Forks of Cypress.
Perhaps you have never heard of the The Forks of Cypress located in North Alabama, but many people have and those who travel there express several emotions when contemplating their visit. The Forks at Cypress was the home of a man by the name of James Jackson and was famous for its exquisite architecture and unique design. Of all the features of the home that stood out the 24 majestic supporting columns were the most impressive. Indeed at one time in the history of the home it was the crowning jewel of the community. Robust, thriving, a splendor to behold.

But then life happened. The unthinkable occurred, lightning struck the home and laid to rubble a home that was so alive.
You see I intentionally said that those who have visited the site have mixed emotions. Some are moved by the history and historic photos of the home as it was in days gone by. Others, come away with an unsettling emptiness. An emptiness that can be understood when you see what remains of the home. You see everything was destroyed except the 24 majestic columns that can still be seen today. On the one hand there is the fascination of place that once thrived with hopes and ambitions and pride but on the other hand there is a hollowness because of a home left in ruins.
Let me say with great empathy that every Christian lives with this sense of fascination of what life can be in Christ in one hand and every Christian lives with this sense of hollowness knowing the pain and rubble of life in the other hand.

Lives in rubble.
Let me say with great empathy that every Christian lives with this sense of fascination of what life can be in Christ in one hand and every Christian lives with this sense of hollowness knowing the pain and rubble of life in the other hand.
Today we are beginning a study of the first seven chapters of Nehemiah that we are calling “Rebuilding with God” and this sermon series is will be for those who are willing to honest and real about life. I have no desire for this series to be another series of sermons that will put before people a false hope that the Christian life will be painless and that we can somehow hit a delete button and all the hurt and harm of life will be removed and we will be living in our own little Camelot drinking sweet tea all day.
That’s not how faith and life really work. But here is what we can expect through this series, we can look at the crumbled walls around Jerusalem…broken down and in disrepair and we can see how God used one man to rebuild what sin and rebellion had destroyed. We can bury hope and desire deep into our hearts knowing that God delights in rebuilding the broken down walls. What we can expect is a raw reminder that life is full of brokenness but God turns brokenness into beautiful and bring beauty from ashes. What we can expect to see is that the gospel never promises perfection in this life but the gospel is our hope for lives that can be changed and renewed and joyous and completely functional in the Kingdom of God as we look toward that perfect Kingdom of heaven.
You can’t have perfection here but you can have hope and strength from a perfect savior.
You and I can’t have all the answers here but we can have the One who says I am the way, the truth, and the life.
You can’t have certainty over our bodies tomorrow but we can have confidence in the Great Physician who made us.

AWARENESS OF BROKEN DOWN WALLS (1:1-3)
Now for us to understand the book of Nehemiah we must understand the events in the life of the Jews that bring us to the book of Nehemiah. When verse three says that Jerusalem is broken down and the gates are burned with fire there a ton of history that comes with that statement. We don’t have the time to go into much detail but understand a few highlights of history that have brought us here. If you will recall with me the time when David was the King of Israel. David wasn’t a perfect man nor a perfect leader but God used him to bring peace to the land. For the most part David led Israel into a time of great peace and prosperity. Once David died after serving his generation, his son Solomon became king and built the first temple and expanded the resources and prosperity of Israel to greater heights.

Divided kingdom
But there was a fundamental change that occurred when Solomon died and Rehaboam, Solomon’s son, became King. David’s rule was imperfect and Solomon’s rule as king left to be desired, but both men loved and God, but when Rehaboam became king he showed his despise for God and the monarchy was eventually divided into two kingdoms: the upper 10 tribes were known as Israel and the two Southern tribes were known as Judah. Over the next several hundred years God watched and warned his people as they continued to the sin and rebel against him. God sent prophet after prophet preacher after preached calling them to repent of their sins. Eventually, God’s patience was exhausted and God brought punishment upon his rebellious people by sending the Assyrians to overtake the 10 Northern tribes and the Babylonians to capture the Southern tribes called Judah.

Nebuchadnezzar
When Nebuchadnezzar took the captives from Jerusalem to Babylon, he did three primary things: he destroyed the wall of the ancient city and left them in ruin, he took captive the best and the brightest of Jerusalem, and he culled out the population (killed many and left the poor in the land to farm the land. It’s important to note that another superpower arose and conquered the Babylonians. Soon another world power, the Persians would rise and conquer the Babylonians but God’s people still remained in captivity.
Understand Nehemiah was born during the time of captivity. To our knowledge the first time that he sets foot in Jerusalem is when he goes to rebuild the walls.

Personal reality
Let me make a sobering transition to our lives today and where we are as a people. What we need to become aware of is the fact that we all are living with broken down walls in some area of our lives. What was once thriving in your life is now dead and lifeless.
--Perhaps your broken down walls are in the area of relationships. The enemy has come and destroyed what was once a thriving joyful relationship and now there is no peace and you look at the situation and all you see is a relationship that has crumbled.
--Someone once said, “It hurts the most when the person who made you feel so special yesterday makes you feels so unwanted today.”
--You might not be able to relate to that but you can relate to the broken dreams. You had a vision (a goal in life) and it was broken down and laid waste by circumstances out of your control and now you are trying to breath fresh life into your dreams.
--Perhaps your torn down wall is a result of your own actions and decisions and your sin has destroyed so much in your life that like someone looking at the walls of Jerusalem your heart sinks in regret and remorse.
Can I tell you something this morning that will bring great hope and encouragement: God is at work in your life and he wants to restore what is broken down and he wants to renew what is stagnant and dead.
This morning you are at the first step of rebuilding. Before God could start the process of using Nehemiah to rebuild the broken down walls God had to give Nehemiah a broken heart. God had to make Nehemiah aware in order to put into action the brave steps that would rebuild the walls.
Can I tell you that if your heart was raising its hand going “that’s me, my walls are in crumbles Satan has robbed and destroyed leaving me with very little” then you are in the very place of awareness that God desires.
Think of it this way, there are some people who would rather die in ignorance than live with knowledge. The Bible says, “My people die for a lack of knowledge.” I once knew a man who was experiencing sharp pain in his abdomen and instead of going to the doctor to become aware of his condition decided to ignore the problem. The technology, medicine, treatment, and knowledge were all available. In other words, if he had been aware of the cancer he could have begun the hard road of rebuilding his health. A lack of awareness led to his death.
Listen to me clearly, it was time to rebuild what had been broken down and God orchestrated the circumstances so that Nehemiah became aware of the problem. It would take Nehemiah 52 days to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem but the construction project didn’t start with a chisel and hammer, it started with an awareness and burden to join God in the rebuilding process.

AWAKENING TO A DECISION
It’s very interesting the words that are used by Nehemiah’s brethren to describe the condition of the people:
“great affliction” the word affliction carries the idea of “mischief” but it doesn’t refer to mischief in the way we think of the word. We think of “causing trouble” when we think of mischief. We think of the neighborhood kids who keeps hitting your mailbox with rocks as being full of mischief. We think of practical jokers as people full of mischief.
It’s like the two brothers, 7 and 9 years old, whose mother couldn’t seem to handle their mischief any longer so she asked the preacher if he would talk to the boys. So the preacher thought about the right approach to take with the boys and he finally decided that the boys needed a big dose of authority in their lives. So he had the mom bring them to his office. He sat them down with each of them sitting in a nice high back chair while the preacher used his booming voice to intimidate them. He looked over the desk, wanting to make the boys aware of the presence of God, asked, “Where is God?” The boys were silent. Once again with a booming voice the preacher pointed at the boys and asked, “Where is God?” Immediately the younger brother leaped out the church and ran out of the office door and down the street. The oldest decided that he wasn’t staying alone with the preacher so he took off running after his little brother. When he finally caught up with him, he asked, “Why did you jump up and run?” “You heard the preacher. God is missing and they think we had something to do with it.”
When it was reported that there was great affliction, it means that there were those who were taking advantage of the remnant left in Judah. The walls of a city meant a great deal to the people.
Listen, walls weren’t just decorative and some kind of status symbol.
Walls meant protection from thieves. When the crops were harvested the fortified city was a place where the provisions could be safely stored.
Walls meant safety from violent criminals.
Walls provided barriers and safe zone from those who were sick with deadly illnesses.
Walls meant some form of government for the people.
Consequently, a people without walls were a people in danger and vulnerable to the mischief of their neighbors.

"great affliction" and "reproach"
But notice the next word “reproach”. It’s the only time it’s used in the Bible and it means “beat down to the point of giving up.”
Some scholars would even go as far to say that the word means that they had given up and were resigned to live in such conditions. Do you hear what God is telling us about them and us?
In our lives we all come to a moment of decision, when the walls have been broken down, when our relationships have fallen apart, when our sin has made a mess of our lives, when all seems loss, are we going to give up and simply resign to the fact that this is the way it’s just gonna be or are we gonna step up and do something. Are we going to make to decision to put our hands to rebuilding what Satan has torn down or will we be resigned to live in defeat and the mischief of our enemy?
Please listen, if we decide to live in the defeat then we give Satan the keys to the car and he’ll get behind the wheel of your life and lead you into more defeat and destruction.
Here’s what Nehemiah did…thank God he didn’t settle for despair and defeat. The Bible says that Nehemiah did exactly what he ought to have done…he sat down and wept, he prayed and he fasted.
We’ll see this more clearly in the coming weeks but began operating in Anticipation of God’s Reconstruction Grace.

ANTICIPATION OF GOD'S RECONSTRUCTING GRACE
In the United States, businesses use millions of wood pallets each year to haul products. After a pallet has borne heavy, sometimes crushing weights and taken abuse from truck travel and forklifts, eventually it can no longer be used. Now cracked and smashed, or loose and floppy, pallets are something businesses must pay other companies up to five dollars per pallet to dispose of. Disposal companies burn the pallets, chew them into wood chips, or dump them in landfills.

One nonprofit company in New York had a better idea, writes Andrew Revkin in the New York Times. Big City Forest in South Bronx takes other companies' junk and turns it into treasure. The raw material of pallets is valuable hardwoods like rosewood, cherry, oak, mahogany, and maple. Big City Forest workers dismantle the pallets, salvage the usable wood, and recycle it into furniture and flooring. Recycled wood chips are worth only $30 a ton. But when used as flooring the value of the recycled wood is $1,200 a ton, and as furniture $6,000 a ton.

If that is what can be done with lifeless wood, how much more can people be restored to lives of value. Like Big City Forest, God is in the business of restoration. He takes people that seem worthless, people broken by the weight of sin, and transforms them into works of beauty and usefulness.

Action steps:
1. Know the power of We! We are all in this broken world together. The person that sits on the pew right now is going through the same kind of broken down walls that you are but in a different fashion. The bottom line is that you are not alone.
2. Be encouraged in Jesus. Jesus entered our world so that he could experience what we do and he knows the pain of your broken down relationships, dreams, and your sin.
3. Confess where confession is needed.
4. Join God in his plan of restoration.
5. Strengthen yourself for battle.
a. Rise up
b. Pray up.
c. Get fed up.