Speaker 1: 0:02

Good morning. It is great to be here with you, hope you're enjoying your three-day weekend and we are, as the song just mentioned, building our lives on Christ. I've learned a lot about building bridges over the last year or so, and one of the things about building that you always do whether it's a bridge or a house or a skyscraper or a tree fort, whatever it is you estimate the cost. You sit down and you figure out how much it's going to cost to build this thing. Is it worth it? And Jesus says that our faith is like that. He says in Luke 14, 27, and 28, whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you desiring to build a tower does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Following Jesus is, for many of us, a no-brainer. He is our life. He's the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through him. So of course we're following Jesus, but it's costly, and one of the ways that it's costly is because it comes with opposition. It's not a matter of if we face opposition for following Christ. It's actually a matter of when he guarantees it, as we'll see later. And the question is, what will we do? Will we give up? Will we renounce his name, or will we depend further on the Lord as we seek to follow him, even in the face of opposition? And that's essentially what Nehemiah 4 is about. We're going to be looking at Nehemiah 4 today. To start off, we'll just look at the first three verses together.

Speaker 1: 1:51

Now, when Sanballot heard that we were building the wall, he was angry and greatly enraged and he jeered at the Jews and he said, in the presence of his brothers and of the army of Samaria, what are these feeble Jews doing? Will they restore it for themselves? Will they sacrifice? Will they finish up in a day? Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish and burn ones at that? And Tobiah the Ammonite was beside him and he said yes, what are they building? If a fox goes up on it, he will break down their stone wall. Sanballot was a Samaritan and Tobiah was an Ammonite, as it says, and Tobiah is kind of like. You know, if there's like a duo of bad guys in a film, there's always one who's like the alpha and the other one's just kind of like yeah, what he said. Tobiah is like the yeah what he said. Guy. He's just like, yeah, what what Sanballot said, yeah.

Speaker 1: 2:41

So they are opposed to this, this project. They don't want to see the Jews come back into power in Jerusalem. So their tactic to try to stop this project at first is ridicule. I imagine them somewhat like the French guys in Monty Python, the Holy Grail your mother was. I'm staring your first myth of edabarys, right, those guys Maybe not quite that silly, but you know, you know, kind of like that. So they are, they're taunting, they're jeering, they're trying to discourage the Jews. And we shouldn't be surprised by this. Again. It's not.

Speaker 1: 3:22

It is not unexpected that we will face ridicule when we are building our lives on Jesus Christ. In Luke 6, 22 and 23, jesus himself says blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil on account of the Son of man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy before behold your reward is great in heaven, for so their fathers did to the prophets. It's not if it's when, when we are reviled, when we are excluded, when we are hated and scorn because of our faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus himself faced intense ridicule throughout his entire earthly ministry. The Jewish leaders mocked him. They claim that he was a blasphemer. They wanted to put him to death. They publicly accused him of being a drunken and a glut, a drunkard and a glutton. And then, of course, when he was on his way to the cross, as the time drew near, he was betrayed by Judas. He was denied by Peter, he was mocked by the Roman soldiers and the Jewish crowds cried out crucify him, crucify him. So he was well acquainted with ridicule. He knows what it's like, and so if we experience ridicule today, we're in good company and we do experience it.

Speaker 1: 4:50

Christians today are often known as bigots. We were told that our message, the message of the gospel, is hate speech. It's exclusionary. We're called worse things online. People on social media are willing to say things they would never say in person. But again, this is nothing new.

Speaker 1: 5:11

It's always been the case for Christians to experience ridicule. In fact, in the early church, in the first century, the second century, in the Roman Empire, when the church was just getting off the ground, they would often meet in homes and they would be celebrating the Lord's Supper, just like we're about to do later this morning, and they would talk about feasting on the body of Christ and drinking the blood of Christ, and these Roman pagans would be walking by houses and they would hear this and you know what they would think these guys are cannibals. That's really what they thought. So they publicly ridiculed the Christians for being cannibals and also for being incestuous, because they talk about greeting their brothers and sisters with a holy kiss. Seriously, that's what they thought. So we are ridiculed and we always have been ridiculed.

Speaker 1: 6:03

Because why? Because non-believers don't understand us. They don't get it. They don't understand why we believe Jesus Christ died on the cross as the perfect sacrifice to take away our sin and then rose from the grave. They don't believe a person could rise from the dead. Science says it can't happen. God says otherwise. They don't understand why we believe the Bible is the inerrant and infallible Word of God. Man, I really can't talk this morning. You think that's an important part of what I'm doing, but having some struggles. The Bible is God's Word and they don't understand why we don't compromise on that Again. God makes us an prisoner. We weren't apart on to that. We're your propre. See you at church. Why we won't just change with the times. You got so many outdated beliefs. Just compromise already. Why won't we? They don't understand, and so we are ridiculed for our faith. So that's a guarantee that's going to happen.

Speaker 1: 7:00

The question is, what do we do in response? Will we return insult for insult? Will we ridicule them back? Will we try to come up with a better comeback? Will we try to seek justice for ourselves? It's not the way of Christ. The way of Christ is that, when facing opposition, god's protection drives us to prayer, obedience and watchfulness.

Speaker 1: 7:28

Look at verses four through six. Here, o our God, for we are despised. Turn back their taunt on their own heads and give them up to be plundered in a land where they are captives. Do not cover their guilt and let not their sin be blotted out from your sight, for they have provoked you to anger in the presence of the builders. So we built the wall, and all the wall was joined together to half its height, for the people had a mind to work.

Speaker 1: 7:55

Do you see what Nehemiah's response is to this ridicule is His response is prayer. He goes to the Lord. When we are ridiculed, we too ought to go to the Lord, to Jesus, who again understands exactly what it means to be ridiculed, and so we can go to him knowing that he hears us, that he sympathizes with us and that he is our refuge and our strength. We don't need to be so concerned with our own reputation, with how people are speaking about us. We don't need to worry about that. We just need to trust God, to trust in his protection and ultimately, to trust in his sense of justice.

Speaker 1: 8:32

Notice that Nehemiah's prayer here is actually a pretty strong, strongly worded, kind of a harsh prayer against his enemies. He wants justice. He doesn't take it into his own hands, he doesn't go and seek revenge, but he gives it up to God. He says God, you deal with this, you take justice, as he says he will in his word. But he's again. This is strongly worded. Nehemiah actually curses his enemy, or rather prays for his enemies to be cursed In this prayer. Look at what he says again. Turn back their taunt on their own heads and give them up to be plundered in a land where there are captains. He's praying for the curses of exile to be put on San Balintabaya. He's praying that they experience what the Jews had experienced in exile. Is this okay?

Speaker 1: 9:27

It seems kind of odd that you would pray something like this to God about a person. But actually this has precedent. There are multiple prayers like this in the scriptures and they're called imprecatory prayers, like in Psalm 79-12. Return sevenfold into the lap of our neighbors the taunts with which they have taunted you. Oh Lord, seems like scripture's telling us that when you're getting ridiculed and people are opposing you, it's actually okay for you to go to the Lord and say Lord, will you please hurt these people? For me, will you please make bad things happen to them? This is actually kind of a relief, because this kind of thing could be pretty good for the soul. I think Somebody's really after you.

Speaker 1: 10:17

But the key here, if you notice, is actually that Nehemiah is not really concerned about his own reputation here. He is praying this way not because he's been taunted, but because God has been taunted. God has been taunted. You understand, what Nehemiah is doing is God's work, it's God's project, this was God's design. And so when these guys come and taunt Nehemiah, they're actually taunting God, which is not just unsafe but it's downright foolish, sinful, satanic. To oppose God is to be literally like Satan. And so when Nehemiah prays that these guys are cursed, for God to curse them, do you know what? I think he's actually doing them a favor in some ways, because maybe a person like this, who is so opposed to God, needs something really hard to happen in their lives so that they'll stop, repent and follow Jesus. Otherwise they're headed down a path of destruction. And so Nehemiah, in praying this way, potentially is actually looking after the best interest of sand ballad and to buy.

Speaker 1: 11:42

It Seems strange, but it's true. But he also prays, something else that I want to address. He actually prays not only that God will curse them, but that God will not forgive their sins, and I wonder, is there any precedence to that? Is that okay? I mean, what do we make of that? And strangely, I couldn't find a lot of commentary about this. It seems like people just didn't want to address it. I kind of understand why, but I just think about the fact that when Jesus was on the cross and he had been brutally mocked and beaten, what did he pray? He prayed Father, forgive them. They don't know what they do. I think if Jesus prays that way, we ought to pray that way as well. We should never ask for the Lord to withhold forgiveness from a person, because to do so is essentially the same thing as praying for God to send them to hell, and I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. So Nehemiah may be wrong in that part, but God still hears his prayer.

Speaker 1: 12:46

The ridicule seems to die down, but San Balintabaya are enraged. Look at the next few verses. But when San Balintabaya and the Arabs and the Amonites and the Ashdodites heard that the repairing of the walls of Jerusalem was going forward and that the breaches were beginning to be closed, they were very angry and they all plotted together to come and fight against Jerusalem and to cause confusion in it. And we prayed to our God instead of guard as a protection against them day and night. So now, more than ridicule is coming their way. There's a threat of physical violence. And what does Nehemiah do? Well, again, he prays, he goes to the Lord, he seeks the Lord's protection. But notice this he also sets a guard for protection In times of danger. Of course we trust God to protect us. Of course we trust God to be with us, but know that he usually protects us through ordinary means, not the miraculous.

Speaker 1: 13:51

It's kind of like this past week when we were concerned about the threat of Hurricane Idaalia. I mean, we all of course probably prayed that God would spare us, and yet again he spared us and we pray for the people in the north part of the state who were hit so hard. We pray for their recovery. But as we prayed, we also went and got gas, water, bread, provisions, whatever we needed. We brought stuff inside the house. We didn't pray and do nothing and just expect God to let the opposition pass our way. Now we prayed and we prepared, we prayed and we were alert. We prayed and we were watchful. And this is what this text is saying, that we ought to be in the Christian life. It's like Colossians 4-2 says continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with Thanksgiving. We're watchful and alert for God to potentially answer our prayers, but we're also watchful and alert because God may allow opposition to come our way despite our prayers. It's unthinkable. But this opposition, this type of physical violence, is a real threat for us.

Speaker 1: 15:12

Just back in March I'm sure you all saw that there was a shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville that claimed the lives of six people. That was a. That's a PCA church, a PCA school. It's our same denomination. It's in Nashville, tennessee. It's not that far away, and Christians were absolutely targeted. There's no doubt about it. That person went there to kill Christians specifically, and we pray still for those folks who lost their lives and their families.

Speaker 1: 15:43

One of the little girls who was killed was the daughter of the pastor, and yet we know. We know that God for some reason allowed that to happen. Nothing happens without his sovereign control. We don't understand why, and that's probably for a whole other sermon or sermon series, but we also have to know, we also have to remember, that God allowed his son, jesus Christ, to go through physical violence Again.

Speaker 1: 16:18

Just as he experienced ridicule, he also experienced great physical violence, probably more than we can possibly comprehend. When he was on trial, he was handed over to be beaten, and we might think that he was punched in the face a few times. No, he was scourged with a cat of nine tails, which is a whip that tears flesh from your body when it hits you. He had a crown of thorns jammed into his head, a crown of two to three inch long thorns. He was forced to carry his own cross after that, which is why you now understand, I think, that he couldn't do it. He had to have someone take it for him, and then he was put up on the cross, where he suffered the most excruciating death imaginable at that time. In fact, the word excruciating actually comes from the word crucifixion. It's why we have that word, because it's so painful. This is what Jesus went through. This is the violence that was done to him. So if we undergo physical violence, he understands, he sympathizes. If we suffer, we suffer along with him.

Speaker 1: 17:30

Sometimes, god allows opposition to happen and we don't understand why, other than the fact that we know that he does so to increase our dependence on him and so that we will be forced to exercise our faith. How do we know what our faith is or what it's like, if it's never exercised, if we never use it, if we never have to depend on God? We live in a broken, fallen world and we don't want to go through opposition or hard things, but we will. And so where is our faith during those times? Well, nehemiah learned to trust God this way, and the opposition didn't stop, and so it was a thankful thing, a good thing, that he had such faith.

Speaker 1: 18:16

And verses 10 through 15, we see that the opposition now comes from within. Look at those verses. And Judah, it was said, the strength of those who bear the burdens is failing. There is too much rubble by ourselves we will not be able to rebuild the wall. And our enemies said they will not know or see till we come among them and kill them and stop the work. At that time the Jews who lived near them came from all directions and said to us 10 times you must return to us. So in the lowest part of the space behind the wall, in open places, I stationed the people by their clans with their swords, their spears and their bows, and I looked and arose and said to the nobles and to the officials and to the rest of the people do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who was great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives and your homes. When our enemies heard it that it was known to us and that God had frustrated their plan, we all returned to the wall, each to his work. So when we are facing opposition in the form of discouragement or fear or anxiety, god's protection fills us with courage and hope. Again, this is now opposition coming from within.

Speaker 1: 19:32

The people working on the project are discouraged because the work is hard, it's long, it seems like we don't have enough materials, we don't have enough people. We'll never finish and following Jesus can be discouraging like this. Oftentimes we wanna battle our sin, we wanna put our sin to death, but our same sin struggles just keep coming up and it's the same thing over and over again. We're like why can't I just shake this God? Why don't you just take this desire for this thing away from me? I don't want this. And yet it's still there. It plagues us and often following Jesus can be like this or maybe you feel like following Christ is kind of a disadvantage to you, maybe in the workplace, maybe you feel like everybody's in your office or in your career, moving on ahead of you. They're climbing up the ladder. Because why? Because they're unethical, because they're cutting corners and you won't do it, and yet it puts you at a disadvantage. It seems Following Jesus can be discouraging because the world is a broken place and it doesn't want you to follow Jesus. This is why we have to count the costs. This is why we have to decide. Do I want to carry my cross and follow Jesus? Is it worth it to me? Maybe your friends and your family don't think it is.

Speaker 1: 20:51

This is what happened with Nehemiah and the Jews. They came to Nehemiah and they said return to us, and they said it 10 times. It's one, two, three. We're not enough, but why 10? Are they like children who come and they repeat the same thing to you over and over and over again until you finally get the message? This happens to us with our little sweet Caleb, who seems to have a thing for repeating the same thing over and over again. Can we go in the pool, dad? Can we go in the pool, dad? I guess I should just go in the pool, right, then it'll stop. He has a way of making me do things that I don't want to do, but there we go, it works. That's not really what happened here, though, so 10 in the Bible is a symbolic number. It's the number that means completeness, and so what he's saying here is that they came and said return to us a complete number of times, or maybe enough times to get the point across. You should come home. You should stop working on this silly wall. You're sacrificing way too much. Just come home, put your feet up, think about your own comfort and your own happiness for once. Stop worrying about what God wants you to do. Just come home and be safe. Right, and sometimes our friends and family think that we should stop worrying so much about what Jesus thinks and just think about ourselves.

Speaker 1: 22:16

Another thing they face here, other than discouragement, it's fear and anxiety. There's a sneak attack coming. They don't know when. That's why it's a sneak attack, and so they're afraid. They're always on edge here, and this is a common tactic of the evil one. He wants us to be in fear. You know that he loves it when Christians are in fear.

Speaker 1: 22:39

The screw tape letters written by CS Lewis is written from the perspective of a demon named screw tape who is counseling his nephew, demon Wormwood, on how to possess a human. It's really kind of sick and demented if you think about it, but it's a great book and I highly encourage you to check it out. But in letter number six, screw tape says we want him, which is their human, to be in the maximum uncertainty, so that his mind will be filled with contradictory pictures of the future, every one of which arouses hope or fear. There's nothing like suspense and anxiety for barricading a human's mind against the enemy which is God from their perspective. He wants men to be concerned with what they do. Our business is to keep them thinking about what will happen to them.

Speaker 1: 23:39

Fear and anxiety barricade our minds and hearts against trust in God. If all we're thinking about is what's gonna happen to us, what's gonna happen to me in the future, what's gonna happen to me next week, what's gonna happen to me at school, what's gonna happen to me at the office, what's gonna happen to me when I'm around my friends? If that's what we're thinking about, then, yes, you're going to be anxious, yes, you're gonna be afraid, because you're thinking about you, and you and me we have something in common. We have limits. Yes, if the future depends on me, folks, we in trouble, right? That's why, when I'm looking into the future and I'm thinking about what might happen and I'm not considering God's plan and God himself, that is why I'm anxious.

Speaker 1: 24:30

It doesn't take much and this is why Nehemiah says to remember God, who is great and awesome. When we, again, we are thinking about ourselves a lot, when we are thinking about our problems and facing our problems alone and how we'll handle something, yeah, we're gonna be fearful, we're gonna be anxious, but when we think about God, who is with us, who promises to walk through the fires and the floodwaters with us, when we think about how strong he is, then, yes, we can be strong and courageous. We are following the King of Kings. We're not following just some random dude. He's the King of Kings who has risen from the grave and conquered death and, in security, eternal life for us.

Speaker 1: 25:25

What do we have to fear? If we depend on ourselves, if we depend on seeking our own plans, if we need everything to happen the way we want it to happen in the future, yeah, we're gonna be fearful and anxious. But if we seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, if we want our plans to become oh no, sorry, if we want His plans to become our plans, then what do we have to fear? Because His plans are guaranteed. He will not fail. This is the root of Christian courage. This is where Christian courage grows.

Speaker 1: 26:08

Christian courage is not about having confidence in ourselves and how strong we are. It's about having confidence in God and how strong he is. So you have every reason to be courageous because God is infinitely strong. He is building His kingdom. He will prevail, he will win. He already has won. It's just a matter of time. So we're gonna have great confidence in Him that we will not be shaken if we are building our lives on Christ.

Speaker 1: 26:39

So when you're fearful, when you're anxious. When you're discouraged, try to take the focus off yourself and put your focus on how great and awesome our God is, even in the midst of those circumstances. It's like 1 John 4,. 4 says little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. You will walk through the most difficult circumstances with you and you can trust in His protection the whole time. And you will walk through the most difficult circumstances with you and you can trust in His protection the whole time. So God frustrated the enemy's plans and the people got back to work and involvement in the project grew. Look at verse 16 through the rest of the chapter.

Speaker 1: 27:31

From that day on, half of my servants worked on construction and half held the spears, shields, bows and coats of mail. And the leaders stood behind the whole house of Judah who were building on the wall. Those who carried burdens were loaded in such a way that each labored on the work with one hand and held his word, and each of the builders had his sword strapped at his side while he built. The man who sounded the trumpet was beside me and I said to the nobles and to the officials and to the rest of the people. The work is great and widely spread and we are separated on the wall, far from one another, in the place where you hear the sound of the trumpet rally to us. There our God will fight for us. So we labored at the work and half of them held the spears from the break of dawn and the rest of them were in the room. They were from the break of dawn until the stars came out. I also said to the people at that time let every man and his servant pass the night within Jerusalem, that they may be a guard for us by night and may labor by day. So neither I, nor my brothers, nor my servants, nor the men of the guard who followed me, none of us took off our clothes. Each kept his weapon at his right hand. So here we see a hidden blessing of facing opposition. It is that God's people, in response to opposition, are using their gifts with urgency for the building of God's kingdom. You see a whole lot of different roles happening here in the work around the city walls. The AMI's personal servants are now joining in the construction and joining in the standing of guard. The leaders are there, encouraging everyone, spurring everyone on. Skilled laborers are doing their work, the burden carriers are bringing the materials and each of them they're all ready for battle. They got armored and swords strapped on. The trumpeter is ready to go and sound the alarm at whatever hole in the wall there might be an attack or wherever they might need extra help. He's there sounding the alarm, gathering the people together, and the whole point here is that this would never have happened without opposition, without people being aware of a threat, and so oftentimes it is opposition that encourages God's people to unite together, using their gifts for the building of the kingdom.

Speaker 1: 29:56

In 2004, I lived in Winterhaven, florida, and we got hit by three hurricanes that year. It was a really exciting year. Charlie Francis, jean Jean was the one that went out and looked like it was going out to sea and it was like, oh, I changed my mind and came back around and slammed us. It was fantastic. No power for Charlie and Jean. Trees down everywhere, roofs came off. It was crazy, and yet it caused the church to come together. People who had freezers full of food were like, well, we gotta cook our food, come on over for a cookout. And people who had pools were like, listen, I know you guys don't have a pool. No AC, come on over, jump in, cool off. People with chainsaws were walking around like what can I cut? Let me cut something. You know the hauling debris away. It was a beautiful picture of the church being the church and again, it wouldn't have happened without that opposition, without the hurricane.

Speaker 1: 31:00

And so sometimes what we have to stop and admit is that maybe we need some opposition in our lives. Not that we're praying for it, but maybe it becomes an opportunity to wake us up. American church might need to be woke up. We're complacent, we're apathetic. We, instead of building our lives on Jesus, we often just try to fit Jesus into our schedule where we can, instead of being prayerfully alert, we are. It's like the country singer Jelly Roll says we only talk to God and we need a savior.

Speaker 1: 31:36

So maybe we're kind of like the church in Sardis in Revelation three, where it says into the angel of the church in Sardis, right the words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God. Is that us? Are we claiming to be alive, but we're really spiritually on life support? I mean, how do we know? Well, do the things of God excite us or are we pretending? There's a lot of things that I think I'm more excited about Maybe you're more excited about than the idea of Christ and his kingdom in the gospel. Are we willing to carry our crosses? Are we willing to go through something hard if it's what God sees fit?

Speaker 1: 32:29

Well, opposition will reveal that It'll either cause us to give up or it'll cause us to keep depending on the Lord, and I think we've seen that here at Westtown Church over the past few years, been through a lot COVID and a pastoral scandal, and then the bridge thing, that thing out there that I have to see every day. And, yeah, what has happened, though, with all this that we probably would consider opposition? God has united us, god has grown us, god has showed up and people have responded. People have used their gifts in ways they never did before. People have served in ways they never did before. People have stepped up and said how can I help? People are looking out for one another. People are shepherding each other. We have something here that I think God is really doing. That's a big deal that wouldn't have happened without the opposition we faced. It's caused us to wake up. I think God is doing something pretty incredible here at Westtown.

Speaker 1: 33:34

So if you're facing opposition, if you're discouraged, if you're fearful, if you're anxious, remember what Nehemiah shows us here that we have a sovereign Lord who's protecting us and who is building his church. Just real quick now we're running long here but Matthew 16, 18 says and I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. A lot of times we read that and we think this means that hell is assaulting the church, and I'm sure Satan would like to think that that's a strategy that will work. But that's actually not what this text is saying. This text says that there are gates of hell, meaning that hell is a stationary place that is being assaulted by what? By the church, by Christ, and it will not prevail. It will not stand up against the assault of the gospel.

Speaker 1: 34:28

Jesus will build his church. He is building his church. He is building his kingdom. It's coming. Nothing's gonna stop it. You wanna be part of that. We are part of that, and there are lots of things and lots of people who don't wanna see it happen, including the evil one, but nothing can stop it. We have our God on our side and he is great and awesome. And so next time you are fearful and need some courage, remember him. Remember he is great.