Nehemiah: Building Something Together
Nehemiah 13:1-31
Forgetfulness and Intentionality
So today, after 15 messages stretching 13 chapters and 12 years -- as we will see in this final chapter -- we will conclude Nehemiah. As we said at the beginning Nehemiah is about three things. First, its about the sovereignty of God, how God aligns people, places, times, and resources not just so that time moves forward but so that he gains maximum glory in the world and, hopefully, in our lives. Second, in Nehemiah we see what God will do through a surrendered and determined person, one who is all in and willing to do whatever God says. Unlike many of the Bible’s heroes, Nehemiah does nothing miraculous. The rebuilding of the wall, the organizing and mobilizing of people, dealing with conflict, motivating the team, and everything else are a testimony to God’s grace but also to Nehemiah’s steely resolve to get the job done for God’s glory. Finally, the book of Nehemiah is about a people building something together -- a wall, to be sure, but their lives as well. They rebuild a wall, celebrate a job well done, read a lot of Bible together and repent over unbiblical living, relocate into the city, and set all necessary leadership in place so people can live, work, serve, play, and worship in Jerusalem for generations to come.
And so we went through Nehemiah at this time because I think the messages translate to our situation. God is no less sovereign, or in control, today than he was 2500 years ago when Nehemiah was written. He is still Lord over people, places, times, and resources. God still works greatly through surrendered and determined people. I see the fruit of that in your lives as you work through the process of following Jesus we call discipleship, put sin to death, serve the body of Christ, and invite people to experience for themselves what God has done in your life. For some it happens fast, for others it takes time. But the key question is this: Are you surrendered to God and determined to know him and do his will for your life? Finally, in Greenville with Origins, we are seeing what happens when people work together to build something for God’s glory. We aren’t building a wall, but we are seeking to build a community of faith where people can live, work, serve, play, and worship in our city and know that this is Jesus’ city, existing for his glory and pleasure.
So today we finish this with just a few simple reminders, anchoring us to those three themes of Nehemiah and giving us forward momentum as we look to the days and months ahead. With that said, let’s pray.
Pray and thank God for how he has spoken through Nehemiah and grown people and our church. Thank him for favor and publicity in our city, saved souls, greater structure, greater sacrifice, more numbers, determination to discipleship, and vision for the future. Thank him for pregnant moms, godly dads, new singles, new couples, the church getting older and younger, stories of life change.
If you’ve got a Bible today with you -- and let me say that if you don’t, please feel free to take one from the table as you walk out today. Its not stealing. Trust me, there is nothing that thrills my soul more than knowing you are reading the Bible. So if you’ve got a Bible with you, turn to Nehemiah 13:
1 (Bit of a funky timeline here, as we will see, but I will explain as we go) On that day they read from the Book of Moses in the hearing of the people. And in it was found written that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever enter the assembly of God, 2 for they did not meet the people of Israel with bread and water, but hired Balaam against them to curse them—yet our God turned the curse into a blessing. 3 As soon as the people heard the law, they separated from Israel all those of foreign descent (Sounds harsh. “You foreign folks can’t be here.” This is less about ethnicity and more about faith and religion. And God says, “Nope. You can’t do life with them.” Sometimes there are just consequences to sin. The Balaam reference is to a story in Numbers 22. My sin rarely just affects me, but it affects tons of people. Choose wisely. Choose obedience).
4 (So as we get into this we are going to see the people rebelling in some specific ways, evidencing that they’ve forgotten all God did) Now before this, Eliashib the priest, who was appointed over the chambers of the house of our God, and who was related to Tobiah, 5 prepared for Tobiah a large chamber where they had previously put the grain offering, the frankincense, the vessels, and the tithes of grain, wine, and oil, which were given by commandment to the Levites, singers, and gatekeepers, and the contributions for the priests (Offerings out; Tobiah in. As you can guess, this is so wrong on so many levels. First, this guy is Nehemiah’s and God’s enemy. Second, he’s living in the Temple, a place Nehemiah wouldn’t even go, much less live. Third, they couldn’t collect offerings because this clown is living there. Its like, “Sorry guys, you can’t tithe today. We are letting God’s enemies stay in our offering box until they find a new place to live. Just bizarre and dumb that Eliashib let this happen). 6 While this was taking place, I was not in Jerusalem, for in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes king of Babylon I went to the king (12 years after Nehemiah 1). And after some time I asked leave of the king 7 and came to Jerusalem, and I then discovered the evil that Eliashib had done for Tobiah, preparing for him a chamber in the courts of the house of God. 8 And I was very angry, and I threw all the household furniture of Tobiah out of the chamber. 9 Then I gave orders, and they cleansed the chambers, and I brought back there the vessels of the house of God, with the grain offering and the frankincense (Eliashib forgot but Nehemiah reminds him. He gets angry at what makes God angry -- remember, its never wrong to be angry but it what’s we do in our anger and what’s causing our anger that matters. He makes some laws, cleans God’s house, kicks Tobiah out, and brings the church furniture back in).
10 I also found out that the portions of the Levites had not been given to them, so that the Levites and the singers, who did the work, had fled each to his field. 11 So I confronted the officials and said, “Why is the house of God forsaken?” And I gathered them together and set them in their stations. 12 Then all Judah brought the tithe of the grain, wine, and oil into the storehouses. 13 And I appointed as treasurers over the storehouses Shelemiah the priest, Zadok the scribe, and Pedaiah of the Levites, and as their assistant Hanan the son of Zaccur, son of Mattaniah, for they were considered reliable, and their duty was to distribute to their brothers. 14 Remember me, O my God, concerning this, and do not wipe out my good deeds that I have done for the house of my God and for his service (Second problem: They aren’t paying the ministers. People are living their lives, paying the bills, but aren’t paying their pastors. They forgot they committed to do this but Nehemiah reminds them. He confronts the officials, the neighborhood leaders who are letting this go on. Then he makes them sit there and recollect the money for the offerings, making sure offerings are collected, the pastors eat, and the people learn the grace and discipline of generous giving. Then he puts a system in place to make sure it doesn’t happen again).
15 In those days I saw in Judah people treading winepresses on the Sabbath, and bringing in heaps of grain and loading them on donkeys, and also wine, grapes, figs, and all kinds of loads, which they brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day. And I warned them on the day when they sold food. 16 Tyrians also, who lived in the city, brought in fish and all kinds of goods and sold them on the Sabbath to the people of Judah, in Jerusalem itself! 17 Then I confronted the nobles of Judah and said to them, “What is this evil thing that you are doing, profaning the Sabbath day? 18 Did not your fathers act in this way, and did not our God bring all this disaster on us and on this city? Now you are bringing more wrath on Israel by profaning the Sabbath.”
19 As soon as it began to grow dark at the gates of Jerusalem before the Sabbath, I commanded that the doors should be shut and gave orders that they should not be opened until after the Sabbath. And I stationed some of my servants at the gates, that no load might be brought in on the Sabbath day. 20 Then the merchants and sellers of all kinds of wares lodged outside Jerusalem once or twice. 21 But I warned them and said to them, “Why do you lodge outside the wall? If you do so again, I will lay hands on you.” From that time on they did not come on the Sabbath. 22 Then I commanded the Levites that they should purify themselves and come and guard the gates, to keep the Sabbath day holy. Remember this also in my favor, O my God, and spare me according to the greatness of your steadfast love (I love it; he calls this “disaster.” He never sees any sin as a small sin. The people forget they can’t work on the Sabbath but Nehemiah reminds them. I love what he says in warning them: “I will lay hands on you.” I can just hear the theme song to Shaft in the back as he says this. He warns them, then confronts them, commands them to close the gate, warns people outside the fence who are basically tempting them to sin, and leads the guards to repent of letting this happen and then stop it from happening again. How do you respond when you forget God and get busted?).
23 In those days also I saw the Jews who had married women of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab. 24 And half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod, and they could not speak the language of Judah, but only the language of each people. 25 And I confronted them and cursed them and beat some of them and pulled out their hair. And I made them take an oath in the name of God, saying, “You shall not give your daughters to their sons, or take their daughters for your sons or for yourselves. 26 Did not Solomon king of Israel sin on account of such women? Among the many nations there was no king like him, and he was beloved by his God, and God made him king over all Israel. Nevertheless, foreign women made even him to sin. 27 Shall we then listen to you and do all this great evil and act treacherously against our God by marrying foreign women?” (So the people forgot they weren’t supposed to have religiously-mixed marriages but Nehemiah reminds them. Why’s it a big deal? In a week Jake and Alison will get married. I remember when they asked me to marry them but weren’t following Jesus. I said, “I can marry you if you’re both Christians or neither Christians, but don’t one of you go giving your life to Jesus without the other one. Then we have a problem.” Based on a passage in 2 Corinthians about being unequally yoked. Same principle here. They forgot but Nehemiah reminds. He confronts them. That apparently wasn’t enough so he then cursed them, beat them, and pulled out their hair. I’ve only seen someone lose their hair in a fight once. Two big girls in high school at lunch; one girl lost her weave in the melee. This wasn’t that pretty. Think they got the picture? Then he forces them to vow to end it. Sounds harsh? Listen, I love it. I’d rather see you in heaven and bald because you lost your hair in a repentance fight than end up in hell with a big afro testifying to sin)
28 And one of the sons of Jehoiada, the son of Eliashib the high priest, was the son-in-law of Sanballat the Horonite. Therefore I chased him from me. 29 Remember them, O my God, because they have desecrated the priesthood and the covenant of the priesthood and the Levites (Again, wrong marriages and this time involving ministry. They forgot but Nehemiah reminds. He chases him from ministry and runs him out of town).
30 Thus I cleansed them from everything foreign, and I established the duties of the priests and Levites, each in his work; 31 and I provided for the wood offering at appointed times, and for the firstfruits.
Remember me, O my God, for good.
So ends the book of Nehemiah. People are forgetting -- over a period of 12 years -- all God had done and delivered them from, and they have jumped back in bed with the same sins that got them exiled and got the wall around Jerusalem torn down. But Nehemiah never forgot. Someone, or many someones -- and it must never just be the pastor -- must never forget the sin we came from and the grace that rescues. Someone must always be appalled, confront, and act. Ought to be some men in our church who act like Nehemiah in this passage. Ought to be some courageous women in Origins who will remind when people forget. God’s glory is at stake. The things they’ve forgotten involve sins of money, sex, and power. These idols and false gods of today are not new; they are the same issues tripping up the people of God in Jerusalem. We are prone to wander, prone to forget all God has done. Someone must remind us of what we’ve been called from and to and challenge us to act. Briefly, here’s why:
We are, by nature, very forgetful
There’s an old hymn that we sing on Sundays sometimes, “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” The writer of it said, “Prone to wander, Lord I feel it; prone to leave the God I love.” Ever felt like that? I feel myself leaving God at times accidentally and on purpose. I really do. And people will say sometimes, “You guys never do anything wrong. I’m such a sinner and you can’t understand me.” Listen, I relate to that line. Prone to wander, to leave the God I love. Why are we like that? I think rebellion makes us forgetful. Sin callouses our hearts. Gives us tough hearts so that the Gospel word doesn’t fall on tender skin. People need God to rip the callouses away. The people had an experience with God a dozen years earlier but their rebellion in the areas of putting money, sex, and power ahead of God had calloused their hearts. But its not always sin. Life just happens. Busyness, loneliness, emotional roller coasters, financial pressures, all of it vies for our attention and makes us forget. Some of you, like me, turn to God when things are bad but maybe not when its good. Even easiness of life can make us forget. So that hymn-writer went on to write, “Here’s my heart, Lord, take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above.” We need God to seal our hearts, to tether us to him.
Wandering follows forgetting
These folks in this chapter are the same ones who just a few years earlier were living in booths, weeping in worship, committing their families, and making all of these godly decisions. But time and life just happened. It just does. Some of you today maybe have had a week or a month or a season of forgetting God. Here’s the problem with forgetting God. It always leads to wandering. We never forget God and see it lead to good things. Forgetting leads to wandering. Guy is working in a job after a long season of being unemployed. Work is hard and thankless. Next thing you know he’s focused on how hard the work is and has forgotten what it felt like to be unemployed. He starts slacking off, maybe looking for another job, and is ready to move on. Because following leads to wandering. Lady was a drug abuser. Nearly lost her family and her livelihood because she loved the next hit. She got right with Jesus and got clean and free. With time she forgets the Lord and what all her addiction nearly cost her. She starts wandering, playing with fire, and may fall to abuse. Forgetting leads to wandering.
Let me ask you, Where are you prone to wander? What do you forget and then tend to wander on? I see a couple over and over. You see people who get saved from sin -- and whether its terrible or not that bad by the world’s standards, its always convicting at the moment of salvation -- and walk with Jesus for a season, but then forget what all he saved them from. And they come here and can barely sing, forget their Bibles, just going through the motions; they forgot. What happens next? They wander. First they just miss a week or two. Then its a few weeks. Then they’re gone. Sad. Same thing happens with community. We will have people come into Community Groups and say, “This is the greatest thing...I needed this so much. Spiritually I was alone.” They get comfortable, they forget what it was like not to be in community, and they’re gone -- and they rarely come back. Listen, if I am preaching to you this morning, repent. Come back. Its not too late, but if you keep fooling around, it may be too late. Here’s another. Dude marries way over his head -- because we always do, don’t we ladies -- and marries a gal who is more attractive, funnier, smarter, and has more to offer. And he’s thrilled. Then he forgets all that with work or kids or life and then things grow cold. Just sad. Wandering follows forgetting, and by nature we are forgetters. So what are you, this morning, prone to forget? There you will wander with time.
Cheap grace excuses or justifies wandering
Published in 1937, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship is for me the best book ever written on the Sermon on the Mount. In it he talks about this idea of cheap grace. Let me read an excerpt to you from the book:
Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church. We are fighting today for costly grace.
Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like cheapjack's wares. The sacraments, the forgiveness of sin, and the consolations of religion are thrown away at cut prices. Grace is represented as the Church's inexhaustible treasury, from which she showers blessings with generous hands, without asking questions or fixing limits. Grace without price; grace without cost! The essence of grace, we suppose, is that the account has been paid in advance; and, because it has been paid, everything can be had for nothing. Since the cost was infinite, the possibilities of using and spending it are infinite. What would grace be if it were not cheap?
Cheap grace means grace as a doctrine, a principle, a system...In such a Church the world finds a cheap covering for its sins; no contrition is required, still less any real desire to be delivered from sin. Cheap grace therefore amounts to a denial of the living Word of God, in fact, a denial of the Incarnation of the Word of God...Grace alone does everything, they say, and so everything can remain as it was before...
Cheap grace is not the kind of forgiveness of sin which frees us from the toils of sin. Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.
Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble, it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.
Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: 'Ye were bought at a price', and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God...Grace is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says: 'My yoke is easy and my burden is light.'
The people of Nehemiah’s day wanted a faith in God that allowed them to live as they would. Sure, they would make sacrifices, but they were empty and devoid of meaning. How do we know? Everything else was bankrupt. They were jumping through hoops because it was what “good people do.” They justified their wandering hearts by saying they were right with God, or in God’s grace. What a bunch of junk! That’s cheap grace. Costly grace...that’s what we’re after. Costly grace says I will deny myself, pick up my cross, and follow him. Though none go with me. Though the cross is heavy and painful. Though it is embarrassing. I will follow. The people in Nehemiah’s day forgot and wandered because they were banking on and embracing cheap grace. Listen, you don’t want a grace that doesn’t cost.
Intentionality is the opposite of forgetfulness
Want to stop forgetting and wandering? Live intentionally. Own your forgetfulness and make that junk right. They were forgetting in their marriages, finances, and their way they would become more popular or empowered. Where will you fall into forgetfulness? The most dangerous areas are in your love for Jesus and his people. Why? Because when those get out of whack it opens the door for us to wander in other areas as well. These are always primary. That’s why Matthew and Abi Elrod have come up with a plan for their summer and their Community Group. I want him to come share about how they are going to have someone in their group over for dinner every week this summer and if its not your week they want you to spend time eating a meal with someone else in the group this summer. Doing this and having intentional conversations will help prevent forgetfulness, wandering, and cheap grace.
We are about to go watch a wedding. My prayer is for you married folks that its an intentional reminder of the vows you once took, of the commitment you made, and of the love God allows you to share with your spouse. And if you’re single, I pray its a reminder of God’s desire for marriage and an encouragement as you most likely move closer daily to your wedding day. Tonight we will have baptism at 5:30. I pray you will come because that’s an intentional choice you make to watch the decision someone else has made and a reminder of your decision to follow Jesus. Its their spiritual funeral and resurrection, burying the old person and watching the new one raised to life in Jesus. We need to see that. Intentionality.
The people -- after all they’d been through -- had forgotten, wandered, and taken God’s grace and goodness for granted and cheapened it. Yet God in his goodness used Nehemiah to remind them. He was intentional about going after people and getting back. He had the heart of Jesus. Today if you’re far from Jesus, he is pursuing you. You may have wandered; he is after you. Today, repent of forgetting, wandering, cheapening the grace that cost him so much to extend to you. Turn to him in faith or return to him in faith. Today is your day.
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