Beyond the Wall

Nehemiah: Living a Black and White Gospel in a Grey World  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented   •  1:22:15
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In the series finale, we address the ending of Nehemiah and how his story finds fulfillment in Jesus centuries later. It is never too late to turn a life around. There is hope right where you are today. Never give up. There is a new beginning in Jesus.

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Introduction:

I think most of you here know that I love hockey and of course the Flyers in particular. I’ve been a hockey fan before I even knew what hockey was. No joke, my family has a picture of me as a baby sitting in the minor league hockey championship trophy before I was even one year old. Out of 22 years of being a fan, the season that has stood out the most in my memory was the 2009-10 season.

Around Christmastime, the Flyers were in dead last place. It was horrible; a lot of fans gave up. And then we started coming back. It got down to the last game of the season to determine if we could even slide into the playoffs. That game went into overtime, then a shootout, and we just barely won. We made it in. First round of the playoffs were a little rough, but not too bad. Fans started gaining confidence again. Then we played the Boston Bruins in the second round of a best of seven. We lost the first three games. Fourth game, we’re already down in the first period. A lot of people gave up again. But I remember sitting in front of the tv with my dad and saying, “Wouldn’t it be crazy if we came back to win this game and then won the whole series?” Well, guess what happened. We scored at the end of the first period. And then again and again. The game went into overtime, and we won 5-4. Then we won the next game, and the next, and the next. We came back from a 3 game to none deficit to win 4-3. We ended up making it all the way to the Cup that year. It was incredible because as a team, we never gave up. It would have been so easy to quit so many times, but if they had, it would have been right before the breakthrough. They would have quit too soon.

Many of you have probably heard the story of Florence Chadwick, the long distance swimmer who quit right before she reached the shore. She was trying to swim from Catalina Island to California, a 26 mile trip. When fog set in, she got worn out and worried that she could not reach the shore. She decided to quit and get in the boat that was following her. Only then did she find out she was 1 mile away from California. She had made it 96% of the way and quit. To her credit, she went back and swam the whole 26 miles. And not only that, she did it another two more times during her career.

Stories like this remind us that it is always too early to quit. When you’re tempted to give up, chances are that the situation was just about to turn around. I have just one point today, and I’m giving it to you right here at the start.

1. You cannot quit until God finishes your story.

There it is. You cannot quit until God finishes your story. I’m giving that to you now, and you’re going to hear me repeat it a good bit because I want that principle drilled into you before you leave today. I want you driving home and thinking, “I cannot quit until God finishes my story.” I want you knowing it so well you start saying it in your sleep. Why? Because when your job feels like the worst thing in the world on Monday and I’m not there to tell you, I want you telling yourself that you cannot quit until God finishes your story. When Tuesday comes and you’re failing that class you’re trying so hard to do well in and I’m not there to tell you, I want you telling yourself that you cannot quit until God finishes your story. When that wave of depression hits on Thursday and I’m not there to tell you, I want you to tell yourself that you cannot quit until God finishes your story.

We’ve been covering the Old Testament book of Nehemiah for the last nine weeks, and it has been pretty incredible. I’m amazed at how applicable it has been to life today, and this chapter is no different. Turn to Nehemiah chapter 13 as we finish out this book. We’re going to work our way through the chapter, and I want you to keep a mental tally of all the stuff that goes right and all the stuff that goes wrong. This is overwhelmingly not a good chapter for Nehemiah. Let’s start in verse 1.

‌Nehemiah 13:1–3 KJV 1900

1 On that day they read in the book of Moses in the audience of the people; and therein was found written, that the Ammonite and the Moabite should not come into the congregation of God for ever; 2 Because they met not the children of Israel with bread and with water, but hired Balaam against them, that he should curse them: howbeit our God turned the curse into a blessing. 3 Now it came to pass, when they had heard the law, that they separated from Israel all the mixed multitude.

So, this is a continuation of the last few chapters where Ezra read the Law, the first five books of the Bible, to the Jews living in this New Israel. And what had happened? Revival was breaking out. The people were actually listening and changing their ways, and it was great. If the book ended at chapter 12, it would be a pretty amazing success story. We’d be looking at Nehemiah, saying, “I can’t believe you actually did it! You rebuilt the city against all odds and then paired up with Ezra and brought revival to the people. You’re incredible, Nehemiah.” I wish I could tell you that’s how the story ends, but it’s not. Everything Nehemiah had worked toward has already started falling apart. The people had just heard the Law, and they’re already disobeying it by marrying foreigners.

Now, I want to encourage you strongly not to read your 21st century mindset back into this chapter. Because if you do, you are going to walk away thinking that Nehemiah is the biggest racist in the history of the world. And I don’t believe that he was. There is a lot of talk in this chapter of pure bloodlines and keeping Israel apart from the nations around her. Is that because God hated everyone who wasn’t Jewish? No, John 3:16 tells us that God loves the whole world and everyone in it enough to send His Son to die for everyone. That was true in the Old Testament as well as the New. Where I think we run into so much trouble is when we treat Old Testament Israel like the New Testament church, and those two groups are not the same. The goal is the same either way—to see God glorified and souls saved and discipled, but the method for accomplishing that is different. Since the New Testament, our methodology is the Great Commission. We go and tell. In Old Testament times, it was come and see. The point was for Israel to act so distinctly from the other nations around her that those nations would then want what Israel had and choose to serve her God. Today, we go out and reach the world where they are. Our mission is the same. How we achieve it is different.

It is really important for us to remember that in the Old Testament, God was working through a nation, a specific tribe of people; whereas, in New Testament times, He works through the church which can include anyone regardless of nationality. Our problems come when we expect the nation of Israel to act like the church. You don’t run a nation the same way you operate a church. If you try to make a nation work the same way a church works, it’s not going to work. So with that in mind, we can understand that these verses are not about some form of racial elitism. It’s not that the Jews were the only pure race in the world and everyone else needed to die. That’s not what God was saying at all. The prohibition against marrying Ammonites and Moabites was an issue of national security. Those tribes were supposed to have been friendly to Israel because they were distant cousins, but instead, they backstabbed the Jews as the Jews were leaving Egypt. Those tribes had long been enemies of Israel, and marriage with them would have weakened Israel. Let’s say something happened where Ammon decided to attack the Jews. Now all the Israelites who had married Ammonites would have a major conflict of interest—protect their families or their wives’ families. Talk about needing marriage counseling after that, right?

But pay attention to Israel’s reaction in verse 3. The Bible says they “separated from Israel all the mixed multitude.” Was the command against all the mixed multitude? No, just Moab and Ammon. But they go further than God intended and remove all foreigners from the nation. Good decision or bad one? Most preachers would say they did a good thing to uphold the purity of the nation, but I’m not so sure it was the best decision they could have made. And the Bible doesn’t tell us one way or the other. We’re left to discern the answer for ourselves as the chapter continues. So, let’s keep reading.

Nehemiah 13:4 KJV 1900

4 And before this, Eliashib the priest, having the oversight of the chamber of the house of our God, was allied unto Tobiah:

Ok, so happening around the same time as all the previously mentioned problems is Eliashib, the priest, one of the spiritual leaders of the community, goes and invites, not just anyone, but Tobiah himself to stay in the temple. The next verse describes how Eliashib went way out of his way to make Tobiah comfortable in the temple. Do you get how bad of a situation this was? Tobiah should never have been in the temple in the first place because he was an Ammonite. Foreigners weren’t allowed in the temple. And don’t miss the irony of this either. Israel had just removed all foreigners from the land whether they were supposed to or not, but the one that stays and gets special treatment is an Ammonite—one of the people who specifically was not supposed to be there at all. Yet another matter not going well for Nehemiah right now. I absolutely love his response in verse 6.

Nehemiah 13:6 KJV 1900

6 But in all this time was not I at Jerusalem: for in the two and thirtieth year of Artaxerxes king of Babylon came I unto the king, and after certain days obtained I leave of the king:

Isn’t that so true to life? Can’t you just picture his saying that? Like, “Don’t blame me. I wasn’t there!” I think it’s hilarious how Nehemiah’s personality shines through a little bit in that verse.

Verses 7-13 cover his removing of Tobiah and reinstituting all the reforms he had started a few chapters back. He’s pretty much going back and redoing all his work. Then he prays in verse 14,

Nehemiah 13:14 KJV 1900

14 Remember me, O my God, concerning this, and wipe not out my good deeds that I have done for the house of my God, and for the offices thereof.

Here we go with his “remember me” prayer again. He prayed this prayer back at the end of chapter 5, and now, this is the first of 4 times he will pray it in this chapter.

The next verses recount his encounter with some local merchants who were not keeping his new sabbath rules. You can hear his frustration building as he yells out,

Nehemiah 13:21 KJV 1900

21 Then I testified against them, and said unto them, Why lodge ye about the wall? if ye do so again, I will lay hands on you. From that time forth came they no more on the sabbath.

And verses 23-28 are a serious low point for Nehemiah.

Nehemiah 13:23 KJV 1900

23 In those days also saw I Jews that had married wives of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab:

Apparently the people still were not listening to him. They’re marrying these foreign women again. Or maybe he missed this group last time. I don’t know. What I do know is that he did not respond well. Read verse 25.

‌Nehemiah 13:25 KJV 1900

25 And I contended with them, and cursed them, and smote certain of them, and plucked off their hair, and made them swear by God, saying, Ye shall not give your daughters unto their sons, nor take their daughters unto your sons, or for yourselves.

Of all the times I’ve heard someone speak on Nehemiah, I have never heard this verse mentioned. It’s pretty easy to see why, right? But it is in the Bible. It happened. We cannot ignore it. Nehemiah got so mad at the people that he contended with them, cursed them, smote them, and plucked out their hair. Contended means he quarreled with or attacked them. It almost has a legal connotation to it. But should a leader be contentious? No. Curse doesn’t mean that he spat out four-letter words at them. It actually means that he mocked or belittled them. That is never ok. I’m not talking about being sarcastic and having some good, clean fun around friends. You cannot read this without thinking Nehemiah intended to hurt these people emotionally and physically. The word smote can mean anything from “hitting” to “killing” in the Old Testament. The point is he was not pulling his punches. He meant to hurt these people, and that is not ok. I realize the context is different, but imagine if the governor of New Jersey got so mad at some people in the state that he started physically assaulting them. He would lose his position and get arrested really fast.

I do not want you to read all this and think that Nehemiah was a horrible person. He wasn’t. I believe he was a good man with some great qualities, but I also believe he overworked himself. Let’s be real—he rebuilt a city amidst armies of people who hated him constantly trying to stop his work. And he did it all in 52 days. Then he tried to keep the people in line all day every day. I think this chapter is Nehemiah experiencing burnout. There is only so much a person can take on himself before he snaps, and this is Nehemiah snapping. You can feel it in his voice; it sounds like he’s carrying the weight of the world with him. Look at verse 28.

Nehemiah 13:28 KJV 1900

28 And one of the sons of Joiada, the son of Eliashib the high priest, was son in law to Sanballat the Horonite: therefore I chased him from me.

One of the Eliashib’s grandsons married Sanballat’s daughter. This could not get any worse, right? Well, tradition tells us that it did get worse. In complete frustration, Nehemiah forced the man to flee. The story goes that the man’s name was Manasseh. And when Manasseh went crying to Sanballat, his father-in-law, Sanballat built him his own temple—on Mount Gerizim. Fast forward to John chapter 4. Jesus is traveling through Samaria and stops to speak with a woman at a well. She doesn’t like how personal the conversation is getting, and so she switches topics to religion. She asks whether they should worship in the Jewish temple on Mount Zion or the Samaritan temple “in this mountain.” When she says “this mountain,” she’s pointing at Mount Gerizim and the temple that Sanballat built for his son-in-law Manasseh.

The Jewish-Samaritan controversy you hear so much about in the New Testament essentially came out of this verse. It had already begun a little while earlier, but this one decision is what really escalated it. I’m not saying Nehemiah was wrong to address the problem. I’m saying he was wrong in how he addressed the problem. I wonder if 500 years of racial tension, hostility, and hatred could have been avoided if Nehemiah would have just treated Manasseh a little bit better. If instead of chasing him out, he tried to correct him lovingly. We’ll never know, but I think it’s a solid lesson for us that our words and actions carry weight far beyond the moment. That when we speak and act with intent to harm another, nothing good will ever come from it. Someone once said that hurt people hurt people. People who are hurting tend to hurt others because they don’t know how to deal with their own hurt. Hurt people hurt people, and Nehemiah was hurting here.

The book ends with a few final comments and one more prayer.

Nehemiah 13:30–31 KJV 1900

30 Thus cleansed I them from all strangers, and appointed the wards of the priests and the Levites, every one in his business; 31 And for the wood offering, at times appointed, and for the firstfruits. Remember me, O my God, for good.

And that’s how the book of Nehemiah ends. Kinda crazy, right? It’s sort of anticlimactic. You read of all this incredible stuff happening in the book, and you’re expecting a happy ending. Instead you get Nehemiah basically saying, “God, I did my best. I’m done.” It’s like he’s throwing in the towel. He tried to make the New Israel a place worthy of the coming Messiah, but within a few years, the people were making the exact same mistakes that put them in captivity in the first place. It feels like Nehemiah gives up. I think most of us would if we were in his situation. But we have the benefit of being able to look back on history, and we know it was too soon to give up. The story wasn’t finished yet. God was still working.

There’s a song that goes,

Arrival's not the end game

The journey's where you are

You never wanted perfect

You just wanted my heart

And the story isn't over

If the story isn't good

And failure's never final

When the Father's in the room

I absolutely love the way that is worded. The story isn’t over if the story isn’t good, and failure’s never final when the Father’s in the room. What in your life has got you thinking your story is over? What have you done or experienced or had happen to you that makes you feel like you should just throw in the towel? Once you start believing that that bad habit or health problem or social stigma or addiction is what defines you, you have already given up. You don’t ever have to end the book of your life with “Well, at least I tried” like Nehemiah did. You know why? Because God already tried for you. He more than tried. He accomplished. He won. He defeated death itself. Come on. It doesn't get much more incredible than that.

If your God can do all that, your story doesn't ever have to end with just “At least I tried.” It can end with I conquered. I won. I overcame addiction. I had the first successful marriage in my family. I learned from my parents' mistakes. I didn't give in. I didn't act like everyone else. I made a difference. I impacted my community, my school, my college, my friends, my work, my church, my country, my world. That can be how your book ends. It is possible.

And Nehemiah wasn’t nearly as bad off as he thought he was. This book ends with a massive question mark, the question of “what happened to the Messiah?” Where is He? When is He coming? That question is really how the Old Testament as a whole ends. Malachi added a little bit of hope, but even he was still looking ahead to the object of that hope. Four hundred years later, the Messiah did indeed come. His name is Jesus, and He came, not to save Israel from her enemies like they thought, but to save all of humanity from itself. He brings hope, redemption, and closure to the story of Nehemiah. You know why? Because it was Nehemiah’s gates that Jesus walked through when He visited Jerusalem. It was Ezra’s temple with improvements from King Herod that Jesus worshipped His Father in. It was outside Nehemiah’s walls that Jesus was crucified for your sins and for mine. It was outside those walls that He was buried and then rose again three days later. Nehemiah and Ezra and Zerubbabel—their work was not in vain. They didn’t see the fulfillment in their lifetimes, but some generations down the road, God decided it was time to send His Son to earth. And when He did, it was to the land they had rebuilt, to the temple they had constructed, to the walls they had fortified. You see, the story isn’t over if the story isn’t good.

It’s true, Nehemiah’s ending is not the most upbeat passage you’ll read all week. But I would contend that the story of Nehemiah does not end where the book does. I would argue that his story continues on, all the way up to the birth, life, death, and resurrection of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Jesus Himself. Jesus turned a story that ended in apparent failure into a story of unspeakable hope and joy and redemption.

‌Conclusion:

One of my favorite books series as a kid was C. S. Lewis’ Narnia. If you’ve never read it, I highly recommend you do, no matter what your age. The spiritual truth in it is pretty great. With a few exceptions, the seven books of the series follow the stories of the four Pevensie children who have incredible adventures in the land of Narnia, a fantasy world overseen by the lion Aslan, Lewis’ representation of God. The series ends with these words concerning Aslan,

"And as He spoke, He no longer looked to them like a lion...And for us this is the end...But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before."

I think that’s beautiful. And I think Lewis meant for us to apply that to our own lives as well. If you know Jesus as your personal Savior, your story never has to end with a question mark. It never has to end in defeat. It never has to be ruled by stigma or labels or what other people think of you or even what you think of yourself. It can end in an exclamation point, in victory, in triumph, in power—all because Jesus’ death and resurrection more than just save you. They give you power to live every day in His strength, not yours. In His newness of life, not in the weight of your past.

The book of Nehemiah mirrors our own lives in a way. Like Nehemiah, we have some high points and some lows. We have some great stuff happen, and we have some days where we are 100% burnt out and ashamed of what we just did. But also like Nehemiah, our stories don’t end there. They continue to the cross and empty grave. My friends, I don’t know what might have you wanting to quit today, but let me tell you, It’s too soon. Don’t quit yet. You cannot quit until God finishes your story, and your story isn’t over until the ending is good. So, if you’re at a point today where you feel like your life story isn’t good, I have good news for you. It means your story isn’t over yet. It’s not over until God makes it good. So, as we go to prayer, I challenge you to get on your knees before God, whether literally or figuratively, and turn your story over to Him. Put your story in His hands. Let Him make it good. Let’s pray.

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