Sunday, June 19th, 2011: Nehemiah 1:8-11....

Nehemiah is not telling God anything that He doesn't already know...
Verse 8 refers Leviticus 26:33 & Verse 9 refers to Deut. 30:2-5

QUESTION in the final verses of Chapter 1, what two things does Nehemiah ask of God?

ANSWER: In v 11, he ask for the Lord's ear to be attentive to Nehemiah's prayer. Secondly, to give success & grant him mercy in sight of the King.

QUESTION: How does Nehemiah view himself in relation to God?

ANSWER: verse 10, Nehemiah describes himself as God's servant

QUESTION: How do you view yourself in relation to God?

I read an interesting "big picture" survey of Nehemiah this week... this writer described Nehemiah as a type of Jesus. We will see this in Nehemiah, when he gives up his royal status-filled position as cup bearer to go & rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. We discussed last week that Nehemiah means "Yahweh consoles" or "Yahweh comforts" and this is certainly what Jesus is and does for us.

In all that Nehemiah says and does in this chapter shows an attitude and actions of a man alive to God.

QUESTION: Are you alive to God? Are you one that is spiritually reborn and living by the Spirit?

We see in verse 11 that Nehemiah states, "he was the King's cup bearer"

Nehemiah in being willing to leave his position of cup bearer reveals he cared more for God's people & the restoration of God's glory than of himself.

TOUGH QUESTION: Would you be willing to leave your life, if it would restore God's glory and His people?

The church is meant to be a representation of God's glory. The question we need to ask is what has happened? Today, in many cases, the church is not much of different than the world.

Are you willing to leave the comfortable to see God restore His church? Are you willing to be a modern day Nehemiah?

All College & Career students will go in with the Young Adult class this week. We will return to Nehemiah on July 3rd.