The Finish (Building Lives #6)

Good morning, everyone. Did everybody manage to get their hot dog buns before they sold out? We ran into that trouble trying to find hot dog and burger buns for our growth group — we literally went to three places before we found them.

If this is your first time joining us, welcome. I am the worship gathering director here. I am normally up front leading, but I have a solid team, and I have been genuinely blessed by the leadership of the folks I get to serve alongside as we have moved them into more of a leadership role.

Let us open our Bibles to Nehemiah 6.

A Confession About This Series

After Easter we jumped into the book of Nehemiah, and at the same time we jumped into a capital campaign to raise funds for a down payment on this building.

If you remember, at the beginning of the series our lead pastor mentioned that someone had come to him with real caution — even concern — about going through Nehemiah while running a capital campaign, because it could be perceived as manipulative, using spiritual language to get people’s money.

Full disclosure: that person was me.

When we met, I shared with him that I had heard of churches doing this very thing and falling into a rut of sorts — essentially building their own little empires, not reaching non-Christians in their area, not taking opportunities to serve their community, but instead building up their brand and serving themselves. To me it felt like we could fall into that same trap.

Now, having walked through this series with you, I want to reassure you: I am fully on board. I think there is real value in walking through the biblical narrative and seeing what God has accomplished and ushered in through his people.

We started by watching Nehemiah grieve over the state of Jerusalem and its walls, and feel called by God to rebuild them. He prayed for months. He made a plan. He asked his boss — the king of Persia — for permission to go build, and he was given the opportunity and the resources to accomplish the task.

We saw Nehemiah and the people work on various parts of the wall. Some had shorter sections, others had longer and larger portions, but together they worked to accomplish the goal.

And for the last two weeks we explored the distractions they faced — some from outside, with false prophets and attackers trying to stop the process, and some from inside, as Nehemiah had to put an end to practices that were actually harming the poor in their own community.

Today we are going to see the wall essentially get finished.

The Question for Today: What Now?

As we worship God through his Word this morning, I want us to keep asking one question: What now?

And I do not mean what now in the exasperated sense. I mean it in the sense of: now that the work has been finished, what is the next step? Now that we have made it to this point, where do we go from here?

Because we are about to see Nehemiah and the people finish the wall in chapter 6 — and the book does not end there. There are thirteen chapters in Nehemiah, and this is our last day in the series. So this could not have only been about rebuilding a wall.

The Text: Nehemiah 6

The chapter opens with Sanballat, Tobiah, Geshem the Arab, and the rest of Nehemiah’s enemies hearing that he had built the wall and that no breach was left in it — though the doors had not yet been set in the gates.

We first meet these men at the end of chapter 2, mocking Nehemiah and the people for even starting. In chapter 4 we watch them organize enemies of the Jews to attack and potentially kill them to stop the progress. In every previous attempt they failed to stop God’s work through God’s people.

So chapter 6 is their last-ditch effort. And it comes in three waves.

Plan one: deception

Sanballat and Geshem send a message asking Nehemiah to meet them at Hakkephirim in the plain of Ono.

This could easily have been read as an attempt to make amends. Nehemiah could have gotten that letter and thought, I did not expect this from these guys. I bet they want to apologize. Maybe we can be friends. Let bygones be bygones.

But Nehemiah has insight — whether his own intuition or a word from God — that this is no apology. It is an attempt to isolate him. Ono was roughly twenty-five to thirty miles outside Jerusalem, geographically a kind of no-man’s-land. The plan was to get him away from everyone, jump him, harm him, possibly kill him — take out the leader of the rebuilding effort and stop the work.

They are trying to draw him away from the work God has called him to, distract him, and harm him.

And Nehemiah responds: “I am doing a great work and I cannot come down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and come down to you?”

Now kids, this is not the same as when your mom and dad ask you to stop playing your game and come down for dinner or go to bed. You cannot just say, Mom, I’m doing a great work — five more minutes. Not the same thing. See, parents, I have your back.

Nehemiah is saying this from a place of focus on the work laid before them. He is not letting up. He and the people are going to keep going.

And they try it three more times. It is basically the same letter over and over — as if they think Nehemiah left them on read and they keep following up: but did you see it, though? And he responds the same way every time: No. I have a great work the Lord has given me.

Plan two: misrepresentation

Having failed four times, the fifth time Sanballat sends his servant with an open letter.

When we hear “open letter” we think of a post on social media or a blog or a section in a newspaper — written to someone but public for everyone to see. This worked in virtually the same way.

Normally a letter was sealed, so as it passed through messengers, the only people who could read it were its intended recipients. An open letter has no seal. So as it passes from hand to hand, the contents are open for anybody and everybody to read.

And Sanballat is not writing the truth. He is trying to publicly discredit Nehemiah by dragging his intentions into a false narrative — claiming it is being reported among the nations that the Jews intend to rebel, that this is why the wall is being rebuilt, and that Nehemiah wishes to become their king.

This could have wrecked the entire project in two ways.

First, it would get Nehemiah in trouble with his boss. If the king of Persia believed Nehemiah was fortifying for an upcoming rebellion, this misrepresentation could prompt him to send a battalion to wipe out a harmless reconstruction crew under false pretenses.

Second, this open letter could cause the people to fear for their lives and stop building altogether. If Nehemiah were secretly instigating a rebellion to become the new king of Judah without their knowledge, they would read this and think, I want no part of this — and abandon their posts, leaving Nehemiah to be dealt with by the Persian equivalent of special forces.

But Nehemiah responds simply: “No such things as you say have been done, for you are inventing them out of your own mind.”

He does not get overly defensive. He does not overcompensate. He states it matter-of-factly: none of that is happening. You are making it up.

Nehemiah has built rapport with the king and has enough credibility among the people that he is not worried about being wiped out or abandoned.

And then he adds: “But now, O God, strengthen my hands.”

Even knowing the lies are untrue, Nehemiah still expresses his need for God’s presence and intervention. He is not puffing himself up. He is opening his working, weary hands up toward heaven and saying: God, would you continue to work your will through these hands? Would you still work through me, if that is your will?

Plan three: coercion

Sanballat and his associates are not finished. Their final attempt has a nuance we might miss.

They hire a man named Shemaiah to deliver a false prophecy. The text says he was confined to his home — we do not know whether that was due to some level of ceremonial uncleanness. Nehemiah visits him because he trusts him as a fellow Jew. But this man had been paid off and proved to be a false prophet.

He tells Nehemiah that his enemies are coming to kill him by night, and that to save his life he needs to run and hide inside the temple.

Here is where the nuance is. Nehemiah says: “Should such a man as I run away? And what man such as I could go into the temple and live? I will not go in.”

He is not saying, I will not run from a fight, let them come. His response affirms his commitment to finishing the work — but it also reflects a restriction in the law. Numbers 18:7 indicates that if anyone other than a Levitical priest entered the sanctuary, or even came too close to it, that could be a capital offense.

In other words, they are trying to stir Nehemiah into fear and coerce him into hiding in the temple to save his own life — only to get him put to death by the authorities for disobeying the law and sinning against God.

At every turn, Nehemiah responds with God-given discernment, even while being threatened by people who want him dead. His reverence for God and his trust in God are far greater and far more compelling than his fear. And afterward he calls out to God, asking him to remember those who tried to make him sin.

By God’s providence, they failed in every attempt to deceive, misrepresent, and coerce him.

Fifty-Two Days

Verse 15 tells us the wall was finished in fifty-two days.

Some of us are thinking, fifty-two days? Those are rookie numbers. I know a construction crew that could do that in less than a week.

To give you a sense of the scale: the wall around Jerusalem proper was roughly two and a half miles long, about forty feet high, with an average thickness of around eight feet.

This is the same wall that Tobiah mocked by saying a mere fox jumping on it would knock it down. And yet this is a wall big enough that at its dedication in chapter 12, the leaders, the priests, two choirs, and essentially a marching band stand on top of it.

And verse 16 says that when their enemies heard of it, all the surrounding nations were afraid and fell greatly in their own esteem — because they perceived that this work had been accomplished with the help of our God.

Notice that this is not Nehemiah’s editorial commentary. It is not something the people said to rile everyone up. This is coming from their enemies.

That should make us consider why this landed so hard on the neighboring countries and opponents. If this had been a purely human effort, they would likely have just been annoyed. But even with roughly thirty-seven distinct parties working day and night, laboring tirelessly under threat of harm, what was accomplished here caused their enemies to feel a deep dread — because the presence and power of God had been with them the entire time, working through them.

The wall was finished. The task was done.

But remember what we have to ask. What now?

There Is Always More Level

Let me brag for a moment — not about myself, but about my wife.

Recently she has been working hard to finish something personal, one hundred percent. And I am glad to say she succeeded. She completed a video game to full completion — the first game she has ever finished at one hundred percent. She had been playing it on and off since Christmas, and a few weeks ago she collected every last flower and hidden coin. Then she went to the final boss and beat him on her first try.

I love my wife.

But after the credits rolled, a cutscene appeared — and uncovered an entire hidden batch of levels nobody had anticipated. She literally yelled in surprise, shaking her controller. There’s more?

You will notice, if we keep reading, that we are not even done with chapter 6.

The rest of the chapter tells us that Tobiah still held strong influence among the nobles in Judah through a couple of family relationships. Those nobles kept speaking well of Tobiah in Nehemiah’s presence, and Tobiah kept sending threatening letters.

So even after the wall was finished — there was more to come.

What Happens Next

I am not going to preach a whole second sermon through the rest of Nehemiah, but I do want us to see the summary.

In chapters 7 through 12 there is a census of sorts — an organization of the exiled people and those of unknown descent. Ezra reads the law to God’s people, some of them hearing it for the first time in their homeland. As they begin to understand it, revival breaks out in joyful celebration. The people are renewed, confessing their own sin and the sins of their forefathers. They affirm and commit themselves to God’s covenant and requirements. They dedicate the wall, offer sacrifices, and praise God for what he has done.

But remember what we have to ask. What now?

Chapter 13 is technically the last historical event we have recorded in the Old Testament. You might say, but there are more than twenty books left after Nehemiah. The book right after this is Esther, whose story sits in the same Persian court. And the prophet Malachi, in the last book of the Old Testament, is ministering during Nehemiah’s own era.

At the beginning of chapter 13, Nehemiah has been there about twelve years, helping reestablish their government and helping the people honor God’s covenant. Then he travels back to Persia on a business trip of sorts to meet with the king.

And when he returns, he finds that every single commitment they made has been compromised.

The temple has been neglected — and Tobiah has actually had a room emptied out for himself to stay in, defiling the temple, since he is not a Levitical priest. The people are ignoring the commandment to honor the Sabbath, conducting business as usual on a day they were supposed to rest. And people are intermarrying with surrounding nations in ways that led them to adopt false moral and religious beliefs and practices — even causing confusion in their children’s language, since they were no longer fluently speaking Hebrew but a mixed dialect.

The very things God’s people had been exiled for in the past — the things they had sworn in their recommitment never to do again — they are doing again.

So Nehemiah gets angry. He throws Tobiah out of the temple. He shuts out the merchants trying to make a buck on the Sabbath. And he confronts those who entered compromising marriages.

We Should Have Seen This Coming

When we asked what now, we did not anticipate this. But since this is the last historical book of the Old Testament, should we not have seen it coming?

This has been the entire story of God’s people throughout the Old Testament. God rescues his people from their plight. They worship him and thank him for what he has done. They eventually forget what he has done and dive headfirst into disobedience, sin, and idolatry. God exiles them for their rebellion. And repeat. The process just keeps happening.

And the case here is that even though they were back worshiping in their promised land, they were still spiritually exiles.

Perhaps they thought they had made it. We built the wall. No big deal. God would not mind if we do this or that here and there. Or perhaps they thought this whole thing was about rebuilding a wall — when the wall was only a piece of it.

The whole reason was the renewal of God’s covenant people, so that they would change their ways to model his ways.

What they needed was not a newly built temple — that is what happens in the prior book of Ezra. Nor did they need new city walls. What they needed were new hearts that could truly respond to God’s love and grace with genuine devotion.

So Nehemiah ends anticlimactically, with God’s people having failed to honor the covenant, and Nehemiah asking God to remember him for at least the good he has done.

So What Now?

About four hundred years of God’s silence pass.

Then God the Son, Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity, is born into human history as a poor, helpless, fragile baby boy. Jesus lives a perfectly obedient and totally righteous life. He takes on our wretchedness and exchanges it for his own righteousness. He dies on the cross in our place for our sin. He is wrapped and buried in a tomb. And on the third day he is victoriously raised to life again, conquering the power of Satan, sin, and death.

Not only has our debt of sin been paid in full — we have been given a new life, freed from sin and raised to live with him.

But what now?

The Gospel of Matthew ends triumphantly, with Jesus telling his disciples to go and make disciples, to baptize them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, to teach them everything he taught them, and promising he would be with them to the end of the age.

And then after the resurrection there is this book called Acts. Jesus has been around forty days since being raised, and the disciples essentially ask: Jesus, remember when you said you would bring the kingdom of God and restore the kingdom of Israel? When is that happening?

And Jesus responds the way only Jesus can. To paraphrase: it is none of your business, it is God’s business. But then he adds: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

So even though on the cross Jesus said it is finished — the work required to accomplish our salvation is done — he still sends us. He has prepared good works for us to walk in, as Paul says in Ephesians, empowered by the Holy Spirit.

Why This Is Not About a Building

As we have walked through this series, we have also been running a capital campaign to raise funds for a down payment on this building.

About three years ago we looked at this building and were not sure it was the right price or even the right place. Then somebody bought it and reached out to us about leasing it. So for the past two and a half years we have been working to make this a space where we can worship God through song, through the preaching and teaching of his Word, through communion, and through generosity.

We have worked through the finances. We have adjusted. We have cut. We have implemented things to keep going. And as we have been wise with our finances, coming up on the third year of our three-year lease, our partners voted to move to purchase this building.

Right now we are sitting more than halfway toward our goal, after announcing a few Sundays ago what the elders and leadership team were giving toward the project. We have been in this series just over a month, and throughout it we have been asking you to prayerfully ask God what he would call you to give — willingly, cheerfully, and sacrificially.

But I want to remind you: this is not about the building. Yes, the funds go toward a down payment. But we are not raising money for the building per se. This is not called the Building Campaign. It is called the Building Lives campaign.

We heard this morning from a college student who has been worshiping with us this past year. He grew up in a Christian family, but his parents divorced when he was around ten — and afterward his father came to Christ and became a strong believer. One Sunday his dad challenged him directly: Are you saved? Do you know Christ? And in that moment it became clear to him that he had never actually done anything legitimate about it — that beyond a childhood prayer, he had never truly confessed his sin and given himself to God. That day he made a profession of faith. That was nearly nine years ago.

This year, on what he assumed was just another random Sunday, he walked in here while church hunting. He had visited a few other churches and had been praying before each one that God would make it explicitly clear if this was where he was supposed to be. He knew he would be back the next Sunday, and he has been here since.

And he described how the connections he has made here, the sermons, and the fellowship have helped him keep growing even while removed from his family and his spiritual connections back home. His daily devotions have gotten stronger. Patterns of sin have become more apparent and obvious to him, so that he takes them to God — and he has genuinely seen those habits fall away, replaced by going to other believers or straight to God.

His growth group has become a weekly consistency — a place to unwind from the week that ended and prepare for the one coming, surrounded by people who are stronger in faith, older, more mature, and who have walked through what he is walking through. People he can seek counsel from, be challenged by, bring prayer requests to, and become better friends with every week. People he never would have known had he not come here.

And through experiences like that, he knows God is working — that God had a greater plan, and that God brought him here because this is where he needed to be to grow this year.

That is what this is about.

What Now, For Us

So the point is not that once we have succeeded in raising the funds, we have somehow made it.

Our hope is that being able to make this down payment alleviates other expenses so we can continue doing what God is calling us to do as a ministry, as co-laborers in Christ. So we can continue supporting the church planters we partner with in a major city. So we can continue supporting our overseas missionaries. So we can continue serving at the monthly food pantry. So we can continue and even expand our use of this building — not only as a resource for the community, not only as a platform for the good news of what God has done to be shared, but as a launch pad for those of us who trust in Jesus to go into our homes, our jobs, our workplaces, our schools, and our community, inviting the spiritually disconnected to find and follow Jesus, and to love and live as he has called us to.

Come to the Table

Before we take communion together, I want us to remember these things.

This is the gospel: that we were dead in our sins against God and against each other. That Jesus lived blameless and sinless. That he died as a sacrifice for our sin. And that he rose to life again in glory.

If you are a Christian — whether you are part of this church family, or you have been away for a while, or you are simply visiting — if you follow Jesus, we invite you to partake with us. Take the bread, representing Jesus’ body nailed to the cross in our place for our sin. Take the cup, representing his blood poured out for our redemption, so that we would be cleansed by him and washed pure and white as snow.

And if you are not a follower of Jesus yet, or you cannot quite call yourself that yet — I want you to know we are so glad you are worshiping with us this morning. We are glad you are here. We love you. And if you are not at that point yet, please do not feel any pressure. Do not take the elements, precisely because of what they mean.

But if you are sensing that God is drawing you, or you have questions, I would encourage you to go talk with one of our pastors or elders about it. We will pray for you. We care about you. We want to see you come into a deeper relationship with Jesus.

Because that is all this has ever been about. It has all been about Jesus, and about sharing the good news of what he has done with people.

Let us do this together.