SPEAKER_00: Good morning, First Baptist Wimberly.
SPEAKER_00: This is Mike Gibbons.
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Friday.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the walls are going up around the temple as we continue in Nehemiah this week.
SPEAKER_00: Despite the external opposition we saw last week in chapter 4, they keep working.
SPEAKER_00: Now in chapter 5, we find that they not only have to deal with the enemies outside the wall, but enemies inside as well.
SPEAKER_00: The Jewish leaders are seizing property from their own and even selling people into slavery.
SPEAKER_00: The work of God is being threatened from inside the camp.
SPEAKER_00: As verse 6 says, Nehemiah was very angry because of this.
SPEAKER_00: He challenged them and reminded them that they were contradicting God by their actions.
SPEAKER_00: The leaders and the people returned what they had taken.
SPEAKER_00: Then we come to verses 18 and 19, and let me read those.
SPEAKER_00: Now what was prepared at my expense for each day was one ox and six choice sheep and birds, and every ten days all kinds of wine in abundance.
SPEAKER_00: Yet for all this I did not demand the food allowance of my governor, because the service was too heavy on this people.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, for my good, O my God, all that I have done for this people.
SPEAKER_00: Nehemiah, at his own expense, prepared a feast for the people and the leaders.
SPEAKER_00: And instead of taking his authorized governor's allowance, he served at his own expense again for over a decade to avoid burdening his people.
SPEAKER_00: Like the Messiah who was to come, he modeled Jesus, who came not to be served, but to serve.
SPEAKER_00: That sounds a little self-serving.
SPEAKER_00: But read properly, Nehemiah is not claiming merit, but professing sincerity.
SPEAKER_00: His motive is not to be noticed.
SPEAKER_00: His motive is to maintain the unity of the people and to move on from this conflict.
SPEAKER_00: He is trying to tell God that, poor and feeble as his actions may have been, he did it for no other reason than to honor God.
SPEAKER_00: What he is saying is that he has done this for no other motive but to bring God glory.
SPEAKER_00: May we all be conscious of receiving greater generation from generosity from God than we can ever repay.
SPEAKER_00: This is Mike Gibbons, and I love being your pastor.