Visible faith, visible leadership

This reflection on Nehemiah gives leaders a model for leadership and living faithfully and visibly in our generation.

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We invited Pastor Agu to come and speak at the Stronger Conference earlier on this year on the subject on ‘Visible Faith’ and we thought you might like to have access to an abridged transcript of his talk.

Pastor Agu is a former investment banker and partner in a law firm; he is now the Senior Pastor of Jesus house for all nations London. We hope you enjoy what he had to say:

Introduction

‘Thank you once again for having me at the Stronger Conference and I'm going to talk around the prophet Nehemiah, because I think Nehemiah is a master class on leadership. I think if any anyone especially a Christian wants to really understand leadership and how to be successful in leadership, then they would have to really study the book of Nehemiah.

I'm sure you know the context, but the nation of Israel was in a deplorable state. Jerusalem had been conquered by the Babylonians, and the glorious temple that Solomon had built was destroyed. Most of the inhabitants had been deported to Babylon, and Jerusalem remained in this state up for 150 years before the book of Nehemiah introduces us to all that was happening.

Nehemiah was a well-placed official in Babylon. He was high up in the hierarchy and worked in the palace with proximity to the king, and while he was there, reports came to Nehemiah about the state of things in Jerusalem.

Challenging circumstances

I want to pick it up from Nehemiah chapter 1 verse 3 and this is what they said to him. ‘The survivors who are left from captivity in the province are in great distress and reproach. The wall of Jerusalem is also broken down and its gates are burned with fire.’

There are certain words and phrases that can really jump out at you from this passage. The word ‘survivors’, and that's what they were. They were barely coping. They were facing such challenging circumstances that they just looked to survive from day to day.

It paints a picture of, of what things were like. These were people who were bound and trapped, who had no hope for the future, and it says they were in great distress. The walls were broken down, the gates are burned with fire. Now any city that had the walls broken down meant that it could be robbed and pillaged by anybody who was passing by. It was a terrible state of affairs.

Now, when we look at where we are today, it might not be an exact parallel, but there are challenges that we face today. We're at the tail end, we pray of this pandemic, the pandemic has really ravaged the world. It has destroyed economies, and created monumental problems in society, and a lot of fear, a lot of uncertainty, not knowing what tomorrow is going to bring.

Then if we look at the challenges we face as we try to advance the Kingdom of God in our generation, with the opposition to the gospel, the immorality and the apathy that exists, we could almost say we have our own challenges like those in Nehemiah’s time.

The right response

The key thing for me is Nehemiah’s reaction to these circumstances. Verse four sums it up: ‘When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.’ (Neh 1.4).

I think this is almost a step-by-step guide as to how we deal with the circumstances we find ourselves in. We can challenge ourselves with Nehemiah’s response. He didn't just see or hear and think ‘oh, how sad how did things get so bad?’ and then life continues. No, the state of things was such that it literally stopped him in his tracks.  

For us, if we're going to really make a difference, it must be that kind of thing that happens to us where we stop and we think and reflect and ponder. We don't just think ‘how did things get this bad?’, and then move on. Nehemiah stopped and sat down, he paused in the frenetic and frantic pace of life to reflect on the state of things, and I think that reflection is good and necessary, because if God is going to use us, we have to create the time and space, so that he can put his heart in us. We must have his burden for his world and for his people. And it takes a ‘sitting down’ to allow that burden to be deposited in us.

Nehemiah sat down, and he wept. He was moved by the state of things. It wasn't superficial. He felt the sorrow that God would feel at the state of affairs. He saw things and it touched him deeply. And I think, if God is going to use us, like, I know he's going to, we must get to that level where we are moved by these things and we have been touched in the depth of our being.

Same God

Now I'm thinking to myself, this was a monumental problem. It needed a leader who had a great vision. Jerusalem had been in this state for 150 years, the walls destroyed, the gates burned, and here comes a man who can open up himself to receive God's heart, God's vision, God's burden, and he believes that there's nothing that God cannot do.

You know, these are things that we have to remind ourselves to believe. That the God of the Bible is still the same today, and that God can do exactly whatever he pleases. Absolutely nothing shall be impossible for God. If he chooses to do it, he will do it.

The 21st century United Kingdom God has not changed. The God of the Bible is still the same. yesterday, today and forever. If we would just stay in the place of prayer with faith, believing God for his own plans and his own purposes, they will come to pass.

Jeremiah 33.3 says ‘call unto me’, and it's us who have to do the calling, and that's all we have to do, and God says that he will answer, and ‘show you great and mighty things which you didn't know’. Remember Matthew 7.7 and the golden rule of prayer, ‘Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock, and the door shall be opened unto you’.

Here are five things I want to throw at us as an encouragement as we follow the model of Nehemiah:  

1. Reliance on God

Nehemiah was reliant on God. He didn't have a plan B. If we want a revival, regeneration, a society to be transformed it must be to the God of heaven that we look. It's not going to be our ideas, our agendas, our intellects. People are going to be convicted by the Spirit with regards to the gospel of truth. So we look to the God of heaven.

2.God’s nature

I love the way Nehemiah appeals to God's nature. He says, ‘God, you keep your covenant with those who love you, God, it's you. You are a kind God, you're compassionate. You're a covenant keeping God.’ A lot of times when I pray, I remind God about the prayers of those who have gone before us. The prayers that the great saints of the past prayed over the nation of the United Kingdom. Nehemiah appeals to God's nature.

3.Persistent in prayer

Nehemiah prayed before God ‘day and night’. Now if there's one thing that the modern church needs to learn in this fast paced world, is the ancient art of praying through, of holding on in prayer and being persistent. The whole essence is that prayer is a reward because when we go into prayer that is persistent, we change because we get more of God, and that is the greater answer. Then the lesser answer, the lesser reward in those circumstances is that we get the answers to our prayer. The Bible is full of God encouraging us that if we pray, he will answer. So persistence.  

4.Acknowledge our sin

The thing I love about Nehemiah’s prayer is how he identified with the sins of His people. So it's not they are doing things that are wrong, that they have done all these things that are terrible. No, we have all done, it is collective. We identify with the sins of the nation we identify with the wrong that has been done. We don't sit on a high horse and condemn. We pray like Nehemiah, ‘We have sinned, Lord, as a nation…we have done things that we shouldn't have done.’ 

5.Reminding God

I love the way Nehemiah says to God, ‘remember’. He's saying, God, you promised, and I feel that's one of the most effective forms of prayer where you're taking God's promises back to him.

Conclusion

As I end, the thing that strikes me the most in the book of Nehemiah, is of course the prayer, but I also find it such a great book on leadership, because here is a guy who shows, you know such amazing leadership traits. He mobilises, the people who have the lowest of morale. He mobilises them and shares a vision that is bigger than him and bigger than them.

So I'm encouraged for 2022 Let's go for it. We're not survivors, were more than conquerors. We are victorious in Christ. He has chosen to use us foolish things to confound the wise. And that's exciting. So Let's let's learn from Nehemiah that we can stand together, shoulder to shoulder, irrespective of whatever differences might exist. Loving the same Christ, and we can give ourselves to Him so that He can use us to build His kingdom in the next stage.

Hallelujah. Amen.