You Can't Run a Healthy Project With Hurting People
Tom Shrader examines Nehemiah 5, where the wall-building project faces internal crisis as wealthy Jews exploit their struggling brothers through usury and unfair lending practices. Nehemiah confronts this sin with righteous anger but careful restraint, leading the nobles and rulers to repent and make restitution. The teaching emphasizes that sin within God's people can halt His work more effectively than external opposition.
“What stops God's man, God's way, God's job, God's timing? One thing. Sin.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Just Do It (2010)
Recorded: 2010
Duration: 42 min
Themes: leadership, opposition, conflict, integrity, confrontation, repentance, justice, unity, facing internal conflict, confronting wrongdoing, church leader, business owner, dealing with exploitation, managing difficult people, parent, struggling with anger
Scripture: Nehemiah 5:1-13, Nehemiah 1:3-4, Exodus 22:25, Leviticus 25:35-40, Deuteronomy 23:19-20, Luke 12, 2 Corinthians 5:14, Colossians 1:10, Ephesians 1:4, Acts 13, 1 Corinthians, Matthew 5
Theological Themes: sin nature, righteous anger, church discipline, biblical leadership, sanctification, stewardship, ecclesiology, restoration
Full Transcript
If you have Bibles, open to the book of Nehemiah, chapter five. I really feel like I need to do a little reminder every week. If you keep in mind Nehemiah chapter 1, verses 3 and 4, that's where word comes to Nehemiah that the wall in Jerusalem has not been rebuilt. That's really not new news. For about 85 years, they've been trying to rebuild the wall. Zerubbabel tried it, Ezra tried it, but also the people are in distress. When Nehemiah hears this, he's overwhelmed. He begins to mourn and fast and pray.
That's the backdrop, and we'll keep this in front of you. Nehemiah senses at this moment that he will be part of what God's going to do to rebuild the wall. He has no specifics. He's not exactly sure what this is. He now becomes convinced that he is God's guy to tackle the project. He's going to do it in God's way, and he's going to do it in God's timing.
So important for us now to understand that just because you're God's person doing God's job, doing it God's way and doing it in God's time does not mean there won't be opposition or hardship in your life. That's what we saw last week. Last week, we saw two guys, Sanballat and Tobiah. They rallied the enemies. They mocked them.
When Opposition Comes from Within
What happens today is something a little bit different. Oftentimes, we really overlook this idea of adversity. Even if you say, "Okay, I get it. There's going to be adversity," you're always thinking external. If you read my emails, you would think that the enemy that God's most worried about is the ACLU, liberal left, and the media. Whatever you think about them, as you read through scripture, the constant warning is watch out for the enemy within. The person in the pulpit, the one who challenges the truth.
The same thing happens in a practical way here in Nehemiah's project. All of a sudden, this week, the challenge comes internally.
Leadership Lessons from Nehemiah
Let me remind you again, whenever we look at Nehemiah, almost always, it's in the context of Nehemiah as a leader. I don't think I ever gave you a definition of leader. Here's Webster's definition of leader: one who leads. He must have been in a hurry, and I didn't give that one a lot of thought.
You're a leader, all of you, in some capacity. It may be somebody who's at home with a couple of toddlers. You may be running a small business. You may be running a family. You may be running a big corporation. Doesn't matter. You're a leader. Simultaneously, you're a follower in some situations.
I feel really incompetent every week, but I really feel incompetent in this whole series to really apply the lessons. I'll give you some application, but you're going to have to do a little work and apply the nuances of this to your life. You're going to have to pull some of those things out. I'll try to help. It's so broad in its scope that you're going to have to narrow it down in your own life.
The Four-Part Structure of Crisis
On your outline, you'll see four sections. You'll see the problems that threatened the project and the people that created the problems and the plan that resolved the problems and then the promises to ratify the plan. We'll break down each one of these.
The problem that threatened the project: there were three of them that we find. The workers needed food. Some of the workers needed grain. Some of the workers needed money.
Three Critical Needs
We're in chapter five. Look at those very first few verses. "Now, there was a great outcry of the people and of their wives" - so now the wives are engaged, so now the problem, the tension accelerates here - "against their Jewish brothers." So there's the intramural nature of this.
"For there were those who said, we, our sons and our daughters are many. Therefore, let us get grain that we may eat." There were a group of them that have been cut out of the food part of this process. They did not receive the food that's necessary. They've stepped aside. Remember what's happened? They've, in a sense, put life on hold. It's almost like a wartime or a crisis model. They've put their lives on hold a bit, and now they've started this project. There's some of them who just have nothing left to eat. The wall's half built. That's where they are. And they've got issues.
Here's the second need: they need grain, but not to eat. It's literally seed money. It's to plant their crop. "There were others" - so that first group needed food - "who said, we're mortgaging our fields and our vineyards and our houses that we might gain grain because of famine." They're needing seed for planting.
There are people who just needed money. "Also, there are those who say, we've borrowed money for the king's tax on our fields and on our vineyards. Now, our flesh is like the flesh of our brothers, our children, like that of their children. Yet, behold, we're forcing our sons and daughters to be slaves, and some of our daughters are forced into bondage already, and we're helpless because of our fields and the vineyards belonging to others."
The Burden of Oppressive Taxation
There's one word in there that just sets me off a bit. You see the repressive nature of the taxes that are waged on these people. I went back because I wanted to make sure that I was bipartisan. I went back to listen to when I did this last time, George Bush was president, and I said roughly the same thing.
Let me just go off just a bit. You see the repressive nature of this on all levels. When you talk about tax, like the situation you're in right now, in a global economy like you have, Barry Asmus has a wonderful principle, and it's absolutely true.
Money goes where it's treated best. Money's going to go wherever it's well received. Right now, maybe more than ever, you can go back to your office and try to figure out if you want to invest in a plant in Humberg, or Hanoi, or Harrisburg. You can go wherever you want to go.
This happened to me yesterday. Think of the implications of this. I'm with a guy who is starting this project, and he needed a logo developed. He's part of this worldwide networking. He ends up with a guy somewhere in Asia. He gives him the specifics. 24 hours later, he gets what he identified as a really cool logo. $9 to get the logo. Now, you tell me what that does to the world around you. First of all, we can't get anything in 24 hours, and we can't get it for $9.
I don't want to launch too much, but just to remind you, I don't even think I need to stir you up, just keep you fired up. What makes America great is not the people, it's the system. And the more you mess around with the system, the more I think you begin to weaken who we are. The poll now in the competition: Ben Stein said Saturday, wages are too high. I've got to believe that's what you're going to see everywhere.
That's enough of that, because you're already ready to hang yourself anyway. But when you have a tax, a business tax rate basically higher here than anywhere in the world, you've got to figure out this whole thing. Nobody's going to make anything and everybody's outsourced. Everyone will be a barista by the end of 2012.
Nehemiah's Response to Exploitation
But you see the repressive nature of this, what they're doing to one another? Here's what happens. Verse six becomes a key: "Then I was very angry when I heard their outcry and their words. And I consulted with myself and I contended with the nobles and the rulers and said to them, you're exacting usury each from his brother. Therefore, I held a great assembly against them."
Nehemiah sees the problem. He gets very angry. There are people who created this problem. Some saw an opportunity to make a profit. Some missed the opportunity to make a contribution.
There's a phrase that's really interesting at the beginning of verse seven: "I consulted with myself." If you've been around, you might think, wait a minute, that sounds a little bit like Luke 12. Remember in Luke 12, where the rich man said, "I said to myself, I thought to myself, I will do, I will do." You would misunderstand it if you thought that's what Nehemiah is doing here. Nehemiah is not sitting and thinking about himself in this process. It might be better stated if we said, "And I began to ponder the situation. I began to think about this."
Controlling Righteous Anger
I saw a show the other night on Dwight Eisenhower. When I think of Eisenhower, I think of this cool, calculated, methodical man. They were saying what he fought his entire life, this is so out of character, was this violent temper. I never associate that with Eisenhower at all. They were saying when he was 10 years old, he'd gone to his mom and he wanted to go somewhere with his brother and his mom said no to him. She found him out in the backyard literally punching a tree. His hands were all bloody and she sat him down and said you're going to have to get this under control.
Well, Nehemiah is doing that in verse 6. He's really mad. He's really angry and it's as close to righteous indignation perhaps as we're going to get. He's really mad not about what it's doing to him, but about what they're doing to each other. So he stops and he takes an inventory. My suspicion would be he begins to go to the Lord and say make my heart right in this. "I really want to eat these people. I want to devour them."
I was talking to our staff the other day and I was saying listen, I hear a certain level of frustration, borderline anger as you talk about some of the things you're doing and the lack of people's response. If you're angry at people, you'll never minister to them the way you should. Here's the nature and this is what I tell our people, same would be true in your leadership positions. I tell our staff guys as you're working with sheep, if you do not offload this frustration every night by the end of the week you will be craving lamb chop. You will want to devour these people. So you need to get a grip on that.
Passion Without Frustration
I love what Nehemiah does. He doesn't set aside His passion. I got an email or text from somebody the other day and they said, "I'm going into this giant meeting. Do you have any suggestions?" I know this person well. I said yes. Let them see your passion, but not feel your frustration or your anger. Let him see you're passionate about what you're dealing with, but don't let him sense that you're angry or frustrated.
So Nehemiah does it. He counts to ten, but he says we got a problem here. "You're exploiting these people and what you've done is you've extracted usury from them." I'm going to give you three passages of Scripture. I'll read you maybe one of them: Exodus 22:25, Leviticus 25:35-40, and Deuteronomy 23:19-20. Basically, the theme is this: if you're going to lend money to a Jew, don't take interest from them. But if you are going to lend money outside of your countrymen, even there be very careful, and certainly don't extract exorbitant rates from them.
What they were doing was they were violating this whole concept. They were extracting a profit from them. They had an opportunity. Remember, here's the guys that are identified here: the nobles and the rulers. Three weeks ago, I think when we were in chapter three, we went through and said look at all these people are participating. Remember, we said there was one group, and there's one in every organization, who doesn't want to participate. Wants to sit on the sideline and reserve the rights to comment and criticize at any point along the way. Remember that? That's these guys. So they saw this as an opportunity to make a profit.
verse 8 they missed the opportunity to make a contribution I said to them we according to our abilities have redeemed our Jewish brothers who were sold into Into the nation's so these were Jews who were sold into slavery We by the arrangements of the day bought them back and now you would even sell your brothers that they may be sold to us and Then they were silent and could not find a word to say
I'm not sure how to apply this, but I do want you to feel the tension of it. I'm not going to try to solve it for you. I'm not sure I know the answer. But what they're doing is taking advantage of the weakest people and the most vulnerable people in the culture.
The Problem of Exploitation
Years and years ago, we were looking out on the west side in the Tolleson area. We were trying to persuade one of the grocers to go out there. At the time there were no grocery stores out there, and we had a statistic that said something like 65% to 70% of the family food budget in Tolleson was being spent at Circle K.
So if I said to you today, take your shopping list - don't go to AJ's, don't go to Safeway, don't go to Fry's, don't go to whatever stores are left, but only buy at a Quick Mark - what would it do to your budget? If you kept the budget constant you'd get less food. Now primarily the demographic at the time was poor, working poor and Latino. I made this suggestion that somebody ought to go out there - some business ought to go out there just out of good conscience. I understand your business is to make a profit. I totally feel the tension of that, but do you see how that works against that person?
I'm in a restaurant. I've got a server, really good server. There's nobody in there but me so she and I are talking, and I do this constantly. I said, "Do you like your job?" She said, "It's okay. It's not my best job." I said, "You have another job?" She said, "No, I have three jobs." I said, "Really?" She had mentioned her son or had a picture, and I said, "You have a child?" She said, "No, I have three kids." I said, "Oh, wow. Does your husband work?" She said, "No, that jerk left right after the third one was born."
We're really talking, and I'm really superficial. I'm not interested in - I mean, I don't know what "go deep" means. I'm not that interested in it. But for whatever reason I ask her, "This is a really embarrassing question. It's uncomfortable for me to ask. So if you don't want to answer it, you don't have to answer it. But I'd be curious - how much money do you make?" She said, "Well, you gotta understand, I'm having a pretty good year." I said, "Okay." She said, "This year I'll make 15 grand."
Now I'm not making any sort of comment other than to say here's a gal - you're going to tell her to work harder? See, that's the problem with "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps." If you don't have boots, you can't do that. I'm going to guess that probably doesn't describe hardly anybody in the room.
The Tension We Face
I feel - and maybe it's just me - huge tension in that. When I look at an immigration issue, I hang with the crowd, I got it. But you understand Joe's not serious about this. If Joe wanted to round up illegals, he'd go to Home Depot every day. This is a whole show, and I know this is risky because 70% of you approve of this guy. But this is a whole show. He's just padding this giant ego he's got.
I got illegal, I got it figured out. Let me ask you this: What part of "love your neighbor as you love yourself" don't you understand? What part of "even love your enemy" don't you understand? So there's a lot of tension in this.
You see a little bit of it there. I don't want the government to fix it. I know that. I'm not looking for a bunch of rules and regulations. But it seems to me there's some sort of responsibility here - I would say out of just good citizenship and huge responsibility out of believers. This exploitation is all around. I don't have an answer, at least one that's digestible. But I think the ultimate answer is for each one of us to deal with that as God lays it upon our heart.
The Power of Silence Under Conviction
When Nehemiah confronts them, you see how smart these guys are because in verse 8 they were silent. They were silent.
My daughter Sarah was the queen of this. I have two daughters, Sarah and Haley. Haley could have raised herself. Sarah was exactly like me. When I would get Sarah, she was the queen, man. You could waterboard her - you weren't going to get anything out of her. I would say, "You got anything to say? You want to comment at all? Because I just gave you everything I got. You got anything? I want you to understand something - I'm not going to get anything out of you. I just gave you everything I got. You got anything? I want you to understand something - I got the verdict. The verdict is guilty. I'm now processing what the punishment will be. Do you want to contribute? You want to speak for yourself?"
I mean, she was perfect. You know what she knew? This is it. She felt guilty because she knew she was guilty. She knew that talking at that moment wasn't going to help the situation any.
Good Guilt and True Conviction
I come from a Catholic background - Catholic grade school, high school, college. One of the things that I always hear about Catholics is they major in guilt. They always make you feel guilty. Well, I hang around evangelicals and they spend their whole time trying to make me feel guilty too. I mean, all they talk about is everything I'm not doing.
Here's the deal: most of the time the reason you feel guilty is because you are guilty. There is a good guilt. If you can go down the street and commit crimes and not feel guilty, you're pathological. These guys are overwhelmed by this.
By the way, if you're here today - and there's always familiar faces and there's always new people, and I never know exactly where your hearts are - I don't know what you do the rest of the week, the other 167 hours a week. But if
You're walking around feeling a bunch of guilt. If you're not a Christian, I can tell you that guilt is the Holy Spirit beginning to work in your life, and the answer is to respond to that. It's to come to Christ in repentance and faith. It's to believe Jesus is who He said He was. That you are who He says you are, which is a sinner. The result is it separated you from God and there's nothing you can do to fix it. That's what Christ did on the cross, and it's as simple as believe that Jesus is your Savior, put your faith and trust in Him, and that sin is forgiven.
I meet a lot of Christians who feel guilty, who deal with this sin, and the answer in this is grace. God loves you just as much when you're in your sin as when you're evangelizing your neighbor. If you're a Christian, God cannot love you any more than He loves you right now, nor can He love you any less. Now that could be a huge excuse to sin, but the Bible comes back to us again and again and says, think of the love that God has for you. That 2 Corinthians 5:14, "the love of Christ compels us," controls us.
The Power of Perfect Love
I was watching a show the other night on Spike TV called Facing Ali. They interviewed these eight guys that fought Ali, and it was amazing. They interviewed George Chuvalo, a Canadian that Ali fought. His parents came to Canada from Croatia. His mother plucked chickens—she got half a penny for each chicken she plucked, so if she plucked 200 chickens in a day, she got a dollar. His father would take hide off cattle by hand.
Chuvalo fought Ali in a brutal fight, 15 rounds, and Ali won. In a little segue, Chuvalo started talking about his family. He had five kids, but three of his kids died from overdose and his wife committed suicide. He was talking about when his son died, and George Chuvalo is what I'd call a man's man—he still looks like a chiseled guy. He started talking about love.
He said his son died, and then his wife killed herself with the drugs she had taken away from him. She just couldn't handle the pain. He said, "I was in bed for six weeks. I don't remember anything other than my family and my friends coming every day and hugging me and saying, 'I love you, George, I love you.'" He said everybody needs to feel that love that makes you feel strong and appreciated and cared for and tender.
Here's the deal. This is overwhelming. This is beyond comprehension, and I mean that. Whatever awesome is, this is it. God loves you perfectly. He loves you in spite of you. This is life-changing, and He knows everything about you.
One of our staff guys was counseling a couple the other day. When they left, I asked how it was, and he said, "Oh my golly." She had used a classic line: "I would have never married him if I knew that about him." God will never say that to you. He'll never say, "I would have never chosen you or loved you if I knew that about you," because He knows everything about you. That's how perfectly He loves you. Now, does that make you want to sin against Him or love Him more?
Resolving the Crisis
The people decide that they're going to resolve this. The lenders decide that they need to get right with God, and the leaders are going to set the example, and the workers are going to get back their inheritance.
In verse 9, again I said, "The thing which you're doing is not good. Should you not walk in the fear of our God because of the reproach of the enemies, of the nations of the enemies?" The leaders needed to understand that the problem here was spiritual.
Nehemiah confronts these guys in a way that is not combative. I wish we had a video. I wish we could hear the intonation in his voice. I wish we could see it, but I think it's like a father who disciplines his child. My problem was, I tended to discipline out of anger, not out of love. Nehemiah comes and disciplines out of love. He confronts them with their sin head-on.
At this point, he doesn't even come up with a bunch of rules and regulations. He wants them to begin to sense what's going on. He said, "Look, the people around you are watching you. Forget what you've done to God. Obviously you should live in the fear of Him, but the nations around you—you now become an excuse to them."
Walking Worthy of Your Calling
I'm speaking at Forest Home sometime in April, and the theme is out of Colossians 1:10. It's very similar to Ephesians 1:4: walk in a manner worthy of your calling. It is fascinating to me that God doesn't give us a bunch of "here's what the Spirit would have you do." He gives us, "here's what the Spirit would have you be."
The fruit of the Spirit is not pray more, study more, go to more Bible studies. That's not the fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness.
goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. Some of you, this next sentence is going to be lost. That's okay, but for those of you who get it, this is huge. We are naturally prone to religion. We come into Christ, into a relationship with Christ. We move out of religion into a relationship with Him, and then after a while, we turn our relationship right back into religion again.
So if I go to a pastor's conference in Germany, when we take a break for lunch, they're drinking beer, and they're mocking the guys from London who are outside smoking. Those are the sinners. If I go to London to a pastor's conference, they're inside smoking and belittling the Germans who are down having a little pint at lunch. This is not about a bunch of rules and regulations. This is about a relationship, and if you're going to be a leader or a follower, you need to make sure you're in the right relationship with God.
He said, should you not fear? Now, he mentions the nations. He said, understand others are looking, but shouldn't your fear be of God? I have a friend who's a college pastor. There's two people come to him, a couple, and they start to stammer, two of the students, and he said, just say it, and they said, we've been having sex, and he said, I know somebody saw you, and he said, oh my gosh, was it you? No. Was it our leader? No. They went through the whole process, and all of a sudden, literally, this is how it went. He said, no, it was God, and they said, oh wow. I mean, that's the answer, but we're that way, aren't we? He sees everything and knows everything, and yet we have no embarrassment before Him, but if you saw that.
The Heart of the Matter
What Nehemiah does, he appeals to the spirit that's in us, and he said, listen, you ought to fear God. If you need a practical reason, everyone else is watching you, and let me say it again, because maybe it's just my rebellious, sinful nature. I'm not looking for a bunch of rules and regulations. I loved it when all those hardcore people who never go to an R-rated movie, and the passion of the Christ comes out rated R, and they're in a terrible situation. I'm not into a bunch of rules and regulations. I, frankly, don't think God is. Walk in a manner worthy of your calling.
The second thing was, the leaders needed to set that example. You see it again in verse 10, and likewise, I, my brothers, and my servants are lending them money and grain. Please let us off this, leave us off this usury. We're not going to be pulled into this. We're going to set an example. Even if we've been doing this, we are going to stop it.
In verse 11, give back the people this very day, their fields, their vineyards, their olive groves, their houses, along with a hundredth part of the money, and the grain, and the new wine, and the oil that you've extracted from them. Here's what happens. The leaders need to get right with God. When they do, they begin to set an example, and there's action that follows that up.
Living Distinctively
So, if you say you're a Christian, you live in a distinctive, different way. Not out of rules and regulations, but out of a changed heart. What you believe has to affect how you behave. My assumption is, if I've got somebody who's a follower of Christ, and somebody who isn't, I ought to be able, over an extended period of time, to look at them and see a physical difference. That's what Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount. Let your light shine in such a way that people see your good works and glorify your fathers in heaven.
So what comes here is a two-pronged attack. I need to make the invisible God visible and then speak the truth boldly. So they need to see your good works, but they'll never glorify your fathers in heaven if you don't tell them to. They're going to look at you and say, well, you're just disciplined. You just have self-control. You're just very gifted. If you don't say it's Jesus, they're going to assume you're just a good guy or just a good gal.
So I'm watching the other night one of the religious networks, and they got some guy on there, and he's quoting Francis of Assisi. So here it is again. Francis of Assisi says, preach the gospel, and if you must, use words. Now I'm going to guess Assisi's a great guy. That is just stupid. If you just preach the gospel through your actions, you've only done half of the equation. You've made the invisible God visible. You preach the gospel with what you do, but what you say. How will they believe if they never hear? Faith comes by hearing.
All of a sudden, this whole situation is transformed as these guys begin to understand they're wrong in terms of sin, and their actions begin to reflect that. Now, they have a plan.
Working the Plan
The last part of your outline is they ratify the plan. Here's what happens. The lenders comply, and the leaders promise to enforce, and the people produce. It's fine to have a plan, but if you don't work the plan, it's not helpful.
A couple of restaurants I love. I love the Kona Grill, and I love California Pizza Kitchen. So Susan and I, and California Pizza Kitchen has some great salads. They've got great pizza, but great salads. So Susan and I are there, and we're paying the bill, and she said, oh, they have a cookbook. I said, yeah, they have a cookbook. And she said, oh, I'd like to get that. I said, Susan, you have that cookbook. No, I don't. I said, Susan, I know you have that cookbook. No, I don't. I said, there's a shop, you have 500 cookbooks, and she said, Tom, I do not have that cookbook. I said, well, let's do this. We'll go home, and if you don't have that cookbook, I'll come back and buy it for you. She said, well, I know I've never made anything out of that cookbook. I said, that's very different than having the cookbook. Those are two very different things. I agree. You've never made anything out of it.
So we know there's a big difference between joining a gym and going to the gym. Eighty percent, I was just going through with the gym guys
The other day I heard that 80% of people who join a gym never go once. The average tenure of staying and working out, if you don't have a trainer, is seven months. If you have a trainer, it's 27 months.
Well, they got this plan. Look what happens. Verse 12: "Then they said, 'We will give it back and we'll require nothing from them. We will do exactly as you say.'" They're on board. They say we will comply with this. The last part of verse 12: "Nehemiah called the priest and took an oath from them that they would do it according to their promise."
Nehemiah says, let's make this thing official here. He calls in the priest, in essence—I wrote this phrase—to notarize it before God, to take a vow before Him. What happens is the work begins. "And also, I shook off the front of my garments and said, 'Thus may God shake off every man from the house, from his possessions, who does not fulfill this promise. Even thus, may he be shaken and emptied.' And all the assembly said, 'Amen.' And they praised the Lord. And then the people did according to their promise."
The Real Enemy of God's Work
We tie this together in seven minutes. Thirteen verses, not one word about the wall being built. All we've been talking about is the wall. We're not done, we're half done. What stops God's man, God's way, God's job, God's timing? One thing. Sin.
See, that's what's going to happen. God saved you. In Acts chapter 13, Paul's giving this amazing sermon and he's using David as an illustration. He says, "After David fulfilled his purpose for the generation, he fell asleep"—what is, he died.
God saved you for a reason beyond getting you to heaven. Did you ever think about that? If all He wanted to do was get you to heaven, then He would have taken you there at the moment you believe. There must be something more about this. There must be some reason.
The Dash of Purpose
You've heard that before where you say, if you go into a cemetery on every gravestone, you'll see a birth date, a dash, and then the day that you die. The question is, what are you going to do with the dash? Well, I changed that just a little bit. There's a day of conversion and then a day you die. What are you going to do with that dash in there? Because that previous dash, I'm not so happy with that dash. I don't care about that dash. How about this dash now?
God has a reason and a purpose. We believe He's sovereign. We believe He placed you wherever you work right now. So you're working right now for Bank of America. He placed you there for a reason. You're working for a mom and pop store. He placed you there for a reason. You're a mechanic somewhere, wherever it is. He placed you there for a reason and for a purpose.
So you're God's guy, God's gal doing God's job, God's way, God's timing. What will mess that up? Sin.
The Right Response
Look at their reaction when this is done. If this were today, we would give Nehemiah a Nobel peace prize. He'd be the Time Magazine man of the year. That's how we are. What's their reaction? Verse 13, they said, "Amen," and they praised the Lord.
Our privilege is to glorify God in all we say and all we do. When they're done, somehow Nehemiah has handled this in such a way that we all understand it's Nehemiah, but at the end of the day, they go, "Isn't God amazing?"
God's Strategic Choice
You don't need to turn there. Let me just wrap up with this. I go back to certain passages over and over again, and in groups like this, I like to keep First Corinthians in front of us. At the end of that, Paul is talking to this church and he says, "Consider your calling, brethren. There are not many who are wise according to the flesh and not many mighty and not many noble." There aren't many people that we would put up and we would say, these are the best and the brightest.
In fact, a little bit later, he talks about this and he's talking to the church and he said, "Don't you know the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Don't be deceived. Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, effeminate, homosexuals, thieves, covetous, drunkards, revilers, swindlers will not inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you." That's what the church of Corinth was made up of. What the world would call losers.
Why is it that when God put the body of Christ together, He didn't pick a bunch of rich people? He didn't pick a bunch of really smart people and He didn't pick a bunch of real powerful people. It'd be very interesting if you took the top hundred income earners in Maricopa County, it'd be absolutely fascinating to see how vibrant a walk with Christ any of them have. I don't know. I'm not being judgmental at all. I'm just saying it'd be an interesting thing. If you took all the tenured professors at ASU, you finished the sentence. If you took the state legislature, why is that?
Earthen Vessels for God's Glory
I really believe that part of this is so people around us will look at us and say, "They must have a great God because they're a sick group of people." If you and I were given a minute, you think about this. Think about how counterintuitive it is to put together a group like that.
If I gave you an assignment that said, take this message of the gospel around the world, what would you do? You'd try to find the people who are connected, the politicians who are involved, the people that are going to fund it. At the end of the day, we would say, "What a strategic plan. What a group of people. Isn't he amazing? Isn't she awesome?"
Here's what God wants to hear: "Isn't He amazing? Isn't He awesome? Look how He uses earthen vessels like them."
That's not to say that God doesn't use extraordinarily talented, gifted, powerful people, wealthy people. But if you're in that group, and I don't know if there's anybody here—if you're in that group, you have a huge responsibility to steward your time, energy, effort, and your money that God's given you. At the end of the day, when people encounter you, do they walk away and go, "Boy, he's—"
Living the Gospel Before Others
Amazing? Or do they walk away and go, "That's a great guy"? That's our story.
Friday night, I had one of the coolest times of my life alongside ministries, being out with a group of ex-offenders, and then some of the staff, and some who support them. They had seven testimonies of offenders—I think there were three guys and four ladies who'd been out of prison less than a month. A couple of guys, just normal-looking guys, a gal that looked like Susan, and all the tension of coming out, coming back into society, all the stuff that they face. I get it, but it was really a cool moment to see how God was using them, and then really ordinary people, to be honest with you, ministering to them, who were simply available to say, "God, use me any way you want to use me."
That is not a calling that's reserved for people who are getting a paycheck from a church or a non-profit. That's all of us. "Isn't He an amazing guy?" See, He does that. Do people see a gospel lived out in your life, and then praise Him because you've deflected that glory from you to Him?
So at the end of the day, they're not saying, "Bob is a great guy." They're saying, "Bob serves a great God."
The Project Continues
Now, I want to go back. Remember, 85 years, they couldn't get this wall built. Nehemiah does it in 52 days. We've had a little bit of a wildcat walk out here, but that project's back on board. We'll pick up in chapter six-ish next week, so let's take a look at that.
Closing Prayer
Father, thank You for that amazing truth. We pray that when people see us, they see You. God, I pray that You would allow us in our life to examine our heart, that through Your power, Your grace, and Your Spirit, You would convict us of our sin. We would see that, but we would understand that we're loved by You, and what motivates us is not punishment and fear, but what motivates us is the love that You've demonstrated in our life. God, I pray that You would use us in this very world that we're about to enter right now. We pray it in Christ's name, amen.