The Job Isn't Finished Until the Inspector Signs Off
Tom Shrader concludes his eight-week study of Nehemiah by examining why Nehemiah went to Jerusalem, what he accomplished, and how he fulfilled his mission. He emphasizes that Nehemiah's wall-building was simultaneously practical work and sacred service to God. Shrader challenges believers to see their everyday jobs as ministry opportunities rather than separating sacred and secular work, arguing that faithfulness in mundane tasks proclaims God's glory to the watching world.
“What you do is as important as what we do - it's different in terms of function, but it's absolutely essential.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Just Do It (2010)
Recorded: 2010
Duration: 41 min
Themes: leadership, service, work, calling, mission, faithfulness, purpose, ministry, working professional, feeling unfulfilled at work, seeking purpose, new believer, business leader, struggling with work-life balance, parent, mentor
Scripture: Nehemiah 1:3, Nehemiah 2:4-5, Nehemiah 6:15, Romans 12:1-2, Romans 13
Theological Themes: vocation, calling, stewardship, discipleship, sanctification, becoming holy, servant leadership, biblical authority
Full Transcript
Glad that you're here, great to have you with us. This is the last session of this eight weeks that we're together, Book of Nehemiah. If you have your Bible, this is one of those strange lessons for us. We rarely do this. I guess in one way it's a standalone, but this is really a summary for the eight weeks that we've been looking at this book.
So what I'm going to do is take you back through, pull some key thoughts out. If you look at your outline, basically three questions: why did Nehemiah go to Jerusalem? What did Nehemiah accomplish in Jerusalem? And then how did Nehemiah fulfill his mission? So I'm going to take those first two questions and we'll look at it, a little section from chapter two, a little section from chapter six, and that'll allow us to summarize where we've been.
Those seven points on how did Nehemiah fulfill his mission, those are designed to be able to bring this together, apply it to your life and mine on how we're fulfilling and how we're accomplishing our own mission.
Nehemiah's Call and Initial Response
If we go back to the very beginning, if you look at Nehemiah chapter one, verse three, the word comes to Nehemiah that the wall in Jerusalem's down, the remnant is there, and there is real stress, real distress. Nehemiah immediately feels that perhaps God is doing something in his life as it relates to solving that problem, doesn't know exactly what it is. He's overwhelmed, he begins to pray and to fast, that's his immediate reaction. And then he becomes really the leader now in this project of rebuilding the wall.
Remember we looked at Webster's definition for leader is one who leads and a follower is one who serves. So we try to pull both sides out of this. If you get on your computer today, you Google the word leadership, it takes like 0.13 seconds and 30 million sites pop up. If you Google follower, it takes three times longer, which is not exactly a long time, 0.4 seconds, and about a million sites pop up, or two million. And almost all of those, to me this was interesting, almost all of those are related to the idea of Christian follower, follower of Christ. The idea of focusing on being a good follower is foreign in general to the world, not thinking about it much.
What we try to do on Nehemiah, and I confess to you every week, this will make the eighth one, this for me, for whatever reason, has been the most difficult of the lessons to apply to your life. It feels like there's some application here and I may grab some things out of my life, but when it comes to you, I'm not sure it's making that transition. So I trust you to make that.
Understanding God's Will and Timing
When we look at this, Nehemiah now convinced that he's God's guy, and ultimately convinced he's got God's job figured out, what God wants him to do, and he wants to do it God's way, and he's also, and this is huge, going to do it in God's timing. We, early on, chapter two-ish, learn that Nehemiah is a cupbearer. That put him in the proximity of the king on essentially a daily basis. And though it was just a function, key function that he would serve, it provided him access to the king, not unusual for a relationship to be built there. And indeed, that's what happens.
So when we get to chapter two, this is four months now after he has heard the news of Jerusalem. Four months, he's been able to conceal, I guess, this brokenness, but he can't anymore. Verse two of chapter two, why is your face so sad, though you're not sick? This is nothing but sadness of the heart. And it says, Nehemiah was very much afraid because to be sad in the presence of the king was the equivalent of a capital offense.
So he has that going on, but the king, and we can, and I understand there's a little bit of danger here, too, but it's fair, I think, to assume that the king has developed some sort of affection for Nehemiah. He said, what can I do to help you? There's something wrong here, and it's not that you're sick.
Nehemiah's Response to Opportunity
Nehemiah understands the moment, but even then, he has a reaction that's contrary to what I would do. The king says in verse four of chapter two, what do you request? I would have had my list ready, but Nehemiah prays. This is a great response, because he understands two things. He understands humanly, unless the king is on board, nothing's happening. And he understands in a divine sense that unless God is in it, it's a total waste of time.
Nehemiah makes his plea to the king. He said, listen, what I want to do, here's the situation, I want to go to Jerusalem, but I'm going to need your help. I'm going to need letters from you to explain why a slave is traveling, and though I'm not a free man, I'm going to have that explanation, and if you could write, since you're in the writing mode, write another couple of letters, and they're going to secure the equipment I need, the wood, the timber, the gates, the things for the gates and the wall, the hard material, the supply.
The king does it, Nehemiah sets off, goes to Jerusalem, arrives, again, counterintuitive for me, doesn't say I'm the pro from Dover, but takes the time to understand the situation, he gets the people on his side, and then the work begins in chapter three. So when we get to chapter three, very much like a genealogy, and yet we were able to make, I hope, some really good points out of that for you.
Opposition Despite Being in God's Will
Now this starts to get huge, because you got God's guy doing God's job, God's timing, God's way. There is, I think, a tendency to assume that if I'm in that situation, there's no opposition, that somehow life is supposed to be smooth, because if God's in it, why should there be opposition? Well, the reality is, there's probably a whole bunch of answers to that, but one of the answers is for your own good, that in our life comes challenge, difficult trials, count it all joy when you encounter various trials, knowing that testing of your faith produces endurance.
So Nehemiah has these attacks, we see it in chapter
these attacks are external. These are the guys coming at him—Sanballat and Tobiah. We get to chapter five, and the attacks are internal. Now the Jews are predatory lenders, and so they don't have any money for food, they don't have any money for seed, and the taxes are high.
Well, these challenges, difficulties, and hardships come into our life for a reason. Here's a core basic principle: it is not necessarily that there's a direct correlation between your physical condition, or financial condition, or relational condition, and your spiritual condition. So just because everything is going smoothly doesn't mean you're spiritually blessed. You could be Bill Gates—okay, not the wealthiest guy in the world anymore, did you see that? He's limping along at $53.2 billion a year, but not the wealthiest guy. So you're Bill Gates, and if we follow this logic, we go, "Well gosh, he must be a spiritual giant, because look at the blessing." Well we know that's not true.
We know that in our life comes hardships and difficulties. I happen to be one who would say all of those are either caused by or allowed by God, because He's sovereign—He's God. And He brings them in for a whole variety of reasons, but at its core, for our own good and for His own glory. So He brings these things in, and I don't fully understand them, but He brings them in for our own good.
Learning Through Suffering
I look back on—I have no idea, it'd be interesting to try to figure out how many lessons I've taught in my life, but it just seems like I've taught a lot. But probably the most powerful lesson that I ever taught was on the Friday or Sunday, I guess, after Sarah had her accident. It was like, you can talk about suffering, but then let's see how it goes, big guy, when something happens.
So right now, Susan—this is the most, in a long time, this is the sickest I've seen Susan. And I don't think it's related to the cancer part; I think it's all the other stuff. And I mean, she's just not doing well, and today is the treatment that's the knock-down treatment for her.
If you watched her yesterday, Women's Ministries Day at church, teach a lesson, and you watched her navigate her way around the campus, you would never know it. I mean, it's as though it's that game day experience. There's the big smile, and yet you can see—I mean, you can just see. I said to her last night, "How you doing, man?" And she said—and I said, "You really look like you're in pain. I mean, you really look like you're hurting." And she just kind of started to tear up.
Let me tell you what: when she walks in the room and those women are in the room, and now it's time to teach, you can hear a pin drop. Because they know where she is. They know that she's not going to get better unless God intervenes. And they know that she's in extraordinary, excruciating pain. And yet, I'm telling you, you'd never know it. You'd never know it by her face or her countenance. Sunday was the first day she's had to leave church in a long time.
God's Purpose in Our Pain
Well, in the middle of that, God's doing great things. In her life, in my life, our life, and in the lives of the people around who watch that and say it's one thing to talk about how sweet Jesus is when you're having the buffet up at the Marriott at Desert Ridge. It's a whole other thing when you're talking about how sweet Jesus is and they're sitting and they're dripping this poison in you and you're already sick and it's making you sicker.
Well, you have the equivalent of that too. I mean, some of you are in hugely difficult situations right now. And it isn't fun. But God has us there for a reason.
If I can drill just a smidgen deeper and take just a shot—well-deserved—right now is the fundraising time. This finished it on all the Christian television. So this is when they really parade out the heretics and the false teachers. Well, you got guys on there that are talking about that when Christ died, He died—by His stripes you were healed. That somehow prosperity and healing was in the atonement.
The False Gospel of Health and Wealth
Well, Jesus didn't die for your flu or your cancer. He died for your sin. My situation is my sin that separated me from God. He made me whole. Now, does God heal? Yeah, He does, but not all the time. I don't understand how you have that theology that says God always heals me, but all of them are dying. I mean, something's getting them eventually.
And I guess what I crank on this a little bit is I've had the experience of walking in the hospital room after one of these nut cases have been there, and you see the devastation it wreaks on somebody in a hospital when the person coming in there said, "Obviously there's some sin in your life or you wouldn't be here." I understand there's a connection between physical hurt sometimes, physical hurt and sin. I got all that. But to come into somebody who's in the midst of one of the most painful, excruciating experiences they can have and say to them, "You know what? If you really believed, you wouldn't have this problem?" I don't think so.
Nehemiah's Mission
Why did Nehemiah go to Jerusalem? Well, here it is. Chapter 2. We're just going to look at a couple of verses, and we've already talked about it. Chapter 2, verses 4 and 5: "The king said to me, 'What would you request?' So I prayed, and I said, 'King, if it please the king, if your servant is found favoring you, send me to Judah to the city of my father's tombs that I may rebuild the wall.'"
So here you go in your outline. Did
He came to Jerusalem to build a wall, to secure a city, and to serve God. The answer is yes to all three. He came to Jerusalem to build the wall—that's what he was all about. It's a protective wall, a matter of homeland security. He came there to secure that city with the building of that wall. But in the process of that, he served his God.
Nehemiah's Accomplishment
What did Nehemiah accomplish in Jerusalem? Looking at verse 15 of chapter 6: "So the wall was completed on the 25th day," and he did it in 52 days. Remember, they had years to do it. "When all our enemies heard of it and all the nations surrounding us saw it, they lost their confidence for they recognized that this work had been accomplished with the help of our God."
He rebuilt the wall, he secured the city, and he served his God. It's essentially the same thing. Get the flow here: he's rebuilding, doing his task, accomplishing his task. And in the process of that, he's serving his God. He's living it out in his work.
The Sacred-Secular Divide
One of my hot buttons—I was just in a meeting on it yesterday—is this delineation that's really cropping up. I see it more and more, and I thought I'd see it less and less: a delineation between the sacred and the secular, especially as it relates to profession.
I have a friend who's got this high-powered management job. In his mind, he's constantly evaluating that job and thinking, "You know what? If I left that job and maybe took a similar position but took it at a church, somehow that would be better." I would just scream, "No, that's not better. God's got you where He wants you." Now are there places to make change? Yeah. In fact, it's one of those areas where I'm teaching you to do something I didn't do.
But there's this—and I don't know how it gets there because it feels like we speak it over and over and over again, but either our actions undermine it or you don't want to hear it. What you do is as important as what we do. I'm making a distinction of teaching, pastor, and all that. What you do is as important as what we do. It's different in terms of function, but it's absolutely essential. It's sacred.
The Seminary Question
I was talking to a guy Tuesday—this guy, business guy, got some business troubles, working it out. He decided like a year ago to go to seminary. Got saved probably three years ago. Well, I hear this pattern over and over again. I've got no problem with seminary. Not me personally—I haven't been—but I'm all for it. There's no problem with that. But I said to him, "Why are you doing that? Why are you going?" He didn't really have any answer.
But it goes something like this: God grabs a heart. We get so serious about our faith that pretty soon we get frustrated in our life. Because here you go: roughly eight hours of sleep, although I don't know anybody that's getting eight hours anymore. Then eight hours of work—I don't know many people that work only eight anymore. It's more than that. And then eight hours to brush your teeth and drive to work and watch whatever you do.
If you look at this, you go, "I'm really growing in my faith." Well, it's hard to redeem your sleep other than rest. Then you've got brushing your teeth and driving. So if you don't see this work—which is really probably the biggest chunk of time—if you don't see that as ministry, no wonder you're spiritually frustrated.
The Problem with More Programs
Then the response is, "Well, I'm going to go learn more." No problem with learning. But my point to him is, "To what end? Why are you doing that?" I see it in classes all the time and in church all the time. We're constantly fighting the battle because the people in the church are constantly coming to us wanting more programs, and we're telling them, "No, we're not going to do more things."
"We need a class on evangelism." Here's my problem. Yeah, okay, maybe. The problem is, once you get it, once you go to that class that's in the bulletin, all the people that aren't taking it will go, "I guess I can't do evangelism because I haven't had the class. I haven't been to the class yet."
Look, if you know enough to believe the gospel, you know enough to share the gospel. Now, are classes important? Sure, they're helpful, but I don't want to get sidetracked there.
Your Work Is Your Ministry
I want you to see your ministry—what you do. The way you slug it out every day is the way you serve God, and you proclaim the gospel to everybody that's around you. But you know what? Most of life is pretty mundane.
Remember the old Bob Newhart show, the good one, the first one? Emily's teaching, so there's this one episode where she's having career day, and she needs four guys to come in. So she gets a policeman to come in—he's got his gun. A fireman's got his ax. Jerry, the dentist, comes in—he has his tooth. Then she gets Bob, the psychologist, to come in.
They're working their way through this. The policeman's got his gun, and they're talking about catching bad guys, and the kids are excited. Same thing with the fireman putting out fires with his ax. Then Jerry with the tooth, saying, "This is really important—you have cavities."
Well, now it's Bob's turn. He's got this group of third graders, and Bob's got to do the psychologist. He had two lines: "Kids, do you really know..."
yourselves? Do you know who you really are? And it was just this great moment. That's a great show, by the way. But here's the deal. The fireman spends 95% of his time polishing the truck. He's not fighting fires all day. That officer's not out there in police chases every day. He's filling out paperwork, doing compliance stuff.
The same thing is with you and me. If we don't master the mundane and the ordinariness of life and understand that's where God uses us. He had a great phrase, the glory of the grind. The glory of just driving to work every day, of being faithful, of being obedient, of taking your everyday ordinary life.
God's Call to Ordinary Faithfulness
In Romans chapter 12, verses 1 and 2, Paul talks about don't be conformed to this world, be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Eugene Peterson paraphrases that and he paraphrases it this way. See how this works.
So here's what I want you to do, God helping you. Take your ordinary everyday life, your sleeping, eating, going to work and walking around life and place it before God as an offering. So present your bodies as a living sacrifice, your whole body of what you do. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for Him.
Don't become so well adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God and you will be changed from the inside out, readily recognizing what He wants from you and quickly responding to it. Unlike the culture around you, which always is dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you and develops well-informed maturity.
The Problem of Cultural Conformity
So there's a couple of key phrases in there: present your bodies to God, it's your living sacrifice, don't become so well adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. So I was with a group of Christian guys the other day and we were discussing an issue, and everybody at the table had an opinion, but I honestly think it's the same opinion I would have gotten from six pagans at the CPAC conference.
And so when I pushed, I just said, how did you end up with that opinion? And it was very interesting, as each one of them laid it out, none of them brought any sort of spiritual or, in this case, scriptural impact to the discussion. We were able, and this week's topic is immigration, we were able to have a whole discussion, and they'll do it if you don't push them, they'll have a whole discussion on immigration and all they'll quote is Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and J.D. Hayworth, whatever. I'm not that impressed with the three of them, to be honest with you, and I'm sure not that impressed with them on this issue.
I kind of am interested to say, does the scripture speak to this issue? Does Jesus speak to this issue? Does the Old Testament give us insight into this issue? Isn't that interesting? You may arrive at the same conclusion. I'm not going to challenge your conclusion for now, I just say it's just really interesting that I can sit down with five pagans and five Christians, talk immigration, and the pagans and the Christians all quote the same guy, and none of them are talking about what's the Bible, what's the biblical implication to the immigration issue. We do it with abortion, we run our fat little butt right over there and start pulling out all these verses, but we get to immigration and they never pull out a verse, other than Romans 13 maybe.
Inside-Out Transformation
Well, don't become adjusted to the culture, but then the big thing is, He'll change you from the inside out. See that's biblical Christianity. Biblical Christianity, everything else. Everything else changes you from the outside in. Biblical Christianity changes you from the inside out.
Religion is focused completely on external. It'll talk about the internal, but the focus is on the external. You need a word picture for that? Think Pharisee. Doing all the right things, and yet Jesus, I just reread one of the Gospels like last week, and I'm always struck.
Jesus is like this, He looks to me like a guy that would be fun, and I don't mean this in like to make Him human, though He was. He looks like a guy that would be fun to hang with. He looks like He'd be fun, not because He was Jesus, He just looks like kind of stuff was happening around Him and He always had a little different take on it, and He was pretty mellow. He seemed to be able to flow with every situation.
Woman at the well, He can handle it, put Him over here, He can handle it, but you bring in the Pharisees and it's like He's just got this fuse that's about this long, they just set Him off like a rocket. Why? Because they acted like they had it together, but their heart was not transformed. Biblical Christianity changes you from the inside out. Now all we can look at, I got, is the external. I got it. But I need to know and be able to address the condition and the issue of the heart.
The Heart Condition
It's like child rearing. So Brayden called last night and he's working on reading now, so he's working on some words, and he's sounding it out. And so he was the other day reading something that he saw, but it's memories. We were somewhere, I can't remember, it was a Sunday night I guess, Sunday night after I teach I take him for a half hour and we go have pretzels and stuff and then I bring him back for some music.
And I can't even remember what the word was, but there was a word in the, when we were sitting there. And I said, what's that say? And he said, I don't know. And I said, well, sound that out. What's an M? What's that O? And work it through. And eventually, you know, he kind of got to, in the zip code.
You can ask him about Jesus and he'll tell you Jesus died for his sins. His theology's pretty sound. I mean, his theology's, it's locked down pretty tight. He's got four of the five points of Calvinism down already. We're so proud of him. He struggles with limited atonement. But here's what I know. He doesn't believe it. He just kind of knows it. He acts like a really
I have a grandson who's a really good kid. I mean, I'm not very patient with little kids. I'm not a big little kid fan. I got no problem hanging with him forever because he just does everything. He's the most compliant kid, but I don't think he's converted. Now you take Brayden, you put 50 years on him, and you got a church full of those people. Compliant, but not converted.
See this changes you from the inside out and all of a sudden you see the world different. So he's building a wall and securing a city, but in the process, it's all about serving God. He's rebuilding the wall. He's secured the city, but it's all about rebuilding God. It's all about serving God.
Engaging Our Culture
You and I need to get over complaining about the culture we live in and start to engage the culture and be part of it. I have no reason to think things are going to get better. Looks to me like it's getting worse by a vote or two.
Years ago, remember Phil Corkle was here? Some of you will remember Phil. He did a thing called Every Day in America. Here were some of the notes. Every day in America, 150,000 kids carry guns to school. Every day in America, 2,740 teenager girls become pregnant. Every day in America, there's 1,200 abortions, 12 kids are killed by guns, eight suicides among teenagers. That number's got to be higher by now. 3,200 kids run away from home every day. 1,700 kids are in adult jails every day. 2,400 kids experience the agony of the divorce of their parents every day.
Yesterday, I'm having coffee with a guy. This guy has this really good job. I would guess he's about 35. We're talking about stuff and you know what he starts talking about? When his parents got divorced when he was in high school and how screwed up that got him in terms of just learning how to communicate.
There's a guy in town and many of you would know him. We were having breakfast one day and what you probably wouldn't know is that the family he has now is his second family, it wasn't his first family. And he said to me, I wasn't soliciting anything, he just said there's not a day go by that I don't regret I didn't make that first marriage work. Now I know that hits home. My point is not you can't go and scramble that egg. My point is I'm going to give you that 2,400 families break apart every day. You couple that with 1,500 kids who drop out of high school every day. You put those together, you've got a recipe for a society that's falling apart.
The Real Answer
And the answer, I'm going to give you the answer. The answer to this is not the Republicans, the Democrats or the Tea Party. The answer to this is Jesus. The answer to this is Christ. Figure out the parties. I obviously have my own spin on this, but I'm telling you, they're all going to break your heart at the end of the day. Because they're all whores once they get there. And there may be an exception or two, but there aren't many.
I got a lot more confidence in the military than I have in the overall structure of the government. I got a lot more confidence in the teachers that are in the classrooms than the administration that's running it. But the reality of this thing is, you know, Jesus is the answer at the end of the day.
Now, I want to make one step further. If you say, well, we need an organization that's going to impact the world, then the answer is the church, not the Tea Party, not the Republicans, not the Democrats. And then, based on all the email I get from everybody, they keep telling me, we are the church, so if we come full circle, then the answer to the change is you.
You Are Christ in Your Work
You've got the message. It's to proclaim the gospel. As Nehemiah is building the wall and securing the city, he's proclaiming the glory of God. As you're working on a real estate deal, as you're cracking the cure to cancer, as you're putting together a financial package, as you're coaching a baseball team, as you're buying a cup of coffee, you are Christ.
We had a girl, and you know how I do this, I try to really engage my servers and baristas and everybody. So we had this girl who was in real trouble, because the restaurant's not crowded, and the two people she's serving and waiting on are Tyler and me. Well, I can talk a lot, but not when Tyler's in the room, because he dominates it. And so we're talking to this girl, and I got there first, and she's a girl who graduated from high school, she's going to the Midwest, wants to go to medical school, so I'm having that conversation. Tyler comes in, she leaves, and I brief him on our conversation.
So she comes back, and he said, wow, that's incredible. Why medicine? Well, science fascinates me. Well, why does science fascinate you? Well, the intricacies of it. He said, well, what part of it? And she said, well, take blood, for example. And then she does this whole thing on blood. Oxygen moving through the body, and all that, lost me fast. That's why I went all that.
And Tyler said, that's amazing. She said, it really is. He goes, man, now you know where this is going. Tyler goes, that's amazing. That has to just, when you stop and you study it, you must look at it and say, look at the fingerprints of the creator all over it. And she said, no, not really. Now, we didn't get anywhere with the conversation, but do you see, the minute she started, I thought, if Tyler doesn't try to close her, and when I say close, I don't mean in some pejorative way. Try to bring her to that one step more. That's how you live your life. Let your light shine in such a way that people see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.
Nehemiah's Seven Principles
Well, Nehemiah approached, we're going to go through these seven here real quickly, some more than others, frankly. Nehemiah approached and fulfilled his mission with these seven things. And I just say, apply them to you. Number one, he identified the people of Israel. He identified who it was that he was going to go and he was
going to minister to. So who are the people that God is bringing into your life?
I did a retreat once where I was in Williams. I said, "All right, guys, get out a piece of paper." They all got Bibles and paper. "Get out your paper, get out a pen. Now write this down. Write down the name of every person in your life with whom you have a relationship, but they don't yet know Christ, but you're sharing the gospel with them." There wasn't a lot of writing going on.
They wanted to write more notes. We're like addicted, even as Christians—we're addicted to learning more stuff, and I'm all for learning. But at some point you may want to do something with it. At some point, I really mean that. Now you've taken the class on evangelism. Now you've heard the message. Who are the people that God has got in your life that you really are ministering to?
Communicating God's Word in Practical Ways
Here's the second thing: he communicated the word to them. That's Nehemiah 8. That's the classic passage. He brings the people together, he teaches the word, and then he makes sense of it to them. So ultimately when we go and we engage, we bring Christ into that. We bring the word of God into that conversation.
I've got several business guys I work with and what they're doing is—I can't go to my board meeting and start quoting Nehemiah 8, and I would never advocate that. But you can take the principles of scripture. So in this whole economic crisis we're in—and I'm not saying it's guaranteed—but a lot of people who were following biblical principles, while really, really hurt, are not the ones that are all upside down and out of shape. Not everybody, but many.
It's like raising kids. I know pagans who have these wonderful kids. Not converted, but wonderful kids. You know why? When you talk to them, they put godly principles in their parenting—they just didn't know what they were. So I take that word of God, I take it and I communicate it.
Encouraging Confession of Sin
The third thing: I encourage the confession of sin. Not necessarily one to another. I'm doing a retreat in a couple of weeks and a guy called me the other day and he said, "Here's what we're going to do the first night." I said, "Okay." He said, "We're going to put this big board at the front and everybody's going to go up and write their name and a sin they're struggling with."
I said, "Well, I got writer's cramp already. I can feel that coming." He said, "No, no, no, no. I'm going to go first. I'm going to go up first and write my name and write 'chief among sinners.'" Well, that doesn't give me anything to gossip about. I want to know what you're struggling with. "Chief among sinners" doesn't tell me anything. What'd you do?
So I'm not saying we want to put a confessional in the back of the church, but I am saying like Nehemiah did in chapter one, verse six, that we need to understand that the issues in our life are spiritual issues and our sin is all around them. There's one sense in which I can become overwhelmed and paralyzed by my sin. There's another sense in which I just need to acknowledge that that's my heart.
Understanding Sin and Spiritual Growth
We had a huge discussion the other day. Things happen in your life, even sin in your life. I think sometimes we get the false notion that we're going to be able to be done with it once and for all and never think about it again. It's like counseling—I'm not a big counseling guy. I think counseling has its place and its time. The fallacy in it is that somehow you think you're going to get counseled and get better, and you translate "better" to mean "I'm never going to struggle with it again." Well, you are.
What I think we can teach you to do is to out-think the sin. So we have a girl and she was raped. She said, "When I close my eyes, I just see this guy coming at me." I don't think God can wipe that from her hard drive, but He doesn't tend to work that way. What we can do is when that comes, He can let the love of Christ just wash that away. But it all starts with this idea of sin.
Soliciting Commitment
And then he solicited commitment. Remember, I think it was in chapter five, when all of this was breaking loose, he got everybody together and he said, "We're going to do this." There's that idea of commitment. My generation didn't have it.
I was teaching the 20-somethings the other night and I just made a comment that I graduated from high school in 1968, and they wanted to know what Lincoln was like as a president. They didn't—not exactly their strong suit. But if you take our generation, the anthem was, "I can't get no satisfaction." We were the ones that said, "We don't need to be married. It's just a piece of paper." It's interesting—the gay community doesn't see it that way. They understand that there's a matter of commitment in this.
Staying Faithful to the Task
Let me give the other three real quick. He resettled the city. So he stayed on task. He dedicated the walls—you can read that in chapter 12. He understood his work was all about God. And then he's constantly verifying the return of righteousness. He's coming back again and again and again.
There's a sense that after a period of time, you become a bit Johnny One-Note. After a while, when you're teaching—if you're me—my goal on a Sunday for the person that's there all the time is that at the very best, maybe once a month, they'd get one idea that was a new twist on something they heard.
somebody new? All this information is just everywhere. I can't remember what the issue was the other day, and I just Googled the phrase, and I was stunned at how much great information was accessible in just an amazingly short period of time.
Well, I need to come back again and again to that same basis, and that is we're all about God. It's about our sin and our forgiveness, and now we're a new creature.
Embracing Our New Identity
If I can just close with this, it strikes me that as that new creature, somehow He's made us new, but we don't necessarily always take that newness or want that newness. We still spend a lot of time calling ourselves sinners. It's amazing.
That's not how Paul addressed the church at Rome. He didn't say to the sinners gathered in Rome. He didn't even say to the sinners saved by grace. He said to the saints—that's who you are. New heart, new creature, all because of His work in your life.
We're going to next week, and the timing is probably not the best, but we're doing it anyway. We're going to go into six-week study on the life of Joseph. It's probably my favorite study. I'm going to do it at summer camp this year, so I figured we'll test drive it on you guys, so we'll see how that goes.
Let's pray. Father, thank you for this amazing study on Nehemiah. He is a man from whom we can learn so much. God, I pray we would be people who would understand the world that you bring around us, the people around us. God, don't allow us to put up this wall between the sacred and the secular and think that this job is just a job and we're like everybody else. No, God, our whole life is ministry. Help us see the world that way. We ask it of you in Christ's name, amen.