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"God Knows How" Nehemiah 2:11-20

by Clancy Nixon

October 29, 2006

Church of the Holy Spirit

Ashburn, Virginia

www.HolySpiritAnglican.org.

It is easy to get discouraged when events are not going your way. [hand up] Do

any of you have hope for the Redskins' season at this late date? I read that there is a

mathematical possibility that our boys in burgundy could land in the playoffs, but it looks

pretty bleak. Coach Joe Gibbs has his work cut out for him motivating his team for the

rest of the season. There's always next year.

It's easy to be discouraged when we can't see how our dreams could ever be

fulfilled. God can give you a vision to do something, but after a while, you can wonder if

it is ever going to come to pass. That is true for us individually and corporately. Some

people feel a call to be married, or to have children. Yet perhaps there is no knight in

shining armor on your horizon; or having children is something that is easy only for other

people to do. It can be discouraging. You may wonder how you will ever be able to

afford your dream of a single family home in this area, since you are not buying lotto

tickets! Some of you are wondering if your relationship with your wife or husband will

ever improve, or if your child will ever grow up. Teenagers, you may wonder how it

could ever come to pass that you can get into the college of your choice; or how you

could ever afford your own car anytime soon.

Here is a corporate example. We have been looking and praying for six years for a

permanent site for our church. Looking back, we see God's hand of blessing and

protection in preventing our success in obtaining land in the early years while we were

still in the Episcopal Church. We might have paid good money for land that we would

have had to relinquish or buy again, in effect paying double, in order to leave the

Episcopal Church early this year. So now we are free to buy land without that cloud over

us. Even so, we are not released from waiting on God's timing. Just this week, I

telephoned the Van Metre Company to tell them that we were not going to bid on a piece

of land you can walk to from here, across from the Harris Teeter off exit 6. In the

natural, that land looked really attractive and cheap. But as the land team and our

intercessors prayed over it, we sensed that that parcel was not for us. I sensed God say, "I

have something so much better for you; just you wait and see what I am going to do."

While it was painful to let that land go, I am excited at what God is going to do! I don't

know how, but I believe that God will hand us the land we need. It is easy to miss God's

best when you try to make things happen rather than relying on God to do things in his

time.

Don't be discouraged by what has not happened yet; be encouraged by what God

will do! Now listen, here is the core of my message: God knows how. Say it with me:

"God knows how." Not, "Only God knows how," as in, "Ain't gonna happen;" but God

knows how! God knows how he intends to give us a permanent home. We can know

what God wants to do, and not have a clue how he will do it. We do have our part to

play. We are to prepare as best we can, and do the work he calls us to do, given the light

we have. That means we are to continue to pray for land, look for it, and to give money to

the building fund so we are ready to move when God opens the door. Then we trust that

God will find a way.

That is what Nehemiah discovered after God gave him the vision to rebuild the

walls of Jerusalem in 445 B.C. In his book Visioneering. Andy Stanley says that

Nehemiah learned what God called him to do, but he had no clue at first how he could

accomplish it. The "what" always precedes the "how!" Friends, we worship the God of

how! You will always know in your heart what God has put there before you will know

how he intends to bring it about. After his vision on the Damascus Road, the Apostle Paul

tarried thirteen years in Arabia before he was released to begin his great missionary work.

"God calls us to plan. But God's how often comes independently from our planning. But

it is not independently from our faithfulness in obeying what God calls us to do."

Nehemiah knew what his mandate was, but he waited to tell about it. Turn up

Nehemiah Chapter 2, p. 473 in your blue pew Bibles. In verse 11, Nehemiah tells us that

he "went to Jerusalem." His arrival with an armed guard and cartloads of lumber must

have caused a stir in town. Verse 12: "I had not told anyone what God had put in my

heart to do for Jerusalem." He waited three days before saying anything. With all that

lumber, people might have guessed what he was about! He chooses his moment to show

his hand, in verse 16. He waited to tell others his plans because he was not yet done with

his investigation! Just as he did not rush to get out of Susa after he received a burden

from God to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, neither did he rush to tell people what he was

about until he saw the right time for that. Instead, verse 12, he set out on horseback at

night with a few men to investigate and evaluate what needed to be done to shore up the

walls.

Nehemiah twice speaks of "examining the walls," in both verses 13 and 15. The

Hebrew word for examining means "to look into very carefully." It's a medical word for

probing a wound to see the extent of the damage. (Chuck Swindoll, Hand Me a Brick)

This probing can be painful, but it is fully necessary. Many alcoholics and others who

have admitted deep needs have learned this. The fourth step in the twelve step program is

to do a searching and fearless moral inventory of our own lives.

In this passage from Nehemiah 2, we notice in verse 14 that Nehemiah wasn't

able on horseback to ride around all the rubble that had fallen from the wall down the

slopes of the Kidron Valley by the Fountain Gate at the south end of Mt. Zion. So he

dismounts and walks on foot. He later decides that all that rubble is too much to move

and the low ground is harder to defend, so he chooses a smaller footprint for his new wall

than the old one had, closer to the top of the hill. There is a lesson for us here in

Loudoun. When our walls have been breached, and we investigate closely, God may

well reveal to us that we need a smaller footprint for our new walls. It is so easy to get

overextended when we are in a rebuilding phase. Trust that God will enlarge our territory

in due time.

In verse 17, Nehemiah reviews his findings: We are in trouble and disgrace; there

are ruins and burnt gates. That is the down side; the up side is in verse 18: "The gracious

hand of God is upon me," and the only after saying that, he says that king has blessed this

work. This is the right order his mandate, his call is first from God, not from King

Artaxerxes. Only then does he ask his companions, "Come, let us rebuild the wall," and

they agree. Notice in Verse 20, even to his enemies, who question whether he is

rebelling against the King, Nehemiah mentions first his authority from God. He

doubtless also showed them his official letters from the King, but that is not in the text

here. The point Nehemiah is making is that people and circumstances must bow before

the mandate of God. We can trust Him. As long as we are confident about what God has

called us to, we do not need to worry about the how. Trust God for the how.

Visions can die between the what and the how. Understandably so. When how

seems out of sight, it is tempting to put what out of mind. I have done this. I have a

vision to see all my relatives come to the joy of the Lordship of Christ, and we are all

gathered around the banquet table in Heaven. There are seasons when I have neglected to

pray for the salvation of my two sisters, who are both far from God. I confess that it is

easier for me to have faith for miracles of healing than it is for me to have faith for my

sisters' salvation. After all, I've seen many miracles of healing! When I do neglect this

important work of praying for my sisters, it is usually because it is hard for me to imagine

how God could bring them to believe the gospel. I know their mindsets too well. I've

been praying for them off and on for 25 years, and in the natural, I see no discernable

progress towards the Lordship of Christ in their lives. Let me ask you this: When you

don't see any progress in something, doesn't become easier to lower your sights, to

jettison your vision, to shoot for a target that you have some hope of hitting? When I get

discouraged about the fulfillment of this vision, my problem is that I am looking at the

people, not at God; at the mountain, not the mountain mover. He can orchestrate any

circumstances in my sister's lives to bring them to Himself. God knows how!

How is never a problem for God. It is usually a big problem for us. How is

God's specialty. Nothing is too difficult for God. Can you think of a Bible story in which

the responsibility of figuring out how a divine vision would be fulfilled fell to the man or

woman to whom God gave the vision? Did Moses have to come up with a way to get the

Israelites out of Egypt? Across the Red Sea? When Jesus told the Apostles to feed the

five thousand, were they responsible for figuring out how to make five loaves and two

fish go that far? No. In every situation, God orchestrated events in such as way that those

involved recognized the thumbprint of God.

How is God's specialty.

God knows how to reach your sister or brother or child or husband or wife with

his truth. He can use anyone, even a donkey to speak to them.

God knows how to protect your children from the influence of the world.

Sometimes, they will make mistakes that will enable them to see how bad it really is.

God knows how to find a husband for you, or a child. God will lead you to the

right places at the right time to grow your family.

God knows how to get you into the college of your choice. You never know what

a letter of recommendation might do for you, or the whim of an admissions officer. God

knows how.

God knows how to come up with the money for you to tithe, to pay for college, to

go on that mission trip.

God knows how to heal your marriage, or even to put your broken marriage back

together.

Now that we are reminded that God knows how, how do we apply that

knowledge in our lives? How does this look around the dinner table? Many of us could

benefit from a similarly thorough investigation of the walls around our lives. For some of

us, if we were honest, we'd admit that the walls around our spiritual lives, our relational

lives or our financial lives have been breached, or maybe they are in ruins. Now that

would be hard to admit to anyone, much less to ourselves. If the walls of protection in

your life have been breached, you must face up to that reality so you can get about

rebuilding. It is no use building when you are unprotected.

Let's do what Nehemiah did. First, I'd like to ask you this week to begin with a

private, searching moral inventory of your life. Have your walls been breached? How

about the walls around your family's life? The walls in the church? Is there a gap in

your protection that is keeping you from moving forward in to God's plan for you?

Friends, take whatever time you need to do this. Second, I ask you to involve

others in your inventory. Ask your husband or wife, your parents or your children, or

your accountability partner where your walls may have developed cracks. If necessary,

take a weekend away, and look at your life. We need to do this corporately as a church

as well, and I am interested in your input of how we can better understand the cracks in

our walls.

Third, trust God to show you how in his time. As we do this, we will move out of

discouragement over what has not happened yet, and into encouragement over what God

intends to do. Be encouraged!

Imagine how God could work in each of us individually as we each humbly

confessed our shortcomings to God, and opened ourselves to God's plan for our personal

reconstruction. Imagine how our families might operate if we invited input from each

other on the broken walls in our lives, and took all that to God. Imagine how our church

might operate if we pulled together and shared our dreams and visions for what God

wants to do here.

Let us start rebuilding. Amen.