Proper Perspectives! | Dr. John Ewart

Well, greetings, Inglewood. Good to see everybody here.

For those who are here, thank you so much for coming.

And I mean that I'll say more about that in a moment.

For those who are watching online, we're so thankful that

you were able to join us. For those who could not be here

on Friday night, we have a good, great crowd here.

I just want to say thank you for coming at such short notice.

Also, just want us to share our appreciation to the worship

team, to greeters, to everybody who's who's helped pull this

together. Your staff has worked very, very

hard and I appreciate them and, and I know you do too.

So thank you for that. Let me share just a couple of

important words with us. There are a couple of mission

trips still coming up. If you've been here for

Wednesday nights, you know, I was talking about our trip to

Uganda and our trip to Iraq are both that we've got good teams

going, we're going, there's no problem, but we have a couple of

spots open and if you're interested in that, the Uganda

trip is coming up very, very quickly.

So you need to see me or Cassidy for March 21st through 30th.

We need to know about that pretty quickly.

And then the Rocky trip is April 24th through May 2nd.

Incredible trips with important ministry.

Both of these are safe places, wonderful places to go, dear

friends of mine that you'll be working with and just hope and

pray that some of you could still go on those.

I know several of you are going on later trips and I appreciate

that very much as well. Listen, I just, I'm, I'm so

thankful for you all. I'm, I'm a little overwhelmed by

tonight. I appreciate it.

Had no idea what was going to happen tonight and just again,

so appreciate that, you know, you are an incredibly awesome

congregation to me. And in fact, I have proof.

I have proof because because it says right here that this

pastor, this pastor has an awesome congregation.

Can I get a name in? Can I get a name in?

Can I get a Hallelujah? I'm telling you, I wear the

proof as I believe it. We're having an awesome time

because God is so awesome. Turn to somebody sitting next to

you and say God is awesome. He really is.

And he is an incredible, incredibly awesome plan for us

that no little snowstorms going to stop.

And so we just look forward to what he's going to do.

So just think about our next face to FaceTime, which I'm

pretty confident we'll be able to gather a week from Sunday for

sure. And, and think about being back

in your connect groups singing together.

And we had a new member presentation.

Listen, we got a whole bunch of people.

We got a backlog of baptisms of people who need to get baptized.

And so just a lot of things to celebrate.

We're excited about your kids being in kids ministry, learning

and growing with those incredible ministries.

And I know that some of the kids are here tonight with us and in

this setting or they're sitting in your living room right now as

you're watching online. But this weekend before you rush

out to either look for snow because this is North Carolina,

or you're having a snowball fight or you're you're going to

go sledding or slipping down a hill.

Are you going to make a snow ice cream or a snowman or you're

going to go out and make snow angels, which of course, in my

world, I call those snow tresses.

Thank you very much. Good to see everybody.

I'll be at the door signing autographs.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

For those of you who need to come to the marriage conference,

take notes. So I listen, there was a little

testimony earlier when Jordan was sharing about the East Coast

men's Bible Conference about are there any single men and can

single women come? And so that was another

conversation we were having right before I got up here.

But that's a that's a whole nother thing.

So I do want to stop and let's pray about seriously about the

weather because there are people who are out in there.

One of the things you all may or may not know, some of you

probably know this well, some of you don't know this, especially

those of you who are newer. We do, our building is used as a

shelter. So one of the roles that we play

at Inglewood is we work with Nash County Emergency Services

and the Red Cross. And so Pastor Jean Davis has

been working with them. There's a big generator Outback.

So especially the Lewis Building becomes a shelter for those who

need it. And so just be praying that a,

we don't need it, frankly. But we're also so thankful for

the people who are out and helping people.

And just so you know, your church is right in the middle of

that. And we appreciate Pastor Jean

for leading that, that charge and working with those great

organizations. So let's just pray about the

weather. Let's pray for people who might

find themselves in a, in a, in a tough spot during these winter

days who don't have shelter, who don't have warmth.

And so let's just go to the Lord for a second.

Father, we're so thankful that we could gather safely and

warmly in this place here. I pray that those who are

watching online are doing the same thing.

But Father, we also recognize in our community there are those

who who maybe don't have that opportunity.

And so Father, we do pray for them.

I also especially lift up our first responders who are will be

working, who'll be out there, people who will be in accidents,

people who are going to suffer from the cold, people who are

going to have medical emergencies.

So, Father, we thank you so much for all those who are working so

hard to keep us safe and to keep people safe.

Father, I do pray that we have no power outages.

I pray, Father, that it'll be a beautiful snow where we

celebrate your creation, perhaps, Lord, but that it will

be something that we can actually enjoy and celebrate and

not have to worry about. So Father, we thank you for

that. I do pray, Father, you'll speak

to us through Your word. As we look at Nehemiah and we

keep moving through this book together, Father, there's a very

important message for us. And so I pray that we'll pay

close attention now and just speak to us in Christ's name,

Amen. So I want you to go to Nehemiah

Nehemiah 5 · chapter mention

chapter 5. This really is an important

message. I shared what I'm about to share

with you 2 weeks ago. I'm very aware.

I, I haven't, I haven't lost that cognitive ability yet, but

I was asked by a few people to share it again and to put it on

a slide, frankly. So I just want to repeat this to

you. If a person, this is a euert

ISM, so to speak, it's something that I've I've had hanging my

office and something I've taught people over the years.

But if a person can possess biblical common sense or wisdom

and they can retain objectivity, that means to see and focus on

the big picture and they can keep their own ego and pride out

of the way humility, they will serve well in the Kingdom.

But the problem is one of these key ingredients is almost always

missing. So wisdom, objectivity,

humility. If you were to be honest with

yourself, how would you rank yourself in those areas?

Which is my stronger area? Which is my weaker area?

What? What is, is the thing I need to

work on the most? A dear friend of mine, and I've

shared this story with our staff, but a dear friend of mine

that we will see on the Brazil trip, who's the president of the

Brazilian Baptist Convention. He's a true level 5 global

leader. And I would, that's a, that's a

holy, holy title for me. I, I could name those people

I've met on one hand. And Fernando Brando, who we will

go see, we were eating dinner one night and he, he was talking

to me about leadership because I, I, I went down there every

year to, to work with his leaders.

And he said a man was holding a seed in his hand and, and he

asked others what they saw and, and one man said, I see a seed.

Another man says, well, I, I, I see a tree.

And Fernando said, the one I weren't working with me is the

one who says I see the forest. So proper vision, faith and hope

are important things for us. Nehemiah possessed this wisdom.

Nehemiah possessed this objectivity.

Nehemiah possessed this humility.

And he models them for us as he sought God's restoration.

And so as we move through this series together, this is an

important lesson for us, especially today, because you

got to remember that many of his people, many of the Hebrew

people, had just spent decades in exile.

And others that were actually there had been left behind from

the exile. And so these were people who had

years of struggle that marked their life.

And it drove them. It drove them as they sought to

exist and they sought to move forward in some new way from the

ruins of their past. They carried legitimate past

hurt. They carried legitimate past

issues with them. And it resulted in a stunted

present at times and a clouded future for many of them.

And maybe as you're listening to this that describes you, maybe

your life is marked with similar struggles.

Real hurt, I mean, real hurt, legitimate hurt.

Not just stuff you've fabricated, not just stuff

you've embellished, not just stuff you've overreacted to, not

just stuff you've dramatized, but real hurt, real need from

your past that that still has an effect upon your present.

It hinders, it distracts, it might even prevent you from

embracing what God's future is for you.

So, so this message is for all of us with the past.

Some of us have a bigger ones than others maybe, but but it's

all, it's a message for all of us with the past.

It's for all of us who are working to figure out our

present. It's for all of us who are

seeking A hopeful future. So this is important for us.

Nehemiah 5 is going to teach us how we might just need some new

goals. We might just need some fresh

priorities. We might just need a proper

perspective. And so as we look at Nehemiah

Nehemiah 5 · chapter mention

chapter 5 verse one says this. Now there arose a great outcry

of the people and of their wives against their Jewish brothers.

That's an important sentence. Notice who they're who they're

complaining about. They're not complaining about

Sambalit and Tobiah and the Arabs and the and all the I TS,

the Philistines or whoever. It's not the outside people

they're complaining about. They're complaining about their

own people. For there were those who said

with our sons and our daughters, we are many, so let us get grain

that we may eat and keep alive. There were also those who said

we are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards in our houses to

get grain because of the famine. And there were those who said we

have borrowed money for the King's taxes on our fields and

our vineyards. Now our flesh is as the flesh of

our brothers. Our children are as their

children, yet we yet, yet are. Yet we are forcing our sons and

our daughters to be slaves. And some of our daughters have

already been enslaved, but it's not in our power to help it for

other men have our fields and our vineyards.

So this is a hard part of the story, and there's a few points

we want to make out of this and apply to us today.

First of all, as our emphasis can't simply be on ourselves.

That may seem like an odd thing to say after what I just read,

but it'll make sense in a minute.

They were in a very difficult, historically unique situation

after the exile. They'd never been through

anything like this. The closest might have been the

Exodus out of Egypt, but but this was a very different time.

And as they were walking through their transition from the past

to the present to the future, there were some very difficult

things going on. It was a hostile environment.

It was, there were tough physical things going on,

circumstances and people were hurting under the strain of

life. People around us all the time in

our community who are hurting because of the strain of life.

And, and what was making matters even more complicated is more

and more and more people were coming.

More and more people were coming out of Babylon.

More and more people were being born.

You got to recognize that some of these people had been there a

long time already. So new kids were being born and

children were being reborn there in Jerusalem, in the area.

And to make matters worse, some of their own people sought their

own agendas for their own benefit.

That happens in life, doesn't it?

Where people around us, people we would consider our own

people, seek their own agendas. They're only thinking of

themselves that that they don't have that humility.

They don't have that objectivity.

All they do is think of themselves.

And that might, that might sound a whole lot like this current

culture. Frankly, it might sound a whole

lot like the life that you now experience.

They were physically, financially, emotionally,

relationally and spiritually strained.

This was a very difficult time and they were experiencing

famine because the fields hadn't been worked.

You got to think about it. The fields hadn't been worked

properly for years because of the exile.

And also now that they're back, they got to build a wall, they

got to build a temple, they got to re re fortify Jerusalem.

They don't have time to go out and farm the fields, and so

there's a famine going on. So food was scarce, money was

scarce. So some of the wealthy, some of

the wealthy Jewish people were taking advantage of the

situation for personal financial gain.

That's what was going on. And the people cried out to

Nehemiah, not about their enemies, but about members of

their own community. They weren't just hurting

because of what the external world was doing to them.

They were hurting because of what was happening internally

among their own people. Jews were exploiting Jews,

causing this great misery. We need food.

We have to mortgage everything to have any money to buy it,

which means then we have to borrow even more money to pay

our taxes. There are people I know living

this way. They have to pay the taxes to

the Persian king. So the Persian kings were

notorious for charging massive amount of taxes.

Of those they conquered, they'd collected in coinage.

They'd melt it down into bars and they stored it back in their

capital, a place called Sousa. When Alexander the Great

conquered Sousa, he found 340 tons of gold and over 1500 tons

of silver. Now kids, you all ask your mom

and dad later how much money that is, how much allowance

should you get to equal 340 tons of gold and over 1500 tons of

silver? King Artaxerxes was one of the

worst. He he, he taxed even even

heavier than some of the others on both property and the

harvest. So he might have set them free,

but it wasn't free. There's nothing free about it.

So there could be as high as a 40% interest rate from these

land over land owners. So they fell prey to to

basically loan sharks who are making huge amounts of money on

their misery. And these loan sharks were

Jewish people. It wasn't like it was the

Philistines coming in to do this wasn't the Ammonites or the

other Termites. It was the Jewish people doing

this. So it what happens is to survive

this, to be able to pay their debts, they had to sell

themselves. They had to sell their children

into into basically debt slavery.

Now, could you imagine? Could you imagine doing that to

your kids? I'm telling you, in the world

today, it's still going on in the world today.

Debt slavery still exists. Slavery still is thriving all

around the world in different places.

This is still happening in the world today.

And so the people basically become these indentured servants

to one another and they're saying, Nehemiah, we need help.

Maybe that's your cry today. I, I, I have so much going on in

my life right now, emotionally, relationally, financially,

spiritually, Man, I got a job I hate.

I can't get along with my spouse.

My kids are driving me nuts. I, I don't have enough money to

pay what I got to pay. That might be your life for

somebody. You know, we need help,

Nehemiah. We need somebody to show us what

to do and to help us. Our brothers are selfish.

The rich exploit the poor for profit and the result is this

miserable situation. So selfishness like this, it

defies the formula that I repeated earlier.

See that selfish, there's no wisdom in this.

There's no objectivity in this. There's no humility in this.

Self focus at the expense of others is very dangerous.

In fact, this is the root of most sin, all the way back to

Genesis chapter 3. A theologian once wrote.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

To consider persons and events and situations only in the light

of their effect upon myself is to live on the very doorstep of

hell. If I just use people, I'm just

using people for my benefit, trying to manipulate

circumstances for my benefit. We've got to remember our

essentials of discipleship here at Inglewood.

Those essentials include we're to unite in fellowship through

hospitality and authenticity, and we're to commit to service

with generosity and compassion. So selfishness leaves no room

for that kind of qualitative growth.

Can't make disciples. Well, in that kind of

environment, how could a people move forward?

How could if some, if some of them are only in it for

themselves and what they can get out of it, how would they ever

be able to move forward? So instead of being disciples

who love God and love others, they love themselves and what

will profit them. They're selfish and it makes

others miserable. But here's the the key, the

twist to all this, It not only makes other people miserable,

but in the end it's going to make you miserable too.

In the end, your selfishness will cost you when you when all

you end up with is yourself, your own wisdom, your own

opinions, your own perspectives, and your own pride.

Your prize is extremely temporary selfishness.

Any profit gained from selfishness is lost in eternity.

That's why the Bible says in Mark 836.

For what does it profit a man to gain what the whole world and

forfeit his soul? Kids, if mom and dad say no to

you, with several kids here, some of you listening at home,

listen closely. If mom and dad say no to you,

it's probably the best thing for you.

And here's what I want you to do.

And so when they tell you no, I want you to say to them, thank

you for loving me. Now you all figure that out

later at home. I think that'd be fun.

Let's see how that goes. Send me.

Listen, let's give Send reports. See [email protected]

We'd love to hear back from you. How did that go right last week

when I said turn to somebody and everybody's listening online.

I've one family I heard about. They were all high fiving each

other in the in the living room. So we'll see how that goes.

Because our emphasis can't simply be on ourselves.

We got to make disciples who love God first, love others as

themselves. Look at verse 6.

This isn't to Nehemiah's response.

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

I took counsel with myself, and I brought charges against the

nobles and the officials and said to them, You were exacting

interest. Each from his brother and I held

a great assembly against them, and said to them, We, as far as

we are able, have brought, have bought back our Jewish brothers

who have been sold to the nation's, but you Even so your

brothers, that they may be sold to us.

And they were silent, could not find a word to say.

So I said, the thing that you are doing is not good.

There's the understatement of the Bible.

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

taunts of the nations, of the nations, our enemies?

Moreover, I and my brothers and my servants are lending them

money and grain. Let us abandoned this exacting

of interest. Return to them this very day,

their fields, their vineyards, their olive orchards and their

houses, and the percentage of money, grain, wine and oil that

you have been exacting from them.

Then they said, We will restore these and require nothing from

them. We will do as you say.

And I called the priest, and made them swear to do as they

had promised. I also shook out the fold of my

garment, 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 and emptied. And all the assembly said, Amen

and praise the Lord. And the people did as they had

promised. See, our emphasis can't simply

be on ourselves. But the second thing we see here

is we desperately need accountability.

As human beings, we desperately need accountability.

We don't like it, this world chase against it, it preaches

against it, but we desperately need it.

Nehemiah was furious when he heard of this sin.

It made him miserable. He suffered in misery himself.

And so he had to take time to seriously think about a

response. If you read this passage and the

the idea in Hebrew is, is his his heart needed to be ruled

before he spoke. He needed to step back for a

minute and think about this. In fact, one translation would

say that his heart consulted with him.

He, he had to process this. He needed to get control of

himself. He was so upset, not in some

emotional fit, but in righteous indignation.

But he knew he had to respond in a certain way because this hurt.

It struck deeply in his heart. And so this was about the way

they were treating one another and not just this conflict with

these outside pagans. Think of the testimony a divided

people. Think of the testimony that

sends out into this world. There are moments in ministry,

my friends, when you shake your head.

There are moments in ministry when you just shake your head

and you got to strengthen your heart.

You got to step back for a minute, process it when you hear

a fellow believers treating one another this way.

The lead in ministry requires the heart of a child, the mind

of a scholar, and the height of a rhino in today's world.

Nehemiah was disturbed, he was saddened, he was upset.

He needed a moment to gather himself.

I got, I got, I got, I got to have a moment, God.

And then I want you to notice. Notice how these chapters, if

you've been following along in this Nehemiah study at all.

If not, you can go back and see this.

These chapters are contrasting anger.

So last time last week, the enemies were intensely wrongly

angry, raging mad about what the Jews were doing to rebuild.

They were selfish in their desire.

They were selfish. They wanted to retain control.

They wanted to fight with their earthly power and control.

They were mad because they didn't get their way.

I don't know if you've ever met a human being who got mad

because they didn't get their way.

Now, you parents at home, talk to your kids about that too.

Tell them no and see if they thank you.

I just want to hear about that. But in contrast, here we see

this godly leader righteously angry.

Angry. This is strong word for anger,

but not because of what will or will not benefit him, but about

what hurts God and brings misery to his people and a horrible

testimony to the world around them.

And so he's hurt because it's distracting from God's purpose,

from his calling. These people were being hurt by

sin, both, both those who were victims of it, but Nehemiah knew

also those who were committing it.

When you commit sin, you're hurting yourself.

And as we learned back in our help series some months ago on

midweek, the, the Bible doesn't say don't be angry.

It says to be angry, but don't sin.

Sometimes we ought to be angry. Sometimes we ought to be angry

about sin. We ought to be angry about

injustice. And Nehemiah got his heart and

his head together. He got it under rule, literally

the Hebrew, he got it under control.

And, and you're going to see in his response, he focuses upon

what would God say and upon what God does say in his word.

What, what, what a godly leader, what a practice of a godly

leader. He, he, he, he's, he's very much

involved in moral indignation, but he doesn't simply react or

overreact with emotion. He pauses.

What does God say? What does God's word say?

What do we need to do about this?

And he shares what God says about the issue.

So he gathered them all up in the assembly, gathers these

businessmen and these politicians and all the people,

and he talks to them about their hardship.

And he says, this is you're responsible for this, this is

wrong. He rebukes them and he rebukes

these these wealthy Jewish oppressors for their

selfishness, for their greed. They're violating the Torah.

They're violating the Mosaic Law by what they're doing.

They were charging fellow Jews interests on loans.

This was clearly specifically forbidden in the Law of Moses.

There are several places you could see this.

I'll just read out of Exodus 22. It says if you lend money to any

of my people with you who is poor, you shall not be like a

money lender to him and you shall not exact interest from

him. I mean, it's about as clear as

you can get. They're violating the law.

As the commentator Warren Whistby says, both the people in

the land belong to God and he wouldn't have anybody using

either one of them for personal gain.

We're his, we're not each other. We don't get to you.

I don't get to use you for what I want.

You don't get to use me for what you want.

We've got to focus on what God wants and what his word says.

I mean, listen, they were even selling fellow Jews into debt

slavery to non Jews and then buying them back for a profit.

And this, this is actually specifically against the law.

You can go back in Exodus 21 and this is specifically against the

law. So emphasizing only yourself and

what might profit you and not what God commands, always going

to lead to problems. This is what I want.

Well, that's not the question. Question is, what does God want?

So, so so Selfishness LED their steps, not a reverence for God

or his Word. So for now.

Now maybe we cut him some slack. Perhaps they had been away in

exile so long that they'd forgotten.

In exile, they might not have been able to study the law as

much. Maybe they'd forgotten.

Maybe they need to be reminder, reminded and restored to proper

obedience to the Word of God. Maybe they had been so far away

from it that they'd forgotten what God said.

They'd been removed from temple worship and they'd been removed

from the sacrificial system for so long that maybe their memory,

maybe their knowledge, maybe their love for the law had

diminished. And so that's the most benefit

of the doubt that I think we could give them.

But maybe, maybe they felt it was time though, for them to put

themselves 1st to get what they could get.

I'm going to get mine. Everybody else getting theirs,

I'm going to get mine, man. I hear that out there.

I'm going to get mine. I hear that in sports even.

But they were putting themselves right back.

You got to pay attention to this.

They were putting themselves right back into the position

that caused the exile in the 1st place.

And this is part of the problem. One of the reasons Nehemiah so

mad is because greed was one of the sins the prophets warned

them about and denounced to them before the Babylonian exile.

And so here they are just repeating the same sin.

Listen to I could quote Isaiah, I could quote Jeremiah.

Listen to Amos, therefore, because you trampled on the

poor, and you exact taxes of grain from him.

You've built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not dwell

in them. You've planted pleasant

vineyards, but you should not drink their wine, for I know how

many are your transgressions. And how great are your sins, you

who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe and turn aside the

needy in the gate. So accountability for past sin

was demanded is for us too. They were right back in the same

cycle of repeating the same old sin.

I don't know how many of you are trapped in that.

I find myself I this, it's almost like it's, I'm just, I'm

just living out Romans 6 and Romans 7.

I'm doing the very thing I don't want to do and I've done it

again. I don't want.

That's not what I but I'm doing it again.

I'm just caught in a cycle of sin.

And Nehemiah says you got to stop.

You got to stop for God's sake. You've got to stop for the

people's sake, and you got to stop for your own sake.

You can't keep bringing the same sin from the past into your

future. It's time to stop.

You can't keep bringing the same sin from the past into your

future and expect to fulfill what God wants you to do.

This is a new day, it's a new chapter.

It's a historically unique for them.

For us, it's the same way. We're in a unique historical

moment with a new future. We got to confess, we got to

repent, and we got to replace. So leave that miserable rubbish

back there, Nehemiah says where it belongs.

Stop trying to build on it. Don't.

Don't carry it into the future. Don't carry it into his future.

Not that stuff from back there. It's not going to create the

foundation that you need to build your life on.

Remember past mistakes. We were talking about this and

staff. Remember the past mistakes.

Learn from them. File those lessons properly and

then don't repeat them. That's what you do.

Learn from them. We've all met anybody here ever

made a mistake? Raise your hand if you ever made

a mistake, kid. You ever gotten in trouble, say

yes, some of you are older kids. That was good.

That was good confession. Listen, we've all made mistakes.

Listen, we got to learn from them and we got to file those

lessons properly where we can pull them out and remember them.

And then we've got to not repeat them, but praise the Lord

because no matter how far away, no matter how long ago, no

matter how, how, how long ago it's been, it's never too late

to return to obedience and to return to the love for God and

his word and his will. So true restoration is just his

grace and our obedience away. That's, that's the step.

It's just his grace and our obedience.

That's the formula. And he's ready to give that to

you. So using his authority under

Persia, Nehemiah steps in and he orders the greedy to stop it, to

stop their usury, to stop this interest and return taken

property. Property.

Now, if you know anything about the Old Testament, basically

what he's called for is a modified year of Jubilee for

some of you, you'll know what that is.

In Leviticus 25, it talks about it where debts were to be

forgiven in the 50th year, every 50th year, land was restored to

its owners, servants were set free.

This was to balance the economy. It was to balance so that the

rich wouldn't just keep getting richer and the poor just keep

getting poorer, and to prevent sin, such as selfishly

exploiting the poor. So the businessmen pledge, if

you notice, we're going to do what we will do as you say,

Nehemiah. And and you got to give them

credit throughout the book because most of the time that's

what they say. Yes, Sir, we'll do what you say.

But Nehemiah took it a step further.

You got to pay attention to this part.

He, he took it to a more formal place to where they had to swear

an oath before God and the people, because it's easy to say

that you're going to do something, but he's going to

make them prove it. It's more binding, more lasting

when you have a whole bunch of witnesses and accountability for

your life. Do not miss this lesson.

We need accountability. Now listen to me.

This is part of the testimony. We desperately need

accountability. This is part of the testimony of

making a public profession. This is part of the testimony of

public baptism. We won't do private secret

baptisms because we need the whole church in the world to see

this testimony, not just so you'll be blessed by it, but so

that the person being baptized in a sense is testifying on the

level of accountability to the church and to the world of

saying I'm identifying with Christ.

It's a big deal. And so basically, I've been

saved, I've been forgiven, and I'm making this new commitment

and the power of the Holy Spirit to live for him.

I'm accountable to the Holy Spirit, see.

And so next Sunday, I believe it, I believe it, you're going

to see people get baptized and do that.

And so it's not just so we'll be blessed and we cheer them on

because when we do and we should, and it's wonderful to

celebrate with them, but it's also they need that.

You need that. If you've never been baptized

you and you've trusted in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior,

you need that. We need to help them remember

and it helps us remember it's of what's going on.

We, we need each other to be our witnesses.

We need each other for accountability.

We need each other for that encouragement.

And so, so sometimes when we don't remember our commitment,

somebody needs to say, remember your commitment.

You need that person there. Why do you think I scream so

loudly and so regularly about, guess what, Connect groups and

100% because we need that as human beings, not just members

of Inglewood. Listen, I'm not trying to pad

numbers on a roll, but when I talk about church membership and

connect group participation and 100% participation in the core,

it's because we need these relationships.

We need to make the connection between what the church is

supposed to be and our desperate need for accountability as a

testimony to that world out there.

And so being in a connect group can help for you to have those

accountability relationships which are vital for you.

You need that community around you.

They see you and simply don't want that.

They know you. A lot of people really don't

want that. And, and, and they're going to

help remember you and they're going to help you remember what

you ought to do. They're going to help you walk

the line. So I hear those who say, I've

heard it too many times. I've heard people, I mean,

people even make appointments with me to make a big deal about

it, to, to argue with me about these things.

And I, I, I, I've heard people say I don't need that.

I don't want that. I'm doing just fine without that

in my spiritual growth. I do not believe that.

I will never believe that. I will never believe you're just

fine on your own. I will not because there's

nothing in this book that testifies to that.

And so in fact, what I want to say, I don't see.

I say it secretly later to myself and to God.

What an arrogant, selfish, silly and I'll informed thing to say.

You're cheating yourself and you're cheating others.

Now listen to this. This is very important.

You don't care about you. Listen to this part.

You're not just cheating yourself, you're cheating the

others who would benefit from your presence or they would

benefit from helping you. You're robbing them of their own

discipleship. You need them and they need you.

They need you to need them and vice versa.

I hope that made sense. So this is listen, and this

isn't just me guessing, it's not just me researching it.

And, and even beyond scripture, I can't tell you the number of

people Teresa will testify. I have.

I've had several friends, several colleagues, several

people in ministry who've had moral failures, no longer in

ministry, no longer serving. And I talked to them because

they're friends of mine. They often come to me for help

when these things start collapsing around them.

And, and this is one of the most consistent things those who fail

admit they used to say and believe about themselves that I

didn't need anybody else. I don't need accountability.

I'm great on my own. And and they'll they'll confess

they also knew it in their heart that that was wrong and they

needed to change. But their pride and arrogance

prevented them. Remember the formula.

There's almost always something missing.

We are created with the need from the very beginning for

relationship. You defy not be the most

important sentence. I say those listening online,

pay close attention, get your pens ready.

You defy your very created nature when you avoid

relationships. You're defying how God made you.

You're defying, you're defying being created in the image of

God when you defy relationship. We've got to recognize how

important this is. We need the godly ones and

hopefully the church can provide that.

Hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, please, hopefully we

can do that. So Nehemiah seals their

commitment. He places a curse.

This is great about the Old Testament.

You get to do curses too. In the Old Testament.

He curses anybody who breaks the commitment, right?

Maybe that's what we need. When you start figuring out

Jordan, we need some curses. Let's figure out some curses in

in the in the discovery Inglewood classes.

If you don't do this, maybe that's what we're missing.

Is that what we're missing? Maybe that's what we're missing.

A good curse every now and then. Is that what we need?

You are a little too eager for that.

That's a little scary, a little bit scary.

But anyway, it was common in that day and time to symbolize

the recognition of accountability and the curse, if

you forgot it, it was a normal thing.

And one of the things that they did is they would shake the dust

off their sandals or off their lower rope.

It was just a symbol of it. We're, you know, we're getting,

we're, we're casting you off, right?

And so, and so that was a symbol.

And so Nehemiah prayed that God, and he did this for the enemies.

If you'll remember this, remember he, he, he, he prayed

that God would remember the sins of the enemies last time.

God. Nehemiah also prays that he

would remember them, his own people, if they failed to live

up to the covenant. So the people witnessed the

proceedings. They approved with praise.

They approved with a loud Amen, which means so be it.

And so they were, they were willing to do this.

And so why? And how we use our

relationships, how we use our influence, how we use our

energy, how we use our giftedness, how we use our time,

how we use our resources, all matter.

It's the stewardship of the totality of life that we're

talking about. It's a major part of our

discipleship and we are accountably so don't force God

to shake his robe at you about to be a scary thought for God to

dust his sandals off. And as the people said, they

they all agreed and they said, Amen.

So you turn to somebody right now and say, so be it.

Now kids, if you're sitting at home right now, listen to this.

I want you to scream at the top of your lungs right now.

So be it, have your parents call me.

It'd be great. I just want to hear that result.

We'll get something on Facebook about kids screaming.

So be it. That'd be great.

But we got to confront selfishness.

We got to condemn and confess sin.

We got to be accountable to God, this word, and to godly friends.

That's part of what the church ought to be about.

So say the same thing that God says about sin.

And this is the way we move forward.

Look at verse 14. So, moreover, from the time that

I was appointed to be their governor in the land of Judah,

from the 20th year to the 32nd year of Artaxerxes the King, 12

years, neither I nor my brothers ate the food allowance of the

governor. The former governors who were

before me laid heavy burdens on the people and took from them

for their daily ration 40 shekels of silver.

Even their servants lorded over the people, but I did not do so

because of the fear of God. I also persevered in the work on

this wall and we acquired no land and all my servants were

gathered there for the work. Moreover, there, there, there

were at my table 150 men, Jews and officials, besides those who

came to us from the nations that were around us.

Now what was prepared at my expense for each day was 1 ox,

six choice sheep and birds, and every 10 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. So we want to avoid selfishness

and the way we want to move away from sin is is we certainly need

around us some examples of selflessness.

We want to be one of these examples.

Just a, a brief word or two here.

Nehemiah worked hard to fulfill God's mission and to care for

the missionaries along the way as well.

And that's important. He served as an example.

He served as a model. In the earlier passage, we

already read that Nehemiah and others who worked with him,

we're setting the proper examples of lending money and

providing grain in the right ways without any kind of

interest. And so his behaviour actually,

it was sharply contrasting to those who came before him.

The governors who came before him made people pay stuff.

They had to pay local taxes to support the governor and so he

or they had to provide supplies for his administration.

And, and this was, this was a normal expectation.

He had the right to for that expectation legally, but he

surrendered personal and positional rights for what was

better for his people. He sacrificed for them and my

friends, for our future. We have to surpass old normal

expectations in this historically new normal context

and moment. We need to, we need to be

examples. We got to let go of personal

privilege. We got to let go of of of

personal privilege for the privilege of service to others

and create that new normal. So Nehemiah focused not on that

which would most benefit him, but on that which most benefited

his people. And he fed hundreds.

Look at you see that he fed hundreds at his own table at

personal cost. He didn't use his position to

exploit exploit. He used his power to serve

thousands of animals throughout his term.

You're talking about entire herds of animals were used over

his years of service to feed people.

It was expensive, but this was the lifestyle of a servant

leader. Service used to give, not to

seek to get. Then look at verse 19.

So we get ready to close, remember for my good, Oh my God,

all that I've done for this people sounds kind of selfish,

doesn't it? But it's not.

What he wants is God to just remember the example that they

needed to learn. So to avoid selfishness and move

away from sin, we need these examples.

And then finally, we need to experience the blessing of

service. Nehemiah ends this with prayer,

just like normal. He was seeking that the Lord

would remember him because he wanted the people to learn and

remember the example. He did what he did to please God

and by doing so, he was also blessed by God.

And that's the way this works. So, so we don't commit good

works to be saved. We know that.

We've talked about that before. You know that we do good works

because we are saved. As a pastor recently in

Washington DC wrote, he says you're not earning the smile of

God. It's not for sale.

It's done, it's finished. You can put that away.

So what's the Christian life now?

He writes it's the process of fighting for an unrestrained

intimacy that Christ purchased. I am not earning his smile.

I'm fighting to enjoy what He's already given me by grace.

So expect God's eternal blessing when we serve Him for Him and

His people and His promises. So, so, so as we close, we got

to ask some questions. What am I trying to get out of

this life? Am I so, am I so much in hurt?

Am I so strained? Am I carrying such burdens from

back there that I can't even focus on what's over here?

We got to learn to let that go. So what am I trying to get?

What am I trying to put into this life?

What am I trying to get out of this life?

What am I trying to put into this life?

Why do you breathe, why do you exist, and who do you want to

be? The old Lakota Nation or the

Sioux tribe had a word for The White Buffalo hunters, and the

word they used means one who takes the fat because it

referenced a form of genocide. Frankly.

It referenced those who were greedy and wasteful.

It refers to killing a Buffalo and then just taking the tongue

or some real small part of the animal and allowing the rest of

the animal to just waste away and decay.

And the Lakota depended upon the whole animal for life, and they

were being robbed of that. And so their word was the one

who takes the fat. We need to be really careful.

Let's not waste this incredible gift of life.

Let's not waste this incredible gift of salvation.

We serve an awesome God who has an awesome plan for us.

And, and so don't just settle for the fat or the tongue.

Don't seek simply what you can get for yourself.

We need each other. You need the church, We need

accountability, we need one another.

It's time for you. Perhaps whether you're sitting

in this room and thank you so much for being here, or you're

sitting at home, or maybe you're listening to this as you drive,

someday it's time for you to make a public commitment to

Christ. For some of you, that might be

salvation. For some of you, that might be

baptism. For some of you, that might be

church membership. For some of you, it's 100%

participation in this plan, a commitment with accountability,

something that matters for eternity.

You're never too far away. It's never been too long ago for

you to make that decision, to make that choice.

Listen, listen to me, don't tune me out yet.

Quit holding on to mistakes from your past just because you took

a long time making them and you're used to making them.

Give up the cycle, give up that pattern.

Let him replace him with grace and forgiveness, and then join

us here at Awesome Inglewood to build his future.

Now what we're going to do is we're going to enter into a time

here, but also I pray with you online into a time of, of, of

response and a time of reflection.

So whether you're in this building right now or you're

online, this is an invitation for you to give back to God what

he seeks from you that that might be your salvation.

The pastors are going to be here at the front and we want to talk

to you about that after the service.

If you want to talk to someone more, you can go to our we'll

make sure one of the pastors hangs around the next steps room

tonight. But but we're also going to pass

the place like we normally have started doing at this time, not

necessarily to get your money. And if you're a guest here

today, put a put a next steps card in there for those of you

who need to register for the Valentine's of that prime time

or Valentine's Day, Put, put your card in there.

But but but to pass that plate as a moment of worship, as a

moment of recognition, some of you need to come and you need to

know at these steps and give your life to Christ.

Some of you need to say, I need to join this church.

Some of you need to make a commitment to be in a connector.

Some of you need to be baptized. Listen, we got a line of folks

ready, ready to do it. And we'd love for you to join

the line of commitment of public testimony.

Listen for those listening online.

You can still give you can give your tithes and offerings to the

you can do that online. You can bring them to the church

building later. You can always put things in the

offering boxes around. But if you have any questions

beyond this service or online and you you want to discuss

anything that God is laying on your heart or or to explore your

next steps. AQR code's going to come up on

the screen and you can scan that QR code or, or you can text the

phone number that you see or you can e-mail us and I promise we

will get in touch with you. So remember this information.

We'll get in touch with you and pray for you.

But for those of us here in person, we'd love to connect

with you even as we sing in just a moment.

So pastors are going to be here. You can come and pray.

You can come talk to one of us or you can catch us after the

service. Let me pray for us, Father.

Thank you for being truly awesome, Lord.

And that's not a word we're just going to throw around

flippantly. We mean it.

You are awesome beyond imagination because of what you

have already done for us and what you plan on doing for us

still Now, Father, that demands response.

That demands acknowledgement. And so Father, we want to

acknowledge you by giving you our life, giving you everything

we have. Father, tonight we want to give

you our offering. We give it to you sometimes in

our ties and our resources. For many here though, it's it's

an issue of life, of new commitment, baptism, church

membership, salvation, prayer. So, Father, as that plate

touches a hand, I pray that it's more than just an offering

moment. I pray that's a recognition,

acknowledging, acknowledgement moment of what do I need to give

you, God and I pray others will come and speak to us.

Father, thank you that we could gather.

Thank you for the great number of people who've come here

physically. Thank you for the huge number of

people who are going to be watching online.

I pray, Father, they'll reach out to us so that we can talk to

them, not about us, but about you.

So, Father, bless us now as we respond in Christ's name, Amen.

Well, let's stand together. Our worship team is going to

lead us. Pastors are going to be here.

You come and talk to us. You can just come and pray that

you come. You respond.