SPEAKER_00: Church, I have to confess this morning.
SPEAKER_00: I feel like everyone's just further away.
SPEAKER_00: Like we're all just kind of more distant this morning.
SPEAKER_00: But we are in uh Nehemiah chapter 13, and the goal this morning is to finish up our series through Ezra and Nehemiah.
SPEAKER_00: And we'll finish as this story that we've been working through comes to a close.
SPEAKER_00: It's a good story.
SPEAKER_00: And I I don't know about you, but I enjoy good stories.
SPEAKER_00: Actually, this past week I finished two novels that I was slowly working through.
SPEAKER_00: And when the books, when they ended, although the ending wasn't bad, it wasn't really like great.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't wrong, it just kind of felt like it wasn't quite right.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe you've experienced this as well with books or movies or something where you're following a story and it gets to the end, and you're like, it didn't quite land as I was kind of hoping it would land.
SPEAKER_00: And one of the most famous, well-known kind of novels of our culture is The Lord of the Rings, right?
SPEAKER_00: And in this story, I hate to give a spoiler, you've had plenty of time to read it.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but the way it goes, if you're not familiar, there's this ring of power that must be destroyed.
SPEAKER_00: And so this Hobbit Frodo takes the ring of power to Mordor to destroy it.
SPEAKER_00: And after years of traveling and great sacrifice, he gets there, and then he decides that he wants to keep the ring for himself.
SPEAKER_00: And there's this kind of great conflict and tension in this moment.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: All this has been going on, and this is how it's gonna end.
SPEAKER_00: He's just gonna take the ring and go and be destroyed by it and destroy everything else by it.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you do know the way that story ends, thankfully that's not how it ends.
SPEAKER_00: And actually, that story ends the way I think most of us kind of hope our story ends, right?
SPEAKER_00: It ends with great joy.
SPEAKER_00: It ends with great accomplishment along the journey.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: There's this reunion with these lost friends.
SPEAKER_00: There's this shedding of the weariness and the burdens of life.
SPEAKER_00: And evil has finally been defeated.
SPEAKER_00: And light and goodness begin to reign.
SPEAKER_00: See, the story that we're going to get into this morning with, or end, conclude this morning in Nehemiah is more like the other stories I was mentioning.
SPEAKER_00: The ending isn't bad, it's just not quite right either.
SPEAKER_00: Rather, they are they're pointing to a better hope, to the ultimate story that God is redeeming his people, he's working out the restoration of his people.
SPEAKER_00: Nehemiah points to the fact that Jesus Christ is coming.
SPEAKER_00: And it shows that we cannot earn or work our way into heaven.
SPEAKER_00: We cannot grit our teeth and really try hard and keep God's law.
SPEAKER_00: The story tells us that God is faithful to renew and restore his people.
SPEAKER_00: And the ultimate means for this is through the salvation in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So if you've been with us as we've been going through Ezra Nehemiah for about 14 months now, you're probably very familiar with what's going on.
SPEAKER_00: But this is a story about the people from Judah returning from Babylon to Jerusalem, and how God is faithful and he's good to restore, renew them.
SPEAKER_00: Now I want to point out there's kind of one theme, and there's three patterns that we see in chapter 13 that I'm gonna argue we see in all of Ezra and Nehemiah, and we even see in our own lives today.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the theme that sanctification, sanctification is messy, and it requires gospel transformation.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna argue that's true in your life and my life.
SPEAKER_00: And sanctification, it's a it's a kind of a big word which means growing or maturing in the faith.
SPEAKER_00: Sanctification means growing, maturing in the faith.
SPEAKER_00: The reason I want to use the word sanctification is because it's in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not just kind of dragging big words out to impress you guys, it's just in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: So when you read it, I want you to know what it means.
SPEAKER_00: It says the process of growing and maturing in our faith.
SPEAKER_00: And it is a messy thing.
SPEAKER_00: It's slow at times, it's disjointed at times, but it requires gospel transformation.
SPEAKER_00: So that's the theme we're gonna see in chapter 13.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna see, and if you've been with us, you've hopefully seen that all through this story.
SPEAKER_00: The three patterns I want us to look at is one, it's God's word and God's spirit that brings understanding.
SPEAKER_00: It's God's word and God's spirit that brings understanding, which brings about then repentance and obedience.
SPEAKER_00: The second pattern we see is that sin can easily creep into our lives through people, through comfort, through relationships.
SPEAKER_00: And the third thing is that repentance and obedience for Christians is a pattern for life.
SPEAKER_00: Repentance and obedience for Christians is a pattern for life.
SPEAKER_00: So God's word and God's spirit give understanding and brings repentance and obedience.
SPEAKER_00: Look with me in the verse, the first three verses of chapter 13.
SPEAKER_00: On that day they read from the book of Moses in the hearing of the people.
SPEAKER_00: And it was found written that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever enter the assembly of God.
SPEAKER_00: For they did not meet the people of Israel with bread and water, but hired Balaam against them to curse them.
SPEAKER_00: Yet our God turned the curse into a blessing.
SPEAKER_00: As soon as the people heard the law, they separated from Israel all those of foreign descent.
SPEAKER_00: Just stop right there.
SPEAKER_00: So there's this reading of the law.
SPEAKER_00: It says, On that day they read the book.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you remember chapter twelve, it ends with a similar phrase in verse 44, but on this day.
SPEAKER_00: And those are separate days.
SPEAKER_00: The CSB renders this at this time, which is I think more helpful.
SPEAKER_00: There's a separate occasion happening whether they're reading the law.
SPEAKER_00: This is a wonderful blessing.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the people gather together, they're reading the law, and what do they realize when the law says?
SPEAKER_00: What?
SPEAKER_00: No Ammonite or Moabite should ever enter the assembly of God.
SPEAKER_00: So what do they do?
SPEAKER_00: They seek to be obedient to that.
SPEAKER_00: They're like, hey, this is what God's word says.
SPEAKER_00: So we should obey that.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you know your the Bible really well, you'll know that there's a character in the Old Testament named Ruth.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Ruth is a Moabite, right?
SPEAKER_00: But she humbles herself and she seeks after the God of Israel to follow after him, not bring along her pagan gods.
SPEAKER_00: And so even the Lord is merciful in this.
SPEAKER_00: So we have the assembly, the law is read, the people realize what they need to do.
SPEAKER_00: They begin to obey.
SPEAKER_00: They took action to obey God's word.
SPEAKER_00: They did not give a commitment and say, well, let's get a committee together and let's just kind of think about this for a little while, or let's get someone who kind of works with language and they can give us the history of the word assembly.
SPEAKER_00: But they began just to obey God's word.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't even stop and say, well, you know, this is gonna be kind of offensive to the Ammonites and the Moabites.
SPEAKER_00: They might not, you know, they might not like this.
SPEAKER_00: We shouldn't think about this.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't even, it's not that they were unkind.
SPEAKER_00: They're just saying, we're gonna obey God's word.
SPEAKER_00: So they seek to obey God's word.
SPEAKER_00: If you know the story of Ezra and Nehemiah, this is the pattern.
SPEAKER_00: The law is read, they realize their sin, and they seek to obey.
SPEAKER_00: In Nehemiah chapter 8, we have this wonderful story where the law is brought out and it's read.
SPEAKER_00: And the people, there's things they had no idea about.
SPEAKER_00: They're like, there's a whole feast.
SPEAKER_00: There's a whole feast for a week where we're supposed to go out and we're supposed to live in tents for a week called the feast of booths.
SPEAKER_00: We didn't know about this.
SPEAKER_00: We should be obeying it.
SPEAKER_00: So there's this wonderful example of where they begin to obey God's word.
SPEAKER_00: We see a similar thing in Ezra 5, when the people are rebuilding the temple and then the opposition comes, right?
SPEAKER_00: And they they stop working for an extended amount of time because people are making threats.
SPEAKER_00: And then the prophets Zachariah and Haggai come and they rebuke them.
SPEAKER_00: And they just say, This is what God says, this is what his word says.
SPEAKER_00: And the people, they repent, they take action, and they begin to obey.
SPEAKER_00: So there's this pattern happening in our own walk, in our own growth.
SPEAKER_00: God's word is revealed.
SPEAKER_00: We have understanding.
SPEAKER_00: We confess, Lord, I messed up here, and we repent of that, and we begin to grow and mature in our faith.
SPEAKER_00: See, it's God's word and his spirit that gives us understanding.
SPEAKER_00: I just want to encourage you that anytime you interact with God's living and active word, it's going to do something to bring life in your life.
SPEAKER_00: Anytime you interact with God's living and active word, if you have his word and you have his spirit, you're seeking to follow him, it's going to be working to bring life to you.
SPEAKER_00: Now, it might bring conviction, it might cut you, it might do a lot of things that are painful and hard, but all those things are for your growth and your maturity as Christians.
SPEAKER_00: It's for you to bring to bring life to you.
SPEAKER_00: If you have doubts about who God is, read his word.
SPEAKER_00: If you are struggling with a besetting sin, read God's word.
SPEAKER_00: If your marriage is struggling, read God's word.
SPEAKER_00: If you have a moral dilemma in your life, read God's word.
SPEAKER_00: If your children are wearing you down or they're breaking your heart, read God's word.
SPEAKER_00: If you're a young Christian in the Bible and all these kind of Christian words are confusing and they seem overwhelming, read God's word.
SPEAKER_00: If you've been a Christian for many years and your heart is kind of dry to the things of God and you don't even know it, or your passion for the things of God has begun to wane, and life just isn't as joyful, and it's kind of boring.
SPEAKER_00: Read God's word.
SPEAKER_00: It will bring life.
SPEAKER_00: It's God's word that brings life, it brings understanding, it convicts us of how we just begin to make things about ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: It's his word is good.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says in Romans 7, verse 7, chapter 7, verse 7, if it were not for the law, I wouldn't know what sin is.
SPEAKER_00: The law is what brings understanding, it reveals.
SPEAKER_00: You want to know more about your nature and who you are?
SPEAKER_00: Read God's word.
SPEAKER_00: You want to understand our culture more and how people think?
SPEAKER_00: Read God's word.
SPEAKER_00: You're never gonna get an insight into human humanity or the world from another source outside of the Bible that's better or more insightful than the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: There's probably a better way of saying that.
SPEAKER_00: But you get what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_00: It is the source, it's the author, because he's the creator.
SPEAKER_00: There's no pattern, there's no line of thinking, there's no rationale that is beyond him, that he doesn't understand.
SPEAKER_00: His word brings understanding.
SPEAKER_00: So we have the revealed truth of God's word.
SPEAKER_00: We have the Holy Spirit working in us to bring repentance.
SPEAKER_00: So we there's a pattern.
SPEAKER_00: We read, we study, we meditate on God's word.
SPEAKER_00: We do this hopefully day in and day out.
SPEAKER_00: No one's perfect, right?
SPEAKER_00: No one's doing this every single day, all the time, with the with just a heart of joy.
SPEAKER_00: But there's a pattern in our life.
SPEAKER_00: We're people of the word.
SPEAKER_00: We read it, we study, we meditate, we pray through God's word.
SPEAKER_00: A life transformation begins to happen.
SPEAKER_00: Sinful desires begin to die.
SPEAKER_00: Habits that we struggle with begin to wane.
SPEAKER_00: Godly desires and godly habits they begin to flourish.
SPEAKER_00: And do we did we kind of conjure up some kind of remedy?
SPEAKER_00: Do we kind of watch enough self-help videos or just really figure it out?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: We spent time in God's living and active word, and it brings life to you.
SPEAKER_00: There's a power of God's word in us.
SPEAKER_00: They hear the law, they realize their sin, and they begin to obey.
SPEAKER_00: Now there's a uniqueness to this chapter 13.
SPEAKER_00: Because the first few verses are actually chronologically at the end.
SPEAKER_00: So it's like this story where you know when you start a movie and it starts at the very end, and you get to the kind of scene at the end of the movie, and you're like, what is going on with that?
SPEAKER_00: And then it jumps all the way back and starts telling you the story.
SPEAKER_00: That's kind of what's going on in verse or chapter 13.
SPEAKER_00: So look with me at verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: Now, before this, Eliashib the priest, who was appointed over the chambers of the house of our God, and who was related to Tobiah, prepared for Tobiah a large chamber where they had previously put the grain offerings, the frankincense, the vessels and the tithes, and the grain, wine, and oil, which were given by commandment to the Levites, singers, and gatekeepers, and the contributions for the priests.
SPEAKER_00: While the excuse me, while this was taking place, I was not in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: This is Nehemiah saying he was he's absent.
SPEAKER_00: For in the 32nd year of Artaxerxes, king of Babylon, I went to the king, and for some time I asked leave of the king, and came to Jerusalem, and then I discovered the evil that Eliash had done for Tobiah, preparing for him a chamber in the courts of the house of God.
SPEAKER_00: And I was very angry, and I threw all the household furniture of Tobiah out of the chamber, and then I gave orders, and they cleansed the chambers, and I brought back there the vessels of the house of God, the grain offerings and the frankincense.
SPEAKER_00: I also found out that the portions of the Levites had not been given to them.
SPEAKER_00: So the Levites and the singers who did the work hadn't fled each to his field.
SPEAKER_00: So I confronted the officials and said, Why is the house of our God forsaken?
SPEAKER_00: And I gathered them together and set them in their stations.
SPEAKER_00: Then all Judea brought the tithes of grain, wine, and oil into the storehouses.
SPEAKER_00: And I appointed as treasures over the storehouses, Shalamalal and the priest, Zadok the scribe, and Padeah of the Levites, and their assistant Hanan, the son of Zachar, son of Mataneah.
SPEAKER_00: For they were considered reliable, and their duty was to distribute to their brothers.
SPEAKER_00: Remember me, O God, remember me, O my God, concerning this, and do not wipe out my good deeds that I have done for you for the house of my God and for his service.
SPEAKER_00: So we see in verses four through twenty-three, we're kind of getting they go back to the beginning of what's going on.
SPEAKER_00: And there's great wickedness, and there's this pattern where sin begins to creep in.
SPEAKER_00: They had worked so hard to get all these things restored and put all these things back in place, and now they were neglecting the temple again.
SPEAKER_00: They weren't offering up their offerings to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: But worse than that, there was a pagan enemy of God's people, allowed now to live in the temple.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're familiar with the story from Edom back to Ezra and Nehemiah, Tobiah is against God's people, he's against God's work, he's against Nehemiah.
SPEAKER_00: Somehow he gets the spot where he convinces them to throw all the things for the operation of the temple out of this space and to move his own stuff in.
SPEAKER_00: And you can just imagine the scene, right?
SPEAKER_00: Nehemiah's away in Persia and Babylon, and he's there with the king.
SPEAKER_00: He comes back and he goes in the temple, and not only are people kind of not doing their job, but the guy who's living in the temple hates God and hates what God's doing.
SPEAKER_00: And so, just with the anger in him, he begins to throw all this stuff out of the temple.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he's just grabbing these belongings and throwing them out.
SPEAKER_00: As a symbol, in a literal action, as a symbol for the people, this is wicked.
SPEAKER_00: We're not even gonna wait, we're not calling a moving company, we're not waiting for anything.
SPEAKER_00: This stuff is gonna go out now.
SPEAKER_00: He throws it all out there.
SPEAKER_00: Anger, I mean, ticked off, doesn't even begin to comprehend, I think, how Nehemiah felt.
SPEAKER_00: But it wasn't like he was angry at it, and I want to get this clear.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think he was angry, like, hey, this is my turf.
SPEAKER_00: I'm kind of the guy, I'm the man in town here.
SPEAKER_00: He was angry because he was desecrating God's place, because he was an enemy of God, and here, God's people had allowed this to carry on.
SPEAKER_00: So the anger and the frustration, you can understand, begins to boil up.
SPEAKER_00: And it goes right to the officials, verse 11.
SPEAKER_00: And he confronts them like, what are you doing?
SPEAKER_00: What is going on?
SPEAKER_00: And he begins to put everyone kind of back in their proper place.
SPEAKER_00: Restore order.
SPEAKER_00: It's amazing the power of people and culture on us.
SPEAKER_00: You know, when I was saying there's three patterns, the second pattern that sin creeps into our life, it can easily creep into our life.
SPEAKER_00: And we see here just the power of people to get us to kind of lose track and lose sight of what God's doing.
SPEAKER_00: And what he's doing and what his commands for us are.
SPEAKER_00: And we can often make excuses, right, for things.
SPEAKER_00: Allowing people to do things or um allowing kind of the call track, hey, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: It's not what I would do, but who am I to judge?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Or we'll kind of say, you know what, this is a really good friend.
SPEAKER_00: I really don't, every time I'm around them, um, they're doing things that are against God, they don't love God, they discourage me in my walk with the Lord, but somehow they're just my best friend, so I spend a lot of time with them.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying we can't have friends or family or be around people who don't love the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: That's that's not what I'm saying at all.
SPEAKER_00: But you must be careful with the people that you bring into your life and know, do they love God?
SPEAKER_00: Because they're gonna have an influence on you.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're just around a lot of unbelievers, praise God, what an opportunity you have to share Christ, to share the gospel with them, to proclaim his goodness.
SPEAKER_00: But if you're just around them and you're thinking, they're having no effect on me, they're not influencing me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm a Christian, and you're not actively trying to share Christ with them or actively guarding yourself against their reason and their thinking, be careful, because there's great power with people and even culture that pulls at us.
SPEAKER_00: It begins to kind of tell us what's right and wrong.
SPEAKER_00: You know, Eliashib, this priest, he was related to Tobiah.
SPEAKER_00: His son or grandson was married to an Ammonite woman.
SPEAKER_00: The very reason they said, don't marry non-believers, and here he was married, the grandson to a non-believer.
SPEAKER_00: And this relationship between Tobiah and Eliashib kind of works itself out where Tobiah's now getting his way and having what he wants with the temple.
SPEAKER_00: Now Elisha wasn't, uh he wasn't, I don't think, sinning because he was related to Tobiah, but he was sitting because he was not guarding the things of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't guarding his heart in his relationship, and he let this wicked man come in and have his way.
SPEAKER_00: See, the power of people relationships and the power of culture, it's strong.
SPEAKER_00: We feel compelled to think a certain way or to act a certain way, believe a certain way, because culture tells us to.
SPEAKER_00: That taking an innocent human life is okay as long as there's another human life who's going to be burdened by it or doesn't want that thing.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this wasn't always the case that the culture held to this, but it is now the case.
SPEAKER_00: So we pray and we fight to end abortion.
SPEAKER_00: We pray and fight to end all kinds of wicked things around us.
SPEAKER_00: Things that our society says, I think it's okay.
SPEAKER_00: I think this is alright.
SPEAKER_00: There were things a hundred years ago that our culture and our society said, I think this is okay.
SPEAKER_00: There are things 200 years ago that our society, our culture said, I think this is okay, that were wicked and wrong.
SPEAKER_00: And praise God, we don't partake of those things in the same manner that we used to.
SPEAKER_00: And there are things today, now in our culture and in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: That we just can be melancholy about.
SPEAKER_00: I'm frustrated by it, but I don't know what to do with it.
SPEAKER_00: We just kind of let it linger.
SPEAKER_00: We need to be people who contend for good.
SPEAKER_00: Because sin it creeps in through culture, through relationships.
SPEAKER_00: This is why we do cry out to the Lord that He would end abortion, that we would see the wickedness of the sexuality thing that's going rampant, that would just come to a close because we know that anytime you make your life about you, you're going to be frustrated.
SPEAKER_00: You're going to be depressed.
SPEAKER_00: Because you weren't made for yourself.
SPEAKER_00: You were made for God to glorify Him, to adore Him.
SPEAKER_00: So we contend for the things of God.
SPEAKER_00: So we go and we vote.
SPEAKER_00: And we go and we talk to people.
SPEAKER_00: We engage our neighbors.
SPEAKER_00: We talk to the people in our families, sharing what Christ has done.
SPEAKER_00: How He is our ultimate hope.
SPEAKER_00: And He is our ultimate rest.
SPEAKER_00: See the issue with Tobiah of Nehemiah came in and he threw all this stuff out.
SPEAKER_00: And he he deals with this issue with the leaders.
SPEAKER_00: What are you guys thinking?
SPEAKER_00: Letting this guy in.
SPEAKER_00: And he no sooner kind of leaves that in this the power of people relationships to our culture to kind of derail things, and then he goes to the whole community.
SPEAKER_00: And guess what he finds out?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: They're all sinning.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just the leaders who are now disappointing him.
SPEAKER_00: Look at me in verse 15.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to see how the power of comfort can just, it comes in and it robs and destroys our love for the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: In those days, this is verse 15.
SPEAKER_00: I saw in Judah people treading wine presses on the Sabbath and bringing in heaps of grain and loading them on donkeys and also wine and grapes and figs and all kinds of loads, which they brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day.
SPEAKER_00: And I warned them on that day when they sold food.
SPEAKER_00: Tyrans also who lived in the city brought in the fish and all kinds and of all kinds and goods and sold them on the Sabbath to the people of Judea in Jerusalem itself.
SPEAKER_00: Then I confronted the nobles of Judea and said to them, What is this evil thing that you are doing, profaning the Sabbath day?
SPEAKER_00: Did not your fathers act in this way?
SPEAKER_00: Did not our God bring all these disasters on us and on this city?
SPEAKER_00: Now you bring yeah now you are bringing more wrath on Israel by profaning the Sabbath.
SPEAKER_00: As soon as it began to go grow dark at the gates of Jerusalem before the Sabbath, I commanded that all the doors should be shut, and gave orders that they should not be opened until after the Sabbath.
SPEAKER_00: And I stationed them, and I stationed some of my servants at the gate, for no for no load might be brought in on the Sabbath day.
SPEAKER_00: No merchants or sellers of all kinds of wares lodged outside of Jerusalem, once or twice.
SPEAKER_00: But then I warned them and said, Why do you lodge outside the wall?
SPEAKER_00: If you do it again, I will lay hands on you.
SPEAKER_00: From that time on they did not come on the Sabbath.
SPEAKER_00: Then I commanded the Levites that they should purify themselves and come and guard the gates to keep the Sabbath day holy.
SPEAKER_00: Remember this, O my fa in my favor, O God, I spare and spare me according to the greatness of your steadfast love.
SPEAKER_00: So if you're familiar with the story of Ezra and Nehemiah, you just you just wonder, you just kind of shake your head like, haven't they learned anything?
SPEAKER_00: They were in cap, they were slaves for 70 years.
SPEAKER_00: They were brought back here.
SPEAKER_00: They had so much trial and difficulty, but God provided everything they needed.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they walked out of Babylon thick and rich with everything, all the gold, all the supplies they needed, given to them by the king and the people.
SPEAKER_00: If they needed material things, it was given to them.
SPEAKER_00: They needed food, they had it.
SPEAKER_00: They needed material, they had it.
SPEAKER_00: They needed clothes, they had it.
SPEAKER_00: Everything God gave them.
SPEAKER_00: Here they are, profaning the Sabbath, not even keeping the commandment of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: The Ten Commandments, which are in Exodus chapter 20, this is what it says about the Sabbath.
SPEAKER_00: Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.
SPEAKER_00: Six days you shall labor and do all your work.
SPEAKER_00: But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.
SPEAKER_00: On it you shall not do work, or you or your son, you or your son, or your daughter, your male servant or female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates.
SPEAKER_00: For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth and the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore the Lord blessed the seventh day and made it holy.
SPEAKER_00: See, God he has his commandment to his people in the old covenant to rest and observe the Sabbath.
SPEAKER_00: And you think about all the things they were commanded to do.
SPEAKER_00: There's lots of laws, lots of statutes, and it's pretty overwhelming in the old covenant that you had to keep.
SPEAKER_00: But this one's pretty easy.
SPEAKER_00: From sundown on Friday until sundown on Saturday, don't work.
SPEAKER_00: But it's to relax, it's to rest, it's to remember what God has done.
SPEAKER_00: What a blessing that he's given his people a day off to rest and worship him.
SPEAKER_00: The people are just breaking the Sabbath.
SPEAKER_00: They have no regard for these things.
SPEAKER_00: They're just doing business like it's normal.
SPEAKER_00: It gets right to the heart, and he just rebukes them.
SPEAKER_00: He rebukes the merchants and he's warning them don't do this again.
SPEAKER_00: I'm coming after you.
SPEAKER_00: Now, again, personally, I don't think we're bound to this old covenant view of the Sabbath.
SPEAKER_00: However, I think the New Testament does teach the Sabbath, which is now under the new covenant, and it's on the Lord's Day, which is Sunday, the first day of the week, we're to observe this time of to gather and worship.
SPEAKER_00: So we're not under the law in that sense.
SPEAKER_00: Christ has fulfilled the law, but it's a time for us to enjoy, to rest, and to gather to worship.
SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate the way our church's confession, the New Hampshire Confession, puts it.
SPEAKER_00: It says, on the Lord's Day, we believe the first day of the week is the Lord's Day.
SPEAKER_00: It's a Christian institution for regular observance and commemorates the resurrection of Christ from the dead and points to the rest that awaits the people of God.
SPEAKER_00: It should include exercises of worship and spiritual devotion, both public and private.
SPEAKER_00: Activities on the Lord's Day should be commiserate with the Christian's conscience under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: What a blessing that we have a day to gather to worship.
SPEAKER_00: We do this because this is the day that Christ was resurrected.
SPEAKER_00: We know we see in Acts they gathered on the Lord's Day.
SPEAKER_00: We know in Revelation they gathered on the Lord's day.
SPEAKER_00: But how easy is it for our comfort, our desires to kind of begin to overwhelm these things, to pool at us, pool us away from the things of God.
SPEAKER_00: I just need a little more sleep.
SPEAKER_00: I just need one more vacation.
SPEAKER_00: I just need more time to myself.
SPEAKER_00: I just need a new item of clothing.
SPEAKER_00: I just need to have people outside of my house.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want people around.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want a host.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not very outgoing, so I don't evangelize.
SPEAKER_00: Outside of Saturdays and Sunday afternoons and three evenings during the week, I just don't have time to disciple anyone or meet up with anyone to read the Bible together.
SPEAKER_00: You can see how every one of us, it's my heart, it's your heart.
SPEAKER_00: We're comfort seekers.
SPEAKER_00: We long for comfort.
SPEAKER_00: We long just to kind of be doing what we want to do.
SPEAKER_00: Sure, God said to rest on this day.
SPEAKER_00: Give us 24 hours to rest, but it's not really what I want to do.
SPEAKER_00: I want to go out and I want to make some money, or I want to trade, or I want to buy food, or I want to get whatever I want to do done.
SPEAKER_00: And so that sin of making it kind of about comfort in us, it just seeps in so quickly.
SPEAKER_00: And here Nehemiah's rebuking them for this.
SPEAKER_00: And again, I would argue that this is a pattern in your life and mine.
SPEAKER_00: Comfort, the power of comfort, begins to seep in and distract us from the things of God.
SPEAKER_00: So he's dealt with Tobai in the temple, he's dealt with the Sabbath breakers and reforming that.
SPEAKER_00: And then he comes now to this issue of marriage and intermarriage, which is not, this has been dealt with before in Ezra.
SPEAKER_00: But look with me in verse 23.
SPEAKER_00: This is the power of relation relationships.
SPEAKER_00: In those days also I saw the Jews who had married women of Ashdod and Amon and Moab, and half their children spoke the language of Ashdod, and they could not speak the language of Judah, but only the language of each people.
SPEAKER_00: And I confronted them and cursed them and beat them, some of them, and pulled out their hair, and 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 yourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Did not Solomon, the king of Israel, sin on account of such women?
SPEAKER_00: Among the many nations there was no king like him, and he was beloved by God, and God made him king over all Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless, foreign women made even him to sin.
SPEAKER_00: So shall we listen to you and do all that is great, all this great evil, and act treacherously against our God by marrying foreign women?
SPEAKER_00: And one of the sons of Jeadiah, the son of Elisheb, the high priest, was the son-in-law of Sambalat.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, that's he's the friend with Tobiah, their buddies against God.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore I chased him from me.
SPEAKER_00: Remember me, O my God, because they have desecrated the priesthood and the covenant of the priesthood in the Levites.
SPEAKER_00: Again, this is a reoccurring pattern of the people.
SPEAKER_00: They're just marrying whoever they want to marry.
SPEAKER_00: Back in Ezra in chapter 9 and 10, there's this heartbreaking story where they come and there's all this intermarriage between the people of God and the pagan nations around them.
SPEAKER_00: And they begin to just kind of do life and thinking, well, you can worship your God, I'll worship my God.
SPEAKER_00: And it contaminates and brings sin.
SPEAKER_00: The issue is not that these women were just foreign or were from a different country or they they spoke a different language.
SPEAKER_00: The issue is that they worshiped pagan gods, and they would turn the hearts of their husbands away from the God of Israel, the one true God.
SPEAKER_00: See, in Deuteronomy 7, God tells his people when they enter the promised land, he said, Listen, do not marry the former women for this very reason.
SPEAKER_00: And Nehemiah points out in verse 26 how serious this is by using this example of Solomon.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, Listen, Solomon, the wisest guy ever, right?
SPEAKER_00: He had all these things, beloved by God, king over all things.
SPEAKER_00: And what happened to him?
SPEAKER_00: His heart was turned.
SPEAKER_00: And 1 Kings tells a story.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna read a verse out of verse 4 out of chapter 11.
SPEAKER_00: For when Solomon was old, his wives turned his heart away after other gods.
SPEAKER_00: And his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father.
SPEAKER_00: And you think about your own life, and following the Lord, plodding along, and after all this time, all these years, all God's provision for Solomon, everything God had given him, he begins to have this relationship with these women, and they turn his heart.
SPEAKER_00: He indulges in the sin and they pull him away.
SPEAKER_00: He never fully leaves the God of Israel, but he isn't fully devoted to him anymore.
SPEAKER_00: He's now trying to serve these other gods and kind of keep the whole thing working for him.
SPEAKER_00: And what what just a heartbreaking nightmare to go through all your life serving the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And then you're like, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: I think I'm actually gonna break God's rules and have this relationship.
SPEAKER_00: And over time, that they just begin to rob you of your affections for the Lord, to steal you away from the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: It's the power of relationships.
SPEAKER_00: So be careful who you're with, be careful who you marry.
SPEAKER_00: It's interesting, God doesn't just say, marry a good person, and that's it.
SPEAKER_00: He gives us clear instruction.
SPEAKER_00: And I'll summarize it.
SPEAKER_00: If you're not married, this is really, really, really good advice.
SPEAKER_00: I keep looking over here because it's mostly the singles over here.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, here's the criteria.
SPEAKER_00: Are they a follower of Jesus Christ?
SPEAKER_00: That's pretty much it.
SPEAKER_00: Now the hard part is you need to define that.
SPEAKER_00: You need to define followers.
SPEAKER_00: Followers follow.
SPEAKER_00: They have resemblance of the one they're following.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was humble, he served others, he spoke the truth, he was loving, he was very serious about glorifying his father.
SPEAKER_00: He spent time regularly seeking after fellowship with his father.
SPEAKER_00: He believed God's word.
SPEAKER_00: He believed the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: He was not living for himself, but for others.
SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, he was living to obey and glorify God the Father.
SPEAKER_00: That's a follower.
SPEAKER_00: Is that what they're doing?
SPEAKER_00: Are they following Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Not perfectly, but are they a follower?
SPEAKER_00: And then Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You do need to define Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: He's God incarnate.
SPEAKER_00: 100% God, 100% man, fully God, fully man, Jesus was never created.
SPEAKER_00: He is co-equal, he's co-eternal with God the Father and God the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: He's the only one who lived a perfect life, who embodied human flesh, lived a perfect life, was crucified on the cross, died paying the price for our sins and the sins of mankind, was buried, and three days later was resurrected, brought back to life, defeating death, and now sits at the right hand of God the Father.
SPEAKER_00: And he will return to earth to judge the wicked and the righteous, and to dwell with his people for eternity, and to cast those who hate him into hell for eternity.
SPEAKER_00: So you need to have a good idea of what a follower is, and you need to have a really good idea of who Jesus Christ is when you're going to find someone to marry because they should be a follower of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: I know we're not big on amens, but that was one there.
SPEAKER_00: We must be careful who we give our hearts to.
SPEAKER_00: There is an amazing power for good or for bad.
SPEAKER_00: See, we see in this marriage, and we see it culturally, these different relationships.
SPEAKER_00: The lives that we spend with people, the way we interact with people, they have influence on us.
SPEAKER_00: And be mindful of that church.
SPEAKER_00: Whether it's who you marry, it's who you go into business with, it's who you're working with, it's who you do life with.
SPEAKER_00: We are designed for relationship.
SPEAKER_00: We die without relationship.
SPEAKER_00: And we're meant to be in hard relationships with hard people and with unbelievers.
SPEAKER_00: We do so with intentionality.
SPEAKER_00: So there's this there's a pattern that the word brings repentance and life.
SPEAKER_00: There's this pattern that sin slowly creeps in.
SPEAKER_00: Then there's a pattern that repentance and obedience.
SPEAKER_00: It's required for us to keep growing in our faith.
SPEAKER_00: Look at me in the last couple verses here, 13.
SPEAKER_00: Thus I cleansed from everything foreign, and I established the duties of the priests and the Levites, each in his work.
SPEAKER_00: And I provided for the work, the wood offering in appointed times and for the first fruits.
SPEAKER_00: Remember me, O my God, for good.
SPEAKER_00: See, Nehemiah acknowledged the sins and he dealt with them.
SPEAKER_00: No, he we to do likewise.
SPEAKER_00: We acknowledge our sin and we deal with it.
SPEAKER_00: We don't let it linger, we don't try to justify it.
SPEAKER_00: Like, well, it's not that big of a deal.
SPEAKER_00: I have bigger things to worry about.
SPEAKER_00: And we hear from Nehemiah this plea.
SPEAKER_00: This is the third time we hear this plea that God would remember him.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 14, remember me, O my God, concerning this, and do not wipe out my good deeds that I have done for the house of God and for his service.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 22, remember this as remember this also in my favor, O my God, and spare me according to the greatness of your steadfast love.
SPEAKER_00: Here in verse 31, remember me, O my God, for good.
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't looking for vain praise.
SPEAKER_00: Or a little kind of pat on the head, like, good job, buddy.
SPEAKER_00: You did really good there.
SPEAKER_00: Nehemiah put his efforts into loving God and helping the exiles return to Jerusalem to love and obey God.
SPEAKER_00: We see back in chapter one of Nehemiah how when he gets news that the wall is torn down, the city has been burned, it's shameful.
SPEAKER_00: Jerusalem has a shame on it.
SPEAKER_00: His heart is broken.
SPEAKER_00: He begins to weep.
SPEAKER_00: He cares about God's people, he cares about God's glory.
SPEAKER_00: So now he has this plea for God to remember him.
SPEAKER_00: He's not looking to the nation of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: He's not looking to the people in Jerusalem or the temple saying, hey guys, I did a lot of good here.
SPEAKER_00: Can I get a plaque?
SPEAKER_00: Can I get my name inscribed somewhere?
SPEAKER_00: Can we do like a little dedication ceremony?
SPEAKER_00: Can I put my name on one of the buildings or something?
SPEAKER_00: It's not what he's doing.
SPEAKER_00: Because it was never for those people for him to get glory from them or praise from them.
SPEAKER_00: He was working and striving to glorify God and to love others well.
SPEAKER_00: So he's crying out to the Lord God to remember him.
SPEAKER_00: It's the same desire that we should all have.
SPEAKER_00: That when our days are over, that we would see our Creator face to face and we would hear, well done, faithful and good servant.
SPEAKER_00: This should be our desire.
SPEAKER_00: This should be the thing kind of beaning within us.
SPEAKER_00: Not that we get some kind of praise or acknowledgement or promotion.
SPEAKER_00: We get thought well of, but that the end of our days, that our Creator and our God would say to us, Well done.
SPEAKER_00: You have sought to glorify me and to obey.
SPEAKER_00: Well done.
SPEAKER_00: So Nehemiah chapter 13 shows us these patterns.
SPEAKER_00: We see it in the whole story.
SPEAKER_00: We see it in our lives as well.
SPEAKER_00: People are pursuing sin.
SPEAKER_00: God's word is taught.
SPEAKER_00: Repentance and obedience follows.
SPEAKER_00: Maturity, sanctification follows that.
SPEAKER_00: See, Nehemiah and all the reformers of his time, they all died.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: They all, and we know the people kind of went back to their sin.
SPEAKER_00: So here, all the things we read about, they all die, and they all go back to their sin and living in their wickedness.
SPEAKER_00: But 400 years later, 400 years after chapter 13, there would be another man who would come to deliver the people of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: And he too would read the word of the law and call the people to repentance.
SPEAKER_00: He too would overturn tables and furniture in the temple.
SPEAKER_00: But he alone would be crucified for the sins of many.
SPEAKER_00: And he alone would fulfill perfectly the law of Moses, keeping it perfectly.
SPEAKER_00: And he was the Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: And this was the one that Ezra looked to.
SPEAKER_00: This was the one that Nehemiah looked to for hope.
SPEAKER_00: They placed their ultimate hope in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And he is our ultimate hope.
SPEAKER_00: And he will return and he will make all things new.
SPEAKER_00: He will conquer sin and death once and for all.
SPEAKER_00: And there will be no more contending against sin or our fleshly desires.
SPEAKER_00: Where Ezra and Nehemiah failed, where David and Solomon failed, where Adam and Eve failed, where you and I have failed, he will not fail.
SPEAKER_00: He does not fail.
SPEAKER_00: He will be victorious.
SPEAKER_00: So growing in his likeness, in our faith, it's hard, it's messy.
SPEAKER_00: We make mistakes.
SPEAKER_00: But it requires a true faith in this Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It requires that we trust him, that we submit to him.
SPEAKER_00: And we say, I don't know how all that works, how it all works out.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how it is that you're God and you're good and you're sovereign and there's there's hard things in the world.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how your death on the cross atoned for my sin.
SPEAKER_00: I don't understand completely these things.
SPEAKER_00: But who else has the words of life?
SPEAKER_00: To whom else will you turn?
SPEAKER_00: Where else will you go?
SPEAKER_00: No one else can pay the price for your sin.
SPEAKER_00: No one else is inviting you into a relationship with God, with your creator, to belong to Him and to be with Him forever.
SPEAKER_00: So may your life and my life be marked by this similar pattern.
SPEAKER_00: God's word, repentance, and joyful obedience.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.