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Welcome back for day five, our last day in our week one of a look through the
book of Nehemiah. We're going to turn to Nehemiah chapter two today, and we're
learning from Nehemiah together how to rebuild, how to be re-energized in life,
how and where to find the energy and the wisdom that it takes to be a
re-builder. Nehemiah teaches us some of the most valuable lessons on rebuilding
to be found anywhere.

His example we're seeing together is summed up in these seven all-important
words for rebuilders, reaction, initiation, appreciation, opposition,
organization, celebration, and dedication. The last few days we've looked
together at Nehemiah's reaction to the problem. Today we begin to look at his
swift initiation of a solution.

This is vital because one of the most difficult aspects of rebuilding is just
getting started. Too often we find ourselves giving up before we get going. How
can you become a person with real initiative, with the ability to get things
started when they need to get done?

Not to get caught up in excuses or get caught up in the past, but who initiates
it, who gets it done. That can happen in your life, but you have to get focused
in order for that to happen. As a picture of this, suppose you're at the start
of a 100-meter race.

You're down on the block, everybody's ready to go, the gun's about ready to go
off, but instead of thinking about the race, you're worried about whether you're
going to trip when the gun goes off. You're worried about the last race that you
have and what happened in the last race. You're not even listening for the gun
to go off.

Of course you're not going to get started well. When you're getting ready to
start that race, everything in you, every fiber of your being is listening for
that starter's pistol, and when it goes, you go. How do you become the kind of
person who initiates action in your life when you need to?

How do you get that project out of the starting blocks in your life? Let's
listen to Nehemiah together. He has been able, by God's grace and strength, to
be the person who rebuilds the walls of Jerusalem.

I'll tell you the end of the story if you don't know it already. How does he get
it started? When he comes in to begin this rebuilding project, everybody else is
standing around shaking their heads saying, "Oh, this is terrible.

This is awful. " He's the one who gets things started. How does he do that?

Well, he makes four decisions. We're going to look at a couple of them today and
a couple of them as we start next week. Four decisions what's caused him to be
an initiator when everybody else is just a spectator.

They're simple decisions. They're decisions that you and I can make. Decision
number one, he decided to take a stand.

Listen to verses one to five, Nehemiah chapter two. "In the month of Nisan in
the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was brought for him, I took the
wine and gave it to the king. I had not been sad in his presence before, and so
the king asked me, 'Why does your face look so sad when you're not ill?

This could be nothing but sadness of heart. ' I was very much afraid. But I said
to the king, 'May the king live forever.

Why should my face not look sad when the city where my fathers are buried lies
in ruins and its gates have been destroyed by fire? ' The king said to me, 'What
is it that you want? ' And then I prayed to the God of heaven and I answered the
king, 'If it pleases the king and if your servant has found favor in his sight,
let him send me to the city in Judah where my fathers are buried so that I can
rebuild it.

'" Nehemiah gets things started by talking to the king. Now, he knew that to get
things started he had to have the king's support. The king was going to have to
send him.

The king was going to have to give supplies. And so he asked the king. Now, did
you notice it said, "I was very much afraid, but I asked.

" What was he afraid of? Just talking in the king's presence? No, it was much
more than that.

There was something funny about kings back then. If you asked and they denied
your request, it wasn't just a simple matter of a denial. They did not like
disgruntled subjects being in their kingdom.

So if they denied a request, they also cut off your head. That made sure there
were no disgruntled subjects walking around. That made sure nobody was coming in
and asking for things just on a whim.

So Nehemiah's stand took great personal courage here. And that's what it takes
to get started. That's what it takes to initiate someone with the courage to
take a stand.

With personal courage. The willingness to take a stand when no one else will.
David exemplified it with Goliath.

Paul exemplified it as he preached to the Gentiles. In history you see it in
Martin Luther and in Martin Luther King. People who took a stand when no one
else would take a stand.

And they all show you why courage is needed. When you take a stand, you've got
to be willing to face the consequences. Whether you're snickered at or sneered
at or stared at or shot at, there's going to be consequences when you take a
stand.

Because you are the one who is leading the way. And intuitively we all know
that. That's why it's hard to take a stand.

There's going to be pressure that comes with taking this stand. Even if it's an
internal stand. You say I've got to take a stand against this laziness in my
life.

I've got to take a stand to begin to do something with my days. I've got to
change things. I've got to rebuild the purpose in my life.

No one else may know about that, but you know about it. And once you take that
stand, you're going to face the pressure of living a different way. Of needing a
different kind of faith.

Jesus Christ can give you that courage to take that stand. Because he took a
stand for you. He went to the cross for you.

He gave himself for your sin. And in him you can find the strength to give
yourself back to him. So don't try to take the stand on your strength.

That's my encouragement. Take it on the strength that Jesus Christ can give you.
Ask him for that strength right now.

Jesus, give me the strength to take a stand. I ask for the strength to take a
stand. That's the first thing that Nehemiah did to be an initiator.

The kind of guy who made a difference. The second thing he did is he decided to
prepare. He decided to prepare in advance for what God wanted to do.

Listen to what happens starting in verse 6. Nehemiah's just made this request of
the king. Then the king, with the queen sitting beside him, asked me, "How long
will your journey take and when will you get back?

" It pleased the king to send me. And so I set a time. And I also said to him,
"If it pleases the king, may I have letters to the governors of Trans-Euphrates
so that they will provide me safe conduct until I arrive in Judah.

And may I have a letter to Asaph, keeper of the king's forest, so that he will
give me timber to make beams for the gates of the citadel by the temple and for
the city wall and for the residence that I will occupy. And because the gracious
hand of my God was upon me, the king granted my requests. " The king said yes.

But maybe even more importantly, Nehemiah was ready for the king to say yes. In
verses 7 and 8, Nehemiah knows exactly what the king could do for him. What can
I do for you?

And he knew exactly how he could do it. Many of us, we go in and we say, "Here's
my request, God," or, "Here's my request before a person. " And if they say yes,
what can I do for you?

We think, "Well, I expected you to say no. " And we have nothing in our mind in
case they might say yes. Nehemiah was an initiator because he was ready for the
yes.

How often do you allow yourself to become so worried about somebody saying no
that you give no thought to what you're going to do if they just might say yes?
Nehemiah had wisely spent his energy focusing on what he was going to do when
the king said yes. And there's a principle here.

People who get things started prepare for success rather than worrying about
failure. That's the principle. People who get things started prepare for success
rather than worrying about failure.

Where are you spending most of your energy? Readying yourself for failure or
preparing yourself for success? I encourage you.

Prepare for rebuilding. Prepare to be re-energized. You could do that by making
a simple list.

Obviously Nehemiah had. He knew the names. He knew what he needed.

What will it take to get the job done? What will you ask for when the
opportunity presents itself? I told you that the first time I shared these
principles was when our church many years ago went through a flood and many of
our members' homes were destroyed and we all had to rebuild.

Our home was destroyed. So we had to rebuild our home in the midst of rebuilding
the church. And I'll never forget Shondell's dad Jimmy came in and was such a
great help to us in rebuilding our house and one of the things we had to do was
tear all the sheetrock off of the wall.

All the wall board came down. It had to all be put back on because we had nine
feet of water in our house so everything had to be redone. So we had just bare
studs in our house and he went around one day and he counted how many sheets of
wall board we were going to need in order to re-board the house.

Well that night somebody came in and was looking around and what we needed and
the guy who came in said, "Boy, I'd like to help you. I mean, I can't do any
building but, you know, is there anything I could do? I'd like to contribute
something to help you guys rebuild your house.

So what could I do? I know you're a poor pastor. How can I help you?

" Well, Jimmy was ready for him. He looked at him and said, "We need 98 sheets
of wall board. " And the guy looked pretty flustered like, "Well, I didn't
really mean it.

" But Jimmy was ready for the yes. And because of that, we got 98 sheets of wall
board from that guy in order to rebuild our house. He knew exactly what to ask
for.

The point is, Rebuilders plan for success. What's it going to take to get the
job done? Where is it in your life that you need to stop worrying about failure
and start to prepare for success, the success that God wants in your life?

Let's take a minute to pray together, asking for God's strength in this. Lord,
we do need your strength. If we're going to be the kind of person who gets
things started, the kind of faith that you want to have in our lives, we need to
decide to take a stand.

Not just to think about it, not just to roll around in the back of our minds,
but to take a stand, to say something about it, to take a stand with the person
that needs to hear our faith. God, show us how. Give us strength.

Give us courage. And then, Lord, we need to prepare for success, and we ask for
that. Lord, you know how sometimes we can get overwhelmed by worry.

Instead of that, let us begin to look with eyes of faith at what you want to be
doing, how you want to be working. Give us new, different vision of how you want
to work in our lives. Right now, we pray for it, in Jesus' name, amen.

Well, join us next week. We're going to start out by looking at what God teaches
us through Nehemiah, how about being the kind of person who initiates solutions
through faith.