Nehemiah 5
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Sermon Tone Analysis
A
D
F
J
S
Emotion
A
C
T
Language
O
C
E
A
E
Social
Intro
Intro
Personal Problem
Political Problem
Administrative Problem
Physical & Psychological Problem
Economic and Social Problem
New Information about Nehemiah
Governor of land
Position for 12 years
We can relate to Nehemiah and to the people in this text today !!
Walls and wealth
Building and budgets
Empathy and Economics
Money is NOT the root of all evil, it is the LOVE of money that is at the root of so much sin. Wealth and Money are not the issue the heart is and Nehemiah 5 illustrates for us the biblical balance.... Neh 5 is going to address our hearts this morning, while it does speak to things like the misuse of our wealth it also speaks of a much larger spiritual issue that I hope to make plain by the end of todays message.
3 Parts, 10 appeals, 1 application
PRAYER
Message
Message
The Problem
The Problem
1 Now there arose a great outcry of the people and of their wives against their Jewish brothers. 2 For there were those who said, “With our sons and our daughters, we are many. So let us get grain, that we may eat and keep alive.” 3 There were also those who said, “We are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards, and our houses to get grain because of the famine.” 4 And there were those who said, “We have borrowed money for the king’s tax on our fields and our vineyards. 5 Now our flesh is as the flesh of our brothers, our children are as their children. Yet we are forcing our sons and our daughters to be slaves, and some of our daughters have already been enslaved, but it is not in our power to help it, for other men have our fields and our vineyards.”
Jews against Jews… Christians and Christians
Different kinds of hardships
Wall work / Farm Work
Taxes continued even in the face of labor
13 Now be it known to the king that if this city is rebuilt and the walls finished, they will not pay tribute, custom, or toll, and the royal revenue will be impaired.
Working on walls rather than in fields
Exalting Jesus in Ezra-Nehemiah The Outcry (Nehemiah 5:1–5)
Do you think beyond yourself when you think about how you deal with your money and how you go about accumulating money? Do you ever ask whether what you do with your money harms other Christians or keeps them from being able to devote themselves to the work of the church?
Are you so prideful that you have to be at the very bottom of the barrel before you will ask for help? Are you willing to let the family of believers help you?
The Solution
The Solution
6 I was very angry when I heard their outcry and these words. 7 I took counsel with myself, and I brought charges against the nobles and the officials. I said to them, “You are exacting interest, each from his brother.” And I held a great assembly against them 8 and said to them, “We, as far as we are able, have bought back our Jewish brothers who have been sold to the nations, but you even sell your brothers that they may be sold to us!” They were silent and could not find a word to say. 9 So I said, “The thing that you are doing is not good. Ought you not to walk in the fear of our God to prevent the taunts of the nations our enemies? 10 Moreover, I and my brothers and my servants are lending them money and grain. Let us abandon this exacting of interest. 11 Return to them this very day their fields, their vineyards, their olive orchards, and their houses, and the percentage of money, grain, wine, and oil that you have been exacting from them.” 12 Then they said, “We will restore these and require nothing from them. We will do as you say.” And I called the priests and made them swear to do as they had promised. 13 I also shook out the fold of my garment and said, “So may God shake out every man from his house and from his labor who does not keep this promise. So may he be shaken out and emptied.” And all the assembly said “Amen” and praised the Lord. And the people did as they had promised.
Appeal to Community 5:7
Neh 5.7 “7 I took counsel with myself, and I brought charges against the nobles and the officials. I said to them, “You are exacting interest, each from his brother.” And I held a great assembly against them”
26 If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.
10 Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.
Appeal to Compassion 5:8a
Neh 5.8 “8 and said to them, “We, as far as we are able, have bought back our Jewish brothers who have been sold to the nations…
20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.
Appeal to Conscience 5:8b
Neh 5.8 … but you even sell your brothers that they may be sold to us!” They were silent and could not find a word to say.”
19 Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.
Appeal to Morality/Truth 5:9a
Neh 5.9 “9 So I said, “The thing that you are doing is not good…
35 “If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you. 36 Take no interest from him or profit, but fear your God, that your brother may live beside you. 37 You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him your food for profit.
7 “If among you, one of your brothers should become poor, in any of your towns within your land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother,
8 But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
39 “If your brother becomes poor beside you and sells himself to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave: 40 he shall be with you as a hired worker and as a sojourner. He shall serve with you until the year of the jubilee. 41 Then he shall go out from you, he and his children with him, and go back to his own clan and return to the possession of his fathers.
Appeal to Theology 5:9b
Neh 5.9 … Ought you not to walk in the fear of our God …
14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
4 For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me.
Appeal to Scripture/Text 5:9b
Neh 5.9 … The thing that you are doing is not good. Ought you not to walk in the fear of our God …
19 “You shall not charge interest on loans to your brother, interest on money, interest on food, interest on anything that is lent for interest. 20 You may charge a foreigner interest, but you may not charge your brother interest, that the Lord your God may bless you in all that you undertake in the land that you are entering to take possession of it.
Appeal to Testimony 5:9c
Neh 5.9 … to prevent the taunts of the nations our enemies?”
The Message of Nehemiah: God’s Servant in a Time of Change f. The Appeal to Testimony (5:9c)
W. E. Sangster used to pose the searching question: ‘Are some people outside the Church of Jesus Christ because I am inside?’
Appeal to Experience/Practice 5:10
Neh 5.10 “10 Moreover, I and my brothers and my servants are lending them money and grain. Let us abandon this exacting of interest.”
Appeal to Commitment/Promise 5:11-12
Neh 5.11-12 “11 Return to them this very day their fields, their vineyards, their olive orchards, and their houses, and the percentage of money, grain, wine, and oil that you have been exacting from them.” 12 Then they said, “We will restore these and require nothing from them. We will do as you say.” And I called the priests and made them swear to do as they had promised.”
Appeal to Recompense/Punishment 5:13
Neh 5.13 “13 I also shook out the fold of my garment and said, “So may God shake out every man from his house and from his labor who does not keep this promise. So may he be shaken out and emptied.” And all the assembly said “Amen” and praised the Lord. And the people did as they had promised.”
The Example
The Example
14 Moreover, from the time that I was appointed to be their governor in the land of Judah, from the twentieth year to the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes the king, twelve years, neither I nor my brothers ate the food allowance of the governor. 15 The former governors who were before me laid heavy burdens on the people and took from them for their daily ration forty shekels of silver. Even their servants lorded it over the people. But I did not do so, because of the fear of God. 16 I also persevered in the work on this wall, and we acquired no land, and all my servants were gathered there for the work. 17 Moreover, there were at my table 150 men, Jews and officials, besides those who came to us from the nations that were around us. 18 Now what was prepared at my expense for each day was one ox and six choice sheep and birds, and every ten days all kinds of wine in abundance. Yet for all this I did not demand the food allowance of the governor, because the service was too heavy on this people. 19 Remember for my good, O my God, all that I have done for this people.
Exalting Jesus in Ezra-Nehemiah (Nehemiah and the Governor’s Allowance (Nehemiah 5:14–19))
12 years multiplied by 365 days is 4,380 oxen. He either had a herd big enough to sustain that or he had the money to buy that many oxen. He also slaughtered 6 sheep per day, and in 12 years that’s 26,280 sheep.
If you had the means to provide 500 pounds of food every day and you were feeding 150 people, would you feel guilty about it?
Romans 12:4–8 (ESV)
4 For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, 5 so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. 6 Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; 7 if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; 8 the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.
2 Corinthians 9:6–11 (ESV)
6 The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. 7 Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 8 And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. 9 As it is written, “He has distributed freely, he has given to the poor; his righteousness endures forever.” 10 He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. 11 You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God.
Compassion for Others
Reverence for God
Righteous Reward
Our need is to balance all of the Bible’s teaching on the subject of money. Our need is to see that even if we sell what we have and give it away, we haven’t necessarily done what would please God. We also need to see that indulging ourselves at the expense of others does not please God. Our need is to know how to steward what we have for the glory of Christ, the good of others, and the advance of the gospel.
11 For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me.
21 Jesus said to him, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”
9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.
19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
25 For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?
24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.
10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.
4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,
18 knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.
Close
Close
28 Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
Every one of us is in bondage to our sin we have from birth been slaves, and if we are honest we ourselves have even at times sought to mortgage our own souls to buy the fleeting pleasures of this world. We are in captivity and need rescue. Look around you for these your brothers are powerless to rescue you, for they themselves do not have what it takes to redeem us from the people of death. Yet there is a gracious, generous, loving leader, a ruler who is wealthy who has the means, authority and the desire to not only purchase us out of this bondage but also to care for us in our times of need and distress. To protect and provide for us. Nehemiah here in todays text is simply a veil behind and through which we can see a glimpse of the one true king of glory that very Jesus Christ whose own precious blood was spilt to bring us freedom. He purchased our release, and now offers us the fruit of his very table, much more choice then ox or rams for it is the ever living bread of life and living water which he provides. Now no longer slaves let us too imitate his glorious example and be a people who seeks to use the blessings which he provides for the service of the kingdom for greater is our reward in Him than any sacrifice we ourselves could ever make.
Our hearts outcry is due to our bondage to sin.
We too must be redeemed and released and only Jesus does this.
As a redeemed member of His kingdom let us now live in accordance to the riches of His glorious grace.
We too without Jesus are in bondage; however when we are set free we should give freely of the riches of grace that He has given to us, for doing so is for His glory and our good.
PRAYER
Group Questions
What stood out to you most from this message?
What does it say about Nehemiah that he would follow the account of the financial oppression of God’s people with indications of his own phenomenal wealth? What point was he trying to make?
Evidently some of the wealthier Jews were taking advantage of other Jews who had put themselves at financial risk so they could work on the wall. In what ways do some people today oppress or take advantage of those who are devoting themselves to gospel ministry?
Are there any ways that you are taking advantage of others for financial gain?
Do you feel guilty about the ways that God has provided for you financially? Should you feel less guilt than you do? Explain.
Should you feel more guilt than you do? Are you worshiping money rather than God? Is your hope set on wealth rather than God? Are you un-generous? Explain.
Do your children/other family members or those around you perceive that you are pursuing God or pursuing gold? What might make them think that money is too important in your life?
If you are obeying 1 Timothy 6:17–19 and you still feel guilty, do you think that guilt comes from the conviction of the Holy Spirit? How might pride be a source of guilt in this situation?
If you had the means to provide 500 pounds of food every day and you were feeding 150 people, would you feel guilty about it? Why?
If guilt arises from our own pride, are we honoring God? Explain.