Liberty Baptist Church
MAY 31

      • Psalm 145:1–9ESV

  • VICTORY IN JESUS
  • HOW GREAT THOU ART
  • CHRIST OUR WISDOM

      • Psalm 36:7–9ESV

  • O FOUNT OF LOVE

      • Psalm 145:5KJV1900

  • If you have your Bibles, and I hope you do, please grab them and head on over to Nehemiah 13. I am super thankful my brother was able to step in this past week on short notice. The stomach bug hit us Saturday pretty hard and fast, but it seems like the Lord providentially knew that we were going to need help. I hope you enjoyed him as much as he enjoyed you. And I’m thankful to say, we’re all healthy as of right now…we’ll see how the day goes.
    Walker and I were driving down the road the other night and we started talking about prominent figures in our world. Walker said he wanted to be like one of them, but I told him, “That guy isn’t that great. He’s done some bad things.” Walker asked me what they were and I told him…they weren’t illegal, but definitely immoral. Walker responded and said, “They should have laws against that.”
    Wouldn’t that be nice? If laws just fixed our problems. Think about Prhobition in the 20s where they outlawed alcohol. They thought that’d solve the problem of drunkeness and abuse, but instead it just paved the way for organized crime syndicates. We put laws in place thinking that they’ll solve our problems. That’s not just a ten year old mindset, that a grown up’s mindset. But here’s the thing, external reforms have never cured internal problems.
    And Nehemiah 13 is another picture of that. Ever since chapter 8 we’ve been on a crescendo in the story line building towards the end. It has seemed as if we are marching towards the fulfillment of God’s promises and are about to realize what God had intended since the fall of humanity: God’s people, in God’s place with God’s presence. The Israelites are fulfilling their chosen purpose of being a kingdom of priests to the nations and the nations are coming to see and know who God truly is, but then we get to Neh. 13, and the wheels have fallen off.
    And while this chapter is going to give us some really practical, helpful action steps, it’s also going to leave us with a warning: you can do all the right things and still be empty on the inside. But that’s the point of the book. Remember, Nehemiah concludes, historically speaking, the Old Testament timeline. After Nehemiah there is 400 years of silence. We end this seeing things aren’t the way they should be, yet longing for something better. So let’s read all of Neh. 13, ask the Lord to help us understand, and then dive into it. Pick up with me in verse 1
    Nehemiah 13 ESV
    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, 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. As soon as the people heard the law, they separated from Israel all those of foreign descent. Now before this, Eliashib the priest, who was appointed over the chambers of the house of our God, and who was related to Tobiah, 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. 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 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. And I was very angry, and I threw all the household furniture of Tobiah out of the chamber. 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. 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. 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. Then all Judah brought the tithe of the grain, wine, and oil into the storehouses. And I appointed as treasurers over the storehouses Shelemiah the priest, Zadok the scribe, and Pedaiah of the Levites, and as their assistant Hanan the son of Zaccur, son of Mattaniah, for they were considered reliable, and their duty was to distribute to their brothers. Remember me, O my God, concerning this, and do not wipe out my good deeds that I have done for the house of my God and for his service. 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. Tyrians also, who lived in the city, brought in fish and all kinds of goods and sold them on the Sabbath to the people of Judah, in Jerusalem itself! Then I confronted the nobles of Judah and said to them, “What is this evil thing that you are doing, profaning the Sabbath day? Did not your fathers act in this way, and did not our God bring all this disaster on us and on this city? Now you are bringing more wrath on Israel by profaning the Sabbath.” As soon as it began to grow dark at the gates of Jerusalem before the Sabbath, I commanded that the doors should be shut and gave orders that they should not be opened until after the Sabbath. And I stationed some of my servants at the gates, that no load might be brought in on the Sabbath day. Then the merchants and sellers of all kinds of wares lodged outside Jerusalem once or twice. But I warned them and said to them, “Why do you lodge outside the wall? If you do so again, I will lay hands on you.” From that time on they did not come on the Sabbath. Then I commanded the Levites that they should purify themselves and come and guard the gates, to keep the Sabbath day holy. Remember this also in my favor, O my God, and spare me according to the greatness of your steadfast love. In those days also I saw the Jews who had married women of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab. And half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod, and they could not speak the language of Judah, but only the language of each people. And I confronted them and cursed them and beat some of them and pulled out their hair. And I made them take an oath in the name of God, saying, “You shall not give your daughters to their sons, or take their daughters for your sons or for yourselves. Did not Solomon king of Israel sin on account of such women? Among the many nations there was no king like him, and he was beloved by his God, and God made him king over all Israel. Nevertheless, foreign women made even him to sin. Shall we then listen to you and do all this great evil and act treacherously against our God by marrying foreign women?” And one of the sons of Jehoiada, the son of Eliashib the high priest, was the son-in-law of Sanballat the Horonite. Therefore I chased him from me. Remember them, O my God, because they have desecrated the priesthood and the covenant of the priesthood and the Levites. Thus I cleansed them from everything foreign, and I established the duties of the priests and Levites, each in his work; and I provided for the wood offering at appointed times, and for the firstfruits. Remember me, O my God, for good.
    This is God’s Word for God’s People. And we respond: Thanks be to God. Let’s go to him in prayer.
    There’s three observations from this passage. The first one is where we’ll spend most of our time, so we’ll pick up the pace on the last two. First:

    Sin returns when the heart remains unchanged.

    In verse 1 the people are continuing right where they left off from chapters 8-12. They hear the Word and they seem to remain obedient and fully committed to what God would have them do. They’ve signed covenants of commitment, and they’re even taking steps of obedience like separating themselves from the Ammonite & Moabite people.
    But then you get to verse 4 and we bump back into one of the villains of the story—Tobiah. Maybe you’ll remember him from
    Nehemiah 2:10 ESV
    But when Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite servant heard this, it displeased them greatly that someone had come to seek the welfare of the people of Israel.
    They had heard Nehemiah was coming to rebuild the wall and Tobiah’s response was to be displeased greatly…Tobiah couldn’t stand the Israelite people, but as we’ve seen throughout this book, he also couldn’t stop the movement God was doing. So what does he do? He finds a way to infiltrate it.
    Eliashib the priest is somehow related to Tobiah. Eliashib wan’t the high priest, because the high priest wasn’t in charge of the chambers of the house of God. This Eliashib would’ve just been a regular priest, but for some unknown reason decided that instead of separating himself from the Ammonites, like the people had just been instructed about, he would instead make a place in the house of the Lord, for Tobiah to have a vacation home.
    Now Eliashib’s actions are instructive for us. This guy knew the Law. He studied it. His job was to serve the Lord, yet like our forefathers, Adam & Eve, he decided he would neglect the God’s Word and do things his way.
    One of the first signs that our hearts are drifting is that we stop prioritizing God’s Word. And what begins inward works its way outward.
    Look at how his rejection of God’s Word affects him and the rest of Israel…first it affects his worship. Eliashib desecrates the temple by removing the holy things and allowing a pagan worshipper into the temple. The rooms that were meant to enable ministry, provision, blessing and in turn worship have now been cleaned out and turned into a Holiday Inn.
    And now because of this it affects others. Those store rooms held the tithe that the Levites were to be paid with. No storeroom, no payment, no priest. The priests ended up having to return to the surrounding farmlands to make a living for themselves and their families. If there is no priest, then there is no one to mediate sacrifices which means no one comes back to worship.
    And if the priest are gone what do the people begin to do? Well if they can’t worship or won’t worship on the Sabbath, they might as well be productive and work and trade and make money. So now materialism replaced the priority of worship.
    And when worship fades, and God is no longer prioritized, what happens to relationships? We see down in verse 23: the Jews began to marry women of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab. Their children couldn’t speak the Hebrew language or read the Hebrew Bible. What began as neglect of the Word turned into a generational abandonment of YHWH.
    Both Eliashib and the people of Israel had grown desensitized to sin. Unlike Nehemiah, it didn’t make them angry. They didn’t see these acts as evil. Disregarding God’s Word no longer brought about the broken and contrite spirit that we saw in chapter 9.
    Sin became tolerated, even viewed as possibly useful, then it became permissible, and finally attractive. Rejecting God’s Word was the seemingly reasonable thing to do. What started in seed form in one man germinated and multiplied in his life and the lives of those around him.
    Now I want to be clear, people are responsible for their own sin. For the priest to abandon their post and the people cease to give tithes & stop observing the Sabbath was their own choice. But what this shows us is that compromise in one area has a way of multiplying itself into other areas…not just in our own lives, but the lives of all of those around us. And while this is true in a biblical community like the church, it’s especially true in the family. As J.D. Greear says, “What is neglected in one generation is abandoned by the next.”
    We begin by saying, we’re tired, so we just won’t go to church this weekend, or we have sports tournaments this month, but we’ll be back next. We don’t necessarily abandon, but we stop or don’t prioritize biblical community. Rest, sports, travel, or in our world, work, begin to take precedence over consistency in church. So then when our kids grow up and they assume that if there’s something more interesting, entertaining, profitable, or comfortable to do on the weekend time with God’s people can take a back seat.
    So to the parents in the room, when your kids look at you, what do they see you prioritize? It’s a scary a question but one you might should ask your kids over lunch today…what do you think is most important to me? Listen to what they say because kids will usually do one of two things, they’ll either replicate it times 10, or the pendulum will swing the opposite direction and they’ll despise it.
    But this doesn’t just call out parents…Eliashib cultivated the wrong relationship. For some reason he chose friendship with the world and in doing so was at enmity with God. Kids & students you’ve probably heard it said that your friends form you. You end up to be who you hang out with. Proverbs tells us bad company corrupts good morals and that’s what happened here. I think especially of our seniors. As you guys get ready to head off to college decide right now what kind of community are you going to surround yourself with. I’ve worked in college ministry and I’ll tell you that those who don’t intentionally start in church rarely find their way back to it. I’m not knocking fraternities or sororities…I have plenty of friends who were in them and there are others in this room who have been a part. But your college years aren’t 4 years to go and experiment and just live it up—yes, have fun—but don’t forsake your foundation. Eliashib did, and where did it land him & the entire community he was a part of? The house of God was forsaken, the people were doing evil, the Sabbath was profaned, relationships were unholy, and the Word of God neglected.
    Nehemiah 13 shows us the slippery slope of sin. And while it seems like the problem was that someone let Tobiah occupy a room in a temple, that was really just a representation of an internal problem. You see Eliashib’s greatest problem was that his heart was occupied by things other than the God.
    So the question that this begs us to ask is what occupies your heart?
    Commitment will eventually wane as life goes on, no matter how passionate you are about something or how incredible of an emotional experience you’ve had. Biblical community is important and I’m glad that you’re here today. Learning and knowing the Word is absolutely essential for following the Lord. But what Neh. 13 shows us is that commitment, community, & content are not enough to deliver us from drifting into evil. The people of Israel needed something better, and so do we. So if laws won’t keep sin at bay and can’t change our hearts, what do we tend to do? We look for better leaders. Which leads me to our second point:

    Even the best leaders cannot save us.

    The namesake of this book—Nehemiah—has been an incredible leader throughout this journey. There’s a reason that many pastors and even leadership gurus go to this book to study how to lead effectively and well. Nehemiah truly was an exemplary leader, but the minute he left town things went south.
    Yet because he’s a good leader and he does care about God’s mission on earth he returns to Jerusalem to find things in disarray. He can’t stand it, so what does he do? He grows angry. Nehemiah’s passion to pursue and maintain righteousness caused him to not sit still or walk off. Instead he confronts the officials, the nobles, and even those outside the gates.
    Now I find this to be interesting and actually worth making a point of…Nehemiah doesn’t just shut the gates to the city. He looks over the wall and sees the merchants hanging out waiting on him to go back to King Art, or for the people to go back to ignoring what Nehemiah might do. But Nehemiah knows that while they weren’t inside the city, they were close enough to become a temptation.
    I wonder how often we decide to be sin adjacent? We get into this mindset that we won’t actually participate, but we won’t remove it. We leave it near enough that we can visit it whenever we want. But what happens when we let temptation linger outside the gate?
    It eventually shows back up inside the city. So what does Nehemiah do?
    He won’t let things stay the way they are, so he goes to work setting trustworthy men back into leadership positions to bring back what God had commanded.
    And what’s his prayer in verse 13? Neh. 13:14
    Nehemiah 13:14 ESV
    Remember me, O my God, concerning this, and do not wipe out my good deeds that I have done for the house of my God and for his service.
    Now while this and the rest of Nehemiah’s prayers might seem like prayers of self-righteousness, I’m not sure that they are. They might be, or they might just be prayers of an exhausted reformer who has nothing left to give.
    Nehemiah’s good deeds that he’s done for God are quite significant, aren’t they? In a way, this whole book of the Bible is dedicated to them. But despite his best efforts, real, lasting change falls short.
    Even the best efforts of the best leader still leave us with the same problem Scripture repeatedly identifies:
    Romans 3:23 ESV
    for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
    Your good works are great, but you can’t maintain them. Eliashib couldn’t…and Nehemiah’s best efforts couldn’t restrain the sin that was bound up in the hearts of the people.
    I had a few people walk into my office last week while I was studying and I joked with them that I was learning some new church discipline techniques…I’ve decided we’re going to move from a warning to just laying hands on you. If that doesn’t work then watch out…Neh. 13:25
    Nehemiah 13:25 ESV
    And I confronted them and cursed them and beat some of them and pulled out their hair. And I made them take an oath in the name of God…
    Can you imagine? I joke about this and we might laugh at it, but in reality, what’s different from the oath the people took back in chapter 9? At least that one they made willingly.
    And more than that, what happened to the Nehemiah of chapter 1? Do you recall what happened when Nehemiah first heard of the brokenness of Jerusalem?
    Nehemiah 1:4 ESV
    As soon as I heard these words I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven.
    It broke him. He wept. He devoted himself to prayer and fasting and he was ready to do whatever it took to see the situation rectified, but now all the sudden here he is furious, confrontational, abusive, and ultimately what does he do in verse 29? One Hebrew scholar says he’s praying curses down on them.
    We tend to think that good leaders will help keep us in line. If we just had a better pastor then we’d know God better.
    If I just had a better husband, who led like he was supposed to, who was the spiritual, emotional, relational leader that my family needs then I or my kids wouldn’t be the way they are.
    If I just had a better wife who fell in line and supported me…
    If I had a better dad who was present and not distracted or even absent…
    If I just had a better Sunday school teacher, DGroup, accountability partner, you name it then I could get over this lingering sin that just won’t let go.
    But if the leader of the book that’s studied for leadership was insufficient to bring about lasting change, what makes you think a better fill in the blank will change things? Law, leadership, and reform cannot regenerate hearts.
    And that’s exactly where the book leaves us. Nehemiah cleanses the temple, appoints leaders, confronts sin, threatens merchants, rebukes nobles, reforms worship and yet by the final verse the underlying problem remains. The wall was rebuilt but the heart was not. That’s why Nehemiah ends the way it does. It’s teaching us taht even the best human leader cannot accomplish what only God can do.
    You see, the point of the book of Nehemiah is that we need a better Nehemiah. Which is our third point:

    We need a better Nehemiah.

    Remember, after Neh. 13:31 there’s 400 years of silence. This book concludes kinda like the end of the tv series Seinfeld or How I Met Your Mother—with everyone going, that’s it? Shouldn’t there be a better ending. Something more conclusive? We started all the way back in Ezra 1 with a prophecy from Jeremiah looking forward to the mission of God being completed, but here we are in Nehemiah 13 and despite the build up of the last 4 chapters we’re left wanting more. Just like the rest of the Old Testament, Nehemiah is pointing to something much greater. Not just a reformer who will bring about a better way, but a redeemer who will grant new hearts.
    God had promised through the prophet Ezekiel that a day was coming in which He would remove their hearts of stone and give them a heart of flesh.
    Through Jeremiah God promised that He would establish a new covenant and write His law upon their hearts.
    And just as we’ve seen throughout this book, the answer was never going to be the people having more or new or better laws. Interestingly, Nehemiah doesn’t even bring up a completed wall or leave us expecting a better governor. Even in this book the answer has always been that God would have to do something that man never could.
    Yes, Nehemiah could cleanse the temple and drive Tobiah out. He could even appoint priests to ensure the tithe was collected and distributed. He could stop trading on the Sabbath and remove temptations for sin, and he could force the people to marry the right way. But in all of those things, he could never cause people to have hearts truly changed.
    And that’s why the story feels unfinished. On paper, Nehemiah seems to have accomplished what he set out to do. The walls are rebuilt, the temple is finished, the city populated, the people have made covenants, there are leaders in place, yet the problem remains. Because while everything on the outside looks right, on the inside it’s still empty.
    Enter Jesus. Not merely a better leader, but a better Savior. Not merely a reformer, but a Redeemer. Not merely one who tells people what to do, but one who transforms them from the inside out.
    Not only did he cleanse the temple, but he made himself a new one. Through His death and resurrection, God’s presence would no longer dwell primarily in a building made with humans hands, but in hearts of people redeemed by His blood.
    Jesus didn’t just confront sin, but bore it on the cross. And on that cross he receive the curse that covenant breakers deserved so that they might receive the mercy He deserved. In doing so he didn’t simply make bad people better. He made dead people alive.
    The question Nehemiah 13 causes us to pause and ask is not whether or not you’ve made commitments. The people of Israel made heartfelt covenants.
    The question isn’t whether you’ve been raised in church. We’ve seen them build the temple, the walls, and move to the city.
    The question isn’t even if you know your Bible…look at Eliashib. He was a priest.
    No, the question Nehemiah 13 causes us to pause and ask is whether Jesus has truly changed your heart?
    I am afraid that there’s many people who claim the name Christian because of their commitment or because of how they’ve been led their whole life. But Nehemiah 13 shows us those two things won’t transform you.
    But the good news of the gospel is that Jesus can.
    Nehemiah ends with the prayer:
    Nehemiah 13:31 ESV
    Remember me, O my God, for good.
    But Jesus came because there was no goodness in us worth remembering. So He came to give us His.
    Laws can’t save us. Commitments can’t save us. Community can’t save us. Good leaders can’t save us. But Jesus can.
    Nehemiah leaves us longing. Jesus satisfies that. Have you tasted and seen that the Lord is good? If not, then what are you waiting for? Repent and believe today. Are you longing to change? Do you want more than another promise to do better? Do you want more than another fresh start that eventually fades? Then look to Jesus. Cry out to him and he will answer you.
    For those of you in the room that know Jesus as Lord, Nehemiah 13 has pressed on me this question the past couple weeks…where have I neglected the Word and let sin start to creep in? Ask the Spirit to show you. Maybe He already has through this sermon. Wherever it is, repent and believe. Confess and find the gift of grace from Jesus your redeemer.
    Will you trust in Him today? Will you worship Him today? Let’s do that now. I’ll pray and we’ll stand and sing.

      • Nehemiah 13ESV

      • Nehemiah 2:10ESV

      • Nehemiah 13:14ESV

      • Romans 3:23ESV

      • Nehemiah 13:25ESV

      • Nehemiah 1:4ESV

      • Nehemiah 13:31ESV

  • YET NOT I BUT THROUGH CHRIST IN ME
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