Nehemiah 6-7 - Faithfulness Brings Blessing - Rick Graumlich

Well, as I said, church, we're in Nehemiah 6 and 7.

And maybe you've heard the phrase, it's pretty common, but the phrase that life goes on, right?

Something happens, something happens in life, and someone just says, Well, you know, life goes on.

And it's a good kind of phrase that we share, euphemism, that means like, as good as the situation is, as awesome as it is, or as hard as it is, or just kind of mundane, like life does just go on.

And sometimes we want things to be more exciting than they are, or we want this kind of finish line.

We want to kind of reach the finish line so we can kind of just rest.

We think about when the apostle Paul, when he finished the letter to the churches in Rome, when he finished Romans, one could argue the most important letter ever written.

He finishes the letter, and you would think he'd be ready for like a vacation or something.

I finished this, this is a huge thing, I'm ready, let's celebrate that, let's kind of kick back.

We've mission accomplished, we've made it.

But we know this is that Paul was most likely in Corinth when he wrote that at the time, and he lived under constant threat.

He didn't take a career change or kind of take a step back, he fled for his life.

That was the next thing for him.

Finish that letter, then flee for your life.

We can read about that in Acts 20, this plot to kill Paul.

But yet Paul stayed faithful to the work that God had called him to.

He preserved and stayed faithful.

Jesus, we see this when he went to raise Lazarus from the dead.

Gives us a similar picture, right?

So Lazarus has died, he's dead, dead, he's not asleep, he's dead, he's decomposing.

Jesus comes and he raises him from the dead.

Now they don't, they celebrated this, but they didn't like create a national holiday and say this is an amazing thing, and let us just kind of stop and just dwell here.

For we know quickly after that, Jesus went on to the next thing.

Life goes on, and he went on to his crucifixion.

But he didn't just stop at the crucifixion.

We know he is buried and then he is resurrected, right?

And he didn't just stop when he was resurrected and ascended into heaven at the right hand of God the Father, where he sits now, but that he is going to return.

He's coming back again.

And so he is being faithful, he's carrying on with what is next.

Here in the book of Nehemiah, in chapter 6 and 7, we see that the very thing Nehemiah comes to do is done.

The wall is completed.

The shame and reproach that was on Jerusalem and Judah has been removed.

But the work isn't complete.

The call on God's people is to be faithful, and God will bless them for that.

And this is the main idea I want to kind of lay out this morning, that faithfulness is honored by God and blesses others.

That faithfulness is honored by God and blesses others.

And I'm going to make three points as we walk through this passage this morning.

That faithfulness makes strong leaders, that faithfulness clarifies and fulfills the mission, and that faithfulness brings flourishment.

But hopefully you get the idea.

The theme is faithfulness.

And as we talk through this whole book, this whole series of Ezra and Nehemiah, that the theme is that God is faithful.

That God is faithful to restore and renew his people.

And so he calls us to faithfulness.

And you'll know if you know me that I use that word a lot.

Faithfulness.

What's God called us to?

To be faithful to his word.

Now he's called all of you to very specific different things.

To love your spouse and to provide for your kids and lead your kids and your family well and to reach the lost people around you and to be like Christ to those who don't know Christ.

He's called you to all these different things.

But essentially, he's called you to follow him and to be faithful to that.

And so the beauty of understanding this idea of faithfulness is it eliminates this measuring of did we do the right thing?

Do we do enough?

Are we successful?

Are we insuccessful?

Are we accomplishing the thing?

Are we not accomplishing the thing?

It's like, well, the results are up to the Lord.

Are you being faithful?

Are you waking up and saying, I want to follow the Lord today?

You have an opportunity when you meet your kids in the morning, or when you get home from work, or when you see your spouse, and when there's conflict.

You have all these opportunities without within one simple kind of mundane day, chalked full of opportunity to be faithful and for you to do the very thing that God has called you to do.

So this morning, this idea that faithfulness, right?

It's honored by God and it brings blessing.

It blesses others.

And we see this kind of pattern as we're heading toward the end or the last kind of section of our series.

So in Ezra, we begin in Ezra and Ezra and Nehemiah, it's the same narrative, same story, the Jews coming out of Babylon in captivity, back to the land of Jerusalem and Judah.

And we see this theme.

In Ezra chapters 1 through 6, it's about rebuilding the temple.

Ezra 1 · chapter mention

And then chapters 7 through 10 is about rebuilding the community, right?

They have this intermarriage problem, mixed marriages, and so Ezra seeking to restore this, they rebuild the temple, then they have to kind of rebuild the community.

And in Nehemiah chapter 1 through 6, there's this rebuilding the wall.

Nehemiah 1 · chapter mention

That's the main effort here.

And then chapters 7 through 13 is about rebuilding the community that God is seeking to establish and renew and restore.

So faithfulness makes strong leaders.

And we're going to look in chapter 6.

We're not going to read all of chapter 6 and 7 this morning.

We'll read a chunk here from 1 through verse 9, and then we're going to jump to verse 17.

Bear with me as I read some of these names.

This is Nehemiah chapter 6.

Nehemiah 6 · chapter mention

This is God's holy and precious word to us.

Now when Sambelat and Tobiah and the Geshem the Arab and the rest of our enemies heard that I had built the wall, that there was no breach left in it, although up to that time I had not set up the doors and the gates.

And Sambelat and Geshem sent to me, saying, Come, let us meet together in Hakiphrim in the plain of Ono, which that's a red flag there, probably.

But they intended to do me harm.

And I sent messengers to them saying, Am I doing a great work?

I am doing a great work and cannot come down.

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

And they sent to me four times in this way.

And I answered them in the same manner.

In the same way Sambeleth for the fifth time sent his servant to me with an open letter in his hand.

In it was written, It is reported among the nations, and Geshem also says it, that you and the Jews intend to rebu 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 prop 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.

Then I sent to him, saying, No such thing as you say have been done, for you are inventing them out of your own mind.

For they all wanted to frighten us, thinking their hands will drop from the work, and it will be done.

But now, O God, strengthen my hands.

A beautiful passage.

Look with me later on in chapter seven or verse seventeen.

We get a more picture of still the same conflict.

Moreover, in those days the nobles of Judah sent many letters to Tobiah, and Tobiah's letters came to them.

For many in Judah were bound by oath to him, because he was son-in-law of Sechaniah, the son of Arah, and his son, and his son Jehohan had taken the daughter of Meshelem, the son of Barakiah, as his wife.

Also they spoke of his good deeds in my presence, and reported my words to him, and Tobias sent letters to make me afraid.

So he's get this picture of this opposition, this kind of overt opposition.

It's out in the open.

But Nehemiah was a strong leader in the face of the opposition.

And in the face of the massive challenges.

See, it wasn't just a couple people who didn't like him.

The first passage talks about the deception.

They're just lying to him about these things.

In the second passage, we read that it's not just these two guys.

It happens to be a lot of the nobles, a lot of the leaders.

They're writing letters back and forth, and there's just this opposition that's overt opposition, open opposition to Nehemiah.

But look with me in verse 10, and we're going to see this covert opposition as well.

Now, when I went into the house of Shemea, son of Delea, son of Meahetbal, who was confined to his home, he said, Let us meet together in the house of God within the temple.

Let us close the doors of the temple, for they are coming to kill you.

They are coming to kill you by night.

But I said, Should such a man as I run away?

And what man such as I could go into the temple and live?

I will not go in.

And I understand, and I understood and saw that God had not sent him, but he had pronounced the prophecies against me because Tobiah and Sambalot had hired him.

For this purpose he was hired, that I should be afraid, and act in a way, act this way, and sin, so that they could give me a bad name in order to taunt me.

Remember, Tobiah and Sambalot, O my O my God, according to these things that they did, and also the prophets Noadiah, and the rest of the prophets who wanted to make me afraid.

So we get this picture here in this these chunks of chapter six about what Nehemiah is up against.

Now, if you remember, Nehemiah was a cupbearer to the king.

He was in a very prestigious position in Babylon in captivity.

He kind of knows his way around some political things.

And he comes back, his heart's broken for the nation of Judah.

The wall is torn down, there's shame.

No one's following the things of God.

He comes back to rebuild the wall, but truly, so that the people would worship God again.

And we know earlier in Nehemiah that these two characters are opposing him right when he arrives.

And they they taunt him then.

Do they think they're gonna rebuild the wall, they say?

The wall's gonna, a fox will run on the wall and it will crumble.

These are the taunts that these guys bring to Nehemiah.

And he is resistant.

He is faithful to what God has called him to.

And maybe you can kind of read the story and you think, man, this is similar to a lot of opposition that we face.

People just kind of mocking you.

You really think that you can be free in Christ?

You really think God's gonna pay the price for all your sin?

You can't even step into a church building, it'll probably fall on you.

Doubting you, and they're doubting God.

And that's the most enraging thing in this passage.

It isn't that so much that they're doubting Nehemiah.

Nehemiah is just a man.

Doubt the man, for sure.

But they're doubting God.

The same God that provided for Nehemiah when he came, the same God who helped him rebuild the wall.

They're doubting him.

So there's some things I want us to see as we look at this passage.

Opposition is not something that we go looking for, right?

Nehemiah's working.

He's like, should I come down and deal with you?

I'm doing the work that God has called me to do.

I'm not going to be distracted by this.

Well, these other guys, they're looking for opposition.

We are not people who go looking for opposition.

But the opposite is true.

When opposition comes, we don't just flee from it.

If Nehemiah had forsaken the call that God had, the work God had called him to, then he never would have gotten to this point.

And the fact that Nehemiah had stayed faithful in these things gave him strength as a leader to keep being faithful to God.

He was not fleeing from the opposition.

He wasn't saying, well, you know what, I just don't have time for that, or it's just, it's messy.

Like, you know, this is Israel, these Jews, they've always had problems.

Is it really worth it for me?

He doesn't take those positions.

He addresses it.

But opposition should also drive us to prayer and the word.

And this is how we we know that when we're facing opposition, we're dealing with it correctly.

Does it drive us to God?

Or does it drive us to just defend ourselves because of ourselves?

Well, you don't know me, you don't know my story, and we start making the opposition about us.

No, it should drive us to God in prayer and his word, seeking to remind ourselves of who he is, what he has done, and who we are to him.

The reality is that oftentimes opposition keeps us from being faithful to the work that God has put before us.

Hard things come.

And sometimes they're out there, they're literal people who have names who are opposing you, pushing against you, they're trying to tear you down.

But sometimes the opposition is the enemy, Satan seeking to destroy you.

Sometimes the opposition is your own flesh, your own pride, your own selfish desires, or your own lack of faith in the Lord.

So when opposition and hard things come and people question and people push on you, do you really want to stay in that marriage?

That's a lot of work.

There's no guarantees.

You're fostering that child, but do you really want to keep them?

You don't know their background?

That's a be careful with that.

I don't know.

You don't know what you're bringing into your home.

You're gonna spend your life sharing the good news with other people in a different land?

What about your retirement?

What about your family's safety?

What about your kids' education?

It seems ridiculous that you would throw away everything you have in this land to go to a more just broken place, a depraved place.

Why would you do that?

So even the opposition can come from those who are well-meaning, but they're questioning.

Surely God didn't say that.

Surely he didn't call you to those things.

It's too hard, it's too difficult, it's too tiresome, it's too complicated.

But God has called us to be faithful to Him.

Right where He's put us.

Right where He's put us.

And that requires strong leadership.

People who are faithful to God's word.

And you don't just wake up one day and lead your family well.

You don't just wake up and say, hey, I'm just, I feel like I'm being a great leader and a faithful husband or a faithful wife or a great mother or a great provider or a really good diligent worker for my boss.

You don't just wake up with these things.

Rather, you seek to be faithful with God now.

He's given you this moment, he's given you today.

Lord will, he's given you this afternoon.

Be faithful with that.

And then when tomorrow comes, be faithful with the opportunities he gives you tomorrow.

We are to be a people who are seeking to be faithful.

We need strong, faithful leaders.

We're not wavering in the face of opposition, who are not questioning, like, well, should I cling to this truth?

Or is it just gonna be easier if I just kind of get around it?

Can I dodge the question?

Men who are resolved, women who are clear about what God has called them to.

Faithfulness to God and his calling in Christ Jesus.

Not faithfulness to your dreams or to what others say about you, but faithfulness to God produces strong leaders.

And faithfulness clarifies things, it clarifies what we're doing.

This is what I said when I when I began that all these things that need done in our lives, faithfulness to God is what gets that done.

Sometimes we think we have to be so creative, like, well, I've got to make out this amazing discipleship plan, or I've got to kind of make this huge new ministry to reach these people over here.

And all those things can be great.

But I'm telling you that what God called you to yesterday, and today, and tomorrow, for the rest of your life, is the same thing.

It's to be faithful to his word.

And we when we understand that that's the mission, we understand that's what we're going for, it just brings clarification.

It simplifies things.

We knew that when Nehemiah came into the land, he had a practical mission, which was to fulfill or to rebuild this wall.

We see this in verse 15.

But we know that it wasn't just about a wall, it was about God's people being restored.

God's name being restored.

Look with me in verse 15, chapter 6.

So the wall was finished on the 25th day.

That's very quickly.

Sorry, on the 25th day in 52 days.

It was done in 52 days.

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

For they perceived that this was the work, that this work had been done and accomplished with the help of God.

That the work had been accomplished with the help of our God.

So there's a seismic shift here.

All this effort, Ezra comes, they rebuild the temple, all these things going on.

Nehemiah comes with this, all these more thousands of people and all these resources, and they're being scoffed at and mocked.

And ever since the place was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, there's been shame and reproach.

And here, the work has been done.

The reproach, the shame that Nehemiah had heard about had been lifted.

And it wasn't like these people were like, now we're the big bad guys on campus.

Or now we can be the bullies in the neighborhood.

But rather that God's plan was working.

That the nations around them who have been oppressing them and opposing them and scoffing them, they realized they built this whole wall in 52 days.

This must have been done with the help of God.

What a clarifying moment there.

And if we're honest, there's times in our lives where we see this, like, man, that's God at work.

That's the Lord working.

And if we ever Seek to, we should go to our hearts and we should never seek to oppose that.

We should never be kind of seeing what the Lord's doing in someone's life and say, well, we'll just give us some time.

We'll see how that goes.

We shouldn't look at what the Lord is doing and be make it about us.

Rather, stay faithful.

Praise the Lord.

This is what's going on here.

Nehemiah is seeing some of this mission fulfilled.

The wall has been rebuilt.

The reproach lifted, the shame lifted.

God's name praise.

Even in their kind of negative comment, the nations, the enemy, even in their saying, well, this must have been done by their God.

That is a praise to God.

That is a moment that glorifies God.

Praise God for that.

God is being recognized.

He was honored as the work was completed.

And it was helpful for Nehemiah and all these people who are working to know we're not just here to do, to rebuild everything.

We're not here to kind of rebuild the wall and rebuild every home and do all these things all at once.

But we're what's before us.

We talked about that in chapter three.

What's before us?

This section of the wall, focus on that.

Do the work that is before you.

And so many times we get caught up in all these other things around us.

Good things.

Good things.

We want to do this thing, we want to do that thing, we want to do this thing.

And we just, we're not doing any of it well, we're not being faithful to any of those things.

We're just busy.

But when you can say, Amen, uh, if you're married, if you have children, this is the work that's primarily been put before me.

Let me be faithful to that first, to my spouse, and then to my children, and then to the church, and then to my community.

You're rightly ordered those affections.

It brings clarity.

It's helpful for us to fulfill the mission.

Then finally, that faithfulness brings flourishing.

It brings this flourishment.

One, the faithfulness, as we just said, it the wall was rebuilt.

Nehemiah was faithful in the midst of all the opposition.

The workers were faithful to do the work before them, and it brought the flourishment because now they have a wall.

They're protected from their enemies.

The shame and reproach has been lifted.

The people now can begin to flourish.

God was faithful to restore his people and their places of worship.

So we should be faithful to work toward blessing others, blessing the people of God, serving them.

Look with me in chapter 7.

And we're just going to look at the first part of chapter 7, because the rest of chapter 7 that you see is the same thing we see in Ezra 2.

It's a recounting of everyone who initially came out of Babylon.

But we're going to get to that in a moment.

Ezra Chapter 7, verse 1.

Ezra 7:1

Now, when the wall had been built, and I had set up the doors, and the gatekeepers and the singers and the Levites had been appointed, I gave my brother Hananiah Haniah, the governor of the castle, charge over Jerusalem, for he was a more faithful and God-fearing man than many.

And I said to them, Let not the gates of Jerusalem be opened until the sun is hot.

And while they are still standing guard, let them shut and bar the doors, appoint guards from among the inhabitants of Jerusalem, some of their guards' posts, and some in front of their own homes.

The city was divided and large, but the people within it were few, and no houses had been rebuilt.

So there's this lay of the land, this picture that we get out of this passage.

The wall has been done redone, it's built.

There's gatekeepers.

Nehemiah gives instruction.

Listen, don't open the gate until it's hot.

When the sun's up and you close it before the sun goes down.

We're going to be a preserved and safe people.

Now, inside the wall, still devastated.

The homes weren't rebuilt.

There wasn't these places for the people to live.

But they could begin now to flourish.

Now they would begin to rebuild their homes where they would live, where they would go about their lives.

Because God had been faithful.

See, God had been faithful all along.

He never forsake them.

He never left them.

When the people's primary focus was on God and not themselves, they began to flourish.

And this is a pattern you will see all through the Old Testament that when the people begin to focus on God and not themselves, they flourish.

Their affections for the things of God grow, their love for the things of God grows, their desire to serve one another increases, their joy increases, their obedience begins to increase.

All these things as they seek to focus on the things of God and be faithful to Him, they flourish.

It's not easy, but it's good.

It's good.

And so in your own life, when you're feeling discouraged, like, I'm not getting anywhere, or why are things changing in my life?

You're probably focusing on yourself too much.

You're thinking about yourself too much.

When we focus on God, our soul, the thing that God has given us, flourishes.

It's a blessing.

And when we put the focus on ourselves, when we seek to be faithful to ourselves, it dies and it withers.

And this is why I meet so many people in my life who say, I grew up in the church.

I've heard, I've read the Bible, beginning to end.

I've sat through more sermons than most people.

I've heard it all.

I've sang all the songs, I've said all the prayers, all these things.

But you know, for me, it didn't just didn't stick.

It just didn't make it for me.

The simple answers.

It was never about you.

It was never about you.

It wasn't about you just enjoying this thing or praying these things or doing these things.

It was about what God has done.

And you are a partaker of that and you enjoy that and you praise him for that.

The reason there's no desire for the things of God in your heart is because you don't desire God.

You want him to give you the kingdom, but you do not want the king.

And that is what destroyed the nation of Israel.

And God promised that he would send a new king, a better king, better than David, better than Adam, and this king would rule perfectly.

And he would not fail.

And his kingdom would not fail.

Why?

Because his kingdom rests on his shoulders.

He will do the work, he will do the redeeming, he will do the sanctifying, he will redeem his people.

His people will be faithful to him.

So God has called each and every one of us to live unto him, to be faithful unto him, to live intentionally for him.

So as I close, I just want to ask three questions.

What areas in your life have you been apathetic?

You're just kind of lazy.

Apathy, I use that word a lot, means it's an attitude of whatever.

That's what apathy is.

You're not really concerned, you don't really care.

So what areas of your life have you been apathetic in?

Second question: are you focused on the work that God has put before you?

Remember that faithfulness, it clarifies.

What's the work before you?

Be faithful to that.

God hasn't brought you a spouse, you don't have a spouse to be faithful to.

God's put singleness before you.

Be faithful with that.

God hasn't given you kids.

You don't have kids to be faithful to, be faithful to your spouse and be faithful with what God has put before you.

What's before you?

Be faithful to what's before you.

Are you focused on that work?

The third question: when you are considering your own life and your own walk with God, do you consider how your faithfulness to God is a blessing to those around you?

When you're thinking about your life and your walk with God, are you considering how your faithfulness to God is a blessing to those around you?

It's very hard to be a spiritual encouragement to your family or your coworkers or your friends if you're not walking faithfully with God.

If you ever hope to be faithful to Jesus Christ, there's only one way to do that.

That is to confess your sins and believe in Him.

The scripture says, as Mark 1 says, confess, meaning you acknowledge that God is holy and that you are not, that we're naturally rebellious toward God, and that God is good.

You confess those things.

We confess and we believe.

We put our hope and our trust in him and we obey him.

Faith in God looks like following God.

It's believing, it looks like following.

There are steps, there are action to that.

Not just words and good emotions.

There's a life lived to that.

So when we're faithful, it honors God and it bluts, it blesses others.

It honors God, it blesses others.

So, church, let us be faithful to God.

Let's pray.

God, you are good.

You are so good to us.

We praise you for that.

You do not leave us.

You are faithful to your people in Egypt and in the desert and in captivity.

In the 400 years of silence.

When you were walking the earth, you're faithful to your people.

Now, the church age God, you're faithful to your people.

You will not leave us.

May we not just go from here wishing we were better people.

May we not just go from here wishing we had more figured out or we could just feel better about ourselves, but may we leave here with our eyes fixed on you, God.

Know that you are the author and the finisher of our faith.

You're the creator of all good things, you're the source of all life and truth.

And may we rest in you.

May we rest in you.

May we trust you.

May you give us faith to know that you are good and to trust you.

We pray this in your name, Jesus.

Amen.