Look at verse number one with me.
It says, "And it came to pass in the month Nisan
in the 20th year of Artaxerxes the king
that wine was before him and I took up the wine
and gave it unto the king.
Now I had not been before time sad in his presence."
And the first thing that I want to point out about Nehemiah
is that Nehemiah had a positive attitude.
This is not a guy who's just always in a bad mood.
And let's face it, nobody likes a sour puss.
Nobody likes somebody who's grouchy and grumpy all the time.
It's annoying to the people around you.
And also the Bible commands us to rejoice ever more.
He said, this is the day which the Lord had made.
We will rejoice and be glad in it.
And if we're being thankful
and if we have the fruit of the spirit, which is joy,
we're not just gonna go through life all down and gloomy
and just dragging everybody around us down all the time.
And part of why Nehemiah was a great follower,
a great employee, a man that the king looked at
with respect and allowed him to have this important position
of being the cup bearer is that he was a positive guy.
Because look, he said,
I had not been before time sad in his presence.
So he's been doing this job for years and years and years,
and he's never been sad in front of the king.
Because here's the thing,
even if you're going through hard times,
sometimes you have to just suffer in silence.
And when you show up at work,
you don't have to just let everybody know
what a bad time you're having and how upset you are.
Sometimes you have to just put those things aside
and get the job done.
Now, I'm very aware of this as a pastor,
because here's the thing, as a pastor,
obviously I go through things in my personal life.
I might go through issues that nobody knows about,
or maybe it's health issues or family issues,
financial issues, whatever.
But here's the thing, when I show up to church,
I'm always smiling, greeting everybody.
I get up, I preach.
I don't get up and be like, all right, guys,
here we go again with the announcements,
and just all down and just in a bad mood and upset, right?
I kinda have to just be in a good mood,
even if I'm not in a good mood.
I gotta get in a good mood pretty quick.
Now, the good thing is that coming to church
puts me in a good mood anyway,
because I can't even count how many times
I've been in a bad mood, then I went to church,
and then I just was a lot happier.
But it doesn't always work that way.
But you know what, at the same time,
we have to sometimes just be what we need to be
and do what we need to do in spite of how we're feeling.
Okay?
And here's the thing, you wives out there,
I know that being a housewife is a difficult job.
Being a young mother is a difficult job,
especially when you're at that stage
when you have all little kids and no big helpers.
You know, one of the most difficult times to be a mother
is when you got like four kids
and they're all like six and under
or seven and under or something,
and you don't have the big helpers, okay?
And here's the thing, yeah, it's difficult, it's hard.
You're gonna be pushed to your limit.
You're gonna be overdone at times, but here's the thing.
You wanna still be pleasant for your husband, right?
Your husband, he's going to work too.
He doesn't wanna come home to a grouchy, grumpy wife
that's just complaining every day.
Look, it's hard, but don't complain every day.
You don't want your husband to come home from work
complaining every single day, right?
I mean, you're dealing with all your problems at home.
You want your husband to come home and just complain,
"Oh, I hate my job.
"Oh, it's so hard.
"Oh, the boss is such a jerk."
I mean, this is gonna be a bad relationship.
If you're complaining to him
and he's complaining to you, right?
Sometimes you have to just get over it
and just try to get in a good mood,
find something to be positive about,
rejoice in the Lord, put on the new man,
walk in the Spirit and get the joy of the Lord in your heart
so that you can be a pleasant person to be around.
People will enjoy your company more
if you're positive and optimistic and pleasant and happy.
And that's one of the things that Nehemiah had going for him.
He's a positive guy.
He's sad when there's a time to be sad.
Sometimes it's appropriate.
Sometimes something major happens.
Yeah, okay, then it's okay to let people know
what you're going through, but he reserved that
for when it was actually something big.
Because here's the thing, if you're just always
in a bad mood, I'm not gonna take you seriously
when something really bad happens to you.
You know what I mean?
Let's just say that my wife was just always in a bad mood.
Well, then it's like, then being in a bad mood
is not gonna mean anything.
Whereas if she's typically happy, typically smiling,
typically in a good mood, and then all of a sudden
she's upset and in a bad mood, then I'm gonna think like,
oh wow, let me see what I can do to help.
Or let me, you know, this is serious.
But if you're just crying wolf all the time,
by just always being in a bad mood,
well then nobody's gonna take you seriously.
Because he was so positive, and because he had never
been sad before time in his presence,
now when Nehemiah's sad, the king takes it really seriously
and thinks like, wow, this must be really important.
Let me see what I can do to help this guy out.
Because he didn't just waste that good grace
by just being in a bad mood over nothing all the time.