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USING THE BEST OF CIRCUMSTANCES - by Rev Gilbert Wong
Texts: Nehemiah 2:1-10
18 May 2008

Artaxerxes Sends Nehemiah to Jerusalem

1 In the month of Nisan in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was brought for him, I took the wine and gave it to the king. I had not been sad in his presence before; 2 so the king asked me, "Why does your face look so sad when you are not ill? This can be nothing but sadness of heart."
I was very much afraid, 3 but I said to the king, "May the king live forever! Why should my face not look sad when the city where my fathers are buried lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?"
4 The king said to me, "What is it you want?"
Then I prayed to the God of heaven, 5 and I answered the king, "If it pleases the king and if your servant has found favour in his sight, let him send me to the city in Judah where my fathers are buried so that I can rebuild it."

6 Then the king, with the queen sitting beside him, asked me, "How long will your journey take, and when will you get back?" It pleased the king to send me; so I set a time.

7 I also said to him, "If it pleases the king, may I have letters to the governors of Trans-Euphrates, so that they will provide me safe-conduct until I arrive in Judah? 8 And may I have a letter to Asaph, keeper of the king's forest, so he will give me timber to make beams for the gates of the citadel by the temple and for the city wall and for the residence I will occupy?" And because the gracious hand of my God was upon me, the king granted my requests. 9 So I went to the governors of Trans-Euphrates and gave them the king's letters. The king had also sent army officers and cavalry with me.

10 When Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official heard about this, they were very much disturbed that someone had come to promote the welfare of the Israelites.

Introduction

Life itself throws at us with many surprises! Each day is never the same as the previous or the day after. Each day has its own unique challenges. That is why for Christians the only stable reference point is the promise of Jesus Christ that he is the same yesterday, today and forever.

Each of us has some purposes in life. We have works to do, we are students, we are engineers, we are lawyers, we are doctors, we are housewives and so on the list goes. And when we believed that what we do is our mission in life and that we have a faithful God who does not change, we could then carry on in God’s strength with our life missions.

This is what we find in the life mission of Nehemiah. We can learn three lessons from him.

First, Nehemiah discovered that God had prepared him for a mission like this.

I mentioned two Sundays ago that Nehemiah did not plan to meet with his comrades. It was a coincidence that he met with some of his comrades and from them learns of the destruction of his city (1: 2).

So it was in the by and by of life that Nehemiah discovered that he was being prepared to save God’s people from utter destruction. He held the important position of cupbearer and was in physical proximity to the King of Persia. Historical evidence tells us that a cupbearer was not only the wine taster but he was the bearer of the signet ring and was chief financial officer. He was also in king’s favour (see 2: 1-10). We saw in these 10 verses of chapter 2 how the king was willing to help and also to send armies of soldier to go with him.

Nehemiah did not see and perhaps only entertained once in a while that God may have some plans for an exile chap like him. What could he have done as an exile in a foreign and with the king watching him?

But God did use Nehemiah at an opportune time. All the years of spending in exile were to prepare him for something he could never have imagined could have been possible.

I believed Nehemiah was faithful in being the cupbearer. And this is what as Christians we should learn to work faithfully as unto the Lord. We will never know how in human weakness God can use the very thing to save many lives. I pray that God will help rediscover the mission to which he has called you. You do not have to be an ordained person to do what God wants you to do. We are all called by God to fulfil our life’s mission. The question is do you think what is Christ’s mission for you.

It should be very clear that it is the Great Commission. The very career that you are in is the very ground of mission. But the Great Commission is a very general one in the sense it does not tell us how to do it in where we work. For example, how does one share the gospel with your business colleagues? How does one share with one’s parents? Of course, it seems that the easier way is not to do anything.

That is why as Christians we must learn think how we could share the gospel in the places where we work. And this is the second lesson we can learn from Nehemiah…

Secondly, Nehemiah is thinking person of how to achieve his mission.

Nehemiah knew his place in the royal court. Although he held an important position in the king’s presence, he was to be careful in the way he request for help. His life was dependent on gaining favour from the king. Just hear the way he spoke to the king (read 2: 2, 3, 5, and 7). Each time the king asked him, he was indeed afraid but he was prayerful as he handled a very tough situation – negotiating with the king (read 2: 4, 8).

To add onto Nehemiah’s vulnerability was the fact that it would have been expected of a courtier to bear the face of joy than of sadness. In Persian cravings, the courtier is sometimes portrayed with their hands shielding their mouths so as not to offend the king by breathing on him. We do not know the exact reason why this is so. But whatever the reason, one thing is certain that the facial expressions would be somewhat masked.

But the king seemed to have seen through his sad countenance. How he managed to do that we do not know. But it was serious enough to warrant a punishment of some sort! Those of you who had to work with your superiors would oftentimes have to put your best front forward and not a sad face or a depressed look.

But Nehemiah was obviously overwhelmed and only the king could help him. And because of that he thought and prayed that God would help him pull through this crisis and of course on hindsight God did!

We also need to note of the King Artaxerxes’ difficulty in granting Nehemiah’s request. Although he had managed to rule for 40 years, he did not have it easy. During his reign, he had to contend with two major revolts – one of which took 5 years to put down. The neighbouring Greek city states constantly undermined the Persian rule. Even though Nehemiah belonged to a minority group of Jews, still it could turn out to be a threat.

Thirdly, Nehemiah did his mission with the future in mind.

During the OT, Israelites were a wandering band of people who faced constant threats of being overrun by enemies. And when the walls which were the only barrier of protection from enemies’ fires were down what was there to protect the inhabitants.

Nehemiah could surely have entertained the fact he was safe and sound under the protection of the ruling monarch. Should he take risk to ask for special favour from the king and moreover the queen who was mentioned in verse 6 may not be the king’s wife. It is more likely the king’s mother

Based on the ancient understanding of the role of queens, many OT scholars had argued that queens had an unusually powerful influence in Persian court in this period and this queen was probably the king’s mother – Amestris – known to be a strong personality (see Esther 5:3).

Historically, Amestris had brutally mutilated the mother of her husband’s mistress by using trickery. So despite the king’s favour and slight hesitation and an overwhelming presence of his queen mother, Nehemiah had to do for the sake of his next generation.

Applications

We need to know our life’s mission. We know what the Great Commission but do we know how to fulfil the Great Commission in our spheres of work.

And that requires us to think. We cannot depend on other to help us think. Our situations are so different even when you are in the same kind of job. We have different personality and dynamics. But when we do of the best and appropriate way to share the gospel, then it is not likely that people would feel offended.
Lastly, do we care enough of our next generation? It is a known historical fact that some of the great Christian leaders who were very good for their season but neglected their families. We think of William Wilberforce – a great British politician who fought to his last breath but one until he managed to get the British Parliament to abolish slavery but his children did not keep the evangelical faith.

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