God at the Centre: Taking Sin Seriously - The Path To God’s Blessing - Dec 1, 2024 (Myles Holmes)

Hello and welcome to the Redemption Church Podcast.

We're a church in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada that exists to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission and the Spirit of the Great Commandment.

Thanks for joining us today.

And uh follow along with me as we revere God in the reading of his word.

Nehemiah 13.

On that day, they read from the book of Moses and in the hearing of the people, and it was found that it was written that no Ammonite or Molite should ever enter the assembly of God.

For they did not meet the people of Israel with bread and water, but hired Balaam against them to curse them.

As soon as the people heard the law, they separated from Israel all those of foreign descent.

Now before this, Eliashab the priest who was appointed over the chambers of the house of our God, and who was related to Tobiah, prepared for Tobiah a large chamber where they had previously put the grain offering, the frankincense, the vessels, the tithes of grain, wine and oil, which were given by commandment to the Levites, singers and gatekeepers, and the contribution for the priests.

Well, this was taking place, I was not in Jerusalem, for in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes, king of Babylon, I went to the king, and after some time I asked leave of the king, and came to Jerusalem, and then I discovered the evil that Eliashid had done for Tobiah, preparing for him a chamber in the courts of the house of God.

I was very angry, and I threw all the household furniture of Tobiah out of the chamber.

Then I gave orders, and they cleansed the chambers, and I brought back there the vessels of the house of God with the grain offering and the frankincense.

I also found out that portions of the Levites had not been given to them, so that the Levites and the singers who did not work had fled each to his field.

So I confronted the officials and said, Why is the house of God forsaken?

I gathered them together and set them in their stations.

Then all Judah brought the tithe of the grain, wine, and oil into the storehouses, and I appointed as treasurers over the storehouses Shelemiah the priest, Zadok the scribe, Padiah of the Levites, and as their assistant Hanan the son of Zakur, a son of Mataniah.

They were considered reliable, and their duty was to distribute to their brothers.

Remember me, O my God, Nehemiah praise, concerning this, and do not wipe out my good deeds that I have done for the house of my God and for his service.

Verse 15 goes on In those days I saw in Judah pr people treading wine presses on the Sabbath, and bringing in heaps of grain, and loading them on donkeys, and also wine, grapes, figs, and all kinds of loads, which they brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, and I warned them on the day when they sold food.

Tyrians also, who lived in the city, brought in fish and all kinds of goods, and sold them on the Sabbath to the people of Judah and Jerusalem itself.

Then I confronted the nobles of Judah and said to them, What is this evil thing that you are doing, profaning the Sabbath?

Did not your fathers act in this way, and did not our God bring all this disaster on us and on this city?

Now you're bringing more wrath on Israel by profaning the Sabbath.

As soon as it began to grow dark at the gates of Jerusalem before the Sabbath, I commanded the doors to be shut, and gave orders that they should not be opened until after the Sabbath.

And I stationed some of my servants at the gates that no load might be brought in on the Sabbath day.

Then merchants and sellers of all kinds of wares lodged outside Jerusalem once or twice.

But I warned them and said to them, Why do you lodge outside the wall?

If you do so again, I will lay hands on you.

From that time on they did not come on the Sabbath.

Then I commanded the Levites that they should purify themselves and come and guard the gates to keep the Sabbath holy.

Remember this in my favor, O my God, and spare me according to the greatness of your steadfast love.

Verse 23, In those days I also saw the Jews who had married women of Ashdod, Amon, and Moab, half their children spoke the language of Ashdod, and they could not speak the language of Judah, but only the language of each people.

I confronted them and cursed them and beat some of them, and pulled out their hair, and I made them take an oath in the name of God, saying, You shall not give your daughters to their sons, or take their daughters for your sons or for yourselves.

Did not Solomon, king of Israel, sin on account of such women?

Among the many nations there was no king like him, and he was beloved by God, and God made him king over all Israel.

Nevertheless, foreign women made even him to sin.

Shall we then listen to you and do this great evil and act treacherously against our God by marrying foreign women?

One of the sons of Jeodiah, the son of Eliashib, the high priest, was son-in-law of Sandbalat the Horonite.

Therefore I chased him from me.

Remember them, O my God, because they have desecrated the priesthood and the covenant of the priesthood and the Levites.

Thus I cleanse from them everything foreign, and I established the duties of the priest and Levites, each in his work, and I provided for the food offering at appointed times and the first fruits.

Remember me, O my God, for good.

Let's turn to the Lord in prayer as we continue to stand.

Father, we bow before you.

And God, we confess that our hearts are often distracted.

And Lord, we pray this morning right now that you would rend the heavens and come down so that we might tremble at your presence.

Father, we confess that our hearts are often burdened.

And we remember the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, who said, Come to me all who are burdened and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

God, we confess that our hearts are searching for meaning and satisfaction and longing for joy and happiness.

And we're reminded, Lord, that it was Jesus who said, He is living water, and whoever drinks of him will never thirst again.

And so, Lord, we come before you of people who are incredibly broken, people who need to hear from you.

And we come in the presence of your Holy Spirit, Lord, asking that you would do a mighty work.

Asking, Lord, that whatever might distract us from hearing what you have to say to us, Lord, that by the power and presence of your Holy Spirit here with us this morning, God, do a work.

God, we are dependent on you.

Would you point our eyes to Jesus Christ this morning?

Point our eyes to Him.

We need you, Lord.

We need you to hear, but God, I can't speak apart from you.

Do a mighty work, Lord.

Would this be so miraculous in its nature?

Would we leave this place saying, Lord, you have spoken to us that we're not deserving?

God, thank you.

Thank you for Jesus.

We pray this in the name of your Son.

Amen.

Amen.

You can grab a seat.

For the residents of Dresden, life would never be the same after the bombings of 1945.

In a few short hours, the city that was once celebrated for its culture, its architecture, was reduced to ashes.

And those residents returned to Dresden to find that their vibrant, once thriving home had been transformed by the destruction of these bombs into a desolate wasteland.

Iconic buildings would never be the same.

It would never be restored.

The streets that they were familiar with had been under such intense heat that they had melted, and the fumes from metal melting would have suffocated anyone who remained in the city.

They returned to that city, and what had been a flourishing and glorious city became a haunting reminder of the destruction of war.

Now, the destructive power of bombs then serves as what I believe is an illustration then of the destructive power of sin in our lives.

Time and time again through scripture, we find people coming to God's people and finding there that sin has destroyed everything.

Do you remember when Moses comes down from the mountain?

And he has just been with God in his presence and he's heard God's voice, and he comes down and he finds that his people are worshiping a golden calf.

And nearly half those people would be dead the next day.

God's not God's familiar with this kind of pain.

He created a perfect garden.

He entrusted it to Adam and Eve.

But when he returned, what he found was Adam and Eve hiding in their shame.

Their innocence had been shattered by sin.

Sin destroys everything it touches.

It turns what is meant to be holy into ruin and shame.

I love what R.

C.

Sproul says.

He says this sin is the ultimate spoiler.

It takes what is beautiful, what is pure, and it destroys it.

It takes the good and turns it bad.

The holy and turns it profane.

Sin distorts, disfigures, and defiles.

It leaves in its wake the broken, the ruined, the damaged, the defiled.

Now so much has happened in Nehemiah that you and I can forget that Nehemiah was just on temporary work leave.

You remember that?

That Nehemiah was just on sort of a seven-month leave.

He was cupbearer to the king of Persia.

And as cupbearer, he needed to, after finishing the walls of Jerusalem, he needed to return to the king of Persia.

And after a serving there for 12 years, we find in Nehemiah 13 that he's now returned to Jerusalem.

When Nehemiah returns, he encounters the same destructive force that God experienced in the garden, that Moses experienced when he came down from the mountain, that the residents of Dresden experienced when they came back to the city.

Everything was destroyed.

Sin had decimated everything that it touched.

It's the ultimate spoiler.

Now you and I know this theologically.

You'll remember Jesus' words in John 10.10, where he said that Satan comes to kill, steal, and destroy.

Theologically, we know that sin is destructive, but I would also imagine that you and I know experientially that sin is destructive as well.

You and I have seen what happens when sin promises joy, promises satisfaction, it promises fulfillment, but it delivers emptiness, sorrow, and regret.

You and I have experienced that sin is like a baited hook that entices us in, and that once we grab onto it, it does nothing but destroy everything in its wake.

It leaves us trapped in shame and brokenness and despair.

Sin destroys everything.

Peace of mind.

Health.

Even our very relationship with God.

And so this morning we come here before God's Word to say this: that sin is not just a weakness.

Sin is not just a mistake.

Sin is an enemy that seeks your harm, and it will stop at nothing but to drag you down into destruction.

What we need this morning, then, is a battle plan.

And when Nehemiah returns, he gets right to work to show us this: that when we take sin seriously, we find God's blessing.

If you're taking notes right now, scribble that down as furiously and fast as you can.

When we take sin seriously, we find God's blessing.

That's what we're after this morning.

Take sin seriously, find God's blessing.

Did you notice that when Nehemiah comes in chapter 13, he takes sin seriously?

Isn't it a fascinating chapter?

I mean, we say the Bible is boring, and here is Nehemiah, he is beating up everybody in Jerusalem when he returns.

Nehemiah takes sin seriously.

Look at the verbs.

I went through and I lined up every verb.

Let me read it to you for a second to see what Nehemiah really does.

Ready?

It says, I went to the king, I asked for leave, I came to Jerusalem, I discovered, I was angry, I threw all the household furniture, I gave orders, I brought back the vessels, I found out sin, I confronted the officials, I gathered them together, I appointed treasurers, I saw sin in Judah, I warned, I confronted, I commanded the doors to be shut, I commanded, I gave orders, I stationed, I warned that if they did it again, I would lay hands on them.

I commanded the Levites to purify themselves.

I saw the Jews intermarrying, I confronted them, I beat them, I pulled their hair, I confronted them again, I chased him out.

Some people say, just let go and let God.

Nehemiah says that if you want to battle sin in your life, you're gonna have to pull some hair.

That's what we're after this morning.

That's what we're after this morning.

Is this intensity that Nehemiah brings to his pursuit of holiness?

It is a hair-pulling intensity, it is a beat-up sin intensity, it is a chase sin out of your life intensity.

But my question is, why?

Well, Nehemiah, three times you'll notice this if you have your Bibles and your pen, circle this.

This is so good.

Three times Nehemiah prays in these verses.

First in verse 14.

Look what he says there with me.

Remember me, oh my God, concerning this, and do not wipe out my good deeds that I've done for the house of my God and his service.

Look again at verse 22.

Remember this also in my favor, oh my God, and spare me according to the greatness of your steadfast love.

And finally again, look at verse 30.

Remember me, oh my God, for good.

What is the principle here?

The principle is that if you take sin seriously, God will bless you.

God will bless you.

Now listen, even in this moment, there are some of you wrestling with this, and you're saying this, well, okay, well, that means that we need to work for our salvation.

And I want you to understand here that Nehemiah doesn't come back to Jerusalem with this idea that he needs to work for his salvation.

The very fact that Israel is even in Jerusalem proves this point that God has already saved them.

And in Nehemiah chapter 9, when we went through that, we saw the gospel as the heart of Israel at this time.

Nehemiah 9 · chapter mention

They believe in the steadfast love and abundant mercy of God for them.

What Nehemiah does when he comes back is he applies a principle that Paul teaches the church in Philippians chapter 2.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

Philippians chapter 2, Paul says to the church, work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

You know, that's so significant because Paul does not say there, work for your salvation.

It says, work out your salvation.

And you need to understand that you can't work out something that you haven't already been given.

And because that because you have been given salvation, if your faith is in Jesus Christ, there is a great intensity that you can bring to the pursuit of holiness, a Nehemiah-like intensity.

Nehemiah is securing his salvation.

What he wants to see is a renewed Jerusalem.

And what you and I want to see this morning is a renewed heart.

If we want to see it, there's work to be done.

And Nehemiah this morning is showing us how to take sin seriously.

Here's the first thing I want you to see about taking sin seriously.

If you want to take sin seriously, you must find the garbage and throw it out.

Find the garbage and throw it out.

Notice that the first thing Nehemiah does is see the sin.

Nehemiah returns to Jerusalem and it's spring cleaning time.

Anyone love spring cleaning?

I love spring cleaning, I love throwing stuff out.

When Nehemiah returns to Jerusalem, he sees all these hard attitudes leading to these actions that should not be among God's people.

And so I want you to notice this first, that if you want to take sin seriously, the first thing that needs to happen in your life is you need to have eyes to see sin itself.

Notice that in Nehemiah 13, 7, he says, I came to Jerusalem and learned about the evil thing Eliashib had done in 13.15.

In those days, I saw men in Judah treading wine presses on the Sabbath.

Nehemiah 13.23.

I saw the men of Judah who had married women from Ashdod, Amon, and Moab.

Nehemiah comes into Jerusalem and he's able to see the sin of Jerusalem with such clarity.

And I want you to understand that our pursuit of God's blessing and our seriousness about dealing with sin begins with a boldness to identify our sin.

People of God were there in verse 13.

When we started in verse 13, isn't it amazing that on verse 1 they read from the book of the law and they hear that there should be no Ammonite or Moabite ever in the assembly of God?

So what do they do in verse 3?

They separate Israel from those of foreign descent.

It wasn't the first time that God's people had listened and responded to God's word.

You'll remember in chapter 8 that when they read from the book of the law, they were weeping.

They were weeping before the book of the law because they're reading about the feast of booth, and they're saying this, we gotta obey God's commandments.

And so they celebrate then for 23 days, obeying the commandments of the feast of the booth.

And after that, again, in Romans, in uh Nehemiah 9, there's this spirit of repentance that again comes from reading God's word.

They heard God speak, they obeyed his word.

The issue is not that they could not hear God's word, the issue is that they did not endure.

They did not endure.

So that by the time Nehemiah arrives in verse 4, the people have compromised temple worship and no one is speaking out.

Eliashib, he's if you're following along in Nehemiah, not the same Eliashib who is currently the high priest.

Eliashib has invited Tobiah into the temple, and Tobiah has sort of made one of the temple courtrooms his little man cave.

You guys remember Tobiah?

Remember Sanbalat and Tobiah?

Sanbalat and Tobiah keep, they are the annoying little brother of Nehemiah.

Every time Nehemiah tries to do the work of God, Tobiah and Sanbalat pop out their head from around the wall and they are there.

And here again in verse 13, the enemies of Nehemiah are back again.

Here's Tobiah.

What's he doing?

He's lounging in the courtroom, a place that is supposed to be devoted for God.

Here's Tobiah.

Can you imagine Nehemiah coming back?

Elisha and Tobiah had profaned the word of God.

They had taken what was meant to be holy and devoted it to God.

God had been compromised.

It was given to Nehemiah's enemy.

Now, here is the issue for you and me.

The issue is that Calvin says our hearts are idle-making factories.

You know that about your heart?

Our hearts, so long as we are in this world, are idle-making factories.

As long as we live in this sinful world, sinful attitudes, sinful habits, sinful actions will creep into our heart.

This is the reality of living in our world.

Now, I, on a daily basis, I experience a miracle in my home.

I don't know if I can call it a miracle or a curse, but I sweep up my kitchen floor, and parents of young children are gonna be, this is gonna be the best sermon they've ever heard right now.

I cannot believe sometimes how much dirt I find there.

Like I sometimes I sweep up the floor and I look at the pile of dirt that's there, and I said, We haven't even given these kids this much food this whole entire week.

I have vacuumed out my van and found enough Cheerios just to put them back in a Costco-sized box and give to my kids.

Every time I sweep my floor, there is more dirt.

Every time.

What Jesus does with the loaves and the fish, my kids do with dirt.

I don't know what it is.

And do you understand that your heart is like that?

If you are not vigilant against sin, it will accumulate to such a degree that it is impossible to clean out.

This happened to me this week.

A few weeks ago.

I remember it so vividly.

I was with the men in my small group, and we were at the bottom of the stairs, waiting for the women to be done, and we were talking about anger.

And I said to them, you know, like the Lord has really worked.

I was really angry at one point.

And the Lord has grown me, and I'm not as angry as I used to be anymore.

And then you flash forward to this week, and I'm with my kids, and I'm throwing a book across the living room, and I'm looking at my heart and I'm saying, where did this come from?

Where did like I was doing so well?

Where did this anger come from?

Well, your heart, my heart, is an idol making factory.

So let me ask you this Do you regularly see the garbage that accumulates in the temple of your own heart?

Do you know that the enemies that often infiltrate their Into your heart.

Do you know them?

Nehemiah knew the enemy.

His name was Tobiah.

Do you know your enemy?

You know the sins that you are prone to wrestle with?

I know mine.

I know that anytime I look into my heart, I will I may see anger.

I know that the fear of man is there.

I know that there's despair there.

I know that there's selfishness, pride.

I know what is in there.

The writer of Proverbs says, keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.

Loved one, what's in your heart?

You and I need to have eyes to see and know our sin.

You know it?

How can you grow to know it?

Well, first, you need to be regularly reading God's word.

That's why Nehemiah knew what was wrong.

He was familiar with God's word.

Trial and circumstance often expose what's in our heart.

Trial is like taking a water bottle, and the water bottle is your life and shaking it up, and what comes out is what's in your heart.

And you might be walking through a trial right now, and one of the blessings of trial is that we look into we can see what was in our heart all along.

Now, if the word is not enough to expose your sin, if trial is not enough to expose your sin, do what Nehemiah has done, ask someone.

Ask someone.

The principle we're getting here is that Nehemiah comes back to Jerusalem and he can see what's happening in Jerusalem with so much more clarity than they could see themselves.

We often need other people to help us point out what is in our heart.

But then the next question for us is this what do you do when you see it?

I love what Nehemiah does.

Look at verse 8.

I love this.

And I was very angry, and I threw all the household furniture of Tobiah out of the chamber.

You imagine this for a moment?

In your mind's eye, when we read scripture, let's imagine what scripture is saying.

Here is Nehemiah in the temple of God.

He's just returned from Persia, and now he's in the temple and he's throwing all the furniture out.

Every day in the life of the Christian is garbage day.

Do you know why?

Because Jesus is in the business of redemption.

And Nehemiah here, he prefigures one who will come to this very same temple and cleanse it.

Jesus will always come and with righteous anger cleanse out of the temple the things that do not belong there.

And when you, and when your heart is filled with the enemies of God and you sweep it up and you collect it and you bring it before the Lord, and you say, Jesus, these things are here and I do not want them here, then Jesus comes with compassion and he takes the garbage out.

I love garbage day.

Don't you love garbage day?

I mean my my green bin is broken right now, and so I put it out, but when they dumped the truck, the lid didn't open, and so all my garbage was still there.

And I came in, I told Amber, I said, Oh, they didn't take the garbage.

And she was like, No, no, what are we gonna do?

And I said, I'm I can cram a lot of garbage in there, we'll be okay.

Never happens with the gospel.

Jesus, every time you bring your sin to him, Jesus loves to clear out the temple of your heart.

So you need to search your heart, what garbage is in there, and then take it to the curb.

Anger, anxiety, despair, selfishness, materialism, take it to the curb.

It is all garbage, it must be thrown out, which leads to our second point.

And I want you to notice this is really the same thing.

We have one point this morning.

When we take sin seriously, we find God's blessing.

Here's the second thing I want you to see that we must see the enemy and slam the door.

See the enemy, slam the door.

You know something interesting about this outline?

This is, I think, my favorite outline I've ever made.

It's all capitals.

And I told the graphics guy, keep it all capitals.

It has to be all capitals.

Why?

Because we're vigilant this morning.

We're intense this morning, we're yelling this morning.

See the enemy, slam the door.

Now, we already noted that Nehemiah's strength was to see the sin in Jerusalem, but I want you to notice that when Nehemiah arrives in Jerusalem, he sees four enemies that are overtaking and opposing Israel.

Now, these aren't the only enemies that will oppose us, but they certainly are relevant ones.

First was the enemy of compromise.

We've already dealt with this.

The people of Israel were willing to compromise on the commands of God as it related around the temple.

How come no one in Israel, until Nehemiah returned, was able to look at Eliasheb and say, what you are doing with Tobiah is not right?

Let me suggest this.

It's because compromise doesn't happen quickly.

Compromise happens in a series of small actions.

Loved one, let me ask you this question.

Is there any area of your life where you are willingly compromising?

Is there any area of your life where it doesn't feel like a big deal now?

Perhaps it's a small habit you justify as harmless.

Perhaps it's a priority that over time you sort of subtly shifted away from.

But let me warn you: sin never stays subtle.

It will always drag us deeper and deeper.

It is why the writer of Proverbs speaks to his son in Proverbs 5 and says, of lady folly, her feet go down to death, her steps lead straight to the grave.

Sintices us.

It entices us with a facade of pleasure and ease, but its end is always destruction.

Loved one, if if an apple, if a piece of fruit was enough to bring destruction into the world, what is there in your life?

The writer of the Proverbs says, a fly ruins a whole jar of ointment.

What compromise is there in your life?

Small compromises left unchecked have power to lead us far from God's will and deep into spiritual ruin.

And maybe the Holy Spirit right now is convicting you of something, even this week, of an attitude, of a way that you are sort of slipping away from God's grace.

And I love what we read, what uh Mark read.

Confess your sin, and he is faithful to forgive.

Well, you should see a second sin here was the sin of complacency.

When Nehemiah comes in verse 10, he finds that the Levites who were responsible for the work of receiving, of running the temple, were not receiving the tithes that they depended on to sustain their mercy, and as a result, they had to abandon the work of the temple and their duties and work in the fields.

Now, Nehemiah is not angry at the Levites here.

It was the fault of the people who had grown complacent.

Instead of faithfully giving to God what was rightfully his, they chose to keep it for themselves.

Are you aware of the danger of complacency?

Another name for complacency is apathy.

Let me suggest that these two sins of complacency and apathy are some of the greatest sins that are plaguing the church today.

Apathy and complacency is incredibly dangerous because it does not manifest itself as outright a rebellion.

Instead, it creeps in as a spiritual laziness and a lack of vigilance against this sin, a diminished hunger for righteousness.

Now I wrote this sermon and I thought of a wonderful illustration for this.

And the illustration was of a flat tire, of a tire that lost its air.

And this morning, when I went out to my van, I looked at my tire and it was flat.

And I thought I should not have written that illustration.

I'm wearing shoes right now.

These are my tire changing shoes.

These are not my preaching shoes.

However, the Lord is so sovereign, and I probably won't write another illustration about leaks and tires.

But I want you to understand that apathy is like a slow leak in a tire.

You can attend a service, and it's okay one week, like can we be honest right now?

Every week that you come to church, it's not gonna be like your heart isn't on cloud nine and you are worshiping the Lord.

Every time you open up God's word in the morning, it's not gonna be like your heart is like in this elevated place of worship and you leave with such a like this heart's desire.

I always want to glorify the Lord today.

That won't happen every time.

But be careful that it does not turn into a season where that happens.

Because that slow leak of apathy eventually will lead to a completely flat tire.

It will destroy your life.

And so we ask ourselves this morning, right now, we do a heart check.

We pull out our spiritual stethoscope.

Is there any apathy?

Brother, sister, right now, can you reflect on this time of worship that we just had?

How was your heart?

Where was your heart?

Was your heart overflowing with a sense of God's worship and wonder and awe?

Was it?

What about right now?

Like pause button.

Check your heart.

Right now, where is your heart with the Lord?

Is there a desire to hear God's word?

Is there or is there an apathy in what God says?

An apathy that leads to distraction.

We're thinking about every other thing, apart from what God has to speak to you this morning.

Apathy is dangerous.

It can hide in plain sight of the church.

It attends Sunday service but lacks zeal.

It serves in ministry with no heart for the work.

It appears faithfully outward but inwardly indifferent.

It's content to go through the motions without truly seeking God.

Are you here to seek God this morning?

I want you to notice a third enemy.

An enemy of sinful convenience.

When the people of Israel made covenant with God, they promised to take the Sabbath.

But by verse 15, when Nehemiah comes, he says, In those days in Judah, people treading in wine presses on the Sabbath and bringing in heaps of grain and lodging them on donkeys and also wine, grapes, figs, and all kinds of loads.

Not only had the people stopped celebrating the Sabbath, the foreigners were coming into the city and selling on the Sabbath.

The Sabbath was commanded to Israel, and it required trust.

It was unique to Israel.

It made them stand out from the other nations because while all the other nations worked, Israel rested just like God did on the seventh day.

The sin for Israel was the sin of convenience.

They were trying to fit God into their life.

They wanted God to infringe on as little as possible, and you and I are more guilty of this than ever.

When the message of Christianity is that we must lose our lives, we want God to sort of be an add-on to our life.

David Platt is so helpful here.

He says, we are settling for a Christianity that revolves around catering to ourselves when the central message of Christianity is about abandoning ourselves.

Listen, God is not content this morning to sort of be your co-pilot.

God is not content this morning to be a part of your life.

God did not move kings and rulers so that the Israelites could make him a part of their life.

God demands all or nothing.

When Christ calls a man, Dietrich Bonhoeffer says, when Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.

Love one, when was the last time God inconvenienced you?

When was the last time God inconvenienced your plans?

Fourth sin that Nehemiah confronts is the sin of conformity.

Look at verse 23.

Nehemiah observes that the Israelites had intermarried with foreign women.

Within just 12 years, half of the children could no longer speak the language of Judah.

The Israelites had made a covenant with God, but they were quick to turn away.

Instead of remaining distinct from the world as God commanded, they became one with it.

Do you know that conformity to the world is our default state?

This is why Paul urges in Romans 12, too.

If you are not continually renewing your mind according to Scripture, I want you to understand that you are conforming yourself to the world.

Having fires in our fireplace.

And we love this season when it's cold outside.

We put the fire on, we crank it up as much as we can, you know, it's a real fire, and the living room gets really, really, really hot.

Something happens in the rest of the house, though.

The furnace turns off, because the thermostat's right near the living room, and the rest of the house gets cold.

And when you are sitting in the kitchen and the fire is on, it is incredibly cold, and you cannot last anywhere in the house for long before you get back to the source of heat that is the fire.

And in the same way, the fire of God's word is the source of spiritual warmth and vitality.

If you're not consistently feeding your mind and heart with scripture, you will inevitably cool down to the lukewarm temperature of the world around you.

You see that in your own life?

You see that the Christian life is biking uphill.

And as soon as you stop pedaling and you're biking uphill, what happens?

You start going backwards.

If my mind isn't set on scripture, my heart drifts towards materialism.

I begin to think that maybe having a bigger house is my problem.

Maybe having a nicer car is my problem.

Or it happens with work without renewing my mind according to what God says about work.

I can begin to place my identity, my purpose, my meaning in my work as a pastor.

We can do it as we seek promotions or career success.

The reality is when we conform to the world, we lose our power.

I mean, God is calling us to be distinct from the world.

And so long as we look like the world, we lose our power.

One of the things that I do regularly in my car, I have a stack of cue cards, scripture verses on them.

And every time that I drive to the gym, I take those out and I work on memorizing them.

And this week I was driving into the gym and I was memorizing James.

And can I do it in front of you?

This is one of the best ways to memorize, is to do it in front of a hundred people who are just looking at you and saying, Is he gonna mess it up?

Well, here's what James says.

Here's what he says, ready?

Are you ready?

Do not love the things of this world or anything that is in the world.

If you love the world, for whoever loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

For this world is passing away with the desires of the flesh, and the desires of the eyes and pride of life.

If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

Now, I was memorizing that, and if you had your Bible open, that wasn't perfect at all, but you're just gonna believe me because none of you did.

I was memorizing that and driving into the gym, and I'm looking around, and it's changing everything I see about everything around me.

I'm looking at the the trees and I'm thinking, this is passing away.

Everything, every blade of grass, it is in the process of dying.

Everyone.

You are.

And look at your neighbor right now.

They're dying.

Right now.

That's like you're born and you begin to pass away.

And I went to the gym and there's all these healthy people there, and I'm just looking at each one of them and thinking, like, no matter how healthy you are, you are dying.

Now I didn't say this.

That would have been I should have probably, but changes everything about your view.

Loved ones, are there areas in your life where you've started to conform to the world?

Seek the warmth of God's word.

Return to the source.

Now, most important here, I want you to see that Nehemiah, how Nehemiah responds to sin when he sees the enemy.

When he sees compromise in the temple, he throws out the temple's furniture.

When he sees complacency, he confronts the officials.

When he sees the sin of convenience that people have forsaken the can the Sabbath, he confronts the people and shuts the door so that no more selling can happen.

When he sees the sin of conformity, verse 25, I confronted them, I cursed them, I beat some of them, I pulled their hair, and I made them take an oath.

When Nehemiah sees the enemy, he slams the door.

You know, when it comes to our physical safety, I think doors are one of the most, you know, like important security items in our house.

I'm looking at some of the cops right now.

Is that true?

Doors, doors are incredibly important.

They're looking at me saying shotguns are better, and I'm saying you get the point here.

Doors are incredibly important.

When there are enemies outside, you close the door, you lock it, and they cannot get in.

Nehemiah's strength and leadership was to install the doors that would keep the people from being tempted to sin again.

And many of us, we walk around and our immaturity is this is that we think we're strong enough to be able to face the enemies that will constantly barrage us.

But spiritual maturity is this, when we recognize our weakness, when we recognize that we cannot stand against the enemy, and so we set up as many doors as we can so that we are not tempted every single minute of every day.

You need doors to keep sin out.

Now listen, this can be really easy.

Like practically, what does this mean?

Let's use this as an example.

Are you struggling to read God's word?

Are you struggling to daily get into God's word this week?

As you think about that reality, you ask yourself this question: what is keeping you from it?

What is it that is keeping you from obedience to God's command?

Is it that you're staying up late and watching Netflix?

If that's what it is, then shutting the door means canceling your Netflix subscription so that you can do what is important.

Is it that when the alarm goes off you just feel tired?

Figure out a way to get past that.

Listen, this is what this is what I do.

I I love to do this.

I have a coffee maker, and it, you know, you can set it to make a coffee, and so you set it to make the coffee at whatever time you're waking up, and you put the mug in front of it.

And then if that thing makes coffee and you're not there to put the mug in, there's gonna be this giant mess.

And what are you doing?

You are setting yourself up for the success.

You know, you it takes uh I mean, you know, you didn't want to picture this, but when I'm running down the hall in my underwear, I'm I am so groggy, and nothing in me wants to wake up right there.

But that gives me 30 more seconds of running to get to the coffee maker where I can, in a moment of clarity, lift up my head and say, I'm this is good.

I've got to get to God's word.

It's so easy, you know, when the alarm goes off, it's so easy just to hit snooze.

Give yourself more time.

My prayer is that next week we come back and like 30 people are like, there's coffee all over my floor on Wednesday.

I have done that time.

If you look at my coffee maker, it is a m- underneath back wall, it's a mess.

I've done it time and time again.

Fight, yeah, close the door, close the door.

Make it easy to obey in righteousness, make it hard to sin.

Yemala deals seriously with sin, throws out the garbage, he slams the door.

Thirdly, I want you to see this.

We need to root out sin and beat it to death.

Root out sin.

Beat it to death.

That's the best outline.

Says the same thing as the other two, doesn't it?

Verse 25.

Nehemiah takes drastic, violent action against sin.

Our modern 21st day, 21st century ears feel that when Nehemiah beats people up, pulls their hair, it's extreme and even unnecessary.

Now let me be clear.

There is no application in here about pulling anybody's hair.

However, the principle here is crucial for you and I.

We do not take sin seriously enough.

Nehemiah's actions, they point us forward to Christ, who also emphasize the severity of sin.

Jesus shocked his hearers in Matthew 5 29.

To 30, he said that we ought to take sin so seriously that we'd be willing to cut off our hand or gadge out our eye if they caused us to sin.

Now, Jesus wasn't uh advocating for literal mutilation.

What he was saying is that we must take drastic measures in the fight against sin.

Why does Nehemiah take sin so seriously?

He tells us in verse 26, look what he says in verse 26 with me.

Get your eyes on the scripture here.

Did not Solomon, king of Israel, sin on account of such women?

Nehemiah knows Scripture.

And he looks back at the life of Solomon and he recognizes that this sin that is now in Jerusalem was the very same sin that Solomon struggled with, and it was the sin that led to the downfall of his kingdom.

Solomon had a divided love.

Scripture says this about Solomon.

Look at 1 Kings 3:3.

1 Kings 3:3

This is gonna come up on the screen.

Solomon loved the Lord.

At the beginning of his reign, Solomon loved the Lord, and everything was going well for him when the singular devotion of his heart was a love for the Lord.

But everything fell apart when his affections shifted.

And in 1 Kings 11, verse 1, it says this now King Solomon loved many foreign women.

1 Kings 11:1

Solomon's downfall came not from an outright rebellion, but from a misplaced love.

The affection that should have been reserved for the Lord was given not to God, but to these women.

Now Nehemiah sees the same sin alive in Jerusalem.

It's threatening to destroy the people, and he knows that the real danger isn't his own wrath or his physical actions like pulling hair.

The real danger that confronts you and confronts me is the wrath of God against sin.

That's why Nehemiah says in verse 27, Shall we listen to you and do all this great evil and act treacherously against our God by marrying foreign women?

He sees the danger clearly.

Sin, if it's left unchecked, will provoke righteous, God's righteous judgment.

And you and I, when we have the proper perspective, it's true of our own lives.

The worst consequence of our sin is not the personal pain it brings, it's not even the harm that it does to others.

Though those are significant, the worst part of our sin is that it offends a holy God.

Remember David when he sins with Bathsheba.

I mean, it was this horrific sin.

He sins against Bathsheba.

He orchestrates the murder of Uriah.

It is the downfall of his kingdom.

Things would never be the same in Israel again.

And yet, when David finally repents in Psalm 51, what does he say?

Against you and you only have I sinned.

Is that true?

No.

David has sinned against all sorts of people.

But the reality is that in light of sinning against God, the Father, all those other things do not matter.

Suppose for a moment that you went to the Toronto Zoo this afternoon and you're looking into the lion pit.

I don't even know if they have lions, but for the sake of the illustration, they do have lions, okay?

And you're looking into the lion pit and curiosity gets the better of you, and you fall over into the lion pit and you stand up.

Now, in that moment, what is going through your mind?

I can tell you what's not going through your mind.

I can tell you that in that moment you are not worried about your knee pain.

In that moment, you are not worried about the sniffle that you came into the zoo with.

In that moment, there is one thing that you are terrified of.

It is the lion.

And who is the lion?

The lion is God.

It is the prophet Hosea who says, They shall go after the Lord.

He will roar like a lion.

When he roars, his children shall come trembling from the west.

The roaring voice of God comes through Scripture and it commands reverence and awe, and his children come trembling before him.

Do you realize that the greatest eternal danger that you face is the wrath of God?

There is coming a day where the lion will devour those who oppose him.

Hosea prophesies this again for I will be like a lion to Ephraim and like a young lion to the house of Judah.

I, even I, will tear and go away, I will carry off, and no one shall rescue you.

There is a danger that is so great that nothing will be able to save you from.

It is the danger of having to pay for your own sins.

It is the danger of being an enemy to the Lion of Judah when he returns.

In light of that, we look at the reality of what Nehemiah does and we admit this that it is nothing in comparison to what these people will face if they if they don't find salvation in their sins.

What do you and I do?

You and I stand in this story, not as Nehemiah, but as the Israelites.

You and I have compromised on faith.

You and I have wrestled with complacency, maybe even now.

You and I have pursued convenience at times over the Lord.

So what do we do?

We beat ourselves into submission to pay for our sins?

You know, these Israelites were not the only Israelites that were beaten.

In fact, in 400 years, the script would be reversed, and one who is greater than Nehemiah would come to Israel, but he would do something different than Nehemiah when he came to Israel.

His approach would not be to come for judgment, he would come for salvation.

And instead of doing the beating, when Jesus came, he was beaten himself.

Paul says of Jesus, he became sin who knew no sin.

And when Jesus took on our sin, he also took the penalty of it.

The physical beating that he would face at the hands of the Israelites was nothing compared to the wrath of God that would be poured out on him.

You know what's interesting that when Jesus is on the cross, what does he cry about?

He doesn't say, Oh man, the beating really hurt.

He doesn't say, This crown of thorns in my head is killing me.

He doesn't say the nails in my hands are excruciatingly painful.

What does he say?

There's one pain that is on his mind.

It is this.

He says, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Because the wrath of God in that moment was being poured out on him.

Jesus was forsaken so that by faith you might be accepted.

He was beaten so that you and I, though we stand here condemned with the Israelites, we don't have to be punished.

And so I asked you this question this morning: Is your faith in Jesus Christ?

There is a day coming where the lion will return again.

But if your faith is in Jesus Christ, I want you to understand, you will rejoice in that day.

It says in John, John says this in Revelation 5 5, weep no more.

Behold, the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has conquered.

Nehemiah ends with these words.

You see them there.

Remember me, O my God, for good.

Many have lamented this ending.

This is the final words before the New Testament.

The voice of a prophet would not be heard again in Israel for 400 years, but then one day a voice would be heard.

It was the voice of John the Baptist.

And when John the Baptist speaks, Nehemiah's prayer is answered.

The people of Israel are remembered.

And John the Baptist says this Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

The lion and the lamb is Jesus Christ.

And he alone is the one who can fulfill every longing heart.

He alone is the one who can satisfy God's justice.

So this morning we turn to him and worship.

Would you pray with me?

Father, we thank you for Jesus.

That we have never brought the intensity to our pursuit of righteousness that Nehemiah brought when he returned to Jerusalem.

And God, I pray in this moment, even by the power of your Holy Spirit, God, that you would be stirring up this desire to take sin seriously this week.

And yet, Lord, I pray that you would stir up this worship in our hearts.

That says this, Lord, that there is nothing to fear.

That though we are sinful like the Israelites, Christ was being so that we can have life.