If You Can't Build Consensus You'll Never Build the Wall
Tom Shrader examines Nehemiah's leadership approach in rebuilding Jerusalem's wall, emphasizing that before any great work can be accomplished, consensus must be built. He shows how Nehemiah strategically enlisted God through prayer, King Artaxerxes through relationship, supporters through connections, and partners through credibility. The teaching contrasts godly success (focused on obedient process) with worldly success (focused only on results).
“Nehemiah is God's guy doing God's job, God's way, God's timing, and that's where we want to be in our life.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Just Do It (2004)
Recorded: 2004
Duration: 43 min
Themes: leadership, consensus, prayer, relationships, obedience, strategy, partnership, service, new to leadership, pastor, ministry leader, building teams, facing opposition, starting projects, elder, mentor
Scripture: Nehemiah 1, Nehemiah 2, Genesis 39:3, Nehemiah 1:4, Nehemiah 1:6, Nehemiah 1:10-11, Nehemiah 2:1-6, Nehemiah 2:8, Nehemiah 2:10, Nehemiah 2:17-18, Nehemiah 2:19, Nehemiah 2:20
Theological Themes: nehemiah, old testament, biblical leadership, servant leadership, stewardship, godly success, spiritual discipline, covenant faithfulness
Full Transcript
I love this lesson, and because I do, I'll probably not articulate it well, but I'll try to pull it out and help you see some stuff that you can apply in your own life. We said before, we'll probably say it throughout the series, that when you hear Nehemiah, he's typically associated with the idea of leadership. So when you see Nehemiah used as a model, it's how to be a leader here or a leader there. Lots of books on leadership, there are whole sections now. Go over to Borders or Barnes and Noble, you'll find a whole section on leadership, and they're out there all over. John Wooden on leadership, Atul Dahan on leadership, Rudy Giuliani on leadership, leadership all over the place.
Nehemiah has a different approach to leadership, and obviously, because it lines up with my personal experience, I love His approach. I don't think leadership is that tough to figure out. I don't understand, frankly, how you write a whole bunch of books on it. It is, in its bottom line, common sense, understanding how you'd like to be treated, and then treat other people that way. I really do think that's a lion's share of this stuff.
Nehemiah's Historical Context
So Nehemiah is our guide, and we established a little history last week. The city of Jerusalem has been destroyed, and there have been several attempts to rebuild it. It was destroyed in 722 BC, 586 BC. There were some attempts made to get back to the city: 538, Zerubbabel comes in; 458, Ezra comes in. Now, 444, 445, Nehemiah comes to the city.
Let me take you through the background, and you can just follow along if you'd like on your outline. Also, if you have your Bibles, we're going to be going back and forth. As I said before, it's not a verse-by-verse study, but there's some things that we want to pull out, we want to make reference to.
The Pitiful Situation
When Nehemiah arrives, and Nehemiah understands the situation, the survivor of the situation was pitiful. Remember what they said? They said that the city was in ruin, verse 4, there was a remnant, they were in great distress and reproach, the wall of Jerusalem is broken down, its gates are burned with fire. The gates or the wall would have been the security of the city, the situation is a pitiful one.
Also, the spiritual background was essential, it was important to understand the spiritual background. When Nehemiah starts here, in verse 6, he begins to outline His sin. He said, "I'm praying before Thee day and night, confessing the sins of the sons of Israel, and we have sinned, and I and my Father's house have sinned." That's extraordinary.
Personal Responsibility vs. Modern Excuses
I was flying back, we were in the Quad Cities, just a very quick trip, we went out Thursday and came back Tuesday, so it was real quick, and we had an opportunity to speak a couple times there, and be with some high school friends, which all that stuff is always great and fun, but it was really quick. When I was coming back, I was reading the newspaper, and there was yet another athlete arrested, a former athlete in marijuana, and he's got marijuana in there, and he said, "You know, I'll be vindicated, I'm innocent, I'm not responsible." I'm sure he's irresponsible, I got that part figured out, but I'm sure, you know, it's the same thing. It's the same thing all over. Every one of these guys are going to be vindicated, and they're all guilty as can be. You don't see it very often.
Here's what Nehemiah says. Nehemiah says, "You know what, my Father sinned, the nation sinned, I've sinned." He understands. Listen, fundamentally, the problem in front of you, if you went to Nehemiah's boys, and you said, "Guys, what's the problem here," they'd say, "The wall's down, the gates aren't there, the city's vulnerable." If you went to Nehemiah and said, "What's the problem," he'd say, "We've sinned."
The Root Problem: Sin
Again, election year, and who knows? There is no way. Somebody asked me the other day, "Who's going to win this election?" I mean, all I can do is say, whoever God wants to win, because there is absolutely no way to figure this out. There are so many wild cards, you couldn't figure this out in a bazillion years, I don't think, at this point.
I do know this, health care will be an issue. I'm not a candidate, though I should be, probably. I'm not a candidate. I can cut health care costs by 40% immediately. I can cut health care costs by 40% immediately. You know how? And this is based on their own statistics. The doctors don't cheat, and the patients don't cheat, and the hospitals don't cheat. They said about 40% of it is waste for cheating, excess, and billing. I can cut health care costs, here you go. So what's the problem with high health care costs? Sin. Sin's at the core of that.
You can go over to Fashion Square, you know, when the midst of inflation and all the other stuff's beginning to fuel up, I can go over to Fashion Square, and I can cut retail costs by somewhere between 10 and 20%, depending upon the store, by eliminating shoplifting and employee theft. Isn't that amazing? When we look at all these problems around us, "Oh, health care costs, they're out of control." Sure they are. You're all cheating. You're all screwing everybody else. That's why they're out of control, among other things. And we see that all around us.
Spiritual Roots of Practical Problems
When we look at the problem, understand that spiritual decisions and sin and misunderstanding and false doctrine have a profound effect. When we were in India, people were starving all over, and yet we'd see piles of food. And this grain, and how they figured this out, how would you know? I have no idea how you figure this out. They said somewhere between 25 to 30% of the grain in India is eaten by rodents, rats, mice. Well, we'd solve that in a nanosecond, wouldn't we? We'd call Truly No One and start blasting these guys away. This I can fix like that. But if I'm in India, I don't do that because that mouse might be Uncle Jim or Aunt Mary. See that? See how the...
The Consequences of Our Beliefs
Here's the spiritual belief, and it has consequences around you. I'm telling you about Nehemiah because he goes right on this thing. How can these women do this? This is amazing. What has happened to the government? What has happened to the army? Who are the women? We sent the women in to serve the army. Now the women are pointing in these pictures and all this. What's wrong with the women?
I listened to this guy pontificate the other night. I could throw up about what we've done to the women—we've ruined the women. I've been listening for 40 years how you're equal, you're identical, you're the same. And I'm saying that's why. Why would a woman do this? It's got nothing to do with orders or anything. Because she's a sinful little derelict. That's why. This isn't hard to figure out. And that's where everybody is.
All the way, here you go. Watch how they try to unpack this. They're having a hard time now because it's so bad. But when those first pictures came out, they were trying to figure out the women and what's happened to the women. Always a victim, never a villain. That's the world we live in. It's somebody else's fault.
Strategic Positioning for God's Work
Here's the third thing. The strategic opportunity was absolutely incredible. He was at a pivotal moment, remember? God was getting ready to do something. It was an ordinary looking day, but something significant was going to happen.
He was in a strategic position. He was a cupbearer. He had access to the king on a daily basis. We tried to apply that last week. The same thing is true in your life. It can be these ordinary days, but you're a leader. That's what I want you to see. You're a leader. If anybody's following, you're a leader. It might be a toddler.
When we were home, we went over to my brother Jim's house, and Jim has three little kids. I haven't been around little kids in a long time, and we had a blast. It was absolutely fun to be around them. Man, they're a lot of work, though. They don't ever stop. Holy cow, I don't remember ours being like this at all. And Susan said, "That's because you didn't deal with them," and I said, "Oh, yeah, I remember. You did that."
But I mean, we had a blast with them. Make sure you understand what I'm saying. I had a blast with them, and they're jumping and running, and they want to play. When you play cards, they want to sit in your lap and be around and deal the cards and lay the cards down and do it. I mean, it's just terrific, a bundle of energy. If you got one of those kids following you, you're a real leader, my friend, and every day is an opportunity. He's in a strategic position.
God's Man, God's Job, God's Way, God's Timing
And then the fourth thing here is that the special assignment was unmistakable. There is this unique opportunity. So here's a phrase you're going to hear today: Nehemiah is God's guy doing God's job, God's way, God's timing. I want you to get that. And obviously, that's where we want to be in our life. That's our prayer all the time. God, we don't want to be one step ahead of You. We don't want to be one step behind You. We want to be right where You want us to be.
In your life, that's what you want, I assume. You want to be God's man, God's woman. You want to know what God would have you do. That's virtually impossible, by the way. You can get the moral will of God in this Bible, but does He want you to live in the red house or the green house? That's a crap shoot right there. You've got to figure that out on your own.
But I want to be doing God's stuff, God's way, God's work. And I want to do it His way, and we'll hammer that home in a minute. Okay, so here you go. If you're filling out the outline, number one is pitiful, two is essential, three is incredible, four is unmistakable.
Nehemiah's Strategy for Building Consensus
Now under B, Nehemiah's strategy for building consensus. I'm going to go ahead and give you the blanks. We'll fill them in. He enlists God by appealing to His character. So he appeals to God's character. He enlists Artaxerxes by trading on his relationship. He enlists supporters by utilizing his connections. Number four, he enlists partners by building his credibility. And number five, he enlists enemies by demonstrating his resolve.
Now here's what you see. Nehemiah's got a job to do, and the job that he wants to do is to build that wall. But before Nehemiah can build that wall, he's got to build a consensus and build a team. It's absolutely the same in every task that you are engaged in.
Rarely can you be the guy. I mean, you might be a guy to do a specific job, simple job, you're in control, you're the thing from beginning to end. But most tasks that you have are going to incorporate other people.
Leading People vs. Leading Business
Especially true, by the way, and I've been on both sides of this—accomplishing something in business is far easier, for example, than accomplishing it in church. In a business, you often have a paycheck as enticement. People will sit like a dog and beg for a paycheck. You can get them to do stuff for a check.
But when you're moving 500 volunteers, that's a little more difficult to do. How do you do it? How do you lead? What do you need to know? What do you need to understand? And I'm saying you need to understand people. And the best way to understand people is to understand yourself. Understand how you'd like to be treated and how you'd like to be motivated.
Is that to say everybody's the same? No. But you start to get some principles. So let's look at Nehemiah, and hopefully this will excite you the way it did me.
Appealing to God's Character
First of all, he appeals to God's character. Verse 10 and 11 of chapter 1, he is outlining for us who God is. His great power. His strong hand. His name. That's what it is. It's His very name.
When we're talking about His name, we're talking about all that He is, all that He has. In a sense, we're talking at that point about His reputation. So a person's name is more than just his John Hancock. It's who John Hancock was. When Clarence Thomas went through all those hearings with Anita Hill, what
When we talk about the name of God, we're talking about who God is, all that He is. Clarence Thomas, in his frustration during the confirmation hearings, said "I want to clear my name. My name may never be worth anything." What he meant there was not just the phrase "Clarence Thomas." What he meant was who he was as a person.
Prayer: The Foundation of Leadership
That starts by praying, by going to the Lord. Remember we said last week four things about prayer. When I pray, it causes me to wait. When I pray, it clears my vision. When I pray, it quiets my heart. When I pray, it activates my faith.
I love that from last week's lesson: it takes a lot of faith to do nothing. I watched a little Channel 21 last night just for sport, and they're out there talking about stepping out by faith. That's what we think of when we think of faith—stepping out by faith, walking by faith, acting by faith, doing by faith. It takes a lot of faith to say, "I'm going to wait."
So Nehemiah is praying. He begins by understanding and appealing to God's character: "You're a great God. You're a powerful God. You're a mighty God." When we come to God in prayer, I assume people pray as though they were Calvinists, as though they believed that God was sovereign and in control. Why otherwise would you pray? You're praying and saying, "God, You move mountains. You do things. You impart knowledge. You give wisdom." We're acknowledging who You are.
Here's what we don't want to do: we're not praying so that we can take God and bring Him over here and sell Him our agenda. We're praying that He would open our eyes to see His agenda, and we'd be God's people doing God's work, God's way, in God's time. God moves us over here and lines us up with His plan.
Understanding Both the Spiritual and the System
Here's the second thing, and I love this: Nehemiah is a very spiritual guy, but he understands the system. He's looking around and saying, "If I'm going to get from here to there, if I'm ever going to be part of what God uses to build this wall, it looks like the king's going to have to sign off on this. I'm a slave. I work for the king." He understands how this stuff works, and while he's appealing to God, at the same time, he's using his head.
Look at what happens here in verse 1 of chapter 2, verses 1 through 6: "It came about in the month of Nisan, in the 20th year of King Artaxerxes." Remember, it's the month of Nisan. What did that used to be called? The month of Nissan! "And the wine was before him. And I took up the wine and gave it to the king."
So it's time for the king to eat, drink, or party, whatever's going to happen. The wine's there, so Nehemiah's going to be there. He takes the wine and gives it to the king. "And the king said to me, 'Why is your face sad though you're not sick?' In other words, if you're sick, if you're physically ill, I understand this, but you're not sick. Why is your face sad if you're not sick? This is nothing but sadness of the heart. And then I was very much afraid."
The Risk of Showing Emotion to Power
There's no way you'd know this without a little background, but most scholars believe the reason that Nehemiah was afraid at this point is that generally speaking, it was punished by death if you were sad in the presence of the king. He didn't want to see sad people.
Get this: it's now four months since our story began, four months since Nehemiah heard about the condition of the wall, four months that he's been praying and fasting and weeping, and for four months he's had daily contact with the king. But for four months, the king never detected anything in him that would lead him to believe that Nehemiah had this sadness of the heart. But now it's just boiled up in him, and apparently he can't contain it anymore. The king diagnoses it accurately: "This is sadness of the heart."
"I was very much afraid. And I said to the king"—by the way, I believe this is what every cupbearer would say—"'Let the king live forever. Why should my face not be sad when the city and the place of my father's tomb lies desolate and the gates have been consumed by fire?' And the king said, 'What would you request?'"
The Prepared Heart Meets the Opportune Moment
It doesn't say it in here, but you know: here's Nehemiah, for four months his heart's been broken about this. My suspicion would be that for four months Nehemiah has role-played in his mind, "I know I need the king on board. When will the king ask? If the king said to me, 'What do you need?' what would I say?" Wouldn't you have your speech ready? If he said, "What do you want?" I'd reach into my pocket, throw that scroll down, and start listing all the stuff I need. I'd have it all ready. I'm ready for the moment.
And look what old Nehemiah does: "So I prayed to the God of heaven, and I said to the king, 'If it please the king, and if your servant has found favor before you, send me to Judah, to the city of my father's tombs, that I may rebuild it.' Then the king said to me, the queen sitting beside him, 'How long will your journey be, and when will you return?' So it pleased the king to send me, and I gave him a definite time."
When God's Favor is Evident
There are a couple of subtle points I want to make. First is the same thing we saw back in Genesis 39, verse 3: "Potiphar saw the Lord was with Joseph." Here's my question: Do people see that the Lord is with you? If you're a Christian, do people see that the Lord is with you?
What would people see when they look at you? They would see joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and faithfulness. That's the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. How are they going to see that the Lord is with you?
They would see you study. They'd see you pray. They'd see you sing. But what would they see when they look in your face? When I watch some of these preachers on television claiming to be filled with the Spirit, but they weigh 500 pounds, I don't buy it. Part of the Spirit is self-control. You ought to be able to drive by a Krispy Kreme. I'm not saying I don't struggle in these areas myself, but to just say "I can't control that"—I don't buy it. Something's wrong. That's a spiritual issue.
Do they see it in your heart? Do they see it in your life? Do they see it in your eyes? It's getting worse and worse to be around Christians. Same-sex marriage, everything's going to hell, everything's got a problem, the Southern Baptists want to pull your kids out of the public schools, boycott Disneyland. I don't hear anything positive from Christians. You would think that we ought to be the happiest people on earth.
Hope in the Right Place
Things are getting worse. They are getting very, very bad. But that makes it easier! It makes it easier for you to be salt and light. Your hope isn't in the government. My hope isn't in the Republicans or the Democrats. My hope is in Christ. They ought to see that.
I love that Nehemiah sees that, and he prays, and he beseeches God. Now there's one more thing I want to address, and I want to watch time because I want to spend a lot of time on this.
Learning from Larry
When I became a Christian in March of 1980, it took a while for me to figure things out. Larry became my mentor. Everywhere that Larry went, Tom was sure to go. I was watching Larry and everything that he did.
One day I came to him and said, "Larry, I think I want to teach." He said, "Can I give you some advice?" I said, "Absolutely. Let me get a piece of paper and a pencil because I don't want to lose this." He said, "If you're going to talk, it would be good to have something to say. There's a lot of guys out there that are talking that don't have anything to say."
I realized I'd better get something to say. If I'm going to have something to say, I better know this. So I started studying intensively. I talked to a lot of people asking, "What does God want me to do?" The answer was always, "Don't know." If you don't know what He wants you to do, you better keep your options open. You better get rid of the things that are going to entangle you. You don't know where God's going to send you or what God's going to do. Don't take on a bunch of debt. Ninety percent of those who say they want to go into the mission field don't get there because of debt. Can you imagine going to God and saying, "I heard the call, but I just needed that new car"?
The Wake-Up Call
So I was studying, studying, studying constantly. I came home one night, and Susan said, "How are you doing?" I said, "I'm fine. How are you doing?" She said, "Not so well." I said, "What's the problem?" She said, "You're the problem."
I said, "Why is that?" She said, "This is just like when you were drinking. The only difference is you don't throw up when you come home. Everything else is the same. You're never here. You're out studying. When you're here, you're in that back room. All you do is read the Bible. All you do is hang out with these guys. All you do is pray. You got a wife. You got kids. You better figure this out."
I realized she was exactly right. I said to Larry, "I think I'm screwing this area up." He said, "Well, don't screw that area up because that's a big one."
Getting the Right People on Board
If God's going to do something in my life, Susan's got to be on board. There's no way that I can do what we do if Susan's not on board. The first year that we moved from what we were doing into working with Larry in Abundant Life, our salary was what we paid in income tax the year before. That's a hard buy-in. That meant we were going to go without a lot of stuff.
I'm not saying woe is me—I got the greatest life in the world. I'm not complaining at all. What I'm saying is, if she's not on board with this thing, it ain't going to happen.
So who are the people you need on board? It may be a spouse. It may be a co-worker. It may be the king. Who do you need on board? Here's what Nehemiah understands: I'm not going to get there humanly. I can do all things through Christ, but I'm not going to get from here to there if the king's not on board.
Enlisting Supporters
You better figure out, if God's laying this great thing on you and God's preparing you to do this, who do you need on board? And how do you get them on board? That's what Nehemiah does. He understands this, and that doesn't change anything. He's still relying on the Lord. But he begins now to enlist his supporters. He uses his connections.
When we get to the city and we build the wall...
We're going to need lumber. We're going to need fasteners. So here's what he says. He's still talking to the king. "I said to the king, if it please the king, let letters be given to me for the governors of the provinces beyond the river that they may allow me to pass through until I come to Judah."
He said, "You know, here's what's going to happen. We're moving along, and they're going to stop us and say, 'What are you doing?' 'Well, we're going to Jerusalem.' 'Who are you?' 'We're a slave.' 'Why are you going to Jerusalem?' 'Rebuild the city.' 'Who said you could do this?' 'The king.'" He understands. People are going to say, "There's no way. The king isn't going to let his slaves go and build a wall in the city and trust them to come back. That isn't going to happen." So, if you could give us a letter, that would really help. Because when they stop us, we can go, "Whoops, here's what the king said."
And while you're writing, verse 8, "write a letter to the keeper of the king's forest that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the fortress which is by the temple and for the wall of the city and for the house to which I will go. And the king will grant them to me because the good hand of God was on me." Isn't that amazing? He understands exactly what's going on. He's doing it. He's living by faith. He's understanding the faith. God said, "Why is the king going to do this?" Not because Nehemiah is something special, but he understands God's at work. But there's still faith.
Faith and Common Sense
When we were in a building we were renting, our church, we wanted to build a new building. I don't know if you've all ever been through that. We went through a whole building project and we had one family leaving. The only reason they left is they wanted a smaller church. So I mean, that's as good as it's going to get because these building things can get ugly.
So a bunch of people came in and they sat down and they said, "Tom, here's the deal. I would not do one thing until you had all the money. Don't you do one thing. Don't you move one shovel of dirt until you have all the money. God is a great God. God will provide all the money." The next group came in and said, "Listen, here's what I'd do. I'd borrow as much as I can. I would borrow as much money as I can because here's what's going to happen. And I can guarantee you this is going to happen. The minute you get into it, you're going to outgrow it. It's going to be too big or it's going to be too small. You're going to have people everywhere. You need to borrow as much money as you can."
Now here's what's fascinating. As I stood back and looked at both of them, both of them were appealing to faith. The first group said, "If you had enough faith, if you had enough faith, you'd just wait until God provided the money." The second group said, "If you had enough faith, you'd just step out and you'd do it and God would provide it." Why don't we just, if we really have faith, why don't we just drive by every day till God plops the building there? Because He could do that. He could do that. I mean, right? What has more faith than that? Well, because we use common sense. We look around and we use some common sense.
So did we use debt? Yeah, we used a little debt. Kind of like all those guys that come and say, "I'm absolutely against debt." And I say, "Well, do you have a mortgage on your house?" "Yes." "You're absolutely against what kind of debt?" We're a family. We need a house. The house is the church. We put some reasonable debt on it.
You see that? Faith doesn't mean that becomes the whipping boy for everything. Faith doesn't just mean that you go out there and do something really stupid. You can go out there and jump out of an airplane without a parachute at 10,000 feet and if God wants you to live, you'll live. I wouldn't do it. I think it's stupid. Somehow in here, you've got to use your faith in this process. And Nehemiah uses that faith. Nehemiah uses that faith, but he understands common sense. He goes. He gets these guys involved.
Arriving in Jerusalem
Now, he arrives at the city. And now, he looks in and uses credibility. He does something here that I would never do. He came to Jerusalem. He's now there. Do you see this? He has been out. You understand the story? Got the letters. He's passed through. Got the timber. He's there. He's at the city.
"And he's there three days. And I arose in the night, I and a few men with me. And I did not tell anyone what God was putting into my mind to do for Jerusalem. There was no animal except the animal in which I was riding. I went out at night by the valley gate in the direction of the dragon's well. And on the refuge gate, inspecting the walls of Jerusalem which were broken down and its gates which were consumed by fire. Then I passed on the fountain gate and the king's pool, but there was no place for my mount to pass. So I went up at night by the ravine and inspected the wall. Then I returned to the valley gate again and returned. And the officials did not know where I had gone or what I'd done, nor had I as yet told the Jews, the priests, the nobles, the officials, or the rest who did the work."
"And then I said to them, you see the bad situation we're in? That Jerusalem is desolate and its gates burnt down by fire? Come let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem that we may no longer be a reproach."
Here's what he does. He doesn't come to town and say, "Boys, you have had 85 years. The pro from Dover is here. Step aside and let me build the wall." I learned a lot from that. That's how I used to do stuff. I'd blow in and say, "Here's the answer," before I was even really certain what the question might be.
The Power of Fact-Finding
Nehemiah does three days of fact-finding. He's just looking around. He's watching stuff come together. He's gathering the facts. And then I look at verse 17, it is unbelievable to me. "You see the bad situation we're in? That Jerusalem is desolate?" That's not
Building Consensus Through Shared Ownership
What I'd say is, that what you'd say? He'd say, "Look at the bad situation you're in. You got yourself into this." That's what John Kennedy said. John Kennedy said, "Oh, we're in a mess. We got ourselves into it and we can get ourselves out of it," which obviously isn't true. Look at the situation you're in. But he says, "Look at the situation we're in." Do you see the difference?
Remember what we're talking about? We're talking about building a consensus. We're talking about building a team. We're talking about bringing people together. And when it's all done, when they've heard the Word, down in verse 18, they say, "Let us arise and build."
Nehemiah builds this team. He builds this consensus. He takes this time. He gets these people on board. He's not obsessed with getting this thing done as fast as he possibly can. He wants to get it done in the best way possible. He brings these people on. He's not project-oriented, he's people-oriented. And by being people-oriented, the project gets done.
The Starbucks Model of Investment
I read a couple of years ago, remember the guy, Howard Schultz, the guy that didn't start Starbucks, but he took Starbucks from what it was and made it. It's a fascinating biography. I don't remember—Pour Your Heart Into It was the name of it. And in there, he's talking about his decision to give health benefits to part-time workers.
And his board is saying, "You're going to bankrupt this joint. You're going to destroy this thing." He said, "Gentlemen, we're going to ask people to come in at 4:30 in the morning and open this thing up. We don't want to be supervising everybody along the way. We need people that are as committed to this thing as we are. And they aren't going to be if we aren't taking care of them."
You know what? It didn't bankrupt the company. I think you could argue it's one of the strongest characteristics of the company. If this is the training budget in most companies, their training budget's down in here. Nobody leaves.
Employee Ownership Creates Commitment
I'm driving to my parents' house, and there's a big store there. It's a little Hy-Vee, Hy-Vee grocery store. They're out of Sheraton, Iowa, and they're around in the area. Sheraton's where my mom's from, and so Hy-Vee's been around our life a long time. My grandfather worked at a Hy-Vee warehouse stuff, and so Hy-Vee's been around a long time.
You go by the Hy-Vee store, as you come in, in letters five feet tall over that store it says, "Employee Owned." What they're saying is, there's a buy-in here. We're heavily invested here. We're committed to this thing. That's how you get people aboard. You don't get them aboard by saying, "Get this over there, move this over here, do this over here." You treat people with dignity. You treat people with honor.
The Wrong Way to Lead
We had a guy, in one of our studies, mother was sick out on the East Coast, working for a big national firm. So he wanted to transfer out there to be with his mom. She's obviously going to die within a couple of years. Has his last interview with the VP out there, and the VP said, "You can have the job. Two things I want you to know. Number one, I work 70 hours a week, I expect you to. Number two, we got this mission statement—I ignore it. Here's what I want you to understand: Our customers are trying to screw us, and we're going to screw them first."
Now I've said this—I would love somebody to christen me CEO of some big company, because I think I would be terrific at it. And the first thing I would do is, I would take this guy, if I could get that story, I would email it to everybody, and this guy would be gone so fast they wouldn't know what hit him.
That's not how you need to do business. I'm not saying you don't work hard and you don't do your job—you understand that—but you treat people with dignity and honor.
Expect Opposition Even When Doing God's Work
Here's the last thing about Nehemiah: there are enemies. We're just introduced to them in verse 10—Sanballat and Tobiah are displeased with this. In verse 19, we meet them again, Sanballat and Tobiah. "And they mocked us, and they despised us, and they said, 'What is this thing you're doing?'"
Now, let me see if I can put a bow on it—we've got five minutes. God's man doing God's job, God's way, God's timing. I guess it should be smooth sailing? No. There's always going to be opposition. There's always going to be criticism.
Dealing with Preferences vs. Real Criticism
In our church, what happens is, if somebody fills out a card and they put their name on it, I circulate all the comments to all the staff. If it's unsigned, I don't circulate those—those just come to me. It is not at all unusual to grab this list of comments on a Sunday, and you will hear this: "The music was too loud, too strong. Why don't we sing more hymns?" The next one will be, "The music today was perfect. I worshipped ideally." The next one will be, "The room is way too hot." The next one will be, "The room is way too cold." The next one will be, "I loved this communion today when there was no music or sound. It was much more worshipful." The next one will be, "I missed the piano at communion."
Now here's what you need to get—those aren't criticisms, those are preferences. Nothing I can do about that. Too hot, too cold? Bring a sweater. That's our motto: bring a sweater. Some bring a sweater, learn and serve, because it's going to be cold in there. It's going to be cold. I want it cold. We can't get it cold again, so it's going to be cold. That's just the way it is.
But those aren't criticisms. What do you do with those? Well, you try to listen, you try to learn. When somebody is saying, "I don't really like this," then you sit down and you say, "Well here's why we do it," and they say, "Well I don't like it," and you say, "You know what, you're probably in the wrong place, because we aren't changing. So we'll miss you." That's okay. That doesn't say anything about you, it doesn't say anything about us—it's just subjective. You see that? I don't see that as criticism.
Now when they write and they say, "You're an arrogant little guy," now I've—
Just because you're doing God's Word, God's way, in God's timing, does not mean there isn't going to be opposition. There's going to be opposition. There's going to be criticism. Don't get so cynical that the minute they write a critical letter, you go, "Oh, they don't know what they're talking about."
I got a voicemail the other day that said, "You didn't call me back, you didn't do this, you didn't do this. I'm not giving you priority living, I'm not giving to the church. What kind of Christian..." I'm telling you, I never got a note from this person. I never heard from her. And I feel bad. I wish I knew who it was so I could call back.
Those are criticisms. And I internalize that and say, "Listen, if somebody's coming to us when they're hurting, we need to make certain we know what's going on here. We need to be real careful about this. We need to follow this up. And if we screw it up, just say we screwed it up. That's okay. We can fix that." Don't think for a second that because you're doing God's work, there isn't going to be opposition.
God's Success vs. Human Success
Now there's one little verse tucked in there. Look at verse 20. "So I answered them and said to them, the God of heaven will give us success." Let me make this one point: Godly success is different than human success.
I don't get the newspaper. I'm boycotting the newspaper, but I don't remember why. It just started a long time ago. So I don't get the Republic. When I do get a newspaper, what I typically do is go to the sports section. Like on the plane the other day, we had a USA Today on Tuesday, which is a great day to have USA Today because it has all the golfing stats in it. Driving distance, greens in regulation, sand saves, all the stuff. And I love that. I love to know all that's going on. It's got the money list, you know, VJ's at $4,400,000, which seems like a lot to me.
Somebody said, "How do the Diamondbacks do?" Well, I go and I look, and at 13 and 18, they're not doing too well. "How is so-and-so playing?" Well, his ERA is the same as my hat size, so I'm guessing that's not very good. We got issues here.
That's how we measure worldly success, isn't it? Whether it's right or wrong doesn't really matter. When they come to you and they'll say, "How's business?" You'll say, "Well, business is good." What they're really saying is, "What's the bottom line? You making any money?" If you go to your boss and he'll say, "How you doing?" He just gets a sheet and says, "There's 20 salespeople, you're 17th, you're not doing well." He's not trying to figure out if you're healthy, are you eating right - he doesn't care. What is the bottom line? That's worldly success, and that's how it's measured.
The Process vs. The Result
Worldly success doesn't even care about how you get there. Worldly success says, "Get the order." Well, to get the order, I'm going to have to... "I don't want to know what you have to do, just do it to get the order."
Godly success says, "Get the order," but God's success is all about the process, not the result. You see the distinction? The world is about the result. Godly success is about the process.
So in that same instance, you'd be successful in a godly way when you didn't get the order because you were obedient. That's all God wants from you. Why? Because God's responsible for the results anyway.
Is Nehemiah going to be successful? He's going to be successful on two fronts. He's going to be successful godly, in God's estimation, because He's been obedient. Is he going to be successful in the world's estimation? Well, for 83 years they've gotten nowhere. He's going to get the wall built in 52 days. We couldn't even get a first hearing in the town of Gilbert in 52 days, let alone build a wall in 52 days.
Leadership That Honors God
Very important distinction. I love that lesson. I hope you do too. It is so practical, so helpful, whether it's in the family, whether it's at the office, whether I'm organizing a country club and trying to move volunteers. If I'm trying to get from here to there, I'm going to have to get people on board.
I can do it with all sorts of blood and just a fist and power, but that doesn't honor God. It doesn't honor you. It doesn't build a team. That's why Nehemiah is a great study in leadership right there.
Next week, lesson three.
Father, help us see this truth. We love it. We love what You've preserved for us in this word. God, use it to teach us. For Your honor and Your glory, we pray in Christ's name, amen.