THEME : "REMEMBER ME, MY GOD,WITH FAVOUR, ACCORDING TO ALL THAT I HAVE DONE FOR THIS PEOPLE"

TEXT : Nehemiah 5:19.

INTRODUCTION: Nehemiah means "The Lord Comforts".
He was born in exile and grew to become the Cupbearer of King Artaxerses of the Medo-Persian empire. He became Governor of Judah somewhere after 100 years after Zerubabel came with the first batch of JEWISH exile returnees in 444BC.
The book of Nehemiah teaches about how to be successful in life, stewardship and Leadership in the midst of very difficult and seemingly impossible circumstances, frustrations and insurmountable situations.
Nehemiah saw the great need of his people back in Palestine, years after the Babylonian captivity. He then rose up to the challenge, fasted and prayed, caught a vision with a passion, laid a plan, and mobilized others to join him to restore the fallen Jerusalem walls in a record time of 52 days.
Before the great achievement of Nehemiah, God had touched the heart of Zerubabel to lead some exiles back to restore the Temple of Jerusalem; Ezra also came to restore Jerusalem Worship; Before Nehemiah came to rebuild the fallen walls.
Pastor McKeown and the Founding Fathers laid the foundation of this great Church, Chairman Safo and the Second generation Leaders also worked hard to restore our authentic form of worship: God's Covenant, Core-values, Tenets, Constitution, Church- Practices and administrative Policies.
What we need today is for the contemporary generation to rise up and restore the walls of Leadership at all levels of God's Church and our nation Ghana.
Though Ghana has many Churches, Pastors and various forms of worshipping God, and I think our dear nation prays more than many nations of the world, yet if we fail to get Visionary and credible Leaders like Nehemiah who will lead the crusade to restore our fallen Spiritual, Moral, Political, Social, and Economic walls, our enemies within and outside will continue to exploit our abundant natural, and human resources as we find ourselves today.
Believers need to rise up like Nehemiah and build spiritual walls of their marriages and families to protect the vulnerable children from the devices of the devil on various websites and platforms (SNS). We can pray, work hard in the church and our homes or businesses but if we fail to build our walls as Nehemiah did, our children may not come to continue the great legacy of this Church. They will be captured by many false competing Churches and charlatan Prophets around us.

WHAT DID NEHEMIAH DO THAT ENABLED HIM TO ENJOY THE FAVOR AND THE HAND OF GOD IN HIS TASK OF RESTORING THE WALLS IN 52 DAYS.
1.0 He saw the need of his people with a burden to do something about it.
2.0 He fasted and prayed about the plight of his people.
      He even prayed to God to grant him favor when the King
      inquired about his sullen face.
3.0 He co-operated with God and the King to undertake his mission to go and rebuild the Jerusalem walls.
4.0 He enjoyed the favor of God and the King to secure all the
      resources needed to rebuild the walls. When a Leader has
     the right vision God brings to him likeminded people to
     support him to accomplish the goals of the vision.
5.0 He assessed the volume of the work, laid his plans before mobilizing the leaders and nobles to join him in the job.
6.0 Nehemiah was so focused and passionate about his work that it sparked momentum for all the leaders to join in the work of restoring the fallen walls.
7.0 He was not intimidated to stop the work by his enemies: Sanballat and Tobiahs who were Samaritans.
 WHAT GREAT LESSON CAN WE LEARN FROM NEHEMIA'S EFFORT TO REBUILD THE JERUSALEM WALLS

1.0 We need to prioritize fasting and prayer towards any great need in our homes, church, business and nation before a move is made on them to secure God's favor and hand in it.
2.0 The need to see our blind spots in our stewardship of our marriage, Children, our temperament and relationship with others, our communion with God, our time for Bible studies,
Our fellowship with the church, developing and using our talents and gifts, planning and managing our businesses. Failure to pray for our dear Church, and the nation Ghana and her leadership is a great blind spot. Nehemiah did not complain about the sin or weak effort of Israel's past and present Leaders, but wept, prayed and fasted with confession of his sins and the sins of his forefathers that had brought the nation to her deplorable state. This made Nehemiah win the favor of God and the King to go and build the fallen walls of Jerusalem in a record time of 52 days.
3.0 Effective and successful work need the collaboration and co-operation with God and one's Leaders.
4.0 We need vision, passion and planning with grit to move people to join us to accomplish any great task.
5.0 We must stay focused on our work irrespective of opposition, challenges, and frustrations from the enemy camp.
Favor in the Old Testament was always equated with enjoying the goodness and mercies or the blessings, success and prosperity from God (Joshua 1:8; Genesis 12:1-3; Deuteronomy 28:1-13; Proverbs 3:1-8; Job 8:5-7). This favor from God accompanied faith in God and obedience to His word as the above scripture quotes attest.
In the New Testament, the favor of God is GRACE which is a free gift of God accessed by faith in Jesus Christ, and obedience to His word. Every spiritual and material blessing comes to us by God's grace: Salvation, Peace, good health, prosperity, long life, victory and success, talents and gifts to excel in life, ministry and business (Ephesians 1:3; 2:1-10; 3:2,7; 4:7-13; Rom. 12:6-8; John 14:21-23).
"Grace is the empowering presence of God that enables us to be who He created us to be, and to do what He has called us to do". Without God's grace you cannot struggle or merely pray to achieve what you want to be or do in life. Hence JESUS rightly said: "Without me you can do nothing"- John 15:5b.
The greatest need of Churches, institutions, and our dear nation Ghana is nothing but visionary, God-fearing, and credible Leaders like Nehemiah who have the favor and grace of God upon their lives in our time. May God look upon the plight of Ghana and raise Visionary Leaders for His people is my Prayer, Amen.

This was first presented by Apostle Emmanuel Achim Gyimah, Kaneshie Area Head, On 9th November, 2015 at the Kaneshie District Kohinta Week Program (9-13 Nov.)

E-mail: eagyimah@gmail.com.