Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro

This is our final week studying the book of Nehemiah where we have been looking at how God invites us to join him in his work to make disciples and glorify his name.

Throughout Nehemiah God has been working to bring his people out of exile and to restore them to be a light to the nations as witness that God saves sinners.

And to do this, God raised up Nehemiah who led the people of Israel to rebuild the walls surrounding Jerusalem so that it could once again be God’s holy city which held his holy temple where glory and honor were offered to him in the worship of his people.

What I’ve hoped you’ve seen is that the book of Nehemiah is bigger than just rebuilding a wall.

It is about how God was building up his people to show the world that he is the faithful God slow to anger and abounding steadfast in love who gives salvation to all who trust in him.

In this book God had led his people to rebuild walls chapter 6, and moved from restoring Jerusalem after the exile to restoring his people themselves throughout the rest of the book.

And in chapter 10 God’s people recommit themselves to live according to the covenant that God had made with Israel years earlier under Moses.

In this covenant, they committed to be God’s holy people who worshiped him alone on the condition that if they failed to do so, God rip them out of the land and take them into exile all over again.

Then, after recommitting to live for the Lord, 10% of the people moved back into Jerusalem in chapter 12 and the people celebrated all God had done by worshiping him in chapter 12.

It is interesting that

Finally, last week in Josh taught us how God’s people moved from this to worship God in celebration.

It seemed like Nehemiah’s work was finally complete, and God’s people were once again restored to usher in the promised Messiah, Jesus Christ, who would come to die for the sins of his people and reign over them as their holy King.

But, then we come to .

And in a book that recounts triumph after triumph, it appears that Nehemiah closes his book not with a bang but with a whimper.

Instead of ending the book in chapter 12 where God’s people are worshiping and all seems right in the world, Nehemiah continues the story where God’s people are tempted to renounce the covenant they had made and Israel’s status as a light to the nations is once again on shaky ground.

And what I want you to see today is that Nehemiah does this intentionally.

He ends his book not with a triumph but with a warning.

Nehemiah wants all God’s people who read this book to see clearly that if they are not diligent to live by faith, then they will drift into sin.

That is the big idea of this sermon.

That we must live with diligence in our faith so that we can give God the glory due His name and be a light to the nations so that more people might repent and trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins.

Now what do I mean by saying we must be diligent to live by faith.

Diligence is a word that you are almost undoubtedly familiar with but might not know exactly what it means.

It carries with it this idea of steadiness, earnestness.

A synonym might be painstaking.

its this idea of intense care or concern.

So when I say that we must be diligent to live by faith, I’m saying that we must be committed to and make every effort to not just proclaim Christ with our lips, but to live for him in every area of our lives loving him from our heart.

And this is crucial for us as we follow Jesus because, as we are going to see today, if we fail to live with diligence where we take care to live by faith then we will always drift farther and farther towards sin and idolatry.

That is because sin is what comes naturally to us.

In Christ we are all a new creation.

God has given us new hearts and new desires to worship him.

However, until we die or Christ returns, we will struggle with our sinful flesh.

That is the sinful part of us that is insatiable in its desire to feast on sin and we are called to put it to death by God’s grace.

Holiness is something that God works in us by grace through sanctification where we grow to live by faith and walk in the new self, but this only happens as we are diligent to follow the Spirit’s leading as he shows us how to live for Christ instead of ourselves.

And what you are going to see in as Israel drifts towards sin, they go back on every promise they made in chapter 10.

In renewing the covenant they promised to worship God alone by not marrying foreign pagans, worship God as King by honoring the Sabbath, and to make worship a priority by supplying all the needs for the temple.

In Chapter 10 Israel committed themselves to live as God’s holy people and be a light to the nations of God’s salvation by doing three things.

They promised to worship God alone by not marrying the pagans of the surrounding nations because this would tempt the people of Israel to worship their false gods and abandon the Living God of Israel.

They promised to worship God as King by honoring the Sabbath as a weekly reminder that God had chosen them as his holy people by his grace so they could rest from their works.

And finally they promised to make worship a priority by supplying all the needs for the priests and the levites who led the people in worship at the Temple and supplying all the ministry of the temple in sacrifices offered to the Lord.

And is an inversion of each and every one of these covenant promises.

He charges them with profaning the Sabbath,

and he charges them with compromising their faith by marrying these foreign pagans.

This chapter is about the danger of growing lax in our faith which can lead to God’s name being dishonored before a watching world.

God’s people must be diligent to live by faith, and make their faith their highest priority, or they will drift into sin.

Nehemiah begins his warning On that day they read from the Book of Moses in the hearing of the people.

And in it was found written that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever enter the assembly of God, 2 for they did not meet the people of Israel with bread and water, but hired Balaam against them to curse them—yet our God turned the curse into a blessing.

3 As soon as the people heard the law, they separated from Israel all those of foreign descent.

On that day they read from the Book of Moses in the hearing of the people.

And in it was found written that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever enter the assembly of God, 2 for they did not meet the people of Israel with bread and water, but hired Balaam against them to curse them—yet our God turned the curse into a blessing.

3 As soon as the people heard the law, they separated from Israel all those of foreign descent.

Now what does Nehemiah mean by “On that day?”

What day are we talking about here?

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .