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Nehemiah 13:17-18, 25a (cf. 1 Corinthians 5:17 |
“It’s interesting that Christians are the only ones in the worldviews around us that claim our transformation is supernatural.” –Ravi Zacharias)
Introduction
Today I am speaking about a builder of walls. And I am not talking about the other builder of walls to the south of the border. I am talking about a person by the name of Nehemiah.
Review
In the fifth century, Nehemiah served as a cupbearer for king Artaxerxes1 (sampled the kings’ drink to make sure it was safe) in Susa/Iran/250 km (1:11)
Being a cupbearer naturally put Nehemiah in a position to speak to the king.
And one day Nehemiah had to speak to the king about something really important.
Nehemiah heard about the physical state of Jerusalem; he heard about its broken walls.
And this destruction broke Nehemiah’s heart, so he asked the king for permission to return to Jerusalem to rebuilt and the king granted him permission.
When Nehemiah arrived in Jerusalem, he surveyed the entire city (Nehemiah 2:12-15).
Then, he enlisted the help of the people to repair the broken walls (52 days, 6:15).
And the walls were not only restored, but eventually spiritual lives were restored.
You know the people of Israel made a vow to change their lives with respect the temple, marriage and the Sabbath (Nehemiah 10).
Eventually the people of God had a joyful dedication of the wall (12:43).
The author of Nehemiah had every chance to finish on this high note.
But everything falls apart in chapter 13.
T.S. Elliot would say this story does “not end with a bang, but a whimper.”
Because of this, I seriously doubt that Hollywood would ever make a movie about Nehemiah.
Hollywood wants their happy endings.
What happened?
Nehemiah left Jerusalem, after 12 years, to ask King Artaxerxes permission to serve longer in Jerusalem.
Eventually Nehemiah returned to Jerusalem and he saw that the Jewish people let the world invade their lives.
They failed to live holy lives with respect to the temple, the Sabbath and marriage.
They broke their vows (Nehemiah 10); they went back to their old ways.
Temple: Tobiah, a non-Jew (2:19, 13:4) operated within the temple.
Sabbath: The Jewish people were working on the Sabbath (13:15-16).
Marriage: Jewish men married non-Jews (13:23-29).
The people of Jerusalem rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem.
But the moral walls broke down.
There is no happy ending.
But the story is real.
And we must ask what we can learn from this gloomy story?
Read chapter 13…
What do we learn from chapter 13?
We learn that we have to admit our ongoing struggles.
How do we admit to ongoing struggles?
The Jewish men did not admit their sin, marrying non-Jews
(vv. 23-29, cf. 2 Corinthians 6:14).
In response, Nehemiah not only confronted those who married non-believers, but he hit them and pulled their hair out.
“So I confronted them [Israelites] and called down curses on them. I beat some of them and pulled out their hair…” (Nehemiah 13:25a, NLT)
When there is sin, we cannot have a Nehemiah response.
Instead, we should encourage other believers to admit their sin to God (cf. Psalm 41:4).
How do we admit our ongoing struggles?
There are two aspects to admitting our sin to God:
The Hard News: We must admit how sinful we are.
The Bible says, “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard” (Romans 3:23; cf. Nehemiah 13:17-18a).
We have all sinned.
Because of this reality, we must admit our sin to God
Nehemiah reminded the Jewish people they have fallen short with the Sabbath.
And he warned them that God brought destruction on their ancestors when they didn’t observe the Sabbath (vv. 17-18a, cf. Jeremiah 17:19-27).
Even with the talk about judgment/reminded about sin, the people of God did not admit their sin of breaking the Sabbath.
We often don’t admit our sin.
- We don’t admit our sin because there is pleasure in sin/hold on.
The Bible says, we “enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin” (Hebrews 11:25).
There is pleasure in sin, but it’s for a season; it is fleeting; it’s short-lived.
You can have a good time with drugs, with…
But this pleasure comes to an end; there is emptiness to it.
Even with emptiness, we sometimes won’t admit our sin, because we want the pleasure of sin.
- We don’t admit our sin because we think sin is over there. We think sin is over in that situation; in that person; in that country. So often we spend time focusing on the sin of other people.
Someone once said, “We tend to be very good lawyers when it comes to our own mistakes, but very good judges when it comes to the mistakes of others.”
What would the world look like if we all spent our energy confessing our own sin rather than the sins of others?
Often we think sin is over in that person, in that country.
But Solzhenitsyn said that the line between good and evil isn’t just over there, in that person, in that country.
The line of evil runs right down the middle of our hearts.
Often we don’t admit sin because we think it’s over there and that we are basically good.
We are not basically good.
That premise is wrong.
We are sinners; “there is no one righteous, not even one” (Romans 3:10)
F.F. Bruce wrote,
“In the eyes of Christ, a person confessing sin is nearer to true goodness than a person boasting of [their] goodness.”
Story of two brothers: “As you all know, the departed stole and cheated. However, compared to his brother, he was a saint.”
- We don’t admit sin because we trivialize our sin.
“Oh its no big deal, so I don’t need to admit it.”
What are some examples of trivializing sin?
- a) When someone sins, we often say, “Well, you’re only human.”
This cliché frees us from admitting that we have sinned.
- b) One Halloween, some dress up as demons or seductive fairytale characters.
When we do this, we are trivializing these realities.
We are treating these realities as though as though they are no big deal.
And we think since they are not a big deal, we don’t need to admit this sin.
- c) We even see this trivializing with our food names.
Philosopher, Alvin Plantinga said “the word “sin” finds its home mostly on dessert menus: “Peanut Butter Binge” and “Sinful Chocolate.”
We should never trivialize sin.
Because all sin breaks the heart of God.
And Jesus died for all sin.
- We don’t admit sin because we think truth does not exist.
The Bara Research Group discovered that 75% of all people deny the existence of absolute truth.
Only 8% of teenagers acknowledge there is truth.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky once observed when there is no truth, “the fences of morality area easily plowed over.”
If we don’t think there is truth, we will chase anything and we will think there is nothing to admit.
- We don’t admit sin because we have doubts about certain sins in the Bible.
When certain sins are brought up in our discussions, sometimes we ask the question from Genesis 2: Did God really say that?
Doubts creep in our minds about morality in the Bible .
Did God really say I need to keep the Sabbath?
Did God really say that I need to honor marriage?
Did God really say to honor the church?
Did God really say these things?
If there are doubts, study God’s word in context, listen to credible scholars.
Often from this, there are good answers that will help us move from doubt to faith.
When we don’t doubt the Bible’s morality, this will help us to admit our sin.
- We don’t admit sin because we don’t want others to see our sin.
We need to stop pretending everything is okay and admit our sin.
Example with children: quick to confess
A preacher wrote, “One of the by-products of true faith is the freedom to honestly acknowledge our weakness…rather than…conceal it.”
- We don’t admit sin because we think we should just focus on love.
I remember seeing Billy Graham’s first crusade poster, “A sin smashing week.”
The Christian life is not all about holding hands and singing Kumbaya.
Someone tweeted this week, “Pastors are not cooks, but physicians and therefore should not aim to delight the palate, but to heal the patient.”
- We don’t admit sin because we are busy majoring on the minors (i.e. entertainment, luxuries).
You know in the summer time, are we more obsessed with taking care of our lawn (our wall) than our character?
Are we more concerned about our house, than helping the poor? (The Isralites)
Gordon MacDonald wrote, “Don’t spend your life becoming very good at something that doesn’t matter.”
We don’t admit our sin for various reasons.
In other words, we often handle sin the wrong way.
Our passage was never about the wall.
The people of God handled sin the wrong way.
The people of God refused to admit their sin (cf. temple, Sabbath, marriage).
Now Nehemiah tried to forcefully change the people’s response, but he could not change their hearts.
I heard someone say once, “You can change laws, but you can’t legislate people’s hearts.”
So there is hard news: we must admit how sinful we are
But there is good news: We get to admit how sinful we are!
When we come to Jesus and admit our sin, we are forgiven, we became a child of God, we are justified.
Sir Walter Scott said the two most important words in the English language are, “not guilty.!”
And when we are “not guilty,” we are no longer condemned!
The Bible says, “So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1; cf. Nehemiah 13:22b).
The CEV translation says, “If you belong to Christ Jesus, you wont be punished.”
In Nehemiah 13:22b, we see that Nehemiah gets to admit his sinfulness.
“Show mercy to me.”
We get to admit how sinful we are!
Being aware of God’s love/grace compels us to admit how sinful we are.
Do you realize how much God loves us?
He loves you when your mind denies it.
He loves you when your emotions don’t feel it.
Do you believe God loves you this moment “as you are and not as you should be?”
Dietrich Bonheoffer wrote, “God does not love some ideal person, but rather humans just as we are, not some ideal world, but rather the real world.”
When we realize God loves us, we realize we get to admit our sin!
When we come to God and admit our sin, God will build a people who love him and loves what he loves.
We see this spiritual building project in 1 Peter 2:4a, 5a.
“You are coming to Christ, who is the living cornerstone of God’s temple…And you are living stones that God is building into his spiritual temple.”
We are God’s building project.
God is building a people who love him and love what he loves!
Are you loving God; are you desiring him; are you placing him
first?
Are you loving what he loves? (i.e. the poor, Harvest House/1400, 1in 7 children go to school hungry)
- Often we don’t love God or love what God loves.
Instead we want to live in our comfort zones.
Dr. Craig Evans, my professor, describes what our lifestyle looks when we are living comfortably, “I find western Christians are very soft, cheese cake Christians. Soft and sweet. And melt under the least bit of adversity.”
Examples of our comfortable lifestyle:
- There are people into the health and wealth prosperity gospel.
And they will say that if you have enough faith you will enter the good life, the comfortable life.
I often hear, “If you have enough faith, you won’t suffer, you will be healed.”
Christ prayed in faith that his suffering be removed, but he was crucified.
Did Jesus not have enough faith?
There was a lady that said to a pastor, “I was born blind. I don’t mind being blind, but I have some well meaning friends who tell me that if I had more faith I could be healed.”
The pastor asked her, “Tell me, do you carry one of those white canes?”
“Yes I do,” she replied.
“Then the next time someone says that, hit them over the head with the cane. Then tell them, ‘If you had more faith, that wouldn’t hurt.’”
Sounds like a Nehemiah response J
- We want the grace of the cross, but not the life long response of taking up our cross.
Billy Graham, who turns 100 this year on November 7 said, “We have taken away the cross and substituted cushions.”
- We often give a half-hearted response to helping others in need.
I often hear, “I did my good deed for today” as if they’re off the hook to do anything else.
When we have this mentality, we will often say no to the things God loves.
- We also say, “I am too old to do these things.”
When we say we are too old, we say no to things God loves.
Pastor Craig Groeschel said, “If you’re not dead…you’re not done.”
Are you loving God?
Are you loving what he loves?
Or is comfort pulling you from this?
Someone wrote that, “Comfort is the enemy of achievement.”
If we only want to stay comfortable, the Christian witness in the west will continue to diminish and be less important.
And the future of the church will be more and more in the developing world; not here in the west.
Conclusion
“Let’s land this plane…” (Robin Mark, “When It’s All Been Said and Done”).
Malcolm Muggeridge was a Christian journalist, and when he graduated from Cambridge, he moved to India (Dave Morehouse) to teach English.
In his early twenties, he strolled down to the nearby river where bathing was common in India.
In those early evening hours, Muggeridge’s eye spotted the silhouette of a woman bathing on the other side.
His heart began to pound with what he called, “wild unreasonableness.”
Suddenly seized by his lustful imagination, he lunged into the water and crossed the river.
After he splashed over to the other side, he emerged face to face with an exposed woman.
And Muggeridge almost fainted.
Before him was a deformed, toothless woman who was wracked with leprosy.
Her eye-sockets were eroded and her fingers were stumpy.
Muggerridge threw himself back into the water, and drifted in the stream, shocked over the encounter.
Muggeridge admitted that the real shock that morning was not the leper.
Rather, it was the condition of his own heart.
Muggeridge said, “The diseases of the body is not nearly as hideous and grotesque as the disease in our hearts.”
One day a newspaper posed this question.
“What is wrong with the world?
G.K. Chesterton wrote a brief letter in response.
“Dear Sir. I am. Sincerely Yours.”
What is the problem with the world?
There is darkness in all of our hearts.
J.J. John stated, “The heart of the human problem is the problem of the human heart.”
Billy Graham also said with conviction, “…the world is in such terrible danger right now. It’s not dangerous so much because we have atomic bombs, it’s dangerous because of the human hearts in back of the bombs, filled with envy and hate and strife and grief and lust and all the other things that could pull the trigger.”
This darkness in our hearts pulls us back to our old ways like the Israelite’s in Nehemiah’s day .
We follow what is popular than what is right.
We compromise.
If this is you today, education will not help, being self-reflective wont help, having rules will not help.
None of these things will change the heart.
The solution is (first step) admitting our sin/love of Jesus
I spend time working with people who are rejected, who are broken, who are hurt by addictions.
I know the answer to this problem lies not in knowledge or following rules, but in transformed hearts.
And this transformed heart begins with admitting our sin
This is the first part of repentance.
And we should have a lifelong practice of admitting our sin.
Then, take action!
Have you been skipping church? Start back.
Have you been breaking the Sabbath? Turn from the business and turn toward God.
Have you gotten away from God’s plan for marriage? Put God at the center.
Has your daily devotional life fallen away? Begin it as once.
J.I. Packer said that cars need periodic checkups.
And the Christian needs regular checkups to remove sin.
We need to open the rooms of our heart that have sin.
Then, we need to admit our sin.Then, we need to clean out our rooms with Jesus’ help.
Have you ever had a spiritual check up?
Prayer
Lord, thank you for being in the heart renewal business. I think you for promising to give your people a new heart. Thank you for doing this very thing in us.
Lord, we believe that we are new creation. The old has indeed passed away. Yet, a remnant of the old remains in and around us as we wait for the fullness of your kingdom. So I ask you to continue to renew our hearts. Where there is any bit of hardness, soften it. Where we are still inclined to resist you, help us to open our heart to you. Thank you that you are the giver of new hearts.