January 12 2025 // Nehemiah 2: 1-8
APPLICATION: Read & watch/listen to Nehemiah 2:1-8
Intro: Ezra 4; Nehemiah 1
The Risk vs. 1-2
The Right Timing
A Different Approach
Sadness
Fear
Respect
The Requestvs. 3-5
Shares His Burden
Continues in Prayer
Asks for Permission
The Result vs. 6-8
Details:
The Queen
The Quest
The Qualification
Conclusion:
Nehemiah Prayed to God
Nehemiah Planned with God
Nehemiah Participated with God
Life Application:
Nehemiah 2, we see Nehemiah take a significant risk by approaching the king with a bold request. Are you a risk taker? Do you step out boldly, or do you seek prayerful guidance before acting? As we read Nehemiah 2, we witness the power of prayer, preparation, and faith in God’s guidance. Nehemiah’s story shows us that risk, when combined with prayer and purpose, can lead to great things—even in the face of opposition. Reflect on your own journey and how you can be bold in following God’s direction, just as Nehemiah was.
Digging Deeper;
The Cupbearer -
“I took the wine and gave it to the king”: The last verse of Nehemiah 1 told us that Nehemiah was the king’s cupbearer – a significant position in any ancient royal court. The cupbearer was a personal bodyguard to the king, being the one who tasted wine and food before the king did – making certain no one could poison the king.
i. “The cupbearer was a high official in the royal household, whose basic duty of choosing and tasting the wine to demonstrate that it was not poisoned, and of presenting it to the king, gave him frequent access to the king’s presence and made him potentially a man of influence.” (Kidner)
ii. The cupbearer had to be a man of faithful and impressive character in whom the king could place a tremendous amount of trust. If the cupbearer could be turned against the king, assassination would be easy.
iii. The cupbearer was also a servant to the king; he was responsible for choosing most of the foods and wines the king and the court would enjoy.
iv. The cupbearer was also a trusted advisor to the king; since he was constantly in the king’s presence, and greatly trusted, and a man of character, it was natural the cupbearer would often be asked his opinion on different matters coming before the king.
The Date:
i. Why was it so important for God to tell us the date that these things happened? First, to show that Nehemiah prayed and waited for four months with the kind of heart described previously in Nehemiah 1. During those four months, Nehemiah’s prayer was likely “LORD, either take this burden from my heart or show me how to be the man to answer this burden.”
ii. The date is also important because it establishes the date given to restore Jerusalem and its walls. Daniel 9:25 says that exactly 173,880 days from this day – which was March 14, 445 B.C. – Messiah the prince would be presented to Israel. Sir Robert Anderson, the eminent British astronomer and mathematician, makes a strong case that Jesus fulfilled this prophecy exactly, to the day, entering Jerusalem on April 6, 32 A.D., precisely 173,880 days from Nehemiah 2:1.
The Sadness:
i. Many people are troubled by this dilemma. No one wants to be a whiner, boring others with our problems when the other person may only be asking out of common courtesy. On the other hand, we know the tremendous value there can be in sharing our concerns with someone else who can pray with us and perhaps share some wisdom from the Bible.
ii. One way to live in this kind of honesty is to seek out others whom we know and trust and share with them our struggles and needs. But if we don’t know a person well enough to feel confident sharing our personal life, we can still ask them to pray for us in general. They don’t need to know all the details to pray because God knows all the details. Also, when someone asks if we are troubled, we can be open to the idea that this person is a special gift to us at this time.
iii. However, we must avoid two traps. First, we must avoid “shopping” for advice – asking many people, telling all of them our problems until we find the advice we want. Second, we must be especially careful of talking to others in a way that puts the problem on other people – people who aren’t there to give their side of the story. Nehemiah didn’t say to the king, “I’m sad because those incompetents in Jerusalem have had 100 years to build the walls and they haven’t done anything. They are a bunch of hardened, uncaring, worthless people.” He described the problem without blaming anyone else. When we fail to do this, there’s a word for it: gossip.
iv. When we are the person whom others ask for prayer or whom others come to for help, it is helpful to guard against the temptation to know every detail of the problem. Of course, it is interesting to hear the details of the problems others have, but we do not need to know all the fine points. Our prayer is still valuable if we don’t know all the details. We are not less able to lead them to Jesus for His loving care. Some things need to be talked out more than others, but sometimes we want the other person to talk it out more for us than for them.
Questions to Consider:
1. What can we learn from Nehemiah's reaction to the king's questioning about his sadness?
2. How does Nehemiah's prayer before asking the king for help reflect his dependence on God?
3. How can Nehemiah's courage to ask the king for help apply to challenges we face in today's world?
Prayer:
Intro: Ezra 4; Nehemiah 1
The Risk vs. 1-2
The Right Timing
A Different Approach
Sadness
Fear
Respect
The Requestvs. 3-5
Shares His Burden
Continues in Prayer
Asks for Permission
The Result vs. 6-8
Details:
The Queen
The Quest
The Qualification
Conclusion:
Nehemiah Prayed to God
Nehemiah Planned with God
Nehemiah Participated with God
Life Application:
Nehemiah 2, we see Nehemiah take a significant risk by approaching the king with a bold request. Are you a risk taker? Do you step out boldly, or do you seek prayerful guidance before acting? As we read Nehemiah 2, we witness the power of prayer, preparation, and faith in God’s guidance. Nehemiah’s story shows us that risk, when combined with prayer and purpose, can lead to great things—even in the face of opposition. Reflect on your own journey and how you can be bold in following God’s direction, just as Nehemiah was.
Digging Deeper;
The Cupbearer -
“I took the wine and gave it to the king”: The last verse of Nehemiah 1 told us that Nehemiah was the king’s cupbearer – a significant position in any ancient royal court. The cupbearer was a personal bodyguard to the king, being the one who tasted wine and food before the king did – making certain no one could poison the king.
i. “The cupbearer was a high official in the royal household, whose basic duty of choosing and tasting the wine to demonstrate that it was not poisoned, and of presenting it to the king, gave him frequent access to the king’s presence and made him potentially a man of influence.” (Kidner)
ii. The cupbearer had to be a man of faithful and impressive character in whom the king could place a tremendous amount of trust. If the cupbearer could be turned against the king, assassination would be easy.
iii. The cupbearer was also a servant to the king; he was responsible for choosing most of the foods and wines the king and the court would enjoy.
iv. The cupbearer was also a trusted advisor to the king; since he was constantly in the king’s presence, and greatly trusted, and a man of character, it was natural the cupbearer would often be asked his opinion on different matters coming before the king.
The Date:
i. Why was it so important for God to tell us the date that these things happened? First, to show that Nehemiah prayed and waited for four months with the kind of heart described previously in Nehemiah 1. During those four months, Nehemiah’s prayer was likely “LORD, either take this burden from my heart or show me how to be the man to answer this burden.”
ii. The date is also important because it establishes the date given to restore Jerusalem and its walls. Daniel 9:25 says that exactly 173,880 days from this day – which was March 14, 445 B.C. – Messiah the prince would be presented to Israel. Sir Robert Anderson, the eminent British astronomer and mathematician, makes a strong case that Jesus fulfilled this prophecy exactly, to the day, entering Jerusalem on April 6, 32 A.D., precisely 173,880 days from Nehemiah 2:1.
The Sadness:
i. Many people are troubled by this dilemma. No one wants to be a whiner, boring others with our problems when the other person may only be asking out of common courtesy. On the other hand, we know the tremendous value there can be in sharing our concerns with someone else who can pray with us and perhaps share some wisdom from the Bible.
ii. One way to live in this kind of honesty is to seek out others whom we know and trust and share with them our struggles and needs. But if we don’t know a person well enough to feel confident sharing our personal life, we can still ask them to pray for us in general. They don’t need to know all the details to pray because God knows all the details. Also, when someone asks if we are troubled, we can be open to the idea that this person is a special gift to us at this time.
iii. However, we must avoid two traps. First, we must avoid “shopping” for advice – asking many people, telling all of them our problems until we find the advice we want. Second, we must be especially careful of talking to others in a way that puts the problem on other people – people who aren’t there to give their side of the story. Nehemiah didn’t say to the king, “I’m sad because those incompetents in Jerusalem have had 100 years to build the walls and they haven’t done anything. They are a bunch of hardened, uncaring, worthless people.” He described the problem without blaming anyone else. When we fail to do this, there’s a word for it: gossip.
iv. When we are the person whom others ask for prayer or whom others come to for help, it is helpful to guard against the temptation to know every detail of the problem. Of course, it is interesting to hear the details of the problems others have, but we do not need to know all the fine points. Our prayer is still valuable if we don’t know all the details. We are not less able to lead them to Jesus for His loving care. Some things need to be talked out more than others, but sometimes we want the other person to talk it out more for us than for them.
Questions to Consider:
1. What can we learn from Nehemiah's reaction to the king's questioning about his sadness?
2. How does Nehemiah's prayer before asking the king for help reflect his dependence on God?
3. How can Nehemiah's courage to ask the king for help apply to challenges we face in today's world?
Prayer: