In order to help people understand spiritual truth, Jesus often told stories, or parables. That’s because storytelling, in his day, was the most powerful means of communication available. Jesus lived in an oral society – a society in which the spoken word was all-powerful.

But if Jesus lived in our day and age, I’m sure that many of his parables would come with a visual element because we live in a visually oriented society. The power of images is what captures our attention.

So I want to begin my message today by showing you a visual parable. I believe that the images you are about to see serve as a good introduction to the spiritual truths that we want to grapple with over coming weeks.

So let’s watch these images together…

WTC PowerPoint show.

A small group of men did something incredibly evil on Sep. 11. They brought death to thousands, and created devastation on a gigantic scale. The shockwaves of what they did are still shaking our world today.

This is the inevitable outcome of evil. It creates chaos. Whenever we transgress the law of God, the consequences are costly and they ripple outward in unpredictable ways.

And just as that is true on the global level, so it is true on the personal level. In the privacy of our own lives, sin can literally wreak havoc. Our own personal sin leaves us broken and wounded. It creates consequences – consequences that are often painful and devastating – consequences that leave us feeling as though we’ve been buried under a pile of wreckage. We feel victimized, paralyzed, disabled, discouraged.

But one of the great messages of the Bible is that God is a God of grace. And his grace is not something we appreciate in the midst of our successes; it comes to us most powerfully at Ground Zero – at the very site of our failure.

Sin brings disaster and disgrace; God brings restoration and renewal. He is the Master Rebuilder, and wherever our lives are broken, God wants to help us rebuild.

There is a story in the OT that sounds this message loud and clear. It is a story about how to rebuild after failure; how to rise from the ashes through the grace of God. It is a story that begins with despair and ends with victory. It is the story of a man named Nehemiah.

Nehemiah was a rebuilder – a man who partnered with God at Ground Zero and lifted his people out of failure. He was Mayor Giuliani, Governor Pataki, and President Bush all rolled into one. But he was more than a politician; he was a preacher, and often a pastor. He rallied his people, lifted their spirits, challenged them to rise above the wreckage of failure and rebuild their broken world.

And in doing so, Nehemiah taught us a lot about how to rebuild with God. Over the next few weeks of the Fall, as we watch the workers clear away the rubble of Ground Zero in New York City, we’re going to follow Nehemiah around, and we’re going to learn what we can about spiritual rebuilding. Because all of us have failure and brokenness somewhere in our lives as the result of sin. All of us need to be rebuilders.

In order to fully understand the story of Nehemiah, we need to understand something about the times in which he lived.

586 BC – Jerusalem invaded by Babylonians; city and temple destroyed; people driven into exile. This invasion happened because God was punishing his people for their sin. For generations, they had turned their backs on him. And now they were reaping the consequences. The Jews were going to live in exile for the next two generations as strangers in a strange land.

539 BC – Babylonian Empire overthrown by Persia; King Cyrus liberated the Jews and allowed them to return home to Israel. Many thousands of them did. When they got there, they found the city of Jerusalem and the Temple in ruins. Over the next couple of decades they managed to rebuild the Temple. But somehow, the task of rebuilding the city walls was beyond them. They started to rebuild under Ezra, but they were stopped by the opposition of their enemies and by the Persian authorities. So Jerusalem was defenceless.

And so we come to the year 446 BC and Nehemiah chapter 1…

In the month of Kislev in the twentieth year, while I was in the citadel of Susa, Hanani, one of my brothers, came from Judah with some other men, and I questioned them about the Jewish remnant that survived the exile, and also about Jerusalem.

Nehemiah lived in Susa, a city in SW Iran which served as the winter capital of the Persian Empire. Nehemiah was there because he was a servant in the court of the king. But more about that later.

Nehemiah was obviously interested in what was happening in Jerusalem. Even though he lived 1200 km away (which in those days was a huge distance) his heart was in Jerusalem. He was interested in what was going on there; he was interested in God’s cause, in God’s work, and in God’s people.

So he asked about them: “How are they doing? How is their spiritual life? How is the Temple? How is the city?” And the answer he got wasn’t encouraging.

v. 3 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.”

In those days, a city without a wall was like a city in our day without a police force or a fire department. The wall provided protection and sanctuary. It provided a defence and a sense of security.

And the gates in that wall were more than just openings for going in and out. They were gathering places. The people would come to the gates to transact business; to buy and sell. The gates were set up with antechambers in them where the elders of the town would meet and deliberate and settle legal questions. Remember, it was at the gate of the town of Bethlehem that Boaz made the legal arrangements to redeem Ruth and take her as his wife.

So when Nehemiah hears that the gates of the city of Jerusalem have been burned with fire, he knows that the city is in dire straits. The community is broken. The people of God are in distress.

Look at his response…

v. 4 When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.

Nehemiah’s Concern

Nehemiah shows his concern in three ways:

1. He mourned – that’s an emotional response – his heart was broken by the plight of God’s people

2. He fasted – that’s a volitional response – life for him could not go on as normal in light of what was happening in Jerusalem

3. He prayed – that’s a spiritual response – he knew that the only answer to this problem would come before the throne of God. Nehemiah himself was helpless to intervene from 1200 km distance – all he could do was pray.

We will never learn how to be rebuilders with God unless our hearts are broken by the things which break God’s heart.

Jesus said “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted”. Jesus, in his own life and ministry, wept several times because his heart was broken by the things which break God’s heart.

What are the things which touch your heart this morning? Do you ever weep over your own sinfulness and brokenness before God? When is the last time you cried out to the Lord with a broken heart?

I believe that God cannot do anything significant in our lives until he brings us to the place where our hearts are broken – until we see reality, and see ourselves, through his eyes.

Nehemiah made God’s concern his concern. And then he prays – look at his prayer in v. 5 – 10.

Then I said: “O Lord, God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and obey his commands,

That’s worship. And we only pray rightly when we pause at the outset to reflect on God’s character.

v. 6 let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer your servant is praying before you day and night for your servants, the people of Israel.

Nehemiah didn’t pray for the people of Jerusalem just once. He was praying day and night – this burden was really on his heart. The Bible tells us to pray without ceasing and Nehemiah did just that! Now look at what he says next…

Nehemiah’s Confession

I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father’s house, 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.

He confesses before God – the sin of the people of Israel, but also his own sin and that of his family. Nehemiah knew that the reproach and the disgrace of the people of Israel was because of sin – he says as much in verses 8 and 9.

And he took personal responsibility for the situation. It would have been easy for him to say “Look the situation in Jerusalem is a shame, but it isn’t my problem. I didn’t have anything to do with it. Those people over there in Jerusalem; they’re the problem. God you’ve got to fix them.”

I think it’s interesting that shortly after the terrorist attacks on Sep. 11, one or two prominent Christian leaders in the U.S. went on television and said “This happened because of the homosexuals, and the secular humanists, and the abortionists we have here in America; they’re the ones who caused this – they’re the ones who brought down God’s judgment on our nation.”

Nehemiah didn’t do that. He didn’t self-righteously point the finger at someone else – he pointed the finger at himself. He said “I am culpable. I am a sinner. I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father’s house, have committed against you. We have acted very wickedly toward you. We have not obeyed your commands, your decrees and your laws.”

He took responsibility. And if we’re ever going to be rebuilders with God – this is where it starts – by taking responsibility for our sin and the situation that has resulted from our sin. When we kneel in submission as sinners before a holy God there is no room for pointing the finger at somebody else. There is no place for rationalizing about our circumstances or our upbringing or the sins that others have committed against us.

Confession means agreeing with God that I have sinned. That I am a sinner.

That’s what Nehemiah did. And that’s why God could use him as a rebuilder.

Finally, look at Nehemiah’s Commitment in v. 11…

O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of this your servant and to the prayer of your servants who delight in revering your name. Give your servant success today by granting him favor in the presence of this man.

(and he was referring to the king)

What was Nehemiah doing here? He was making himself available to God for the solution. He didn’t know what role he could possibly play in helping the people of Jerusalem. All he knew was that he was close to the king – he was in fact the cupbearer to the king (and more about that next week) and he had a job to do.

And he was asking for success from the Lord in terms of giving him influence with the king from his present position.

You know, sometimes we pray “God if you would only change my situation, if you could somehow change my present circumstances, then I could be much more useful to you.” That’s not what Nehemiah prayed!

Nehemiah prayed “Lord, here I am, just a cupbearer to a pagan king 1200 km away from Jerusalem. Help me to be faithful and grant me success in my present situation, and I’ll leave the results to you. I won’t try to tell you how I think you should be using me. I just want you to know I’m available. I’m yours.”

Nehemiah had a humble spirit. He understood the sovereignty of God. This is the kind of person God wants to use as a rebuilder.

Today in Lower Manhattan, there’s a lot of wreckage yet to be cleared away. Months of recovery work to be done; years of healing from that few moments of terror on Sep. 11. Some people, especially those who lost loved ones, will never fully recover from the event. Emotionally speaking, they will always walk with a limp. But there can be healing and rebuilding.

I wonder, as you look at the broken places in your life this morning – and we all have them – if you can say “God, I’m available to you. No matter what happened. No matter how bad it was, or still is. No matter how I got there to Ground Zero, I want you to know that I’m reporting for duty. I want to be a rebuilder with you.”

You look at the Scriptures closely and you will find that virtually every person in the Bible that God used in a mighty way had at some point in their life a Ground Zero: an experience of sin and failure leading to despair. The walls were down, the gates were burned, but God brought them back and rebuilt their brokenness. He can do the same for you.

Sin brings disaster and disgrace; God brings restoration and renewal.