Commitments

Good Morning welcome to our online service… We are pleased to let you know that we will be joining together next week for our in person services… You should have received something in the mail this past week. If not let us know and we will make sure you get that..

Every 6 months, I get this reminder text that it’s time for my next check up at our dentist… This means going to see the Hygienist… Our Hygienist… is a perfectionist and she really thorough at her job…She is extremely kind… but.. I always feel like I’m getting a report card of how I have done in the past 6 months… Sometimes it’s a good report card.... and other times it’s some improvement needed… Then for the next couple of weeks — I am on my game — brushing after every meal.... keeping up on flossing… Have this new awareness… then slowly seem to fall back into habits…

This morning we are going to look at the importance of Consistency and the problem of mission drift and moving away from God’s purpose or simply backsliding in our spirtual life and faith....

The Problem of inconsistency something that Judah… struggled with… and their struggle is our struggle too!!

Each one of us has a tendency to start of well… We have all had these new beginnings.. or moments of inspiration… we decide we are going to change a behavior or start forming good habits… We quick out the gate then after some time we being to learn keeping momentum is challenging

… how do we stay consistent over the long hall.. day in day out… month in and month out..

What you have to appreciated about the book of Nehemiah is the realism.. ... through the memoirs of Nehemiah we have seen how far Judah has progressed… from chapter 1-12 there is a huge transformation… from broken walls to this the Dedication of the walls of Jerusalem…

Dedication is an incredible event...full of Pomp and Ceremony… We are told there are two great choirs present one on the North Wall and one on the South Wall… cascading down the steps…

There all kinds of instruments being played the lyre and cymbals…all kinds of singing... This was a day to be be remembered… We have similar Celebrations today.. We Celebrate Weddings, Graduations, Birthdays… We as a church have celebrated to key milestones.. our 75th and Centennial homecoming and celebrations… It is important to Celebrate… and maybe we don’t do that nearly enough.. at one point point Nehemiah and the priests… said to the people go home… celebrate with your families… Celebration life and each other is essential… creates these memories…of past victories..

And if things ended in Chapter 12 there would be this satisfaction of resolution… things came together and worked out…

We as a culture love happy endings.... I was reading of a movie that was being released and in its final stages was being previewed by a focus group… who disliked the movie because it ended on a downer… The produces ended up re-filming the movie with a happy ending and it became a Block buster movie…

As we come to the end of Nehemiah it’s going to end on a bit of a downer…T. S. Eliot tells us that Nehemiah ends, “not with a bang, but a whimper.”…

What makes the Bible Authentic is that it tells the whole story… tells about Moses striking the rock rather than speaking to it (Num. 20:7–12); David committed adultery with Bathsheba (2 Sam. 11); and the disciples regularly misunderstood Jesus, even to the point of denying Him. Today we live in a day when spin doctors repackage reality to sell it to a the public and we often find it difficult to decipher the truth fro the lie...

We find in our text ---Biblical realism tells the truth unvarnished truth…

in our text ...Judah is coming up for their Check up.. They are Due..

After everything was completed Nehemiah kept to his word and returned to Susa to serve King Artaxerxes... We are told how long he was therefore… He must have been way for a considerable time…there is younger generation who have grown up not speaking Hebrew..... imagine it was years…

There must have been days when Nehemiah reminisced about his 12 years as Governor in Jerusalem --- He must have remembered the challenges… the miracles....the victories… satisfaction of finishing the project and the Great Dedication…. Nothing must have pleased him more than seeing Worship restored and God being Glorified in through the region.. at the end of the day...all the hard work....was worth it..

Nehemiah didn’t just wonder about how things were… decided do Check up… to follow through… Unlike the first Reform when Nehemiah got news from Jerusalem… We have no idea what prompted this visit.... but, I assume he got wind of some news.. that things were not going well..

There is a lesson here on leadership…that is the importance of followthrough --- When I play golf… I have this persistent problem of lifting my head too soon…which messes up the follow through… because your follow through will ultimately determine the direction of the ball… The same thing with life… follow through determines the direction...

good leaders understand the importance of the follow through… The things we follow through are those things we deem important....

Whether it is a relationship…or project…

-- Nehemiah once again asks Permission from King Artaxerxes to return to Jerusalem - once again he gets favor from the King. -When he arrives in Jerusalem things are not how he imagined.

T/s. How do we live a life that is consistent? What checks do we need in place to keep focused?

1. Identify Areas of Inconsistency -

Chapter 13 begins with what had been accomplished in Israel recent history…Nehemiah summarizes in a nutshell what had taken place during his 12 years as governor of Jerusalem.. Judah had lived up to the covenant and they had separated themselves from nations and the worship of foreign gods…

Then Nehemiah then returns to Susa to serve the King Artaxerxes. .. We are not given a time frame that Nehemiah returns to Jerusalem..All we know is that “after certain days” Nehemiah arrived in Jerusalem, there to find “the evil that Eliashib had done for Tobiah, in preparing a room for him in the courts of the house of God

When Nehemiah arrives he finds that things are out of order… In a relatively short period of time the people had drifted… from their primary purpose.. and calling… to Glorify God…

Now the first thing that Nehemiah deals with is pretty incredible… lets read our text.

Nehemiah 13:4–6 ESV

4 Now before this, Eliashib the priest, who was appointed over the chambers of the house of our God, and who was related to Tobiah, 5 prepared for Tobiah a large chamber where they had previously put the grain offering, the frankincense, the vessels, and the tithes of grain, wine, and oil, which were given by commandment to the Levites, singers, and gatekeepers, and the contributions for the priests. 6 While this was taking place, I was not in Jerusalem, for in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes king of Babylon I went to the king. And after some time I asked leave of the king

When Nehemiah arrives in Jerusalem - Things are way out of order…Nehemiah begins with Spiritual leadership… Nehemiah starts his “check up” with the Temple with the Priesthood.. In the Bible you often find that Spiritual leadership leadership filters down towards the people… Whenever Israel had a lack of spiritual leadership the nation deteriorated quickly… then God would raise up a leader like Moses or Joshua… or one of the Judges and things would turn around…

Nehemiah had left things in the hands of Spiritual leadership… And so he comes back to see How were things going with Spiritual leadership?? It was time for their check up and what he discovers is that there is some serious mission drift --- or backsliding..

In our text Eliashib the high priest has allowed things to slip… turning back on the covenants the had made firm in the Chapter 10...

First of all he had allowed his daughter to marry Tobiah’s son an Ammonite…a gentile.. We need to realize that the issue in the OT is not a racial issue — We know that is not the case because we have stories like Ruth and Boaz....two different nationalities coming together..

The problem with these marriages is that they came with alliances with other nations which included the worship of foreign gods...And because of this relationship between Eliashib and Tobiah there were some compromises being made in the temple… Tobiah was given the largest room in the temple… The storeroom used to keep the grain offering, the frankincense, the vessels, and the tithes of grain, wine, and oil…

Tobiah’s presence in the storeroom designated for holy implements caused the room to be desecrated. And it is perplexing that this compromise of the temple’s holiness and integrity did not appear to matter to Eliashib or to his fellow priests.

Here is the problem..

When the temple was functioning properly, these ministers were supported fully by offerings given for their livelihood. But when these were withheld, the Levites and singers could not continue with their sacred tasks. We told that the levites had returned to their fields in order to survive…

We often think of our sin or our personal neglect as only impacting us.. The problem is that sin and disobedience not only impacts us but all of our relationships… marriages, friendships, church family....

That’s One of the issues with Tobiah.. there is another .... Tobaiah is the same guy…who with Sanballat had opposed the building of the walls, who had speed rumours and accused Nehemiah of trying to make himself King over Jerusalem… The same Tobaiah who had organized an assassination plot to kill Nehemiah… Tobaiah is bad news.. If you remember earlier… Nehemiah was told to seek asylum in the temple and he refused because it was a holy place…Nehemiaih saw the , his presence a gentile in the temple was desecrating the temple…an insult to God himself...

b. Notice how Nehemiah Responds.

Nehemiah 13:7–11 ESV

7 and came to Jerusalem, and I then discovered the evil that Eliashib had done for Tobiah, preparing for him a chamber in the courts of the house of God. 8 And I was very angry, and I threw all the household furniture of Tobiah out of the chamber. 9 Then I gave orders, and they cleansed the chambers, and I brought back there the vessels of the house of God, with the grain offering and the frankincense. 10 I also found out that the portions of the Levites had not been given to them, so that the Levites and the singers, who did the work, had fled each to his field. 11 So I confronted the officials and said, “Why is the house of God forsaken?” And I gathered them together and set them in their stations.

First of all Nehemiah is angry…

We often have this misconception of Anger… that we should never be angry… When you look at the scripture you find that there numerous times when God is angry... For example: God gave Moses the assignment to be His representative to deliver the Israelites from Egypt, but Moses objected despite God’s promises. The Lord’s anger burned against Moses (Ex. 4:14). Jesus was often angry at the Pharisees or other religious leaders

There is a righteous anger found in the Bible… the type that Paul talks about in Ephesians 4:26 where he says...Be angry and do not sin…

Henry Ward Beecher was a Congregationalist clergyman 1800’s, He was known as social reformer who support of the abolition of slavery and his emphasis on God's love..

He said this about anger...

“A man that does not know how to be angry does not know how to be good. A man that does not know how to be shaken to his heart’s core with indignation over things evil is either a fungus or a wicked man”

There is an anger that responds to injustice…

Nehemiah’s anger is coming from his heart of love for God and compassion for the people of God… Angry a Sin.. because..... sin has away of creeping causing destruction… destroying relationships… destroying families and destroying nations...

We see Nehemiah firstly being..

1. Angry at Sin.

There were many reasons why this was so distressing to Nehemiah.

i. It grieved him because rooms in the courts of the temple of God were being occupied by a man not only a pagan, but who also had a history of actively opposing God’s work in the days of Nehemiah.

ii. It grieved him because it reflected so badly on Eliashib (a man who was a spiritual leader in Israel) and those around him. It showed that if Eliashib was blind to a problem area, there was also no one around him who could confront him with the problem.

iii. It grieved him because it made Nehemiah question the lasting value of the spiritual revival he witnessed when last in Jerusalem.

How does He respond..

2. he deals Radically with Sin

He personally took care of the eviction notice of Tobaiah… He didn’t send someone else to do the job… He took Tobiah and his furniture and through it to the curb… This reminds us of what Jesus did when he overturned the money tables in the Temples....It was love in love…that Jesus drove the merchants out of the temple…

It was righteous anger that motivated. Nehemiah..”contended” with the leaders, saying: “Why is the house of God forsaken?”

What is incredible about Nehemiah’s inditement is that Incredibly, the people had done precisely what they had promised not to do in the covenant of chapter 10.

In 10:39 they had pledged: “And we will not neglect the house of our God.” (The Hebrew word translated there as “neglect” comes from the same root as the word for “forsaken” in 13:11

Therefore, when Nehemiah accused the leaders (and implicitly the people) of neglecting or forsaking the temple, he was actually accusing them of breaking the covenant made in chapter 10. And as we shall see, each incident in chapter 13 follows this same pattern: the people break their covenantal vows from chapter 10.

After contending with the leaders, Nehemiah reinstated the forsaken ministers in their proper places (v. 11). (“I gathered them together” refers to the Levites, not to the leaders.) Under Nehemiah’s command, “all Judah” once again brought the appropriate offerings to the storehouse and, thus, restored full support for the temple staff.Nehemiah himself appointed the storehouse “treasurers,” choosing people distinguished for their integrity.

Nehemiah identified inconsistencies and then dealt with them...

T/s. How do we live a life that is consistent? What checks do we need in place to keep focused?

1. Identify Areas of Inconsistency - sand deal with them head on...

2. Identify the Pathway of your Actions or inaction.

Most of us learn best from consequences of actions or inactions.... We learn early on that there are consequences for every action or inaction… When you in school and you don’t study for a test… you feel the consequences immediately… you miss a due date on a college paper…

—Bruce Barton, U.S. writer and politician

Sometimes when I consider what tremendous consequences come from little things, I am tempted to think there are no little things.

One of the ways that we can stay focused in life is pay attention to our actions and inactions… both are decision...

If we were never make another change in our lives where will be in the future… The next 5 to 10 years?

Where will our health be? Where will our Spiritual life be? Where will be as a Church? I

What we are talking about is the cost of Neglecting those things that are important…

Nehemiah 13:15 ESV

15 In those days I saw in Judah people treading winepresses on the Sabbath, and bringing in heaps of grain and loading them on donkeys, and also wine, grapes, figs, and all kinds of loads, which they brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day. And I warned them on the day when they sold food.

Not only has the Temple worship been neglected but also Observing the Sabbath… The Sabbath is what distinguished the people of Israel from all other nations… Sabbath was a day set aside to rest and to honor God…

Now for some people this might have been a small issue.. but not for God and Nehemiah..

The whole purpose behind the concept of sabbath was rest. The seventh day of creation, the sabbath, was a day when God ‘rested from all the work of creating that he had done’ (Gn. 2:3). In the same way the sabbath year was to be a sabbath of rest for the land (Lv. 25:2, 4–5): ‘The land is to have a year of rest’.

The Sabbath is two things; rest & remembrance, R&R. Not rest & relaxation, but rest & remembrance. The mind, emotions, spirit & body need rest to operate rightly; one day in seven…

A few months ago Pam and I did this painting class.. where we taught how to paint with an instructor… for 2 hours she guided us through every stroke… There are a few things that you learn from painting the first is to stop when you done… sometimes we feel we got to do more… One of the ladies added more trees to her picture and she later regretted it… It is always tempting to do more.. when we do that we create muddy mess and can ruin some thing beautiful by overworking it… My dad is an artist he has produced some beautiful paintings… He is patient spends at least two weeks on a painting… He will work stop and come back to the painting later....

All great artists do this; much of their work is done in reflection.

The point is there’s a limit to our work, and that’s what God’s teaching. There’s a time to just stop & rest. Because if you keep working you’re going to burn out! You’ll do too much, over work things & ruin what progress you’ve made. Not everything has to be perfect or finished, as you think they do. It’s better to go away & come back fresh to an unfinished task. But we usually overwork things, then we end up going back cleaning up the mess we made by overworking it. Whereas, if we’d stopped, rested & come back to our work, we’d be more level headed to do it rightly in the first place

the Sabbath is two things; rest & remembrance, R&R. Not rest & relaxation, but rest & remembrance. The mind, emotions, spirit & body need rest to operate rightly; one day in seven to be exact. God provides that in the idea of the Sabbath

Nehemiah observed the people dishonoring the Sabbath. Many who lived in the country side around Jerusalem were working on the Sabbath: making wine and transporting produce into the city for sale (v. 15).

Immediately, Nehemiah warned those responsible to not to sell goods on the Sabbath. It wasn’t even the people of Judah… there were merchant from Tyre who were coming into the city to sell their goods… Gentiles, they did not follow the Sabbath law, of course, but by setting up shop on the Sabbath they were corrupting the Judeans. Nehemiah did not rebuke the Tyrians, but, rather, contended with “the nobles of Judah,” who must have been buying Tyrian goods (v. 17).

Nehemiah recognizes the problem of bringing the wrath of God on the people... They were setting themselves up to receive the judgement of God... Nehemiah takes things into his own hands -- as soon as it gets dark he gives the orders to shut the gates.. and keep all the merchants outside of the city until after the Sabbath day... The merchants persisted and camped outside the gates... Nehemiah warned them -- He said if you come again I will lay hands on you.... In those days he saw

Nehemiah feared that by “profaning the Sabbath” again, the nobles would bring “added wrath upon Israel.”

Not satisfied with his attempt to persuade the people, Nehemiah then commanded the gates of Jerusalem to be shut and to be guarded during the Sabbath so that no merchants could enter (v. 19). For a while the sellers camped outside the gates, perhaps hoping to sell goods to individuals who left from the city during the Sabbath (v. 20), but when Nehemiah threatened these merchants with physical violence, they stopped coming to Jerusalem on the Sabbath

Once more, we should note that the people broke a covenant vow they had made earlier. In 10:31 they had promised: “If the peoples of the land bring wares or any grain to sell on the Sabbath day, we will not buy it from them on the Sabbath, or on a holy day..But, several years later they did in fact transact business on the Sabbath.

What will it cost when we neglect the things that are important?

T/s. How do we live a life that is consistent? What checks do we need in place to keep focused?

1. Identify Areas of Inconsistency -

2. Identify Pathway of your Actions or inaction.

3. Identify Places of needed Change

The pericope or the title that my Bible has for this section of Scripture is Nehemiah’s Final Reform… Nehemiah’s purpose in going back to Jerusalem was to bring some much needed course correction… and continue make sure that the work was heading in the right direction…

I would maybe call this section Nehemiah’s Radical Reform..…

We find a man on a mission… Look at how Nehemiah responded..

He is Evicting Tobaiah out of the Temple… He is confronting the leaders and calling them Unfaithful… He is shutting the gates the evening before Sabath and threatening to Hurt people if they didn’t comply.. At one point he is walking around Jerusalem and he notices that none of the children spoke Hebrew… they were speaking in foreign languages… he gets so angry that he ends up pulling the hair of those who had intermarried with foreign woman…

He chases the Eliashibs son in law away from Him…

Nehemiah was Radical… But if you look through History… Most reformers… were kind of like that… Martin Luther… didn’t go along with the Papacy and the selling of indulgences… He argued… willing to die for his Cause…

Nehemiah Identified ares of Change and then went for it… regardless of what others might have thought....

Nehemiah ends the book with these words

Nehemiah 13:30–31 ESV

30 Thus I cleansed them from everything foreign, and I established the duties of the priests and Levites, each in his work; 31 and I provided for the wood offering at appointed times, and for the firstfruits. Remember me, O my God, for good.

a. Consecrate your heart

After the wall has been built and reform has been made. Time is going on and people have forgotten about their commitments they forgot about the covenant they made with God. They started to do things that were right in their own eyes. As a result they neglected they worship. They didn't pay attention to sin that was in the camp. When you come we Nehemiah comes he recognizes immediately that they are not in the right place and begins to bring correction Time and again, Israel allowed the world and its fallen idols to invade her life. In Paul’s words, she became “conformed to this world” (Rom. 12:2)

Nehemiah at the end took out anything Foreign from among the people and reestablished the priesthood… and restored the purpose of the temple… provide worship and provide sacrifices… for the sins of the people....

Conclusion

At the end Nehemiah of the books says...

“Remember me, O my God, for good.’

At the end it comes to a personal response… What have I done with all that God has given to me…

Here is the thing Nehemiah realized that his good deeds might not be spared — All the work and effort that was put in the work of rebuilding the walls and trying to bring reformation… Nehemiah saw how quickly the people drifted… just in one generation… The work that we do maybe gone in the future… What it comes down to is not what we built or achieved… But Do I have a Relationship with God… For those of us in ministry we are always concerned about the work of God… and the goal and the hope that the works will continue and thrive beyond us… but that is not always the case…

Nehemiah asked only to be remembered for good. The niv captures the sense well in translating: “Remember me with favor, O my God” (v. 31). Nehemiah asked God to remember, not his great and lasting successes, but simply himself.

This begs the question today…

What is the condition of my heart? Are we like Judah that have slowly slipped and drifted away from from our first love of God… The good news is that God is always there for us…He is the covenant keeper p the bible tells us that he remains faithful for a thousand generations...