Today I am excited not only to launch the first sermon series of 2023 but also to learn vital divine principles that can enable us to recover damage from the past. This study, called “Rebuilding your broken lives and others,” is based on the book of Nehemiah. This sacred text teaches us that only with God’s help can we restore our ruined identity and renew our spiritual hearts. Over the next six Sundays or even more, I want us to explore how Nehemiah and the people of Israel did rebuild the wall of Jerusalem and apply these lessons in our spiritual race as Christ’s followers and Christ’s church.

Before we jump into the initial message of this series, I want to briefly share some historical background of this scripture. According to the Holy Bible, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). God created every creature out of nothing and confessed that it was good. The Lord made Adam and Eve in His divine image on the sixth day of God’s work. He gave them His compliment that “it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). From God’s point of view, we, as human beings, are remarkable. The Creator God also provided everything for Adam and Eve to have a good life in the Garden of Eden. Unfortunately, they were deceived by Satan’s temptation and disobeyed God. Adam and Eve lost their God-made paradise and covered their shame with a human-made method. Despite their brokenness, the Gracious God planned to rebuild this damaged relationship through Eve’s offspring. As God promised, the relationship between God and us, Adam and Eve’s spiritual descendants, can be restored through His one and only Son, Jesus. We can experience the Kingdom of God within our minds and enter the Eternal Temple of Heaven when we repent of our sins before Christ and put our trust in the Holy Spirit.

Before God’s salvation ministry was fulfilled through Christ, many conflicts arose in the Old Testament. When God saw the people in Noah’s day become wicked and corrupted, “His heart was deeply troubled” (Genesis 6:6). God decided to recreate people’s spirits through His judgment with a flood. Even after that punishment, God still saw that Noah’s descendants committed wrong. God made another plan to restore His Kingdom by calling Abraham to become the spiritual father of His people. Later, Abraham’s future generations multiplied in Egypt. Due to the wicked Egyptian ruler, they had been in trouble. God appointed Moses as the leader of the people of Israel and asked him to lead them to the Promised Land. With the help of the Lord, Moses’ successors, Joshua and Caleb, took their God-given territory and presented it to the twelve Israelite tribes. As time passed, finally, King David united all the divided branches and made them one United Kingdom. However, due to the sins of his son, King Solomon, the nation was separated into two. The first one was called the Northern Kingdom, which had a central city named “Samaria,” and the second was known as The Southern Kingdom, with the capital of Jerusalem. Since both kingdoms’ leaders did evil things in God’s eyes, both citizens had been colonized by their neighbouring countries, such as Assyria, Babylon, and Persia. During that time, the temple of God that King David blue-printed and Solomon built had been burned, and the people of Israel were deported to foreign nations. We have learned that the tabernacle in those days was not just a place of ritual ceremonies for the people of Israel but a residence of God. It was also a symbolic center in the lives of the people. The enemies knew that the people of Israel would lose their God-inherited identity and faith in the Almighty God if the temple were gone.

One Israelite captive named Nehemiah lived in the citadel of Susa, and he served Artaxerxes, King of Persia, as his cupbearer in the middle of the fourth century B.C. One day, Nehemiah heard what had happened in Jerusalem from his brother, Hanani. “Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire” (Nehemiah 1:3). The people of Israel there were in great trouble and disgrace due to the broken wall and burned gates. Can we imagine this situation?

Without walls and gates at that time, there was no security. Without security, it was hard to survive. The broken walls of the temple of God also meant that there was no honour for the Lord in those days. Essential holy items in the tabernacle might be lost and destroyed by spiritual enemies. The Israelites might have felt helpless and hopeless due to a lack of resources, strengths, and abilities to restore those challenging circumstances.

According to the Bible, our God-blessed bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. Have we ever felt that our sacred walls and the gates of our loved ones are falling apart? If we take the tabernacle of Jerusalem as a sign of our own lives, many of us, including myself, fit this description. When we look back on our lives and the lives of our loved ones at the beginning of this new year and examine the walls and gates of our spiritual hearts, we may discover some destructions that have occurred within them and us. No one may know about it and help us in this matter.

Before we go any further, I would like to share a few things about this critical topic. Firstly, I am not making us negatively picture ourselves. One more time, in God’s sight, each of us is so precious, regardless of how many mistakes we have made in the past. Today, I am talking about a godly reflection on our divine walls. Nothing can change in our lives until we are aware of some brokenness in our spirits, whether a small portion of the area or a more extensive section. Concerning the first point, secondly, we need to wake up from spiritual slumber. In a divine matter, God does not want us to be satisfied with what we are. He wants us to become more mature and attain “the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13). God wants us to be perfect, if possible, with the help of the Holy Spirit, in terms of sacred development in Christ. Thirdly, this renewing business is not a one-time activity but an ongoing holy adventure. The Apostle Paul said, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7). We as a church have witnessed many of our friends doing their God-given ministry continuously with their fully dedicated hearts until they were called to be with the Lord their God.

Friends, are we willing to review our lives and those we love while moving forward into this bright new season? If so, we must ask ourselves what is going on in our hearts. Our sacred walls might be broken with damaged relationships, destructive addictions, and discouraged minds. Our holy gates might be ruined by hurt, bitterness, anger, and disappointment from the people around us. Our former shortcomings might have devastated our precious lives. Even though there are many people who do not have physical problems, they are no stranger to emotional and mental issues. We need to distinguish between the ill and the symptoms of sickness. We do not blame or judge the results of people’s illnesses. Instead, we sympathize with them and want to care about them because they are in pain. The sick in spirit may not be able to overcome their challenges independently. They might seem to be fine outwardly, but inwardly may they be crying out to receive some help to rebuild their broken lives. We may also be too weak to fight against our spiritual enemies with our power in our faith journey.

What did Nehemiah do when he heard about the ruined walls and gates in the temple of God? How did he handle those difficulties? In the coming Sundays, we will explore more of the detailed steps from the following chapters of the book of Nehemiah. This morning, I want to introduce the first manual of his recovery. According to today’s scripture, for some days, Nehemiah had mourned, fasted, and prayed “before the God of heaven” (Nehemiah 1:4). He knelt before the Lord and turned to the Mighty God for strength and wisdom to restore the destroyed tabernacle. Praying to God is the starting point for the rebuilding ministry. Many prayers of Nehemiah are described in this Old Testament book. Through Nehemiah’s marvellous prayer in the first chapter Anita shared this morning, I want to point out three characters of his dependence on God.

The first thing Nehemiah did in prayer was that he remembered who God was. Nehemiah called God “the God of heaven, the great and awesome God,” who kept his covenant of love with those who loved him and held his commandments (Nehemiah 1:5). He recalled all of God’s wonderful nature. The Lord is forgiving, gracious, merciful, mighty, unchanging, and so on. Nehemiah reminded himself of the attributes of God. We need to ask ourselves whether we are convinced about God’s divine character.

The second thing Nehemiah did in prayer was that he repented of all sins before God, whether related to himself or his family and society. He did not excuse himself for what was wrong in his life. He did not compare his failures with those of other people. He did not blame others’ wrongdoings that would have caused him to do similar misbehaviours. Instead, Nehemiah sincerely admitted what he had committed against God and asked for His forgiveness. We need to question whether we are willing to confess what we realize is terrible within ourselves, our loved ones, and even our world. Remember that we will never rebuild the broken walls of our lives until we first recognize ruins in our spiritual hearts and repent of them. Are we willing to acknowledge our misconduct before God?

The third thing Nehemiah did in prayer was that he requested God for power and guidance. He invited the Merciful and Mighty God to be a rebuilder for the temple business. Nehemiah believed that God would hear his prayers and asked the Lord to give him success in restoring the broken wall and damaged gates at that present time. He brought the destroyed situation of the temple of Jerusalem to God in prayer. Around this time of the year, many of us make new year’s resolutions and want to keep them as long as possible. Unfortunately, we may see ourselves breaking many determined items we have decided to do as time goes by. Despite how firmly we have been committed to accomplishing those things with our human willpower, we may give up again and again. Once again, Nehemiah believed that God would help him, so he began his restoration project with prayer. He asked God for supernatural strength and significant grace to fulfill those recovery tasks.

Are our lives and our loved ones’ overwhelming us this morning? Do we feel overburdened due to the challenging situations we have recently encountered? One more time, reflect on the request of Nehemiah: “Give your servant success today by granting him favour in the presence of this man” (Nehemiah 1:11). This person here in this passage indicates Artaxerxes, King of Persia. Later, this God-prepared emperor provided Nehemiah with almost everything he needed to do his God-inherited mission. God can and will provide us with the same things, whether they can relate to people or resources, when we realize who God is, repent of our sins and request God’s might.

This morning we are all invited to call out to Jesus for help. Christ is a rebuilder of God’s damaged temple. Three days after He died for our sins on the cross, He rose from the dead. Jesus completed his God-given recovering duty for us, as sinners, to restore our broken holy images with the power of Christ’s forgiveness and resurrection. That is why the Apostle Paul shared his conviction in Christ in the following declaration: “I can do all this through him [Christ] who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:13). Remember that our Lord Christ even made the dead alive. With the ability of the resurrected Christ, we can rebuild any damage of the past and change our lives. We can also influence our loved ones’ ruin of the previous and alter their lives with God’s protection and provision.

Let me conclude this sermon with the following questions: Do we want to be a better person of God in 2023? Do we desire to be free from old broken and damaged habits, attitudes, and practices? Then start here: get on your knees in surrender and invite God to rebuild your broken spiritual walls and gates. No matter what damage there is to our lives and others, there is always a place for us to begin. Let us go forward to this happy and healthy venture in the power of prayer.

*In this sermon, I have used some thoughts from the various messages based on the text: Nehemiah 1:1-11.