"The Real César Chávez" Nehemiah 5 Sunday Evening Worship Service

Well, there's a person out on the intersection of Braddock and Backlick on many days that has a sign that says will work for beer.

I have talked to him many times and he is somewhat honest about his predicament.

He says that he used to and I I kid you not.

He says, I used to try and work, but it turned out to be too much work.

And he makes more money this doing this at the intersection there than he did uh doing odd jobs.

He used to be somewhat of a carpenter.

Um so he's he's often out there at the intersection.

And so it is worth asking yourself what is the most loving way to interact with him?

Is it to give him food?

Is it to give him money?

Even though he obviously has a need uh for those, he's homeless now and uh and is asking for help um to to live his life.

And I would submit that it is not in fact helpful for him uh because when you feed somebody in that circumstance, you are really empowering their life of disobedience.

This is why the Bible says in 2 Thessalonians chapter 3 that if a person won't work, they should not eat.

2 Thessalonians 3 · chapter mention

And we covered this a couple of chapters ago back in Nehemiah chapter 3.

Nehemiah 3 · chapter mention

But as I was preparing for tonight, I was thinking about a guy named uh Carl whose uh car broke down in front of my house when I was in seminary.

I came back from seminary.

I lived with, I don't know, six or eight different guys in this house that was not designed for six or eight, depending on the season.

I don't remember how many exactly were there when Carl's car broke down in front of our house, but I do know that I was sleeping on the back porch at this point.

I had a hammock on the back porch, and I was loving life as a single seminary student sleeping outside in Los Angeles.

It was great.

And then one day, Carl's car is in our front yard, and that made me a little bit nervous because I met Carl and he, you know, said that he had some drug problems and all of that, and you know, he couldn't get his car running again, and we're like in a very residential area.

So it's not, you know, a car is not just passing down the road and running, it'd be very unlikely, but lo and behold, in God's providence, this car is stuck in front of a house full of seminary students.

So we tried, we shared the gospel with him, we uh tried reaching out to him, we confronted him on some sin in his life.

I remember one time he asked, and the sin in his life was not exactly hidden, by the way, uh, and we confronted him on it and told him the things he was doing weren't pleasing to the Lord, and you know, he wasn't that interested.

One day he asked me for money for for gas, and you know, I was like, I'm not gonna give you money for gas.

But you know what?

Right now, I will go buy you gas.

Because I would love to see your because it's like day three of him in front of our house.

I'd love to see the car move, so let's go.

Hop into my car, I'll take you to the gas station.

Uh it turned out I had to buy a gas can also, um, which, you know, that's just the way that goes.

So I bought a gas can, filled in gas, fill filled up gas.

And as we're driving back to his car, I should have asked this earlier, but I asked, why do you think your car's out of gas?

Like, was it running earlier?

Like, is the sign is the line on empty?

I mean, he's like, Well, because it's not running.

Well, there's a lot of things that could be going on.

It's not necessarily that it's out of gas.

And so I had like, you know, those like five-gallon containers too.

Um, and gas in LA is expensive.

You might not relate to this story if you've not lived in LA, but in LA, five bucks, I mean, that's a lot, especially for a single seminary student.

That was a significant amount of gas.

So I get over there and I'm like, let's just put in one gallon, see if it works.

Um, but no, he insisted, and he was stronger than me, and he put in all five gallons, and of course, the car didn't start.

So we have a team meeting inside with all of my single seminary friends, and we decree that Carl is at this point officially cut off.

He will receive no more money, no more handouts, no more food, no more anything from us.

He needs to move his car, and we will call the county and report it, and we call the county, and they're like, Yeah, he's got 48 hours from the time you call to move it.

Should have known that 48 hours ago.

Okay.

Meanwhile, I'm still sleeping in the backyard, and you know, I was raised as a Quaker.

I am a borderline pacifist when it comes to that.

I couldn't defend myself if Carl wanted the gas money from me, and I'm sleeping on the hammock in the backyard, it's over for me.

So that's all in the back of my mind.

I come home from seminary the next day, and my roommate, who I will use his name, Josh, who's a very godly guy and a pastor down in Los Angeles, is sitting in the kitchen with Carl at our kitchen table, and Josh is making him a sandwich.

Like a huge sandwich.

I walked in, I'm like, what in the world is this?

Didn't we have a coffee?

And he said, Yeah, but he said he was hungry, and I was like, no, out, Carl, out.

I banished Carl from the house.

And uh yeah, the police finally came in and pounded his car.

Uh we got a uh a call from him.

Uh a couple months later, he was in the hospital.

Things did not look good for him, and I do not know uh what happened to him to this day.

It would not be surprised me it would not surprise me if he died.

I went and visited him in the hospital, and he yeah, was not doing well.

And uh that was the last I heard of him.

Now, it's in my mind as I'm looking at Nehemiah 5 and think, how do you interact with poverty?

There are some right ways and wrong ways to interact with poverty, and uh it's just a burden for me to help Christians understand that in a literal sense, feeding poverty does not help poverty, especially in the United States.

I understand not every country is the same, not every culture is the same, that there are those who have real needs.

There are those whom a sandwich would go a long way.

There are those who five gallons of gas would be enable them to go to work to pay for the sandwich they need for their family.

I understand that.

But that is, by and large, not the normal face of poverty that we often confront.

So the story of Carl in the background, I want to look at Nehemiah 5 and see some similarities and differences between how Nehemiah interacts with poverty and how poverty presents itself in the United States.

After all, we live in a world where Jesus said, the poor you will have with you always.

And that's a promise that Jesus makes.

It's true.

There's nothing we can do that will eliminate poverty from our world or our life, because Jesus promised we would always have the poor with us.

So the question becomes, how do we respond?

Nehemiah chapter 5, there arose a great outcry of the people and of their wives against their Jewish brothers.

Nehemiah 5 · chapter mention

And uh, you know, it's common for Middle Eastern women for them to have a cry of an alarm and a very, a very loud, almost like in our American culture, almost like a like an Apache kind of war cry.

That's a female cry of distress.

And so when it says in verse 1, there arose a great outcry of people and their wives against their Jewish brothers.

Nehemiah is describing this in such a way that you would expect a calamitous outbreak.

Something large and loud is happening that's disrupting all of the work.

If you recall in chapter 4, everybody was on edge because they were surrounded by their enemies who were trying to sneak into the city and disrupt the building.

So Nehemiah armed everybody, had a system of trumpets and a system of war watches all the way around the city.

And so people are on edge.

They're working with their sword in one hand and the shovel in the other hand as they labor both ways.

I mean, they're taking shifts.

They're not sleeping at night because they're positively going to be attacked, and and they're able to press through this and keep working on the wall.

And then in the middle of all that scene, like you're just sitting on edge, you hear this screaming and this outcry, a great outcry that goes to the entire city.

And only this is not about enemies from the outside.

This is about enemies from the inside.

They're Jewish brothers.

Verse 2.

For there were those who said, With our sons and our daughters, we are many.

So let us get grain that we can eat and keep alive.

And in other words, there's families who are saying, you know, we have a lot of children.

Let's leverage our children to get grain to keep us alive.

And there were those that said, We're mortgaging our fields, our vineyards, and our houses to get grain because of the famine.

Obviously, a famine going on in the land.

Verse 4, there were also those who said, We have borrowed money for the king's tax in our fields and in our vineyards.

So you've got these people here who are, because of three different circumstances here.

One, they're just they're just poor, and so they're using their kids, selling their kids into slavery, or renting their kids out for work so they can get grain to eat.

You've got another category of people here that are having to mortgage their fields because of the famine.

They can't afford water, they can't afford workers on their fields, so they mortgage their fields to others.

And then verse four, you have those that can't pay their taxes, and so they're borrowing money.

So you have some that are mortgaging their sons and daughters, some mortgaging their fields, and some that are just borrowing money for the king's tax in the fields and vineyards.

Now, our flesh is as the flesh of our brothers.

This is the people who are in the outcry saying this, that we are Jews, and we only lent to Jews here.

We only rented our children to Jews, but our children are as their children.

Yet we are forcing our sons and our daughters to be slaves.

And some of our daughters have already been enslaved.

But it is not in our power to help it, for other men have our fields and our vineyards.

I was very angry when I heard their outcry and these words.

So that their economic system, the Jews' economic system here in Nehemiah's day, is very different than ours.

Um, so it'd be tough to really understand the nature of the outcry here.

But this is the way it's supposed to work in Israel.

The land is tied to families.

So you are allowed to mortgage your land to somebody else if you need to, but it's got a 50-year cap on it.

The year is fixed, and at the year of Jubilee, all the land reverts back to the original owner.

So if it's the year after the year of Jubilee, so it's your first year with the land, you can mortgage it for a huge amount of money because the person you're mortgaging it to will have it for 49 years.

But if the year of Jubilee is next year, you can mortgage it for very little amount of money because it's only worth the value for one year.

So that's the way it's supposed to be structured.

So you could leverage your field to get money if you needed to.

You couldn't then use that money to buy another field because everything would reset at the year of Jubilee.

Again, that's how it was designed to work.

The Jews never ever did it right.

They never did it that way, which is why they got exiled.

So you know this, these Jews know this because they were just recent.

The reason they're having to rebuild the wall right now is because their ancestors never kept the year of Jubilee, never kept the Sabbath years.

They got kicked out of the land for 70 years as punishment for that.

So they're very well aware of how it's supposed to work.

Now they're back and they're not doing it right.

They're mortgaging their fields, so they're trying to do what they can because of the famine.

Some people are mortgaging their fields.

Jews were allowed to sell themselves into slavery.

If you were in debt, you could sell yourself into slavery.

You know what?

You could even sell your son or daughter into slavery.

This is the way that kind of slavery was supposed to work.

They would go into slavery for six years.

At the end of six years, they had a year of freedom and they were supposed to get enough money with them to spend this.

So, you know, if somebody was sold, if I sold myself into slavery, I would be a slave for six years.

In the seventh year, the person I sold myself to would have to give me enough money to live for that year to go back and provide for my family for my year of freedom.

And I got a year without being a slave.

Now I can size it up and say, do I want to go back to being a slave again, or do I like my freedom now?

And I get the choice.

Sometimes they would go back to being a slave, and then they would be a slave until the year of Jubilee.

They would get their ears pierced and all that.

They bring a priest in, they'd say, I love my master and I love Yahweh, and I want to be a slave, and the priest would have to testify that it's not kidnapping, it's not compulsory, this guy's entering it voluntarily.

That's the way slavery was supposed to work.

But what happens?

They found a loophole right here.

This is just like classic Judaism right here.

They found a loophole.

So I'm gonna mortgage my field.

I now can't pay for my mortgage.

So I'm gonna sell my son into slavery to the Jew that I mortgage my field to cover the mortgage.

Now my son is owned by this Jewish person to pay to cover the field.

But what if that person then sells him to a Gentile?

Now the six years roll around.

You think the Gentile is gonna let him go because it's the Jewish Sabbath year?

Of course not.

So now their sons and daughters are working for a debt that's only increasing because the field isn't getting plowed.

I mean, nothing good is happening to the land.

They're not gaining income from this.

They leverage their money down a hole and they're not able to acquire the income to get it back.

They can't buy their kids out of famine, and on top of that, there's taxes.

Nobody is releasing their kids.

And so the whole system is broken again.

They've only been in the land for a generation and they've managed to break it a second time.

So, of course, Nehemiah is very angry.

I took counsel with myself, which is just a really funny phrase.

I assume it's a Jewish idiom, but uh Yeah, don't say that, especially to your wife.

Have you made a decision?

Yes, I took counsel with myself.

And I decided, after lots of wise counsel from myself, I brought charges against the nobles and the officials, and I told them, You're exacting interest, each from his brother.

And I held a great assembly against them.

Deuteronomy 23, verse 20.

Deuteronomy 23:20

This the way the ESV translates Deuteronomy 23, 20 is perfect.

It sounds so good, it sounds like a paraphrase, but I'm gonna actually read it to you.

You may charge a foreigner interest, but you may not charge your brother's interest.

So Yahweh, your God, will bless you in all that you undertake in the land that you take possession of it.

I just like that clearness.

You can charge a foreigner interest if you want, but don't charge another Jew interest.

That's Deuteronomy 23, 20.

But what were the Jews were charging each other interest?

And again, they were doing it by finding loopholes.

Oh, it's interest to cover the king's tax, and you know, he's a Gentile, or I sold the slave to a Gentile so I can leverage him for interest.

I'm not violating the law, but the, you know, they're just trying to get around it so they are charging each other interest.

In fact, you can um flip.

I want you to flip in your Bible, keep your finger in Nehemiah, but flip over to Leviticus 25.

I want you to see that God had planned for this occasion.

This is God understands the human heart and in his laws, he describes them well for us.

Leviticus 25, verse 35, is where we'll hop in here.

Leviticus 25:35

The part we're skipping in Leviticus 25, by the way, is how slaves are going to release, be released at the end of the seventh year of the Jewish slaves.

That's Leviticus 25, verses 1 through 7.

Leviticus 25:1–7

The year of Jubilee is verses 8 through 22.

That's how the land gets uh redeemed every year of Jubilee.

We talked about that earlier.

Verses 23 down to 34 is how you can leverage, you can mortgage your property, and then you have to be able to buy it back.

Now the Jews were circumventing that by then leveraging it a second time, taking out a second mortgage to a Gentile, meaning that you couldn't buy it back.

But I want to focus specifically on verse 35.

If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you.

Take no interest from him or profit, but fear your God that your brother may live beside you.

So, how would you support a stranger or a sojourner?

You would give him a job.

You would hire him to work within your gates.

You would, of course, have him rest on the Sabbath.

That's the fourth commandment, that even this language is from the fourth commandment.

Even strangers and sojourners need to rest on the Sabbath day.

But you bring him in, you give him work, you give him rest on the Sabbath, you worship Yahweh together, even if he's a stranger or foreigner, but even more so if he's a Jew, you will treat him in this respect.

You do not, verse 36 says, take interest or profit from him.

Rather, fear your God.

So your brother can live beside you.

Don't lend him your money at interest, don't give him your food for profit, because I'm Yahweh your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and be your God.

And so Yahweh is saying, I gave you all of Israel.

I brought you from Canaan and gave you Israel, so go ahead and take care of each other for me.

You know, if you if you feel like you're the person you're you're feeding is taking too much of your food, it's okay because God drew the food anyway and he gave it all to you.

That's kind of the logic of verse 38.

Verse 39, if your brother becomes poor beside you and sells himself to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave.

He shall be with you as a hired servant and as a sojourner.

He shall serve with you until the year of Jubilee.

In other words, he he's brought to you and he sells himself to you.

Don't keep this going forever.

Let him go when the year of Jubilee comes, so he can go back to his lands.

Then he'll go out from you.

He and his children with him.

He'll go back to his own clan and return to the possession of his father, speaking of his land.

They're my servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt.

They shall not be sold as slaves.

You shall not rule over him ruthlessly, but you shall fear your God.

As your male and female slaves, whom you may have, you may buy male and female slaves among the nations that are around you.

You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you, and the clans that are with you have been born in your land, and they may be your property.

You may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit his possession forever.

You may make slaves of them, but over your brothers and the people of Israel, you shall not rule over one another ruthlessly.

And the chapter will go on to describe the redemption of those in poverty.

God understands people will fall into debt.

People make bad life decisions.

They buy, you know, a field that doesn't, it gets flooded and the crops get destroyed, or they buy a field and a famine comes, or animals go through it.

I mean, things happen in life.

Even this concept of bankruptcy laws are derived from the look of Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

That's a very basic part of American law as well, that you can uh you can declare bankruptcy and get protection from the law if you've made bad decisions.

It shouldn't wreck your life.

Bad financial decisions won't end up destroying the entirety of your life because of this kind of influence in our own American laws from the Torah.

God made a way for you to escape bad financial decisions.

You can mortgage property, you can leverage what possessions you have to cover debt, and it won't end up wrecking your life.

That's how it's supposed to work.

But you get back to Nehemiah 5 and it is wrecking everybody's life.

Because they're not following the law.

They're not showing kindness to one another, they're interacting with each other as if they're interacting with the Gentiles.

And so the work has stopped and Nehemiah is angry.

Before we go on, it's worth pointing out that poverty and sin inside the city is doing here what Sanibal and Tobiah and the Arabs couldn't do in chapter four.

Did you notice that?

All of chapter four was about how the enemies are trying to stop the building, it didn't work.

Chapter five, sin inside the city, that brings everything to a halt.

The enemies thought that if they attacked from the outside, they'd have victory, but their strategy was no match for Nehemiah.

But internal strife in the city, sin inside the camp can always succeed.

That's the lesson of Balaam.

That's one of the earliest lessons of Judaism.

With Balaam wandering through the wilderness, they're trying to figure out how do we stop the Israelites, the Moabites are, how do we stop the Israelites, the Ammonites, they want to stop the Israelites, and they think we can attack them from the outside.

And Balaam says it won't work.

It won't work because they have God fighting for him.

You can't ambush them.

I mean, how do you ambush Yahweh?

He knows everything.

But you can corrupt them from the inside, get them to embrace sin in the camp, and then their own God will turn against them.

I don't even know if Balaam knew how wise it was what he was saying.

The same thing is true in the church, by the way.

You see the same principle in the church.

The devil will not stop the growth of the church.

Persecution will not stop the growth of the church.

The gates of hell will not be able to overpower the church.

However, sin inside the camp can definitely corrupt the church.

Sin tolerated by the church will corrupt the church and will dilute its gospel influence.

We see this in Acts chapter 5 with Ananias and Sapphira.

Acts 5 · chapter mention

Satan had attacked the church from the outside.

The apostles had just been beaten for their faith, thrown in jail for their faith, and the church kept growing, kept growing, kept growing, kept growing.

And then you see a division among the widows about food and it brings everything to a halt.

And the elders patch that up and get things going again, and then you see sin inside the camp and it brings it all to a halt.

God kills them and then things start going again.

Just remember that.

Well, Nehemiah saw this as a problem that would destroy the work, and so he gets angry at them.

He takes counsel with himself, he rebukes them, he brings charges against them.

Verse 8, he said to them, We, as far as we're able, have bought back our Jewish brothers who've been sold to the nations, but you, even you sell your brothers that may be sold to us.

So he's rebuking the people that are doing this.

He says, Me, I went back and used my money, me and my family.

We tried to buy back as many Jews as we could.

And he's probably even speaking here of the whole return from exile under Ezra, that they, to get enough Jews to come back, they probably had to buy some Jews out of slavery to get them resettled the land.

But now, fast forward, and the Jews who are resettling the land are selling themselves and their children back to Gentiles again.

There's no escape from that cycle of poverty right there.

And Nehemiah, of course, is furious.

They couldn't respond to him.

Verse 9.

So I said, The thing you're Is not good.

Ought you not to walk in the fear of our God to prevent the taunts of the nations from our enemies?

Moreover, I and my brothers and my servants are lending them money and grain.

Let us abandon this exacting of interest.

Nehemiah is saying, I'm lending people money, I'm lending them grain.

Why are you charging people?

Now there's just a lot in this chapter I want to keep going, but I want to just pause at verse 9.

Notice Nehemiah understands the gospel.

He understands the aughts of the Bible.

He understands how your faith leads to justification, which should lead to sanctification, not the other way around.

Notice what he says in verse 9.

Ought you not to walk in the fear of our God.

Nehemiah understands this.

He's not telling them that they need to obey God to achieve God's kindness and God's righteousness.

They're saying that because of their relationship with God, they should be walking in a certain way.

Because they fear the Lord, verse 9 says, you should be walking like it.

Faith precedes the walk.

If you believe in God, it's credited to you as righteousness and it should produce a transformed life.

This is Genesis 15, verse 6.

Genesis 15:6

Abraham believed Yahweh and it was counted to him as righteousness.

This is Isaiah 53, verse 11.

Isaiah 53:11

By God's knowledge, the righteous one, my servant, will make many to be accounted righteous.

The God will make people righteous through faith.

Habakkuk 2.4.

The righteous will live by faith.

Notice the implication there.

The righteous person is righteous, and because he is righteous, he's living by faith.

Don't reverse that.

That's the gospel right there.

If you reverse it, you're like, I'm going to live by righteousness to achieve faith.

That's works righteousness and is not the gospel.

But to say, I believe God, that's credited to me as righteousness, and now I will walk in faith, that's the gospel.

And Nehemiah understands that.

Listen, you're here, you fear the Lord, so walk like it.

Walk like it.

It should change the way that you live.

There was a problem with the no lordship view of salvation all the way back in Nehemiah chapter 5.

Nehemiah 5 · chapter mention

Those who said, hey, we believe in Yahweh, but that doesn't mean we have to obey him.

That doesn't mean we need to live like we have faith.

Let us live however we want to.

Otherwise, you're putting works into salvation.

Nehemiah says, forget that.

Set that all aside.

If you have faith, you ought to walk like it.

You ought to walk in the fear of your God.

Because at the very least, the enemies will taunt us.

Back to the threat in chapter 4.

If you claim the name of Christ and you're walking in an empty life, you bring taunt and disrepute onto the name of Christ.

This is the third commandment.

Don't lift up the name of Yahweh in vain.

Don't call yourself a follower of Yahweh and lead an empty life.

That's what it means to break the third commandment.

And Nehemiah's calling them out on it.

And he says, I'm living my life here.

I've got this backed up.

I'm lending to people.

So don't charge people interest.

Return to them, this verse 11, this very day to their fields, their vineyards, their olive orchards, their houses, the percentage of money, grain, wine, and oil that you've been exacting from them.

So he says, Let's start over the great reset right here.

Everybody go back to the first square.

Control alt delete.

Reset this whole Jerusalem thing right now.

They said, We will restore these and we'll require nothing from them.

We will do as you say.

So I called the priests and made them swear to do as they promised.

I love Nehemiah's leadership here.

And he is the kind of leader that he's got.

All these wealthy land barons in Israel are, you know, quaking in their boots in front of Nehemiah.

He rattles their cages and they're giving back all.

They're like Zacchaeus here.

They're giving back everything they stole, and more so and more so.

And Nehemiah still doesn't take him as a word.

He summons priests.

He's like, priests, follow through on this.

Make them swear in a stack of Bibles, a stack of Torahs, a pile of rolled scrolls, whatever.

Work with me here.

I also shook out the fold of my garment, verse 13 says, and said, So may God shake out every man from his house and from his labor who does not keep this promise.

So may he be shaken out and emptied.

And all the assembly said, Amen.

Nehemiah can preach, I tell you what.

And they praised Yahweh.

And the people did as they had promised.

He grabs this big robe that he's wearing and is like, God will shake you out if you don't do what you're going to say you're going to do.

Moreover, verse 14, from that time I was appointed to be their governor in the land of Judah.

So this all the news of what's happening here has gotten to Cyrus the Emperor, who's probably checking in.

You know, his cupbearer is gone, with a significant amount of wealth with him.

There's turmoil there, because the guy who was Sambal and Sebiah, who were exercising governmental leadership over Jerusalem from the province beyond the river, they don't like what's happening there.

But Cyrus hears about this, and Cyrus responds to this.

It's a little, this would be, this would be the big front page news of the day.

Nehemiah is not concerned about what the news was, he's concerned about what God is doing through the wall.

But just this little one verse here that the emperor takes away the governorship of Judah from Sanbala, their enemy.

He loses control from the emperor and is replaced with Nehemiah.

I mean, that's an incredible turn of providence right there.

Nehemiah is now in charge.

And so now he can get money, he can get a salary from this.

From the 20th year to the 32nd year of Artaxerces the king, 12 years.

Neither I nor my brothers ate the food allowance of the governor.

So the way their system, you know, for us, our governors are paid, but they're not paid directly by you.

They're paid indirectly by you, right?

It's like you're paying our governor's salary, you know this, right?

You're paying our governor's salary through your taxes.

He gets paid.

But in they just had a more direct way back then.

The governor was allowed a certain amount of a food allowance, which he could go claim however he wanted it.

So he could walk through your field and take your cow if he wanted your cow.

He was allowed by the emperor a certain amount of cows or oxen or birds or parts of your field.

He could take whatever he wanted up to that limit.

That was the way he got paid.

So it was a more form of direct taxation, I would say, than we have.

But Nehemiah did not take it from the Jews.

The former governors, verse 15, who were before me, laid heavy burdens on the people and took from them their daily portion of forty shekels of silver, even their servants lorded it over the people.

But I didn't do so because of the fear of God.

Nehemiah did not exploit the Jews because he feared God more than man.

He had the right to take forty shekels of silver from them.

He had a right to take forty shekels every day from the people of Jerusalem.

But he wouldn't do it, especially now after the speech you just gave earlier in chapter 5.

I also persevered in the work on this wall, and we acquired no land.

Nehemiah didn't take any land from anybody, and all my servants were gathered together for the work.

Moreover, there are at my table 150 men, Jews and officials, besides those who came from us and the nations around us.

Now, this is a big number.

What he's saying is that he is feeding a hundred and fifty people a day in his house.

That's huge.

Now, when most kings or governors would say that, they mean it is a sign of their wealth.

Like that's how much income they're having from their people, they can afford to do that.

Nehemiah means it the opposite way.

He is feeding people who are in need, he is feeding people who uh who can't make their own ends meet, and he's doing it from his own wealth, not from taxation.

Now, what was prepared at my expense, he says in verse 18, for each day was one ox and six choice sheep and birds.

This is what it takes to feed 150 people every day.

A whole ox plus six sheep, and the odd bird thrown in.

Every ten days, all kinds of wine in abundance, yet for all this I did not demand the food allowance of the governor, because the service was too heavy on this people.

Nehemiah is leading by example here.

Remember for my good, oh my God, all that I have done for this people.

There are those that say, Yeah, Nehemiah, you know, he didn't need to take taxes because he was independently wealthy.

That has never stopped anybody before, has it?

You ever heard of some a politician saying, I don't need more tax, I don't need more of your tax money.

We have plenty, it's okay.

That's Nehemiah.

I don't want to take more from you because you're working so hard.

And yet he's still generous.

He is wealthy, of course he is, coming from the King's own palace, but he's using his wealth, he's leveraging his wealth for God's kingdom and to advance what God is doing in the world.

That's the kind of person that Nehemiah was.

He was willing to lead the way on how to respond.

Nehemiah understands the concept of rewards for believers.

Notice this, how the chapter ends, remember for my good, oh my God.

What's he asking?

I mean, when you tell God, remember what I'm doing, what are you hoping for?

Nehemiah is not hoping for more wealth in this life.

He is fulfilling the Sermon on the Mount.

He is sending his treasure ahead.

He's sending what he has in this world, he's leveraging it for the next world.

He's taking the money he has now and he's sending it to heaven.

If he didn't do this, if he just grew his bigger silos and bigger vineyards and bigger treasure chests in this world, then he dies, he leaves it all behind.

But he's able to send it ahead to heaven, so when he gets to heaven, he will receive rewards for all that he has done.

He hasn't lost a single vat of oil or vat of wine.

He hasn't lost a single oxen or a single part of a field.

God knows every single sacrifice that Nehemiah has made, and God will reward him a hundred times over in heaven.

That's what Jesus himself says in Mark chapter 10, that if you leave houses and lands for my sake, you'll receive a hundred times that.

Mark 10 · chapter mention

In this life, even through the church and the relationships with other people.

But then even more than that in eternity.

We have the capacity to send our resources ahead by how we use them in this world.

And the way you send resources, the way you transfer.

You know, if you have multiple accounts in a bank, you can drag money between one and another.

That's not the way you do it to get from this world to heaven.

The way you get money from this world into heaven is by using it, investing it on things with eternal value.

To see what God is doing in the world, put your resources there.

The resources are transferred into God's portfolio.

He sees all of that transfer, he knows all of your sacrifices, and he rewards you in heaven by giving you those things back.

And he gives them back in such a multiplied way.

Jesus says it this way: He gives you friends in heaven.

You'll get to heaven and you'll meet new friends that your money purchased for you that you never saw in this world.

You sent your money into missions, your missions goes with your mission money goes around the world, people get saved on the other side of the world, you'll go to heaven, you'll meet them.

You don't even know what happened to your money here.

It grew wings and flew away as far as you're concerned.

But you get to heaven and you meet so-and-so from such and such land.

They got saved because of your money.

That's how you get more friends in heaven.

This is Psalm 58, verse 11.

Psalms 58:11

Mankind will say, Surely there is a reward for the righteous.

Surely there is a God who sees what happens on the earth.

Exodus 20, verse 6.

Exodus 20:6

Yahweh shows steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and who keep my commandments.

That is Nehemiah's lesson he understands as he asks God to remember what he's done for his people.

So let me give you a few principles.

These are in your book here, in the center of your book, for principles for dealing with poverty.

I think all these are exemplified by Nehemiah in what he displays here.

The first principle, distinguish between a loan, an investment, and a gift.

Because you see all three of these going on in this chapter, and you make uh confusing financial decisions.

If you don't distinguish between all of them, Nehemiah certainly did have some clear lines separating the three of them.

But understand in your mind, what when you're using your money, when is it a loan?

When is it an investment, and when is it a gift?

You don't loan something.

Here's a basic principle to live by.

Don't loan somebody something that they need to live.

This is what God himself says in Exodus 22, verse 25 if you lend money to any of my people who are with you who are poor, don't be like a moneylender to them.

Exodus 22:25

Don't extract interest from them.

If you take your neighbor's cloak and a pledge, return it to him before the sun goes down.

You know, if you have something that somebody needs to live, just give it to them.

Don't loan it to them.

Don't extract it to them.

Don't view it as an investment.

It's a gift.

If somebody needs something to live, give it to them.

That's a basic principle.

Don't give something, don't give a person something that they don't need.

That's where you think of investments or even a loan.

If there's a desire somebody has, but it's not something you need, that's where you you loan it to them.

Or that's where you see an investment and you try to leverage what you have to multiply its value.

That's kind of basic financial stewardship.

You see Nehemiah handling all three of these categories, by the way.

Loans and interests are a basic part of the working world.

I have I know some Christians that think that uh taking a loan is sinful or wrong, or uh taking a mortgage is sinful or unwise or wrong, and I disagree with both of those.

I think even the patterns that we see here in Nehemiah 5 allow for leveraging property, allow allowing for you to mortgage your property if you're mortgaging it in a way that leverages wealth.

And what I mean by leverage is that you're not just going into debt, you're not mortgaging your house to buy a car that depreciates.

You're mortgaging your house to expand your house and increase the value of the house.

That's what leveraging means.

You're taking money, borrowing money, and using it to increase the value of what you have.

The Bible allows for that.

The Bible commends that.

Even Jesus commends it in Matthew 18.

And uh the earlier passage uh escapes my mind with the steward who is settling his accounts, he's leveraging the ability he has to maximize his influence in this world.

A student loan is a basic kind of investment like that.

You take a loan to get yourself through school.

I've mentioned it this way before, but if you're taking a student loan to, you know, you're gonna graduate from a high-dollar school with, you know, the degree that's gonna get you a low salary and you have a massive student loan, that's not a wise investment.

But if you take a student loan to graduate with a degree that's gonna get you a job that pays well, that is a very good investment.

You're leveraging your time to maximize your potential income.

This is why housing loans are not unwise.

Housing mortgages are very wise because you're leveraging what opportunity you have to increase your wealth in a way that doesn't put you in the hole, but in a way that sets yourself sets yourself up for your future.

And the same thing is definitely true about a car loan.

In the opposite, a car loan is generally not going to be a wise investment because it depreciates in value.

You end up paying more for it than it's worth.

That's kind of basic financial stewardship here.

And I think the best way to have your mind around it is to understand the difference between a loan, an investment, and a gift.

If somebody needs something, give it to them.

If they don't need it, lend it to them.

If you have something that you can leverage to get more of something, invest it.

That's what an investment is.

So keep those lines clear in your mind, and I think the Lord will bless that.

And if you have, you know, if you need help on that, we have lots of elders at our church that are extremely wise financially that love to talk to people about this.

It's there's lots of Christians that are making decisions because they don't talk to anybody about them until it's like way too late, and then it's like, you know, the counseling ministry and four other ministries have to get involved.

It would just be easier if you ask people who are wise with their money before you did something serious with yours to get their feedback.

Because our church has so many people that are so gifted at that.

And so I would encourage you, if you with your finances, if you're having problems or questions about that kind of difference, ask people who know what they're talking about that love you and that are part of this church.

So that's first principle.

Distinguish between those three things.

Second principle, don't allow there to be need within the walls.

Don't allow there to be need within the walls.

Most people's needs, you're supposed to meet people's needs in your family and in your church.

This is the triage of needs.

God has given you resources.

You can leverage some of your resources to make more resources, you can invest your resources to make more resources.

But at the same time, you have to understand that there are needs around you in your family, with your neighbors, in your church.

There are needs around you that you are supposed to use your resources right now to meet.

This is why investing is so critical, because if you have a certain amount of resources and you can leverage them to make more resources, you can meet more needs.

And you have to be asking yourself that am I investing money to grow bigger barns for myself, or am I investing money to meet more people's needs?

How do you know what needs to meet?

Well, you meet needs, first of all, those in your family.

If somebody in your immediate family is in need, you have to meet their need.

That's what Paul says, 1 Timothy 5, verse 8.

1 Timothy 5:8

If anyone does not provide for his relatives, especially for members of his own household, he has denied the faith.

Hello.

And is worse than an unbeliever.

Notice what Paul says.

If you have somebody in your immediate family that's in need and you're not meeting their need, he doesn't say you're making bad financial decisions and Christmas is going to be awkward, I tell you what.

No, he says, You've denied the faith.

You've denied the faith.

This is because God calls people in the family to care for one another.

The family is the most fundamental building block of society.

And if you're a believer who fears the Lord, you should definitely be meeting the needs of those in your family.

Second, you're to care for those in your church.

Galatians 6, verse 10.

Galatians 6:10

So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, especially to those who are of the household of faith.

You care for those who are part of the church.

And so your threshold here for giving, if you have somebody in your immediate family who's in need, you meet that need.

Next step down the rung there, if you have somebody in your church who is in need, you meet that need.

Our church has what we call our benevolent fund, which is easily the most effective way to do that at Emmanuel Bible Church, is you give money to the benevolent fund, people who are in that kind of financial need, members of our church who are in that kind of financial need, maybe with the elders, the elders can meet their financial need, you their financial needs using the money that you have given to that.

That's the basic way we implement that.

And that kind of keeps people from you know shopping around and extracting money from one family of the church, then another family of the church, then another family of the church.

I know you would think there would never be somebody who do that in the church.

A few times.

I hear Steve Hawley laughing over there.

But the benevolent fund is what we have to meet people's needs in the church.

But that's your need threshold here.

Are the people in your family in needs?

Meet it.

Are there needs in your church?

Meet them.

And then as much as you have the ability to meet the needs of other churches, do that as well.

This is 1 Corinthians 16, verse 1, where Paul uh instructs the church in Europe in Corinth to take a collection for the saints in Jerusalem.

1 Corinthians 16:1

He makes it clear he's collecting their money for the believers in Jerusalem.

This was not a food pack campaign, but a collection for the saints.

Are you aware that in the New Testament there's not a single example, not one example that I know of, of believers using financial resources to meet the physical needs of non-believers.

And this is something that Christians have in their mind often.

They can be guilted into this kind of thing, that there's poverty in the world, there's real needs in the world, and they feel compelled to try to meet those needs, try to eliminate poverty kind of thing.

You're not going to be able to eliminate poverty.

We began tonight with Jesus' quote: the poor you will have with you always.

There's not a single example of the New Testament of a believer using his financial resources to meet the physical needs of non-believers.

So I'm not saying that it's sinful to do that.

Of course not.

You're a steward of your own money.

You invest it how you want to use your own money.

But I am saying that kind of investment likely you're not going to get a return on in heaven.

The kind of return you get in heaven is on investments that produce spiritual fruits.

Now, there is, of course, I think, lots of examples that wisdom allows in the church of using physical resources, money and whatnot to produce gospel preaching opportunities.

I think of the lady I shared about from Chad the other week who was building water wells with the nomads because she was out with these nomads witnessing these camel herders, and they were in one place for a few days, and she's following them through the wilderness.

This lady's in her 60s, and she's from France and or Switzerland, and she's following camel herders around the Saharan desert to share the gospel with them.

And it occurs to her that if they can build wells, then the camel herders will stay in one spot for three months, maybe, and she can witness the same people for three months.

And that becomes a very strategic investment right then.

Now you're building wells, they're getting water, they're getting the gospel over three months, and she's not having to walk all around Africa.

There's lots of opportunities like that.

And our church has done many of those.

We've gone and put wells into places to bring news about the living water and those kind of needs.

So there so don't misunderstand me.

But I just want you to realize that the model in the Bible, even here, I said the New Testament, but the Old Testament as well.

Here you have it's a slightly different concept.

Nehemiah makes the case over and over and over again through chapter 5, distinguishing between how you treat the Jews and how you treat the Gentiles.

You see an Egyptian, plunder an Egyptian.

I mean, why not?

I'll do respect in the front row.

But you are caring for the needs of the church first.

Then you're using your opportunities to meet to expand the gospel wherever you can.

And then thirdly, love your neighbor with a real love, not a condescending love.

Love your neighbor with a real love, not a condescending love.

There's lots of good deeds and uses of money in the world that go uh unrealistic.

Rewarded, that are encouraging poverty, encouraging dependency.

You know, the the story I began with tonight about Carl the uh homeless guy in front of the house, you know, giving him money just exasperates his life.

It doesn't help.

And you know that.

It's not it's not love in that sense.

It's not love to give somebody something that will harm them, and that applies even to your own family as well.

You know, I said you have to meet the needs of your family.

Part of meeting the needs of your family is actually loving them, not loving them in a condescending way.

Listen, it's way easier for the guy at the street corner with the sign that says we'll work for beer.

It's way easier to give him five dollars than it is to give him the gospel.

I understand that.

But real love goes to that second point to the gospel.

Sometimes a sandwich will help the gospel be heard better.

I understand that too.

You make your own wise decisions about how you use your money and how you leverage things, but you need to be constantly asking yourself, what is the most loving thing to do?

Not the easiest thing, the most loving thing.

Condescending love is to tell somebody, you know what, you probably can't figure this out.

So here's some money.

Real love teaches somebody what biblical wisdom is and how to apply their skill set to this world.

I talked to a business owner recently who's on the uh board of the Master's University with me.

He told me that he is his dad was a business owner and he was raised with the motto, don't give him in a fish, because that's you know, teaches him how to what eat for a day or whatever, teach him how to fish because then he can, you know, eat his whole life or whatever.

But he said he's added the next phrase to that.

He doesn't want to just, I wrote it down because I loved it so much.

He said, I don't want to just teach him in to fish, but after teaching him how to fish, I want to teach him how to leverage the means of producing fishing rods and then teach him how to control the exportation of those fish.

When I've taught him that, I've taught him how to leverage his income for the kingdom of God.

In light of all that, I'm teaching him how to love Jesus.

And that's our model as well.

I want to challenge you with those three principles that are printed in your book for you.

I know that first one might be more applicable to singles and college students and younger here.

I know the second one might be more applicable to more of the middle-aged, the person who's really looking at needs in their parents and in their family and in their kids and how to use the resources.

And I hope this third one is applicable to all of us as we think what is the most loving way to show people the gospel of Jesus Christ?

Lord, we're thankful that you have given us so much in Christ and we don't want to withhold any of it.

We want to be distributors, handing out, giving out your love.

You've given it so freely.

We began our evening snipe by reading Matthew 18 in the parable of the unforgiving steward.

There was a man who owed an infinite amount of money and was forgiven by you, and that is us.

There was another man owed just three months' wages who wouldn't be forgiven by the miser.

We don't want to be the miser, Lord.

You have forgiven us so much.

You've given us so much grace.

You have filled us with grace.

You've filled us with love.

You filled us with boldness to go into the world.

So help us now with wisdom.

Teach us to apply, uh, teach us to apply these truths, teach us to make wise choices about our money and about debt, teach us to leverage what opportunities we have, what resources we do have to increase them so we can make a bigger impact.

We can help more people.

Teach us to find the needs closest to home and our family and our church and to meet those in real ways.

But Lord, above all this, teach us to see people as you see them.

Teach us to love people as you love them.

Teach us to love people in a sacrificial way, a way that demands time, a way that demands exposure, a way that demands actual sacrifice.

But Lord, we know that he who gives much will be rewarded much.

We look forward to the Bemisy judgment, we look forward to heaven where we stand before you and we will be rewarded for the deeds done in the flesh.

We look forward to that day.

We believe our Lord and Savior Jesus when he declares that no one who parts with anything for the sake of the gospel in this life will be unrewarded.

We know you see all and will reward all.

We give you thanks for that in Jesus' name.

Amen.

And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thanks for joining us today.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to meet you personally at Emmanuel Bible Church.

Our service times and other church information is on our website at ibc.church.

If you want information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to tms.edu.

I hope this resource has been an encouragement to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel of Jesus Christ with boldness.

May the Lord bless you.