I invite you to take your Bible and turn with me to Nehemiah chapter 5. I failed to write down the page in the Bible, but there it is in your bulletin. It should be pew Bible page 401.
As you’re turning there, I’d like to begin where I hope to end. I want you to think about Easter Sunday, the original and first Easter Sunday, where toward the end of the day that Jesus rose from the dead there was a conversation. It started as a conversation between two people and a third was added. And when that third voice came into the conversation, a whole Biblical theology developed in the conversation. And I want you to think about – and we’ll make this more precise later – but that third voice, Jesus Himself, who entered into that conversation. The text tells us, Luke 24, that He “explained from all of Scripture everything that pointed to Himself.” I want you to think about, “What did He say when He got to Nehemiah?” Hold that question in your mind and we’ll read together chapter 5 right after we pray. Let’s pray.
Father, we as Your people need to hear Your voice, not the thoughts and the perspectives of a man speaking, explaining what’s in Your text, but we need to hear the voice of Your Holy Spirit penetrating our hard hearts, applying Your truth deep into the hidden places, the places we can’t bear to look at ourselves and certainly can’t bear for others to see. Shine Your truth into our hearts and then cause Your truth to capture our affections and to drive our joy, our delight and our obedience. So would You cause us to do business with our God, the One who created us, redeemed us, and even now by His Spirit is at work within us to transform us into the character of Jesus. Do that in a miraculous way, even this evening. We ask in Jesus’ name, amen.
Nehemiah 5:
“Now there arose a great outcry of the people and of their wives against their Jewish brothers. For there were those who said, ‘With our sons and our daughters, we are many. So let us get grain that we may eat and keep alive.’ There were also those who said, ‘We are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards, and our houses to get grain because of the famine.’ And there were those who said, ‘We have borrowed money for the king’s tax on our fields and our vineyards. Now our flesh is as the flesh of our brothers, our children are as their children. Yet we are forcing our sons and our daughters to be slaves, and some of our daughters have already been enslaved, but it is not in our power to help it, for other men have our fields and our vineyards.
I was very angry when I heard their outcry and these words. I took counsel with myself, and I brought charges against the nobles and the officials. I said to them, ‘You are exacting interest, each from his brother.’ And I held a great assembly against them and said to them, ‘We, as far as we are able, have bought back our Jewish brothers who have been sold to the nations, but you even sell your brothers that they may be sold to us!’ They were silent and could not find a word to say. So I said, ‘The thing that you are doing is not good. Ought you not to walk in the fear of our God to prevent the taunts of the nations our enemies? Moreover, I and my brothers and my servants are lending them money and grain. Let us abandon this exacting of interest. Return to them this very day their fields, their vineyards, their olive orchards, and their houses, and the percentage of money, grain, wine, and oil that you have been exacting from them.’ Then they said, ‘We will restore these and require nothing from them. We will do as you say.’ And I called the priests and made them swear to do as they had promised. I also shook out the fold of my garment and said, ‘So may God shake out every man from his house and from his labor who does not keep this promise. So may he be shaken out and emptied.’ And all the assembly said ‘Amen’ and praised the Lord. And the people did as they had promised.
Moreover, from the time that I was appointed to be their governor in the land of Judah, from the twentieth year to the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes the king, twelve years, neither I nor my brothers ate the food allowance of the governor. The former governors who were before me laid heavy burdens on the people and took from them for their daily ration forty shekels of silver. Even their servants lorded it over the people. But I did not do so, because of the fear of God. I also persevered in the work on this wall, and we acquired no land, and all my servants were gathered there for the work. Moreover, there were at my table 150 men, Jews and officials, besides those who came to us from the nations that were around us. Now what was prepared at my expense for each day was one ox and six choice sheep and birds, and every ten days all kinds of wine in abundance. Yet for all this I did not demand the food allowance of the governor, because the service was too heavy on this people. Remember for my good, O my God, all that I have done for this people.”
This is God’s Word.
So you remember the question with which we began. Right? Let’s unpack and try to imagine where the Lord Jesus would have applied this to Himself. If you look at the text as one full sweep you can outline it with three simple “p” words – we’ll make it “c” words. We’ll call it a crisis, a corrective, and a capacity. If you want to use “p” there’s a problem, I couldn’t think of the second “p” word, there’s a resolution, and then there is a practice. But I like the first outline better – a crisis, a corrective, and a capacity.
A Crisis
The crisis is right out of the very first five verses in the chapter. There’s a great outcry, verse 1, and three accusations come to Nehemiah from the people. In verse 2, there are large families that don’t have enough food to feed their children. Verse 3 tells us there is a famine, and so instead of farming to get the food and because they’re building a wall, they’re having to buy the food and there is not enough. That’s the first protest.
Secondly, in verse 3, those who did own property had to mortgage their land to keep up with spiraling inflation. They had to pay a tax to the Persian government. And bear in mind, the Persian government gave the people a lot of freedom, but they taxed the fire out of their vassal nations and they had to pay a ton of tax. You couldn’t give grain. You couldn’t give part of your land. You had to pay your tax in gold and silver. And so what happened was, people who did own property had to borrow the money against their land and leverage it that way. But because of the interest being charged to them, they were going deeper and deeper into debt and it was a crisis.
And then the third accusation was that those who were borrowing to pay their expenses were unable to pay and those who were their creditors demanded their children, they themselves be sold into slavery. And it was already happening. Bear in mind, these are Jewish people who are lending money to their Jewish brothers and sisters, and when they can’t pay it back they said, “Well give me your kids as my slaves until the debt is repaid.” That’s a crisis. It was an outcry. And the result is, Nehemiah is angry. I mean furious.
A Corrective
That’s the crisis that goes to the, secondly, the corrective in verses 6 through 18. The corrective really comes in two forms. One, there is a challenge, a command really, and secondly there is an example. Nehemiah doesn’t just say, “Do this,” but he says, “Do this and look at how I am doing it.” So the challenge, first of all, in 6 through 13. In verse 6, we read that Nehemiah is “very angry.” “I was very angry when I heard their outcry and these words.” The Hebrew literally says, “it burned me up.” A fire kindled; anger. That really was furious. But he didn’t respond out of anger. Verse 7 says, “He took counsel with himself,” which is he sought the Lord, he thought carefully, he got his anger under control. And then he brought charges against these leaders. Verse 8, there’s something of a trial. He brings the people together in a great assembly and says, “What is happening is wrong. This is offensive to God.” And he makes three challenges as the corrective.
First in verse 10 he says, “Stop charging interest. Period. The law condemns it. You have to stop charging interest to your own people. Even on the grain you are loaning, loan it and hope that you’ll get it back. And if in seven years you don’t get it back, forgive it entirely.” Secondly, verse 11, he says, “Restore what you have taken. If you have taken interest, if you have taken anything from your brothers or sisters, give it back.” So stop taking interest, give back what you have taken, and third, keep your promise. “You’ve got to promise to stop doing this.” And in verses 12 and 13 he even brings in the priests as if to say, “Before God, we promise we won’t do this anymore.” And they did. They actually agreed with what Nehemiah had challenged them to do. They made a solemn vow before God that they would no longer do this.
Nehemiah doesn’t stop there. He talks about this challenge as something he is already doing himself. Now pause for a second – what does it take to follow these kinds of commands? I mean it was greed that started this process. Right? They were doing what was legal in their own system, but it wasn’t ethical and it was greed that was driving them to take advantage of their fellow Israelites who had returned under Ezra and some under Nehemiah. The temple had been rebuilt, worship had begun, but the city was unwalled and open and susceptible. What does it take to shift from that kind of greed to that kind of giving, giving back and no longer taking interest on the money and grain that is being loaned out? One word. It takes generosity. Profound generosity. That, at the core, is the corrective that Nehemiah challenges his people with – generosity.
But he doesn’t stop with the challenge. He goes to his own example in verses 14 through 18. You read that Nehemiah has been governor for twelve years, and it gives the specific dates in the reign of Artaxerxes. This is his first appointment as governor in that area. And in verse 15 we’re told that Nehemiah is entitled under Persian law to tax the people at 30 pounds of silver per month for his living expenses. Now 30 pounds of silver may not mean much to you, but think of Bill Gates or Elon Musk. That’s the level at which he could live with 30 pounds of silver per month. And Persian law allowed Nehemiah to tax the people at that level to live as opulently and as extravagantly as he wanted. And the former governors did and really laid a heavy burden on the people. But Nehemiah tells us in verses 17 and 18, he says, verse 15, “but I did not do so. I did not tax the people to provide for my own lifestyle in that way.” Instead, verses 17 and 18, it says that Nehemiah provided for the needs of 150 people that showed up at his house for dinner and other foreigners, travelers, who came through the area who ate at his table. And he served them daily at his own expense – not at the level of taxation that he could have brought against his people, laid upon them, but at his own expense. We don’t know where he got that money, but what’s clear is that he was not growing his net worth by being the governor in that part of the Persian Empire.
A Capacity
So he challenges them to a radical generosity and then he shows them his example of living out of that radical generosity. And we could pronounce the benediction and say, “Go and do likewise.” Right? Jesus would want you to be generous. Right? But that would be a synagogue sermon. That would be a sermon you could preach just as easily in a synagogue where there was no Jesus. So what is it then that gives us the capacity to live out of this radical generosity? We’ve seen the crisis; we’ve seen the corrective. Now we need to look at the capacity. What gives us the power? What motivates us, the people of God, to live out of that kind of generosity? Well that’s what Nehemiah is going to show us in two places.
The Fear of God
There’s one phrase repeated twice in verses 9 and 15. Verse 9, it says, “The thing that you are doing is not good. Ought you not to walk in the fear of God to prevent the taunts of the nations, our enemies?” And then verse 15, “Even their servants,” the former governor’s servants, “lorded it over the people, but I did not do so because of the fear of God.” Here’s what I’m working toward. What motivates a life of this kind of generosity is nothing less than the fear of God. We don’t use that phrase very much anymore. We used to talk about, “They are a God fearing people.” We want to be a God fearing people, but there’s something about our culture that is repelled by the idea of fear being associated with walking with God. Because of all the phobias we have maybe, I don’t know, but we’ve stopped talking much about the fear of God. And so we have to go back to the question, “What is it? What is it about the fear of God and what about the fear of God motivates this kind of generosity? Is it really fear? Is God’s Word commanding us to be afraid of God in this fear of God?”
It’s an important question, especially when you realize that phrase is repeated over 125 times in the Old and New Testaments. A fear of God isn’t just an Old Testament construct. It’s also all through the New Testament. You go back to Proverbs. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Or, “The fear of the Lord is the fountain of life.” I want wisdom. Don’t you? I want to be marked by the wisdom of God. Well it starts with the fear of God. I want to know life. I want my life to be a fountain of life and experience Jesus Himself to be a fountain of life. It goes back to the fear of God. So what is it and how do we recognize it or its absence in our lives?
I’ve talked about it this way in the past. When our kids were little, because we wanted them to walk in wisdom, we talked about the fear of God a lot. And we taught our kids that the fear of God simply is taking God seriously. Taking Him more seriously than we take anything or anyone else. I heard one speaker talk about the fear of God as “getting it.” Really getting it that God is the central, dominant, controlling reality of all of life. The fear of God is orienting all of life to Him – to His Word, His character, His promises, and to His command. One author put it this way. “The fear of God is the acute awareness of the presence of God’s power that produces in me a sense of awe and calls forth from me honor, reverence, delight and obedience.” It’s taking God so seriously that it changes everything in my life, orienting my gaze, my heart, my affection, my obedience, to Him, over against anything or anyone else.
I’ve talked about those two, three-letter words that define the fear of God when you hold them in tension. One is “woe,” w-o-e. The other is “wow,” w-o-w. It’s what Isaiah experienced in Isaiah chapter 6 when, being brought into the throne room of God’s very presence and he smells the smoke and the light and the rumbling and everything is shaking and he is overcome and he says, “Woe is me!” W-o-e. “Woe is me! For I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell among a people of unclean lips!” Remember, Isaiah was a prophet, meaning the best of what he had to offer was what he spoke, speaking for God. And he says, “I am a man of unclean lips. The best I have to offer is unclean before this holy God. Woe is me.” But then also the “wow.” “For my eyes have seen the King in all His glory.” There’s the fear of God – the woe and the wow. It’s the terror and the beauty brought together. We see it more clearly than Isaiah did because we see the fear of God in the cross, through the cross, because there you most clearly see the “woe” of my sin and what it cost God to bring me, to bring us back, and the “wow” that He would actually be that committed to His glory and that committed to show me His love by sending Jesus to the cross. Woe and wow.
There’s a picture of it. I had to measure off the width of the front of this sanctuary to make sure that this is a good picture, but the Grand Canyon skywalk, built by the Hualapai Indians in 2007 – has anyone here been there? I’ve been to the Grand Canyon but I’ve not been to the skywalk. It’s just west of the national park. But it cost them $30 million to construct this thing. It is a steel and glass structure that starts at the rim of the canyon over on that wall and stretches all the way to that wall over there, cantilevered, well into the bedrock on the edge of the canyon. And so you pay your money, you put on special shoes – because after all, this thing is glass. Now remember, it’s constructed out of 1.7 million pounds of steel undergirding the glass. It can withstand an 8.0 on the Richter scale earthquake. It can hold the weight of almost 1,000 adults. But it’s only from that wall to that wall, and it’s a loop. And you walk off the canyon and you walk onto this thing and you’re looking straight down through glass almost 1,000 feet to the Colorado River.
And I’ve read stories about people’s reactions when they walk out there. Some of them kind of swagger. “Oh, this is cool!” And before they realize it they are white-knuckled, clinging to the rail, and their hands literally have to be pried off and they have to be stretchered back! Why? Well, because it’s terrifying! You are 1,000 feet above the bottom of the canyon and you realize if for some reason the engineer got it wrong, you’re dead! If a wind higher than 200 miles an hour, which this thing can sustain that, comes and it twists or buckles, you’re done! And it’s terrifying! But at the same time, you go, you think about all the way out there, and you’re suspended on glass over this canyon and it is stunningly beautiful. It’s the terror and the beauty brought together. The woe and the wow.
That’s a picture of the fear of God. The sinfulness that you understand more and more clearly the older you get and the more you see God’s Word and the more you wrestle with His holiness and you see yourself and you think, “Woe is me! Our God is a consuming fire,” as Hebrews 12 says, where we began. He is a consuming fire. He will crush, He will destroy everything that raises itself up against His supremacy. That was the cross in confronting my sin that Jesus had become. Woe. But wow. And those two have to be kept in perfect tension because if one becomes the preoccupation over against the other, you’re ruined. Because if you overemphasize the woe, you end up with self-protection. You have to. You have to hide if you’re just preoccupied with the woe. But if you over emphasize the wow, you become caught up in self-indulgence because you think it’s all about you and the fear of God brings both of these together. Doesn’t it?
A Life of Prayer
This is what Nehemiah kept pointing to as he talked about what motivates and what empowers a life of that kind of generosity. So what is it that evidences that you are a man or woman who really fears God? There’s probably a lot of pieces to that, but if you pull back the lens and you look at all of the book of Nehemiah, you get a very clear evidence of whether or not you are walking in the fear of God because Nehemiah records eleven different prayers, from the beginning to the very end of his book. As a matter of fact, the longest prayer of the whole Bible is Nehemiah chapter 9. It’s longer than the high priestly prayer in John chapter 17. The first chapter of Nehemiah, as soon as he realizes that the city is in crisis, he goes straight to prayer. And in verse 5, “O Lord, God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love Him and keep His commandments.” And he goes on praying, verse 11, he says, “O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of Your servant and to the prayer of Your servants who delight to fear Your name.” He comes back to the fear of God again and again as he prays.
Sometimes his prayers are really long, but most of the time they’re really short. You find that Nehemiah is a man whose life is so oriented to his God being the dominant, central and controlling reality in all the world that he’s able to come to the end of his first prayer in chapter 1 and says, “Grant success to Your servant today and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.” What man? The king of the biggest superpower of the world at that time – the king of Persia. The very next chapter he is in the presence of the king, he’s the cupbearer, which means he’s got a very significant role in the king’s court, and the king, verse 4, said, “What are you requesting?” “So I prayed to the God of heaven.” And he goes on. Just one phrase. He doesn’t even tell us what he prayed, but he prays over and over again. Chapter 4 verse 4, another short prayer. “Hear, O God, for we are despised. Turn back on them their taunts.” Chapter 6 verse 9, “But now, O God, strengthen my hands.” Chapter 5 verse 19, the very last verse in the passage that we’ve read – “Remember for my good, O my God, all that I have done for this people.” Another prayer. Again and again and again. Even until the very last verse in the book of Nehemiah, chapter 13 verse 31 – “Remember me, O my God, for my good.”
Pause for a second. Does that prayer sound familiar to you at all? Do you realize that’s the last prayer that Jesus heard just before He died on the cross? It’s remarkably like the prayer prayed by the thief who was crucified next to Jesus. “Remember me, Jesus, when You come into Your kingdom. Remember me.” This is what Nehemiah is praying over and over again. “Remember me, O God, for good. Remember me.” Not that God will forget, but He’s coming back to the fear of God that says, “You are the central, dominant, controlling reality in all my human experience. In all of life, you’re it. I want to live my life oriented to You.”
So summary – this is what evidences the fear of God – the woe and the wow. This is what empowers a life of generosity and a life marked out by prayer where you find yourself turning to Him not just at the mealtime or the end of the day before you go to sleep, but you find yourself turning to Him in prayer over and over again. And sometimes it’s long prayers. Other times it’s just, “God, have mercy. God, give me success in this. I don’t know what to do but my eyes are on you.” Jehoshaphat’s prayer. A life where you find yourself turning to Him over and over again where it becomes your controlling principle. “God, have mercy on me. God, remember me. God, keep Your hand on me. God, have mercy. God, bless me indeed.” And living with Him as the center marks out a life with the tension between the woe and the wow. Because He can, He can intervene and He does.
Bringing us back to the very beginning, the question I asked you. Luke 24 – Jesus has risen from the grave. His followers aren’t so sure what they think about that or even if it actually happened. Two disciples, Cleopas, and what we think probably is Cleopas’ wife, they’re walking from Jerusalem to the village of Emmaus, not so far away. Luke 24 – Jesus comes and meets them on the trail, but they’re kept from recognizing who He is. And He asks them, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?” And they stood still, their faces downcast. One of them named Cleopas asked Him, and you can imagine the incredulity in his voice, he asked Him, “Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that happened there in these days?” And you’ve got to picture the scene. Jesus looks at them and says, “What things?” And He’s holding hands with nail holes. “What things?” And they go on to say, “Jesus, He worked miraculously. We thought He was the one. We thought He was the Messiah. We thought He was going to bring back the kingdom and put it all back right. But they killed Him. They killed Him. We watched Him die.” And then they went on to say, “And this morning, some of the women who were part of our band, they said they went to the tomb and the tomb was open and empty. They even claimed to have seen Him, but I don’t know. I mean we’re all emotionally and physically exhausted. We have not slept. We don’t know what to believe.”
Jesus says to them, verse 25 of Luke 24, “O foolish ones and slow of heart to believe. All the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into His glory?” Verse 27, “And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, He explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning Himself.” All the Scriptures. And you do understand that Nehemiah was the last historical event that occurred in the history of God’s people before 400 years of silence that preceded the birth of Christ. Malachi, the prophet, was a contemporary of Nehemiah. And Jesus, on the road to Emmaus, explains to these two disciples all that the Old Testament taught concerning the coming of Messiah.
What do you think He said when He explained Nehemiah to them? We can’t be sure, but my suspicion is that Jesus explained to them something the apostle Paul would later write in 2 Corinthians 8 verse 9 where he says, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor so that you, through His poverty, might become rich.” Eternally rich. My suspicion is, He started some place like that when He showed that Nehemiah, like the coming Messiah, would leave the place where He had every right to remain and go a long distance to enter into the brokenness and misery of His people. And He would become a restorer of ruined things. And He would set aside His wealth and instead of demanding to be served, He would serve, to rescue, to rebuild, to restore hope, to give life.
The difference between Nehemiah and the Lord Jesus is Nehemiah never shed his blood for his people. The Messiah would and did, all to bring us back. And even Isaiah 11, I wonder if the Lord Jesus touched on that when He talked about Nehemiah. Where Isaiah 11 says, “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit, and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, the Messiah, the Chosen One. The Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might. The Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. And His, the Messiah’s delight, will be in the fear of the Lord.” A delight of doing the will of His Father. The food of doing the will of His Father.
You remember Jesus, when He talked to the woman at the well, the disciples had gone off to get food because they were hungry and they came back with food and Jesus said, “I’ve already eaten.” And the disciples said, “What did You eat?” And Jesus said, “My food is to do the will of My Father.” That’s the fear of God in which He delighted. “My delight is in the fear of God, doing the will of My Father.” And then I suspect Jesus pointed to Nehemiah’s life of prayer and to the Messiah’s life of prayer and to the life of prayer that would be embraced by anyone who walks in the fear of God.
You know, the crisis remains. There is a corrective but it’s going to require of you and me real generosity. We’re called to live as people of generosity – extravagant generosity. Not just with money, but the harder things. Generosity with our time. Generosity with our attention, our empathy, our service, our sacrifice. Generosity in setting down the things we feel we have rights to or are entitled to. And living to serve others as the Lord Jesus Himself did for us. What would it look like for your life to be marked by that kind of generosity this week? What would it take to get there? It would take a real life of fearing God, a deepening sense of both the woe and the wow. What would your wife think if you became a man who lives in the fear of God, who lives with that kind of generosity? What would your husband think if you, a wife, lived in that kind of fear of God? What would your marriage look like if your life was marked by pursuing God, the fear of God marked out by a life of prayer together as husband and wife? What would your life look like as a teenager, what would your parents think if they saw you as a 12 year old, 13 year old, 18 year old living a life of prayer because you fear God, because you get it, the woe and the wow?
Let’s ask God to build that deeply into our hearts. Shall we?
Lord, we commit that to You. We ask that You would make us people who live in the fear of God, and because of that, we learn to live lives marked by radical generosity. Do that for the sake of Jesus, for the spread of His fame, for the building of His kingdom, and for our eternal joy. We ask in Jesus’ name, amen.