Nehemiah: Problems Inside: Pastor Drew Webb, Nehemiah 5:1-12

The

morning I would like to ask you to go ahead and turn to Nehemiah chapter 5.

Nehemiah 5 · chapter mention

We'll be in chapter 5 this morning as we continue our series through the book of Nehemiah.

As we just kind of fly over it pretty quickly here before we reach the

Advent season in a few short weeks. It's not too far away.

If you're using one of our Bibles there in front of you, it is found on page 491, Nehemiah chapter 5.

Nehemiah 5 · chapter mention

Now, God had called the people to rebuild Jerusalem and the walls,

and these people were acting in obedience.

Yet, they were facing significant challenges even in the midst of their obedience.

Now, when God calls, He will certainly provide,

but just because He has called, that doesn't mean we won't have trials.

Scripture doesn't guarantee that we won't have trials.

It actually says that we can be sure that in this world, we will have trials.

So last week we saw a set of challenges that Nehemiah was facing.

There was the threat of attacks from Sanballah and Tobiah.

Nehemiah was also kind of serving as the military commander,

working to protect the inhabitants of Jerusalem as they performed their work.

He's also the foreman. He's overseeing the rebuilding of the walls,

and now he puts on his governor hat,

and he turns to addressing the issue of an economic crisis.

Things are looking pretty bleak for Jerusalem,

and the people were on the verge of losing hope.

So that's where we find ourselves this morning as we enter Nehemiah chapter 5.

Nehemiah 5 · chapter mention

This morning I'd like to invite River Rhys to go ahead and come on up and read our passage for us.

Nehemiah chapter 5 verses 1 through 12.

Nehemiah 5:1–12

Now there arose a great outcry of people and of their wives against their Jewish brothers,

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, and our houses,

to get grain because of the famine.

And there were those who said, we have borrowed money for the king's tax on our fields and our vineyards.

Now our flesh is as the flesh of our brothers and children, as our as their children.

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

and some of our daughters have already been enslaved,

but it is not in our power to help it.

For other men have our fields and our vineyards.

I was very angry when I heard their outcry,

and these words I took counsel with myself and I brought charges against the nobles and the officials.

I said to them, you are exciting, exciting interests,

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 back our Jewish brothers

and have been sold to the nations, but you even sell your brothers that they may be sold to us.

They were silent and could not find a word to say.

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

Out you not to walk in the fear of our God to prevent the taunts of the nations of our enemies.

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

Let us abandon this exciting of interests.

I turn to them, this is very day their fields, houses and percentage of money, grain, wine and oil,

that you have been exciting from them.

Then they said, we will restore these and require nothing from them.

We will do as you say and I call the Greeks and made them swear to do as they promised.

Father God, we thank you for River, we thank you for his humble spirit, his meek manner.

We thank you for his dedication and his love for you and his willingness to stand up here and read your word.

God, would you bless him all the days of his life as he continues to just grow in you.

We just thank you for him. In Jesus' name, amen.

You may be seated.

Now, Nehemiah's leadership is really put to the test here.

In one sense, dealing with the threats from San Balot and Tobiah and Geshem was a little bit easier in one sense.

An outside threat, you see, keeps people singularly focused.

Everyone had the same mind and that was to keep the enemy at bay.

They had unity in their purpose.

As we arrive in chapter five, things have changed and now the threat is internal.

This is potentially even more dangerous than the external threats.

See, problems from inside our own ranks serve to divide in.

They can render us ineffective.

There is a conflict if left unchecked can rip a ministry or a church apart.

People start taking up sides and causes and then the next thing you know, there's a schism in the church.

So this week we see Nehemiah addressing four issues that could cause this whole rebuilding campaign to go sideways.

The first issue that Nehemiah faced was a food shortage.

Now, there were so many people to feed now, it says in that chapter.

There were so many people to feed now and this along with the famine conditions caused a serious food shortage.

Now, if you stop and think about it, a food shortage doesn't only impact their stomachs.

It impacts the economy as well.

If you think about supply and demand and how supply and demand works, as supply goes up, then the cost of the product, or in this case, food, goes down.

As the supply of product goes down, as the supply of food goes down, scarcity is created and in turn the cost of the product rises.

Prices had gone up so much that people just couldn't afford it.

So this led to the second problem.

You have the food shortage, which leads to them mortgaging their possessions.

In order for the Jews to be able to afford food or grain, they began mortgaging their fields, their vineyards, and even their homes.

I can't imagine food being so expensive you have to take out a loan in order to be able to eat.

But that was their reality.

Just trying to survive could potentially lead to them losing everything they had.

It could have impacted their ability to even grow food and have further revenue in the future.

And then on top of that, there's another issue.

They have to pay taxes.

They're trying to pay taxes and there's also exploitative lending that is going on.

Now it's important to remind ourselves how these Jews landed in Jerusalem.

Now remember, these people were actually enslaved in Persia.

When they had been purchased, their freedom had been purchased while they were in slavery in Persia.

Their freedom had been purchased and they were allowed to return to Jerusalem to resettle Jerusalem and begin the process of rebuilding.

But though they were nearly a thousand miles from Persia, they still were considered citizens of the Medo-Persian Empire

and as such, they had to render taxes to King Artexerxes.

There was no way around paying their taxes so people who didn't want to mortgage their property,

if they didn't want to take out the second loan, they didn't want to mortgage their homes, their fields and their vineyards,

they were borrowing money from their brothers in order to be able to pay their debt to King Artexerxes.

Now borrowing is hard enough, but the problem was made even worse by the fact that their own Jewish brothers

were exacting interest on these loans.

Now sure, under the Persian law they could do this, but under God's law exacting interest was prohibited.

Deuteronomy 2319 says, you shall not charge interest on loans to your brother.

Also, to make matters worse, the officials were engaged in exploitative lending practices.

They were utilizing particularly high interest rates.

This is the kind of like maybe today's payday loans or something like that.

These are loans where rates of 10 to 30% are not uncommon.

So the people of Jerusalem were taking on these kinds of loans just so they could pay their tax bill.

Now, lest we think that it's absurd that they would do this, I would suggest we should stop and consider our own situations, our own culture.

Our culture here in the U.S. is driven by similar practices, I believe.

The average American has $8,700 in credit card debt.

Did you catch that? $8,700 in credit card debts.

I used an online calculator and by putting in a balance of $8,500 with an interest rate of 18.99%, which is not unusual for a credit card,

I found out that a payment of $100 a month will literally never pay off that loan.

I got back a warning that said this loan cannot be paid off.

Increasing the monthly payment to $150, it'll take 12 years to pay nearly $22,000 on an $8,500 loan.

It would take you, if you take out an $8,500 loan, it would take you 12 years to pay $22,000.

That is horrible.

That's exploitative lending, if you will, happening in our very own culture.

And it's considered acceptable, right?

Maybe we didn't finance actual food or taxes on that loan, but nonetheless, you can see that it's using a loan to buy something that someone simply cannot afford.

Incidentally, the other day, I got a call. I get calls all the time about all sorts of junk. It's great.

But I got a call and they're like, hey, we have this program. We want to help you out with all your credit card debt.

And I responded. I just said, well, I don't have any.

And he says, well, are you sure, buddy? Like, trying to question, no, you're like missing something.

And I was like, no, I'm sure I don't have any credit card debt.

And I think he quickly realized he was talking to the wrong person and wasn't going to be able to scam me.

But I love those people. They're just trying to be so helpful, aren't they?

I just want to say, how do you live with yourself? Because I know you're not actually trying to help people.

You're trying to scam them into some sort of system.

But I was nice.

So now the situation, there's a scarcity of food. People are having to mortgage their properties to buy food and they're borrowing money to pay their taxes.

Clearly they're running out of money. So how in their world are they going to be able to pay off their debts?

There's seemingly no end in sight. But yet some people, they came up with a solution.

Slavery.

Slavery turned to slavery. It's no secret that slavery is quite a lucrative business.

For thousands of years forced labor has been a favorite tactic of evil people all around the world.

And children as well are quite capable so enslaving them can be highly profitable.

But really, how could someone do this? How could you arrive at the conclusion that selling your children into slavery is the solution to your problems?

Like how do you even sleep at night when you do this?

Right now there are an estimated 50 million people around the world being trafficked.

Trafficking generates around 150 billion per year.

150 billion dollars a year is generated through trafficking.

With two-thirds of that around 100 billion coming from sexual exploitation.

Particularly reprehensible sectors of human trafficking involve children and subject them to utterly horrific work conditions in situations that no one should ever see.

The same thing was true of them. That was true of them.

It's true today. Slavery is a horrifically wicked practice.

Now imagine you're the governor and this is your context. Morales Lowell, there are very real threats from outside threats on your safety.

But there are also these issues brewing inside your camp. Brothers are turning against each other.

They're lacking for food. Their children may well be gone for good.

And you might lose your home.

This creates a particularly difficult situation for Nehemiah. So how should he lead the people through these problems?

It's a difficult time to navigate.

So what was his response? His response?

He was ticked. He was angry. He was angered at all the injustice and exploitation of the poor.

His colleagues, this was the officials and the nobles. He's one of them.

He's not just some low working class person. He is a noble. His colleagues, the officials were exacting interests.

They were acting in selfish manners. They were taking advantage of the less fortunate.

They were capitalizing on the misfortunes of the poor and Nehemiah was justifiably angry.

Now we should commend Nehemiah here because he didn't simply turn a blind eye to what he saw and say,

I'm just one person in the midst of all these people here in Jerusalem. What can I do?

No, he took notice and he acted. You might have heard of this thing called compassion fatigue.

It's possible you may have experienced it before.

When we see so many bad things happening around us, then it creates a sort of indifference in us.

We have compassion that first time we see a picture of all the hurricane damage.

We might even have a little bit of compassion the second time we see something similar

or the third time we see something like that.

But the more we are exposed to the tragedy, we begin to become indifferent to it and we become numb.

And when this happens, our compassion begins to wane.

But that wasn't Nehemiah. Nehemiah didn't just settle and say, that's how it's going to be.

He was angry and he acted.

I'm going to guess that for most of us. When we respond to situations in anger,

we're most likely to respond in the flesh.

We act impulsively and we do or say something stupid, but that is not what Nehemiah did.

So how did Nehemiah deal with his anger? How did he deal with this righteous, valid indignation that he had?

First of all, he consulted himself. He consulted himself. He says, self?

Here's the issue. The construction on the wall is still ongoing. The people are physically and emotionally exhausted.

Now there's a famine and a financial crisis making things worse.

Self? What should we do in this situation?

Nehemiah demonstrated significant self-control to be able to stop,

to not act on any impulsive actions in this moment,

not act in his anger, but to stop and think and consider what is actually needed in this situation.

An angry, impulsive response would have most likely only worsened the situation.

But Nehemiah shows impeccable restraints and character here by pausing to reflect.

Thomas Jefferson said, when angry, count to ten before you speak.

And if very angry, then count to one hundred.

I'm going to guess Nehemiah probably needed to count to a hundred.

He was enraged by this huge chasm that was growing between the people and the abusive practices of the wealthy elite officials.

The rich were getting richer off the backs of the poor who were losing everything they had.

Nehemiah saw it and he was angered because God hates the abuse of people and he hates disunity in their ranks.

So Nehemiah first consults himself.

He saddens himself down, got control of his emotions and thought through what to do.

And then he decided that he needed to confront their sin.

He confronted their sin.

Verse seven read, I brought charges against the nobles and officials.

These are his friends.

He's going to his friends, his colleagues and he's saying, you guys are doing this.

He confronted them and says, you're hurting your own relatives by charging interest when they are borrowing money from you.

I love how bold he is.

He knows that if he doesn't handle this thing right, everything in Jerusalem could go south.

The famine would increase, people could die and the rebuilding project could come to a halt.

But he's bold enough.

He's bold enough to step into the situation and hit the problem straight on.

As part of this, he also addressed contradictions in their actions.

And verse eight, he wrote, we, as far as we are able, have brought back our Jewish brothers who have been sold to the nations.

But you even sell your brothers that they may be sold to us.

Their response, they were silent.

They had nothing to say.

These nobles and officials, you see, they had done something great.

They'd used their own money to buy people out of slavery in Persia.

They bought them out of slavery so that they could come to Jerusalem, resettle Jerusalem, and engage in this project of rebuilding.

But now, they were making them slaves of sort by repossessing their property and even selling their children back into slavery.

This made absolutely no sense.

And Nehemiah knew it, so he confronted them and they simply had no response to his charges.

No defense that they could make would make any sense.

So he confronted them.

But you see, confrontation isn't something that should be entered into lightly.

I certainly hope that you don't enjoy confronting people.

I hate to confront people.

It's the type of thing that I'll put off until I absolutely know that God is calling me to step into this area and confront someone.

Confronting someone's behavior can be risky, so it's important for us to do it properly in order to maintain unity.

That's the purpose.

The first thing when it comes to confrontation is, I need to confront myself.

We need to confront ourselves.

We need to look inward.

Am I confronting someone's tiny issue while I have a glaring, obvious issue?

Myself?

Matthew 7, verses 3 through 5.

Matthew 7:3–5

And why worry about a speck in your friend's eye when you have a log in your own?

How can you think of saying to your friend, let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye when you can't see past the log in your own eye?

Hypocrites, first get rid of the log in your own eye, then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend's eye.

I'm also reminded of Paul's words in Galatians chapter 6 where he gives us another word of caution when it comes to confronting someone.

Galatians 6 · chapter mention

He says, dear brothers and sisters, if another believer is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path.

Be careful not to fall into the same temptation yourself.

So when it comes to confronting, to addressing a sin issue or an offense, we first need to examine ourselves.

And then, if God has shown us that we need to, we do need to confront someone, we need to confront quickly.

We need to do it soon.

Putting it off for months can be horrible.

When you put it off, then it may actually cause you to find yourself stewing over this offense,

starting to think things about that person that maybe aren't true.

Or by putting it off, you might find that in an interaction, suddenly you just explode and all over them, everything comes out.

And when this happens, it's most likely not in a manner that is honoring to them or to God.

As a child, the definition I learned for obedience was this.

Obedience is doing what you're told to do right away and with the right heart attitude.

Well, if God calls you to confront somebody, then you need to be obedient and you need to do it right away.

Don't delay because if you do delay, then it may cause you to have the wrong heart attitude.

Next, give them the benefits of the doubt.

Give them the benefit of the doubt.

Now, if you're confronting a known sin, something that is not up for dispute, you already know this is a fact.

The sin is a fact.

If you're confronting a known sin, then this doesn't apply here, per se.

But if you give someone the benefit of the doubt, it will help you by withholding accusation and instead begin with clarification.

Asking good questions will often bring about clarity to situations.

If I'm unsure about a situation, I get the sense that maybe a relationship with somebody just feels a little weird.

Then something I like to do is I actually like to go to them and I say,

Hey, I have the feeling that something isn't right between us. Have I done something to offend you?

I start there and this helps promote conversation and it allows that person to, first of all, if they do have an issue with me,

it allows them to open up and to say what their issue is with me.

And it also helps us engage in dialogue and through that process, they may even decide to own up to their part in the situation.

So give them the benefit of the doubt, withhold judgment, withhold criticism, till we know facts and what's going on.

Next, separate the person from the action.

Separate the person from the action. The person is not their actions. That is not their identity.

I'm a believer in Christ and I sin, but sin is not my identity.

Be sure that you are addressing the actions and behaviors that you see, not the person.

I know this can seem like a small distinction, but when we level our attention at the action, it goes a lot farther than if we are focusing on the person and tearing them down.

Lastly, avoid inflammatory language. Don't ever use speech like you always or you never. Don't ever do it.

Thank you.

Now I have to admit, I'm prone to doing this. My wife's nodding at my... Yes, thank you.

Yeah, I'm good at doing this. If I have a criticism or something, I might say, you always, da-da-da, or you never do this thing.

You know what? I am not helping the situation when I do that.

So don't use this inflammatory language and speak in extremes.

When we do this, when we speak this way, it's essentially communicating, you can't do anything right.

And this can contribute to a sense of hopelessness. And remember, the goal of our confrontation is actually correction and restoration, not tearing them down.

And lastly, affirm the person. I have to admit that when I'm confronted, it can be easy for me to fall into shame and depression.

I start to think, I just can't seem to do anything right. Why would anyone love me or want to be around me or want to be my friend?

And this is bad thinking, of course, but you can help the other person when you affirm them.

You're not condoning, we are not condoning bad or sinful behavior. Get that. Bad or sinful behavior is still that, so we're not condoning that.

You may have heard of sandwich technique, though.

You can start with something positive about the person, then you can address the area that needs correction, and then you can finish with another thing that is positive.

Doing this can help them. Sure, it's usually quite difficult to receive correction.

But when you start with a positive and end with a positive, something that is affirming, then it can make it a bit easier to not feel completely demoralized.

So Nehemiah first consulted himself, then he confronted their sin, and now what does he do?

He calls for correction. He commanded correction of the situation. He's not just confronting the sin and saying, you did this, you're doing these things.

He's saying, you're doing these things. Now you need to stop and you need to fix the situation.

Verses 10 through 11, read, I and my brothers and my servants are lending them money and grain.

Let us abandon 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.

Nehemiah told his colleagues, they all needed to stop this abuse.

They needed to stop lending with interest. They needed to return all the property and they needed to return any grain, wine, or olive oil that they were demanding as payment.

They needed to stop now.

He wasn't interested in waiting around even a few days or a week.

He was serious about making things right immediately.

Nehemiah's decision to confront them and call for correction was powerful and it quickly yielded the desired results.

The people said, yes, this is the work of the Spirit. Sometimes when someone is confronted, they make excuses for their behavior or they just flat out refuse and argue that, hey, that's fine.

Don't worry about it. It's fine. It's not a problem. I'm not hurting anybody or something like that.

No, not these nobles and officials. They agreed with Nehemiah and they said that they would immediately stop asking for interest on loans and they would return everything.

You see, once this happened,

they begin to gain unity among their ranks.

And once they had unity, nothing was going to stop them. They did what they said they would do.

Things turned around and the people completed the wall in 52 days.

This project had been going on for years.

It had been going on for years and suddenly it's done in 52 days because they have unity.

Internal problems are inevitable, but those problems don't have to cause division and undermine our unified efforts.

If we're faithful to do what Nehemiah did, meaning to consult ourselves,

to confront problems when we see problems that need to be addressed,

and then encourage correction of the situation,

then we can walk in unity as brothers and sisters in the body.

Let's bow our heads and close our eyes.

This morning as we close our time,

the goal this morning is that this message is not just something theoretical that we think, oh, this doesn't apply to me.

But that we would look at ourselves and see how this might apply.

We would look inwardly and we would see, first of all,

is there a relationship of mind that is strained?

Is there a relationship that I need to look at and go to that person and say,

first of all, have I done something?

Have I done something to hurt you, to offend you?

And if we have, we want to make that right with them,

not allow it to just sit there.

And then we need to think about,

is there someone that I've been holding a grudge against?

Do I have a bad attitude about somebody, a critical spirit?

Am I judging them? Am I judging their motives?

Am I holding something against somebody wrongly?

If I am, then I in turn need to go to them and confess that and say,

I'm sorry, will you forgive me?

This morning our desire is for unity in this body.

God, we seek to walk in unity with our brothers and sisters.

That doesn't mean we're all going to think the same things and walk exactly the same.

But God, our desire is to be pointed in the right direction together, walking hand in hand.

So we can push back the enemy and we can push your kingdom forward in this world.

So God, we thank you for your Holy Spirit's working, your presence, your power in each of us.

And would you continue your work in this body?

It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.