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The Most Precious Possession: Understanding Faith
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Today we're looking at the most valuable thing that each one of you possesses. It's not your house, it's not your car, it's not your possessions or your savings account. The most precious thing that each and every one of you possesses is your faith—your trust in God.
The Apostle Peter tells us in 1 Peter 1:7 that trials occur so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes though it's tested by fire, may result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Faith is the currency of the kingdom of God. It's the way into the kingdom and the way on in the kingdom.
You can be utterly poverty-stricken in this world and yet be a billionaire in God's kingdom because of your faith. Conversely, you can be filthy rich in this world and yet be an utter pauper in God's kingdom because of a lack of faith. What's your faith level like right now? Jesus says faith as small as a mustard seed is precious and powerful. However much or little faith you have at the moment, as we look at Nehemiah 2, we're going to see how valuable it is—why we should prize it, why we should guard it, and why we should seek to grow it.
Nehemiah is a man with abundant faith, which enables all that he does in the book. We live in an age of shaking, where everything is being shaken. Things that never used to change are changing, and perhaps the only constant is change. It's only faith's power that enables us to stand firm and have deep unshakability and stability.
When Nehemiah arrives in Jerusalem to carry out his mission to rebuild the walls, he demonstrates this stability in striking ways. First, in verse 11, he doesn't do anything for three days or tell anyone why he's there. He's just completed a four-month journey, so he takes time to rest, recuperate, and settle into his new situation. He doesn't feel rushed into action. He's content to live with people's questions about why he's there and what he's doing, because he has that deep inner assurance that God sent him there. God is with him, and he'll move at God's pace.
Second, this stability shows itself as Nehemiah courageously engages with the situation in its full reality. After three days, he sets out at night on a single animal with only a few trusted companions to assess the state of the walls. The ruins are devastating—dense rubble everywhere. This is not burying your head in the ground and hoping things aren't too bad. He actively chooses to see just how bad things are, to count the cost, and then to go all in. It's a courage only enabled by faith and trust in God.
Some of us are ostriches in life. We're not always willing to fully engage with the full reality of the changes in front of us. We're afraid of finding out. We might label it as faith, but honestly it's a lack of faith. Some of you avoid going to the doctor for fear of what might be found. Others won't look at your bank balance. Still others don't want to know the true state of your marriage or what your friendships are really based on.
But faith in the God who promises never to leave us or forsake us—whatever comes our way—enables us to deal with reality as it really is. We can look it right in the eye and confront it with strength.
I learned this when I was learning to drive. I was awful and had a terrifying tendency to veer into oncoming traffic and then swerve all over the place trying to overcompensate. My driving instructor, John Curtain, figured out that my eyes were so worried about the oncoming cars that they were drifting towards them, causing me to steer towards them. He gave me simple advice: "Keep your eyes on the car in front of you because where you're looking is where you'll end up going."
For us, that's what faith in Jesus does. It allows us to fix our eyes on him and his promises, and they become the focus of where we're going. It brings a deep stability to our lives so that whatever's going on around us, we're able to stay the course and continue going in the right direction.
Moving on in verses 13 through 16, we see a detailed account of Nehemiah's nighttime journey around the ruins of Jerusalem. The walls are in terrible condition—at one point the rubble is so bad that he can't proceed on his animal and has to continue on foot.
But here's the key: he's not just assessing what is; he's also dreaming what will be. Notice in verse 16 that he mentions "any others who'd be doing the work"—future tense. He's already seeing in advance, as he goes around the ruins, what's going to happen, what needs doing, and who will be involved.
He has eyes of faith to both see the ruins and the restoration. The ability to dream with God of what will be depends on faith. The limits of our dreaming with him depend on our belief in who he is and what he's promised.
Lawrence of Arabia once said: "All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake up in the day to find it was only a vanity. But the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes to make it possible."
I love the story of farmer Angus Buchanan, who wrote the book Faith Like Potatoes. God gave him a vision to plant and reap a huge harvest of potatoes during a drought in South Africa as a witness to him. People thought he was completely stupid. But he said in an interview: "People said to me, you can't plant potatoes without water and it's going to be a drought. I said to them, you'll see. I planted the potatoes. I sweated blood. Many a day I'd walk up there and it was just dust. I'd say, Jesus, I believe you told me to do this so that your name could be glorified. And then eventually we reaped a beautiful crop of potatoes off this farm."
Do you have eyes of faith to dream the impossible because of what God has said? Do you need to dream bigger dreams with him?
In verses 17 and 18, after his nighttime reconnaissance, Nehemiah comes to the local leaders and invites them into what God is calling them to. He says: "You see the trouble we're in. Jerusalem lies in ruins and its gates have been burned with fire. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem and we will no longer be in disgrace. I also told them about the gracious hand of my God on me and what the king had said to me."
Their response is immediate and simple: "Let us start rebuilding." There's no argument, no debate. They simply say, "Yes, we're all in," and get to work.
There's just a simple immediacy to the people's response, showing how contagious Nehemiah's faith is. What he believes is possible is instantly what they believe is possible. Throughout the book, people are infected simply by breathing the same air as him.
The same can be true for us. Our belief in who Jesus is and what he can do can be held so convincingly that it transforms everyone around us and infects them as well.
There are a couple of reasons why Nehemiah's faith is so contagious:
First, he redescribes reality in faith. In verse 17, he says their need isn't just about physical vulnerability but about their disgrace. He's linking their ruined walls to the spiritual reality—their ongoing disgrace as punishment for past sin. But he's saying the punishment time is over. The prophet Jeremiah said it was only meant to be 70 years long. He's proclaiming: "Now is the time for that disgrace to be removed." He's seeing things in another dimension. The time has changed.
Second, there's personal testimony that backs that up. He recounts what happened to him in the king's court—how God's favor was abundantly upon him, releasing authorization and resources for the work. He's testifying that God is at work right now. Join in with it.
They needed this testimony because they'd been living amongst these ruins for years. It probably seemed impossible to change the situation. But Nehemiah's faith resees how things are, testifies of a God who's powerfully at work, and changes everything.
Are there people around you living in ruins, living in status quo misery, unable to see how things can change? Where are you being called to bring your story of faith and what you can see differently with eyes of faith?
In verses 19 and 20, we meet opposition. Sanballat, Tobiah, and Geshem—local political powers—get wind of Nehemiah's plans and start to oppose them, taunting and questioning their legitimacy. They simply want sole control over the land in Jerusalem.
Notice how Nehemiah doesn't engage with their arguments and taunts, but neither does he ignore them. In faith instead, he speaks God's truth over them:
"The God of heaven will give us success. We are his servants and will start rebuilding, but as for you, you have no share in Jerusalem or any claim or historical right to it."
Nehemiah doesn't choose to play their game of power plays. He doesn't get bogged down in arguing whether the rebuilding was physically possible or whether he'd been authorized by the king. His response is of a completely different level—a level with eyes lifted to God.
It's a faith that responds to the truth of what God's doing and their identity in him, rather than the seeming reality of how things appear around them.
Whenever we step out in faith to see God's kingdom come, it stirs up opposition. Spiritual forces of evil, powers in the land that don't like you, that want to stop you. They accuse you: "Don't you think it's impossible? Who are you to do this? You're going to get in trouble and a terrible mess."
The only way to deal with this is through faith in the God who says otherwise. Whose words are the only ones that count.
Paul talks about this in Ephesians 6, about taking up the shield of faith to extinguish the flaming darts of the evil one. He's referring to the Roman scutum—a door-sized shield that covered the entire body, through which no flaming attack could penetrate. That's what faith does for us as we trust in what God has said over us and in our lives.
We see this in Jesus in the wilderness. The enemy comes at him three times in succession, and every time, how does he defend and overcome that attack? By speaking God's truth in rebuttal: "No, God said this. No, he said this. No, he said this. This is what is true."
If God is leading you into a season that's really tough and you know something of the enemy's attack, learn from this: Don't descend to the level of the attack. That's not the way we play this. Let faith raise your eyes to what God has said and what God is doing, quenching those attacks.
Our faith as we see in Nehemiah's life is so valuable. The question is: how do we grow this precious faith? How do we steward it, grow it, and enable it to do all that it's meant to do in and through our lives?
I want to suggest three spiritual practices that we can engage in to grow faith:
We need to admit where we are. We're a mixed bag of both faith and unbelief. Like the man who came to Jesus with faith for his son's healing, we can say: "Lord, I believe, help my unbelief." Like the disciples confronted by Jesus saying the impossible, we can say: "Lord, increase our faith."
Jesus never responds with judgment: "I find your lack of faith disturbing." Instead, he takes where we're at and takes it to the next level in a way that's so kind and gentle, helping us to trust him deeper and believe what he's said more truly.
We saw how Nehemiah's faith was contagious. Sometimes we're the ones that need to be infected by someone else's faith. The spiritual practice of community, where you can hear the testimony of others and share your own, is what causes faith to rise in our lives. It's a precious gift.
Romans 10:17 says: "Faith comes through hearing and hearing by the word of Christ." We need to regularly place ourselves in places where God can speak to us, where the voices around us are drowned out and we know with certainty that we've heard his voice.
It comes through scripture reading, expecting God to speak. It comes through solitude and silence, making space for God to speak. It comes through worship, where we hear God speak to each other as we proclaim his praise.
Your faith is the most valuable, precious thing that you have. Never give up on it. Don't ever let anyone rob you of it. Tend to it, grow it. Let it do all that it's meant to do in your life.
