Elementary Level, Block 8—Ezra / Nehemiah / Esther
Week 76
Nehemiah—A Cupbearer and a Pleasant Person
Point to Emphasize: We can be those who are pleasant, even in doing the small, ordinary things.
Reference Reading: Nehemiah 2:1-8
Memory Verse: A joyful heart makes a cheerful countenance… (Proverbs 15:13a)
Story Sample
A few weeks ago, we started to talk about three leaders among God’s people—Zerubbabel, Nehemiah, and Ezra. Today we will hear more about Nehemiah. Nehemiah was not a captain in the army, nor was he a counselor to the king, but he did work in the king’s palace. His job put him in contact with the king every day. It was an ordinary job of a servant. He was the king’s cupbearer. This means that whenever the king wanted something to drink, he was the one who filled the cup and took it to him. He was like the waiter or waitress at a restaurant who comes and refills your glasses with water. It was just an ordinary job; nothing was outstanding about it.
There are lots of jobs like this today, just ordinary jobs—the crossing guard, the clerk at the grocery store, the lunchroom monitor, the recess monitor, etc. A lot of times you don’t even know their names, but you see them nearly every day or every week. When I was about your age, there was a custodian at our school, whom I still remember. I don’t remember his name or what he looked like, BUT I remember his smile. He was always smiling, saying, “Hi” to us, and whistling as he worked. He was just a pleasant person. Sometimes he was called into the lunchroom to clean up a spill. He would come in smiling and saying “Hi” to us as he passed the tables of students. He would then find the mess and start cleaning. He would start whistling too. He was an easy person to be around because he smiled and said “hi” to everyone. He made us all want to be a janitor like him, because it seemed he had the best job and was happy doing it. On the other hand, some recess monitors at our school always FROWNED at us. They never looked happy and they did not speak nicely to us. [Storyteller, include your own story about a pleasant person.]
Well, Nehemiah was like this. In his job he did not have much interaction with the king. He did not say anything to the king and the king did not speak to him. But the king knew of Nehemiah, because Nehemiah was a pleasant person when he would bring drinks to the king.
The Bible says that one day, when Nehemiah took something to the king to drink, Nehemiah’s face was sad. Right away the king noticed and said, “Why is your face sad?” Wow, for the king to notice his sad face means that Nehemiah must have always had a pleasant, smiling face when he served the king. This was probably the first time in all those years that the king had seen him with a sad face. The king knew that something serious must have happened for Nehemiah to have had a sad face.
Because the king spoke to him and asked him about his sad face, Nehemiah could tell the king the terrible news he had about the children of Israel who had returned to Jerusalem. They were not doing well, and Nehemiah felt he must also go there for some time to help them. Since he had pleasantly served the king every day for years, the king granted his request. This is how Nehemiah became a leader.
It is really something how God used such a pleasant man as Nehemiah. I’m sure that even as a young boy, Nehemiah learned to be happy in all the small things he had to do. We can be like Nehemiah; we can learn to smile and be a pleasant person with a cheerful countenance even when we are doing things that seem small.