Laboring for a God Who Fights for Us

so I'm 10 teller I'm the husband of the only woman known on record to have high-fived John Piper so now of course I will I will I will I will I will mount millions of you have high five Tim in your minds but Cathy actually did it is amazing and so that's my claim to fame so on to Nehemiah chapter three in chapter four and I'd like to open with prayer let's pray our Father we thank you for every opportunity we have to publicly open the Word of God and to learn from it to listen

to your voice in it and we pray that you would speak to us through your word which is your inspired infallible authoritative inscripturated revelation we thank you for it it's the most precious thing in our lives outside of the grace that saved us and we pray that you would help us to be good stewards that I'd be a good steward of it tonight we'd all be good students of it as we learn and listen to it we pray in Jesus name Amen now I think one of the reasons we are studying Nehemiah of all books

at a conference like this is not only to learn from Nehemiah itself but also to learn from how we're learning from Nehemiah see some of the Old Testament books like Nehemiah and Esther are difficult books to preach on or teach on or study and they're difficult because they show the weakness in the way in which we approach the scripture so for example you you read the book of Nehemiah and you try to study it together you try to learn from it as a Christian you say okay alright they the Jews came back from Babylon and

they had to rebuild the wall and of Jerusalem and so they did it even though they had opposition they stayed with it they organized well they prayed they asked God not to forgive their enemies so what was that about but on the other hand they seem to stick with it and in the end they got the wall built now how do we apply that to our lives and the answer seems to be leadership organizational principles so for example chapter through which I'm about to read to you is very often said this teaches delegation if you

have a job to do divide it into parts give it to everybody and delegate it a chapter for which I'm about to read you this is how you solve problems this is when you get opposition here's how you solve problems and so forth but I really think that that shows how shallow our way of dealing with the scripture is it shows that we tend to come to the Bible the way we would go to Aesop's fables you read the story and then you say what's the moral of that story you know what is the moral

what does that mean and so you read about David and Goliath and use the moral the story is the bigger they come the harder they fall and if you're ingenious enough you know it doesn't matter how big you are or something like that you you get to Nehemiah and generally you get out of it usually leadership principles well obviously it's true the bigger they come the harder they fall and it's true that you can get leadership principles out of Nehemiah but that's certainly not going to the heart of it here's what I think studying a

book like Nehemiah forces us to do it forces us to go back to what we understand the Bible to be the doctrine of the scripture is two parts to it basically owe more than that but here's two things that like this show you the Bible on the one hand is a human book it's a human book which means we don't believe like Joseph Smith about the Book of Mormon that it was written on golden plates by angels or by God himself it was written by human beings so if it's a human being that used Greek

or spoke Aramaic or spoke Hebrew then what you have to do is you have to say I need to understand something about what those words mean and how the language of Greek or Aramaic or Hebrew work because the human being who is writing these words whereas using those that vocabulary use those laws of language in order to make to give us the message so I have to learn and understand human language in order to understand the message it's a human book didn't come down on golden plates on the other hand it's a divine book it's

written by God that is to say every word that's on the page is there because God guided the human author to write that word and that means that the Bible ultimately is one story it's not just a bunch of little stories though it is in a sense but it's one large story there's one large narrative arc and everything in the Bible because was all written by a divine author behind the human author is moving and pointing along that arc in this case here's what we know we know that this nehemiah and cathy has already shown

something of us of this this knee mi is pointing to the ultimate nehemiah that is the ultimate one who was in the palace completely safe had it made and who left all of that and went out into danger to identify with his people of course Jesus Christ the ultimate Nehemiah and not at doing that at the risk of his life but at the cost of his life he's the ultimate Nehemiah and what he come to do essentially to make us citizens of the ultimate city you know in the Bible like for example in Isaiah 26

verse 1 Isaiah is looking forward to the City of God and he says we have a strong City and there right away you think Jerusalem right but then it says God sets up salvation as walls and bulwarks open the gates at the righteous nation that keeps faith may enter in even in the Old Testament Jerusalem is a sign of something bigger that's coming not literal walls but in a sense walls of salvation that are going to protect us from sin and death itself not actually a physical city but a spiritual city which in the end

of time will come down out of heaven and turn the new heavens and new earth into the new heavens and new earth and therefore only when we put Nehemiah into that story in fact only when we put the thing we're reading in the Bible the particular part of the Bible were reading we've got to put it into that story we have to see it as a chapter in that story let's just see it pointing along the narrative arc and then things begin to open up because you see there's a certain sense in which obviously we

can't directly apply in Nehemiah it's not right today is it for the people of God to build a wall around themselves to keep out all the unbelievers to be culturally separated that's not our job it's also not our job to call down curses on our enemies I don't think I don't believe or to certainly say to God please don't forgive them because Nehemiah was operating at a different stage in redemptive history at a time in which God was bringing his salvation through people of God who existed as a nation-state they existed as a group of

people a nation-state they were a particular race and you couldn't have a nation-state without a city a capital city with a wall around it because if you didn't have a wall around it you didn't have the security for urban life to develop a place for jurisprudence to develop instead of the vigilantism of you know somebody gets killed and then the Avenger of blood comes and kills them the city was the place because of the wall where you could have jurisprudence where you get a rule of law where you could have a stable economy and that

sort of thing and so if you're going to be a nation-state you got to have a capital city with a wall and Sonia Maya isn't really just simply following his passion he's not just simply following leadership organizational skills to kind of you know just to create economic prosperity for his particular people group he knows that for God to continue to do his work as his cut the covenant god that his people have to be faithful to him and they have to be covenant people and in that stage of redemptive history this is how you did

it for us we also have to build up the people of God we don't do it the same way we do it through conversion we also have to have a wall in a sense around us so that we are helping people be holy and separate and different from the nation's when we do that of course through sanctification through the means of grace but we are still looking along the narrative arc we're still looking down the road the Bible is kind of like a road on the way down to the new heavens and new earth the

ultimate city they were building their city we're building you know we're bringing people every time we convert them we're bringing people into citizenship our citizenship is in the city that's that's above that's what the New Testament tells us and we're bringing people into that city in a sense we're building that city up when we just do the work of the church when you begin to see how the narrative flow goes and where the particular book fits then things start to open up now having just spent as you can tell a certain percentage of my time

on introductory matters and yet you're going to see all the way along that's one of the things you're going to be one of the benefits you're going to be getting from studying the book of Nehemiah and the other speakers and teachers will also be just like Kathy already has be alluding to the fact that yes you can get leadership principals out of the book of Nehemiah but that's not the main point at all now I have to take you through three and four it's interesting to me and as soon as I start reading it you'll

know what the problem of the most popular best-selling Christian book on the book of Nehemiah in the last twenty or thirty years was Chuck Swindoll --zz book hand me another brick he doesn't even do chapter three in that book and you'll see why and yet I love this chapter now that I actually I think understand what it's pointing to and where it fits in redemptive history so I'm going to new chapter three first and get out what I think we can learn from it now that we see it in its setting in you know in

the Canon in redemptive history and then after that I'll read chapter four and we'll get two things out of that and by that time you'll all want to go to bed that's why they put me last be a Tylenol or Tim Keller either way to be fine all right listen to this this is chapter three it's long and you'll see in some places it will feel tedious but I think actually the whole thing is precious Elijah cheb the high priest and his fellow priests went to work and rebuilt the sheep gate they dedicated it and

set its doors in place building as far as the tower of the hundred which they dedicated and as far as the Tower of Hannah now the men of Jericho built the adjoining section and Zach who her son of Emory built next to them the fish gate was rebuilt by the sons of husana they laid its beams and put its doors and bolts and bars in place mammoths son of Uriah the son of heck oz repaired the next section next to him mushy Liam son of berechiah the son of meshes Apple made repairs and next to

him Zadok son of bana also made repairs the next section was repaired by the men of Toccoa but their nobles would not put their shoulders to the work under their supervisors the dashana gate was repaired by Joey de son of pasilla and mushy Liam son of besa della they laid its beams and put his doors and bolts and bars in place next to them repairs were made by the men from Gibeah and Mizpah melikhaya of Gibeon and jaden of men Ahronoth places under the authority of the governor of trans afraid ease news I O son

of har hyah one of the Goldsmith's repaired the next section and Hananiah one of the perfume makers made repairs next to them they restored Jerusalem as far as the broad wall rifai a son of her ruler of a half district of Jerusalem repaired the next section adjoining this jedaiah son of Haruma made repairs opposite its house and hottish son of had yet pardon me yeah Asha you say when is he going to finally stumble on one of these well here it is hasha benaiah made repairs next to him malik ja son of harem and who

Shoob son of may path moab repaired another section and the tower of the ovens shalt looms son of hallow Heche ruler of 1/2 district of jerusalem repaired the next section with the help of his daughters the valley gate was repaired by don't cheer you know I know it's a woman's conference but come on parochialism right I'll get back to that the Valley Gate was repaired by Hannon and the residents of zone OA they rebuild it and put its doors and bolts and bars in place they also repaired 500 yards of the wall as far as

the dung gate the dung gate was repaired by Malek Kuja son of reek AB ruler of the district of beth hecarim he rebuilt it and put its doors and bolts and bars in place the fountain gate was repaired by shaolong son of coal Hosea ruler of the district of Mizpah he rebuilt it and roofed it over and put its doors and bolts and bars in place he also repaired the wall the pool of siloam by the Kings garden as far as the steps beyond going down from the City of David beyond him Nehemiah son of

as book ruler of a half district of bez Beth sue made repairs up to a point opposite the tombs of David as far as the artificial pool and the house of the heroes next to him the repairs were made by the Levites under Ray whom son of Bonnie beside him ashabi a ruler of half the district of Kela carried out repairs for his district next to him the repairs were made by their countrymen under Bini Lee son of Hanna dad ruler of the other half district of kala next to him Laser son of Joshua ruler

of Mizpah repaired another section from a point facing the ancient section from a point facing the ascent to the armory as far as the angle next to him Baruch son of a bi is Ellis Li repaired another section from the angle to the entrance of the house of Elijah ship the high priest next to him Maremma the son of Uriah the son of hey caused repaired another section and from the entrance of Elijah's house to the end of it the repairs next to him were made by the priests from the surrounding region beyond them Benjamin

and has Shoob made repairs in front of their house and next to them Azariah son of Messiah the son of Hananiah made repairs beside his house next to him the newly son of Hanna Hanna dad yes repaired another section from azureus house to the angle and the corner and Palau son of use I worked opposite the angle and the tower projecting from the upper palace near the court of the guard next to him padilla son of parish and the temple servants living up on the hill of offal made repairs up to a point opposite the

water gate toward the east and the projecting tower next to them the men of Toccoa repaired another section from the great projecting tower to the wall of ofay above the horse gate the priests made repairs next in front of his own half each in front of his own house next to them Zadok son of mr made repairs opposite his house next to him shamaya son of shek and aya the guard of the east gate made repairs next to him and Aniyah son of shamaya and haroon the sixth son of zeal off repaired another section next

to them mushy liam the son of berechiah made repairs office at his living quarters and next to him Malka jah one of the Goldsmith's made repairs as far as the house of the temple servants and the merchants opposite the inspection gate and as far as the room above the corner and between the room above the corner and the sheep gate the Goldsmith's and the merchants made repairs almost certain almost certainly you've never heard that read to you before almost certainly it hasn't been read before now what's extraordinarily impressive about this is if you especially if

you read it carefully is you have both men and women working you have both clergy and laity working you have groups from different towns you have groups from different classes ruling class as well as working class you have groups from different trades you have Goldsmith's and merchants and perfumers so what you actually have is representatives from virtually every single part of society and you notice the one what was the one thing you heard me say more than anything else it was an ex brought next to him right next to him now what do we learn

here's what we learn most scholars both liberal and evangelical have noticed that this is part of a march part of progression in the Bible very important to see this from a situation in which you have people who are how do I say it you have you have David and you have Moses you have these major figures who are essentially operating without much cooperation with the from the people at all I mean in some ways if you read if you read the story of Moses you it feels it feels that he's just carrying that whole group

of people on his own back time after time after time they are completely sitting there doing this and they're doing that guys saying stand aside Moses I am going to take them out and Moses puts himself with no take out me or don't do that or what will people say this is different most what scholars see something going on here this is something that the clergy couldn't do by themselves the clergy are right next to everybody else the clergy are in there working with everybody else but everybody's doing it everyone's doing it and what you

see is a movement away from just one or two big leaders who are doing it since essential all in the sense all the ministry and you actually see that the ministry that is rebuilding the people of God must be done by the whole people of God everybody's got to do it now what this simply means is pretty simple it's pointing toward the fact and is actually hinted at here that there is a progression in the history of redemption when it comes to holiness you may have heard me say that the priests dedicated the wall that

word is the Hebrew word Kadosh which means they pronounced it holy now what you have in the Bible in the history Redemption is this kind of progression in the earliest part sometimes God comes down like at Bethel he comes down and he meets the Jacob and Jacob sees the stairway and when the vision is over he says this is the house of God but isn't it isn't God appeared there his holy presence was there but it's gone it comes down and is there even though he called it Bethel meaning the house of God it wasn't

actually the health of God it was not a place where God's presence was in a sustained way it came down and there it was so in in the earliest part of the Bible you see God's holiness sometimes coming down but then it's gone then you have the tabernacle in the temple and now God's holiness dwells in a place it dwells in the holy of holies it dwells the Shekinah glory is over the glory cloud is over the Ark of the Covenant and now what we have is we actually have God's actual presence in a sense

in a fixed way right here in the midst of his people but things change as time goes on in the Book of Isaiah Isaiah chapter 4 there's a fascinating prophecy about the future it says in that day the branch of the Lord will be beautiful and glorious and the fruit of the land will be the pride and glory of the survivors of Israel now listen this and those who are left in Zion who remain in Jerusalem will be called holy all who are recorded among the living in Jerusalem the Lord will wash away the filth

of the women of Zion he will cleanse the bloodstains from Jerusalem by a spirit of judgment and a spirit of fire and then the Lord will create over all of Mount Zion and over all those who assemble around it a cloud of smoke by day and a glow of flaming fire by night over all the glory will be a canopy and it will be a shelter in shade from the heat of the day and a refuge in a hiding place and the storm in the rain that's a shock here we're told about a time in

which instead of people living near a temple and in the midst the temple there's the holiness of God it's looking forward to a day in which all the people are holy and the Shekinah glory cloud is over all of them it's almost like the the glory of God is dwelling in a group of people not just in a building the climax of the book of Zechariah says this is at the end of the book of Zechariah on that day on that future day holy to the Lord will be inscribed on the bells of the horses

and the cooking pots in the Lord's house will be like the sacred bowls in front of the altar every pot in Jerusalem and Judah will be holy to the Lord Almighty and all who come to sacrifice and take some of the pots and cook in them and on that day there will no longer be a Canaanite in the house of the Lord Almighty what what that is say see in the tabernacle in the temple if a pot or or some utensil was being used only for the Lord's work it was inscribed holy to the Lord

and it was put in the tabernacle or the temple and was only used for the sacrifices it was only used for the Lord's work on that day even on the even on the the bridles on your horses even the pots in your kitchen will say holy to the Lord what is that saying again it's saying someday I'm going to turn the people into a living temple someday the holiness of God will the glory of God will break out of the building as it were and all the people will be holy and the whole city will

be holy and everyone in it will be holy in fact every race in the city will be holy it won't just be for ethnic Jews it'll also be there will not be a Canon ight it won't be called Canaanites anymore Isaiah talks about someday God will be saying Assyria my people and Egypt my you know my inheritance what is this looking for toward here most scholars believe even here in the book of Nehemiah when they call the not just the the tabernacle or the temple scuse me holy but the very building what we really see

is the whole people of God doing the ministry and the whole city being holy it's it's pointing in this direction it's pointing the direction that we come to when Jesus Christ died on the cross the veil in the temple was torn from top to bottom and in Ephesians 2 and first Peter 2 it says we now are living stones in a temple we are built together into a living temple we have the Holy Spirit in us the very thing that was once in the tabernacle is somehow in us the thing that that Moses said Lord

show me your glory and God says no it would destroy you and yet in John chapter 1 it says the word became flesh and dwelt among us tabernacled among us and we beheld his glory glory as of the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth 2nd Corinthians 3:18 talks about us beholding the glory of God I think in the gospel in the face of Jesus Christ now what does this mean I don't know quite what was actually happening literally in mininum eyes day all we know is Nehemiah is a sense pointing toward

the future in which we're all priests in which were all prophets all priests all kings we all have the Holy Spirit and this means two things if this is pointing toward the day in which all the people are holy all the people are holding two things every Christian has a ministry and we are one see if you go to Ephesians two and if you go to first Peter 2 if you look at these places where it talks about the fact that we now are the living temple and the Holy Spirit is in us when it

when we see the New Testament teaching saying these things that in the Old Testament we're pointing in this direction now we have received this it always comes back and says two things one is it means that you're all ministers every single one of you is a minister just like that city could not be rebuilt Israel could not become a nation-state Jerusalem couldn't become the capital the wall had to be rebuilt and it couldn't be rebuilt just with the clergy work everybody had to work in the same way Paul over and over says you've all got

gifts and everybody's different here you have all these different groups of people but they all every everybody we need all hands on deck we need every single body every other every everybody and we need every gift so the Bible is always talking about that it's talking about the fact there are no gifts that aren't important if you if you are if God in His Providence is drawn together a hundred people to be a church that you're not there by accident you've got a gift or you've got certain people that you can speak to you've got

certain hands that you can hold because of your background because of your experience you've got certain hearts that you can reach there are certain people that you can be a prophet a priest and a king - there are certain ways that you can in a sense build up the people of God and you wouldn't be there unless God wants to use your gift in that community and unless all the gifts are being used the community can't do the work God's giving it to do you see that the strength of this I got to move on

there's too many other things to say about the strength of this in the this truth comes to me especially it comes home especially where Jesus is saying in Matthew chapter 11 eleven he's talking about John the Baptist and in Matthew 11 verse 11 he says when you glad to see John the Baptist in the wilderness what do you want to see I'll tell you what you go out to see no one born of a woman has ever been greater than John the Baptist that's an amazing statement for Jesus say up to now no one born

of a woman which is pretty much everybody isn't it right you're women you would know is there any is there any other way I don't think there isn't any way he could say up to now there's no one ever born of a woman that's greater than John the Baptist and yet he says the least in the kingdom of God is greater than he and I've often wrestled with that and of course commentators have wrestled with it I forget what Don said about in his matthew commentary but I'm sure it was great I forgot I forgot

to look it up but it certainly seems to mean this that because the simplest Christian understands the gospel in a way that John the Baptist did not and because the simplest Christian has got the holy spirit in a way that the that the John the Baptist did not because we live in a new stage of redemptive history when the veil has been ripped and in which we are the living temple right and we're the house that really means that we've got Cape you every single person this room's got capabilities of ministry that John the Baptist

didn't have didn't that astounding so on the one hand the other the other way to get this across is a book by Michael Greene years ago I read a book in seminary by Michael Greene called evangelism in the early church and the reason it was a tremendous paradigm Buster for me was he brought out something a pretty simple fact that I should have thought of he says you know the earliest church grew through evangelism how did that happen a lot of people say well I'm sure that there were great preachers in those days if you

were a Christian you brought your non-christian friend to hear the great preacher now there is no doubt that preaching was important especially the kind of preaching you see itinerant preaching that Paul did and so on but Michael Green points out the fact that there's lots and lots and lots of churches in which you did not bring non-christians to church because they may you might all be dead the next day if somebody brought it the wrong non-christian to church so how in the world did you you know evangelize people everybody evangelize people you didn't rely on

the great preacher you did it yourself every single person in the body of Christ is necessary to do the work of ministry the ministry the people of God requires all of the people of God to do ministry here's the other thing that we might want to notice the unity here next to him next to him next to him you again you have men and women remember the guy with the daughters you've got ruling class and you've got working class if the commentators will go into all these names and explain who they are you've got people

merchants and you've got clergy you know they're working together everybody is working together this is a foretaste and a pointer to the because we're holy we're one we're all one in Christ and it's certainly just finished with a story this part with a story then we have to read chapter four which is not as long by the way but David Martyn lloyd-jones in his exposition of Ephesians 1:15 looks at the place where Paul says to the Ephesians I know I am I'm fully confident about your faith I've heard many good things about you how you

have faith in Jesus Christ and have love for all the saints and lloyd-jones says it's interesting that Paul would say the two evidences I have that you are real Christians the two things I've heard about you that tell me that you are real believers is that you have faith in Christ got that and you love all the Saints now one of the things that's interesting about lloyd-jones is a testimony is that when he became a Christian he was the he was a royal physician I would put he worked for the physician to the royal family

he worked for Lord Horder he was a leading young doctor if he had basically stayed in his role he would have probably taken Lord Hoarders position which means he would have been in the House of Lords here's a young Welshman who was brilliant who went to med school became a doctor and he was he was he was going to the top he was on his way to the top in a way that any non aristocratic person in Britain you couldn't have done better you couldn't have a better career path and dr. David Martyn lloyd-jones did

in the late night in the mid 1920s and then he became a Christian and then he decided he was called in the ministry and he left this incredibly promising career and went and took a little mission basically a little Church in a poor fishing village in Wales he tells in a couple of different places how after he had gotten to Wales he was still a fairly young Christian and he used to have some doubts he said Satan would come and accuse him and this is just read read you from his account he says very often

Satan would come and suggest how do you know you're a Christian and he wouldn't know what to say and then one day after he had spent some time in Wales and spent time in as a pastor in this little village one day he turned around he says I want to know Satan why would I rather talk about Jesus with the humblest fisherwoman in Wales why would I love doing that more than I love talking about medicine with my peers and with other men who have gone to the same schools as me and are of the

same social class and he said once he began saying that to Satan Satan didn't know what to say and left him alone now here's the reason why this might not hit you the way because we're Americans most of us I guess I these other countries available here but please keep this in mind Britain is a very class stratified society compared to America even today and in those days it was very class stratified and he was going he was hanging out with people five or six rungs below him on the social ladder and an educational ladder

and he suddenly realized I have got more in common with the humblest Fisher woman in Wales than I do with people of my status people of my education as I feel a bond with her I feel a bond with these people that I don't feel with people like me racially like me emotionally like me in socially educationally you're a Christian first and you're black or white or Hispanic or Asian second see see listen identity I listen identity has layers my grandfather my grandfather was an Italian immigrant my mother's father and I never met him he

died before I was born but my understanding was he was because he was at America and he was Italian he was quite proud of being Italian he loved being Italian and it was a major part of his identity he did a lot of other things he was a butcher he was a mushroom farmer he was a pipe fitter he did a lot of other things but his uh his uh his job wasn't that important it wasn't as foundational to his identity as his national background but his children for example my mother who went to nurses

school and she was raised here and she went to nursing school it was quite in a very warranted way of quite proud of being a nurse being a professional that her being a professional trained nurse was much more important to her identity than her Italian this or Italian 'us wasn't as far down in other words what happened was you've got layers to your identity and you've got some things that are down here closer to the foundation and some things that are there it's part of it yes I know course I'm Italian but it's not as

important as the fact that I'm a lawyer I'm a doctor or something like that now when you become a Christian your experience of grace your conviction of sin goes all the way to the bottom at the bottom of every single person's heart there is an other most foundation you know that you know that place where in the beginning of the second of the Lord of the Rings movies where Gandalf's on the Balrog and they're going down this incredible into this incredible chasm down down down down down so far down in the depths of the earth

the the name of that episode comes from Tolkien's own terminology is the uttermost foundations of stone the uttermost foundations of stone is the bedrock the bottom the bottom you can't go any farther this is the uttermost foundation everybody's heart has got an utter most foundation of stone when you become a Christian Christ goes there and no matter what happens is look when you if you're Chinese and you become a Christian you don't become an African Christian you don't become a European Christian you're a Chinese Christian but your Christianity goes underneath your chineseness it goes underneath

your Italian is it goes underneath your being a nurse or being a lawyer anything else it goes underneath being an abuse child it goes underneath anything it goes to the uttermost foundations of stone and then what you do is anybody else you meet who's got the foundation down there you say you know even though you're a different race you're of a different class different education I feel the bond you are more my brother and my sister no but I feel a bond with you as different as you are that I don't have with other people

who don't have Christ and yet who are of the same ethnicity either the same class or the same education and now next to him next to him next to him next to him all these different people people that wouldn't have otherwise worked together on anything but now they're all together they're all together important so we're all holy we're the temple we've been built together we all have gifts chapter 4 two other things to tell you about okay this is much shorter both not only the chapters a lot shorter but also the the two lessons are

a lot shorter when sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall he became angry and was greatly incensed he ridiculed the Jews and in the presence of his associates and the army of Samaria he said what are those feeble Jews doing will they restore their wall will they offer sacrifices will they finish in a day can they bring the stones back to life from those heaps of rubble burned as they are and to Baia the ammonite who was at his side said what are they building and if they build it even if a fox climbed

up on it he would break it down that wall of stone here ah so our God for we are despised turn their insults back on their own heads give them over as plunder in a land of captivity do not cover up their guilt or blot out their sins from your sight for they have shown thrown insults in the face of the builders so we rebuilt the wall to all of it reached half its height for the people worked with all their heart but when sanballat Tobiah the air herbs in the ammonites and the men of

Ashdod heard that the repairs of Jerusalem's walls had gone ahead and the gaps were being closed they were very angry they all plotted together to come and fight against Jerusalem and stir up trouble against it but we prayed to our God and we posted a guard day and night to meet this threat meanwhile the people in Judah said the strength of the laborers is giving out and there's so much rubble that we cannot rebuild the wall also our enemy said before they know it or see us we will be right there among them and we'll

kill them and put an end to the work then the Jews who live near them came and told us 10 times over wherever you turn they will attack us therefore I stationed some of the people behind the lowest points of the wall at the exposed places posted them with family by families with their swords spears and bows after I look things over I stood up and said to the nobles the officials and the rest of the people don't be afraid of them remember the Lord who is great and awesome and fight for your brothers your

sons and your daughters your wives in your homes when our enemies heard that we were aware of their plot and that God had frustrated it we all returned to the wall each to his own work from that day on half of my men did the work while the other half were equipped with spear shields bows and armor the officers posted themselves behind all the people of Judah who were building the wall those who carried materials did their work with one hand and held a weapon in the other and each of the builders wore his sword

at his side as he worked but the man who sounded the trumpet stayed with me then I said to the nobles the officials and the rest of the people the work is extensive and spread out and we are widely separated from each other along the wall wherever you hear the sound of the trumpet join us our God will fight for us so we continue to work with half the men holding Spears and the first light of dawn till the stars came out at that time I also said to the people have every man and his

helpers stay inside Jerusalem at night so they can serve as guards at night and workmen by day neither I know my brothers and my men nor the guards with me took off our clothes each had his weapon even when he went for water now again you can you can definitely pull out ways in which Nehemiah was very smart and wise under pressure I still think it would be better if we're putting this in the you might say the whole narrative arc to see what it's pointing us toward rather than to sit down in the history

of redemption and what God is doing rather than just simply looking and pulling out kind of practical applications from his leadership principles but you can do that not against that but since I only have a few minutes left this is what I like you to see two things the first thing is there is an interesting and important instance of one of the main themes of the Bible that again comes to a conclusion in on the cross and that is the relationship between God's sovereignty and human responsibility the relationship between God's sovereignty and human responsibility notice

in verse 9 it says we pray to our God and posted a guard hmm we pray to our God and post to the guard you know in Isaiah 38 there's an interesting place where Hezekiah the king is about to die he knows he's about to die he prays oh lord save me God says to Hezekiah through Isaiah okay I'm going to give you I'm going to you're going to get better and you're going to get 15 years more life and then Hezekiah says that's great and then I say it adds this he says so create

a kind of a hot plaster made out of figs and put it on the boil on the infected place and you'll get better same thing I prayed to God God said I will answer I will heal you okay here's the medicine I prayed to God God will fight for us okay here's your weapon now what you have over and over again in the Bible is this emphasis on God's sovereignty and human responsibility as two things that go together we have a tendency to say look if gods really protect you you don't have to post a

guard and if you're posting a guard then you really don't believe God it's protecting you right no no to both to me my favorite example of this is actually in the book of Acts in Acts chapter 27 Paul is in a boat he's a prisoner and he's on his way to Rome and he's in the boat you got both sailors who are selling the boat and you've also got soldiers who were with Paul and a terrible storm comes up and the storm is raging for days and at one point an angel of the Lord appears

to Paul and says even though the boat will be lost no one will die not one person will die so he comes out he tells everybody about it now considering everything else the Bible says this means that nobody's going to die because Deuteronomy 18 says if a prophet gives a prediction and it doesn't come true kill him he's not speaking from the Lord in 1st 1st Samuel 15 there's that famous place where it says God is not a man that he should repent so if he tells a prophet something's going to happen it's got to

happen and yet by the time you get to verse 31 and this is Acts chapter 27 in verse 22 he tells them nobody's going to die you get to Acts chapter 27 verse 31 in the middle of the storm the sailors start to really get worried so they start to sneak over to a part of the boat where there's a lifeboat and they start to lower the lifeboat Paul sees it or finds out about it runs to the soldiers and the commander the soldiers and said you've got to keep them the boat oh we're all

going to die you know wait a minute why didn't Paul say hey you know God has promised that nobody's gonna die so really doesn't matter what you do just go snorkeling if you want you know no there is there's no there is no way anybody can die because God has said so so it doesn't matter take the lifeboat don't take a lifeboat who cares no he says we got all stay in the boat what's going on here both J I Packer in his book evangelism the sovereignty of God and Don Carson in his book on

divine sovereignty human responsibility isn't that the name of it yeah I'd I have to admit Don's book is a little more theologically rich than a ji Packers book it's a way to put it but if you read both those books together you will get a grip on something that comes together in the cross you know when after the after the crucifixion when Peter is preaching the very very first the very very first sermon he's looking at the people they're around him in Jerusalem and he says Jesus Christ was offered up as a sacrifice by the

forward nation and and determination of God and you crucified Him with wicked hands you see on the one hand it was absolutely certain that Jesus Christ was going to die and yet the same time those of you who crucified Him you are utterly responsible for what you did what you did mattered you are responsible for what you do now what this really means is no matter how bad things get on the one hand God is completely in charge on the other hand what you do matters and I know that intellectually we say how can they

both be right it seems like if God's in charge it doesn't matter what I do if it what it matters what I do if that really matters then what's going to happen can't be really set in God's plan now I know that logically it doesn't work but I want you to realize how incredibly practical at the heart lived life level it is to believe what the Bible says if I really believed that my actions could change the plan of God that my prayers could change the plan of God if you believe that and you pray

again you're not thinking you have way way too high a view of your own ability your own wisdom some of you know I've said this before but you know old joke I know is that when you're I always say especially the younger people I say you know when you were 10 years old you're 10 years old you were you can remember that your eight-year-old self which was totally stupid and when you're 15 years old you think back about your 10 year old self and the things you wrote and believe in you go and when you're

20 years old you think your 15 year old self was a jerk and when you're 30 years old you really think your 20 year old self was a jerk and guess what you're a jerk now you're a jerk right now all right okay and therefore if you really believe that that my prayer changed the will of God change the plan of God I wouldn't pray again you shouldn't pray again how do you know what should happen you don't know what should happen but on the other hand if you just believe it was all faded it

doesn't matter how we live well then you have no incentive to stretch every nerve what the Bible says is what you do matters what you do matters you are responsible at the same time you can't completely screw up your life because God is in charge and you need to know that you're not going to live life you're not gonna be able to live life that's the reason why the people who crucified Jesus Christ were guilty at the same time was absolutely sure that he was going to die for our sins now here's the last thing

most of not the most important thing but here's the last thing that we learned for us ourselves from a passage like chapter 4 it almost seems to be a principle that when you're doing something good for God you'll get attacked somehow Jesus Christ is baptized with a spirit you know because the Dove comes down this is my son Who am well pleased high point next thing you know he's in the wilderness being tempted by the devil that's the Christian life that is the Christian life you see it over and over again it happens constantly one

thing after another I mean you know that Jesus is baptized Elijah's great triumph you know over the prophets on Mount Bay you know on on Mount Carmel the prophets of bale and after that he gets incredibly depressed you know over and over again you see sometimes when you're doing the great thing you're doing the great thing you get the most opposition why first of all if you identify with Jesus Christ you're going to be persecuted here is the beatitude we all hate can I just read it to you is the beatitude we all hate blessed

are you when people insult you persecute you and are and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me rejoice and be glad because great is your reward in heaven for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you and of course 2nd Timothy 3:12 all who live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution all you're going to get this kind of mockery disdain you know mockery and disdain here is Oh God for we are despised one of the things that has not changed a bit not changed a bit is

that we are despised and we're despised for the sake of the Lord now two things to say before putting going to the medicine chest for this we it's interesting to notice that the other founders of the great religions did not die in shame Buddha Muhammad Confucius from what we know these guys triumph they had a lot of problems but they died old full of years surrounded by admirers in many ways they triumphed Jesus Christ died young cutoff died in shame why I think because let me neither human level his claims were so much greater you

know Anne Rice you know Anne Rice who wrote the vampire novels and all that sort of thing when she I know she's had a very strange trajectory spiritually but some years ago she was trying to write a novel about Christianity and like most novelists she was trying to study her she was trying to say her her subject and she started reading New Testament scholarship and she was astounded by the fact that so many of the people in the world of history and New Testament scholarship actually seemed to dislike the person they were studying this is

what she said she says I discovered it so many of the scholars and the scholars it was their career to study the historical background of Jesus I discovered so many of these scholars who had devoted their entire life to New Testament scholarship disliked Jesus Christ some pitied him as a helpless failure other sneered at him some showed outright contempt I had never come across this in any other field of research people who go into Elizabethan Studies are not out to prove that Queen Elizabeth was a fool they don't make snickering remarks about her or spend

their entire careers trying to pick apart her historical reputation yes of course occasionally a scholar might study a villain but even then they usually argue for the importance of his or her place in history but in general scholars do not spend their entire lives in the company of a historical figure that they openly despised and yet these New Testament scholars detested and despised Jesus Christ the point is if you identify with Jesus Christ you will get despised hear us o our God for we are despised what should we do when that happens and we're certainly

in the Western societies in for a lot more being despised and we've ever been in a long time here's the answer don't do this hear us O God for we are despised do not cover up their guilt or blot out their sins from your sight for they have thrown insults in the face of the builders Derek Kidner who wrote a commentary on Ezra Nehemiah and has also written a wonderful commentary on Psalms talks about the imprecatory psalms the psalms where in the Old Testament they say Lord blot blot them out don't forgive them don't cover

their guilt he says there's a couple things you got to keep in mind I remember there's a place you know in the Old Testament I guess it's Psalm 137 where the psalmist says O Lord do to the Babylonians what they did to us blessed is he who dashes the heads of your little infants on the rocks that's what the Babylonians used to do that's what they did in those days when you were sacking a city you would pick up the infant's of the of the people that you're invading the city you pick up their infants

you'd grab them by the the the feet and then you - their brains out on a rock Oh Lord let that happen to them and Derek witnesses think of three things number one these are cries against injustice they are crying against injustice Christians today should still cry against injustice tell God about injustice ask God to do something he's a God of justice just don't give in don't say well that's just life secondly notice that even in the Old Testament almost always the prayers are not taking vengeance themselves they're saying Lord you take it too even

there you know they're on to the truth but here's what he says this side of the cross this side of the cross no Christians don't pray like that that's what they're a kid nurse I think he's right why because we know this that God's little one had his head dashed he was stricken he was crucified and he was despised so that we could have a name that will never die you keep your reputation your name you can't really be despised not in the long run because we're weak our names are written in heaven so our

reputation is secure why because he was despised he made himself of no reputation he emptied himself of all of his glory he got all that persecution now when that happens to you we're despised say Lord I look to you from my vindication which is actually what Nehemiah did we look to you for our vindication but we have resources to give our enemies and the love our enemies nehemiah didn't have that we've got to pick up and take if there's a sense in which in it there's a sense in which I think Jesus is saying something

like this look if you take a little hit to your reputation if you get persecuted a little bit knowing what I did for you you can take it I got the ultimate shame I was rejected either by my father I got the shame you deserved I got the rejection you deserved so that now you can know you have a name written in heaven you're a citizen of the ultimate city you're surrounded by the ultimate walls of salvation you can't lose that because you're mine you can handle speak up for me do my work and if

you get despised those who look to me will never be put to shame you