Sept. 15, 2024: Message: Weary Yet Godly | Scripture: Nehemiah 5 | Speaker: Pastor Stephen Choy
Worship Songs: Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing | It Is Well | I Know Who Holds The Future | Speak O Lord
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Introduction
Please stand as I read to you from Nehemiah 5. TWoL: 1 Now there arose a great outcry of the people and of their wives against their Jewish brothers. 2 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.” 3 There were also those who said, “We are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards, and our houses to get grain because of the famine.” 4 And there were those who said, “We have borrowed money for the king’s tax on our fields and our vineyards. 5 Now our flesh is as the flesh of our brothers, our children are 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.”
6 I was very angry when I heard their outcry and these words. 7 I took counsel with myself, and I brought charges against the nobles and the officials. I said to them, “You are exacting interest, each from his brother.” And I held a great assembly against them 8 and said to them, “We, as far as we are able, have bought back our Jewish brothers who 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. 9 So I said, “The thing that you are doing is not good. Ought you not to walk in the fear of our God to prevent the taunts of the nations our enemies? 10 Moreover, I and my brothers and my servants are lending them money and grain. Let us abandon this exacting of interest. 11 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.” 12 Then they said, “We will restore these and require nothing from them. We will do as you say.” And I called the priests and made them swear to do as they had promised. 13 I also shook out the fold1 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 out and emptied.” And all the assembly said “Amen” and praised the LORD. And the people did as they had promised.
14 Moreover, from the time that I was appointed to be their governor in the land of Judah, from the twentieth year to the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes the king, twelve years, neither I nor my brothers ate the food allowance of the governor. 15 The former governors who were before me laid heavy burdens on the people and took from them for their daily ration2 forty shekels3 of silver. Even their servants lorded it over the people. But I did not do so, because of the fear of God. 16 I also persevered in the work on this wall, and we acquired no land, and all my servants were gathered there for the work. 17 Moreover, there were at my table 150 men, Jews and officials, besides those who came to us from the nations that were around us. 18 Now what was prepared at my expense4 for each day was one ox and six choice sheep and birds, and every ten 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. 19 Remember for my good, O my God, all that I have done for this people.
We’re in our third week of our mini-series in Nehemiah 4-6 asking the question, “What is the Christian life like?” And I’m going to jump straight into how our text answers us today because I know I’m going to run out of time. The past two weeks, we’ve been seeing the Christian life consist of outward struggle, and our ability through God’s sovereignty to overcome. But this week, we move inward, and we see that when the devil strikes from within and threatens to undo everything that we’ve worked so hard to build up, the Christian fears God more than we fear failure. We fear God more than we fear what the world thinks of us. We fear God more than saving face and keeping our honour and pride intact.
This is what Nehemiah 5 proclaims to us, and this is what I want us to unpack in our time together beginning with what we see in verses 1-5. Fear God more than you fear failure by listening intently.
1) Listen Intently
To get at what I mean by listening intently, we need to know what’s going on in our passage. Nehemiah and the Jews have done good work thus far. They’ve unified themselves, set up a strong and protective garrison, they’ve already built up half the wall—everything seems to be going well. The people of God are exercising their gifts to fulfill their duties within the purposes of God.
But as Nehemiah calls them to vigilant watching and working—telling everyone to stay within the walls of Jerusalem, guarding by night and labouring by day—he begins to hear of a disturbance. In fact, we’re told that it’s a great disturbance or outcry not only by the men who are working but also by their wives. It turns out that, since many of these men live and have jobs outside of Jerusalem, their constant dedication to the wall has resulted in their neglect of their household duties and needs.
In addition to this unintentional neglect of the husbands towards their homes, there seems to be a few other factors exacerbating the need of the Jews. The first is that there is a famine in the land that’s been ongoing for quite some time, and the second is that the king’s taxes were extremely burdensome on the people—a tax that was likely taking upwards of sixty to seventy percent of everything that the people were reaping and harvesting daily. This isn’t to mention the fact that these Jews were already at a great disadvantage having lost all their historical wealth in their exile under the Babylonians.
So, what are the Jews doing in response? They’re scrounging and scraping to have just enough to survive. They’re begging their Judean neighbours for anything that they can give them, and these neighbours aren’t the friendliest or most generous in their response. Some of these neighbours—people who are, themselves, Jewish—outrightly deny the sharing of their resources. Others are requiring that these needy families mortgage what little property they have at staggering, unrealistic interest rates. And still others—those who had loaned their resources, and who were seeking to collect—they do so by requiring the sons and daughters of these mortgagors—of these destitute Jews—to become debt-slaves.
And here’s what we learn from this: the reason why these people were doing such terrible things to each other—people who were supposed to be brothers and sisters in the family of God is because they had forgotten how to fear God—they had forgotten how to revere him as their provision—as their support—as their help in times of need. They, both those in need and those in positions to give, found their fear not in God but in their destitution or in their plenty. They feared not having enough or losing what they had as if these things were from themselves, or as if these enemies of theirs could take it all away.
But if you remember, for those of you who have been here since the beginning of this great book, in chapter 1, Nehemiah learns about the plight of Israel—that its walls have been burned down, and what does he do? He doesn’t go first to Artaxerxes, and he doesn’t rail against the helplessness of the Jews. He prays. He prays in chapter 1, verse 11, “O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant (listen to me), and to the prayer of your servants (why?) [Because we] delight to fear your name and [because we fear you,] give success to [us] today.”
This is the driving center of the entire book—that God listens and gives favour to those who fear him—that God will not forsake those who delight to serve, revere, worship, honour him in the majesty of his person, power, and position—that we not only know that he is God, and we are not, but that we actually live in light of that fact. The fear of God isn’t some action we’re called to do, it’s a posture—it’s a response. It’s how we are when we finally grasp who he is and how he’s revealed himself to us.
Proverbs 1 says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and what is wisdom? Wisdom is understanding. Wisdom is getting it. All of wisdom literature asks one question: do you get it? And if you don’t get it—if you don’t see the purpose behind anything that you do, then the way that you start to get it is by fearing the Lord—the God of Israel—by humbling yourself before him more than anyone or anything else.
It is because Nehemiah fears the Lord that he can listen intently—humbly without fearing his own destitution or reputation. And he listens not only to the people who are in need, but more importantly, to the heart and will of his God. Before anything, we’re called to listen intently to our God first because he established a relationship with you and listens to you. This is the heart of Christianity—the fear of God is meant to bring us into the everlasting, unmerited, unhindered love of God—the all-satisfying joy of God—where we find our sufficiency in him more than in our circumstances!
When you have the fear of God and find him sufficient for you [that’s when] you are able to display his love and his concern in the right way towards his people by listening to them intently. It’s when you know God’s concern for sinners like you or like me—that he’s dealt kindly with our dead, sinful hearts—that you are then able to go and display concern, kindness, and care towards those who truly need it.
It’s easy to miss—unintentionally or intentionally—those who need us the most. In fact, what tends to be the case is that the more someone cries out, the more likely we’re to ignore it. Take for example my youngest son who is sleep training right now. He usually wakes up in the middle of the night with small, soft whimpers: “Dada? Mama?” which are really cute, but the longer we wait, the louder the Dada’s and the Mama’s become until they’re so loud that it’s annoying and impossible for either of us to sleep.
Nehemiah was in a socioeconomic class of his own in Jerusalem. He was the rich of the rich. He would have been predisposed or trained to deal well with wealthy men and women. Men like him would scoff at and ignore the lowly and destitute because in that day they were beneath the rich in every way—literally, the poor would serve as footstools for the proudest and most prestigious lords, masters, and kings.
But what separates Nehemiah from everyone else wasn’t his wealth. It was that his disposition—his foundation—his identity was grounded in the fact that God is God, and we are not. His whole life centered on fearing God. And this affected him not only in his desire, dedication, and deliberateness to pray and humble himself before that God, but it also affected him where, even for those most annoying, poorest, neediest souls, no complaint—no outcry of theirs was too great for him to condescend and go to them.
Church, in a world that does not understand why we would willingly and desperately forsake ourselves for the sake of one another and even for those who dislike us and accuse us of all sorts of nasty things—in a world that thinks we’re wasting our time or that Christianity is to our detriment, might we respond not in a fear of them or in a fear of how we might look like failures to them. Rather, might we respond with an intentionality—a humility to listen to our God as we turn to him in prayer and to his Word, and as we turn to each other in encouragement and exhortation towards greater holiness and Christlikeness.
Might we respond with a posture of fear before our God who loved us and gave up his Son in condescension to come to us when we were most poor, needy, and rebellious. Start, then, by listening intently to him and to one another because he has heard our great cry, and he has sought our good when we deserved death. He is great and greatly to be feared. Then, secondly, as you listen in the fear of God, let it move you into action as you defend righteously.
2) Defend Righteously
Perhaps the best effect of possessing a right fear of God is that the more we grow in that fear, the more we tend to emulate and display the character of God in our own lives. Those things that he delights in, we begin to delight in, and those things that he condemns, we, at least in our own lives and in our church, will tend to condemn.
And just so that we are clear with our terms, I want to define what Nehemiah and the biblical authors mean when they talk about the fear of God. There is one sense in which all humans should have a right fear of God that is like a dread or a terror of a prisoner that stands before his executioner. Every single one of us is called to this kind of fear in our sinfulness because it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living, holy, active God.
Yet, most who speak of godly fear aren’t speaking of this kind of dread and terror but a familial fear—the kind of fear that a child has for his father whom he so dearly wants to please and receive affection from because of how that father desires what is good for his child. A true fear of God, as one commentator puts it, is a fear of displeasing him because he is the source of all our security and love. The thought of losing that security or of being without that love is a terrible, unlivable, and wholly frightening reality to confront.
In other words, a proper fear of God is grounded in a relationship with God. The deeper and more intimate that relationship becomes, the more you tend to be like and defend the one you’re in a relationship with. We become like them. Just ask my wife. When we were dating, I was the deep introvert. She the extrovert. Now, I can tell you that she’s grown a lot more introverted, and she says that I’ve become a lot more extroverted.
So, when Nehemiah hears the words and the suffering that these destitute Israelites are facing and how advantageous their neighbours—other Jews—have been towards their need, he gets angry—righteously so, not only because these people should be helped, but because these are God’s people—his treasured possession. God has been maligned here, and Nehemiah is upset for God’s sake.
Because they are God’s treasured possession, Nehemiah sees them, also, as his treasured possession. See, how personal he makes this. He uses all the personal, possessive pronouns: ‘I,’ ‘We,’ ‘us,’ ‘our.’ And not only that but look at what he calls those whom he defends: he calls them ‘our brothers!’ How can we be doing this to our brothers?
So affected by this is Nehemiah that he stops everything. He stops the building of the wall. He stops the garrison patrols. He stops the brandishing of swords and shields, trusting and fearing God—that God is more zealous for his name amongst his people than the possibility of the surrounding enemies coming in and ransacking the place. He calls Israel to assembly, and he essentially tells them, “What good is it to have walls around us out there when we’re at each others’ throats in here? All we’re doing is containing the evil, when this place is meant to be a holy place—a God-fearing place.”
See, it makes no sense to sacrifice the people for the sake of the wall when the wall, itself, is for the sake of the people. As long as the people don’t get that, then the walls only act as a hindrance and a distraction—an excuse for the Israelites to think they’re safe when their destruction has never been closer at hand. It’s this that Nehemiah needs them to understand: their fear of God—their proper reverence for who God is and who his treasured possession is—is far more important than any threat—any possibility of failure that they might face in the world.
Having the proper heart and posture as the people of God who have been changed by the mercy and grace of God far outweighs all the pretence of piety that we want everyone to think we have. Nehemiah, himself, is an example for them as he pleads and confronts them: “I left a world of riches, wonder, and majesty, so that I can be with you—to build with you—to serve you. Why? Because my fear of God helps me understand how important you are to him.”
And this is what we need to get, brothers and sisters—that the people sitting beside you, in front of you, behind you—they are the treasured possession of God. They, not this building, not the clothes they’re wearing, not their level of education, not their income, not their nearness to you in terms of likeability or dislikeability—they and their hearts are the thing that God sent Jesus to die upon a cross for—to build with us—to serve us—to suffer infinite wrath for us—and to adopt us as his own. They are his treasure.
Will you not, then, defend God’s treasure with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength? When we talk about the one great commandment of Scripture, love the Lord your God, how is it that he calls you to love him? By protecting with all vigour and zeal and wisdom and hope the people that are in your midst because Christ not only died for them but he, now, resides in them. Possessing the right fear of God isn’t meant to limit you to a posture of reverence and awe; it’s meant to spring you into movement and action for the good of his people—for their holiness—for their eternal safety.
I love how C.S. Lewis puts it in his book The Screwtape Letters, as uncle Screwtape—a demon—is writing to his nephew, Wormwood, giving him advice about keeping his human patient from making any spiritual progress. This is what Screwtape says, “Keep his mind on the inner life. He thinks his conversion is something inside him, but as long as he does not convert it into action, it does not matter how much he thinks about this new life. Let him wallow in it, write a book about it … Guide him to do anything but act. No amount of piety in his imagination and affections will harm our cause if it is kept out of his will. The more often he feels without acting, the less he will ever be able to act, and in the long run, the less he will be able to feel.”
Church, the fear of God—the work of God in your life to reveal himself to you—is meant to move you to action—to defence—to confrontation where there is sin—to accountability where there is disunity—to effortful, and maybe even wearying exertion of self, for the sake of them who God loves. Fear God more than you fear failure by giving up your rights and life in defence of that which God sacrificed everything to save—you included, which leads us into our third and final point, as you listen intently and defend righteously in the fear of God, make sacrifices for one another affectionately.
3) Sacrifice Affectionately
The final verses from 14-19 are a parenthetical in the narrative of Nehemiah. Chapters 1-7 and 13 are Nehemiah’s diary or journal of his time in Jerusalem, and here in chapter 5, at the end, he puts an aside that is meant to be more like a secret between him and God. And what he tells us in this parenthesis is astounding because he reveals that for twelve years, he and all his servants take no salary. They take nothing of what they’re owed, and as governor, he’s owed a lot. He takes none of their silver. He takes none of their land. He eats none of their oxen or sheep. He drinks none of their wine.
And he doesn’t only resist taking from them because their burden from other Jews and from the king are too heavy, and he doesn’t go and simply keep to himself like wealthy, selfish governors would have done, but read what he says he does in verse 17: “Moreover, there were at my table 150 men, Jews and officials, besides those who came to us from the nations that were around us.” In other words, it was too much for his people to take care of him, so he takes on the expense and the burden himself, and he takes care of them.
Why? Because of the fear of God. Because of God’s love towards him, and his love for his people, Nehemiah is moved in his own love, affection, tender mercy, and lavish generosity to provide for their sakes.
Ann Judson was the wife of Adoniram Judson, together they were the first Baptist missionaries. They went to a place called Burma—modern day Myanmar. And their life was hard—harder than I have time to describe. But perhaps the most gripping part of Ann’s story was while Adoniram was held captive in a Rangoon death prison having been accused of spying for the English.
These prisons were no joke. People were executed day and night. They were made to march without water and with weighted fetters attached to their ankles for hours each day in 130 plus degree weather. At night, their legs were lifted so that the only part of their body touching the ground was their shoulders and head. Hundreds of men were boxed into one tiny room at once.
And yet, more remarkable than Adoniram’s suffering and survival was what his wife endured for his sake. It was during this time that Ann would petition the Burmese government at the risk of her own life, every single day, for the release of all missionary prisoners. She would walk four miles to and from their small home in blistering heat not just to petition but carrying with her food and drink that she reserved solely for her husband and friends—taking none of it herself in case there wasn’t enough.
She did this while pregnant. She did this almost entirely in the dark so that she could hide her presence from the prison guards and from rapists and robbers. She did this while also caring for two other little girls who were the daughters of another prisoner that the Judson’s didn’t personally know. She’d feed them. Teach them. Nurture them. Eight months after Adoniram’s imprisonment, she gave birth to Maria who she carried in the pain of recent birth to the prison so that her daughter could meet her father from afar—knowing that Adoniram’s eyes would have been so bad that he wouldn’t truly be able to see her.
When Adoniram was forced on what was called a death march from one death prison to the other, Ann followed them every step carrying their baby, some possessions, and guiding these two other girls. She became so ill that she couldn’t feed Maria and had to go around in her illness to ask other nursing mothers in nearby towns if they could feed her baby.
She tells us in her own words how miserable all this was: “O, how many, many times, have I returned from that dreary prison at nine o’clock at night, solitary, and worn out with fatigue and anxiety, and yet, when I returned, I endeavoured to invent some new scheme for the release of the prisoners. My prevailing opinion was that my husband would suffer a violent death, and I should, of course, become a slave, and languish out a miserable though short existence in the tyrannic hands of some unfeeling monster.
But the consolation of religion, in these trying circumstances, were neither few nor small. It taught me to look beyond this world, to that rest, that peaceful happy rest, where Jesus reigns, and oppression never enters.” She died shortly after these events too weak and weary to carry on at the age of thirty-six.
What in this life is your consolation—in what do you find your hope in life and death, church? What do you love enough to act for it? Who is precious enough to you that you might risk your life, wealth, health, and happiness for them? Matthew Henry gives us the only answer that we need today: if men forget me, let my God think on me, and I desire no more. His thoughts usward are our happiness.
I don’t imagine Nehemiah received a lot of accolades for his sacrifice from those whom he served. I also don’t imagine that he loved construction, or that he really enjoyed seeing his personal wealth drained to near bankruptcy. I don’t imagine he loved feeding 150 plus people on a daily basis for twelve straight years.
But what I do imagine and know is that he loved his God, that he loved his people, and that he feared his Maker with every ounce of his being. All that he does, he does to please his Lord. All that he cared about was what God thought of him. This is how he ends his parenthesis, isn’t it? “Remember for my good, O my God, all that I have done for this people,” and we know that God does remember because Psalm 147 tells us: the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him.
Nehemiah isn’t resigned to this life. He doesn’t sacrifice himself and his well-being begrudgingly. He’s not someone to be pitied. No, he does it with a deep affection. He does it with a great joy. And he does it because he knows and fears his God. So, might we follow his example and the example of our Lord and Saviour who is even greater, whatever the cost, by giving ourselves to serve the people of God and the people who still need God. Might we fear our God more than we fear any failure that this world brings us to suffer—for our consolation is in that peaceful, happy rest where Jesus reigns and oppression never enters.
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