

That's a whole lot to get out of just Nehemiah, the son of Hecaliah, don't you think?

But how do we get there? Ask why it's there in the first place. Now, you may not come to the same conclusion as to why it's there in the first place, because I venture to suspect there's a lot more there to unpack that even

I had time to unpack. Maybe you get something else out of it because the Lord put something else in your mind as well.

Now, when you do this, you can't go and build a whole theology around it.

That's not how it works. You still have to stay subject to the 10 rules or the 10 commandments of proper

Bible interpretation. But when you come to the word with curiosity, it's going to change the way you read the word, and it's going to change the way you see things.

So let's keep going. Nehemiah's story, by the way, is filled with mourning, risk -taking, political threats, bloodthirsty enemy attacks, and great challenges with seemingly impossible odds for success.

Such a story is not to be lived by the faint of heart. Would you agree? I mean, this is going to be a pretty wild ride if you read all the way through Nehemiah.

Nehemiah chooses to start his story with his identity in his father.

It means something. It means identity is worth mentioning. Take note of who your father is and what your identity is in him.

Interestingly enough, Nehemiah's name means something. Everything means something, so let's stop and just ask ourselves a little bit more about this

Nehemiah guy. What does his name mean? Do you know if you go and click in Blue Letter Bible, it's one of my favorite resources.

In fact, it is my favorite resource right now. I've got some other ones. Logos, I've dabbled in not a lot, but I love it because I know that it's great.

David loves it, and I think Ben's been using it and stuff. I want to get more into it. But GotQuestions is a very conservative website that has got lots of good stuff in it.

So going to one of my other questions, what have other people found in Scripture? Maybe use some of those resources.

You can look at commentary from people like Charles Spurgeon or Matthew Henry in Blue Letter Bible.

It's really cool. But another thing you can do in Blue Letter Bible is you can click on a word, and you can look up what the word means, even on names.

So go and do that. Get into Blue Letter Bible. Click on Nehemiah's name, and you'll find that his name means

Jehovah Comforts. Jehovah Comforts.

So keep in mind, the true author of Nehemiah, just like the rest of this Bible, the true author is the

Holy Spirit. And in this story, the word, these are the words of Jehovah Comforts.

That's a cool way to start. All right. Now we've got something else out of this. And then, Hekeliah means something too.

Guess what Hekeliah means? If you click on his dad's name, Hekeliah means whom he enlightens.

Now, we have these are the words of Nehemiah, son of Hekeliah. But if you take the meanings of those, it's these are the words of Jehovah Comforts, whom he enlightens.

That's interesting. When you get enlightenment from the word, you get enlightenment from God, there is comfort there.

What comfort we have been given by our heavenly namesake, our

Father. He gave us this book so that we can be comforted by it. And the way it comforts us is it informs us.

It informs our beliefs. It informs our actions. It informs our speech.

It informs the way we think, the way we feel. If we will come to it with a heart of curiosity and a heart of,

Lord, please allow this word to change me. If we will come to it with that, we will be comforted by Jehovah through the enlightenment that he gives us through his word.

Now, all of that is from one verse. Is that cool? This is why I call it nerding out over scripture.

You won't ever finish the Bible doing this. I'm quite certain of it. I mean, but, yeah, well, it's true.

It's from the first line of one verse. We're not even done with the first verse. So that's true. We're not done yet.

So what comes next? And it came to pass in the month of Chislew, the 20th year, as I was in Shushan the palace.

Well, we're all still here. It's not the last Trump, but it's still honking.

So just wait. And it came to pass in the month

Chislew in the 20th year, as I was in Shushan the palace. The month of Chislew.

How many of y 'all read through the scripture and go like you just glaze over that too? Because partly because it's like,

I have no clue what this means. You have no idea what time it is because Chislew means nothing to you.

Right? Like if somebody came to me and said, Hey, I'll see you in Chislew. I'd be like, I'm not going there.

I've looked for it on a map. Can't find it anywhere. And I'll see you in Chislew. Like the time, the month.

I'm so thankful that God put the word month there. So it says the month of Chislew. So at least

I know it's a measure of time. Otherwise I'd be looking for a place. It sounds like a town.

Why? Because I'm not a Jew. Right? If you, if you knew the Hebrew calendar, then you would understand that Chislew is a month.

Yeah. Well, so here's the thing. A quick study of the

Hebrew calendar will let you know that the month of Chislew. Also known as Chislev. Starts in the middle of what we call

November and ends in the middle of December. All right. So it's a little bit different than our calendar.

So we're talking winter time. You see what just happened now by going, all right, let's not glaze over it.

Let's find out when Chislew actually is. What time is it? That's one of our questions. We can go, all right, this paints a picture a little bit.

Because now we know it's in the winter. Why is that important? Well, it's important to know dates and times for historical reasons so that it's important for that reason, but also because it just really sets the stage.

By reading further, you'll learn that this is the 20th year, which is referencing likely the 20th year of Artaxerxes reign.

Who's that? All right. The year is 445 BC. And so we're looking at the winter months in 445

BC. In Shushan. Where is this?

You see, now we can just go read on through. And what we do when we read the scriptures, we typically speed through these kinds of things.

We go, okay, well, it's sometime somewhere because we don't know what this is, but we're getting to the good stuff because Nehemiah is in the palace.

Right? So slow down. Where is Shushan? As it turns out,

Shushan is now modern day Shush, Iran. The scripture doesn't indicate if it was raining the day

Nehemiah receives harrowing news of his homeland. The weather isn't even mentioned.

So this would be speculation. But with a little research into common weather patterns of the region in Iran, we can estimate that the scorching hot

Persian temperatures of Shushan are likely quenched by the cold winter rain sweeping up from the

Gulf that lies about 150 miles south. Now we've painted a picture. Now, that's speculation.

We don't know if it was raining, but we know during this time of year, it rains. Typically rains quite a bit.

The most in that region during this time of year. And it's usually scorching hot there.

113, 115 degrees. It's like Texas. It really kind of is, right?

It's like their version of Texas. But what we can get from this is that it's the time of year, in their version of Texas, when

Nehemiah might be putting on a coat. Right? So now you can picture it.

You can say, all right, this is the time of year when Nehemiah might put on a jacket before going into work.

Why is that important? Well, it doesn't necessarily teach you much of anything. It's not like there's a theological reason to picture that.

But it makes it interesting to imagine it, to put yourself into the story.

Because when you get interested in something, guess what? Paul Davis can tell you this.

Kids who are interested in the subject that they're learning, don't they learn it a lot faster? They learn it faster.

They learn it better. It becomes something of value to them. So let's value all the parts that seem invaluable.

I mean, every single word in scripture is valuable. So let's take the time and figure it out. And it first feels like work.

I'll admit it does. It feels like work. It takes a lot of time. If you're an impatient person, it won't be fun at first.

But the moment you realize you got something out of it that you never would have gotten before, it's going to spark something different in you.

So I imagine that this is like a movie scene.

It adds to the story. It sets the scene. I imagine Nehemiah putting on his coat before going out to work.

And I wouldn't have imagined that if I hadn't known that the temperatures dropped to 46 degrees, 46 to 52 degrees in this region, during the month of Chisloo.

Remember, ask where is that? And take the time to answer these questions. Because by asking where is it, you can get an idea of what it looks like.

Though the forecast is not shared, the location is very precise. As I was in Shushan, the palace.

Now, what do you typically do with a scripture like that? You go, all right, cool, he's in a palace.

That's neat. Let's move on. And that is pretty cool. But what did the

Bible not say? Well, it pretty much just told us it's a palace.

But it didn't tell us much about the palace. We know it is a palace. We know it is there.

What if we just took a little bit of time to stop and nerd out over the palace of Shushan?

Could we find any other historical accounts about this palace? You know that the site is still there and there are still remains of this castle there.

So there's been some archeological digs over there. And you got to go and search the internet quite a bit.

But you can learn a lot about the palace of Shushan. The palace of Shushan apparently goes by another name, the palace of Darius.

As King Darius is credited with building it. In 1970, a team of French archeologists led by Professor Jean Perrault, of the

French archeological mission, unearthed two tablets identified as the first complete examples of the foundation charter of the palace of Darius.

The tablets match what is believed to be the palace where Nehemiah is working in our story.

And apparently these tablets serve as proof that the palace in Nehemiah is likely the same place, the same palace where Esther became a queen around 30 years prior.

Whoa, now we got some extra stuff to think about. That's cool.

Only about 30 years prior, another huge story in scripture happened in the same region, maybe even in the exact same palace that Nehemiah is serving in.

Boy, does that raise some questions. Did Nehemiah know Esther? Then you start looking like, when did

Esther, when did she pass away? And when did Nehemiah come and try to figure it out?

And you might go, well, there's a chance. Don't know. Is it speculation? Yes. But what are we doing?

We're also learning about the region, about the context, which is very important in the 10 commandments of proper

Bible interpretation. The Bible is not just a collection of stories.

It's history. When taking the time to dig into the details, you don't get at face value of scripture.

You can really add a lot to the story. Now I don't mean add as in add or subtract from God's word.

We do not do that. Our own speculation is not scripture, right?

This is for the purpose of getting interested in God's word. Making it more than just a collection of old books or old stories.

It makes us go, this is real. Like there are historical digs happening at the palace of Shushan.

They are finding pieces of history in modern times that link back to God's word.

And they make all of God's word. It literally just goes, wow.

Like people have denied that this is even real. And yet we're finding real things in the world that support it.

It can really build your faith. So Nehemiah is working in this palace that already has incredible history.

I imagine him busying about collecting items needed to fulfill his service. Can you picture it?

He's got his coat on, it's a little cold outside. Imagine it being like a movie. I tend to think through a movie reel.

I imagine zooming in on this region and you're seeing the wind blow.

And the rains are coming and it's cooling down the desert area. And now you've got the main character putting on a coat and walking outside.

He hasn't even said anything yet. He starts collecting all of his items that he needs to do his business.

He's very attentive to detail and meticulously planning out his actions as one would expect in the presence of royalty.

Because he's in the palace. He's God's man. Whatever he does, he will do it heartily as unto the

Lord. But as he goes about his chores, that Hanani shows up, verse 2.

That Hanani, one of my brethren, came and he and certain men of Judah, and I asked them concerning the

Jews that had escaped, which were left of the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem. It makes it sound like Hanani is that guy, right?

Isn't it funny how it writes it that way? That Hanani, he's that guy, the one who carries bad news, right?

Turns out he's one of Nehemiah's brothers. And he shows up with certain men of Judah. So imagine,

Nehemiah's in there. He's got his coat on, he's gone to work, he's getting things. He hadn't said a thing yet. All of a sudden, these men walk in.

It's his brother and men from Judah. First words of the script. What about the ones that escaped from Nehemiah?

He says it to them. Hey, what about the ones that escaped? What about the captives who are still there?

What about Jerusalem? That makes it pretty interesting.

I mean, think about this. This is a very gripping story. If the first words in the story are, what about the ones who escaped?

That should raise a whole bunch of questions in your mind. Escaped what? Oh, the captivity.

What captivity? You ever watch a movie and they kind of play it out that way and you go, okay, the plot is starting to thicken.

We're starting to see something happen. I wonder what it is that they're talking about. This is how it's written in Nehemiah.

If you didn't already read Ezra and Second Kings, you wouldn't know what he was talking about. If you lived during this time, you would definitely know what the captivity was.

But if you didn't read the backstory and you dropped in on episode two or three, you'd go, wow, this is gripping.

What's going on? So we ask the questions. What just happened?

Why did that happen? Why were people escaping? Why was

Jerusalem attacked? Now, like I said, if you've lived during this time, you would know why.

Because it was a very big event. Everybody understood what was going on at that time. But because we don't live during that time, we've got to read about it.

We've got to figure out what is the captivity and why was Jerusalem attacked? Now, you can literally figure out things like this by typing it into a search engine.

What captivity is Nehemiah talking about? And you're going to get a whole bunch of answers.

How do I know which ones are true? Line them up with scripture. All right? Go and once you get an answer, go check the answer out to see if it's true.

Where do you check it out? In the Bible. And don't just read one verse and go, okay, it's true.

Read the context around the verse and say, ah, within its context, it definitely seems to support this theory that this is what happened.

So what did happen? Let's go to 2 Kings 25 1 -3.

And it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign, in the 10th month, in the 10th day of the month, that Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came he and all his host against Jerusalem and pitched against it.

And they built forts against it, roundabout. And the city was besieged under the 11th year of King Zedekiah.

And on the ninth day of the fourth month, the famine prevailed in the city and there was no bread for the people of the land.

All right, so there's our captivity. There's the captivity. Who was the captor? Nebuchadnezzar.

Have we ever heard of Nebuchadnezzar before? If you've read another scripture, you've read about Nebuchadnezzar before and then you have to ask yourself, wait a minute, is this

Nebuchadnezzar the same one that I heard about in this other scripture? Because we know there's Nebuchadnezzar I and there's

Nebuchadnezzar II, there's Darius I. There's all these different ones and twos and threes and fours.

We got to figure them out, right? So we know what happened. They were captured by Nebuchadnezzar.

But why? Why were they taken captive? Go to Ezra 5, verse 12.

And we will read why it happened. But after that our fathers had provoked the

God of heaven unto wrath, he gave them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, the

Chaldean, who destroyed this house and carried the people away into Babylon. Now we know why.

The reason why Jerusalem was captive and given over to Nebuchadnezzar was because the fathers had provoked the

God of heaven unto wrath, disobedience. So if we were just reading through Nehemiah's story, and going, all right, he's asking about those who are captive.

Let's look and see what the answer is. We typically go, okay, we want to know the answer because we're just, we want instant gratification.

And we don't stop and look at the question and ask, what is really being asked here?

Well, somebody was captive. Some of those people escaped. Some of those people didn't.

Why? If you understand why, then it's going to bring a lot more to the story later when you see what

Nehemiah does in response to the answer. Otherwise, you just get the answer and then you go, okay, well,

I see that Nehemiah is mournful and repentant and stuff, but the reason is he is trying to correct a wrong that God's people had back in this day.

All right. So Israel had angered God and as a result became captives.

That's the backstory. We got the prequel guys. Okay. Also, this is the same

Nebuchadnezzar that took Daniel captive. He also took Mordecai and Esther captive.

So that happened before the story of Nehemiah. And that's why

Nehemiah is asking, hey, what about the captives?

What about the ones who escaped? What about Jerusalem? Because he's asking about something that's happened in history and he wants to know, how's

Jerusalem doing? How are the people doing? As it turns out, Nehemiah is serving the son of the king who was married to Esther.

This is cool. Now, we don't know that he's serving the king. We know that he's in the palace. We haven't gotten to the part where we know what he's doing in that palace yet.

Most of us know because we've read the book, right? But at this point, if you're just allowing yourself to go through the story, you're saying, wow, this is, there's a lot here.

There's some history here. That's a very big event. And Nehemiah is asking about all of that.

So his answer comes in verse three. And they said unto me, the remnant that are left of the captivity, there in the province, are in great affliction and reproach.

The wall of Jerusalem also is broken down and the gates thereof are burned with fire.

That Hanani has indeed brought some really bad news. Wouldn't you agree? Of course, there is something to gain from this as well.

Why Hanani? Why did that happen? Why did God have his brother come in and his brother tell him this bad news and the certain men of Judah with him?

Why are these people coming to give this bad news? Well, you could just surmise from what we've read that what you are to learn from this is don't provoke the

Lord, right? Don't provoke the Lord. You could find yourself running for your life, displaced from your home, or even you might not survive at all.

That would be a good thing to learn from this. And at face value, if you were to take the time to know why they were captive and just read through the answer, you'd say, well, okay, that happened because there was disobedience.

But Hanani has a name, and it's an interesting name. It means gracious.

Wouldn't you know that the very man who is the bearer of bad news shares such news with the very man

God would use to rebuild the city? Isn't that gracious of God?

And he gives this task of starting things in motion by telling

Nehemiah the bad news and having

Nehemiah do what he does in response and begin to go and try to rebuild the city, he starts it with a man whose name means gracious.

That tells us something about God. One, he's gracious. But two, he cares enough to tell us he's gracious.

And he cares enough about the little tiniest of details, which is why I love the prayer request that Andrea shared this morning, right?

The medication bottle is missing. But that matters. Everything matters.

God is gracious, and he's gracious even in his judgment of sin. Because he's telling about the judgment, right?

This is the judgment for the sin that the fathers had committed against him. They provoked him to wrath, so he carried him away into captivity.

And Nehemiah's hearing about it, and it's not going so great for those who are captive. But that's gracious of the

Father, because it starts things in motion to rectify it.

Now, let's read verses 4 through 6. And it came to pass when I heard these words that I sat down and wept and mourned certain days.

Okay, why does the Holy Spirit want us to know that Nehemiah is mournful? Why don't we stop and ask that question?

I mean, we could just say, well, it's a sad thing, so of course he's mournful. That's what we typically do, right?

We read this, we go, oh, it's sad, let's just keep reading. Oh, bad news, I hate this, let's get to the happy part, right?

But what if we stopped and asked, well, why? Because the Holy Spirit is efficient in his words.

Why does he want us to know that Nehemiah mourns? And he doesn't just mourn, he sits down to mourn.

Like, this is a really devastating thing for Nehemiah. It's like, you better sit down for this sort of thing, right?

Like, whoa, this is a very devastating news for him. He just has to sit down, he can't even stand up.

And it's something that just causes him to really mourn and weep. And not just mourn and weep, he weeps for days.

Okay, that paints a very different picture than just, oh, Nehemiah is sad, don't you agree? Because all we did was we slowed down and we asked, why does the

Holy Spirit want us to know this? Well, maybe there's a special blessing for those who mourn.

Something Jesus will teach almost 500 years later when he says, blessed are those that mourn, for they shall be, get this, comforted.

Jehovah comforts. Is that cool? There's a reason why we're told that Nehemiah mourns.

Because there's something about it that activates Jesus' compassion.

We should be mournful of the sins that we've committed. We should cry out to the

Lord. Father, forgive us. It should be devastating to us that we've messed up.

If you'll recall, Nehemiah's name means Jehovah comforts.

His very identity would imply that he be the type that is blessed for mourning.

Nehemiah mourns because it is in his nature to do so. Because it is a nature that God put in him.

He is demonstrating also the proper way to repent. It starts with mourning. God responds to this type of mourning.

He draws near to the brokenhearted. Nehemiah is definitely that. He comforts the one who mourns.

Next he says, Nehemiah says he fasted and prayed before the God in heaven.

It's a way to bring the flesh under subjection. It seems to be associated with spiritual warfare.

This is exactly what Jesus did just before he was tempted of Satan. He fasted and he prayed. It is what

Jesus told the disciples must be done. Jesus told the disciples, you must do this, pray and fast, to cast out some demons.

This kind cometh not out but by prayer and fasting. In order for us to have proper repentance, which is a seriously important part of spiritual warfare, we must bring under subjection the deeds of the flesh.

So now, just by slowing down and seeing that Nehemiah said he mourned and he fasted, we don't take it at face value.

We go, well, why is that important to mourn and to fast when receiving judgment?

Apply it to us. There's that question. Would I have done that? Would I have said that? Would I have thought this?

Would I have asked that? Begin to allow the word to seep into your own life by putting yourself into the word.

Nehemiah 1, 5. And said, I beseech thee, O Lord, God of heaven, the great and terrible

God that keepeth covenant and mercy for them that love him and observe his commandments. See, he starts by recognizing the identity of the

Father, just like he started the book. He is a son of a father. Now he's talking with his heavenly father and he starts with identity.

And he speaks not just of the identity of the Father, but how that identity informs

God's actions with regard to his people. He keeps his promises, promises of blessing, but also promises of judgment, right?

But he's also merciful. And it is to this mercy that Nehemiah will appeal.

So he mourns and then he fasts and prays, bringing the flesh under subjection.

And then he aligns himself with the identity of God. So that's the part of this message, by the way, where it's the lesson.

We're going to learn how to learn, but we're also going to get a lesson out of this. Verse 6.

Let thine ear now be attentive and thine eyes open, that thou mayest hear the prayer of thy servant, which

I pray before thee now, day and night, for the children of Israel, thy servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against thee, both

I and my Father's house have sinned. This is confession, guys.

This is an agreeing with what God has said. You have judged us and you have told us that we have come against you, that we have disobeyed you, that we have ignored you, and I am agreeing you are stating the truth.

That's what confession is. Agreeing with God on the truth and that you have broken it.

Listen and watch and you will hear me consistently praying for the children of Israel. That's what Nehemiah is saying.

Let thine ear now be attentive. There's listen. And thine eyes open.

That's watch. So God, listen and watch and you will hear me consistently praying for the children of Israel, your servants.

Oh, by the way, they're your servants. So that's their identity. See, he's linking the identity of the people with the identity of the

God. You'll hear me agree that we have sinned against you,

God. That's what you're going to hear when you are listening and watching and remembering your people.

And not just those people. I'm not just saying, hey, they messed up and I'm with you, God. No. I and my father have sinned as well.

So he's making it personal. He's saying, I want to speak for all of us when

I say we messed up. So hear me because there's something Nehemiah knows about God.

He knows that there is a promise if his people will do what he is doing right now.

He says, we have dealt, this is verse seven, we have dealt very corruptly against thee and have not kept the commandments nor the statutes nor the judgments which thou commandest thy servant

Moses. Okay, well, hold on. What's the difference between commandments and statutes and judgments?

Doesn't it kind of feel like those are almost pretty much the same? We've disobeyed you, disobeyed you, disobeyed you.

We can say that and we get something out of it. But if you take the time to go and look at what these are, it helps to do some word studies, which can be done by clicking on the words.

If you're in blue letter Bible, of course. Commandments are laws that are set.

They basically set general boundaries for everyone. Think of things like the Ten Commandments.

Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not kill. Honor your mother and father. General boundaries because there are specific ways you could do those things, right?

Specific way you could honor your mother and father, but generally just do it. Judgments are prescribed tasks for when,

I'm sorry, let's do statutes first. Statutes are prescribed boundaries for specific situations.

So there's like, here's the general rules and here are the specific rules. Nehemiah says, we broke the general rules.

Then we broke specific rules. And then judgments are prescribed tasks for when the first two are broken.

Like if general rule is broken or the prescribed specific rule is broken,

God gives judgments for how to deal with it. We didn't even do that right. We broke the rules.

We broke the specific rules in the general area. We're just disobedient in the specific area.

We're completely disobedient. And then we didn't even deal with it. We just became apathetic towards it.

So Nehemiah is saying we messed it all up. And he's getting very specific with how he messed it all up.

It's like saying we compounded sin upon sin upon sin. Verse eight.

Remember. Now, this is cool. Because he's been going through all of the stuff that they messed up and he's been sad and mourning and stuff, right?

He's done everything that God has told his people to do. Like in Colossians, if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves.

Mourning, by the way, takes humility. Pray. He's certainly doing that.

Seek my face. That's his identity. Aligning with identity. Then will

I hear their cries from heaven? I will come and heal their land. There's that promise.

Nehemiah says, remember. Remember what? The promise. I beseech thee, the word that thou commandest, thy servant

Moses saying, if you transgress, I will scatter you abroad among the nations. Okay, so there.

Wait, hold on. I thought it was going to be the good promise. No, he's starting off with, hey, you said that you'd scatter us and you did.

You kept that promise. You are a God who keeps promises. He started with that. The God who has mercy and keeps his promises.

And look, here's a perfect example. You told us if we mess up, you're going to scatter us. And boy, did you do that.

But you also said, if you turn unto me and keep my commandments and do them, though there were of you cast out unto the uttermost parts of the heaven, yet will

I gather them from thence and will bring them unto the place that I have chosen to set my name there.

Did you see it? Hey, this was a promise.

You told us, I set before you life and death. We chose death. And boy, did we get it in spades.

If you're going to keep that promise, I suspect you'll keep this one. So I'm going to activate this promise and run as far away from that promise as I possibly can.

I agree with you, that was a mess up. And we can do this in our own lives. If you've messed up, you've probably experienced some form of death.

Maybe it's in the loss of a friendship or a relationship. Maybe it's in a loss of financial situation because you weren't obedient in finances or something.

Maybe it's a loss of confidence in your walk with God.

Maybe you experienced guilt. Let me tell you, guilt is a form of death. And you're not really sure if you're ever going to get to the point where you can get back up and be that good

Christian again. Just agree with God that he kept his promise.

You disobeyed and you got scattered and you felt it. So if he keeps that promise, maybe he'll keep this one.

God, I want this promise instead of that promise. Can you help me switch to column B? I didn't like column

A so much. You are the God who keeps promises, says

Nehemiah. So we are repenting and turning back to you. Gather us back together under you like you promised.

Notice how taking the time at the beginning to recognize that identity was being stressed from the very first words from Nehemiah, identity was important.

It puts us in a mindset to look for identity moving forward. He is the

God who keeps promises. And if he is that God, then of course he punished me.

That's his identity. If he's that God, of course he'll bless me if I do this over here because that's his identity.

Paying close attention or nerding out, if you will, over the names makes it so words pop out to us like,

I have chosen to set my name there? Okay, let's deal with that real quick. It says, and will bring them unto the place that I have chosen to set my name there.

What does that even mean? I'm going to set my name there. Oh, that means

God will be with them, right? Because that's how we read it. God's going to get, he's going to be with me because I'm going to repent.

You're right. You got something out of it. But it's better than that. Word search in blue letter

Bible, you'll see that it literally means when he says, set my name there, it means

I will establish my reputation there. See, God scatters his people when they disobey because it looks bad on him to have disobedient children.

Have you ever seen a parent that just can't control their child? You go that, my soul, that is the worst child

I've ever seen. Shame on that child. Or do you go, those parents need to get control of that one.

Who do you blame? The parents, right? And God, when dealing with his children, he says, is my reputation at stake?

I'm going to be the good parent. So he scatters them because they aren't glorifying him.

But this entire world and all that is in it is for his good pleasure and for his glory.

So he scatters them and he scatters them so that the world will know he is holy.

He is righteous. He is just. They will know his identity.

They will know who he is and what he does and why he does it. But he also, he gathers them so that the world will know he also loves grace and mercy and humility and obedience.

Dig deeper into the words and you'll find there is a lot more than meets the eye. Verse 10 and 11.

Start with 10 here. Now these are thy servants and thy people. God, you are invested here.

That's what Nehemiah says. We, our identity is rooted in you and you have an investment.

These are your people. You have an interest whom thou hast redeemed by thy great power.

See, you paid for us and by thy strong hand.

Why does Nehemiah say this? Is he just buttering up God because I think that's kind of how we approach

God in our prayers, right? We go, oh, you are great and you're wonderful and you're holy and you're powerful and we love you and so now will you give us these things?

Right? Like we do that. We don't even realize sometimes that's how we act. We find ourselves doing exactly that.

We butter him up. We're not called to flatter God with our words. But what happens when we see an example of an answered prayer like this in scripture, when we see

Nehemiah do this and he uses all these words and he gets the answer to his prayer, we go, oh,

I need to imitate that. I'm gonna say God's great. I'm gonna say God's good. You're powerful.

You're strong. Help me. But guess what? God knows that that's what we're doing.

And so do you and so do I. And guess what? He also knows he's powerful. He knows he's great.

He knows he's wonderful and merciful and kind. He doesn't need you to tell him that. So if he knows that he's all those things and we know he's all those things and Nehemiah does all those things and he is all those things, why does he put it in here?

So I like to ask, has anyone else found a good reason? And that's when we open up commentaries.

We say, all right, what else has someone found in scripture? Matthew Henry says this. He pleads the great things

God had formerly done for them, whom thou hast redeemed by thy great power in the days of old.

Thy power is still the same. Wilt thou not therefore still redeem them and perfect their redemption?

Let not those be overpowered by the enemy that have a God of infinite power on their side.

Oh, Nehemiah says this because it's almost a charge for, wow,

God, you are the most powerful, which means you can overcome my own fleshly desires.

You are infinitely more powerful than the enemy that attacks me. What enemies are they?

The world, the flesh, the devil. So be the God who makes me win when

I ask for the help. Show that power. That's not a challenge.

It's not disrespect, appealing to God's identity from a place of genuine desire to draw closer to that identity.

It's consistent with Scripture, even with the rest of Nehemiah's prayer. Matthew Henry obviously picked up on the idea of God's identity here, his promises that he keeps and the reputation that he upholds.

Perhaps this was on Nehemiah's mind when praying these words. God, I recognize that this is who you are.

This is what you do. And doing so, again, is for the purpose of your glory, not ours.

O Lord, verse 11, O Lord, I beseech thee, let now thine ear be attentive to the prayer of thy servant and to the prayer of thy servants who desire to fear thy name.

What? Desire to fear? Why wouldn't Nehemiah just say your servants who do fear?

Why does he say we want to fear? Seems like a pretty weak way to phrase it, don't you think?

Like, oh, we really want to fear you, God. Maybe he's just being humble. Can we dig further?

What do you guys think? You might.

You might agree, like Pop said, wanting to fear adds a little extra flavor to it. Like, I don't just fear.

I am desiring to fear. And you're getting real close to it because this word desire actually means, the word is hepes, and it means to delight in.

Like, I delight in fearing you. Ecclesiastes 12, 13 says, let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter.

Fear God and keep his commandments for this is the whole duty of a man. So fear God, keep his commands.

Fear God and obey. That's what you're supposed to do. So you could say, Nehemiah is saying we want to delight in revering you by obeying.

What does that make you think of? Here's another one of our questions. What's it make you think of? Can you think of a verse that uses the word delight when talking about God's laws?

Park Meadows students should have one. What is it? Psalm 1 and 2, right?

Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful, for his delight is in the law of the

Lord. And in his law doth he meditate day and night, and he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, which bringeth forth his fruit in his season.

His leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall what? Prosper.

Nehemiah desires to obey because Nehemiah desires to prosper. And look at the next phrase in his prayer.

And prosper, I pray, thy servant this day, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.

This man? For I was the king's cupbearer. This is the end of the chapter, guys, and this is really cool to me.

It's an interesting twist at the end of the prayer. Grant me mercy in the sight of this man? What man?

He's talking about God. He tells us because he says, for I was the king's cupbearer.

This is the perfect opening scene to a movie, guys. He's busying about. He's got his coat on.

These guys walk in. He asks about the captivity in Jerusalem. Is everything going okay? No, it's really bad.

This is the worst. He's got to sit. He prays. He fasts. He mourns for days, and finally he aligns himself with God and says,

I'm going to confess sins of me and my father and all my people, and I'm going to be the guy who rights the wrong, and if God will just hear me, maybe we can turn this thing around.

And so he does that, and at the big reveal at the end, he says, God, grant me mercy in the sight of this man, and you go, what man is he talking about?

Oh, he's the king's cupbearer. He's not just the son of a father or a part of a displaced people.

He spends his days crying over bad news, and turns out he's a powerful and highly trusted individual.

In this very important palace, he's the cupbearer, and he's asking God to give him mercy in the sight of a man, a man that he would answer directly to.

Why would he need the king's mercy? We don't know until you get to the next chapter, so you're going to have to read the rest of it.

End scene. There's the cliffhanger, right? Doesn't that start a great movie?

There's got to be a movie about Nehemiah, I think. Ask yourself these questions throughout the whole process of reading

God's word. It just makes everything more interesting. What is that? What does that mean?

Why did it say that? What time period is this? What else happened during this time?

Where is this place? What is not being talked about? What have other people found in this passage?

What other biblical concepts of passages does this make me think of? Would I have said it that way?

Would I have done it that way? Would I have thought that? Would I have repented the way he did?

When you assume everything means something and it's important, when you really pick apart the words, you'll be digging deeper, you'll be nerding out over scripture, you'll find

God's word is filled with adventure, mystery, intrigue, love, passion, betrayal, redemption, and more.

It's already an interesting book, but if you will let it change the way you read the words, if you will let it make you wonder, you might just fall in love with the

Father who wrote it for you. That is a much better read than just the face of the words.

Do you agree? Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we love you, we thank you for your words, we thank you that they are truth, we thank you that they are dynamic in that they change us.

They don't change, we change. Your word doesn't mean something else today that it meant back then, it stays the same.

You're the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. You are the same God today as you were for Nehemiah.

And if there are those of us here who have messed up, who have found themselves disobedient, and are wondering why life just doesn't work for them, help them to realize it's because you keep your promises.

And help them to draw closer to those promises and see that as comfort. Lord, teach us more about your word, help us get curious about it, and help us to enjoy reading it because it really is an incredible gift of grace.