A Radical Faith / Nehemiah 2:1-3
The Miracle of the Process
Well, again, welcome to you. I’m glad you’re hanging out here with us. Let me ask a question as we get started. How many of you dads remember what it was like when, sometime after you were married, that lady you married came to you and said, “Hey. Congratulations. You’re going to be a dad”? In the moment you got the news, of course, it was exhilaration. You think, Oh, that’s fantastic! Right? And then she walks away and you go, Oh, my word. I’m going to be a father. I have no idea how to be a father.
Do y’all remember that? For those of you who have yet to experience that, let me tell you what you’re going to come up against. It is terrifying and exhilarating. It’s incredibly challenging and, in all of it, intoxicating. There’s this sense that at that moment, a process begins in your life. A chain reaction begins. Whether you wish it upon yourself or not, it comes. And you begin to experience, in many ways, the miracle of life.
From conception to birth, that nine-month process is fascinating. You start going to these doctor’s appointments. I can’t even pronounce what these doctors are called! But you go and they look at everything in 2D, 3D, 4D, 12D—it’s unbelievable footage of this fetus that’s developing. Over time, the miracle of growth begins to happen. God begins to do things in the life of this little thing that starts tiny and just begins to grow. And then, for the rest of its life, it’s going to do nothing but take your money and drive you nuts. It’s incredible what happens in this process.
As this process continues, of course, it’s leading toward the inevitable. Everybody talks about the due date; that becomes the consuming thing. One doctor suggests this date, Doctor Phil suggests another date—there’s all kinds of speculation as to when this kid is actually coming. But aren’t you grateful that God gives you a nine-month process? Can you imagine what it would be like if that little lady came to you fellas and said, “Hey, guess what? Congratulations, I’m pregnant and we’re going to have a baby tomorrow”? Most guys would just pass out right there.
Part of the process of the nine-month gestation period is not just for the child. I think in many ways, God in His wisdom gave us nine months for us. You’ll find guys who’ve never read a book other than the sports page in all their life who are suddenly concerned about parenting. They want to know about child development. You’ll notice that during that time, parents begin to watch those around them who are parents very critically. Before they’re pregnant, they don’t care what other parents do as long as they keep their kids quiet and don’t interrupt date night. But all of a sudden, they’re pregnant. Now they see the gear other people have. They’re like, “Oh, what’s that? A BabyBjorn? What’s a BabyBjorn?”
They’re getting all these kid backpacks, front packs, satchels, and hood straps for the car. They’re getting all this stuff and they’re watching. They’re taking lessons and taking notes. They say, “Hey, that’s good. I like that,” or, “Hey, that kid… they should really step in there,” as if they have any experience yet! It just changes everything. God gives you that nine-month period not just for the child, but in many ways, God gives it for us.
The Gestation of a Holy Discontent
What’s fascinating about this whole thing is that there’s a shift that takes place. You’re pregnant, and then you have the baby. You have that moment where she says, “Hey, we need to go to the hospital right now,” or you have it scheduled. We had Caesarean pregnancies, and it was great. I’d put it on my little calendar: 5:00 cup of coffee, 6:00 go have a baby. It was very nice and well-organized.
Either way, you go to the hospital and it’s great because everybody and their mother literally comes to see you. The nurses are doting over your infant. When the diaper needs to be changed and you get up to do it, the nurse goes, “Oh no, I’ll do it.” And you’re like, “Oh! Great!” and you go back to watching the game.
Then the time comes, of course, when you go home. I remember bringing Peyton home and she was crying. It wasn’t just crying; there are different levels of crying. You can live with crying. This was screeching. Her voice was vibrating. I’m looking at her going, “What? What is it? You’re fed. You’re clean. You’re safe. You’re comfortable. Why are you crying?” You’re flipping through all the books you read, wondering how to shut this thing off. It’s an awful experience in the moment, but you realize that the whole process was designed to prepare you for bringing them home and for the rest of their life training them and raising them up.
In many ways, a “holy discontent” is very similar. It starts with conception. God places something in your heart—something you weren’t prepared for and didn’t even ask for, but it’s just there. God gives it to you. Then begins a process of developing it within you. He nurtures it, develops it, and grows it until it matures. And inevitably, just as in birth, this whole thing revolves around a due date. You know that someday, at some point in the future, this holy discontent inside of you is going to have to go public. It can’t stay dormant forever. As it grows, it reaches a size where it’s evident to all, and that process is inevitable.
One of the things we fail to recognize, though, is that not only is the process of the holy discontent important, but the process you go through is important. In many ways, it is the most overlooked portion of this whole issue: your preparation. It’s what God is doing in you—not just in the discontent itself, but preparing you for the moment when that thing comes home, when it becomes a reality and you have to step up and live it out.
Prepared by the Wilderness
See, what happens is God calls us into this holy discontent. He places this issue in our lives and then begins, over time, to give us the skill set necessary to actually pull it off. He develops in you the traits you need to live it out. Your character will be sharpened. Your perspective will be shaped. These skills in you will be developed.
If you look through your Bible, there’s example after example of that exact issue. Take Moses. Moses was a Hebrew boy raised in the household of Pharaoh. Do you think he had an identity crisis? He finds out his whole identity, ends up killing a guy, and runs for his life. He lives for forty years in the wilderness shepherding sheep—incidentally, on the same patches of freeway where he’s going to lead the nation of Israel for forty years. He had a good lay of the land. All of his life was preparing him for his holy discontent. His time in Egypt was not wasted. His time in the wilderness was not wasted. It was preparatory.
It happened to David, too. David was a little shepherd boy. What does a little shepherd boy do? You’re bored to tears and you don’t have an iPod, so you bring your little sitar or whatever instrument you played. You sat in the field and learned to play, and because you loved the Lord, you started writing some songs—or Psalms, as they would be called. You learned how to worship God. Then the wolves and bears would come to take your sheep, so you got real good with your slingshot.
Do you think all that was wasted motion? Do you think God forgot about David? “Oh, that’s right, he’s in the field, I totally forgot!” No. God had him right where He wanted him. He was going to write down those songs, and you and I are going to read them in the book of Psalms and be grateful for a man whose heart was fully for the Lord in worship. He’s going to stand in front of Goliath with enough stones to take him and his brothers out, and he’s a pretty good shot because God prepared him.
Even when God anoints him king, Saul seeks his life and David ends up hiding in the Caves of Adullam like a rat. It would be easy to say, “Hey, God, what’s the deal? Have You forgotten about me?” The answer is absolutely not. God was preparing him. God put King Saul in David’s life to kill the “King Saul” that was inside of David. He was shaping him.
Same thing happened to the Apostle Paul. Raised in a Pharisee’s home, he was the Jew among Jews. Then he gets blinded on the road to Damascus and God says, “Now you’re going to serve Me.” He goes and spends three years in Arabia in the desert with nothing but his Bible, putting the pieces together. He figures out that Jesus really is the Messiah. When he comes back to teach, were his years studying the Torah wasted? No. God was preparing him.
The Necessity of Maturity
I don’t know what your past was like. I don’t know where you’ve been or where God has you, but I can guarantee you this: it’s not wasted. God has you right where He wants you. You might say, “Yeah, but my circumstances are awful.” Yeah, so were Job’s. So were Moses’, David’s, Abraham’s, Isaac’s, and Jacob’s. Every single person ever used by God went through difficulty because it is preparation.
If you begin your ministry with no sense of preparation, you won’t have the maturity to handle it. It’s like a five-year-old trying to do life, keep a job, and cultivate a marriage. Look, you need to watch some Scooby-Doo for a while. Learn some lessons, eat some fruit snacks, pound some mac and cheese, and grow up!
We put our faith in Christ and we want to carry 300 pounds on our back for God right now, and we can’t figure out why people are getting crushed. Someone puts their faith in Jesus and two days later they want to be a missionary, selling all their clothes on eBay to move to Thailand. Man, you don’t even know your Bible yet! What are you going to teach the people? “That God loves the world.” Okay, great. What are you going to teach them the next day? “God loves the world.” Why don’t you call a timeout? Learn your Bible. Recognize the preparatory process that’s needed for you now so you can do what God wants you to do later.
Even Jesus had a preparatory process. That makes some people nervous. They say, “He’s fully God! Don’t say Jesus had to mature!” But the Bible says he grew.
Luke 2:52 (NASB)
And Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.
It says that He, our high priest, sympathizes with our weakness because He was tempted like us in all things. One of the greatest examples of the preparatory process was Jesus, who left glory, did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, and humbled Himself. He lived like us for the duration of His life on earth. He had a job He probably didn’t like.
I wonder sometimes about the home of Jesus. Where was Joseph? He’s there at the manger, but after that, you only see him once or twice and then he’s virtually gone. Did Jesus grow up in a home without a dad? I don’t know, but it’s fascinating. His preparatory process—to be tempted like us and live a fully human experience—was essential. If He bypasses that, you and I would look at Him and say, “But You don’t know what it’s like to be us.”
So, where does God have you? Are you in a job you hate? What is He wanting to teach you? Are you in a marriage that’s in difficulty? What are you learning about God? What is He changing in you? Your holy discontent cannot go public until you’re ready. We want God to turn water to wine and let us walk on water. But the truth is, God will not use you greatly until He has broken you deeply.
Nehemiah’s Due Date
In Nehemiah chapter two, his holy discontent goes public. It is birthed. It’s a simple passage, not super complex, yet there’s a bunch going on.
Nehemiah 2:1-3 (NASB)
And it came about in the month Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, that wine [was] before him, and I took up the wine and gave it to the king. Now I had not been sad in his presence. So the king said to me, ‘Why is your face sad though you are not sick? This is nothing but sadness of heart.’ Then I was very much afraid. I said to the king, ‘Let the king live forever. Why should my face not be sad when the city, the place of my fathers’ tombs, lies desolate and its gates have been consumed by fire?’
Nehemiah was given a holy discontent four months prior. God broke his heart over the things of God, and he began to fast, pray, mourn, and weep. The preparation process had begun, and he knew a due date was coming. He prayed daily for an opportunity to stand before the king, but for four months, the door didn’t open.
Just a side note on prayer: Don’t be surprised when God answers what you pray for! It’s amazing the things we’ll pray for, and then when God answers, we can’t believe He did it. In Acts 12, Peter is in prison and the church is having a prayer meeting for his release. God miraculously lets him out, and Peter knocks on the door of the prayer meeting. The girl who answers is so shocked she leaves him standing there to go tell the others, and they tell her she’s crazy! They were praying for his release, but they were shocked when he actually showed up. When you pray, don’t be surprised if God answers.
Nehemiah prayed for an opportunity, God gave it, and he stepped through the door. Was those four months of waiting wasted? No. God was developing him. Nehemiah was a cupbearer, a trusted servant in a prestigious position. Much like Esther before him, who knows if God hadn’t appointed him to that position for such a time as this?
Bloom Where You Are Planted
In this moment, Nehemiah comes across as very discontent. That is one of the unique dangers of a holy discontent—by definition, you are discontent with the way things are. You have such an overwhelming compulsion for what should be that you are constantly reminded of what isn’t.
In our preference-obsessed culture, we often miss the opportunity because if we don’t like something, we quit. If it’s uncomfortable, we leave. But what if God wants you to stay right where you’re at? If you leave a job just for higher pay and better benefits, you might miss the preparatory process God has for you. If you’re in a struggling marriage, what if God’s will is for you to sit in that, sink deeply into it, and grow so He can prepare you?
A holy discontent is primarily about the heart, not the circumstances. You could change jobs and you’ll still be discontent at the new one because the discontent is coming from inside. A good principle to keep in mind is: bloom where you’re planted. Honor God wherever you are—in a job you don’t like, with roommates you can’t stand, or with neighbors that drive you nuts.
Notice that verse one says Nehemiah had not been sad in the king’s presence before. He’s not an Eeyore. You remember Eeyore, right? The guy where the clouds followed him and the glass was always half empty. Nehemiah wasn’t pouting or being passive-aggressive. He was faithful to his job for four months while he waited on God.
A Radical Request
When the king finally asks, “Why is your face sad?” Nehemiah becomes “very much afraid.” Why? Because Persian kings could execute you on a whim. If you walked in and told a bad joke, you could lose your head. Furthermore, as a cupbearer, Nehemiah’s job was to taste the wine and food to make sure it wasn’t poisoned. If the cupbearer looked ill or suspicious, it was a red flag to the king.
Nehemiah was also terrified because he knew what he was about to ask. He knew that this same king had previously issued a decree to stop the rebuilding of Jerusalem. But he also knew there was a loophole in the law.
Ezra 4:21 (NASB)
’So, now issue a decree to make these men stop [work], that this city may not be rebuilt until a decree is issued by me.
That decree said to stop the work until a new decree was issued by the king. Nehemiah was about to ask for the “until.”
Notice how he speaks to the king in verse three. He doesn’t start with a demand; he starts with honor: “Let the king live forever.” He doesn’t appeal to politics; he appeals to relationship. He talks about the graves of his fathers. Persian kings didn’t usually care about graves—they often just threw bodies out for the beasts—but they honored the graves of kings. Nehemiah had spent years observing the culture, and he knew how to talk to a pagan king in a way that would be heard. That is the power of preparation.
Closing Challenge
Next week, we’ll look at the strategic plan he had ready, but today I want to ask you: Has God given you a holy discontent yet? He may not have. You may pray for a burden and it might not come for months or years.
The question is: What is God teaching you now? What traits is He developing in you? God is not wasting any motion with your life. He hasn’t forgotten you. He doesn’t have you in a deadbeat job just to have you learn nothing. Every day is an opportunity for God to develop something new in you so that when the opportunity arises, you’ll be ready.
Do not lose hope. Instead of asking, “Why am I here?” ask, “What do You want me to learn while I’m here?”
Let’s pray together.
Father, I know that circumstances vary with everyone here. Some are already living out their holy discontent—they’re walking in step with You with a radical faith, and they are absolutely enthralled. Others have prayed and prayed, and the opportunity hasn’t come yet. Father, help us, like David and Moses and Paul, to remember that the preparation process is as important as the mission itself. Teach us what You want us to learn. Help us to recognize that this life is not our own; we have been bought with a price. Regardless of our circumstances, help us to bloom where we’re planted. I pray this in Christ’s name. Amen.