Discernment in Opposition

We are in the third chapter of a series of oppositions that Nehemiah experiences in building the wall.

In chapter four, we kind of walked through there was external opposition, there was internal opposition, how Nehemiah walked through that.

Chapter five, it was just internal opposition.

How did Nehemiah walk through that?

Now we have in chapter six kind of the end of a series of three chapters of opposition in Nehemiah's efforts to rebuild the wall in Jerusalem.

And these efforts are uh these efforts of opposition, these schemes of the devil are gonna come through both foreign enemies and so-called internal friends.

And we're gonna look at what that means for us.

But one of the big ideas that we want to look at in Nehemiah chapter 6 is discernment.

Nehemiah 6 · chapter mention

Discernment.

How many of you feel like you have good ability to discern?

Not many of you, right?

Your the choices in your life would say that's probably true.

Uh no.

Uh discernment is critical.

Discernment is a utility tool in kind of the satchel of wisdom.

How do we know?

How are we able to discern what is good and what is bad?

How are we able to discern uh what is the right thing to do and what is the wrong thing to do?

And we're gonna look at Nehemiah's ability to discern in a very critical time.

Because if you've started any project in your house, right?

Or any project uh in your company, uh what's the hardest part to complete?

The last 10%.

The last 10% is always the hardest to complete.

You probably have throughout your house several little projects that you just didn't put the finishing touches on.

But you got to a point where you said, it's good enough for who it's for, right?

You got to a place of contentment.

And that last 10% is challenging.

And Nehemiah in chapter 6, that's kind of where he's at.

That's kind of where he's at in that last 10% of rebuilding the wall.

So when we look at summary of verses 1 through 9, this kind of opening section of Nehemiah 6, what we see is that discernment comes through spiritual maturity.

Nehemiah is to exemplify discernment through spiritual maturity.

Sandbelat, Tobiah, and Geshem.

These are kind of enemies of God that we've been familiarized with throughout Nehemiah.

They were shown to us most predominantly in chapter 4, but they're back again at chapter 6, now when the wall is just about finished.

What they do is they send a message to Nehemiah right at the time the wall is about completed.

Nehemiah says, really, the only thing that's left to do is to hang the doors and gates, to set them up, and then we will be fully fortified as the city of Jerusalem, as God's dwelling place.

They send him a letter, and we're not given the content of the letter.

We're not given exactly what it talks about and what they kind of uh write to him, but we know that in it is a request to meet with them, to come into this plane of Onoh and meet with them to be able to talk things through.

Though we don't know the content of the letter, what we do know is the character of the writers.

They're enemies of God.

Right here in verse 1, we see that Nehemiah says that Sambalat, Tobiah, Geshem the Arab, and the rest of our enemies heard I had built the wall.

So we might not know the content of the letter, but we know the character of its author.

And that is causing Nehemiah to consider maybe this person's intent.

That ability to discern is starting to pop through in Nehemiah.

There's an obvious attempt to lure Nehemiah away from the city of Jerusalem and into a neutral space.

They want everything in their power to accomplish Nehemiah not completing the wall.

They do not want it rebuilt because they believe that it'll be detrimental to their own territories.

Perhaps the request, though, was posed in a way to desire to congratulate Nehemiah on the success of completing the wall.

Maybe the letter was composed in such a way to communicate their desire for peace and a working relationship between their regions.

We don't really know, again, the content, but its end goal was to lure Nehemiah away into this neutral space so that they might have their way with him.

While Nehemiah doesn't communicate the details of the request, he does clearly articulate the character of the ones making it, our enemies.

No matter by what language they employed to lure Nehemiah away from the wall, he was able to discern their actual intent.

He says there in verses one through nine, he says, But they intended to do me harm.

I would have to imagine that for them to make such an effort, and to make such an effort four times over again, verses one through nine tells us that they they made this request to meet with them in this plane of Ono four times over again, that the language must have been enticing to some measure.

Right?

They're not just gonna be like, hey, come out here so we can kill you.

That doesn't usually work.

People are like, ah, pass.

It had to have been some type of language to be able to lure Nehemiah and entice him to come out.

So what did they play on?

Maybe they played on his pride, maybe they played on his ego, maybe they played on his position of honor.

But whatever it was, we can imagine that the language was attempted to be enticing to get him out to the place they wanted him.

After all, it had to have been a worthwhile attempt if they were going to make it four times over again.

Yet in their attempt to bring Nehemiah out into a situation where he would be harmed, Nehemiah shows discernment through spiritual maturity in, I think, three ways.

In three ways.

Number one, he understands the character of others.

He understands the character of others.

Nehemiah pointed out in his narrating of this account that these were God's enemies.

These were God's enemies.

Because if you're an enemy of God's people, you are an enemy of God.

He knows the historical evidence of these men's true character.

The guise of false friendship is often a ploy for the wicked.

To pretend to be your friend, to pretend to be your ally is often a guise employed by the wicked.

Not postured without grace and mercy was Nehemiah, but he was postured with wisdom and discernment.

So again, it wasn't like he was being a jerk, like, hey, look, these guys, they're never gonna change.

They're always gonna be hard heart, blah, blah, blah, blah.

It wasn't that he was absent of grace and mercy, is that he held a posture of wisdom and discernment.

And it was started, established in understanding the character of others.

So his ability to discern through spiritual maturity started with the character of others.

But number two, it also was in the character of self.

Nehemiah's pride, ego are honored it and caused him to take the bait.

Hey, we want to congratulate him.

Maybe they even offered up all kinds of possessions for him if they come to congratulate him.

Maybe they said, we'll throw a feast for you.

We don't know again what's in the content, but our imaginations can get to a place where we understand their efforts were to entice him to come and meet with him.

He did not allow his pride, his ego, or his honor to get in the way, to take the bait.

He showed great self-discipline in his response.

His own recognition was not what he was working to accomplish.

Nehemiah was working for the glory of God.

Nehemiah, as we've seen throughout this whole book, he was not working for the glory of self.

He was working for the glory of God in the good of his people.

And so what did he do?

What kind of time would he give to receiving self-glory?

So there's the character of others, there's the character of self, and then there's the calling of work.

The calling of work.

Nehemiah shows his motivation in all of this with this response.

We see it here in one through nine.

He says, I am doing a great work and I cannot come down.

Why should the work stop while I leave it and come down to you?

Nehemiah understood the calling of work that he was laboring in.

He understood the importance of it that if he was to be distracted because he wasn't exercising discernment, something was going to suffer.

And it was going to be the rebuilding efforts of the wall in Israel.

The calling of his work was too significant for petty distractions.

The work came before his own perceived need of praise or the felt scheme of foes.

The work came before his own perceived need of praise or the felt schemes of foes.

The enemies of Israel are now frustrated with Nehemiah.

They've tried four times to entice him to come out into this plain of Onoh and meet with them.

They see that that's not working.

So what does Sambalak and Geshem do Tobiah?

They release an open letter.

Y'all know what open letters are?

Everybody's supposed to read this.

And it was an open letter addressed to Israel that the king might know about it, the king of Persia might know about it against the person and the character of Nehemiah.

This time Nehemiah lets us know exactly what the letter's content is.

So even though we didn't know the original letter's content in this one, this open letter, meant to blast him, meant to uh uh accuse him of things, uh he lets us know exactly the content.

We see it in verses six through seven.

And so if you're following along in your Bible, let's start at verse six.

It is reported among the nations, this is the content of the letter.

And Geshem also says it, that you and the Jews intend to rebel.

That is why you are building the wall.

And according to these reports you wish to become their king.

And you have also set up prophets to proclaim concerning you in Jerusalem, there is a king in Judah.

And now the king will hear of these reports.

So now come and let us take counsel together.

So finally they're fed up.

Their four previous efforts have failed.

Now they're going to uh accuse him.

Now they're going to make up lies and false rumors about him, and they're going to make it open and public to try and destroy him.

Does that sound like cancel culture?

Right?

Think maybe we've kind of experienced that a little bit.

Um here's the breakdown of the three primary accusations made here.

Number one, you're rebuilding the wall for the sole purpose to rebel against Persia.

That's kind of the top topic of content here for this open letter.

The only reason you're rebuilding this wall is so that you can rebel against Persia.

The number two thing they make an accusation about is when the wall's established, you're gonna set yourself up as the king of Israel.

So you're fortifying the city so that you can rebel against Persia.

Then you, Nehemiah, you're gonna set yourself up as king once that's completed.

And then the third accusation is that you're using prophets to get the people to champion your rebellious power-seeking cause.

So again, people would say, if this is from prophets, if this is the word of the Lord speaking, we should listen.

We should be excited about this, because after all, Israel has at this point been longing for a Messiah.

They've been longing for a savior, even from amongst their own people.

And so that he could leverage this prophetic uh revelation to try and actually accomplish these accusations.

Now Sambaleth threatens to take these accusations to the king of Persia himself unless Nehemiah comes to meet with them.

We can look back, though, at Ezra chapter 4.

Ezra 4 · chapter mention

And in Ezra chapter 4, uh, this exact same type of accusations were made against the people of Israel in their rebuilding of the temple.

Ezra 4 · chapter mention

And the king of Persia at the time, he put a cease order on the rebuilding of the temple.

And it took several years to be able to get that cease order lifted so they could continue the work.

But the exact same accusations, they're rebel, they're rebuilding it to rebel against Persia, they're gonna set up their own king, and then they're going to actually go against all that you have ordered throughout the land of Persia.

Uh, and so it worked once.

Sambalet, Tobiah, Geshem, they might believe, hey, this has a chance to work again.

Right?

So in true form, Nehemiah, after receiving this letter, after hearing these accusations, I love his response because it's in prayer.

It's in prayer that he says, but now, oh God, strengthen my hands.

But now, oh God, strengthen my hands.

Nehemiah wasn't gonna get distracted even by open letters of false accusations because he showed spiritual maturity.

Have you ever gotten into a fight?

Have you ever gotten pulled into a fight that afterwards you wish you never would have got into?

Yeah, some of y'all.

Sixth grade.

Right?

Lunchroom.

It happened.

No, we have, all of us have got lured into fights because we did not exhibit maturity, and then we regretted it on the back end, and it distracted us from what we knew we were actually supposed to be doing.

Nehemiah doesn't allow that to happen.

Instead of getting sucked into the trap, instead of letting his ego or a false need to defend himself get him in harm's way, he simply says this No such things as you say have been done, for you are inventing them out of your own mind.

He knew they were trying to get their hands to drop from the work and not fully complete the job.

So Nehemiah simply prays, Now, O God, strengthen my hands.

Let me stay focused on the work, let me not get distracted, let me stay true to the course of which you've called us to.

Nehemiah was able to stay focused on the work he had been called to and not get entrapped in the tactics tactics of the enemy because he practiced discernment through spiritual maturity.

In the second part here in the middle, verses 10 through 14, we see that there is discernment through scriptural proficiency.

Discernment through scriptural proficiency.

In the final desperate attempt to harm Nehemiah, Sambalat, Tobiah, Geshem, they hire a prophet priest within Israel to try and instill fear within the heart of Nehemiah.

And what they come with through this prophet priest is this statement that they're gonna come in the night and they're gonna harm or kill Nehemiah.

And so this prophet priest, Shemiah, he is actually kind of confined to his home, it says.

Doesn't tell us why.

We don't know if they have some you know outbreak happening or whatever.

He was confined to his home.

Nehemiah goes to him, and as a hired person, he says to Nehemiah, they're gonna come and they're gonna kill you tonight.

They've told me this.

We need to hide you to keep you safe.

And what he recommends, Shemiah recommends that they hide in the temple so that Nehemiah might be safe.

But what does Nehemiah do?

Nehemiah says, No.

No.

You see, this was a false prophecy to try and make Nehemiah afraid and cause him to turn to self-preservation mode.

If they couldn't get Nehemiah to come to them to harm him, maybe they could devise such a plan as to get them to harm himself.

And now many of you might be thinking, what the world are you talking about?

Well, let's turn to Numbers chapter 18, verses 1 through 7, and see why this might be an attempt to actually harm Nehemiah internally.

Numbers 18:1–7

He says this, it'll be on the screens here.

It says, So the Lord said to Aaron, You and your sons and your father's house with you shall bear iniquity connected with the sanctuary, and you and your sons with you shall bear iniquity connected with your priesthood.

And with you bring your brothers also, the tribe of Levi, the tribe of your father, that they may join you and minister to you while you and your sons with you are before the tent of the testimony.

They shall keep guard over you and over the whole tent, but shall not come near to the vessels of the sanctuary or to the altar unless they and you die.

They shall join you and keep guard over the tent of meeting for all the service of the tent, and no outsider shall come near you, and you shall keep guard over the sanctuary and over the altar, that there may never again be wrath on the people of Israel.

And behold, I have taken your brothers, the Levites, from among the people of Israel.

They are a gift to you, given to the Lord, to do the service of the tent of meeting.

And you and your sons with you shall guard your priesthood for all that concerns the altar, and that is within the veil, and you shall serve.

I give your priesthood as a gift, and in any outsider who comes near shall be put to death.

Here's what Numbers is saying.

Here's what the Lord decreed about his holy dwelling place within the temple.

If anyone, even within Israel, who was not birthed of the family of Levi and able to be a priest in the temple of the Lord, came near to the altar or came inside of the sanctuary, they'd be put to death.

What is this false prophet priest trying to do to Nehemiah?

He's trying to get him in there.

Because he knows.

But Nehemiah's scriptural proficiency raises a red flag.

He knows the word of the Lord.

You see, Nehemiah was so intimately familiar with the Word of God that he was equipped to discern Shemiah's ploy and truly keep himself from harm.

What good is it if we fear men who can kill the body, but not fear the one who can kill the body and the soul?

So Nehemiah, grounded in his intimacy with the scriptures, replies to the false prophecy like this.

He says, Should such a man as I run away?

First off, he's saying, Look, I don't have anybody to fear, number one.

Number two, and what man such as I could go into the temple and live, I will not go in.

So they tried to make him afraid.

They tried to make Nehemiah burst into self-preservation mode and hide in the temple where he might be safe.

But Nehemiah, because he was scripturally proficient, understood if he went into that temple, his life would be taken.

Nehemiah was able to see through the tactics of the enemy and discern their true intent because of scriptural proficiency.

It wasn't just he was too hard-headed or conceited in his own strength to be concerned about possible threats that he may face.

Nehemiah was clear in why he responded the way that he did.

He knew Shemiah was hired so that I should be afraid and act in this way in sin.

That and sin statement is critical to our understanding of why Nehemiah made the decision to not go into the temple.

He was so familiar and intimate with the scriptures that he knew if he would walk in there, he'd be sinning against God.

And he would rather die at the hands of men than sin against his Maker.

Nehemiah wouldn't have simply been knowledgeable of the prescriptive command of God, these thou shalt, thou shalt not kind of commands of the word, but he would have also been familiar with the descriptive narrative of his word that tells the story of a king who sinned against God in this way and was judged.

You might remember a king from the Old Testament named Uzziah.

King Uzziah in 2 Chronicles 26, 16 through 21, we read the story of King Uzziah.

It says this, but then he was strong, but when he was strong, he grew proud to his destruction.

Why?

He was unfaithful to the Lord his God and entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense.

But Azariah the priest went in after him, with eighty priests of the Lord who were men of valor, and they withstood King Uzziah and said to him, It is not for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the Lord, but for the priest, the sons of Aaron, who are consecrated to burn incense.

Go out of the sanctuary, for you have done wrong, and it will bring you no honor from the Lord God.

Then Uzziah was angry.

Now he had a censer in his hand to burn incense, and when he became angry with the priests, leprosy broke out on his forehead in the presence of the priests in the house of the Lord by the altar of incense.

And Azariah the chief priest and all the priests looked at him, and behold, he was a leprous in his forehead, and they rushed him out quickly, and he and he himself hurried to go out because the Lord had struck him.

And King Uzziah was a leper to the day of his death, and being a leper lived in a separate house, for he was excluded from the house of the Lord, and Jotham, his son, was over the king's household, governing the people of the land.

So not only would Nehemiah been intimate with the prescriptive commands of God, where he set forth in numbers that only the priest would be able to enter the house of the Lord without being struck, but he also would have been familiar and intimate with the descriptive stories of Scriptures, and King Uzziah, who tried to go against the Lord.

In his anger, and the Lord showed mercy by not killing him but striking him with leprosy.

You see, without scriptural proficiency, Nehemiah would have been tempted to be afraid for his safety and sin against the Lord in an act of self-preservation.

But he was able to discern the truth from a lie, and both he and the work of rebuilding was safe.

In the closing of this interaction with these enemies of God's purpose and people, Nehemiah prays an imprecatory prayer.

We talked about these prayers a couple of weeks ago.

These prayers that call down divine cursing on God's enemies.

He says, Remember Tobiah and Sanbalat, oh my God, according to these things that they did, and also the prophetess Noadiah and the rest of the prophets who wanted to make me afraid.

Nehemiah is a man who fears God.

He seeks to obey God's word.

And he reveres the kindling of God's wrath against sin.

That scriptural proficiency provided the discernment that Nehemiah needed to keep him safe and to keep the wall's work in progress.

As we close out this section in verses 15 through 19, we see this the project is completed, but the people aren't.

The project is completed, but the people aren't.

Nehemiah is finally able to fully exclaim that the work of rebuilding the wall has been finished.

The scope of the work was 52 days to complete.

Remember how massive of a project this was.

Not only was all of it in ruins and rubble, but they had to rebuild it.

And in their design of it, it was two miles long.

It was eight feet wide of a wall and 40 feet high.

So two miles long, eight feet wide, 40 feet high.

Nehemiah, he championed Israel to collaborate together to get working on what God had called them to do, and in 52 days completed the work.

And in its completion, the news began to spread to the surrounding territories.

And Nehemiah makes this beautiful remark in the closing of this chapter.

He says, And when all our enemies heard of it, the completion of the wall, all the nations around us were afraid and fell greatly in their own esteem.

For they perceived why this work had been accomplished with the help of God.

They weren't necessarily afraid just because the work had been completed, but they had but that it had been completed with the help of the living God Yahweh.

The completion of the wall had done exactly what it intended to do: removed the reproach against Israel and against their God.

Nehemiah was committed to the glory of God and the good of his people.

This posture of determination and discernment allowed Nehemiah and the people of Israel to display God's glory throughout the land because they had a mind to work.

Even though the wall was complete, the people still needed some work.

Nehemiah would face continual internal opposition.

The wall was never truly the end, right?

When we understand this story of rebuilding the wall, rebuilding the temple, the rebuilding of these structures was never the end.

It was never the final goal.

They were always means to a greater end.

Because it wasn't just rebuilding a wall, but it was rebuilding a people.

A people who loved God, who obeyed Him, who served Him, whom they would be His people, and He would be their God.

The reproach that was on Israel was holistic.

It wasn't just the temple, it wasn't just the wall, but it was a working of all things together to create and establish a people.

It showed us that God desires a people for his own possession, not just a place.

For the earth and the fullness thereof are his.

So even though the wall was completed, the people were still not.

So what's our main idea this morning?

We see this discernment prevents distraction and avoids destruction.

Discernment prevents distraction and avoids destruction.

They say the last 10%, as we said, of any project is the hardest to complete.

Nehemiah was in that last 10% of rebuilding the wall.

It was at the very end of the rebuilding project, and the enemies of Israel were pulling out all of the stops that they possibly could.

They were desperate in their schemes to try and get the people of God distracted or full of despair so that the job would remain incomplete.

At the end of the day, that was their objective.

That they would not finish the wall, that their hands would drop in the work, and that they would be able either through distraction or destruction accomplish it.

But Nehemiah was able to use discernment to see past the schemes of the enemy and stay focused on the great work.

Often in our lives, the work of God suffers because we're unable to be a discerning people.

The work of God suffers because we're unable to be a discerning people.

Lesser enticements distract us from ultimate pursuits.

And sometimes we even experience destruction because we couldn't discern a foe from a friend or divinity from deception.

You see, it's in the union of spiritual maturity and scriptural proficiency that discernment is cultivated.

It's a tool in wisdom's pack that aids us in the course of life.

Without discernment, we are exposed to the enemy's schemes of distraction from God's work or even the full destruction of it.

You see, many of us we lack divine wisdom.

We fail to mature spiritually and we often neglect the word of God in our lives.

We hold a tighter grip to the thinking of the culture and its philosophies than we do the eternal truth of Scripture.

In Romans chapter 12, verse 2, Paul writing to the church in Rome says this do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Romans 12:2

You see, many of us we experience in our lives the suffering of God's work because of distraction.

God's work suffers because of distraction.

Our lives are often filled with distraction of lesser things.

We allow the schemes of the enemy to wound our pride, our ego, or our honor.

We get enticed into that which only keeps us from doing a great work.

Focus is much more difficult than distraction.

Amen?

Focus is much more difficult than distraction because often distraction provides for us momentary minuscule pleasures.

Where focus is often pleasure postponed.

Do we understand the difference between those two?

Distraction offers us, its greatest offering is momentary minuscule pleasures.

Where focus is pleasure postponed.

Why do we not stick with things?

Because we don't get immediate results that we want.

And so what do you get distracted?

Like if you're if you're like, hey, I'm gonna lose weight, I'm gonna eat right, and I'm gonna do that, and you get on that scale, and then you don't lose the pounds you're thinking of.

What happened?

Momentary minuscule distraction comes in the form of a big old cheeseburger, right?

That momentary brief pleasure.

Because why?

Focus was pleasure postponed.

And that doesn't just happen in diets or exercise, that happens in every aspect of our life.

Focus is harder than distraction.

In his book, The Screwtape Letters, author and theologian C.S.

Lewis puts it like this: he says, this statement an ever-increasing craving for an ever-diminishing pleasure is the formula.

What's the formula for distraction?

What's the formula for distraction?

An ever-increasing craving for an ever-diminishing pleasure.

Sin feels good.

It does.

If it didn't, we wouldn't sin.

If it's like, oh, that was horrible.

I'm never doing that again.

That's not how sin works.

You're like, that was awesome.

I'm gonna go back to that.

But over time, you have an ever-increasing craving for that sin.

And its fruit is an ever-diminishing return and pleasure.

There's never life on the other side of sin.

There's only ever death.

You see, this is a formula to get man's soul and give him nothing in return.

That's what really gladdens the heart of Satan and his schemes.

What distractions are you embracing that cause the work of God to suffer and foster an ever-diminishing pleasure in your life?

What is it?

Some of us, though, God's word is neglected and brings destruction.

God's word is neglected and it brings destruction.

Proverbs 29, verse 18 says this that without vision, where there is no prophetic vision, the people cast off restraint.

Proverbs 29:18

But blessed is he who?

Keeps the law.

What it's saying is that where God's word is neglected or is absent, death and destruction follow.

But blessed is he who keeps the law, who obeys God and submits to his standard of righteousness in our life.

Blessing is there, destruction is on the other side.

Even in Romans 12, 2, that we just read, if we look at that again in its second part, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Testing against what?

Testing against the Word of God.

The Word of God reveals for us the will of God.

The Word of God reveals the will of God.

Many of us struggle in our spiritual life.

Well, what is God's will for my life?

What is God's will for my life?

Let me tell you what it is.

It's contained in 66 books that are canonized to reveal to us the divine character of God and his will for his image bears.

The will of God is immersed, saturated into this book.

You want to know the will of God for your life?

Shocker.

It's not dramatically different from the person sitting to the next next to you, to the right or to the left.

It's not like God has this unique, special little, you know, divine will for each and every single person of us.

The bulk majority of our life in understanding the will of God is submitting to his word.

He's already revealed it to us.

What does God want from you?

He wants you to live holy.

What does God want from you?

He wants you to love him.

What does God want from you?

He wants you to love your neighbor as you would yourself.

What does God want?

He wants you to be conformed to the image of Christ.

What does God, He wants you to expand His glory throughout creation?

What does God, He wants you to be fruitful and multiply?

What does God want from you?

It's in His Word.

God's word reveals God's will.

Nehemiah stated his position in sinning against the Lord.

He would rather suffer at the threats of his enemies than sin against God.

Because on the other side of sin is always death.

When we neglect God's word, we expose ourselves to the destruction of the enemy.

But thanks be to God.

Jesus completed the work.

Our gospel hope this morning is that Jesus completed the work.

In the same way that Nehemiah in chapter 6 was able to proclaim that the work of the wall was finished, Jesus on Calvary was able to exclaim, It is finished.

The complete work was finished.

Jesus was sent from heaven to rebuild what the sin of man had destroyed.

Not to erect a structure of stone, but to rebuild a temple of living stones.

Men and women who would be redeemed by and through his finished work.

He was able to stay focused on the work because of discernment.

And this is critical all throughout the narrative of Jesus.

Even him as a 12-year-old boy in the temple, right?

Mary and Joseph's, they kind of lost him.

They're like a bad parent at the mall.

Lost Jesus, couldn't find him.

I used to hide in the clothing circle things.

Yeah.

All the time.

At Debs.

You guys remember that place?

My mom shop there.

I did not.

But I would hide in those circles.

Anyway, 12 years old, Jesus is lost in the temple by bad parents.

He's left there.

When they come back to find him, what does Jesus say to him?

Did you not know that I'm to be about my father's business?

Jesus wasn't distracted.

Jesus used discernment.

And ultimately, one of the ultimate ways we see this discernment of spiritual maturity and scriptural proficiency is in Matthew chapter 4, in Jesus' temptation in the wilderness.

Matthew 4 · chapter mention

The devil encounters Jesus in the wilderness after his baptism.

Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness where he encounters the devil.

And the devil tries to tempt him through distraction and destruction.

He tries to get him off of the work of God.

And he provides three different temptations in this encounter in the wilderness.

Number one, he says, turn these stones into bread.

Jesus, you must be starving.

You're in the desert, you're fasting, you're anemic.

Turn these stones into bread and feast.

You're the God of creation.

Can you not do such a simple thing?

The second thing he tempts them with is cause your father to prove his promises.

Cause your father to prove his promises.

Here's what ultimately he says: go up on this high mountain and jump off.

Throw yourself off of this high mountain.

And then he said, your father said that he would send legions of angels to protect you and to keep you.

What's the devil ultimately asking Jesus?

Make dad prove his promises to you.

Thirdly, he says, pursue the power and prominence of this world.

He takes Jesus up and he shows him the kingdom of all the earth.

And he says, All this can be yours if you just bow down and worship me.

If you just bow down and worship me.

What does Jesus do, though?

Each time Jesus used the scriptures to fight against the schemes of the enemy.

Each time Jesus used maturity and proficiency to combat the lies of the enemy so that he would not be distracted from the work and bring destruction upon all that he was seeking to accomplish.

Even at the hour of his betrayal, Jesus did not allow the fear of the enemy to persuade him from the work.

Let's read this in Matthew 16, 22 through 23.

He's in his final hours.

Let's stop there.

What shall never happen to you?

That you shall never die, that you won't be murdered at the hands of your enemies, that harm will not come to you.

Does that sound familiar?

Right?

Far be it, it shall never happen.

But he turned Jesus and said to Peter, get behind me, Satan.

You are a hindrance to me, for you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.

In his final hours, Jesus would not be distracted.

Jesus would not allow for destruction to destroy the work that he was called to do.

Jesus set his face like flint, Isaiah 50 says, to complete the work the Father had willed him to do.

All glory to Christ.

All glory to Christ, because through discernment, the purpose of God did not suffer from distraction, nor did it fall in destruction.

Instead, he was able to confidently declare, It is finished.

Our hope for us this morning at Sacred Mission is this that we would develop discernment to stay focused on God's purpose and people.

We would develop discernment to stay focused on God's purpose and people.

Church, think about the ways that you and I are spiritually immature, and it shows itself in our inability to discern where the enemy is trying to distract us.

Our lives are full of distraction.

Our lives are full of noise trying to get you to pay attention to it rather than to what you should be.

The scroll was invented because distraction is easier than focus.

And it's not just in social media, it's in all kinds of different things.

Some of us we tune out our responsibilities of what God's called us to do as parents, we tune out our responsibilities of what God has called us to do as spouses to one another.

We tune out what God has called us to do in the work of ministry.

Because what?

We often take into ourselves momentary minuscule pleasures rather than staying focused in postponed pleasure.

Spiritual maturity looks like this.

It means pursuing the fruit of the Spirit in our lives.

The fruit of the Spirit is evidence for us that we are maturing.

The fruit of the Spirit is tangible realities that God is working in us, in our life.

Love, joy, patience, peace, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control.

These things are the fruit, the evidence.

Anytime we look at scripture and we see this kind of language of fruit, what it is, it's evidence that what it claims to be truly is.

How do we know an apple tree is an apple tree?

Because it bears apples.

How do we know a banana tree is a banana tree?

Because it bears bananas.

You ever seen a banana tree grow apples?

No.

Why?

Well then you'd say, well, that's not an apple tree, that's a banana tree.

Anytime that the Bible talks about fruit, it's always talking about evidence that the claim you make to be a Christian and follower of Jesus is true.

How do we know that it'll be true?

By the fruit we bear.

If we bear the fruit of the Spirit, then we have confident evidence that we are growing in spiritual maturity.

It also means conforming to the image of Jesus.

We were, before the foundations of the earth, called by God to be conformed to the image of his Son.

That image was marred in the garden.

The image that we bear of God was not destroyed in the garden because of our rebellion and sin, but it was marred.

It was skewed, it was perverted.

And the work of the Spirit is to restore that image in us that we might properly reflect the ones whose image we were made in.

Spiritual maturity also looks like obedience that leads to righteousness realized.

Obedience that leads to righteousness realized.

Let me explain that.

You are righteous because Christ has made you righteous.

If you trust in his finished work, then his perfect righteousness is given to you freely by grace through faith.

But often in our lives as Christians, that righteousness isn't realized in the everyday life that we live.

What does obedience do?

Obedience fosters righteousness realized in our life.

So make true through us what is true about us, that Jesus has made us fully righteous.

But we also need scriptural proficiency.

The church is spinning out of control in a lot of ways in our culture, the mainline church, because they're not rooting themselves in the scriptures.

They're not rooting themselves in scriptural proficiency.

And there's a whole movement called deconstructionism.

And the root of the movement is this throw out the Bible and make it what you want.

Well, you can turn Christianity into anything when you neglect God's word as being authoritative truth that He's revealed Himself through.

So you can turn Christianity into whatever.

And ultimately what they're seeking to do is make love God rather than God's character loving.

And when love is God, Jesus is unnecessary.

And so what we have to do to be able to discern the culture we find ourselves in is not just grow in spiritual maturity, but we have to grow in scriptural proficiency that we might combat the lies of the enemy, so that we can discern truth from air, so that we can know what is good and perfect and holy.

The Bible gives us this.

It allows for us to have truth to be rooted and established on.

It is a foundation that will not shift with the tides of culture.

That's what Jesus, when he's talking to his disciples, are you going to be building your foundation on the sand, or are you going to be building the foundation on the rock, which is me?

Cultures, tides will shift on a dime.

And it is the people who establish themselves on the rock of the truth of Christ and His Word are the ones who are not affected by it.

But the ones who build their foundation on the sand, as the tide goes, so do they.

So let us grow in spiritual maturity.

Let us grow in scriptural proficiency that we might develop discernment to stay focused on God's purpose and people.

Amen.

Amen.

Let's pray.