Nehemiah - Chapter 13: Living a Life Pleasing to God
SERMON TRANSCRIPT
Excited to be here. If I haven't met you, my name is Pastor Chris, I'm part of the team. And we are continuing in, actually in the last chapter of Nehemiah today. And we've been at it. You guys have gone, I don't know, how many weeks have we been in this thing now? Like 12 weeks or something? And we have been through good times, we've been through some hard times, and we're gonna wrap up the book today in the text. And next week, actually, we're gonna come back and we're gonna have, just 'cause it's been such a long time, we're gonna kind of tag through some of the main teaching principles that we learned from Nehemiah this past season. And so this chapter comes at right the end of Nehemiah's story. And it's kind of gonna have, heads up, it's gonna have a little bit of an abrupt ending to it. But I think there's some key things in there and intentionality with that, and some truths for us today. And so if we could, I'd love, I know we've been praying and we've been worshiping, I'd love to pray one more time before we jump into God's word together. Jesus, thank you for this morning. God, we are so grateful to be here in your presence. Jesus, we pray for those who aren't able to be with us. We know we've got some sickness going around, Jesus, we just pray against that right now in your name, that families would be healed and sickness would go away and we'd be able to bring everybody, our whole family, God, back together. Jesus, we thank you for this beautiful day this morning, I think for the cool, crisp fall air that we all shared in on our way into church this morning. God, thank you for who you are and your amazing creation that we get to enjoy. We love you, Jesus, we thank you, amen.
Well, Israel, or I'll say Israel as a general term, but Jerusalem and the people have finally started to obey God's word. Nehemiah came into the city, he rebuilt the wall, he had lots of opposition, different things happening to him, and he fights through all of that and the people rally and they get the walls built, they get Jerusalem secure again. So they're coming out of captivity, they've had the temple rebuilt, the wall rebuilt, the city is coming back together, things are going great, and yet there's still, there's something missing. And then they begin to read and open up God's word and they realize that they're not living the life that God has called them to. They're coming up short in how they treat one another, how they love each other, how they conduct business, how they live their lives, they're just, they're not up to what God has for his standard. And so they begin to change what they're doing, they get back into right worship in the temple, they start living their lives the way that God has called them to, they start being generous with one another, they're caring for each other, they're looking out for widows and orphans, they're living life to the fullest, and God's glory is just shining in on this amazing city and everything is just going so great. And so we have this moment where we think they did it. They finally did it. All of this text up here in this first half, up to this moment of when the Israelites kind of get it and then they fall off, and they kind of get it and they fall off, and they kind of get there and then they fall off, we think we finally got here, right? We finally arrived at this place where people are living right, they're worshiping right, they have right relationships, they are living righteous lives. Have you ever been around kids in the presence of a teacher or a parent or just someone in charge who's supervising? And all is good, right? All is good, I think we got some teachers in the room, you can attest to this, they're being kind with one another, they're sharing toys, they have their listening ears on, they're good and proper conduct, right? And then that teacher or parent or adult supervision just steps out of their presence for just one, even one second. What happens? Chaos, absolute chaos ensues. They're beating each other up, they're taking things from each other, they're starting to draw on walls, they just mass chaos, how does this happen? How does this happen? I don't get it, there's scientists out there that have studied this for generations and they still can't figure out how this happens. And we're gonna find ourselves in this place that Israel is living right, they're doing everything they're supposed to and everything is going great and they're walking with God and then it's gonna turn to chaos.
It says in Nehemiah 13, "Before this, "Elishab, the priest, had been put in charge "of the storerooms of the house of our God. "He was closely associated with Tobiah." Before all this happened, in the scripture we read that they had once again committed themselves to living the way that God had commanded them to live. And they're reading the word of God, verse one, it talks about the word of the Lord is being read. And all of this part of right living is set up in this place where they have proper leadership in place. This was Nehemiah's one final thing he did in the city of Jerusalem, he put all the right people, or he thought he was putting the right people in charge to make sure everything was gonna be run well. They had appointed a new high priest or senior or leader pastor over the city and that this priest and this pastor was needing a physical representation of God to the people and then the priest himself was a representation from the people back to God. And this is go between or liaison, a shepherd leading these people. And everything was set, everything was great in Jerusalem. And Nehemiah, we don't understand the terms of why, but he actually heads back to where he came from. He has to go back to his job under King Arxerxes and he heads back to take care of his duties that he had.
And it says this in verse six and seven, "But while all of this was going on, I was not in Jerusalem, Nehemiah. For in the 32nd year of Arxerxes, King of Babylon, I had returned to the king. Sometime later, I asked his permission and came back to Jerusalem." I don't know if he had heard, I don't know if he just had that leader intuition, "I gotta go back." He had that dad nudge or that mom nudge of like, "Something's not right. I need to go back and see my people, see my crew." And so Nehemiah heads back to Jerusalem and when he shows up, it is absolute chaos in the city. People have lost their ever loving minds and are just doing whatever they want to do. And everything that he had set them up going, "Okay, do this. Okay, be at bright worship. Like be kind to one another. Conduct yourselves in your relationships like this." All this stuff, he literally comes back and it's the complete opposite of anything that's happening. Anybody watch the show "Community" back in the day? It was about the community college. Anybody? Well, there's this scene where the one guy leaves to go get pizza and all of his friends are hanging out, I think it's his apartment. And he comes back and he flings the door open and he's holding pizza and the whole apartment is on fire. And he was like, "I was gone 20 minutes." Like what happened? Like I can see Nehemiah like walking through the gates and just like, the city's not on fire, but like emotionally the city is on fire all around him. And he's like, "What is going on? The temple is being abused." Nehemiah 13, four and five. He said, "Before this, Elishib, the priest, had been put in charge of the storerooms of the house of the God." Good. "But he was closely associated with Tobiah." Not so good. "And he had provided him with a large room formerly used to store the grain offerings and incense and temple articles, and also the tithes of grain, new wine and olive prescribed for the Levites, musicians, gatekeepers, as well as the contributions for the priest." If we flip back just a few chapters near the beginning of Nehemiah when he's beginning to build the ball, Tobiah is like his arch nemesis. This guy was against Nehemiah rebuilding the wall. He was against God doing anything in Jerusalem. He was all against Nehemiah. And so this Elishib actually becomes his father-in-law of Tobiah, he marries his daughter. But in this, he ends up giving his father-in-law a house, an apartment within the temple. This is a big no-no. And on top of that, Tobiah is just walking around like an unlimited buffet in this place and going, "I'm gonna have a little bit of this. I'll go over here, I'll have a little bit of this." He's like that dude, like he's probably like walking around in his bathrobe and like the church is going on. He's like, "Hey, what's going on? Let me just get some grain and a little bit of wine this morning, get the morning off right." Like he's stealing from God. And his son-in-law, who's supposed to be in charge of all this under Nehemiah, just lets him do it. Absolute chaos. To the point that Tobiah is taking so much food that the people who are working in the temple who are fed and provided for from the tithes and offerings that come to the temple for God, that's kind of their paycheck. Like they're having to go find their own food because he's taking so much himself and not allowing the people who are doing God's work. So they're not even able to be around. And then they're off having to provide for their own families, doing their own farming and such.
Then Nehemiah finds out that Sabbath isn't longer being observed. Verse 15, "In those days, I saw people in Judah shredding wine presses on the Sabbath and bringing grain and loading it on donkeys, together with wine and grapes and figs and all kinds of loads. They were bringing this all into Jerusalem on the Sabbath. The problem was with the influence on the outside of the neighboring cities and cultures. They didn't stop working on Sunday. They just kept plowing through. They wanted to make as much money as they could as fast as they could. And they realized, man, this city is huge. We got a great monetary business opportunity here, friends. And if the Jews are gonna stop working on Sunday, then all they got, we had no competition. So they start rolling in on Sunday, selling their stuff, price hikes, supply and demand, there's a lot of demand, there's a little bit of supply. Oh yes, here we go. And so they start selling their stuff. And then the Israelites are like, wait a minute, if they're selling, I'm gonna sell. So then they start selling. And then they're like, well, if he's selling and he's selling, I'm gonna get in on this opportunity. I'm gonna start selling. And so this Sunday where it was supposed to be a day set aside for worship in God's temple, turns into just another Friday afternoon in the city streets, hustle, bustle, trade, money being made all around. And then Nehemiah finds out that unholy marriage, ungodly marriage is happening. Verse 23, "Moreover, in those days, I saw men of Judah had married women from Asherah, Ammon, and Moab." After Nehemiah had gone through all this time setting right godly marriages, they just start marrying around. They're marrying these people over here who have all of these idols that they worship. And they're marrying this group over here that is not following God. And then they're bringing that into their house. And all of a sudden their kids are learning about different stuff. And God is in the center of everybody's marriage. And just like, just chaos is happening. These cults and these nations and all these outside religions are starting to influence even at the family level in Jerusalem.
The entire city has fallen into a place of living in sin. And just a short time earlier, they had gone through this time of repentance and grieving and asking for God for forgiveness to say we're not living the way that the Bible says. We're so sorry. We don't wanna live like that. We wanna live the way God, you said we're supposed to live and to be right with God. And it was just, seems like yesterday. Those thoughts and those convictions and those right moments of living righteously are just gone. And they're finding themselves in the place of complete opposite in total chaos. So Nehemiah starts getting to work. He kicks Tobiah out of the temple said, bro, you ain't living here. This ain't your place. This is not your home. Go find a home somewhere else. Stop stealing our food. He rededicates the temple and anywhere that Tobiah would have wandered in his bathrobe that week. He sends the people away from like selling on the Sabbath. He basically shuts down the market said, hey guys, we're not honoring God. We can't live like this. So he shuts down the markets. Well, they go around the corner. They start doing back alley deals and they're selling stuff out the backs of their carts and the backs of their archaic vans. They're making side deals. They're hustling. They're doing Facebook marketplace deals. Nobody knows secret handshakes. And so he says, fine. He goes, I'm gonna kick all of you out and I'm gonna lock the gates of the city. I'm not gonna let anybody in or out on the Sabbath. You guys can't come in here. And so people are traveling and they're like, oh, the gates are locked. Well, tomorrow's not the Sabbath. Nehemiah is gonna open them. We're just gonna hang out and spend the night. Then people start sneaking outside the city to make deals. People start coming around and they're still making deals outside. So Nehemiah runs them off, says, you guys get out of here. You can't even stay here anymore. He's like, oh my gosh, how can this be happening? And then he starts working on people's relationships. He's like, you guys married the wrong people. You're not honoring God with your marriage. And he just comes to this place of just frustration.
Three times we read this prayer that he prays to God in this chapter. In verse 14, Nehemiah says, remember me for this, my God. Do not blot out what I have so faithfully done for the house of my God and its services. This guy's beat up. He is exhausted. He says in verse 22, remember me for this also, my God, and show mercy to me according to your great love. And then we finish the entire book of Nehemiah with remember me with favor, my God. And this is how the book ends. That's it. But why does it end like this? Like what about the perfect storybook happy ending? Where's that? And the Israelites honor God with the rest of their lives and live joyfully and loving community with one another. The end, roll credits. No. Why does this story end like this? Well, it shows us no matter how good of a leader, there's still a human. And no matter what the greatest leaders can have in life and throughout the history of Israel, we all need a savior. People need a savior. And see, Nehemiah is just one of the names in a long, long list of faithful, God-honoring, righteous leaders in the history of Israel, from Moses to Aaron to Joshua to Deborah to Samuel to King David to King Solomon to Elijah to Isaiah to Jeremiah to Daniel to Zerubbabel to Ezra and now Nehemiah. None of these leaders, how great that they were, were ever successful in leading Israel back to restoration with God. And I think it shows us even today that we need a savior. We all need a savior. We all need Jesus. And that's why Jesus came. That's why he left the right hand of God in heaven, came in such a humble, serving way, and lived his life perfect and gave himself for us on the cross. And apart from God, history will tell us time and time and time again, left to our own devices and convictions, we will find ourselves living a life of sin.
And Nehemiah's close to the book of asking God, I tried, I really did, God, I gave it my all. And you might think, he did. He built the wall, he brought security and life back to the city of Jerusalem. This is a huge accomplishment, but I think Nehemiah understood what was more important, and that's the condition of the heart. That we can have everything, and if we don't have God's heart, it doesn't matter what we've built. It doesn't matter what we gain through life. What matters is a relationship with God. And if we're not in right standing with God, anything that we've built here on earth doesn't matter. We could be the biggest church with everybody in attendance. We could have the fanciest building. We could have the greatest facilities. We could do every ministry perfect. But if we don't have any life change in the name of Jesus, salvations, baptisms, discipleship, it's worth nothing. We made a commitment this summer to having a goal of 20 salvations and baptisms this next year. And this is our number one priority this next year. And this is why. 'Cause we could have everything as a church. And if we don't have people coming to Jesus and having hearts changed, it doesn't mean anything. We could have the biggest bank accounts. We could have all the stuff in life that we could dream about and need. We could have the car. We could have all the clothes. We could have the latest technology. We could have everything that we think we need in life. And without God being number one in that life, it's worth nothing. I've met some of the most successful people in life that are Christ followers. But they have kids and grandkids who aren't going to church, who don't know God for a myriad of reasons. And I would tell you right now, and I've had these conversations, that they would give it all up to have their kids and grandkids and generations after that be followers of Jesus. Because they know what truly matters. I'm telling you, some of these people are, they're set for generations with finances. And they would give it up in an instant to either have their kids sitting with them in church or to know that their kids are following after Jesus. That's some true wisdom right there.
So what about us? What about our lives? What about our priorities? See, I think something very subtle but powerful in the story of Nehemiah that we kind of might skip over is that he had to remove things, whether from the temple, whether from the city, whether from the people's relationships, and he had to cleanse them and to restore the proper, right-living, God-honoring way with actions, priorities, and relationships. Think sometimes, and maybe intentionally, maybe unintentionally, we've kicked God out of our lives in the rightful place of where he should be. We got stuff in our lives. We all need cleaning out, right? I do. Being up here doesn't mean I got everything cleaned out. We all got stuff that we need to have God come in and fully clean us out in order to make the right room where he should be in our lives. And it's not easy. This takes sacrifice, hard choices, putting aside what we want, but there's no other way. There's no extra way we can do. We can't just add on some extra room and go, "Hey, God, I'm gonna put you over here." He still wouldn't have our hearts. There's no shortcut to this. And if there was a shortcut or a life hack or a way to work around this, we'd end up just like the Israelites did. Eventually left to our own devices. Slowly, the devil works slow, man. He works so slow. And yet we find ourselves right back where we were. See, sin keeps us from experiencing God's best in our lives.
You ever try to break a bad habit or stop doing something that you shouldn't? You ever done that in life? It's hard, right? It is super hard. And there's two major parts to this. And I think that's where some of this stuff breaks down. The first part, which is the hard step, is you gotta stop doing whatever you're not supposed to be doing, right? The second part, which I think is just as important, maybe even sometimes even more important, is you have to replace that thing with the healthy thing that you're supposed to be doing. You can do all the research and all the study on this. I mean, scientists and psychologists, they have massive research on all this stuff. But the second step of replacing is sometimes even more important than just stopping doing the thing that you're not supposed to be doing to begin with. But people just stop there, right? I'm gonna quit smoking. You just like, I'm gonna quit smoking. And then eventually, because there's nothing else there, you find yourself smoking again, right? You find yourself just right back in this place. Maybe it's eating or not exercising or not being kind to somebody or specifically sinning in a really strong way. If we don't replace that with God, we find ourselves just back in that same place.
Came across this quote, and it says, "People don't decide their futures. They decide their habits, and their habits shape their futures." Have you ever felt like you wanted to be in God's word, reading his scripture more? But you just, I can't get there. Maybe we're good for a week or two weeks, and we think, I finally got, and then it just falls apart, right? Or maybe it's, I wanna pray more. I wanna make sure I'm talking with God, and I wanna, maybe I'm gonna get up early. I'm gonna pray. I'm gonna read God's word, and I'm gonna be in, just in lockstep with God, 'cause I know that's how he changes me, transforms, that's foundational. But you just, you can't get there. You gotta change some other stuff. Maybe it's, you gotta actually put it in your calendar. Maybe if you're like, I'm gonna do this first thing in the morning, pastor, this is what I wanna do. Okay, then you gotta be going to bed earlier. So you can't just kinda just shove this stuff in there, which I think the Israelites did. They just shoved this into their lives, going, here we go, I'm transformed. But their heart wasn't there. Maybe it's, I wanna be at church every Sunday. One of the greatest things I've ever heard from a pastor, tell me, is that church isn't a Sunday morning decision. Church is a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday decision for your week to be at church on Sunday. It isn't about just making sure the alarm goes off and you drag yourself out of bed on a Sunday morning. It's your decisions every single other day of the week that lead you to the place of making church a priority. Holy habits transform our hearts. And if that quote is true, then if we have holy habits, then those habits will begin to shape our future in God.
See, the Israelites wouldn't fully put away their selfishness, their greed, their lustful desires, their outside cultural influences. They would not fully put those away. And so in turn, before they knew it, they found themselves just right back in that place, living a life far away from God. So what about us? To experience God's true transformation, we have to let God fully in to our hearts. I've heard the analogy of our hearts are like a house. And we'll invite God into the living room, in the kitchen, can even use the guest bath down the hallway, but he ain't going to my closet. He's not going into that box. In the garage or the one under the bed. Like that's me. Like God can have everything else except for those places. And it's until we surrender that and give that over to God, every single square inch of every single thing in our hearts, in our homes, will we ever truly experience God's supernatural transformation in our lives. Is it a process? Absolutely. 100%. This doesn't happen overnight. This is a long, slow, step-by-step journey of following Jesus to get to that place. And it'll take a lifetime. I'll tell you, he'll go box by box, man. And when you think you're out of boxes, God goes, "Nope, not one in the back." You're like, "But God." He's like, "Nope." He goes, "I know the other ones you got hidden." We're going through those too, because he loves us. This isn't him trying to control us or put us in a place of shame. Like he loves us so, so much. And so we're gonna take communion together this morning, but I wanna do it a little bit of a different way. I want us to take a moment with the elements and just to pause our hearts. To take a moment and to just hand it over to God. To let him start going through the closet. To let him just have free reign. And some of us, we got something just sitting on the couch in the front room that God goes, "I see it." And some of us, we go, "I don't know." And we just gotta pray. God will tell us. Trust me, first experience there. You think you got the house cleaned up, it's all good. And God goes, "Oh, that's cool. What about that?" And he'll take us on this journey to find that place to fully surrender everything with him. So I wanna take us a moment, we're just gonna bow our heads. And I want us to go before God and just have open hands. To say, "God, search me, search my heart. Tell me what I need to hand over to you." I don't wanna be like the Israelites. I don't wanna be the ones that think they've surrendered everything, but are still holding on to stuff. Go before God right now. Go before God right now.
Jesus, we give you our whole heart. God, even if it may bring some anxiety or worry or hardship with this, God, we give our whole selves to you. God, we give you our anger or hatred towards others. We give you our lust, our worry, our pride, our greed, our envy, our gluttony, our drunkenness, our numbing mechanisms of drugs. Give you our thoughts, our thoughts towards others, maybe even our thoughts towards ourselves. We give you our selfishness, we give you our selfishness. Give you our gossip. Give you all of these things that we like to hide deep down inside of ourselves, but you see it, you know it, and you still love us. You're not scared by it, you're not put off by it, you're not afraid to give it away because all of a sudden something comes up. God, you already know what's there, and you want us to hand it over to you. You wanna set us free from this burden.