“Leadership Essentials” – FBC Morning Light (10/7/2024)

Well good Monday morning to you. Here we are off to a new week, starting a new week today. I trust you're looking forward to what the

Lord has for you this week, and trust that you're looking forward to what the Word has for you in in your

Bible reading. So today we're beginning the book of Nehemiah, reading chapters 1 to 3, and Nehemiah ends up being the last book of the

Old Testament that we're reading in our chronological Bible reading plan. Now, Nehemiah obviously isn't the last book of the

Bible, or of the Old Testament, but chronologically it is.

So this is where we're ending this week. So we'll be reading the book of Nehemiah this week in chapters 1 to 3 today, and what

I want to point out is how God in His sovereignty will stir up an individual to become a leader of God's people.

And He does this in Nehemiah, as Nehemiah hears a report of the condition of things in Jerusalem, and Nehemiah's response is not simply, you know, tsk tsk, that's too bad.

Nehemiah has an important responsibility. He was the cupbearer to the king, and you know,

Jerusalem's a long way off from where he is. And you know, he would be understandably concerned, and he

Jew would be, to hear of the condition of things in Jerusalem, but he goes beyond that simple concern and sadness for the condition, and it is

God's purpose to use him. So notice that in order for this work to be done, in the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem eventually, and Nehemiah is in the book, for this work to be done, notice how

God works in the heart of the guy who's going to be the leader. He develops in his heart a burden, and this is seen in verse 4, when

Nehemiah says, when I heard these words, I sat down and wept, and I mourned for many days.

I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven. He developed this incredible burden, that he needed to do something about this.

But before just rushing off and doing something about it, there are further steps that he took and that God led him through.

One is the acknowledgment of personal responsibility, or corporate responsibility, I should say.

So in verse 6, he says,

Hear the prayer of your servant which I pray before you now, day and night, for the children of Israel your servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel which we have sinned against you.

Both my father's house and I have sinned. In other words, Nehemiah is acknowledging the responsibility that we as a people have for the condition in which we find ourselves in the city.

And then Nehemiah takes the next step of volunteering for service.

He goes before the king, and he's got this somber look on his face, the king wants to know what's going on, and that in itself, on Nehemiah's part, is a great risk.

And the would -be leader, the one whom God is going to use as the leader of his people here in this situation, he needs to be willing to take some significant risks.

And so Nehemiah does, he goes before the king with a somber look, which could mean his...but he's willing to risk that for the sake of this need.

And yet before he actually presents the need to the king, what does he do?

He stops and prays. Again, he stops and prays. And so it is this kind of a spirit, a spirit that God in His sovereign grace has put into Nehemiah's heart.

It is this kind of a spirit that God blesses. You see this in verse 8 of chapter 2, where the king grants him his desire, and then does even more than that, giving him a letter to provide what's needed for the rebuilding of these walls.

And then Nehemiah says at the end of verse 8, the king granted them to me according to the good hand of my

God upon me. And that's a statement that Nehemiah is going to say, repeat several times in this book, according to the good hand of God that is upon me.

So for God's work to be done, the Lord needs to sovereignly and graciously work in the of someone who's going to rise to a place of leadership, to lead

God's people. But it needs more than that. It needs more than that.

There needs to be more than just a leader who has a burden for a work to be done. It requires a people who will own that burden for themselves, and act upon it.

And this is what you find in verses 17 and 18 of chapter 2. Nehemiah says to the people, you see the distress that we are in, how

Jerusalem lies waste, and its gates are burned with fire. Come and let us build the wall of Jerusalem, that we may no longer be a reproach.

Now he's speaking now to the people in Jerusalem. The king had given him leave to go, and he went, and there he is.

He's scoped out the situation, and he's now presenting the burden before the people.

He says, let's build the wall of Jerusalem that we may no longer be a reproach. But what are the people going to do?

How are they going to respond? Some, because you see it in our day, some just are more than content to sit on the sidelines and be spectators and watch other people do the job.

Some would oppose it. No, I don't want to do that. But here's the response.

He says, I told them of, here it is again, the good hand of my God which had been good upon me, and also of the king's words that he had spoken to me.

So they said, let us rise up and build. Then they set their hands to do this good work.

Because here's the thing, Nehemiah had this great burden, the king had blessed, God had blessed him by the king giving his favor to everything, and yet Nehemiah couldn't do this by himself.

He's not going to rebuild the wall by himself. And it's true in the work of the

Lord that a leader can't do everything by himself. He can have a great burden, and he can want to see great things accomplished by God's grace, but he's not going to be able to do everything by himself.

It requires this volunteer spirit that he himself possesses, a volunteer spirit, a servant's heart that reverberates throughout

God's people, who will then gladly give themselves to the task at hand.

Oh, may their tribe increase. And I trust and pray that you will be in that tribe.

Our Father, now God, we thank you for this challenge from the book of Nehemiah today, and I pray that we would rise to the challenge, be a people who are willing to serve and give ourselves to these noble ends, we pray.

In Jesus' name and for his sake, amen. All right, well listen, have a good rest of your