Hey guys, man, first of all, church planning years are like dog years.
Okay, so one of them ages you seven. All right, so if you were wondering, like, who is that person? But I just man, I want to, this is so funny. Our pastor of Greenhouse Church in Greensboro sent me that this week. He said, Hey, man, I want to encourage you and I want to encourage your people like crazy.
Think about where God has brought you since 2017. And this is the reality. In 2016, in the multiply offering, or our version of it then, okay, we were seeking to raise, whatever I said, $100 and something thousand dollars, and we ended up raising $200 and something thousand dollars. And here's what I think: I look back at that and I think to myself, just by the sheer numbers of it at our campuses today, right here at the Ridge, just by the sheer numbers, most of you were not here then.
Okay, most of you were not.
Now, some of you were.
Some of you have been plugging in, I mean, for a decade or longer, right? But most of you, actually, just by the numbers of it, because of how much growth we've seen, were not actually here during that offering. But what happened? You were standing on the shoulders of those who gave. And all of the ministry that's happened over the last nine years has, in some ways, has been on the shoulders of people who maybe some of us have never even met before, but we were generous in our time.
And I think about that for right now, guys. The multiply offering, we did our first fruits last week. Unbelievable, absolute outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We have never seen a weekend like this in our church. And I don't mean the bottom dollar.
We'll talk about that. That matters, okay? But what I mean is people getting off the sideline on the front line. Last year, in the first 10 days of the month in December, we had 13 new giving families or givers.
Okay, this year, in the first 10 days of the month, we've had 104. Can we praise God for that? Amen, on all of our campuses. And listen, if you're brand new, you're like, man, what are we even? I get that.
You're brand new. This is kind of a family thing. But if you're part of the deal here at Mercy Hill, that is a huge thing because it means people are getting off the sideline, onto the front line. They're making the decision. I'm not going to get on the merry-go-round without pushing.
You know, we're not going to be somebody who slows things down, but we're going to use our time, talent, and treasure to help the mission go forward. Guys, we have so much we want to see next year, and man, we're just well on our way.
So praise God for what he's doing through that multiply offering. All right. And we got, man, it's open all the way through the end of the month. Many of us gave with these envelopes last week, and it became kind of a marked moment for many of us, all right? My family included.
And I pray that it'll be that for you. All right, we're going to be in Nehemiah 13 today. All right, so turn with me to Nehemiah 13, and I'm just going to hit y'all with it right up front. This is a tough sermon today. It's a deep topic, okay?
It's kind of a deep deal that we got to get into and get all the way to the bottom of because today, what we're going to see is that it is true. God can repair and rebuild. That's the whole name of our series, right? He can rebuild what is looking to us to be irreparably broken, and that is true. But here is the thing.
Without the gospel... Humans will just break it again. Without the grace of God in our life, humans will just tear it back down. What we're going to see today is, you know, Nehemiah goes back to Sousa, back to the king. He said he had to, you know, we knew he was going to have to do that.
He goes back for some amount of time. We're not totally sure how long. And when he comes back, he finds a different deal that's going on. I want you to think about maybe the craziest sports environment you've ever been in in your life. I can tell you where mine was.
It was at Cameron Indoor Stadium two weeks ago when Duke played Florida.
Okay. My hearing, I think, is permanently damaged. And that sounds like a joke. It's not. I think I'm going to have to go to the ENT, okay?
It was the loudest environment I've ever been in. I have no dog in a fight between Carolina and Duke. I hope they both lose.
So y'all can do whatever you want with that. But I'm just saying, it was a crazy environment. Here's what I want you to imagine: I want you to imagine a coach comes in, a program is awful, builds it all the way to fever pitch. The whole community is built around the program. Everybody comes.
The whole town shuts down. People are so enthusiastic that they stand up the whole time. I mean, they're cheering. It's loud. It's just, man, the team is good.
And maybe it's a football scenario or basketball or soccer, whatever it is, but just the whole community has embraced, and the team is awesome, and everybody's in. And the coach that has built the program over years, probably like a dozen. that ends up having to say, Hey, I got to step out for one year. I got a health thing. I got to go on a trip.
I'm coming right back in one year. You guys just kind of keep this thing rolling. And when the coach comes back, not one year later, nobody even goes to the games anymore. The whole community, nobody cares. Barely have a team.
Can't scrape together anybody that wants to even play anymore. Everything that was built in terms of this culture of fervency and energy and passion has just been swept away in a matter of months or even years. And I want you to think about that as an example of what happens. Nehemiah leaves while the people are on the mountaintop of revival and he comes back and they are crashed into the valley of sin. The things that they promised, and I know that not everybody was here last week and at our campuses.
Some of you guys may just come in and you missed last week, and that's fine. But what did we see last week? We saw this idea: God wants to be Lord over who we marry, right? How we think about giving, what we give, and how we rest. And the people committed those things to the Lord.
And as soon as Nehemiah comes back, what have they done? Man, they have fallen. And here's why this is a deep message today: because today we're going to really talk about what encapsulates the whole idea of Nehemiah. When you really look in at the story that happens in Nehemiah. It's not a fairy tale.
It's really a nightmare. Because what we find out is that humanity, left to itself, cannot muster through fear, guilt, motivation. We cannot, there can be a reformer. The problem is, we actually need a savior. Our heart is more deceitfully wicked than we could have ever imagined.
Like a dog returning to its own vomit, the scripture says. You and I, left on our own, we will turn back to the things that have destroyed us. You could say it like this. We need a truer and better Nehemiah. We need a savior, not just a reformer.
Let's dive in. Nehemiah chapter 13, starting in verse 4. A little bit of a longer passage here, right at the beginning.
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.
Now, key word here is. Verse 5 says, He prepared for Tobiah the chamber. where they had previously Put the grain and the oil and the frankincense and everything that we saw last week that they had committed right to begin to bring to the house of the Lord.
Now, while this was taking place, I was not in Jerusalem. This is kind of a personal memoir from Nehemiah. For in the 32nd 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 then I discovered the evil that Eliash had done for Tobiah, preparing for him a chamber. in the courts of the house of the Lord. 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. Nobody was supporting the house of the Lord. And so the people that were dependent on those tithes and offerings, they're like, man, we got to eat. We gotta go.
So now because the people had restrained themselves from giving, worship had utterly collapsed.
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. I'll leave it right there for now.
Now, this is a little jarring, right? If you were with us last week, I know not everybody was, but if you were with us last week, it's a little jarring for this reason. The people in the midst, the fever pitch of revival. What were they saying? We don't want the technicality of the law.
We want the law. We want the whole sandwich. We want everything you got, remember? They were in fervency, they were in a place of surrender. Nehemiah was gone, we don't know how long.
The trip there and back took 110 days. I don't know how long he was there, okay, but there's no way to know. But just so we understand, it's not probably all that long for where, you know, to go from this incredible revival to where they are now. But the people that we see have begun to cease in all of the things that they said they would do. Remember what I said?
People don't change, right? It's like, man, unless God does something miraculous for us, humans are humans, and we have always struggled with three things. God's people struggle with who to marry, how to rest, and what to give. And what we just saw was the first, actually, the third, but one of these three, in that, as soon as Nehemiah's gone, and there's not a reformer there to sort of push them and crack the whip. When he's gone, they're not able to sustain it.
And what happens? They go right back to where they were before. Verse 5 says this. Prepared for Tobiah a large chamber where they had previously put grain. Remember, I said that?
They previously had these things, which were given by commandment to the Levites, singers, gatekeepers, and the contributions for the priests. Tobiah, who was an enemy of Nehemiah, if you go back in chapter two, he didn't want them to build the wall. He was highly into God's people being syncretized. With all of the worship that was around them and being integrated with the outside world.
Now he is not only having influence in the house of the Lord, he's living there. This is a problem. He clashed with Nehemiah, discouraged the wall from being built, and now he's living in the courts of the Lord in the very place. that was supposed to be reserved for what the people would bring. I mean, it's such a picture.
Literally what's happened is... In the room where you're supposed to put God's stuff is now the enemy of God's stuff. It's actually in there, like his furniture and all that. Look what he says: I found out 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. Of course.
There's nowhere for people to bring the things that store up so they can do their work.
So they leave. Nehemiah. I told you this, man. If you're a leader, if you're a hard driver, man, if you're somebody that has a bias for action, as I try to have in my life. Yeah, you know, sword on his side, trowel in his hand.
What is he gonna do? He's not just gonna sit on his hands.
So I confronted the officials and I said, why is the house of God forsaken? The very place where God was supposed to have his stores, now the enemy of the Lord's stores are there. And so, and so, what does Nehemiah do?
Well, he kicks Tobiah out, number one, throws all of his stuff out. All right, this is like an episode of cops or something when there's kind of a marital thing going on and they're throwing the stuff out of the house. He throws all of his stuff out. And then he re-engages and sets the right people over their station so they can begin to remember those three things, who to marry, how to rest, what to give, so they can begin to give in the right way again. This is really a tragedy for the people of God, and it's no different for us.
Guys, when we compromise with sin, and that is what the people of God do here. When we compromise with sin. Generosity and worship both collapse and they're interrelated. When we can't bring God our first fruits. That is the beginning of us not being a people who will worship it all.
We can't even give him our first and best. We're not going to bring all of our life before him. Compromise with the world. Tobiah represents compromise with the world, syncretizing the religions that are around them, which means, hey, steal a little bit of this, steal a little bit of that, bring it all together. I saw syncretization when I was in Peru one time.
We were there in Peru talking to some indigenous people, and they had this very strange kind of, it was like a cross, but it was kind of gospely, but then it had some other elements into it. And we asked, hey, tell us the gospel story. And the gospel story is this: Jesus is born, Son of God. You know, he comes to earth, lives this life, goes to the cross to die for our sin, dies on the cross. and then becomes a lamb with wings and flies away to heaven.
The end.
Well, that took a funny turn, okay? And then it was all this stuff about, like, well, there were these three brothers, and one of them got mad, and all this. It was gospel mixed with everything else that was in sort of the culture that was around it and all these different animistic religions. That's what Tobias sort of represents.
Well, why would we not, oh no, the Sabbath? Why are we gonna do the Sabbath? Why wouldn't we intermarry? Why would we have a wall that separates us from the outside? His view of prosperity was the opposite view of what God has for his people.
And so. I mean, it's as simple as that. Listen. When we compromise on what we're going to give, It showed, for example. It shows that materialism is gripping our heart.
And when materialism, for example, like a tobiah, has moved in... It's hard for us to give when our status before our peers Has moved in to the inner courts, maybe, of our heart, it's very hard for us to become undignified in worship. As David did. Right? And this is what Tobias sort of represents.
Now, Nehemiah kicks him out. I told you it's kind of a crazy scene, appoints people to do the right thing. He cleanses the temple. And I think this is a good thing for us to understand. Guys, when, you know, I'm going to give you a little snapshot of sort of where we're going here.
Who else do you know that cleansed the temple? I mean, who else do you know that steps right into the shoes of Nehemiah and Marks? And this happens in Jesus' life all the time. Where are these markers from God so that you realize, oh, Nehemiah was never the point? I mean, Jesus Christ, when it comes to John 2, I think many of us have this weird picture of Jesus that it's like, man, he's just this soft-spoken, meek, and really, you know, well, he was meek, but you know, just kind of a weak maybe.
And, you know, he's wearing the robe and he's got blow-dried hair that looks like it's, and he's stroking a little lamb and all that kind of stuff. John 2, that's not Jesus. Jesus creates whips. Walks into the temple, turns over the furniture, and drives out people who are doing the exact same things that Tobiah is into here. And there's a deep application in that for us.
The deep application is whatever it is that Nehemiah was doing for the people was not enough. If it was enough, you wouldn't have to have a truer and better Nehemiah come later. Does that make sense? We need both applications. Listen, I love the zeal of Nehemiah, and we need that.
If pornography is gripping your life, smash your phone, guys, in the parking lot on the way out and get a flip phone. We need that kind of zeal.
Okay, I get that. We need it. Man, we need to have a fire in our belly. Man, if materialism is gripping you, then give money away. It ain't gotta be at Mercy Hill.
Give it to the Pregnancy Network. Give it to something else in our community, give it to Hannah's Haven, give it to something else in our community. But if materialism is gripping your heart, then do something with zeal. If flirtatious behavior. Is becoming of you, and you're getting too close to somebody that you work with that's not your spouse, that needs to be cut off now.
I get it. There is a lot of zeal that goes into that. But if all I say is Do better and try harder and muster yourself up. And you got to do it. You got to do it.
You got to do it. Guess what will happen? Man, we'll do it. For a while. If Nehemiah was all we needed, we would do it.
And it would last. But the problem is, this is the problem with humanity. The deeper application is All of these reforms that Nehemiah has put in place. He's having to put them in place again. And then guess what?
Somebody else is going to have to do it again, and somebody else is going to have to do it again until we get. To something that Nehemiah cannot provide. Let's continue. Verse 15: remember, it's not just what to give, it's also how to rest. In those days, I saw Judah.
I saw in Judah people treading wine presses 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 in Jerusalem on the Sabbath day. And I wanted them on the day when they sold food. I warned them on the day when they sold food. The 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 that you are doing, profaning the Sabbath? Did not your fathers, this is so important, act in the same way? And did not our God bring all this disaster on us and on this city? And now you are bringing more wrath on Israel by profaning the Sabbath? Guys, 2,500 years ago or in 2025?
People don't change. unless God does something miraculous. We will go back to our ways. Listen to what he's saying. You almost get the impression Nehemiah is like, my head's about to explode with y'all.
Okay. That's kind of what he's thinking. He's like, do you not understand? that profaning the Sabbath is exactly how we got exiled in the first place. And now you guys are going right back to it.
And what he's referencing is a passage probably from the book of Amos. Amos mentions that the exile was directly related. To the neglect of the Sabbath, not the only thing that people were doing wrong, but certainly one of the things that ended up finally having God say, You guys are out. Man, you're not gonna live in my land and treat it in the way that you are treating it. And Nehemiah, this is very important.
Nehemiah says, Don't you understand that this behavior is what caused us to go into exile in the first place? Here's what you gotta hear today. Of course they understood. Of course they knew. Nehemiah is approaching Their logic.
And what we have to understand is that sin in its core is a worship issue. It's a heart issue. At its core, what we see with sin. It's not about what the mind knows so much. It's more about what the heart wants.
What the heart wants. is to say, hey, I don't want a new Sabbath. I like making money. I like participating in the economy. I don't want to do what God has ordained.
And I'm going to continue to do what I want to do.
Now, I got to make sure we all understand, guys, having a desire to make money, having a desire to increase in your business, you guys know if you've heard me preach long enough, man, I want you to have huge dreams in those areas of your life. And I think it honors God to have big vision and dreams for your family, for your business, for all those types of things. Those are good things. How do you think we raise money in a multiply offering if people aren't having success by what they're doing and God blessing that, right? Like that is a good thing.
Here's the problem: even though it's a good thing, it can also be a dangerous thing because we can fall in love with that more. then we are falling in love with the things of God. We can't stop and say, God, you are God. God, remember from last week, God, I'd rather have the 60 than the 70 if it means that I'm in your will and I trust you. For that part that I could have made on the Sabbath, but I decided not to make.
I can rest because you're in control. I can rest because you have a better plan for my mind and my body. And that plan is that I would rest. You know, it's funny how. I know you guys see this.
Like, I mean, just like every six months, there's just like a new thing, right? And whether it's a new diet, keto, you know, or something. And then it's next thing, you know, it's cold plunging every day. And it's all this. And it's supposed to be the thing that will counteract how tired we feel and all that.
The funny thing is with all these things, and I'm not saying don't do these things, or I'm not even saying I don't do these things. What I am saying, it's funny to me that what we try to do is gain rest by doing other things that are really work-oriented. You know, like we want, we're like, hey, the way I'm going to get rest is go by doing that more and more and more and more and more. And it's almost like, well, you know, it seems like God kind of has a plan for humanity that maybe we would just chill. For a little while.
And let our nervous system kind of disconnect from what's going on all around us. And maybe get the technology and the phone away from us and allow our mind to sit without 100,000 words entering it every single day. And maybe just have some time in the week that we can just sort of chill.
Now this is very important. The people, it's a heart issue, maybe not even a mind issue. And my question before you today, especially for some of you that have come in today with a religious background, man, you grew up in church, Aunt Sally taught Sunday school, whatever. And what you think is, the message is: hey, do the right thing in rest, do the right thing in giving, do the right thing in who to marry and earn your salvation before God. And here's what I want to tell you today: that will never work.
Because as soon as the fiery prophet Nehemiah is sort of off your back. Guess what will happen? May I'm going to revert right back to where I was. You know, I'm just going to go right back. We need something more.
The title for this sermon, I never really, I don't think through titles a ton, but the title for this sermon is like, We need something new. We need something that is different. than what we see in Nehemiah's time. Praise God, we have it. Only the gospel can help us want what God wants.
Pressure, guilt, fear, fire, reformer, man, someone to come in and preach hard, it can change our heart for a while. But in the end, if we're going to start to love what God loves, we are gonna need the rest of the story. not just the book of Nehemiah. Last thing I want to mention is who to marry, right? Because those are the three things we talked about last week.
Happens to be the three things. That they promised God they were going to do, and then it ends up being the three things that they didn't do, but look what happens here. In those days also I saw the Jews who had married women of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab. and half their children spoke the language of Ashtod. 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 their hair out.
Now listen, okay?
Son.
Some of this. is prescriptive Not, and some of it is descriptive, okay? I think this is a little more descriptive. This is just what Nehemiah did. I'm not saying pulling people's hair out is okay.
All right. 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. If you were here last week, you're a little bit like me. It's like, I feel like we're taking crazy pills here.
Okay, because this is exactly what the heart of revival produced is we're not going to do this. And now here we are, sometime later. And this is exactly what we're doing. Did not Solomon, king of Israel, sin on account of such women? Uh-oh.
Among the many nations where 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 him even to sin. Shall we then listen to you and do all this great evil and act treacherously against our God by marrying foreign women? Listen to me at our campuses. It's the same thing. He says to the people Do you not know that Solomon's heart was carried away?
By the same evil that you're doing now. And I don't know this, okay? This might be a little bit, I might be stepping on a little bit of thin ice. I would say the answer is Yes, they knew. And they still did it.
Why? Why is that? Because at the end of the day, This is about trust. Not about what I know. It's a heart thing.
It's a worship thing. Whether I'm going to trust what I know. or decide to go against what I know.
Now, what he's saying to his, and I do want to iterate this again from last week, guys, this is not about who these people were, Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab. It's not about who they were, it's about who they worship. They worship a different God.
Now, if these people wanted to marry in and they wanted to come in under the banner of the people of God, that would be fine, just like Rahab I mentioned, just like Ruth that I mentioned. That's not what's happening here. How do you know that? Because the children, indicative of the language, are probably being raised in these polytheistic ways and idol worship. The language probably shows us that.
That these were people who were being more raised among the nations than they were being raised among God's people. Language is a huge deal. You guys probably know this, but in the late 1800s and the early 1900s, when the Zionists were going to restore an actual nation-state of Israel again, what did they do? Ben Yeudah, what did he do? He said, hey, we're going to revive the language.
That actually is just kind of spoken in ceremonial language and make it into a former, a formal language that is actually spoken and is not dead anymore. It's actually one of the craziest feats in human history to take a language from dead to being all anybody speaks in a generation. But why did they do that? Why did the Israelites do that? They did it because they understand that something about this language actually binds us to what we believe.
Now, there's a heartbreak in that because, by and large, the nation-state of Israel is incredibly secular and has not embraced Jesus. But the idea of we understand that the language of our forefathers is connected in some way, that's what they're saying here. The worship of God was going to be connected in with these with their original language. They were supposed to be a light to these nations to want to come in and learn from them, not to intermarry and begin to worship these other gods. And he says, Don't you know this is exactly what happened to Solomon?
I think they did know. It's not a logic thing. It's a worship thing. They know it's not right. But they don't trust God to give them what they need.
Something has not overwhelmed their heart. Listen to me, the fiery sermons of Nehemiah. The stronghand stuff, the grab people and pull their hair out, whatever that means. In one more generation, all that is going to have not worked as well. You know why?
Because we need something greater. We don't need just a reformer. We are going to need a Savior. We need someone who doesn't just come to make us better. We need someone who comes to make us brand new.
And that's what we understand from the book of Nehemiah. We need to be looking for another. Here's what I want to call you to do this weekend. As we close our rebuild series, I've had a ball preaching to you guys through the book of Nehemiah. As we have learned so much from this story, I've been referencing it even in leadership and things like that.
There's so much from it. But if we miss this final lesson. it will just about all be in vain, okay? The final lesson for us is this. See and trust the one that Nehemiah points us to.
Guys, we have done good work over months understanding many complex themes. In this book, and I have, man, hey, it has been feebly preached, it has been greatly received. All right, you guys have wrestled with these things, you've taken it into your groups, we've done a lot of good work. But here's what we got to understand together. If the book ended with Nehemiah, This would be a nightmare, not a fairy tale.
Because the people would fall right back into sin. And there'd come another reformer and they would get all hopped up and then they would fall right back into sin again. What we need is the rest of the scripture, and praise God, the book don't end with Nehemiah. What happens is instead We get to see that God, even through Nehemiah, is provoking a people to be ready and provoking us even now.
So look back on. And see that God was preparing the way for his son all the way through. Here's the bad news: you and I are good at making promises, bad at keeping promises. And because of that, Because of what God requires of us, you and I sadly are left to ourselves who will never change. We will always break covenant with him.
But praise God, church. The book of Nehemiah extends. We see the rest of the Bible. And 500 years later, there came another reformer, if you want to say that, onto the scene. This reformer, Jesus Christ, he cleansed the temple too.
He called people into the family of God based on what he would do for them too. But unlike Nehemiah, He didn't demand and deserve, he didn't demand the credit for the good things that he had done. I want you to think about this with me for just one minute. What we have in Jesus Christ is this. Yes, he turned over the tables.
Yes, he restored the purity of the priesthood. Yes, he called the people into the family of God. But the truer and greater Nehemiah. Didn't take it upon himself to receive all of the just rewards for the things that he has done. Listen to me, all right?
If you've never heard a gospel-centered sermon, This is what we mean when we say gospel centered. The last thing that happens in the book of Nehemiah is this: verse 29. Nehemiah, for all of his good works, which they were good. Man, hey, if I had another son, I'd name him Nehemiah right now.
Okay, I'm pretty fired up on this dude. He's a leader, he's a reformer, man. I love it. Nehemiah has done a lot of good things. What does he say?
He looks at the people who are doing sin in verse 29. And he says, God, remember them because they desecrated the priesthood, which they did. And they deserve everything that comes with that. Then he says in verse 31, literally the last thing that is in the book of Nehemiah, and he says, remember me, O my God, for all the good things that I have done. Think about that with me for just a minute.
The last two verses of the book of Nehemiah is him looking at the sinner and saying, remember them for what they did. And then he says, remember me for what I did. Y'all, what did Jesus say on the cross? He says, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? That's pointing to Psalm 22.
He was gonna be the sacrifice, right? We are the ones that should be forsaken, but Jesus anchors what God does to him on the cross in Psalm 22 to say, This was always going to be the plan. I was always going to be forsaken on your behalf. On the cross, what did Jesus say? The exact opposite of Nehemiah.
He doesn't say, remember them for what they did, he says, forgive them. For they know not what they did. You can say it like this. Nehemiah says, remember me because of my good deeds. Jesus says, remember them.
because of my good deeds. And that is really, really good news. If you want to have a lasting change in your life, It cannot come from the seesaw effect of I came to Mercy Hill. And Andrew preached a fiery sermon. And I turned to the scripture and lay on a lot of conviction and a lot of guilt.
And we can't say, I'm laying on fear and putting fire under us. Man, it'll work for a little while and then it will fizzle and it will fade. If you want to move the fire from underneath your feet to inside your heart. This is what you got to understand. That there was a greater Nehemiah.
who came not to reform you into something better. but to take what was dead and turn it into life. Not because of what you did. But because of what he did. and his great love for you.
Many of us right now are living a life a little bit like this. Man, you're sort of like a balloon. You come in here on the weekend, and boom, I preach a sermon, or one of our guys preached a sermon, and you're flying high. I'm going to stop the drunkenness. I'm going to stop this crazy stuff on campus.
I'm going to recommit to my family. And then, about two days later, what happens to that balloon? All the energy's out, and it's just kind of fizzling right back down. And then you get your waiting on Sunday, and then boom. We got to smack that balloon right back up in the air.
We got to get serious, and this is what I'm going to change, and all that kind of stuff, right? Of course, the other way to see that balloon soar is to take what was inside of it out and fill it up with something new. And then you just turn your hands loose and it knows how to fly on its own. And that's what we need today. We need to go back to a gospel-centered view and understand that lasting change in our life.
comes from seeing. That Jesus wasn't just a reformer, he was a savior. If God's people could keep the law in a lasting way, We wouldn't need Jesus, but this is the reality. God's people can't keep the laws in a lasting way. There's only one who could.
And he did it so that he could apply every reward that was due to him. to your account. as riddled with failure and fault as it is. into my account. And so that if we put our faith in Christ.
And we say, God, I know that I'm a sinner. But I know what you have done for me on the cross. You sent Jesus to die in my place. I trust you for that. I commit my life to you.
Now, all of a sudden, when God looks upon our life, He doesn't see broken failures. I fall on my face again and again and again. All of a sudden, He sees a perfectly clean record of Jesus who has applied His work to you. And this is what happens. You want lasting change in your life.
It's a little counterintuitive. Casting a vision. of saying, hey, I want to live into the way God sees me. will motivate us in ways That being afraid of what God's going to do when the real me is discovered never will. If you and I get it in our mind that there's nothing we can do today that's going to make God love us any less, and there's nothing we can do today that would make God love us any more, because that was all taken care of by the better and truer Nehemiah Jesus Christ on the cross on our behalf.
If we understand that he applied his work to us, if we understand that we have a savior. Who said, hey, apply what I did to them? Remember them for what I did, not for what they did. I'll take what they did and give them what I did. We become so overwhelmed with the love for a God who would do that for us.
All of a sudden, we begin to want what God wants, it melts the heart. You know, some of us might have grown up in religion, man. Don't drink, cuss, smoke, or chew, or date girls who do, and I'll be good. And that's what we think. And the reality is, it's like, uh-uh, uh, you know.
Maybe there's something way deeper here. And if you begin to see how God sees you, it begins to make you want to live in that way. Instead of the fear and shame and guilt motivating me and putting a fire under me now. I've got a fire in me to live for the one who is willing to accept me, even as fragile and sinful as I am.
So if you're not a believer today, this is a good gospel message. Praise God that the book doesn't end with Nehemiah, even though we might fall in our sin time and time again. There was a greater Nehemiah. who came to save you. And I pray that you would accept him today.
And for those of us who have struggled with sin, maybe the ones that we're talking about, how to give. Who to marry? How to rest? For those of us that are struggling with those things, even now. Man, when we go into our prayer closet, when we come forward at our campuses this week.
Man, let us go to God repenting, knowing that the truer and better Nehemiah has applied his perfect record to us. Praise God that he sees us that way.
Now go live like it, all right? Let's pray. Father, we come before you right now. We ask. that you would move in a mighty way this weekend all across our church.
God, as we close out this series, we just pray that you would convict our heart. to look deeper than just morality, look deeper than just a history story. But to see that Nehemiah is such a linchpin in showing us who we need. In Christ. Thank you for bringing him.
To us. Thank you for bringing us to him. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.
