Practicing What He Preaches

Man, it’s great to see everybody today. Thank you all so much for being here. It truly is a great day here in the life of our church and really grateful for all that the Lord is up to. And yeah, I just want to double click on some of the things that were mentioned a few minutes ago. Hey, if you’re looking to get involved, if you’re looking to get plugged in, become a member or take your faith to a deeper level in your relationship with Jesus, man, we have so many opportunities for you. You know, it’s not just tomorrow morning for all the ladies, so that is a great opportunity. It’s every Sunday morning at 10 o’clock. We have different Sunday school classes that you can jump into. Man, there’s so much happening in the life of our church and we’re just really grateful for all that the Lord is up to.

We are in a giving season right now, a Southern Baptist specifically giving to the efforts of church planting and missions in our state. That’s what the video was talking about. We were looking at a video of some pastors and ministry leaders in the Columbia area that are working specifically to target the impoverished communities that they live and serve amongst. So what we’re going to do here is we’re not just going to pray for the Janie Chapman offering, but we’re also going to pray for a couple other local area churches. We should have a couple of those that’ll be up on the slide. So what I want you to do is you can pray that God would continue to bless what we are gathering and giving for the Janie Chapman Fund, or you can pick one of these churches. These are just some other congregations here in our area. And we’re going to ask that the Lord will bless them as well as they are also meeting right now doing the same thing we’re doing. They’re singing songs to Jesus. They’re opening and studying God’s word and just trying to follow the Holy Spirit’s leading. So if you will, grab a neighbor and yeah, just take it away in prayer for a few moments and I’ll wrap this up, okay? Thank you.

Father, God, thank you so much. Lord, thank you that we here at Sauldam Baptist, we’re not on an island by ourselves, but God, there are so many churches in our area that we get to lock arms with. God, we get to partner with, we get to pray for. Father, I pray for Pastor Andrew Garrett over at Adams Run. God, that you will bless him this morning as he teaches your word. God, I pray for Naveen over at Hopewell. God, that you would do the same for him. Lord, I pray for the ministry at Harbor City. God, that you would help them to continue to share the gospel with folks that are far from you. Lord, I thank you for Kevin at Charleston Baptist and what he represents to that community. Lord, I ask that you would help him this morning. God, I pray for the folks over at FBC Ravenel. God, as they’re right there on that awesome spot, Lord, where so many people see them. God, I pray that you would bring guests to them this morning, folks that are far from you that don’t know the gospel and that they would come to see that you’re good. God, I pray for the funds that we are giving toward the Janie Chapman offering. Lord, that you would do above and beyond what we could ever ask or imagine with the dollars we’re contributing. Lord, that more churches would start in our state, that struggling churches would be strengthened. Ultimately, Lord, that you would grow your kingdom as more and more people are won to Christianity, not by what we say we’re against, nor even what we say we’re for, but just through the love of God channeled through us. God, would you grow your church? Would you grow your kingdom that way? Lord, I pray for myself this morning as I open up to Nehemiah, God, that you would help me as I’m just trying to say what it says. Lord, like it’s already been prayed, would you help me to say what you want me to say the way you want me to say it? Holy Spirit, would you control me? God, would you let the people of this church hear a better sermon than what I preach? Father, I love you. Church loves you. We want more of you. In your name we pray. Amen.

Will you go ahead and open your Bibles and turn to Nehemiah chapter five, where We’re gonna continue our series looking at the book of Nehemiah. Yeah, I think if you’re like me, there’s a tension that we all wrestle with in our day-to-day course of life. It’s this tension to serve or to be served. Or maybe you’re better than me. You don’t wrestle with that at all. And you just serve all the time. You never need to be served. I have feeling the weight of that in particular over the last five weeks or so. But I think if we’re just all honest, we recognize there are moments in life where we struggle because we’re saying, hey, I’ve got these expectations of what somebody can give me or provide me or where they can offer me. But there’s also this calling of, I wanna give my life to them and I wanna help them. We wrestle with that. We wrestle with this tension. Do I serve others or do I just want to be served?

There’s this moment that happened for me in particular where I’m giving the kids a bath a couple weeks ago. I drink the sparkling waters. I really like them and our daughter really likes them too. And she’s grown accustomed to getting the last few sips of it. All right? So I’m giving them a bath. I’m finishing my sparkling water. She says, dad, can I have the last sip? You know what came out of my mouth? I said, sweetheart, I’ve done a lot for you today. I’m gonna go ahead and finish this drink. And I finished it and I looked at her and she didn’t really judge me too hard. But I was like, man, what an example of godly fatherhood I just gave my daughter. I’m looking at Luke who’s looking up and I’m like, man, please don’t remember this. Please don’t think anything of this. Just keep bebopping along with those little bath toys. It was this moment in honestly a pretty low collateral situation where I chose to serve myself instead of serving Annie. And I think we all go through that.

I’m really curious. I want some live response here, okay? Why is it hard to serve others? What do you think? Why is it hard to serve others? Yeah, selfish or what are some other reasons? Why is it hard? You don’t get your own stuff done? Amen to that. Maybe one more reason. Why is it hard to, huh? They’re annoying. Okay, man. That’s our honesty corner right there, man. I appreciate that.

Well, the Bible features many deeply flawed individuals and some of them show up as great servants while others don’t. This morning, we’re gonna see that tension in action, okay? So Nehemiah chapter five, hope you’re there at this point. It’ll be on your screens as well. Nehemiah chapter five, starting in verse 14. Look at it with me. Furthermore, from the day that King Artaxerxes appointed me to be their governor in the land of Judah, from the 20th year until his 32nd year, 12 years, I and my associates never ate from the food allotted to the governor. The governors who preceded me had heavily burdened the people, taking from them food and wine as well as a pound of silver. Their subordinates also oppressed the people, but because of the fear of God, I did not do this. Instead, verse 16, I devoted myself to the construction of the wall and all my subordinates were gathered there for the work. We didn’t buy any land. We’ll get to that in a second. There were 150 Jews and officials as well as guests from the surrounding nations at my table. And each day, one ox, six choice sheep, and some fowl were prepared for me. An abundance of all kinds of wine was provided every 10 days. But I didn’t demand the food allotted to the governor because the burden on the people was so heavy. We’ll finish it with verse 19. Remember me favorably, my God, for all that I’ve done for this people.

If there’s one thing I really want you to take away from the sermon this morning or from this particular passage, it would be this. Love God and serve people. Because Nehemiah feared and loved God, he was freed up to serve others. Now see, no doubt, Nehemiah struggled to serve others the way that he would have wanted to. Undoubtedly, Nehemiah had moments where he was going back and said, man, I wish I could have served and given. I wish I could have helped there. But I was thinking about myself and, no doubt, but his fear of God kept him centered and able to serve. I would say the fear of God, the love of God is Nehemiah’s defining characteristic. There are so many things you can draw out of this book of the Bible. There are so many things that you could say Nehemiah is known for this or he’s remembered for this. What I would think God wants us to take away is that Nehemiah loved God. All right.

Nehemiah though, this is a, this is a zoom out moment from the book. All right. If you haven’t been with us or if you missed last week, you really need to go back to the website and look at that sermon from Sunday the 15th, because it’ll help give some context and some clarity for what we’re looking at right now. This is not about a particular moment in the life of Nehemiah. This is more of a general description of how he acted across his 12 years as the governor of Jerusalem.

If you went back to verse nine of chapter five, you would see that the fear of God helped fuel Nehemiah as he confronted the nobles and has he called them to repentance. God used that repentance to revive their worship. And here in verse 15, we also see the fear of God drives Nehemiah’s personal choices and his private life as well. But nevertheless, we get to this passage in verse 14. He starts off, he says, furthermore, furthermore.

You see, Nehemiah has been placed as the governor of Jerusalem way back in chapter two. That’s when he first asked leave of the King of Persia. See, Nehemiah, he had been serving as the cup bearer to this King where he had been exiled all the way to Persia. All right. He had asked to leave because he heard that there’s some bad things going on back home. So the King of Persia sends him away with His blessing.

He arrives in chapter five, we see what Nehemiah is coming against. There’s all these old leaders, all of his predecessors that had been abusing and hurting the people. Verses 14 and 15 tell us this about what they were doing. They were heavily burdening the people with taxes. They were buying poor folks land just so those poor people could have enough cash to be able to purchase some grain to feed their families. All this was done while they were sitting in comfortable government jobs, undoubtedly with great salary and great benefits. They had everything they could ever need yet. They were exploiting and extracting from the needy to take care of themselves. They were not serving the people.

I think that we have all at some point sat under a leader who did not serve the people. Maybe it was a boss of yours. Maybe it was a fellow community member. Maybe it was a coach or a teacher in school. We’ve all sat under somebody who didn’t use their influence to bless and to serve, but instead to burden and to gain for themselves. But that is not who we are as Jesus followers. No, we are new creations in Jesus. People freed from the slavery of serving ourselves and hurting others, which means our disposition and our attitude is to love God and serve people. So that’s what we’re getting into today. Love God.

Now in the passage, verse 15, at the very end of it, look at it again within your Bible. It says, the subordinates also oppressed the people, but because of the fear of God, I didn’t do this. Now, Nehemiah says fear of God, and my main point for today is love God. I want to show you those are the same thing.

Now the fear of God, this is not the way you might feel about a medical diagnosis or piling debts or an angry person. It’s not fear in that way. It’s a sense of reverence and awe and devotion. When the Bible says the fear of God or to fear God, the Bible is saying love for God. Let me explain. It’s kind of like a relationship in a marriage. All right. In the best marriages, what you see is you see devotion. You see even awe for the other person, your spouse. You see some reverence for them so that when you’re presented with an opportunity to hang out with some friends or to work long nights or to go do something, you run those opportunities through them. You say, hey, sweetheart, I got invited out to go have dinner with a friend. Is that okay? Tuesday night, I go do that. Or you start making decisions. You say, hey, like, is this okay with you? I want to make this change to my life. How do you feel about that? To some people, that seems odd.

Why would you run your decisions through your spouse? Why would you give them the opportunity to veto things that you like to do? Yeah, and I get that. It’s a little odd, but it shows love whenever you do that. That’s the type of relationship being depicted here where we would have so much reverence for God that He would get final say on our actions where we have awe for Him because of who He is, where we are devoted to Him and who He is. That’s what’s being depicted here.

I want to ask you a question. Do you believe God wants a love relationship with you? I think many of us have grown up understanding that God wants a devoted relationship or even maybe like a religious relationship. You attend church, you do the Christian things, you avoid the other bad things. And we make a relationship with God oftentimes about the rules to keep, the good stuff to do, the bad stuff to avoid. But what if what God’s intention for you wasn’t all the rules and the rigidity, but it was a relationship founded on love? Do you believe God wants that with you?

Now, here’s the interesting thing about church. I think because we have this good intention of being disciplined and devoted, we start to prioritize the guardrails and we put the guardrails over the person of Jesus Christ. You see, Jesus didn’t come to place us within guardrails. He came to give us life and life more abundant and free. Jesus did not come to show us the rules of God. He came to show us the love of God. And that’s what God wants for you.

Nehemiah, what was so incredible about him is that he had a love relationship with God. And because Nehemiah loved God, he could serve others. Nehemiah talks a lot about God in his book. If you were to flip to the right, you would only find 13 chapters in the book of Nehemiah. And it’s all mostly written in the first person. Nehemiah says, I did this. They did this to me. We did this. Would you believe it? In 13 chapters, Nehemiah explicitly mentions God 76 times, 76 times across 13 chapters. 41 of those, he’s just talking about God in the general form, such as the fear of God. 20 times, he’s praying to God Himself, like in verse 19. We’ll look at that in a second. 15 times, he directly attributes an action to God, like back in chapter four, chapter four, where he says that God had frustrated the schemes of his enemies. 76 times, God, Nehemiah is referencing God in this. Nehemiah totally believed that God was central to his life. He had a love relationship with the God of the universe. And that changed everything for this man.

In fact, I would say, if Nehemiah did not have a love relationship with God, we don’t have the book of Nehemiah. Think about what would look different if Nehemiah didn’t love God. I think that Nehemiah would have ignored the original issue that was brought to him back in chapter one. And he would have stayed in the palace in Persia in his comfy job, close up to the king, all sorts of influence of a national empire. I think if Nehemiah didn’t love God, then when he assessed the project, when he’s going around and looking at the walls, Nehemiah would have said, this is not worth it. I’m going to go back home. If Nehemiah didn’t love God, I don’t think that he would have tried to rally the locals. I don’t think he would have looked at everybody and said, hey guys, we have got to do something here. This is not okay. If Nehemiah didn’t love God, when he was being confronted with the sin of the nobles, he wouldn’t have confronted back. He would not have said, hey guys, what y’all are doing is wrong because you’re abusing and exploiting the people. Yet Nehemiah did fear and he did love God. And we have this book of the Bible because of it.

What would happen in your life if you had a love relationship with God? What would happen in your life if you had a love relationship with the God of the universe? Or think about it this way. What would happen in the lives of others if love characterized your relationship with God? You know, Jesus did tell us that the world will know we are His disciples because of our rule keeping. Wait, that didn’t sound right, did it? What was wrong with that? Jesus said the world will know we’re His disciples because of what? Our love. And in fact, Whenever Jesus was asked, what’s the most important command? If we could ever do anything to please the holy God of Israel, what should we do? You know what Jesus said? Love God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And what? Love others as yourself. Jesus’ whole design for Christianity and your life with Him is love. Love ought to characterize how we feel toward God, what we feel from God, how we interact with other people of God. Love for God changes everything, which means if our lives are not changed by the faith we profess, then love is not part of it.

I wonder where would I be if there weren’t a few key people in my life that loved God? Where would I be if there weren’t a couple folks that were bold enough to confront me of my sin because they loved God more than they loved the comfort of easy conversation? Where would you be if there weren’t people in your life that loved God most? I think about the prisoners that Mr. Dallas is going to go interact with over the course of a couple days. And he’s not doing that just because he’s a good guy or because he’s got some philanthropic motives. He’s not just doing that because he needs something to fill his time. He’s doing that because he loves God. He’s going to go share that with people. Where would people be if others didn’t love God around them?

Nehemiah, I have stressed it. I have over communicated this. He loved God. And because of that, he served others. Look at verses 16 and following with me again. Instead, I devoted myself to the construction of the wall and all my subordinates were gathered there for the work. We did not buy the land. Now there were 150 Jews and officials as well as guests from the surrounding nations at my table. And each day, one ox, six choice sheep. Say that five times out loud fast. And some fowl were prepared for me. An abundance of all kinds of wine was provided every 10 days. But I did not demand the food allotted to the governor. No. Because the burden on the people was so heavy.

Nehemiah served. He served. He did it in a couple incredible ways. He makes this remark where he says we didn’t buy any land. Which to some of us here might just seem like, okay, it’s an odd real estate and investment move. You didn’t buy any land. But what Nehemiah is communicating, again, you have to go back to last week’s sermon. What he’s communicating is he did not capitalize on the calamity of the poor. You see, people had fallen on hard times. A famine was going on. They’re struggling to feed their families. They don’t have any cash to be able to even just buy some grain to make some bread to give to their babies. So what is happening is people are selling off their land. They’re taking new mortgages out on it. They’re selling themselves or they’re selling their kids just to scrape together enough money to feed their families. He is saying, I did not capitalize on that. I didn’t buy any of their land. And instead of buying any of their land, I also, I fed all these government guests from my own pocket.

Look at verse 17. There were 150 Jews and officials as well as guests from the surrounding nations at my table. You think your house is busy? Man, imagine being Nehemiah. Every day, he’s got hundreds of people around his table. Whatever it means. I doubt he had a super long table. I imagine it looked like this. And it’s just this cafeteria of dignitaries all coming to the palace expecting to get the royal treatment. And he gives it to them. But not because of the people. He gives it to them out of his own money.

Verse 18. He lists all the stuff that is fed and all the stuff that’s served. The second half of 18, he says, I didn’t demand food allotted to the governor. What he’s saying there is I paid. Every day, I paid for an ox. Every day, I paid for those six sheep. Every day, I paid for those fowl. Every 10 days, I paid for the wine. And I did that for 12 years. 12 years is what he tells us in verse 14. 12 years, he serves as the governor. 12 years, he’s making a daily sacrifice of feeding people. Not based off the food and the money that was offered to him as his right. But out of his own wallet. Nehemiah, even when he had the opportunity To capitalize on his rights, denied himself and served the people. He says, too, that he was devoted. Verse 16, devoted to the construction of the wall. You see, it’s because Nehemiah feared God. He was devoted to the task that God had given Him. Rather than capitalizing on his rights to serve himself through pet projects or accruing comfort or getting sidetracked with other things, Nehemiah kept the main thing, the main thing.

Undoubtedly, there were some folks that were around at that time that probably felt unserved and unloved because Nehemiah wouldn’t take up their personal cause because he was devoted to the task. Undoubtedly. Yet Nehemiah knew the best thing he could do as the governor and as the man chosen for the job, I’m going to just do what’s really clear I’m supposed to do. I’m going to protect this people by building this wall and reestablishing worship here.

He served others. I’ll tell you, serving others has a powerful effect on your witness to this world. In fact, I would say that serving and loving people is one of the most, is the best thing you could do to share the gospel.

Now, there’s this gentleman, his name is Michael Frost. He is an expert in the missional church movement. This is churches that don’t necessarily try to establish themselves for the sake of themselves, but they are trying to be missional for the sake of the lost around them. And he says that a disposition to service fueled by love for God, it’s just plain weird to the world. And the world really likes weird Christians in that way. The world already expects us to be angry and probably a bit prudish. The world already expects us to be very loud about the things that we’re against. What the world does not expect is for us to be servants.

This is what Jesus said about the nature of Christianity. Jesus, before He was betrayed, He said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those in high positions act as tyrants over them. It must not be like that among you. On the contrary,” Jesus says, “Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to become first must be your slave. Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.”

The most Christ-like thing that we can do sometimes in this world that’s so divided and so angry and so centered on self is to serve others and not expect anything in return. And man, isn’t that hard to live up to. I, this is one of those sermons where I’m praying this morning, and I’m like, Lord, how do I say these things? Because I don’t live up to that. If this was Jeremy Baptist Church, I would not say things like this. Because this is talking about a standard that I wish I could tell you I always, every time, live up to and surpass. I struggle with this just as much as the next guy. I wish that I could serve people out of some sort of love for God in a genuine way and never expect anything ever in return. I confess that’s not always me. And I think if we’re being honest over a cup of coffee or a slice of pie, you would agree. It’s not always you either.

The world’s not asking perfection from us. I think the world’s actually asking a little bit of this servant-hardness. You see, those early Christians, whenever the church was being born in Acts, they were so different. Because God, in His love, He fueled them to be benevolent to their enemies. He fueled them to meet the tangible needs of people around them. In fact, the emperor of Rome at the time noted how these atheists, these people that don’t worship the pantheon of gods, what we would call a Christian, these atheists were loving the Romans better than the Roman government was. And he’s like, what’s going on? So he tells all of his Roman officials, he tells all of his cult, religion, whatever you would call it, call them leaders. He says, y’all need to start loving our people at least as well as the Christians do. And they can’t measure up to it.

And it’s not because these Christians were these green beret type of people. They’re just normal people. The difference was they loved God and God loved them. And that fueled what they did. They were radically different from the world around them because they loved God and they served others. And God, all the time, every generation, Is calling every Christian in every church to do the exact same thing. He’s just saying, “Hey, love me and serve people around you. Find some tangible needs and meet them, and don’t expect people to do anything back for you. That’s my heart for you.” Nehemiah closes in verse 19, and he is asking that God would remember him well for what he’s done. Nehemiah is concerned about his legacy. He says, “Remember me favorably, my God, for all that I’ve done for this people.” And it makes, when I read a verse like verse 19, it makes me wonder, what do I want to be remembered for as well? I’ll confess, my list of things I want to be remembered for is pretty long. I’d be pretty hard-pressed to boil it down to, “God, let, let me be remembered for loving you and serving others.” That’s all he was concerned with. There’s only one way to gain a legacy like that: by actually doing it.

We can’t love God and love money, the world, or sin. We can’t serve others and serve ourselves. You see, God, I believe, wants to free us from loving what is bad for us so that He can fuel us to serve others. That’s God’s heart. But the bad news is that no matter how hard we try, you and I just can’t do it. We actually earn a debt of death and sin because of it. In the book of Isaiah, Isaiah says that your righteousness is like filthy rags to God. All of our attempts at good works are actually just tainted before the holy and good God. That’s the bad news.

But the good news is that God has sent the Savior that you and I need. Nehemiah is great, but Nehemiah just points to Jesus Christ. Actually, that’s the whole point of this. You see, Nehemiah couldn’t save Jerusalem from its greatest problem. Jerusalem’s greatest problem was not foreigners invading or moving in. It was not financial decline. Jerusalem’s greatest problem was not the destruction of the wall. Jerusalem’s greatest problem was their sin. So God sent a Savior. This is how He is described in the book of Philippians: “Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited. No, instead, He emptied Himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity. And when He had come as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason, God highly exalted Him and gave Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.”

You see, here is the gospel: that God has made you to love Him and to serve others. But unfortunately, because of sin, none of us do sin, none of us do that, at least not the way that we’re designed to. Sin lives in our hearts. It’s like an enemy that’s taken up residence inside the walls of your kingdom. And sin makes us do things that we don’t want to do. That’s what Paul said: “The things I do want to do, I don’t get to do. Things I don’t want to do, I end up doing.” And it’s all because of sin. Sin is not something we could rub off or we can delete out of us. Sin is an inhabitant in our spiritual DNA.

But praise be to God that God did not leave us in that state of sin. Instead, He sent a Savior, Jesus Christ, who could love God in your place perfectly, who could serve others in your place perfectly, who would love you despite the unlovable things about us. The Bible says that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. The greatest display of love ever was that God nailed Himself to a cross to pay for your sin. Like we sang about earlier, “Nothing but the blood, nothing but the blood can for sin atone.” Which means Jesus Christ is your ultimate hope. It’s not in me or your parents or this church or in anything the government can provide us or in a new government. That’s not our ultimate hope. Our ultimate hope is in Jesus Christ, the Lord and the Savior who came and lived and breathed and walked among us. And though He was beautiful and lovely and perfect, we sent Him to die. But Jesus did not stay dead, did He, Caroline? Christ rose from the grave three days later so that we could be forgiven by God, so that anybody that would repent and just say, “God, give me a taste of this love and this grace.” Anybody who would offer any of themselves to God would get the full measure of God’s love poured into them, running over. God loves you. Plain and simple, God loves You. He’s dealt with the bad stuff. And if you give Him yourself, He’d keep dealing with that personally for you. God loves you. You don’t have to earn it. You don’t have to pay for it, and you can’t. You don’t have to convince God to love you because He already does. Way before you were ever even born, God had already sent Jesus Christ for you. God’s heart for you is that you would love Him back and then serve you. That’s God’s heart for you. So my invitation for you this morning is that you would just simply pray. You would thank God for His love. Ask Him to help you love Him, and ask Him to help you serve others. I begin that conversation with you this morning. If you’re, if this whole idea of a love relationship with God seems too good to be true, please let’s talk because it is true. It’s the most true thing in the universe.

Let’s pray. Lord, God, how You love us. That You would give Your own Son to die in my place. God, I believe it and I trust it. I believe that the message of the cross is foolishness to this world that values strength. The message of the cross is a stumbling block to religion because it negates all the good things we can do. Jesus, thank You for being the ultimate servant that met our ultimate need. For giving us Nehemiah who points us to You and who shows us that we can step into that. As broken and as bumbling as we are, we can step into that. God, would You let us be a church that loves You passionately and serves others sacrificially? Starting with me, please. God, for anyone in the room that’s not absolutely convinced that You love them, would You please open the eyes of their heart that they would taste and see that You are good. Would they believe the gospel this morning for the first time? Please, God, do what only You can do. God, we give You ourselves. It’s in Your name we pray. Amen.