Being a person of influence is not the same as being famous or important. Being a person of influence is being a person whose life has an impact on other people.

I. The first way to be an influence is to live for something that really matters. Your life can make an impact when you’re committed to a cause that counts, when you’re living for something that’s worth living for. Nehemiah and the leaders of Israel were committed to the cause of making Jerusalem a great city (see Nehemiah 11). The leaders showed their commitment to Jerusalem by their willingness to live there, and when the leaders settled in Jerusalem, they influenced the people to live there.

Nehemiah had rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, but the city still had a problem. The population of the city was very small, maybe less than 5,000 people. People didn’t want to live in a city that was burned out and broken down. Most of us wouldn’t like to leave a comfortable home in the suburbs for a housing project in the inner city, but the leadership of Israel had made the choice to live in inner city Jerusalem because they were committed to the cause. Jerusalem was God’s city and they wanted to make it great again.

The commitment of the leaders influenced the commitment of the people. They took a national lottery, and one out of every ten families was chosen to come and live in Jerusalem. Other people voluntarily left their hometowns and chose for themselves to live in Jerusalem. Notice how all of this had worked. Nehemiah’s commitment had rubbed off on the leaders, and the commitment of the leaders had rubbed off on the people. The early church historian Josephus tells us that when these new people moved to Jerusalem, Nehemiah provided the funding for their housing out of his own pocket.

That’s commitment to the cause, and you can always be an influence on other people when you live for something that really matters. We all have a desire to live for something that’s important because we realize how quickly life is passing us by. James says that it’s a vapor that’s here today and gone tomorrow. The more you realize that the accelerator of aging is stuck, the more you hear this little voice telling you to live for something that matters.

We should live for the things that are going to last forever. We can’t have an influence on others if we live for things that are here today and gone tomorrow. But we will be amazed at the opportunities God will give us to touch others if we live for things that last forever.

The first key to being a person of influence--live for something that matters. Live for things that last forever.

II. The second way to be an influence is to lead by example. The greatest instrument of influence is not our position; the greatest instrument of influence is our example.

A great illustration of this principle is found in Nehemiah 12:27 which says: "Now at the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem they sought out the Levites in all their places, to bring them to Jerusalem, both with thanksgivings and singing, with cymbals and stringed instruments and harps." It was a time of real celebration and they worshipped in a very special way.

The leaders were stationed on top of the wall because they were the example for everyone else to follow. If the people were going to worship, they needed someone to show them how.

One group of Levites and leaders with Ezra at the front made a line counterclockwise on top of the wall, and another group of Levites and leaders with Nehemiah at the front made a line clockwise on top of the wall, and they led the people in a time of praise and worship. Nehemiah 12:43 says that "the joy of Jerusalem was heard afar off." You get goose bumps when you hear that many voices praising the Lord.

People of influence are people who stand on the wall and show others how it is done. You don’t have to have a position to be a person of influence; you just have to provide an example that is worth following.

Influence is not position; influence is example.

III. The third way to be an influence is to deal decisively with the problems you are facing. Leaders don’t ignore problems and think that they’re going to magically disappear. They don’t turn off the lights, hide in the basement, and think that those problems are going to stop knocking at the front door. They deal with problems because that’s the only way to grow and that’s the only way to help other people to grow.

Nehemiah was a person of influence because he faced his big problems head-on. After Nehemiah had led the rebuilding of the wall, he had returned to his old job as the cup-bearer to the King of Persia. When he came back to Jerusalem the second time, there were some major problems.

(1) The first problem was destructive enemies. The high priest had set up a hotel suite for Tobiah in the storage rooms at the temple, and Tobiah was one of the enemies who had opposed the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem every step of the way. Tobiah had convinced the leaders of Jerusalem that he was their friend, but Nehemiah knew what was going on.

Tobiah was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. If he couldn’t criticize from the outside, he would tear things down from the inside. And so, Nehemiah calmly, quietly dealt with this problem. "It grieved me bitterly; therefore I threw all the household goods of Tobiah out of the room." It’s as if Nehemiah said, "The management would like to inform you that your stay at the Hotel Jerusalem has ended."

This reminds me a lot of the time that Jesus cleared the moneychangers out of the temple. Nehemiah knew that Tobiah was a traitor who couldn’t be trusted. There was a problem, and he dealt with it decisively.

(2) The second problem was disobedient followers. The people had not kept their promises to God. They had not given their tithes and offerings to support the Levites working at the temple, and many of the Levites had gone back to their secular jobs. They had not kept their promise to observe the Sabbath as a day of worship and they were buying and selling like it was any other day.

Again, Nehemiah didn’t wring his hands and hope that the problem would go away. He faced it head-on. He rebuked the leaders for not doing their job and then he locked the city gates so that the merchants who were buying and selling on the Sabbath couldn’t get in and out of town. And that wasn’t all. Nehemiah 12:20 & 21 says "Now the merchants and sellers of all kinds of wares lodged outside Jerusalem once or twice. So I warned them, and said to them, ‘Why do you spend the night around the wall? If you do so again, I will lay hands on you.’ From that time on they came no more on the Sabbath."

Nehemiah was ready to use physical force if necessary. He wasn’t concerned if this was going to make him popular or unpopular with the business community. He saw something that was wrong and that needed to be fixed.

(3) The third problem was worldly practices. During the old testament times of Nehemiah, the people gave in to worldly influences because many had married unbelievers. The Lord did not want His people marrying the people around them because they worshipped false gods.

When a believer marries an unbeliever, the percentages are always greater that the unbeliever will pull down the believer, rather than the believer lifting up the unbeliever. God warns us not to be "unequally yoked" into those kinds of relationships because he wants to save us from some real heartaches and conflicts in our lives.

But, the people of Israel hadn’t listened to the Lord. They had married unbelieving people. Note that under the new testament, the believer is to be a living testimony of the grace and mercy of the Lord shown to the unbelieving spouse. See I Corinthians 7:12-16

Nehemiah strongly rebuked his worldly brethren. He didn’t win awards for being tactful and tolerant and some judge today would probably order to him to take some sensitivity training. But, Nehemiah was a person of influence because he couldn’t just stand by when there was a wrong that needed to be made right.

When we refuse to face problems today, we are really creating more problems for tomorrow. We never gain anything by refusing to face problems. The longer you wait to face a giant like Goliath in your life, the larger that giant will loom over your life. Goliath looked a little taller, a little stronger, a little tougher every day they refused to face him. John Maxwell says, "The measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal with, but whether it’s the same problem you had to deal with last year."

If you want to be a person of real influence, ask God give you the grace to face up to whatever it is that is holding you back from becoming the person he wants you to be. You may never be one of "The 25 Most Intriguing People" but if you know the Lord you have the capacity to be a person of influence. You can live for something that really matters. You can leave behind an example that is worth following. You can face the problems and challenges of life head-on.

The church is the only conscience the government has. When the church is silent, the state can have no conscience.
- Edward W. Grant

Piety and morality are but the same spirit differently manifested. Piety is religion with its face toward God; morality is religion with its face toward the world.
- Tryon Edwards

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear; not absence of fear.
- Mark Twain

You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.
- James D. Miles

The higher we are placed, the more humbly we should walk.
– Cicero

They that know God will be humble; they that know themselves cannot be proud.
- John Flavel