Message Notes Nehemiah Part 7: Incomplete Victory Pastor Brad Julihn May 29, 2011 I. The Game of Basketball: A. March Madness: I don t know if any of you are basketball fans. I don t think I can really call myself a basketball fan. But I am a fan of the Men s NCAA Basketball Tournament each March. The Tournament is often called March Madness. It begins with 64 teams from every major college league in the United States. The champions of each league plus the best of the rest meet in a single elimination tournament. If you lose, you re out! 16 teams are assigned to each of four regional tournaments. But only one team from each region advances to the Final Four Weekend. One of the great attractions of March Madness is its David & Goliath format. The lowest seeded team in each region faces the top seeded team in the first round. Schools with only 3,000 students and a sports budget in the 10 s of thousands, play schools with 30,000 students and a sports budget in the 10 s of millions. B. Measuring Success: But success in the tournament is measured differently depending on your perspective. For some teams, success is not measured by winning the national championship. They are hoping for a single victory. An upset over a highly seeded university program in the first round is what they are dreaming for. In 2005, the Bucknell Bisons of the lowly Patriot League were selected for the Tournament. They had only allowed athletic scholarships in their school for 2 years. They set out to knock off the mighty Kansas Jay Hawks and stay alive for one more round. They played the game of their lives and won. The Bisons were ecstatic. In spite of losing their next game to Wisconsin, they viewed the tournament as a huge success. In winning a single game, they had accomplished everything they had set out to do. But other teams come in with high expectations. The Duke Blue-Devils are perennial favorites and have the coach with the most NCAA Tournament wins in history. For them, nothing short of making it to the Final Four could be considered success. They were up against the Hampton Pirates in the first round this year. If you just asked yourself Hampton WHO? you are not alone. Duke s easy victory over Hampton University was nice, but it was not a moment for over the top celebrations. It was victory, but it was incomplete victory. It was a necessary step on the road to the Final Four. But the real job they had set out to do, was not yet done. As we come to Nehemiah chapter 6, we come to a moment of victory for God s people. But how you view their achievement depends on your view of what it is they had set out to do. Read Nehemiah 6 1
II. The Constant Opposition: A. The First Half: Neh. 4 Throughout the book of Nehemiah we have seen the various forms that opposition to God s kingdom takes. In the first half of the game; Sanballat, Tobiah and Geshem used; the when are you going to get a real team Ridicule play, then the stuff it down your throats Intimidation play, the our team has 6 national championships Discouragement play. B. The Third Quarter: Neh. 5 In the third quarter, the opposition tried to split the Jewish defense. Division in the form of greed created an opening for the enemy to exploit. But Nehemiah confronted the greedy nobles and by chapter 6, time is clearly running out in the game. The last quarter is about to begin and God s people are in the lead. The wall has been rebuilt. The gaps have been closed and only the doors remain to be set on the gates. What can Sanballat do? In College Basketball each team get 5 timeouts not counting the TV timeouts. The coaches call timeouts in order to plan their next play. Here in Nehemiah 6, the opposition has 3 time outs left and they intend to use them. The first time out is called and Sanballat draws out the old Ambush play. C. The Last Quarter: 1. The Ambush Play: vs. 6:1-4 Sanballat and Geshem extend an invitation for a meeting with Nehemiah. On the surface it sounds like they want to talk about working together or at least declaring a truce. They make it appear that they are willing to meet at a neutral location halfway between Samaria and Jerusalem. Nehemiah was certain that they were planning to harm him, but he probably couldn t prove it. To just come out and say No would make it appear that he was instigating the ethnic conflict in the provinces west of the Euphrates. So instead of saying No, his answer is Not Yet. Four times Nehemiah receives the same message and four times he gives the same answer. Nehemiah did not want to be drawn into an ambush, and time was on his side. If Sanballat was willing to accept the re-establishment of the Jews in the land, then he could wait until the wall was finished. But if he was plotting something to stop them, Nehemiah s Not Yet answer would force Sanballat to try something else before the wall was completed. And that is exactly what happened. Sanballat calls another time out and draws up the Slander play. 2. The Slander Play vs. 5-9 This time Sanballat sends the same request for a meeting, but includes a letter to Nehemiah that is left unsealed. Now, we should note two things about unsealed letters and diplomatic protocol in the Persian Empire. a. First, it was disrespectful. Sanballat was treating Nehemiah as an inferior since he did not even bother to place his seal on a letter to him. 2
b. And second, Sanballat was creating a rumor. An unsealed letter was regarded as public information. He was trying to slander Nehemiah. While making it sound like he had Nehemiah s welfare at heart, he was making sure that the slanderous accusations were made known in Jerusalem. He was trying to get Nehemiah to agree to the meeting out of fear. This was the same accusation of rebellion that had been made to Artaxerxes ten or fifteen years earlier in Ezra chapter 4, which had resulted in the construction being stopped once before. But Nehemiah refuses to bite. He denies the charges and once again prays for God to strengthen his hands. Attacks on our reputation are some of the most difficult things to deal with. People can say anything about you. Nehemiah gives a short answer simply stating the facts and then prays. He has known from the beginning that they are in over their heads on this project. So really, nothing has changed. He is constantly putting his trust in God to strengthen them and to defend them. Unable to draw Nehemiah out of Jerusalem in order to ambush him, Sanballat is forced to use his third time out. This time he calls the Disqualification Play. 3. The Disqualification Play vs. 10-14 One day Nehemiah goes to the house of Shemaiah who has shut himself into his home. The exact significance of this is not made clear. But what is clear is that Shemaiah s advice is that they should use the Temple as sanctuary and that Nehemiah should go with him to the Temple and go inside to avoid an assassination attempt. Nehemiah calls this a prophecy, but recognizes that it is false on two counts. First, he cannot be the leader and run at the first sign of danger, especially when the wall is almost complete. And second, it is against God s word. It was forbidden for anyone except a priest to enter the Temple. By intimidating Nehemiah into a sin, they would be able to discredit him as God s appointed leader for His people. By the way, this is one of the reasons we need to know what God s Word says. Nehemiah response is again to pray. And it seems that this was only one example of a campaign by a group of false prophets to intimidate Nehemiah. He leaves the judgment in God s hands and carries on with the work. III. The Final Buzzer: A. The Final Score: And so we come to verse fifteen and the final score is posted; So the wall was completed on the twenty-fifth of Elul, in fifty-two days. 16 When all our enemies heard about this, all the surrounding nations were afraid and lost their self-confidence, because they realized that this work had been done with the help of our God. Nehemiah 6:15-16 In two brief verses we are told that the wall was completed in 52 days, their enemies backed off and it was evident to everyone that God s hand was upon the work for it to be completed so quickly after years of delay! And now we expect to see a big party because the wall is complete. Nehemiah has accomplished what he set out to do. He 3
set out to rebuild the wall. And even though the odds were against them and they hadn t won any games in this tournament in the last 72 years, they had pulled it off. It was a huge upset. They should be going wild. The fans should be mobbing them on the court. B. The Non-Celebration: But that is not what follows. There is no on-court celebration. There is no crying and hugging noted. What follows is a description of the political intrigues and influence Tobiah had over many of the nobles in Judah. They were under oaths to him. They were bound to him through marriage. It is a description of the seeds of compromise. It is a description of the unfinished task that still lay ahead. C. The Unfinished Task: Why no celebration? The answer is simple. Nehemiah had not completed what he had set out to do. He wasn t there to steal an upset win and go home. The Job Wasn t To Rebuild A Wall, It Was To Rebuild A Nation. Rebuilding the wall was just the first round in the tournament. It was a necessary step, a crucial step. But the job wasn t done. Inability to rebuild the wall had not been the problem with God s people. It was only the most obvious symptom of their problem. IV. The Problem of the Heart: A. Unbelief: Their first problem was UNBELIEF. Whenever they thought about rebuilding the wall, they gave up before they even got started because the job seemed humanly impossible. How would they ever get permission from the Persian King, much less the materials to do it? And what difference did God really make to their present situation? They had been living under reproach, believing God was still mad at them. They had been living as though the miraculous return from captivity made no difference. Nothing had changed. They did not believe God would help them. They doubted His love and they doubted His power. They had lived in defeat for so long that they thought it was normal! They believed God for LITTLE. They asked God for LITTLE. And so that is what they got from Him -LITTLE. The miraculous reconstruction of the wall was the first step in believing that God was on their side and that He was mighty to accomplish His purposes through them. But it was a beginning, not the end in itself. B. Compromise: The second problem had grown out of their unbelief. It was COMPROMISE. When we doubt God s love and God s power, then we question His ability to give us life to full. We start making our own plans for what is best for our lives. We start looking for satisfaction in something other than God. It may be money, power, prestige, pleasure, or possessions; but we start trying to find another god that will satisfy us. Doubting God s love and power, they ignored His word, thinking that they knew better than God what was best for their lives. They made business deals and partnership with the inhabitants of the land. They took loans and intermarried with them. It is hard to follow God wholeheartedly when you know your neighbors, your in-laws, and your 4
business suppliers and clients will be upset by your choices. And they knew they might lose those business contracts if they tried to build the wall and make the lifestyle changes God expected of them. Isn t this a reminder of the danger of becoming bound to those who do not know God in business or in marriage? 2 Corinthians 6:14-15 says; Don t become partners with those who reject God. How can you make a partnership out of right and wrong? That s not partnership; that s war. Is light best friends with dark? Does Christ go strolling with the Devil? Do trust and mistrust hold hands? Who would think of setting up pagan idols in God s holy Temple? But that is exactly what we are, each of us a temple in whom God lives. V. Vanishing Water and Excess Weight: A. Broken Cisterns: Nehemiah had not come to just rebuild the wall. He had come to rebuild a nation devoted to God. The greatest challenge he faced was not the broken stones, but the stony hearts of God s people. Do you not find your own heart to be hard and stony much of the time? Do you struggle with unbelief and compromise in your life? The evidence that you do not believe that Jesus is truly the Living Water that can satisfy your deepest thirst, is if you are seeking to find your satisfaction in something else. God spoke through the prophet Jeremiah saying; My people have exchanged their glorious God for worthless idols. 12 Be appalled at this, you heavens, and shudder with great horror, declares the LORD. 13 My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water. Jeremiah 2:11-13 Cisterns are devices to store the water of life. They are pictures of the things we try to drink life from. Who of us has not been tempted to build the broken cistern of money, or pleasure, or power, or prestige? It always starts when we doubt God s willingness and ability to give us life to the full, and begin pursuing life in something else. And it results in making choices in life that bind us to this world and hold us back from following God wholeheartedly. B. Hindering Weights: We aren t necessarily talking about things that are wrong. We are talking about weights. Hebrews 12 says; Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off (every weight) everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. Hebrew 12:1-2 Do you understand that something can be okay for someone else, but a weight or a sin for you? This requires maturity on our part. Owning a boat might be okay for one person and a weight or a sin for someone else. 5
Buying season tickets to the Canucks might be okay for one person, but a weight or a sin for someone else. If it hinders you from obeying what Christ has called you to do, then it is a weight. And it may also become a sin. Hebrews calls it,... the sin that so easily entangles. You can t run the race with Jesus if you are dragging along extra weight or being entangled and tripped up by sin. Sooner or later you will fall back or fall away. Sometimes it s as simple as the stuff we buy that really hinders us from serving Christ with a whole heart because we have to use it in order to justify the expense. Only a transformation in their hearts could bring about a change in the people of Jerusalem. Rebuilding the wall was just the beginning. It was a clear demonstration that God s anger was past and that His blessing would be with them. They had changed the outside, but they still needed a transformation on the inside. Their confidence and faith in God needed to grow and the weights in their lives needed to be cast off. There were still more games to play, more changes that needed to come, more faith that needed to be built, more compromise in their lives that needed to be renounced, more truth that needed to be applied in their lives. Nehemiah will call the people to a celebration. But that won t come until after they start listening to God s word and responding to it. VI. Conclusion: Through His death, resurrection, and the gift of the Holy Spirit; Jesus has brought about a great victory for us. He has removed our reproach. The time of judgment has passed and the time of God s favor has come. And we have much to celebrate because of what He has done for us. It is as though He has brought back into the land and rebuilt the wall. But Jesus isn t trying to just build a wall or get us into heaven. He is building His kingdom. He is making disciples. He has not called us to merely admire this salvation. Being saved from sin is only the first round. It is important and it is necessary. It is a miracle even. But if you think Christianity is only about Christ forgiving your sin, you are missing out on an even greater game he is calling you to play in. Salvation is only Round #1. He has called us to press on to know Him and the power of His resurrection. He has called us to lay aside the weights and the sin that so easily entangles us, so that we can run with endurance the great race before us. He has called us to understand grace, and to share it with people around us. He has called us to live as those who know that it is not about our power but His, and that His strength is made perfect in weakness. He has called us to a ministry of prayer that believes much, asks much, and receives much. Christ has won a great victory for us and we can celebrate it today. But in a real sense, that victory is incomplete. He has not accomplished all that He wants to do in us and through us. There are yet great victories to be won, and glory to be gained, and opposition to overcome. Some will fall away, but our King is wants us press on to victory and then when we stand before His throne the celebration will really begin. 6