A Dislocated Heart / Nehemiah 1:1-4
The Cost of a Holy Discontent
Welcome! If you have your Bibles, turn to Nehemiah. We are going to be in chapter one, and we’re going to look at just four verses today. We’re moving fast—all four verses, if you can believe it! We’re talking about the concept of a “holy discontent” and the first prerequisite for it.
Let me tell you, there are a lot of reasons I love our church. There are a lot of things that fire me up as a pastor, but you need to know there is nowhere else I would rather be than right here, right now, with you. Partly because you’re absolutely crazy, and I think that’s one of the things I appreciate most about you.
We started talking last week about this idea of a holy discontent. We saw snapshots in the life of Nehemiah, a man in whom God began to plant a seed. God watered that seed, birthed it, and grew it into something that eventually consumed Nehemiah’s entire life. When you start talking like that, people usually fall into two camps. There are the folks who hear it and cower, and then there are the folks who come to the well. They hear about holy discontent and they start blowing up a little bit, saying, “Are you talking to me? I’m in. I want it. I want to know God. I want to walk with God. I want to make a difference for the Lord.”
They’re tired of religion. They’re tired of checking a box. They’re tired of the fake, hypocritical nonsense that gathers on a weekly basis in places all over the country. They want to know Christ and make Him known. Those kinds of people fire me up! But you need to know: there’s a cost.
When you are crazy enough to pray that God would put something in your heart that acts like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad, don’t be surprised when He actually does it. Don’t be surprised when God wrecks you with an issue, a burden, or a passion that keeps you up at night. He’ll put something in your heart that wakes you up in the morning and makes you say, “I can’t rest. I can’t live a fulfilled life if I’m not a part of doing whatever that is.”
The Pain of a Dislocated Heart
The first issue of having a holy discontent—that sense that something is wrong in the world and you have to fix it—is having a “dislocated heart.” I’m not sure how many of you have ever dislocated something, but the word itself makes me cringe. If you’ve ever dislocated a finger, you know it’s nasty. It hurts like a booger! Even a little finger—how does something not even as big as a sausage hurt that bad? But when it’s dislocated, everything hurts. It sends pain through your whole body.
To have a dislocated heart is to live with that kind of discomfort. As we pray for a holy discontent, God is going to dislocate our hearts. He’s going to do something in us that causes pain. But be encouraged; you aren’t alone in that pain.
Moses had a dislocated heart. It caused him to stand before Pharaoh, the most powerful man in the world, and say, “Pharaoh, let all of your slave labor go.” It moved him beyond his comfort to do something that looked, frankly, a little stupid. David had a dislocated heart. As a teenager, he stood before the giant Goliath and said, “This guy is mocking the living God!” He had a dislocated heart that caused him to step out and gather five stones.
I used to wonder why he grabbed five. Was he worried he’d miss? No, Goliath had four brothers. He got one for Goliath and one for all his buddies who he knew would be coming next. That’s a dislocated heart. Elijah had one, too. He went to the top of Mount Carmel to battle 450 prophets of Baal. He put himself in harm’s way because he rejected preference and comfort for the sake of a greater calling.
If you pray for this, God will give it to you, and it might hurt. But those men never regretted one second of the pain because they knew they were right where God wanted them. The Apostle Paul had this, too. In Romans, he says something that sounds almost crazy.
Romans 9:3 (NASB)
For I could wish that I myself were accursed, [separated] from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh,
He says, “God, if you could curse me, and by doing so all my Jewish brothers and sisters would come to know Christ, I’ll take it.” That is a holy discontent. We see it again in the friends of the paralytic in Mark chapter two. They were so burdened for their friend that they climbed a roof and dug a hole through it just to get him to Jesus. That’s a dislocated heart.
Ultimately, Jesus is the model of this. Paul tells us in Philippians that Jesus didn’t consider equality with God something to be grasped or held onto for His own advantage. Instead, He laid it down, clothed Himself in humanity, and became a servant to the point of death on a cross. If anyone in history had the right to just stay put in comfort, it was Jesus. But His holy discontent for the redemptive work of man moved Him to leadership, humility, and sacrifice.
You need to know this principle: God will never do something great through us until He does something significant in us. We all want to be used by God, but God has to break your heart first. Your faith needs to become a little uncomfortable. That’s why Jesus said that unless you “hate” your father and mother, you cannot be His disciple. He isn’t telling you to despise them; He’s saying that unless Christ is the absolute priority of your life, you aren’t really a disciple. If we want to be difference-makers, God has to do a work in us first.
Why We Stay Comfortable
Let’s look at how Nehemiah develops this dislocated heart. We see the setting in verse one.
Nehemiah 1:1 (NASB)
The words of Nehemiah the son of Hacaliah. Now it happened in the month Chislev, [in] the twentieth year, while I was in Susa the capitol,
Nehemiah’s name means “Yahweh has comforted,” which is ironic given the burden he’s about to carry. This takes place in the month of Kislev (November/December) in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, around 445 BC. They are in Susa, the winter capital of the Persian Empire.
Then the story picks up: Hanani, Nehemiah’s brother, arrives from Judah. Nehemiah initiates the conversation. He asks about the Jews who had survived the exile and about the state of Jerusalem. These were the people who had returned under Zerubbabel and Ezra.
Remember, there were three returns. Zerubbabel led the first, Ezra led the second, and now God is dislocating Nehemiah’s heart to lead the third. They had been in Babylon for seventy years. Daniel had been reading the prophet Jeremiah and realized the seventy years were up.
Jeremiah 29:10 (NASB)
’For thus says the LORD, ’When seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill My good word to you, to bring you back to this place.
Daniel saw the calendar and realized it was time to go! But here is what is fascinating: when King Cyrus gave the “get out of jail free” card to the Jews, only about 40,000 returned.
Ezra 1:2-3 (NASB)
’Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, ’The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and He has appointed me to build Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. ’Whoever there is among you of all His people, may his God be with him! Let him go up to Jerusalem which is in Judah and rebuild the house of the LORD, the God of Israel; He is the God who is in Jerusalem.
Why so few? Why didn’t they all go? Let’s be practical. It had been seventy years. Life changes. What started as a miserable exile became a place where they planted gardens, built businesses, and established lives. After seven decades, if you weren’t anchored in the Word, you just became a foreign citizen. You eased into society.
This explains why Nehemiah includes a specific detail at the end of chapter one.
Nehemiah 1:11 (NASB)
‘O Lord, I beseech You, may Your ear be attentive to the prayer of Your servant and the prayer of Your servants who delight to revere Your name, and make Your servant successful today and grant him compassion before this man.’ Now I was the cupbearer to the king.
He mentions he was the cup bearer to the king. This wasn’t just a servant; it was a position of massive influence and peril. He was half Secret Service, half Chief of Staff. He tasted the king’s food and wine to ensure it wasn’t poisoned. He was the king’s closest confidant.
Nehemiah had made it. He lived in the palace, ate the best food, and provided a plush life for his family. He was 500 miles away from the chaos of Jerusalem. He could have easily said, “Man, that’s terrible for those people,” and gone back to his wine. But Nehemiah had a dislocated heart, and the report he heard wrecked him.
The Report from Jerusalem
Here is the news that changed everything for Nehemiah.
Nehemiah 1:3 (NASB)
They said to me, ‘The remnant there in the province who survived the captivity are in great distress and reproach, and the wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its gates are burned with fire.’
They were in trouble, shame, and disgrace. The walls were broken and the gates were burned. The temple had been rebuilt, but it wasn’t protected. Families wouldn’t move in for fear of raids. It was a total mess.
Now, there is an interesting case study of the opposite effect: a leader without a dislocated heart. His name was King Hezekiah. You can read about him in 2 Kings 20. Hezekiah started well, but when he was told his life was ending, he cried until God gave him fifteen extra years. During those “extended play” years, he got arrogant. He showed the Babylonian generals all his treasures, his bank accounts, and his storehouses.
Isaiah the prophet came to him and said, “Because you did this, everything you own will be taken to Babylon. Your sons will be taken captive; they will be slaves.” Do you know what Hezekiah’s response was? He said, “The word of the Lord is good.” You want to choke the guy! How is that good? He followed it up by saying, “At least there will be peace and security in my lifetime.”
That is a man without a dislocated heart. He didn’t care about the next generation or the mission of God; he just wanted comfort in his time. But look at Nehemiah’s response.
Nehemiah 1:4 (NASB)
When I heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned for days; and I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven.
When Nehemiah heard the news, he didn’t just offer a quick sniffle. He sat down and wept. He mourned for days. He fasted and prayed. If you check the dates between chapter one and chapter two, you’ll see a four-month gap. For four months, this man was absolutely wrecked. He couldn’t sleep, he couldn’t eat, and he couldn’t stop praying because the problem 500 miles away had become his problem.
Cultivating a Dislocated Heart
I read that and I am so convicted. I realize how easily my heart can get hard, and chances are, yours can too. So how do we cultivate a dislocated heart? It starts practically.
It might influence where you park on Sunday. Maybe you don’t take the best spot because you want to leave it for someone who doesn’t know Christ yet. It might influence which service you attend. Maybe you move to a service that is less crowded, even if it’s not your preference, just to make space for others. It might influence where you serve. You might say, “I don’t prefer this ministry, but I know there’s a need, and I’ll do it for a season.” That is a dislocated heart.
Our culture caters to preference. Everything is customized to exactly what we want. But God often wants to get us out of our comfort zone, not insulate it. For some of you, that heart dislocation will be about bigger things—helping people through sexual addiction, divorce recovery, eating disorders, or parenting struggles. Whatever it is, it starts with a heart that breaks for what breaks God’s.
If you don’t know what your “holy discontent” is, start here:
2 Chronicles 16:9 (NASB)
‘For the eyes of the LORD move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His. You have acted foolishly in this. Indeed, from now on you will surely have wars.’
Present yourself completely to the Lord. If you’ve never placed your faith in Christ, start there. If you have, but you’re still holding the steering wheel, give it over to Him. Then, do some honest evaluation. Ask, “God, what is it that gets to me? Am I bothered by the things that bother You, or am I just annoyed that there isn’t enough vanilla in my latte?”
I dare you to pray that God would give you a dislocated heart. I say “dare” because it is scary. If you pray it, He will likely do it. And while there is nothing more fulfilling than pursuing a holy discontent, there are few things more painful than a dislocated heart. But I promise you, the reward is worth the pain.
Imagine if we forsook personal preference for the progress of the Kingdom. Imagine if we decided that lost people matter to us because they matter to God. One man, Nehemiah, got a hold of God—or rather, God got a hold of him—and he changed a nation. What if God got a hold of all of us?
Father, for so long we have played religion, and we know the stench of our self-righteousness is disgusting to You. We ask that You would birth in us a holy discontent. In Your grace, dislocate our hearts. Burden us with what burdens You. Grieve us with the things that matter for eternity. Help us to forsake the endless pursuit of comfort and ease so that we might pursue Christ and the Gospel. May we die daily to our flesh, and may You give us hearts that pursue You wherever You take us. In Jesus’ name, Amen.