Tuesday, July 1

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I went to Jerusalem, and after staying there three days I set out during the night with a few others. I had not told anyone what my God had put in my heart to do for Jerusalem. There were no mounts with me except the one I was riding on. By night I went out through the Valley Gate toward the Jackal Well and the Dung Gate, examining the walls of Jerusalem, which had been broken down, and its gates, which had been destroyed by fire. Then I moved on toward the Fountain Gate and the King’s Pool, but there was not enough room for my mount to get through; so I went up the valley by night, examining the wall. Finally, I turned back and reentered through the Valley Gate. The officials did not know where I had gone or what I was doing, because as yet I had said nothing to the Jews or the priests or nobles or officials or any others who would be doing the work.  Then I said to them, “You see the trouble we are in: Jerusalem lies in ruins, and its gates have been burned with fire. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, and we will no longer be in disgrace.”  I also told them about the gracious hand of my God on me and what the king had said to me. They replied, “Let us start rebuilding.” So they began this good work.  - Nehemiah 2:11-18

After months and months of praying, planning and traveling, Nehemiah finally comes to the people and says, "Okay, I've got some news for you, but first the bad news." Rather than minimizing the problem, he emphasizes it.

Verse 17 "Then I said to them, `You see the trouble we're in? Jerusalem lies in ruins and it's gates have been burned with fire. Come let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem and we will no longer be in disgrace."

These are emotional word pictures he uses here. "The place lies in ruin ... burned with fire ... we're in disgrace."  He's lays out the seriousness of the situation. Why?  Because the people had been living in these conditions for years.

Isn't it a fact of life that when you live with a bad situation long enough, you start ignoring it, you start getting used to it?  When you live with a situation long enough you can become apathetic about how it is. In this third step, Nehemiah refocuses their attention to the problem "We have got a mess." He's getting them to face the facts!

Nehemiah does two very important things here; first he gets the people to face the reality of their condition.  Leaders face the facts; and leaders help others to face the facts. Change never occurs until we become discontent with the way things are. The second thing Nehemiah does that is so important is that he identifies himself with their desperate condition.  Nehemiah does NOT say, “you’ve got a problem”, he says “WE are in trouble.”  He is one of them, leading from among them.

When Nehemiah states the problem he does not use external motivators. We're going to rebuild this wall; whoever gets their section done first gets an all expense paid vacation to the Dead Sea! He doesn't use external things. The older you get, the less external motivations work. External motivators work great on kids. But the older you get those kinds of motivators don't work anymore.

The greatest motivation in life is not external, nor internal, but eternal. Nehemiah says, "Let's rebuild the wall for the glory of God! So God's name is not in disgrace. Let's rebuild the wall for the kingdom of God and for the glory of His people." He challenges them with the right kind of motivations.

For all of us - Let's build FBCG into the church that shakes the world for Christ!

Jeff Frazier