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In today's message, we are challenged with two questions. Where is our burden and do we love our church? Join Pastor Wei as he unpacks Nehemiah chapter 1.

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Good morning, brothers and sisters in Christ. This morning's scripture reading is taken from the book of Nehemiah, chapter 1, verse 1 to verse 11. The words of Nehemiah, the son of Hechaliah, now it happened in the month of Chiselef in the 20th year as I was in Susa the citadel, that Hanani, one of my brothers, came with certain men from Judah. And I asked them concerning the Jews who escaped, who had survived the exile, and concerning Jerusalem. And they said to me, The remnant there in the province who had survived the exile is in great trouble and shame. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are destroyed by fire. As soon as I heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven. And I said, O Lord, God of heaven, the great and awesome God who kept who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, let your ear be attentive and your eyes open, to hear the prayer of your servant that I now pray before you day and night, for the people of Israel, your servants, confessing the sins of the people of Israel, which we have sinned against you. Even I and my father's house have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against you, and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, and the rules that you commanded your servant Moses. Remember the word that you commanded your servant Moses, saying, If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples. But if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though your outcasts are in the outermost parts of heaven, from there I will gather them and bring them to the place that I have chosen, to make my name dwell there. They are your servants and your people, whom you have redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand. O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant, and to the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name, and give success to your servant today, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man. Now I was cupbearer to the king. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

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Right, church, we have been on a series uh covering Ezra Nehemiah. And previously we have looked at two important leaders in the book of Ezra. Right, we have looked at Zerubabel and we have looked at Ezra himself. Um, they were responsible for bringing some Jews back to Jerusalem from Babylon, where they were exiled to, and they were also responsible for rebuilding the temple and restoring worship in Israel. Uh we have ended the book of Ezra, and now we have crossed over to the book of Nehemiah, right? The third and final leader who will eventually be responsible for rebuilding the walls in Jerusalem. Um and as uh Sister Karen has read for us just now, we open the book with a terrible news, right? A news that shook Nehemiah to the point of collapsing and weeping, crying out to the Lord. Um we read in verses 1 and 2 that at a certain time, right, uh one of Nehemiah's brothers came back from Judah and and told him the news about Jerusalem. If I can have the next slide. In verse 3, we read, they said to me, Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its gates have been burned with fire. And here's Nehemiah's response to this. When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven. Have you ever had an incident that is similar to that where it triggered you, uh it triggered such grief that you uh had to fast and pray and seek the Lord?

unknown 5:31

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SPEAKER_01 5:31

What was it that made you go to the Lord in prayer? Right? Maybe it's some terrible news about a terminal illness that you or your loved one received. Right, maybe it's about uh you suddenly being laid off in a time where the job market is bad. Maybe there's a breakdown in your relationship with your spouse or with your children, and you are just helpless in that situation. Or maybe your longtime partner has broken up with you and you are devastated. Right? What makes all of those news terrible to us? They are terrible because they are deeply personal to us. It is happening to me or to someone I love, someone that is close to me. So of course I'll be deeply affected. If it's something that happened to a friend, uh you will feel sad, you you will reach out, you will ask and see how the person is doing, you may be helping the person cope uh through the crisis, but you probably won't feel as shaken to the call, right? And if if it is someone you don't even know, someone far removed from your circle of friends, then you may feel sympathy, you know, but you will not be viscerally moved. We we are shaken up by terrible news because they are news that are deeply personal to all of us. For us to understand Nehemiah's response and the motivation for all that he will do from here on, we must see that the broken walls at the burnt gates of Jerusalem was a deeply personal matter to him. Right? The walls and the gates that are in ruin are deeply personal to Nehemiah. But why is that so?

unknown 7:25

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For one, he wasn't even living in Jerusalem, he was living in Persia. He was probably born in captivity, in exile.

unknown 7:34

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Not born in Jerusalem, not staying in Jerusalem, and he even had an important job in the Persian Empire. At the end of chapter uh one, we read uh I was a cup, I was cupbearer to the king. Right? Um there's a reason why I think Nahimaya put it at the at the at the end of chapter one, but we read that he is cupbearer to the king, right? Being a cupbearer to the king is not like being just a waiter or butler, you just bring drinks to the king and that's it, right? Um to select and to serve wine to the king. Uh, more than that, it was his duty to drink or taste the wine first so that he can make sure there's no poison. Right? So if someone poisons a wine, he will be the one to die for the king, right? He is there to make sure that the king is safe. But beyond that, as cupbearer, he was one of the few who were in the king's confidence, right? Um, one of the very few people that the king trusted to be around him. So Nehemiah had considerable influence in the king's life by way of informal counsel, by way of discussion, by way of their just day-to-day uh interaction. In other words, being a cardbearer in the ancient time was a really high-ranking official, right? And um, maybe I'm a little bit cynical, um, but I find it hard to imagine someone in Nahimaeus' shoe to feel that much for a city he barely knows. Right? He had everything going on well for him in Persia, right? I find it hard to believe that he felt so deeply for Jerusalem. And yet, in this past, in this morning's passage, we read that he wept, he mourned over the ruins of the city, and and he he even had to sit down, right, to cry it out. So, why? We come back to this question, why was it personal for him? And the simplest answer is this that Nehemiah knew and loved God. And he understood from scripture the covenantal relationship between God and his people, as well as the importance of Jerusalem as the city of God and as the locus of Israel's worship. He first knew and loved God, and he understood what it meant to be the covenantal people of God. And so he knows how devastating it is for the Jews that Jerusalem is still in ruins. Um I mean recently we we we uh there's this news cut that has come out about the impending closure of six golf courses, right? Um I'm gonna guess most of us uh it's just uh it's just another another day, uh there's not much to to really think about. Uh we're not affected by the closure of golf courses. But there are those who love golf and they're lamenting it. Right? Um they worry that it will stifle golfing as a sport, they are thinking of ways to keep the sport growing, right? And they they they they think that the government probably shouldn't have uh done such a thing, right? Um why? Why is it deeply personal to them when it is golf courses they are being closed down, right? Because they love the sport, right? It boils down to a burden motivated by love. And in Nangi Mayus' case, it was a love and a burden for God, for his people, and for his city. And so I think it's at this point important to say that it is really not about restoring physical structures per se, right? I mean, Nangi Mayor wasn't crying over spin mill, so to speak. He wasn't crying because the walls are broken, the gates are literally burned, and you know, he wasn't crying over the sphere, the the physical things per se. Even though they were important for security reasons, right? Without the walls, without the gates, Jerusalem would be in danger of invaders. People can just come in and destroy the temple, destroy the people all over again, right? Without the walls, they were not really a city. But Nehemiah knew, and his and his primary concern was not with the physical wall and the gates per se. But he knew from Psalm 127 that unless the Lord builds the house, those who labor, those who built it labor in vain. Right? He knew that unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toy, for he gives to his beloved sleep. Right? And so for Nahemiah, the the wars were crucial because they were the sign of God's restorative work and his blessing to his covenantal people. It was a sign that God has indeed rebuilt his house and he is indeed watching over his city. And so that's that is why Nehemiah has such a huge burden for Jerusalem. Um, in the New Testament, we read of our Lord Jesus Christ, um God who became flesh, uh who dwelt among us, similarly having a burden that is motivated by his love for God and people. Uh so just very quickly in Luke chapter 13, verse 34, we read Jesus saying, Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it. How often would I have gathered your children together as a hand gathers her brood under her wings? But you were not willing. Elsewhere in Matthew chapter 9, verses 35 and 36, we read, Jesus went through all the cities and villages, he was teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every affliction. And verse 36, when he saw the crowd, he had compassion for them. He was doing all of these things because when he sees the faces in the crowd, he felt deep compassion for each of them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. Later on, the apostle Paul, who was determined to obey our Lord and determined to follow Jesus with his entire life and being, he would travel to many different places to preach the gospel of Christ, and he showed his love and concern for the whole church of Christ. And so in 2 Corinthians chapter 11, verse 28, he says that besides all the all the physical suffering of shipwreck, uh, flogging and all that, right? Imprisonment, besides all the physical suffering he has gone through, he says that there is the daily pressure or the daily burden on me of my anxiety for all the churches. Paul likewise had a godly burden for the church because of his love for God and the people of God. And so today, as we embark on our study of the book of Nehemiah, um I sense the need to ask this question to all of us, which is this are we burdened with anything because of our love for God and his people? Do we have any sense of burden because of our love for God and his people? This is a sort of burden that goes beyond ourselves as individuals, right? We are we are uh not looking to our own needs or our own issues, right? Um because again, if it were, someone like Nahimaya uh should have zero burden, right? Everything was going well with his life. And so if I if I may say this, we today we are often quite content to simply make our lives in good order and making sure that everything runs smoothly for us and we are happy with just that. I'm doing well, my family is doing well, life is good, I can I can be happy. And I sense that the word of God this morning confronts us to rattle that notion and to make us see that our quote-unquote good life here on earth means nothing in the kingdom of God if we do not share in his burden for his people, if we have a good life, or even if we are like having a spiritual high in our life, and the rest around us are downtrodden and we don't care. Does that really align with God's heart? And Nehemiah understood that, right? He understood. So what if his life is going on well in the courts of Persia when Jerusalem's wars were in shambles? To him it meant that his life was also in shambles. That's why he could identify with the great hurt of his people, that somehow the ruins of the wars ruined his heart, his life. And all that will become quite clear when we look at this prayer to God. But for now, I just want to ask: how is our love for God and for his people reflected in the burdens we have in our lives? Um I'm sure we can extrapolate that and then say, oh, we need to have a burden for the lost, the poor, the needy, for those who do not know God and all, and that would be very biblical. Um but I don't think that's quite the point of Nahi Maya one. Uh and I think importantly, I I sense the Lord pointedly asking us this this very question. Do we care about the church? Do we have concern for the church at all? And of course, this church can can can have at least two senses, right? The church in Singapore, right? Do we have concern for how well the church is doing in Singapore? Um, but my focus for today will be this. Do we care for our church? For YCCA, right? Do we care for the church that we attend, that we say we we belong to? Because here's the thing, if if we care about the mission of God, right, we care about the God fulfilling his purpose here on earth, then we must recognize how vital it is for God's people to be God's people here on earth.

unknown 18:32

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SPEAKER_01 18:32

To truly be God's people because it is through the people of God in today's uh time, it is through the church of Christ that God's mission and purpose is precisely worked out. Right? We can we should of course have a heart for people, for broken lives, for for the loss and all. But we must understand that for God to accomplish those things or for God to reach out to the people outside, God's people must be God's people. The church must be the church, right? And so to hit closer to home, it means that we must be burdened with our church's worship, fellowship, discipleship. We must be burdened by our love for one another, for how all of us are walking with the Lord. And so, so I mean, please don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that the YCCA is in shambles. I'm not comparing YCCA with uh the walls and the gates of Jerusalem at Nangy Maya's time, right? Um, because obviously as a church, I don't think we have strayed away from the Lord. Um I I mean we have people here who evidently love God, who are serving God faithfully week in and week out, right? Um I mean our beliefs are, I would think, right, uh orthodox, you know, our preaching is sound. Um and it's not about faulting this church here for over all these things, right? It's not about finding faults with YCCA per se. The point rather is this, right? Um whether it is a question of whether we have that love for the people of God here in YCCA. Um and with that love, that deep desire and burden to see everyone here grow in faith, hope, and love. So another way of putting the question here today is do I love Ishun Christian Church, Anglican? Do I love this church that I attend? Um not in a weird cultish or not in a weird or an arrogant way, right? We think, well, YCCA is the best church, the truest church, right? All other churches cannot compare. So every Christian should come here. Not in that way, right, that we love this church so much that we want to um advertise our church that way. Because every church has its flaws, has its issues, has its problems, because it's made up of sinful people. So we have our set of flaws, our set of issues. But do we love this church enough to want to see all of us, individually and corporately, to grow as saints in Christ? To grow in our spirituality and our holiness as a church, to grow in our love for God and for one another, so that all of us may together say we as a church pursue the things of God here in Israel.

unknown 21:22

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SPEAKER_01 21:22

Do we love YCCA to want to be rooted in this community? Not just for my own growth, but so that somehow by my participation in this church, we can all work towards growing the church to the degree that this church truly lives and worships as God's people. Not to make our church great, not to make our church known, but to make God great and God known in this place. Would I be deeply affected by the life of this church? That I suffer when she suffers. And I rejoice when she is living out her God-given vision and mission. And if there are gaps in our church, and there will always be gaps, right? If there are gaps in our church, would I be burdened by God to stand in the gap? And that was what Nahemiah did. He stood in the gap for Jerusalem for a period. I know in the scripture it says a few days. He mourned, he wept, and all. But from chapter 1 uh in the month of his left, right, that's in verse 1, to chapter 2, it's a span of four months. For four months, Nehemiah stood in a gap and he prayed. Right? Standing in a gap is a phrase taken from Ezekiel chapter 22, verse 30, right? Where intercession is meant. In that context, in Ezekiel 22, right, God was looking for someone to stand in a bridge or in a gap, to intercede on behalf of the city of Jerusalem against the wrath of God. So to intercede is to act like a mediator, to pray and to plead with God on behalf of someone. And that was what Nehemiah did when he heard the news about Jerusalem. He prayed and he interceded. And there are quite a number of things going on in Nehemiah's prayer. For the sake of time, I'll keep my points brief as we study and look into his prayer. And I asked, how can we apply some of these things that he prayed in his prayer? And the first one, um, probably one of the most important things that we need to understand today is that prayer was his first option. It is not the last option, right? Myself included, I think a lot of us tend to, you know, when we hit a crisis, let me solve this, let me solve this. I cannot, okay. I'm gonna ask my parents, or I cannot, I'm gonna ask my friends. I'm gonna do all I can to try to solve the situation, and if I cannot, then I turn to God in prayer because I am helpless already. Right? But Nehemiah knew that the very first thing to do is to turn to God. Right? It was not his last option or last resort, right? It was his first option to pray and seek the Lord because he understood that ultimately the restoration of the walls is about the restoration of God's city and God's people. And so it is something only God himself can accomplish. And so he knows to first turn to God. And I hope we see we see and understand our the prayer life of our church is a turning to God first and in uh imploring him to come and do his work. I remember when I was a youth, we when we had our prayer meetings, it's on a Thursday evening, our venue is the sanctuary. We had enough people that we will be here gathered. Uh, I remember Pastor Ken playing the guitar and singing, I remember people frantically changing uh slides on the OHP um and and and but we were all together and we were all praying. How wonderful it is if if the church can all come together again to pray uh and to intercede together as a church. And we still have our prayer meetings. Uh now it's once a month, uh it's on the first Thursday evening of the month. Um, and it is really my hope that we will all come together to pray. Um I'm thankful for the Anglican liturgy. Um, the Anglican liturgy builds in intercession into the service, right? This is our worship service, and part of our worship service is precisely to stand in the gap as the house of prayer. We want to come before the Lord as a church to intercede for the world, for the church, and for ourselves. Right? Little brother Arthur will be leading us in intercession, and I hope that all of us can draw close together and draw close to God and earnestly seek the Lord in the things we ask God for. But that's the first thing, right? Prayer is a first option for Nehemiah. Uh, verse 2, very quickly, Nehemiah knew scripture very well. Right? He may have been born in exile, he may have um grown up in a foreign land, but he knew scripture well. Right? His opening words in verse 5 Lord, the God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love and those with those who love him and keeps his commandments. It's uh almost a direct quote from Daniel chapter 9, verse 4. Right? Um his prayers is is is there's so many references to Deuteronomy, to Moses and his law and his cut and the Mosaic covenant and all. Right? Um and I think as we pray and as we intercede, we need to know scripture as well, and know the God who is revealed in Scripture, right? So that we know that we are really praying to none other than the great and awesome God who is truly sovereign over everything. Right? This is the God that has been revealed to us in scripture, and that's why we pray to him. If we cannot believe that he's sovereign, we cannot believe that he is more than able to do what you ask of him, then perhaps there's no point in approaching him.

unknown 27:38

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SPEAKER_01 27:38

But Nehemiah knew from scripture that he is great and awesome, and so he, and I think we should have the confidence in the Almighty God to approach him in our intercession. Uh, third interesting point here, Nehemiah identifies himself with the people. Um, more more to the point, he identifies with the sins of the people. Right in um verse 6, uh second half of verse 6, um, Nehemiah praised this, I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father's family, have committed against you. We have acted very wickedly toward you. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees, and laws you gave your servant Moses. There is solidarity with the people of God, their ugly sides included. Even though Nehemiah need not be counted, right? He wasn't even born when they when they uh turned away from the Lord to the point that they were punished, right? He wasn't even there. And yet Nehemiah says, I confess our sins, mine and my family's sins. There's that posture of humility in Nehemiah. And so too for us, right? When we stand in the gap for the church, for the people, we're not interceding as if we are spiritually superior. And we're gonna pray for these people who are kind of like far away, they are not serious Christians. I am the serious Christian, I need to be praying for these people, right? We are not spiritually superior, but we we are meant to see ourselves as one, right? That that in the areas where the church has failed God, all of us have failed God. And so we confess, uh, we confess our sins. Um in the same breath that we confess the sins of the church. Um, very quickly, uh, number four, God's covenant with us. Uh we read that, um, and this is really one of the the the anchor points for Nehemiah, right? That God is a God who keeps his covenant of love with those who love and keeps his commandments. It is on the basis of God's covenantal promises that that Nehemiah approached him and that we can approach God. Um the the concept of covenant helps to make sense of the rest of his prayer. Right? Um when God makes a covenant with Israel, it is a binding contract, right? He binds himself to the terms of the covenant and he will always be faithful to it. And so, for example, every time he makes a covenant, he will say, uh, you shall be my people and I will be your God. Right? You will be my people and I'll be your God. And being a keeper of the covenantal promise means that he will be your God to the very end. Even if you stray away. Even as Old Testament sometimes will put in very graphic terms, even if you prostitute yourself away to idolatry, he will still see himself as your God. Right? So just like how Hosea goes back to win, uh to goes back to Goma and to win her back, right? God will always come and bring you back. It is based on this concept of covenant that that Nehemiah praised. And he understands that uh specific, specifically in Mosaic covenant, right? God has promised to bless those who obey him and to punish those who disobey him. Right? So Nehemiah sees that, he acknowledged that Israel sinned against God, hence the punishment of exile. But precisely because God is faithful to his covenant, Nehemiah also knew he could count on God to fulfill his promises. And that's why he prayed this in verses 8 to 10. Remember the instruction you gave your servant Moses, saying, if you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations. But if you return to me and obey my commands, then even if your exile people are at the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen as a dwelling for my name. A dwelling for my name. This place in Nehemiah's time is the temple in Jerusalem. It is um it is pressing in on God's promise that he will gather his people into his chosen dwelling place. And it means that God must see uh to the full restoration of Jerusalem. Right? See where Nahem is going with this? Because God, you have made a promise with your covenant, you have to see this through, you have to fully restore the city of Jerusalem. Right? He even presses God uh on this point uh in verse 10. They are your servants, your people, whom you redeem by your great strength and your mighty hand. Almost to say, surely you do not forget that these are your people whom you redeem. And so even today, God does not forget that we are his sons and his daughters. He does not forget that he has redeemed us by the new covenant in Christ. Which is why every Sunday, when at the beginning of the service, uh we confess our sins, we can do so uh on the promises of God. Right? We directly quote uh 1 John 1, uh chapter 1, verses 8 and 9, right? Where the apostle John writes this if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We can count on that promise and we can count on the Holy Spirit, whom God sent to us, uh, to have that power to transform our hearts and our lives.

unknown 33:50

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SPEAKER_01 33:51

Any transformation or any growth, any change in us must be dependent on the power of God and the power of the Holy Spirit who now indwells all of us. And so as we intercede, we are interceding for God to keep his promise with us, with the church, and to work out his promise now in the power of the spirit amongst us. And uh fifthly, uh, and this will be my last point. Um, we see in his intercession in verse uh 11, uh kind of suddenly switches gear a little bit, right? Uh give your servant success today by granting him favor in the presence of this man. Right? Your servant here refers, of course, to himself. This man at the end refers to the king.

unknown 34:40

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SPEAKER_01 34:41

With his God-given burden, he understood his God-given task at hand. To be involved in the rebuilding of the walls. He may not have worked it out entirely, but he knew that this was his time to step up and to answer God's call. Um, and and and this is why the last night is so poignant. I was cupbearer to the king. His intercession has led him to asking God, God, use me somehow, grant me favor, use me. Because I am cup-bearer to the king. I am one of the closest people to the king, and perhaps I can play a part. If you will grant me favor with the king, perhaps I can do something. So I like how one commentator puts it that when Nahimah heard the news, the effect was so overwhelming that it can only be described as a sudden realization that God was calling him to a radically new sphere of service for which his position and training had uniquely equipped him. In other words, when he heard the terrible news, he wept, he mourned, he fasted, he prayed, because there was a sudden realization that all that has happened to him up to this point was meant for something for God. He he sensed the Lord calling him at the point of the terrible news. Um, much like Esther, right? That God has caught him for a time such as this. And so, brothers and sisters, I want to end with this. You and me together, we may be God's means of fulfilling his purposes here in this church today. Um, as you realize your burden for YCCA, uh, whether it generates for the church or whether it's for a specific part of the church, right? Whether it's for Connect Group, our children's ministry, youth ministry, any other ministries or aspect of the church, if there is a burden in your heart for this church, as you start to intercede, God may also be calling you to be a channel of his work here. And so to close, be open to God involving you in the areas of the church which you feel burdened for.

unknown 37:09

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SPEAKER_01 37:10

Let God reveal to you how you may advance his purposes here in this church and how we can all grow from faith to faith in the fullness of Christ, that we may truly be his church and his people in this community. Um, may we all bring praise and glory to God in all that we do. I pray that may we all have that burden for God, for his people, for this church. That we want to see all of us faith to faith from foreign to forever.

SPEAKER_00 37:42

We pray that you've been ministered to the Word of God today. If you'd like to know more about this, please have a website.