Rebuilding Reverence
Series: Rebuild
Speaker: Steve Jeffrey
Date: 6th November 2022
Passage: Nehemiah 5:1-7:4
00:00:00 --> 00:00:05 Well, good morning everyone. My name's Steve. You haven't met me before. I'm the senior pastor
00:00:05 --> 00:00:10 here at St. Paul's. I'm grateful you've had your Bibles open. And I just want to kick
00:00:10 --> 00:00:16 off this morning with a content warning. The following message contains yet another running
00:00:16 --> 00:00:23 illustration. I'm sorry about that. Actually, it's more of a story than an illustration.
00:00:23 --> 00:00:29 It will become an illustration eventually, but it was Thursday morning. I was on the
00:00:29 --> 00:00:39 final leg of a 11K run through Blankhobe National Park. And the next thing you knew, like I was
00:00:39 --> 00:00:48 right at the end of it, then all of a sudden, a wood duck launched itself out. I could just
00:00:48 --> 00:00:57 see it at the corner of my eye coming at me from the left. And so I ducked. Pun intended.
00:00:59 --> 00:01:10 The duck swung around behind me, landed on my shoulders, flapping its wings like this on my
00:01:10 --> 00:01:22 ears and pecking the back of my head. I'm like, what on earth is going on here? It was all in a
00:01:22 --> 00:01:28 matter of seconds. Now, this time of year, I normally see signs up occasionally, beware of
00:01:28 --> 00:01:36 bagpipes. I get a duck, for goodness sake. I've never seen a warning sign for a duck. But maybe we
00:01:36 --> 00:01:49 should have some warning signs for ducks. Now, see, the thing is, I had a plan. I was enjoying the
00:01:49 --> 00:01:57 plan. I even got a moment in the run there where I was just praying and thanking God for the ability
00:01:57 --> 00:02:07 to run and for his creation. And then it attacks me. All of a sudden, and I'm running along and I'm
00:02:07 --> 00:02:14 trying to still run with this duck on my back. And I'm swiping at it, trying to get rid of it.
00:02:14 --> 00:02:23 Eventually, it jumps off. And then I ran probably an extra five to 10 metres and then just stopped
00:02:23 --> 00:02:32 and went, well, that's it. It's all over now. Like, I was so disorientated that I had to go back past
00:02:32 --> 00:02:39 the duck, as it turns out, which, again, attempted to chase after me. What all of a sudden happened?
00:02:39 --> 00:02:43 I had this goal and all of a sudden, I was right near the end of it and it just stopped.
00:02:44 --> 00:02:50 Had the effect of totally throwing me off course, as you can imagine, momentarily disorientated.
00:02:50 --> 00:02:56 Now, it's not surprising that a moment like that, you would lose focus. Now, it's taken me,
00:02:56 --> 00:03:01 you know, a couple of days to try and work out how I can tell you that story and connect it with Nehemiah.
00:03:04 --> 00:03:18 At first, I was just going to tell you the story. But really, the real issue here for me is I
00:03:18 --> 00:03:25 connected with Nehemiah, and I see Nehemiah 5 in particular, is being on target, then all of a
00:03:25 --> 00:03:32 sudden just totally losing focus and just stopping, just stopping. And that's one of the things that
00:03:32 --> 00:03:44 happens here in Nehemiah. For the Christian life, it is a battle to stay focused, and particularly
00:03:44 --> 00:03:49 stay focused on our primary calling to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind,
00:03:49 --> 00:03:55 and strength, and our neighbour as ourself. If you're a Christian for any length of time,
00:03:55 --> 00:04:01 you will know that the world, the flesh, the devil are the three constant tempters,
00:04:01 --> 00:04:11 that is temptation within, temptation without, and temptation beyond, luring us out of focus,
00:04:13 --> 00:04:17 sharp focus on loving the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind.
00:04:18 --> 00:04:25 Sometimes it's in a dramatic event, such as a duck launching at you that throws your focus
00:04:25 --> 00:04:33 in a run. More often than not, for me, it's the long grind of a run. I recently ran a half marathon.
00:04:33 --> 00:04:38 One of the hardest things in a half marathon is not the physical challenge. It's not your heart.
00:04:39 --> 00:04:46 It's actually your mind. It's not your cardio. It's the ability to stay focused for such a long
00:04:46 --> 00:04:54 period of time on a task like that. And inevitably, they say around the 16, 17, 18K mark is when you
00:04:54 --> 00:04:59 start to wander. Your mind wanders and starts telling you, I can't do this. I can't do this.
00:04:59 --> 00:05:08 I can't do this. If you're on a marathon, you will know it's around somewhere between the 25 and 32K
00:05:08 --> 00:05:13 mark that your mind says the same thing. Your body might be still trudging along, but your mind's
00:05:13 --> 00:05:20 saying, I can't do this. I can't do this. I can't do this. Just stop. Just give up. It's the ability
00:05:20 --> 00:05:27 to stay sharp focused. And what we see again and again in the Old Testament is that Israel
00:05:27 --> 00:05:34 regularly lost focus on who God is and who they are and what he's called them to do. And the
00:05:34 --> 00:05:41 consequences were devastating, which is where we're up to in Nehemiah. We've touched on this already.
00:05:41 --> 00:05:47 The book of Nehemiah is a time in history when the Israelites are trying to rebuild Jerusalem,
00:05:47 --> 00:05:56 140 years after a catastrophic event that was God's disciplining of his special people.
00:05:57 --> 00:06:03 In 586 BC, the Babylonian army came in, sacked Jerusalem. The elite of the people were carted
00:06:03 --> 00:06:08 off, deported down to Babylon. The city was left in ruins. The people were crushed, enslaved
00:06:08 --> 00:06:15 again under the rule of a foreign nation. All because they honoured God with their lips,
00:06:15 --> 00:06:23 but their hearts and their lives were focused on other things. And so now after 70 years of exile
00:06:23 --> 00:06:30 in a foreign land, God started to bring his people back to Jerusalem. And so the question
00:06:30 --> 00:06:38 is, as Nehemiah is in these early chapters, is would they come back? Not just physically come
00:06:38 --> 00:06:43 back, but would they come back to him? Would they obey the covenant requirements and show the
00:06:43 --> 00:06:51 world how brilliant it is to be friends with Yahweh? Now, while much of the activity of these
00:06:51 --> 00:07:00 first chapters of Nehemiah are about the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem, the main purpose is
00:07:00 --> 00:07:08 about rebuilding the covenant people of God. Hearts and minds aligned with God. Nehemiah 4,
00:07:08 --> 00:07:13 we were there last week. The wall builders were under enormous pressure to stop this rebuilding
00:07:13 --> 00:07:21 work, this reforming work. In chapters 5 and 6, there is once again pressure to stop the rebuilding
00:07:21 --> 00:07:29 work, but it's different. This time, the pressure is coming from within, amongst God's people themselves.
00:07:30 --> 00:07:36 Once again, they are losing focus on their primary calling to obey God, obedience to God. So if
00:07:36 --> 00:07:43 you've got, it might not be on the St. Paul's app, but anyway, use a notepad or whatever,
00:07:43 --> 00:07:49 three points, losing focus, a focused life, and regaining focus. That's where I'm headed this
00:07:49 --> 00:07:58 morning. So focusing, losing focus. The first five verses of chapter 5, a very significant problem
00:07:58 --> 00:08:11 is raised. As the work on the wall is progressing, farms are languishing. The people need to eat.
00:08:12 --> 00:08:21 And the threat is compounded due to a recent famine, but specifically, it's compounded because of a heavy
00:08:21 --> 00:08:31 tax burden. And they need grain for next year's crops. So the essence of the first five verses is a
00:08:31 --> 00:08:38 call to Nehemiah, something like this. Nehemiah, we have been seven weeks away from our farms building
00:08:38 --> 00:08:47 this wall in really desperate times. And so this whole wall building project is just making matters
00:08:47 --> 00:08:57 worse. We've got to stop building the wall. It's a call to stop the work on Jerusalem so that they can go
00:08:57 --> 00:09:06 and get their families in order. Let's put a pause on what God has called us to do here because there's
00:09:06 --> 00:09:12 something a little bit more pressing. See it? It's good stuff. Let's just divert focus for a bit.
00:09:12 --> 00:09:19 Now, I'll come back. When we've got everything else in order, we'll come back to God then and do his
00:09:19 --> 00:09:27 work then. Now, Nehemiah doesn't stop the work, but he does deal with the threat that he's seeking to
00:09:27 --> 00:09:36 unravel God's charge to his people. And the real threat here is the nobles and the officials. And
00:09:36 --> 00:09:43 Nehemiah is furious with them. Have a look at verse seven. You are charging your own people interest.
00:09:47 --> 00:09:54 You see, here's the problem. God's word to his people was absolutely crystal clear on this issue.
00:09:55 --> 00:10:04 Crystal clear. Exodus 22, 25. If you lend money to one of my people among you who is needy,
00:10:04 --> 00:10:13 do not treat it like a business deal. Charge no interest. This is one of the laws that governs God's
00:10:13 --> 00:10:19 people to let their life together so that they could show the world how brilliant it is to live
00:10:19 --> 00:10:27 in relationship with Yahweh, their God. And the covenant people of God are struggling to rebuild
00:10:27 --> 00:10:34 themselves after 70 years of slavery because of disobedience to God's law. And the nobles and
00:10:34 --> 00:10:42 officials are once again doing the very thing that caused the exile. What were they thinking?
00:10:42 --> 00:10:52 They're ignoring God's word. And once again, you see the community of God's people unraveling.
00:10:52 --> 00:11:03 If we just flick over very briefly to chapter six, I want to see something here real quick.
00:11:05 --> 00:11:12 In verse one, we see that the goon squad from chapter four have reappeared. Sanballat,
00:11:12 --> 00:11:22 Tobiah, Jeshem the Arab. In particular, Tobiah is mentioned in verse 12 and again in verses
00:11:22 --> 00:11:31 17 to 19. And right throughout these chapters, we see that Tobiah is against the purposes of God. He's
00:11:31 --> 00:11:40 against the people of God. What makes that so terrible is that Tobiah's name means Yahweh is good.
00:11:43 --> 00:11:52 Yahweh is good. He's a fellow Jew with a great name and a great pedigree.
00:11:52 --> 00:11:58 But he is not convinced by his own name that Yahweh is in fact good.
00:12:01 --> 00:12:07 Friends, every society and culture that the Christian church has found itself placed within
00:12:07 --> 00:12:13 has been a threat to the church. Every single society and culture from its inception.
00:12:13 --> 00:12:25 There is always pressure from without. But it is, I believe, more easily matched by the threat of every
00:12:25 --> 00:12:34 church community losing sight of God's goodness as revealed to us in his word. Easily matched by that.
00:12:34 --> 00:12:43 That is more fundamentally the problem. And what Nehemiah does here is he calls these nobles and officials back
00:12:43 --> 00:12:48 to God's goodness. In chapter five, verse eight, chapter five, verse nine,
00:12:49 --> 00:12:55 shouldn't you walk in the fear of our God to avoid the reproach of the Gentile enemies?
00:12:55 --> 00:13:04 When the Bible talks, as Nehemiah does here about the fear of God for the people of God, it means a
00:13:04 --> 00:13:15 respect and awe for God's holiness, his sovereignty, his goodness, his mercy, that ultimately leads you to
00:13:15 --> 00:13:21 respond with a life of submission, obedience, consistency, integrity, and joy.
00:13:21 --> 00:13:33 I would suggest that Nehemiah's narrative here of opposition to the wall of Jerusalem being built here
00:13:33 --> 00:13:43 should be understood in terms of spiritual warfare. From chapters four right through to chapter seven,
00:13:43 --> 00:13:51 this is spiritual warfare. You see, Satan operating in Nehemiah's time,
00:13:51 --> 00:14:01 hated the rebuilding work of Jerusalem. In Nehemiah four, he uses tactics like psychological warfare,
00:14:03 --> 00:14:10 physical threats, personal discouragement. In chapters five and six, he deploys incrimination,
00:14:11 --> 00:14:20 intrigue, innuendo, and intimidation. His main tactic deployed right from the very beginning
00:14:20 --> 00:14:30 in Genesis chapter three with Adam and Eve to Jesus himself in Matthew four is to get us,
00:14:30 --> 00:14:38 as he did attempt with them, one with Adam and Eve, didn't with Jesus, to actually doubt God's word
00:14:38 --> 00:14:45 and his goodness. Specifically, his goodness as revealed in his word.
00:14:45 --> 00:14:55 And I want you to know that there is a war going on for your soul.
00:14:55 --> 00:15:09 And your enemy, Satan, has no conscience. He has no compassion. There is no Geneva Convention here.
00:15:10 --> 00:15:19 He has no remorse. He has no morals. He feeds on pain and anguish and filth. There is nothing in
00:15:19 --> 00:15:26 Satan which is even remotely redeemable. There is no virtue. He is but a dark void.
00:15:28 --> 00:15:34 He is supremely cunning. He has been honing his methods for millennia. He is an accomplished philosopher,
00:15:34 --> 00:15:39 theologian, and psychologist. He is the ultimate manipulator, subverter, and actor.
00:15:39 --> 00:15:49 He often mixes just enough truth with falsehood to make a lie seem plausible. He instills doubts
00:15:49 --> 00:15:56 consistently in your heart, in your mind to doubt God's goodness and the truthfulness of his word.
00:15:58 --> 00:16:07 He will do it all the time. It's his main tactic. It's how sin began by instilling a doubt of God's
00:16:07 --> 00:16:15 word and his goodness in Adam and Eve. And he persuades us often, especially in the West,
00:16:16 --> 00:16:22 that the Christian life is not a battle. And so if you are experiencing any kind of battle at all,
00:16:24 --> 00:16:30 well then therefore God must not be good. That's his main tactic for you in the West.
00:16:37 --> 00:16:47 You see, he hates God. He hates God's children. He hates the work of Jesus Christ to build his church
00:16:47 --> 00:16:56 from people of every tribe, language, and nation. And he will do whatever he can to destroy the work
00:16:56 --> 00:17:04 of the gospel in your life and in the life of this church. He will try to do it by some dramatic event.
00:17:06 --> 00:17:11 Or he will just gradually and subtly by shifting your attention away from God.
00:17:14 --> 00:17:17 Bit by bit by bit. And before you know,
00:17:17 --> 00:17:23 I just can't do this anymore. I just got to give up.
00:17:25 --> 00:17:31 He wants your focus off God. And therefore that means he wants your focus off the gospel.
00:17:32 --> 00:17:35 He wants your focus off his word.
00:17:36 --> 00:17:41 I've never, ever had any that I can ever recall, not certainly markedly,
00:17:41 --> 00:17:49 anything to ever divert me away from opening up Facebook.
00:17:50 --> 00:17:53 Never felt a temptation to divert me elsewhere to open that up.
00:17:54 --> 00:17:56 Or to scroll the news.
00:18:01 --> 00:18:03 Pick up the Bible, however.
00:18:03 --> 00:18:06 The amount of things that get in the way of that
00:18:06 --> 00:18:09 is remarkable in my life.
00:18:11 --> 00:18:17 So let's look to a focused life.
00:18:18 --> 00:18:21 Nehemiah, on the other hand, he's a great example
00:18:21 --> 00:18:25 of resisting this temptation and staying focused on faithfulness to God
00:18:25 --> 00:18:27 and his word in this text.
00:18:27 --> 00:18:30 There is an attempt to get Nehemiah to deny God's word.
00:18:30 --> 00:18:32 In chapter 6, verse 10,
00:18:33 --> 00:18:35 Nehemiah goes to the house of a man named Shemaiah.
00:18:36 --> 00:18:38 Now he is some kind of a prophet.
00:18:38 --> 00:18:45 And he shares with Nehemiah a prophecy that he has apparently received from God.
00:18:47 --> 00:18:51 Let us meet in the house of God inside the temple
00:18:51 --> 00:18:54 and let us close the temple doors.
00:18:55 --> 00:18:57 Because men are coming to kill you.
00:18:57 --> 00:18:59 By night they're coming to kill you.
00:18:59 --> 00:19:00 See the message?
00:19:01 --> 00:19:02 Nehemiah, run.
00:19:02 --> 00:19:02 Run.
00:19:03 --> 00:19:03 Run.
00:19:04 --> 00:19:07 Take sanctuary in the temple because people are coming to kill you.
00:19:07 --> 00:19:08 Save yourself, Nehemiah.
00:19:11 --> 00:19:12 Nehemiah responds in verse 10.
00:19:14 --> 00:19:17 Should a man like me run away?
00:19:18 --> 00:19:21 Or should someone like me go into the temple to save his life?
00:19:21 --> 00:19:23 I will not go.
00:19:26 --> 00:19:27 How did Nehemiah know?
00:19:27 --> 00:19:28 He makes a point there.
00:19:28 --> 00:19:30 I realize there was not a message from God, he says.
00:19:30 --> 00:19:31 How does he know that?
00:19:31 --> 00:19:36 Because Nehemiah wasn't a priest.
00:19:38 --> 00:19:47 And he knew from Exodus 22 that for him to run into the sanctuary, the temple,
00:19:48 --> 00:19:56 is a violation of God's word requiring him to die.
00:19:56 --> 00:19:57 Save your life.
00:19:58 --> 00:19:59 Save your life.
00:19:59 --> 00:20:00 Run to the sanctuary.
00:20:00 --> 00:20:02 Save your life from these men.
00:20:02 --> 00:20:07 And it would result in him going into the sanctuary and being struck down by God instead.
00:20:09 --> 00:20:10 He knew that.
00:20:10 --> 00:20:11 He knew his Bible.
00:20:11 --> 00:20:26 See, Nehemiah here appeals to his own example as one who walks in the fear of the Lord and by judging even this so-called prophet from God's word.
00:20:26 --> 00:20:35 It's seen also in his integrity of life and his compassion for God's people.
00:20:35 --> 00:20:39 Have a look at chapter 5, verse 14 and 15.
00:20:39 --> 00:20:44 For the 20th year of King Artaxerxes, when I was appointed to be their governor in the land of Judah,
00:20:44 --> 00:20:52 until his 32nd year, 12 years, neither I nor my brothers ate the food allotted to the governor.
00:20:53 --> 00:21:02 But the earlier governors, those preceding me, placed a heavy burden on the people and took 40 shekels of silver from them in addition to food and wine.
00:21:02 --> 00:21:06 Their assistants also lauded it over the people.
00:21:07 --> 00:21:11 But out of reverence for God, I did not act like that.
00:21:12 --> 00:21:17 Nehemiah has certain rights by virtue of his position as being appointed governor.
00:21:18 --> 00:21:20 A food allowance, a stipend.
00:21:20 --> 00:21:23 But he voluntarily relinquished them.
00:21:24 --> 00:21:29 What motivates that kind of self-sacrificing, non-oppressive leadership?
00:21:30 --> 00:21:32 Why was Nehemiah different from the others?
00:21:32 --> 00:21:33 Verse 15.
00:21:34 --> 00:21:37 Because of the fear of God.
00:21:39 --> 00:21:45 It's this reverence for God that controls his life, his attitudes, his priorities.
00:21:46 --> 00:21:48 Nehemiah relinquishes his rights.
00:21:48 --> 00:21:50 He serves his brothers and sisters.
00:21:51 --> 00:21:54 He is a non-oppressive leader.
00:21:55 --> 00:21:59 As opposed to the nobles and officials, he is a non-oppressive leader.
00:21:59 --> 00:22:03 This is not a mere outward compliance.
00:22:03 --> 00:22:06 It is a heart that is captivated by God himself.
00:22:06 --> 00:22:09 His heart delights in God.
00:22:11 --> 00:22:13 He does not lord it over.
00:22:15 --> 00:22:17 A gracious God had made him a gracious ruler.
00:22:17 --> 00:22:22 Now we might think if we flick forward into the New Testament, the likes of the Apostle Paul,
00:22:22 --> 00:22:26 who says in 1 Corinthians 9, that he made himself a servant of all.
00:22:28 --> 00:22:34 But in the end, both Nehemiah and Paul reflect the God-focused life of Jesus Christ,
00:22:34 --> 00:22:39 who we are told in Philippians 2, being in very nature God,
00:22:39 --> 00:22:43 did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage.
00:22:44 --> 00:22:48 Rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant,
00:22:48 --> 00:22:52 being made in human likeness, and being found in appearance as a man,
00:22:52 --> 00:22:58 he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.
00:22:58 --> 00:23:00 So what's the point?
00:23:01 --> 00:23:03 Jesus is a great example for us to follow?
00:23:06 --> 00:23:13 Well, yes, but more significantly, he's a much-needed substitute for all of us.
00:23:13 --> 00:23:19 Because, friends, when we look at Nehemiah 5,
00:23:21 --> 00:23:26 we tend to think of ourselves as the Nehemiah in this text.
00:23:27 --> 00:23:28 But we're not.
00:23:29 --> 00:23:31 We're the nobles and officials.
00:23:33 --> 00:23:36 They're the ones who represent us.
00:23:40 --> 00:23:42 We don't fear God as we should.
00:23:42 --> 00:23:44 We don't act rightly.
00:23:44 --> 00:23:45 We deserve punishment.
00:23:46 --> 00:23:48 That is what we should receive.
00:23:50 --> 00:23:57 And yet, Matthew 20 reveals how Jesus leads graciously his flawed and his failed humanity.
00:24:00 --> 00:24:01 He says,
00:24:01 --> 00:24:04 You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them,
00:24:05 --> 00:24:08 and their high officials exercise authority over them.
00:24:08 --> 00:24:09 Not so with you.
00:24:09 --> 00:24:13 Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant,
00:24:14 --> 00:24:16 and whoever wants to be first must be a slave.
00:24:17 --> 00:24:19 Just as the Son of Man, speaking of himself,
00:24:20 --> 00:24:22 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served,
00:24:22 --> 00:24:28 but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many, for all.
00:24:29 --> 00:24:33 Right there is the difference between Nehemiah and Jesus.
00:24:33 --> 00:24:39 Jesus is the only one who gives his life as a ransom for the sins of many.
00:24:40 --> 00:24:48 He became a slave to death on the cross to liberate us from a life of oppressive slavery to sin.
00:24:50 --> 00:24:53 Set free to serve him and others with freedom and joy.
00:24:53 --> 00:25:01 In Jesus, God's disposition towards us is delight.
00:25:02 --> 00:25:03 Not oppression.
00:25:04 --> 00:25:04 Delight.
00:25:05 --> 00:25:09 Because Jesus was able to take upon himself our sin.
00:25:09 --> 00:25:17 He was able to withstand the full blow of God's just wrath for our rejection and our disobedience.
00:25:17 --> 00:25:25 You see, Nehemiah here is a wonderful pointer to the character of God
00:25:25 --> 00:25:29 in the way he handles the flawed and the failed in chapter 5.
00:25:29 --> 00:25:39 It's so easy to skip over this, but in verse 10, he says,
00:25:40 --> 00:25:43 let us stop charging interest.
00:25:45 --> 00:25:49 In other words, what he's saying there is, let's repent of this.
00:25:49 --> 00:25:50 Repent of this.
00:25:51 --> 00:25:55 He's calling them back into faithfulness to the good God.
00:25:55 --> 00:25:58 He gives them a second chance to make things right.
00:25:59 --> 00:26:03 Let me tell you, if you're not sure about the Christian faith,
00:26:03 --> 00:26:07 let me just make a statement here for you to ponder.
00:26:08 --> 00:26:16 Christianity is the only world religion that declares that there is a divine being
00:26:16 --> 00:26:22 who is both infinitely powerful, infinitely holy,
00:26:23 --> 00:26:27 and infinitely gracious at the same time.
00:26:28 --> 00:26:29 The only one.
00:26:29 --> 00:26:37 Jesus Christ came without sin, lived a perfect life of obedience and reverence.
00:26:37 --> 00:26:42 He died on the cross for our infidelity, our faithlessness,
00:26:43 --> 00:26:49 our oppression of others, our sin, our failure to obey God,
00:26:51 --> 00:26:52 our rejection of his word.
00:26:52 --> 00:26:57 And he offers us a second chance every day.
00:27:01 --> 00:27:04 So, let's regain some focus.
00:27:06 --> 00:27:09 What might it look like to live a life staying focused on Jesus?
00:27:10 --> 00:27:14 Fundamentally, it means walking in the fear of the Lord.
00:27:14 --> 00:27:18 This is the foundation of Nehemiah's life of faithfulness.
00:27:20 --> 00:27:24 His life of service of others is walking in the fear of the Lord.
00:27:25 --> 00:27:30 Let me just remind you again, fear of God is an expression that means a reverent submission
00:27:30 --> 00:27:31 to the will of God.
00:27:32 --> 00:27:37 It is, according to Proverbs 9, the beginning of wisdom,
00:27:37 --> 00:27:42 which means it's the very foundation of how to navigate life well in God's world.
00:27:43 --> 00:27:47 Which is why the title of Jerry Bridges' book,
00:27:48 --> 00:27:51 The Joy of Fearing God,
00:27:52 --> 00:27:53 makes total sense.
00:27:53 --> 00:27:58 Even though, in the introduction, he says it seems like it's an oxymoron.
00:27:59 --> 00:28:01 The joy of fearing God.
00:28:04 --> 00:28:07 It's not the fear that something bad will happen to you if you mess up,
00:28:08 --> 00:28:10 and so you better be good, better try harder, pull your socks up.
00:28:12 --> 00:28:15 It just simply means respecting the Lordship of Jesus Christ
00:28:15 --> 00:28:19 over every part of your life for your joy.
00:28:19 --> 00:28:29 When you fear God, you will want intimate fellowship with Him.
00:28:30 --> 00:28:31 You will want connection with Him.
00:28:33 --> 00:28:36 And you won't want anything in your life to be a roadblock to Him.
00:28:37 --> 00:28:41 Fear of God, therefore, means giving attention to God's Word,
00:28:42 --> 00:28:46 discovering His will and His heart for you,
00:28:46 --> 00:28:49 but also discovering your own heart.
00:28:50 --> 00:28:52 In our staff devotional this week,
00:28:53 --> 00:28:55 or one day on last Thursday,
00:28:55 --> 00:29:00 we read Psalm 119 verses 25 to 32
00:29:00 --> 00:29:03 in the daily devotional book,
00:29:03 --> 00:29:05 My Rock, My Refuge, written by Tim Keller.
00:29:07 --> 00:29:10 The title for the devotion is
00:29:10 --> 00:29:14 The Word is Our Examiner.
00:29:14 --> 00:29:19 And Keller makes this very, very crucial point.
00:29:20 --> 00:29:26 The psalmist surveys his life using the Word to examine himself.
00:29:27 --> 00:29:29 Contemporary people, that's us,
00:29:30 --> 00:29:34 tend to examine the Bible looking for things that they cannot accept.
00:29:34 --> 00:29:40 But Christians should reverse that.
00:29:42 --> 00:29:44 They should reverse that.
00:29:45 --> 00:29:48 Allowing the Bible to examine us.
00:29:49 --> 00:29:53 Looking for things that God cannot accept.
00:29:53 --> 00:29:58 The psalmist has set his heart on being faithful to God's laws.
00:29:59 --> 00:30:02 We cannot truly understand the Scriptures
00:30:02 --> 00:30:05 unless we make a basic commitment to saying,
00:30:06 --> 00:30:08 whatever I find in your Word,
00:30:08 --> 00:30:10 I will do.
00:30:10 --> 00:30:13 Then he says this,
00:30:13 --> 00:30:15 This seems restrictive,
00:30:15 --> 00:30:17 but it leads to freedom.
00:30:17 --> 00:30:23 This kind of devotional life
00:30:23 --> 00:30:25 overflows into a life of prayerful dependence,
00:30:26 --> 00:30:30 an expectation God will answer and help
00:30:30 --> 00:30:32 and deliver us at every point.
00:30:32 --> 00:30:34 It particularly overflows into a life
00:30:34 --> 00:30:36 of meticulous repentance of sin
00:30:36 --> 00:30:40 and to consider in every situation
00:30:40 --> 00:30:43 whether what's happening is for God's glory or my own.
00:30:44 --> 00:30:47 Ignoring sin does not make life better.
00:30:47 --> 00:30:50 It makes it worse, increasingly worse.
00:30:50 --> 00:30:53 A focused life that trusts God is good
00:30:53 --> 00:30:56 walks in dependence upon His Word
00:30:56 --> 00:30:58 and it repents daily of sin.
00:30:59 --> 00:31:00 Regularly of sin.
00:31:02 --> 00:31:07 So friends, what chapters 5 to 7 tell us
00:31:07 --> 00:31:10 is that the urban renewal of Jerusalem
00:31:10 --> 00:31:14 wasn't the only thing that was happening in Jerusalem.
00:31:14 --> 00:31:19 The walls being repaired was only a sign
00:31:19 --> 00:31:21 of the relational and heart repair
00:31:21 --> 00:31:23 that was needed amongst God's people.
00:31:24 --> 00:31:27 When we speak of building the church,
00:31:28 --> 00:31:30 our minds are usually captivated by buildings,
00:31:31 --> 00:31:34 programs, structures, systems,
00:31:35 --> 00:31:38 congregations, denominations, finance,
00:31:38 --> 00:31:40 and whatever else.
00:31:42 --> 00:31:45 When Jesus spoke of building His church,
00:31:45 --> 00:31:51 He was thinking of the simple but complex process
00:31:51 --> 00:31:56 whereby the truth about Himself is received.
00:31:56 --> 00:32:01 the recipients respond to Him on His terms
00:32:01 --> 00:32:06 and are then increasingly conformed to Him
00:32:06 --> 00:32:09 as they share in the things that the church does
00:32:09 --> 00:32:12 in obedience to Jesus' Word
00:32:12 --> 00:32:14 under His leadership
00:32:14 --> 00:32:16 and independence of His power.
00:32:16 --> 00:32:25 Incidentally, we are told in Nehemiah 6
00:32:25 --> 00:32:29 that the war was completed in 52 days.
00:32:30 --> 00:32:32 It was nothing short of a miracle.
00:32:33 --> 00:32:35 What building gets done in 52 days?
00:32:35 --> 00:32:43 And it says the nations around were filled with fear
00:32:43 --> 00:32:48 because they could see it was clearly a work of God.
00:32:49 --> 00:32:53 The battle was raging within and without,
00:32:53 --> 00:32:57 but God built Jerusalem.
00:32:57 --> 00:33:02 Like the building of the walls of Jerusalem,
00:33:02 --> 00:33:04 the building of God's church
00:33:04 --> 00:33:07 on the foundation of Jesus Christ
00:33:07 --> 00:33:11 is one that He will bring to completion.
00:33:13 --> 00:33:16 And it's a story of both spiritual battle,
00:33:17 --> 00:33:19 but most significantly,
00:33:19 --> 00:33:24 it's a story of significant spiritual triumph.
00:33:24 --> 00:33:30 God will bring to completion His work in you.
00:33:31 --> 00:33:33 He has given every single Christian
00:33:33 --> 00:33:36 the means of grace to stay focused
00:33:36 --> 00:33:39 in this building work,
00:33:40 --> 00:33:42 the rebuilding of your heart and our life together.
00:33:43 --> 00:33:45 His spirit, worship, Bible, prayer,
00:33:45 --> 00:33:47 brothers and sisters for the task,
00:33:48 --> 00:33:49 gifts to serve.
00:33:50 --> 00:33:52 So I want to ask you right now,
00:33:52 --> 00:33:55 have you bought into Satan's lie
00:33:55 --> 00:33:57 that God's not good
00:33:57 --> 00:34:00 and that His word cannot be trusted?
00:34:03 --> 00:34:06 What is causing you to lose focus at the moment?
00:34:07 --> 00:34:09 What has got your attention?
00:34:11 --> 00:34:12 Let me say,
00:34:12 --> 00:34:15 if you are stumbling and straying right now,
00:34:16 --> 00:34:18 it might be that a duck's landed on your back,
00:34:18 --> 00:34:18 so to speak,
00:34:19 --> 00:34:21 or you're just getting tired.
00:34:21 --> 00:34:25 Don't believe the lie of Satan
00:34:25 --> 00:34:28 that God must not be delighting in you right now.
00:34:31 --> 00:34:32 In Jesus,
00:34:33 --> 00:34:34 He does
00:34:34 --> 00:34:36 all the time,
00:34:37 --> 00:34:38 delights in you.
00:34:41 --> 00:34:44 He is not an oppressive God.
00:34:44 --> 00:34:50 And so can I call you
00:34:50 --> 00:34:52 to get the eyes of your heart
00:34:52 --> 00:34:53 back into God's word?
00:34:58 --> 00:35:02 And His multitude of firm promises to you in Jesus,
00:35:03 --> 00:35:04 in other words,
00:35:04 --> 00:35:06 I'm calling you to repent and turn back,
00:35:07 --> 00:35:08 turn back to Him,
00:35:09 --> 00:35:10 find refuge in Him.
00:35:10 --> 00:35:14 How is your focus right now
00:35:14 --> 00:35:16 on growing as a disciple of Jesus?
00:35:17 --> 00:35:20 What is God teaching you through His word?
00:35:20 --> 00:35:23 What is He pressing in on you right now?
00:35:24 --> 00:35:26 What is your next step
00:35:26 --> 00:35:29 to walk in the fear of the Lord?
00:35:29 --> 00:35:32 Thank you for ranking,
00:35:45 --> 00:35:48 you
00:35:48 --> 00:35:50 say to the Lord.