Right, Nehemiah 13 chapter 13 verses 1 through 14. On that day, the Book of Moses was read aloud in the hearing of the people, and there it was found written that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever be admitted into the assembly of God, because they had not met the Israelites with food and water, but it hired Baylan to call a curse down on them. Our God, however, turned the curse into a blessing. And the people heard this law, they excluded from Israel all who were of foreign descent. Before this, Elishaid, the priests had been put in charge of the storerooms of the house of our God. He was closely associated with Tabaya, and he had provided him with a large room formally used to store the grain offerings and incense and temple articles, and also the tides of grain, you wine, and oil prescribed for the Levites, singers, and gatekeepers, as well as the contributions for the priests. But while all this was going on, I was not in Jerusalem, for in the 32nd year of Arctic Circuses, King of Babylon, I returned to the king. Sometime later, I asked his permission and came back to Jerusalem. Here I learned about the evil thing Elishaid had done, and providing to buy a room in the courts of the house of God. I was greatly displeased and through all Tabaya's household goods out of the room. I gave orders to purify the rooms, and then I put back into them the equipment of the house of God, with the grain offerings and the incense. I also learned that the portions assigned to the Levites had not been given to them, and all the Levites and singers responsible for the service had gone back to their own fields. So I rebuked the officials and asked them why is the house of God neglected? Then I called them together and stationed them at their posts. All Judah brought the tides of grain, you wine, and oil into the storerooms. I put Shalimaia, the priest, Sadat the scribe, and a Levite named Pedaya in charge of the storerooms and made Hanan, son of Zaker, the son of Matanaya, their assistant, because these men were considered trustworthy. They were made responsible for distributing the supplies to their brothers. Remember me for this, oh my God, and do not blot out what I have so faithfully done for their house of my God and its services. The word of the Lord. I could possibly happen. Well, if you know the rest of the fellowship of the ring, you know that a lot did happen, and you'll see a little more of that movie later on this morning. But wanted you to meet Sam Gamji, and of course Frodo Baggins, from the Lord of the Rings, Trilogy, the fellowship of the ring. Many of you have seen that, you know the story, and you know how Sam Gamji is the epitome, the embodiment of what we are going to talk about today, faithfulness. Sam Gamji was the embodiment of faithfulness. He became Frodo's traveling companion. He had been his gardener, but he became his faithful and true traveling companion, as Frodo made his way up to mortar. You know J. R. R. Token said that Sam Gamji was actually the main hero of the Lord of the Ring saga, because of the way that he portrayed this faithful devotion to his friend Frodo. You know, he became weaker and weaker under the burden of the ring. And as he did that, Sam Gamji carried his stuff for him. He protected him. He watched over him at night. He cooked for him. He took care of him in so many different ways. Sam Gamji was a faithful friend. We're going to talk about faithfulness today. What is faithfulness? Well, I think you know some of the synonyms for faithful would be loyal, trustworthy, true, constant, steadfast, dedicated, dependable, devoted, unswerving, and that's hard. It's hard to be a Sam Gamji. It's hard to be faithful. It's hard to be a devoted spouse, for example, when, surprise, you find out that he or she is just about as self-centered as you are. It's hard to be a dedicated student when you don't like what you're studying. It's hard to be a faithful church member when some of the people in the church drive you crazy. It's hard to be a dependable employee when you don't like your boss. It's hard to be a loyal friend when you've been betrayed or rejected. It's hard to be faithful, particularly in a world like ours today in which faithfulness and loyalty and trustworthiness are not really high up on the scale of values. But God calls his people to be faithful. It's part of our calling as his children. It says in 1 Corinthians 4, it is required that those who have been given a trust should prove themselves faithful. That's you, and that's me, if we're followers of Jesus. So how are we going to do it, friends? How are we going to be faithful people? How are we going to be Sam Gamji's in a world desperately in need of looking at our lives and seeing some people who are faithful? Well, let me bring two things to you from Nehemiah 13. The first thing that is required is a commitment to obey God no matter what. If you're going to be faithful, if I'm going to be faithful, it's going to require a commitment to obey God no matter what, unconditionally. Let's talk about that. We've been looking in the book of Nehemiah for some weeks now. We've been working on a series that I've called Rise Up and Build. It's a verse that's found in the book of Nehemiah earlier. And you know the story. But in case you don't know the story of Nehemiah, if you're new here and this book of the Bible is like a complete mystery to you, don't feel bad. It's a mystery to most people in the world. Let me tell you the story in a quick nutshell. Nehemiah was a fellow, he was Jewish, but he was living in Persia in the capital city known as Susa, and his job was that of being a cut bearer to the king of Persia, whose name was Arctic Xerxes, and his name is mentioned there in the text today. Well Nehemiah heard that there was terrible things going on back in his homeland of Jerusalem where his friends and family and relatives were, and he was so moved by that that he asked the king for a leave of absence, and he traveled to Jerusalem, and there he became the governor of the people of Jerusalem. For 12 years, he served as their governor. And under his leadership, the Israelites experienced a time of great spiritual renewal. There were great things going on. They rebuilt their wall, they faced down their enemies, they repented of their sins, they renewed their covenant with God, they celebrated the feasts that God wanted them to celebrate, they honored the Sabbath day, they were generous with their tides and offerings, and then as we saw last week, they dedicated the wall of Jerusalem with this spectacular worship service that could be heard from miles and miles away. So thanks were looking good, and even at the very beginning of Nehemiah 13, that chapter begins with a hopeful note, where you pay an attention to the first three verses, Nehemiah talks about the fact that the people obeyed the law, that prohibited them from admitting foreign pagans into the assembly of the Lord, and it says in the opening few verses of Nehemiah 13 that they obeyed that, and they prevented people who were pagans, who were foreigners, and not willing to become part of the Israelites community, they prohibited them from coming in to the city of Jerusalem. So the story of Nehemiah in many ways up to this point is one of the people of God being faithful, being obedient, being loyal to their God, and trustworthy to his commands. But then things change at the rest of the chapter 13. Because in verse 6 it says that Nehemiah went back to Susa for a while, and you know what happens when the cats away? The mice will play. See the cat was Nehemiah. Nehemiah felt that his time of as governor needed to stop. He had been away from Persia for a long time, so he went back and checked in with the king, and he stayed there for some time. Scholars believe it could have been several years that Nehemiah was gone, not part of the Israelites community in Jerusalem. The cat was away, and yes, did the mice play. How quickly, chapter 13 is the story of how quickly things took a downturn in his absence. It goes on to say that the Jews committed five serious sins while Nehemiah was away. Two of them you heard about in the reading that Eglond did, but the other three are going to be ones I'll tell you about. So let's look at these five serious sins that the people of Jerusalem committed. The first one is in verses 4 and 5. Eliaship the priest, who was one of the spiritual leaders of the community, gave to a man by the name of Tobiah, who was an ammonite. He was not a Jew. He was not a Godfury man. He gave to Tobiah the ammonite a room in the courts of the temple where he could just come and live, and he took out of that room the supplies for the priests and the Levites that they were required to have in order to do their livelihood. He brought Tobiah in, he said, come on in Tobiah, make yourself at home. Stay here. This is your room now. This is your home. This was a room by the way that was the size of a warehouse. Terrible, terrible lapse in judgment on the part of Eliaship. Keep in mind that this is after the people up there in verse 3 had decided to prohibit foreigners from coming into the assembly of God. Here is one of supposedly Israel's maturest people, a spiritual leader saying, come on in Tobiah. Yeah, the door is always open for you. Come make yourself at home. This would be a sort of like President Obama calling up Moammar Kadafi and saying, hey, Moammar, good buddy old pal, come on over. I'll put up a whole wing of the White House just for you. You can come stay live. Be similar to that. Only worse because Tobiah the Ammonite was not just Israel's political enemy. Tobiah was also Israel's spiritual enemy. This was colossal bad judgment on the part of Israel's spiritual head. And it was also a slap in the face of God who said, you shall have no other gods before me. God's concern is for purity of worship, purity of life and of walk. We've been singing today about the fact that God is a holy God and he expects his people to be holy too. And to invite Tobiah into the storeroom of the temple was a symbolic way of saying, we don't really care about holiness. It was a compromise. So that was sin number one. Secondly, you heard about this one too in the reading. The second sin that the people committed was that they stopped giving. They stopped giving and supporting the work of the temple. Verse 10 says that the portions assigned to the Levites had not been given to them. So the Levites and singers responsible for the service had gone back to their own fields. You follow that? To borrow from the words of the prophet Malachi who lived and worked in roughly the same time period as Nehemiah, the people were robbing God. They were robbing God. They were withholding their tides and offerings from the work of God's kingdom. And so as a result of that, these priests and Levites had to go out and find jobs of their own just to feed and clothe their families. Another serious sin. Sin number three is found later in the text in this chapter. In verses 15 and 16, the people of God desecrated the Sabbath day. Now you'll have to go home and read the rest of chapter 13 to see what I'm about to talk about. But take it from me. The people of Israel desecrated the Sabbath day. This day in 7 that God had given to his people for rest and worship and deeds of love and of mercy. The people of Israel were using just like it was any other day of the week. They completely lost the distinctiveness of the Sabbath day. They were working and conducting business and buying and selling merchandise on the Lord's day right there in the city of David. Sin number four was intermarrying with Gentiles. You can read about this down later in the chapter verses 23 and 24. Again, this was a violation of the command of God. God said to his people to come out from among them and be separate and to live holy lives not intermarrying with unrepentant foreign pagans. Now let me stop there and just address this because I'm sure it would be a concern of anyone who hears how exclusive was the religion of Israel. To our American democratic ears, this sounds very weird. For God to say, don't intermarry with Gentiles. It sounds as if there's no hope at all for salvation outside of Israel. Here's the deal. In the Old Testament, God did welcome foreigners into the community of faith. He did. If they would simply subject themselves to the right of circumcision and become a Jew spiritually speaking, they were part of God's family. No problem. In that sense, God was always inclusive, but these people were unrepentant. They were not willing and had no intention to give up their idolatrous life. And yet, God's holy people were intermarrying with them. It would be tandem out to you being a Christian, marrying knowingly a non-Christian. And you understand that that's outside God's will. The New Testament says not to do that. So this was sinful for the people of Israel as well. These foreigners could have become Israelites, but these foreigners had no intention of doing so. They weren't going to convert to Judaism. They held on to their idolatry. Now what was so wrong with that? Well, what's wrong with that is the effect of that upon the next generation, right? When a believer, Mary's an unbeliever, and has no intention to really rear their children up in the fear and admonition of the Lord, then what's going to happen to the Church of Jesus Christ generations later? See, that was the concern of Nehemiah, and that's the concern of God. It only takes one generation to destroy what took centuries to build. So intermarrying Gentiles was sin number four of the people of Israel. And then fifth and finally, this one's at the very end of chapter 13. If all of those things weren't enough, the other problem that Nehemiah talks about is that the priests themselves had grown lazy and disobedient. The last few verses of the chapter talk about that. The spiritual leaders of Israel themselves had departed from holiness and were very compromised in their lifestyle and their values and in their decisions and so on. In short, the people of Israel had become unfaithful. They had become unfaithful. Now, on one hand, I think it's kind of cool that the book of Nehemiah ends that way. This is the end of the book. The people of Israel growing unfaithful, committing these five terrible things. I mean, if you were writing a book of the Bible, is that how you would choose to end your book? I wouldn't. I would write it this way. I would stop at the end of chapter 12, and I would say in the people of God lived happily ever after. Amen. I mean, that sounds very nice. It's all tied in very sweetly, and people are happy, and it's great. But Nehemiah didn't do that, and I like that about the Bible, and you should too. The Bible is real because that is real. You and I are God's people, and yet didn't we sing earlier today prone to wander? Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. I stand up here in preach at you, and yet often I depart from church, and I'm right back into kind of a coldness in my heart toward God, compromise, unholy thoughts, and so on and so forth. And you do too. That's real, see? And that's the Bible. The Bible is real. Nehemiah ends his book with a series of mistakes and problems, and we're sort of left hanging. There's not a lot of resolution in Nehemiah. The book ends and you and I are sort of wondering, well, did it work? I mean, did Nehemiah's reforms take? What happens next? Why does God allow the book of Nehemiah in this way if only to show that we're begging for Jesus to come? We're begging for good news. We're begging for the gospel. We need Jesus. I'm going to say more about that later this morning, but that's the beauty, I think, of Nehemiah chapter 13, and Nehemiah ends the book with this prayer. Remember with me with your favor, oh Lord, my God. In other words, he says, have mercy on me, a sinner. That's real. So on one hand, I want to say, thank you, Lord, for letting the Bible be an honest, real book that really speaks to where I am and where my brothers and sisters are, but on the other hand, but on the other hand, I want to say how tragic, how tragic, because just a few chapters earlier, chapter 10, verse 39, to be exact, the people of Israel had promised, they had promised God, we will not neglect your house. They had a big covenant renewal ceremony and they said, chapter 10, we will not neglect the house of our God, but look what happened while Nehemiah was back in Susah. He was gone just for a few years and all of a sudden, they're right back where they were before. That is tragic. As one commentator put it, the people of God had settled down to a comfortable compromise with the world. They've gotten careless, bit by bit and decision by decision. The people of Israel had become the Old Testament version of the book of revelations, Church of Ephesus. Some of you know what I'm talking about. In the book of Revelation, it says that the Church of Ephesus had forsaken their first love. They had forsaken their first love and so had the people of Jerusalem in Nehemiah's day. They had lost their distinctiveness in a world that was in desperate need to see the real deal of faith in a people who called themselves followers of God. So I have to ask you this morning and we're about to have communion in a few moments. Where have you been slipping lately? Where have you been lowering your guard, compromising with sin? I mean, think about a liash of the priests that let Tobiah into the storeroom of the temple. Where have you allowed the world and sinful thoughts and sinful deeds to come into the storeroom of your heart? See, it's the same thing. Where have you compromised? Where have you opened your heart up to idolatry? What idols have you loved more than you've loved Jesus? Who or what have you been more willing to please lately than you've been willing to please Jesus? The Bible says to examine yourself about those things, to judge yourself so that you not be judged so that you in a little while can partake of the bread and wine in a worthy manner. That doesn't mean perfect. That doesn't mean sinless. It means that you've been honest. You've been open. You've allowed the heart to open up and you've said, God, remember me with your favor. Have mercy on me, a sinner. So you see my friend's faithfulness requires in the first place a commitment to obey God no matter what, but you need more than that to be faithful. You need more than just simply, okay, I'm going to resolve, I'm going to do better next time. I'm going to confess and get this right with God. I'm going to walk out of here and I'm going to do better next time. It requires a lot more than that. No faithfulness requires a friend who will love you no matter what. A friend who will love you no matter what. If you've got a friend like that who will love you no matter what, it will help you to be faithful. It will help you to be holy. It will help you to be obedient and loyal and trustworthy instead fast. If you know, you've got a friend who loves you no matter what. Let me show you why I say that. Nehemiah was a faithful friend to the Israelites. Nehemiah was a faithful friend. He was their steadfast prophet. He was their constant priest and he was their unswerving king. We've seen this in this series, right? In chapter 1, Nehemiah wept and wept and prayed and prayed over the people's plight. In chapter 2, he left Susah where he had this kush job as the cup bearer to the king and he came to Jerusalem where everything was just a stinking mess. In chapter 3, he got everybody organized and they rebuilt the wall. In chapter 4, he defended the poor. I mean, he stood up to their enemies. In chapter 5, he defended the poor and the oppressed. In chapters 9 and 10, he led them in a covenant renewal and in chapter 12, he dedicated this amazing wall. And here in chapter 13, he doesn't leave them or forsake them. He doesn't stay in Susah thinking, oh man, these guys are just ridiculous. I'm not going to go back there and deal with them anymore. No. He left Susah and came back to Jerusalem to make things right in Israel. Now, when he came back, he doesn't play around. His strategy is that of shock and awe. Let me show you what I mean. For example, first, you remember I told you about Eliaship letting Tobiah into the temple? Well, he goes in, verse 8, to the temple and he throws Tobiah stuff out in the street. He casts Tobiah out of there and says, you're not going to be getting back in here. Get out. I mean, who's that remind you of? Reminds me of Jesus cleansing the temple, right? Of the money changers. And then in verse 11, Nehemiah calls the city officials out on the fact that they had allowed the people to stop tithing and giving their money. And in verses 15 to 22, he makes all those people who were buying and selling stuff on the Sabbath to stop. And then in verses 25 to 27, he tells those Jewish men who were intermarrying with Gentiles to stop marrying Gentiles. And he told those men to stop giving your daughters away and marriage to those Gentile men. And then I absolutely love verse 25 of this chapter. Verse 25 says that he beat some of the men and pulled out their hair. I thought I'd do that to the church staff if they ever get out of line. I'm going to beat them up and pull out their hair. I mean, after the early service, I was talking to somebody who said to me, they asked me, what did that really look like? I mean, was this guy like a giant or something? How can you beat someone up and pull out their hair? I don't know, but I'll leave that up to your imagination. But he did that. And then finally, in the last couple of verses of the chapter, Nehemiah made the priests and Levites get right with God. So he didn't play around with them. Shocking awe, the whole chapter was his reform. He had one come to Jesus meeting after another with these people who were departing from the purity of their faith. But friends, that's what love looks like sometimes. That's what love looks like sometimes. When you love somebody, you don't stay where it's nice and comfortable and cushy. You don't give up on them. You go to their rescue. When you love somebody, you pursue them like a shepherd pursuing a sheep until you find them out on the hillside. When you love somebody, you care enough to confront them. When you love someone, you ask them the hard questions. You say the hard things. You let your heart get broken and beat on and trampled on by their sin. You do that when you love somebody. You give up your life to help them get better. Does that remind you of Jesus Christ? It should. Because in every way, Jesus portrayed himself and still portrays himself as our faithful friend. You know, this book, I've said it before, I'll say it again, is not about Nehemiah. It's about Jesus. You see him through out here because everything Nehemiah did was like a signpost pointing the way forward to the coming Messiah, Jesus Christ. Jesus loved you so much that he didn't give up on you. He didn't stay where it was nice and cushy in heaven, but he saw you in your sin and misery and he came to you. He pursued you like a shepherd pursuing a sheep. He chased you down to every hillside you were hiding on and in every deep valley that you had found yourself in. Jesus found you there and he put you on his shoulders and took you back to the Father because he loves you so much. Sometimes Jesus says the hard things. Sometimes Jesus asks you the hard questions to get you to take a look at things that are hurting you, but he does it because he loves you. He lets his heart get broken over and over and again by your sin and on the cross he let his whole life come to an end because of your sin and your wandering ways. He died for you on the cross and that's what love looks like. Just as the Israelites needed their friend Nehemiah to help them become faithful, you need your friend Jesus to help you be faithful. In fact, if I could summarize this whole book, I would violate every law of grammar I could find to say it this way. You don't never need Jesus. I'm sorry, you never don't need Jesus. You never don't need Jesus. You always need Him. The whole book of Nehemiah could be summarized by that sentence because just when things look better, they got worse. You never don't need Jesus. You are Frodo. You are Frodo and Jesus is your faithful Sam Gamji. You'll see what I mean in this clip. I'm going to Mold over now. Who's you are? And I'm coming with you. You can't swim. I promise Mr. Frodo. I promise don't you leave him some way, Gamji. Me too. I'm sad.
Jesus says I will never leave you. I will never desert you and this table this morning is proof of that because Jesus said that I give my life for you. This bread and this cup represent his body and his blood. Tokens, emblems, signs and seals, reminders that we can taste, feel, swallow, see, smell, that if we ever forget his faithfulness to us, these will be ways of stirring that up again so that we will follow after our faithful friend. Let's pray. Lord Jesus thank you that you came to us. You promised us that you will always be with us. For all who trust in you, you said that you would come and bear our burdens and take our sins away and take our guilt and shame away from us and upon yourself. So Jesus thank you that you did that for us. You are our faithful friend. You have been faithful from the very beginning and you will remain faithful. We thank you Father that you said you've mighty to save. You take great delight in us. You will quiet us with your love and rejoice over us with singing. And so today Lord as we take these elements of bread and wine, we do so believing that you are here with us and that you are the one who will love us to the end. We ask our Lord that you will bless this meal as we come celebrate it, that you will use it to stir up faith and repentance and hope and love within us again, that as we leave here today we might be faithful men and women and boys and girls. And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.