You have to sacrifice

There recently was a death of a 98-year-old lady named Irena. During WWII, Iliana, got permission to work in the Warsaw Ghetto, as a Plumbing/Sewer specialist. She had an ulterior motive... She KNEW what the Nazi's plans were for the Jews, (being German). Iliana smuggled infants out in the bottom of her toolbox she carried, and she carried in the back of her truck a Burlap sack, (for larger kids). She also had a dog in the back that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in, and out of the ghetto. The soldiers of course wanted nothing to do with the dog, and the barking covered the kids/infants noises. During her time and course of doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2500 kids/infants. She was caught, and the Nazi's broke both her legs, and arms, and beat her severely. Iliana kept a record of the names of all the kids she smuggled out, and kept them in a glass jar, buried under a tree in her back yard. After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have survived it, and reunited the family. Most of course had been gassed. Those kids she helped were placed into foster family homes, or adopted. Last year Iliana was up for the Nobel Peace Prize.... She LOST. Al Gore won, for a slide show on Global Warming. Sacrifice is like that. The ones that do it usually give up more than you know. And they are seldom recognized for what they did. I was thinking about this as I walked through Nehemiah. Let me give you a quick overview so that you will capture the story. Nehemiah is a highranking official. Arguably one of the most powerful men in the world. Cupbearer to King Artaxerxes. When Artaxerxes travels, Nehemiah traveled. When he slept, Nehemiah slept. When he got up in the night for a glass of milk, Nehemiah arose. And it had its perks. Women. Wealth. Fame. Power. You name it. Nothing would have been withheld from this man. Until, word comes that his people were in trouble. The walls were down and the gates were burned with fire. After 100 years, the future of Israel as a people was hanging in the balance. Look at Nehemiahs response to this tragic news.

it be that his prayer was more than a prayer for a plan. We looked at that last time. Maybe this was more of a Gethsemane style prayer. Father, let this cup pass from me. . . Not me, Lord. Please, use someone else. Nehemiah understood something that we have to deal with. You will not make a difference without sacrifice. And there are two troubling aspects to sacrifice. First, its risky.

I.

Sacrifice demands risk Nehemiah 2:1 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.

It was forbidden to be sad in the presence of a Persian king. In fact, you could not enter the kings chamber without being summoned. We see this in the book of Esther. Esther is a favorite queen of Nehemiahs kings daddy. Nehemiahs king was Artaxerxes. Esthers king was Xerxes. So Esther was old enough to be Nehemiahs momma. And we might see the reason that Nehemiah got where he was. Xerxes had a soft spot for the Jews. Artaxerxes, one of Esthers stepsons would naturally turn to a Jew for help in administration. Artaxerxes ultimately did a lot of good for the Jewish people. When we see Esther, there was a wicked Jew hater named Haman who got Xerxes to issue a decree that would essentially eradicate the Jews. Mordecai went to Esther the queen and said, You have to do something! her reply tells us volumes about the way things worked.

4 Now it came about 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.
Nehemiah wept. Why? Over Jerusalem? Yep. What about this. Maybe he wept when he realized what God was asking him to do. Could

Esther 4:11 "All the kings servants and the people of the kings provinces know that for any man or woman who comes to the king to the inner court who is not summoned, he has but one law, that he be put to death, unless the king holds out to him the golden scepter so that he may live. And I have not been summoned to come to the king for these thirty days."
She said, I cant go in without being summoned, I might be killed! this was the queen! We see the brutal despotically world.

risk. In the process, she saved the Jews from annihilation. Back to Nehemiah. He doesnt have a dog in this race. His world will not be affected if the Jews go down in Jerusalem. Nehemiah can live out his life in comfort and security. He refused that avenue. And he took the risk. He went into the kings presence for the first time, sad. Nehemiah could have been killed. He could have been imprisoned. Or he could have lost his job. Trust was the main ingredient of the cupbearer. When the king lost confidence because the cupbearer started getting emotional on him, then the king couldnt trust him anymore. Notice, Nehemiah tells us how he felt.

12 And they related Esthers words to Mordecai. 13 Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, "Do not imagine that you in the kings palace can escape any more than all the Jews. 14 "For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place and you and your fathers house will perish. And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this?"
In that case, Mordecai said, You will be killed if you dont! So she did. But look at the resolve.

2 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.
Hebrew is a simple language. Straightforward. They seldom minced words. Here, we see two adjectives to describe his fear. Very. mehode. Greatly. Exceedingly. Abundantly. Its a dramatic word. Much. RAbah exceedingly, great or abundant. Afraid. Yare. Terrified. Exceedingly, abundantly horrifically mortified. This is life on the line fear. Jumping out of a burning airplane fear. The fear you get when you wake up and a shadowy figure is standing over your bed. Or you hydroplane on the interstate into oncoming traffic. Will you live? Will you die? Nehemiah could have let panic rule him and retreat to the safety of his position. OH I just had a bad night, Im fine. Hows your day? Did you win any money at the chariot races? Look at that Persian stock market. The Bulls are running! No, he swallowed hard, took a deep breath and broached a subject that might take his life.

15 Then Esther told them to reply to Mordecai, 16 "Go, assemble all the Jews who are found in Susa, and fast for me; do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my maidens also will fast in the same way. And thus I will go in to the king, which is not according to the law; and if I perish, I perish."
Esther had reconciled herself to death. If I perish, I perish. I will take the

3 And 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?"
Im sure that Nehemiah could hear his heart beating in his head as he waited for what seemed like an eternity for the reply.

What would it be? How dare you bring some personal matter to me! OUT! Get out. I dont ever want to see you again! Or could it be, Is this some sort of Jewish Conspiracy! My other men told me to watch out for you. Now you try to disguise this. You want to rebuild a nation so they can take up arms against me. Traitor. Guards! Execute this traitor! We know what Artaxerxes did. But for at least a split second, Nehemiah didnt. Would he live? Would he die? The king finally spoke.

governor of Samaria, north of Jerusalem, and Tobiah was governor of Ammon-Gilead to the east. This would explain why they didnt like the news that a high-ranking official like Nehemiah had come to help. No doubt they feared that the province of Judah would overshadow them. Judah had governors in the past. Both Zerubbabel and Sheshbazar are called governors in Ezra. However, no modern governors are mentioned until Nehemiah arrived. Maybe Judah had become so broken apart that it hadnt had any real leadership in decades. They had no governor. Here comes Nehemiah. After the rebuilding of the wall, Nehemiah is called governor.

4 Then the king said to me, "What would you request?" So I prayed to the God of heaven.
We dont know what Nehemiah prayed. Or do we. I think I know. He said, Thank you JEESUS! OK, Thank you YAHWEH! Now it was on. But Nehemiah had to take the risk to get it going. You will never make a difference without sacrifice and sacrifice demands risks.

II.

Sacrifice means surrender

Nehemiah 8:9 Then Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, "This day is holy to the LORD your God; do not mourn or weep." For all the people were weeping when they heard the words of the law.
Dont envy him. This was not a promotion. Life in Jerusalem was rough. Local warlords hated him. Primitive conditions. Constant threats. Hunger. Troubles. Heartache. Loss. It was as if Chief of Staff over the United States had become governor of Somalia. He would never again be an important man to the world. He would never be rich, or comfortable. The cultured well-healed world of Susa was permanently traded for the outpost of Israel. Nehemiah sacrificed his life for the reconstruction of Jerusalem. We were driving down 165 one miserably hot July day. I checked the suburbans thermometer. It registered 103. Two young men on bikes. Black pants. White shirts. Ties. Peddling to some appointment. Andrew said, Mormons. Yep. You have to admire them. I dont know any twenty-something believers that would do that. Get on a bike in the heat of July and peddle around sharing their faith. Then I caught myself. We had recently had a staff meeting and discussed the heroism of some of our college students. They had been in tough situations around the globe all summer. Some were struggling with a sort of posttraumatic stress. At least one came home with intestinal parasites. Those young students were sacrificing more than a bike ride around a USA city.

When Nehemiah agreed to go to Jerusalem he surrendered the keys to the kingdom. Would Artaxerxes want him back? Did the Packers want Brett Favre? That train kept rolling. The king replaced him with an interim wine taster, but backup quickly turned into the starter. How do I know?

Nehemiah 2:10 And when Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official heard about it, it was very displeasing to them that someone had come to seek the welfare of the sons of Israel.
Who are these two people? Persia was a well-oiled machine when it came to political organization. Darius the Great carved the empire into twenty states that he called, Satrapies. The satrapies were governed by Satraps. The area of Judah was known as the Satrapy beyond the river. (Euphrates). Herodotus said it was the fifth satrapy. It included Syria, Phoenicia, and Palestine. Imperial troops under a royal officer would insure that the Satraps never tried to get too independent. The Satrapies were further divided into provinces. Each province had a governor. Sanballat was

The truth is, this generation is perhaps more dialed into the mission of Jesus than any in recent memory. I have more hope for them. They seem less materialistic. More sacrificial than any group in a long time. Its almost like the Jesus movement has come back around. Then I thought of Jim Elliot. He said, He is no fool that gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. Shane Duke. Wade Akins. Not even close to what Jesus did. Philippians 2. Surrender. Thats what Nehemiah did. I think the thing that keeps us from making a difference is our unwillingness to sacrifice and at the heart of that is a refusal to surrender. Look, were trying to change the world. You cant do that from the comfort of your living room. You have to sacrifice your time. Your money. Your reputation. All of those things. We want to build a building to let thousands of people hear about Jesus. It will change our world for 50 years. You cant do that without sacrifice. Every single one of us will have to give up something. Are you willing to do that? What are you sacrificing today for the kingdom of God? Surrender.