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Emiah boldly made requests to King Arthur Zerxtein to be given leave to rebuild and repair the walls and gates of Jerusalem. In today's message, Reverend Daniel challenges us to identify the boundaries in our own lives and to strengthen the areas that may be weak. Let's prepare our hearts for the word of the Lord.

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In the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Arthur Zexus, when wine was before him, I took up the wine and gave it to the king. Now I have not been sad in his presence. And the king said to me, Why is your face sad? Seeing you are not sick. This is nothing but sadness of the heart. Then I was very much afraid. I 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 grave, lies in ruins and its gates have been destroyed by fire. Then the king said to me, What are you requesting? So I prayed to the God of heaven. And I said to the king, If it pleases the king and if your servant has found favour in your sight, that you send me to Judea, to the city of my father's grave, that I may rebuild it. And the king said to the queen, sitting beside him, How long will you be gone? And when will you return? So it pleased the king to send me where I had given him a time. And I said to the king, If it pleases the king, letters be given me to the governors of the province beyond the river, that they may let me pass through until I come to Judah. And a letter to the keeper of the king's forest, that he may give me the timber to make beams for the gates of the fortress of the temple, and for the walls of the city, and for the house that I shall occupy. And the king granted me what I asked, for the good hand of the God was upon me. Verse 9. Then I came to the governors of the province beyond the river and gave them the king's letter. Now the king had sent with me officers of the army and horsemen. But when Sandbalad, 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. This is the word of the Lord.

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Today we'll be looking at Nehemiah chapter 2, verses 1 to 10, and explore together how the rebuilding of the walls and gates in Jerusalem correspond to the need to have the walls and gates of our lives rebuilt too. Let's look to the Lord in prayer. Father, we pray even as we come before uh you this morning, Lord, and uh open, we pray that you open your word to us, that you help us to be able to make uh relevant applications to our lives, Lord, your truth. And Lord, always remind us of the grace we have in you, the grace that flows on our behalf each time we turn to Jesus. And may we draw closer to you even as uh we hear your word being preached. In the name of Jesus we pray. Amen. We begin last week in the first chapter of Nehemiah by Pastor Weihi, as he shared about how Nehemiah received a personal report that the remnant who had returned to Jerusalem, who had survived the exile, are in great trouble and shame. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, its gates are destroyed by fire. That's what Nehemiah chapter 1, verse 3 says. So as soon as Nehemiah heard those words, he sat down and mourned for days and continued in fasting and prayer before God. Nehemiah 1 verse 4. So Nehemiah 2, the passage which we'll look at today, begins four months after he had received the news that the wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its gates destroyed by fire. So he received this uh news, and four months later, um he makes a response to the king. But just to give us a bit of the context of what's going on, um, why was the wall left unfinished, the gates broken down? It was because during the time of King Atazexus, the work of the house of the Lord in Jerusalem stopped. If you recall many weeks ago when we were looking at the book of Ashrah, chapter 4, we see that the work of the rebuilding of the temple was stopped because the king made a decree and searched and found Jerusalem to be a city who had risen against kings, and that their rebellion and uh sedition has been made in it. Eshra chapter 4 verse 19. So when the copy of this letter, uh the letter from King Atarzexus, was read before uh Rehum and Shem Shai and their associates, what happened was they went in haste to the Jews at Jerusalem and with brute physical force and power stopped the rebuilding of the house of God in Jerusalem. So if you refer and turn your Bibles to Ezra chapter 4, it kind of pains the context where now Nehemiah acts to take over. So the house, the work of the house of God ceased in Jerusalem. So around this time, this is where Nehemiah came in. He was a Jew, he was a foreigner in the Persian Empire, and he was also the cupbearer to the king. So the Persian kings were famous for their drinking parties, which were a common custom in the ancient Near East. So most naturally King Attazexus would have a cupbearer who serves him. So a cupbearer, as we heard last week, in ancient times was a trusted position. One of the responsibilities of the cupbearer was to ensure that the king was not poisoned by enemies. A king at that time could be assassinated by the sword or poisoned through his meals and drinks. So kings literally had to entrust their whole lives to personal guards and to cupbearers. Therefore, the position or the task of a cupbearer was given only to the most trusted individuals whose loyalty to the king could not be bought with bribery or broken through threats. So Nehemiah likely was a man raised for such a time as this, a good, trusted Jew, though a foreigner, he was appointed for such a crucial role as cup-bearer to the king. So he has heard about all the news of the walls and gates broken down. He has heard about the threats that the work of the building of the wall in Jerusalem was stopped in Ashra 4. So on one occasion, when wine was brought to the king, the first few verses of Nehemiah 2 records the conversation that took place, that occurred between Nehemiah and King Arthur Zaxus. So if you look at Nehemiah chapter 2, verse 1 to 3, it says, In the month of Nisan, the 20th year of King Arthur Zaxus, when wine was poured before him, I took up the wine and gave it to the king. Now I had not been sad in his presence. And the king said to me, Why is your face sad, seeing you are not sick? This is nothing but sadness of heart. Then I was very much afraid. I 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 his gates have been destroyed by fire. Before the Persian courts, everyone in the king's presence was to show a happy face, right? Even if you are going through some trouble in the presence of a king, you shouldn't look sad as if you have just lost your home or lost something uh great, uh important to you. So everyone in the king's courts, in his presence, was to show a happy face because the king was considered such a great person that no one could be unhappy in his presence. In fact, to show sadness in the king's presence was considered a terrible insult. One could even uh lose his head for daring to show sadness in the royal presence. So the conversation between uh King Arthur Zaxus and Nehemiah was it's a strange conversation because it seems that there's some favor uh that King Arthur Zaxus has towards Nehemiah. There seemed to be a relationship that that prompted King Arthur Zaxus to ask further questions, you know, rather than to denounce him and you know uh accuse him for uh being sad in his presence. In fact, the king was concerned for Nehemiah and made a threefold inquiry. He said, uh, why is your face set? Literally, in the Hebrew, it reads like this, Why is your face so bad? Why is your face so bad? Why do you look so bad in my presence? Seeing you are not sick, you know, you you don't look sick to me, you're not coughing or sneezing. Uh so he concluded that this is nothing but sadness of the heart. So Nehemiah's sadness and distress was due, as we heard last week, was due to the burden, the burden he carries for his own people. As explained earlier, the Jews had tried to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem under the same king, King Athaseus, but he has stopped the work. In Ezra chapter 4, verse 17 to 23. So the glory of a city in the ancient times included its walls and its gates. The walls of a city provided protection and displayed its strength. Cities in ancient times built thick walls that could not be easily breached. The gates, on the other hand, controls who gets into a city and who gets out. While walls establish protection and separate a city from potential dangers, gates allow for transactions, uh business making between the city and its environment. A burn down gate is useless because anyone, including enemies, spies, and thieves, could easily walk in and then out with whatever loot that they have taken. Broken walls and burnt gates did not offer the people of Jerusalem any comfort of safety or protection. So we see here the bonus of Nehemiah because of two reasons. Firstly, his personal safety as well as his people were at stake as he approached the king boldly with the request, considering it was the same king in Eshra chapter 4, verse 17 to 23, King Arthur Zexus that had stopped the work previously. He was the king that uh uh gave uh a decree for the work to stop. Would he change his mind? And secondly, he appeared before the king looking sad. So perhaps when the king kind of correctly diagnosed his condition that this is nothing but sadness of heart, he became very much afraid. You know, he probably may have been trembling in the king's presence as he spoke to the king. Yet, in response to the king's question, uh the Nehemiah 2 tells us he prayed. We don't know how he prayed, but literally before the king, he couldn't have said, uh, wait a while, king, let me go find a corner to pray. He couldn't do that, but it just tells us that in response to the king's question, he prayed. Nehemiah prayed, and then he asked boldly that letters be given to him to the governors of the province beyond the river, and that they may provide him access to pass through until he comes to Judah, and a letter uh to Aseth, the kid, the keeper of the king's forest, for timber to make beans for the gates of the fortress of the temple and for the wall of the city and for the house that he will occupy. In other words, he acted boldly to ask the king. He capitalized on the opportunity to boldly ask the king for help and resources to open the way so that favor from the king may give him access to pass through uh the to make the journey to Judah and also resources. He said, Uh, give me uh access to timber to make beams and to rebuild the city. What boldness, what audacity, what uh courage that Nehemiah had before the great king of Persia. So Nehemiah 2, verse 8 to 10 then records what happened after Nehemiah left the king's presence. Almost immediately we see that Nehemiah faced opposition from Sambalad the Horanite and the governor of Samaria and Tobiah the Ammonite. So their power was threatened because of the authority that Nehemiah carried. And this will be a pattern, uh, subsequent patterns in Nehemiah that uh there is opposition. Uh once there's favor, then we see opposition comes. We saw that pattern in Ashra chapter 3, when the people had laid the foundations of the temple in Ashra for then one another opposition came. So in it happens here again. You know, after the request was granted him, the king actually uh agreed to the terms and uh released him. Then we we read that these two uh persons came into the picture, Sambalat and Tobayah. And these two persons will we will see them and hear of them again because they will appear again in the narrative or in Nahimaya as people who upset uh the system because they were unhappy. They were challenged in their authority and they were not happy that they were challenged. So as we uh reflect on the book of Ashra and Nehemiah, it reminds us that when we do God's work, uh when we set out to focus on following God and obeying Him. Uh, scripture tells us that we will face opposition, right? So, but as we move forward, God will always open the way for us. As we heard and we have seen time and time again through the testimonies of all our lives here, you know, when we face opposition, we pray God comes true for us, right? But our Christian life is live in the midst of the stresses and strains of what we go through. But God is with us. Um it's like an old hymn many years ago, many decades ago, that we used to sing uh in shady green pastures, uh so sweet, God leads his children along through fire, through the sword. Uh God will lead his children along. And eventually, of course, he will bring them home. He'll bring us all home. So I'd like to move uh uh to some of the implications for us from Nehemiah 2 today. It's uh just a very short narrative of how uh Nehemiah was allowed, uh commissioned by uh King Arthur Zexus to rebuild the walls, and then opposition came. I'd like to explore with us some implications for us today. You know, in the biological world, cells in the body uh have a protective wall which engages with the surroundings through a semi-permeable membrane that regulates what goes in and what comes out. How many of us are biochemists or chemistry students? I I'm not, but how many? So I think we are well aware of that. Uh that, you know, uh uh so this semi-permeable membrane regulates what goes in and comes out. Without the cell wall and the membrane, the cell would quickly die. Life would not be possible. So I'd like to suggest to us that the burn gates and broken walls could well represent our lives to certain degrees, to varying degrees, in varying degrees, in desperate need of repair. Are there broken walls in our lives that compromise safety and protection? Do we watch our gates? What I mean is what we allow inside our hearts and our mind. The walls and gates are markers and boundaries that God has placed in our lives, without which we become exposed and defenseless. What are some markers and boundaries? So as I draw an application today, I'm moving from the text to identify three possible markers and boundaries that God has set in his wisdom. So in God's divine wisdom, he has said this is the way to lie, but once we transgress this boundary, then we are opening up ourselves to all kinds of problems and issues. So the first boundary uh is given in Genesis 2, verse 16 to 17. Right at the beginning of creation, the second chapter, the first boundary, the very first instruction that boundary that God set for Adam and Eve is this. He said, You shall not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Everything you may eat in the garden. The tree of life is there, life for all its fullness, but not the tree of knowledge of good and evil. We see that very clearly in Genesis 2, 16 to 17, the Lord commanded the man, Adam, saying, You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat. For in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. So why is this needed? Why did God uh issue such a boundary marker in the first man and woman? It's because God set the notion that man will always be man and God should always be God. You know, man cannot strive to try to be like God and take God's place, God's throne in their lives. Because men and women, humankind were created in God's image. So we are meant to reflect and mirror God, not mirror our own selves, not be a God in our own making. So it's the principle is very simple. God wanted man to just be man and God, so that he can be God over our lives. But the consequences of eating this, we see it played out in Genesis 3, verse 5, and 3 verse 22 at the end of chapter 3. So Genesis 3, verse 5, uh this is the serpent speaking, the devil. He says, For God knows when you eat of it, your eyes will be open, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. So the temptation for the first man and woman, what That they can be like God. They do not want to stay as men, uh being men, but they wanted an elevated status, they wanted to be like God. They thought, wow, this is quite a cool thing, you know, that well, I can adopt some godly traits and perhaps live life apart from God and make my own decisions and be a happier person. Why do we need God over our lives? Right? And then the judgment came in the end of Genesis 3.22. The Lord God said, Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now lest he reached out his hand and take also of the tree of life and live forever. So that began the whole uh story of God's redemptive action eventually to save us. But this is a root sin. It goes beyond just disobedience to God, but it goes uh right in the heart of the fundamental assertion of living our lives on our own terms apart from God. So the tree of life versus the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the tree of life represents life in all its fullness with God. Not that uh having the knowledge of God will uh God will not give us um bring us to the point where we need to grow in further knowledge, but rather it's just the tree of life and tree of knowledge of God, it just represents two different ways of living our life, whether life in all its fullness with God or a life live on our own terms. Let me repeat again because this is important. Is it a life live in its fullness with God, as God intended, mirroring his image, or is it a life live on our own terms? So the temptation to eat from the knowledge of good and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is really to live our lives apart from God, to live our lives on our own terms. So, created by God and made for communion with God, men's reach for autonomy, for freedom, the world would say freedom now, to be like God, to make decisions on their own, apart from God, begins his or her downfall. So I'll come to that again. Let me just move on to the second boundary. The second boundary is this uh God is very clear that we only have one master. Serve only one master. And Matthew 6, 24 brings it out clearly. Jesus, his his very words, he says, No one, none of us, no one can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. Older translations have uh mammoth rather than money. Right? Why is it needed? Because it's very clear we cannot have two masters. Either we serve God or we serve money or wealth. Right? So Jesus clarifies this in the verses preceding Matthew 6.24 that he says, where our treasure is, there our heart will be also. Are we storing up treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, or are we laying up treasures in heaven? Is our treasure accumulating wealth for ourselves? Uh it's a big thing uh in society today, or is it a fundamental orientation heavenward? So to serve money or wealth or memo means all our lives, all our minds, we are just looking at how we can create more wealth for ourselves. Our fundamental orientation to life is wealth making for our own benefit, right? So so Jesus is clear, you cannot serve God and serve your pursuit for wealth. It's either you pursue wealth wholly and look and be desirous of that, or you pursue God and his purposes. You use wealth, you use the resources uh to serve his purpose in life. So, what is the consequence of serving money? I think uh we don't have time to read that, but there's a parable of the rich fool in Luke 12, 13 to 21 that kind of uh it's a warning that uh of this uh rich fool where uh a rich man had land and he produced and the land produced plentifully and thought to himself, what should I do? I have nowhere to store my crops. I will tear down my barns and grow bigger ones. I will store all my grain and my goods. And I say to my soul, your fundamental orientation of life is three things eat, drink, be merry, right? Go for more holidays all the time, you know. Be merry, enjoy your life. Spend what you can. After all, you only have one life. Eat, drink, and be merry. Worship yourself, enjoy life. Use and consume resources for your own benefit. But God said to him, full, strong word that he says, This night your soul is required of you and the things you have prepared, whose will they be? So it's the one who stores up, lays up treasure for himself and is not rich towards God. So as Christians, uh we are all called to pursue God, right? And we all know that we all need a certain degree of wealth, but we can only use wealth uh in a godly way, you know, and use it as a means for to serve God's purposes in our lives. But if our fundamental orientation is towards wealth for our own benefit and accumulation, which happens everywhere, right, in the business world, in the marketplace, it's profit making, it is doing all we can to secure benefits for ourselves. So the fundamental orientation is wrong because it's towards self rather than God. Because God knows that if we keep pursuing wealth to the end, uh we may lose our health, we may you may lose our family, right? And what can we do with all the wealth if we don't have health, we don't have family, we don't have God, right? So the third boundary that uh which is the last boundary I like to share is about the call that God tells us to take flight, to flee from sexual immorality. 1 Corinthians 6.18 says, flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. So the verb flee in in Greek is literally an imperative command. It means take flight, run away. You know, like how Joseph, when he was being tempted by Potipha, you know, he shouldn't, he should have got his cloak along and he ran. But he left his cloak behind, but he did the right thing, he ran away, even though he ended up being accused. But there's a picture of what it means too. When he was seduced by Potiphar's wife, he flee, he ran away, right? So flee. Paul says flee from sexual immorality because every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. During the time of Paul, the believers in Corinth had a dualistic understanding of the body's soul, and largely influenced by Platonic thought during that time, which I think has influenced to us today, even among some schools of thought. So, according to a Platonic worldview, that what I do with the body does not affect my soul. Right? So I can fornicate, I can be an adulterer, I can, you know, have multiple sex partners. It's just my body, what? Because at the end of the day, body gone, my soul will go up to heaven. Right? So that kind of understanding was penetrating the church. Can you imagine how damaging it is, you know, where we say that our body is just uh has no correlation to our spiritual, our soul. Right? So Paul had to remind them your body is great importance to God. Uh our body, 1 Corinthians 6 verse 13, Paul says, it's not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord. The Lord for the body. God inhabits our bodies through his Holy Spirit in us. You know, so when we sin, whether through fornication or adultery, uh, we sin against our own body and we defile the temple of God, which lives, the Holy Spirit who lives within us. So, what what is the consequence of sexual immorality? I think Proverbs has many sound advice, uh, and and they have it talks a lot about how we deal with uh the seducer, and uh Proverbs 6, 27 to 33 actually speaks of how you know whatever we do in life, there's always uh consequences. So, therefore, um can a man carry fire next to his chest and his clothes not be burned? I mean, literally, of course he'll be burned, right? Or can one walk on hot coals and his feet not be scorched? So is he who goes into his neighbor's wife, none who touches her will go unpunished. People do not despise a thief if he steals to satisfy to satisfy his appetite when he's hungry, but if he is caught, he will pay sevenfold. He will give all the goods of his house. He who commits adultery lacks sense, he who does it destroys himself. He will get wounds and dishonor and his disgrace will not be wiped away. Strong words, right? In other words, whenever we engage in uh sexual immorality, uh whether it's uh fornication uh or adultery, there's always consequences that will affect us. It almost is almost it almost comes with it, right? In other words, this is what Proverbs is saying. There's always consequences to sexual sins, and it will affect us, it will affect our spouse, it will affect uh our relationships within our family, and so on. So, is there a term to describe the characteristics of a person who lives life on his own terms, apart from God, eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, who accumulates wealth and money for himself, and who gives in freely to sexual pleasure, whether through fornication or adultery. There's a word in one word that kind of describes this kind of person. And the Bible calls such a person an idolater, an idolater. So an idolater is someone who lives without the presence of God in his or her life, that chooses to live life on his or her own terms, that chooses to turn inward to himself or herself, and therefore all kinds of wealth accumulation focuses on his or her own interests. He gives free freedom in terms of his or her sexual exploits. There's nothing too difficult that we can't explore as long as it brings brings pleasure. There's no business transaction that is too difficult as long as I get money into my account. So it's not that God wants us to reject ourselves or lose our personhood. It's not that God doesn't want us to make any decisions. Uh it's not that after this, all of us is going, we are all going to the closet and say, uh, dear God, should I eat today? Will you help me make that decision? He's not saying that. It's not that God desires us not to make our own decisions. Or that money, wealth, or even sex are inherently bad. They are all part of God's creation. Our very being ourself, resources such as money or wealth, or even sex, which God intended for pleasure within the confines of marriage. And I feel I have to make this, say this word, and it may appear strong, but I think it is needed. And my key point today is this if our hearts, if our hearts are not aligned to Jesus, if our hearts are not aligned to Jesus, we can be coming to church and yet walking towards hell. There's no guarantee that just because we are in church means we are aligned with Jesus. So we see here the swift bonus of Nehemiah is uh instruction for us to initiate the repair works despite opposition. Right? So immediately he capitalized on the opportunity. He spoke to the King Bowley for some action plans, right? Uh give me this, give me letters, give me uh uh access to timber supply. So he he straightaway worked to deal with uh the rebuilding of the walls. So despite the severe judgment, when we cross the boundary set by God, it is not all doom and gloom. And I and I know that every sermon that a pastor preached shouldn't end in doom and gloom. Because it's not God's desire for all of us to end the service with drooped shoulders and end up condemning ourselves. That's not the that's not God's desire. Because in scripture it's always, you know, Hebrews tells us consider the severity of God and also his grace, right? So the severity of God is his judgment against an idolatrous person who turns, curls inwards to himself or herself and turns away from a life under God. So the end, the good news for us is it's not condemnation and hopelessness. Like Nahemiah, we must have the swift bonus to come before God in Christ to start the repair works to our burnt gates and broken walls, so that healing and restoration will come. So I'd like to end by sharing uh a verse from Hebrews 4, verse 15, and just to encourage us to come before God, because all of us, and I believe, I don't I don't think it's a majority of us would call ourselves an idolater today, but I believe, including myself, to varying degrees, all of us are affected in one sense by one of the three things I mentioned. We may be struggling to give God full control and to surrender our life on his terms fully. So we struggle with grabble. We may uh struggle with sexual sins, we may struggle with sexual addictions, uh, but there's a fight for it, you know. We want to get out of it. There may be a struggle, maybe you're hoarder, you accumulate things, you you you track the stock market every every few minutes, and hope you're not doing that now, but maybe you're just obsessed with wealth, accumulation, right? And you don't know how to get out of it. Right, so Hebrews 4.15 is a comforting word to end, and I think it's a strong word to end because uh in Hebrews 4.15, uh uh the author of Hebrew says, For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. So this is a high priest, Jesus Himself, who can identify and sympathize with our weaknesses. So the highlighted words in green is actually a double negation. In in Greek, it is do not, is an opposition who is unable. A double negation indicating the opposite is true. We have a high priest who is fully able to sympathize with our weaknesses, who, like living as a man, he was tempted in every respect as we are. And we can't imagine what that is like. How can a sinless God be tempted? But scripture tells us that is what he went through while he was on earth. He was tempted. God was tempted like we are. You know, uh I won't speculate further whether he's maybe had he was drawn to wealth or you know, uh other comms. I mean, that would be a bit too speculative, but all we can say is he was tempted too, with human weakness. And yet, precisely because of that, he's able to sympathize with us. And no other religion, I believe, no other faith talks about a God who comes and who's able to sympathize with our weakness and our sin. So this is where we need to come because we need to come before a faithful high priest, before Jesus Himself, who is able to help us.

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We pray that you've been ministered to by the Word of God today. If you'd like to know more about Eastern Christian Church, please visit our website at ycanglican.com. Have a blessed day.