Ask, then Act

1:06And that was followed up this last week when he got back into the headlines for suggesting that Tom Brady was maybe a little bit past his prime at the age of 41. Yes, the Tom Brady who's about to play in his ninth Super Bowl and has won five of them. That Tom Brady. Well, tonight we will see if Roby Coleman can back up that talk. Because if you're going to talk, you better be able to act on it.

1:36Friends, last week in Nehemiah 1, we watched as Nehemiah went before the Lord and fasted and prayed, asked God for very specific things, made very specific requests of the Lord, asking for success and mercy in the sight of God before the king. And today in Nehemiah chapter 2, verses 1 through 20, the time for asking, for talking, that has passed. Now it's time to act. And so as we go through chapter 2 today, we're going to learn that faith-filled action must follow faith-filled asking.

2:13Let's look at the first few verses here. See right at the beginning of chapter 2 that it's the month of Nisan, and so four months have passed since Nehemiah first learned of the crisis in Jerusalem about the walls and the gates. It's about April in our calendar year. And during the past four months, Nehemiah has been faithfully praying and fasting. He's been faithfully serving the king. He's boldly and specifically asked that God would grant him mercy and success, as we said. And now the time has come for him to act. Either by his own choice or simply through the providence of God, the time has come to act.

2:52And so here in verse 1, we see that Nehemiah shares he has never been sad in the presence of the king. So, I don't know if he simply couldn't hide his grief any longer, or if him revealing his emotions was all part of the plan that he had come up with to get the king's attention. But either way, Nehemiah is obviously upset. King Artaxerxes notices right away because he's never been sad in his presence before. I want you to think about that for a moment. How can you never show up sad to work?

3:28You know people who show up sad to work every day. And he says he has never been sad in the king's presence. Now, this is not the same thing as showing up sad to your job or to another job. Nehemiah is the cupbearer to the king of Persia, the most powerful ruler in the world. Nehemiah is his personal advisor, like one that the president of the United States would have. And so, if you're that kind of high-level leader, like the king of Persia, you don't have time to be dealing with melancholy servants.

4:03Like, you notice, oh, are you feeling sad today? What's wrong? Let me take a break from ruling the world so I can hear about your issues. It's not like that at all. If you go back to the book of Genesis, Phara threw his cupbearer and his baker into prison just for displeasing him. And then he hung his baker. This was a serious deal. So, whether it's on purpose as part of a calculated plan or not, Nehemiah is sad. The king takes notice, and Nehemiah is scared to death. But he fears God more than he fears man, and so he's going to take this time to act upon the things that he has been praying for. Look at verse 3.

4:53I said to the king, Let the king live forever. Why should not my face be sad when the city, the place of my father's graves, lies in ruins and its gates have been destroyed by fire? So Nehemiah addresses the king respectfully. He communicates his complete loyalty to the king. He's not taking part in a rebellion, no matter what people may end up saying about him. And then he directly answers the king's question: Why is my face sad?

5:26The place of my father's graves lies in ruins. Now, that's an interesting answer. Because what's the problem? The problem is that the walls are broken down, the gates are burned with fire. That's the problem. He doesn't mention Jerusalem by name. He doesn't say anything about the walls. Why not? Well, I think Nehemiah knows his audience. He's a very wise leader. And he understood that this king earlier in his life. Reign had done some research on Jerusalem and called it a rebellious and seditious city, where uprising against other kings had happened before, where rebellion against other nations had happened.

6:12And so I think Nehemiah understands that if he just goes to the king and says, Hey, I'm from Jerusalem, if you recall, and the walls and the gates are broken down, I want to go and rebuild the city, the king may have said, That's not happening. That's not happening. But see, the Persians they revered their ancestors, they had great reverence for the dead. And so the thought that anyone's ancestors' graves were being desecrated and lying in ruins would have horrified him. It would have moved him to act. And it does.

6:46Look at what he says. He says, What are you requesting? Just ask, what do you want, essentially? And again, at the end of verse 4, we find this. So I prayed to the God of heaven. Well, of course he did. Nehemiah is a man of prayer. And when you are a man or woman of prayer, when you have that robust prayer life that comes out of daily devotion to God because you know that you are dependent on him for everything, that's what you do. You pray. You discipline yourself to pray without ceasing.

7:27It wasn't like he told the king, just to say, Your majesty, and went off to some other room and prayed for a few hours. No, right then and there, in between the king's question and his own response, in that brief second or two, Nehemiah prays. He asks God for help. And this is the first of eight references to spontaneous prayer in the book of Nehemiah. Here is a man that, because he is a man of prayer, because he is dependent on God and he knows it, he prays all the time. He prays without ceasing.

8:04So, what does he request? Look at verse 5. It's respectful, it's deferential, but it's also very direct. He's thought and prayed about this a lot, and he says, If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, that you send me to Judah, the city of my father's graves, that I may rebuild it. And the king is happy to do this. All that the king asks is that Nehemiah give him a time when he's going to return. How long do you think that's going to be?

8:35Six months? Twelve months? It's an intensive building project. Well, we don't learn here how long it's going to be, but we learn in chapter 5, he's going to be gone for 12 years. 12 years. I want you to think about the level of trust that the king of Persia obviously has for his cupbearer. Personal advisor. This is going to be a huge sacrifice to let his advisor go away for more than a decade, and yet he's happy to do it because Nehemiah was such a man of character, was such a man who had proven himself and his loyalty to his king. I think there is great instruction for all of us here in how we are to live and to work in our companies, in the government, in the classroom. There's just such instruction here for us that we would be those men and women of character that if we were to make a request like this, they would consider how we have worked and how we have proven our loyalty and how we have been such a faithful and effective worker that they'd be glad to let us go, even at cost to themselves.

9:53So Nehemiah asked for permission to go, but you notice he doesn't stop there because he needs a lot more than just permission to go. He makes two more bold requests. Look at verse 7. He asks for letters to the governors that would state that he had permission to pass through their regions. And then in verse 8, he asks for timber, listen to this, to rebuild the gates and the walls and his own house. He wants the king to finance the rebuilding of the walls, the gates, and his own house. That must be nice.

10:27Know the king, know the guy who owns all the forests? You just say, I'd like you to pay for my house. That would be really, really handy. But, friends, Nehemiah's bold requests are a perfect example of what we were talking about last week. Nehemiah prayed very specifically in faith for specific things. So now that it's time to act, he's not going to be okay with just a generic request. Can I go to Judah? No, he's going to act in the same way that he prayed. He's going to act in a way that says, I'm going to ask him for very specific things. I'm going to ask him for letters. I'm going to ask him for timber. I'm going to ask for these things.

11:09And the king grants his request. Church, that is faith-filled action. And it followed Nehemiah's faith-filled asking. You see, we have to begin with prayer. We have to begin with bold and specific prayer to the God of heaven who hears us and answers us when we cry out to him. But we can't stop there. We cannot stop with just asking. We have to follow up faith-filled asking with faith-filled action. And so I think in our lives, when God gives us opportunities, it's critical that we act on those things. It is great that we pray for non-Christian men, women, and children in our lives. We should be doing that. But when we do, When God gives us the opportunity, it is essential that we open our mouths and we declare the hope that we have in Christ by sharing the explicit gospel of Jesus' perfect life, death, and resurrection.

12:13It's great to pray for opportunities to disciple others, but there comes a time when we have to step up and we have to ask people, can I speak into your life? Can we meet together? Can I encourage you? Can I bring correction when that's necessary? It's great to pray for our children and their salvation, but parents, we've got to put our prayers into action. You've got to have a plan for leading husbands, your wives spiritually, moms and dads, your children spiritually. You have to have a plan. You have to act on it. There's a time to pray, but there's also a time to act. And Nehemiah knew the difference. He knew when it was time to pray and he knew when it was time to act because he understood that faith-filled action has to follow faith-filled asking.

13:08So did this work? Look at verse 8. And the king granted me what I asked, for the good hand of my God was upon me. I love that verse because it reminds us of something that we really need to remember. We get in the habit of looking at these people in Scripture. And thinking that they are just so unbelievably exceptional. They're so unlike you and me. But what Nehemiah is reminding us here is that it was not his careful planning, it was not his social intelligence, it wasn't his ability to persuade that led to the king granting his request. It was because the good hand of God was upon him.

13:56Our successes and our failures in life ultimately aren't attributed to us, but are attributed to God, his sovereignty, his providential work in and through us. And so we can give him the credit when things go right, just like Nehemiah did. I love Ephesians 2:10. This is a verse that follows a couple of well-known verses. Ephesians 2:89: For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not by works, so that no man may boast. And then look at Ephesians 2:10. Look at what it says: For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works. We were created to act, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

14:46That verse should strengthen and encourage us that God has prepared good works for us in advance, and that we are called to act out, to live out our faith in all of the prayers that we pray. And so Nehemiah has permission, he's got his letters, and now it's time to take the next faith-filled action step. He's got to actually go to Jerusalem. So let's look at verse 9 together. Then I came to the governors of the province beyond the river and gave them the king's letters. Now the king had sent me with officers of the army and horsemen. But when Sonbalat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite servant heard this, it displeased them greatly that someone had come to seek the welfare of the people of Israel.

15:37The journey to Jerusalem, if you remember from our study of the book of Ezra, was a 900-mile, four-month-long trek through the wilderness. It was a very difficult and scary journey. So I'm sure Nehemiah was delighted to be accompanied by army officers and horsemen. But if you think back to our study of the book of Ezra, when Ezra made the exact same journey, he refused military protection. And he refused military protection because he had told the king, our God can and will protect us.

16:18How can it be that two godly leaders looked at the exact same situation and came to opposite conclusions about what they should do? Look at the screen at Romans 14, 23. Paul says, for whatever does not proceed from faith is sin. See, when Ezra and Nehemiah made their decisions, both of those godly leaders were acting by faith. When Ezra made the decision to refuse military protection, he was making the decision in faith that God could and would protect them on the journey. And when Nehemiah made the decision to accept military protection, he was making the decision by faith that God would protect them through the presence of the army. Both of these men are making decisions by faith. They're looking at the same situation, and yet they come to opposite conclusions about what they should do.

17:24When we read the New Testament, it's very obvious that Christians have always wanted decision-making to be black and white. Think about the letter to the Corinthians. Think about the letter to the Romans. You have Christians coming to opposite decisions on these very important matters of living the Christian life. So we want a manual. In this situation, if you're a Christian, you do this. In this situation, if you're a Christian, you do that. That's what we want. We want it to be black and white. But friends, when it comes to most decision-making, it's not black and white. The issue isn't that certain decisions are Inherently right, and other decisions are inherently wrong. That's not the issue. In Scripture, God shows us that the issue is the heart.

18:12Whether we're making decisions based out of faith or based out of fear. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin. So take the issue of schooling. I've heard lots and lots of Christian parents say or insinuate that unless you homeschool your kids, you're in sin. And I've heard lots of other Christian parents say that unless you send your kids to public school, you're in sin. But the truth, friends, is that you can homeschool out of faith or out of fear, and you can send your kids to public school out of faith or out of fear.

18:56You might be homeschooling out of faith, but you might be homeschooling out of the fear that if you send your kids to public school, they're going to become irreparably corrupted. You might send your kids to public school out of faith, or you might send it to public school out of fear that you're somehow going to mess them up if you try to teach them yourself. See, the issue is faith and fear. And that's just one example. I mean, there are so many more. Watching certain television shows, whether women should work outside of the home if they're married.

19:31Vaccinations, drinking alcohol socially, and on and on. Friends, whatever does not come from faith is sin. That's what Scripture says. And so Nehemiah prayed, and then he made a decision based on faith, just like Ezra's 13 years before. And he takes the troops with him. They obviously come in handy because, as you see in verse 10, almost immediately he encounters opposition, and things may have gone south without the troops there. So we'll return to that opposition a little later, but for now, let's pick up in verse 11. Join me there.

20:13So I went to Jerusalem and was there three days. Then I arose in the night, I and a few men with me. And I told no one what my God had put into my heart to do for Jerusalem. There was no animal with me but the one on which I rode. I went out by night by the valley gate to the dragon spring and to the dung gate, and I inspected the walls of Jerusalem that were broken down and its gates that had been destroyed by fire. Then I went on to the fountain gate and to the king's pool, but there was no room for the animal that was under me to pass. Then I went up in the night by the valley and inspected the wall, and I turned back and entered by the valley gate, and so returned. And the officials did not know where I had gone or what I was doing. And I had not yet told the Jews, the priests, the nobles, the officials, and the rest who were to do the work.

21:11So, after this four-month journey concludes, and he and his entourage arrive in Jerusalem, they take three days just to rest. Because after a journey like that, Nehemiah is in no shape to prayerfully assess and carefully consider the situation before him. He doesn't want to reveal any of his plans too early, so he gets all of his squad up in the middle of the night under the cover of darkness, and they go to inspect the wall to survey it.

21:40See, before he acts, Nehemiah wants to inspect. He wants to collect information. He wants to make sure that he understands the full extent of the problem before he tries to propose any solutions. And again, we take a lot of wisdom from this. Before acting, we need to pray, but we also need to carefully prepare. And Nehemiah did both very well. Well, the walls were in awful shape, perhaps even worse than Nehemiah anticipated. The gates, in fact, were so bad that in certain spots, he couldn't even walk under them. He had to get off of the animal on which he was riding, and he had to pass through on foot just to get a look. So they're in really bad shape. I thought you might have some trouble picturing what this was like. And so, in God's providence, at the beginning of the This semester, my own walls and gates were broken down in a storm. And so I thought I would show you a picture of me inspecting my walls and gates.

22:43Here's me rending my garment when I saw the destruction. I thought that would really bring it to life for you because it is almost in no way similar to the situation. Let us move on to verse 17. Then I said to them, You see the trouble we are in, how Jerusalem lies in ruins with its gates burned. Come, let us build the wall of Jerusalem that we may no longer suffer derision. And I told them of the hand of my God that had been upon me for good, and also of the words that the king had spoken to me. And they said, Let us rise up and build. So they strengthened their hands for the good work. But when Sonbalat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite servant and Geshem the Arab heard of it, they jeered at us and despised us and said, What is this thing that you are doing? Are you rebelling against the king?

23:54Then I replied to them, The God of heaven will make us prosper, and we his servants. Will arise and build, but you have no portion or right or claim in Jerusalem. So, after months of praying and fasting, the time has come for more faith-filled action. Nehemiah has to cast a compelling vision to the people and then call them to action. And so, he does this in four parts. First, he presents the problem. You see the trouble that we are in.

24:32Second, he presents the solution. Come, let us build the wall of Jerusalem. Third, he presents the reason that we may no longer suffer derision. And then, fourth, he presents the motivation. And I told them of the hand of my God that had been upon me for good, and also of the words that the king had spoken to me. Nehemiah is such a wise leader in doing this. He doesn't just present himself as the solution. He doesn't rush into the solution. He helps them to see what the problem is. He helps them to understand the reason that they need to do this. And then he presents the motivation. God is with us. He is with us. He's going to accomplish this. And so the people respond positively. Let us rise up and build.

25:25Nehemiah's faith-filled action motivated them to faith-filled Action. No doubt he is the answer to many of their prayers. Understand, the wall has been broken down for 140 years at this point. How many prayers did they pray during that time? God, where are you? God, won't you help us? God, won't you send a leader? Nehemiah is the answer to those prayers that have been prayed forever and ever, seemingly. And now Nehemiah shows up, the king's own cupbearer, his personal advisor. He's got letters in his hand. He's got an official military escort. He's got the supplies that they need to build, and he has a plan.

26:11And so they say, let us rise up and build. Now, this is not going to be easy. This was going to require real sacrifice. It was going to involve real risk as well because opposition was already rising up. You see that the two men from verse 10, Sonbalad and Tobiah, they're now joined by a third, Geshem the Arab, and they're not at all happy about the situation. They begin to use their words to tear down the people and the work before it ever begins.

26:43But you notice that they take it to a whole other level very quickly. They insinuate that Nehemiah intends to rebel against the king. Now that's a big accusation. And it would be a big accusation no matter what. But you have to understand that right after King Artaxerxes came into power in 464 BC, starting in 460, he dealt with a rebellion in Egypt, right across the Red Sea from where all this is happening, for 12 years. It took 12 years, a lot of political and military intervention, a lot of lives were lost just to get that thing calmed down.

27:25And now these men are accusing Nehemiah of starting another uprising, another rebellion in the same exact part of the world. So you would think this would put Nehemiah on the defensive. You would think that he'd be really scared. I mean, you saw how deferential he was trying to be to his boss, the king. But what does he say? He says essentially, look, we answer to God, not to you. We are going to build this wall. So don't let the broken gate hit you on the way out.

28:03He puts his faith into action. He says, this is what God is calling us to do. And to do anything less than this would be disobedience. Friends, Nehemiah was a man who put faith into action. He prayed first, and he continued to pray, but he also understood that there came a time for action. And when that time came, he acted in faith. And after that, he did it over and over again, as we saw earlier in the book, and as we're going to see all throughout the rest of the book, because that's the thing about faith.

28:48The Christian life is not one in which you make one decision by faith. I am choosing to repent of my sin and to believe in Christ, to follow him. The Christian life is not one in which you make one decision by faith and then you live the rest of your life by sight. No, the Christian life is one in which every single day you are making the choice to live by faith rather than by fear, rather than by sight, rather than by anything else. It is a life marked by faith-filled asking and then faith-filled action. That's what the Christian life is.

29:28And so, if you're here and you're not yet a believer in Jesus, one of the things that I want you to think about this morning is that Nehemiah could have waited forever for the perfect time to step up and to do something about the problem in Jerusalem. He could have kept saying, you know, it's not the right time to ask the king, it's not the right time, it's not the right time, it's not the right season to go. He could have said that forever. But he knew that he didn't have forever because people in Jerusalem were suffering.

30:00Needed to be done. And God was calling him to faith-filled action. You see, some of you have put off faith for a very long time. You keep on saying, I'm not ready to start following Jesus yet. It's not the right time. But I want to tell you this morning, it is the right time. And it is the right time because you're not promised tomorrow. None of us are. And because of that, Jesus could return at any moment, unexpectedly, as he says, like a thief in the night. And we want to be ready for him. We want to be ready for his return. So don't put off faith-filled action any longer. Let today be the day that you say, Yes, Lord, I will respond in faith today by turning away from my sin and trusting instead in the person and work of Jesus Christ on my behalf. Don't put that off any longer.

31:04If you're already a believer in Jesus, this morning I want you to ask yourself, where is God calling me to step out in faith? Where is God calling me to step out in faith? Maybe you've been praying specific prayers for years, calling out to God for something particular. I want to challenge you this morning. To put your faith into action, talk to that friend you've been praying for. Schedule that meeting with that person that you need to talk to about how they hurt you. Approach that person who needs discipleship. Visit a life group and get yourself into community. Make plans to join the local church. Put your faith into action. You've been praying for these things. And if you've been praying, God has heard you and He promises to answer you and to help you.

32:05But as we see so clearly in Nehemiah chapter 2, faith-filled action has to follow faith-filled asking. Let's pray. Father, we intend to be a people who walk by faith and not by sight. We don't want to be a people who consistently ask you for things but then aren't ready to act when the time comes. We want to be people who follow up faith-filled asking with faith-filled action. And so we pray for that. We pray that you would give us the courage and the commitment and the boldness to do the things that you are called. us to do.

33:03We know that Nehemiah was scared. He says so in this chapter. And yet he still acted in faith. And so God, we pray this morning, give us the courage to do the things that we know we need to do, that you are calling us to do, and act in faith. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. For more information or to support our ministry, visit us online at newlifecs.net.