Harbor Church - Mid City

Making Life Count—A Counter-Cultural Faith

Neh. 1: 1-11 Mid-City Oct. 25, 2009

We’re in a series called “Making Life Count,” and we’re looking at heroes from the past who did just that.  We began to look at Nehemiah last week who is an extraordinary figure.  Here is a brief sketch of his life. 

Nehemiah was an Israelite, and he lived during the Babylonian Exile when most of Israel was exiled from the nation of Israel.  Here is what happened.  The nation of Israel was attacked by the Babylonians in 587 BC, and the gates were destroyed, the city was plundered and raised, and all but roughly 20,000 of the poorest Israelites were either killed or exiled to Babylon.  And Jerusalem lay in ruins for 140 years.  Nehemiah was   not a trained religious professional.  He was just an ordinary dude with a fairly high profile job as a cupbearer to the king.  Then Nehemiah leads a group back and in 52 days he does what no one has been able to do in 140 years.  He rebuilds the city. 

Then Nehemiah went on to act as governor of Jerusalem for 12 years and built up its infrastructure, its roads, its government, and was one of the most effective city planners on record.  Remarkable life accomplishments—one who without question made his life count.  Last week we looked at the desires that compelled Nehemiah, this week we’re going to look at his faith.  See his faith was different than most other Israelites and certainly most other Babylonians.  Nehemiah’s faith was counter-cultural and this made all the difference for him.

If you want to live a life that counts here in San Diego then you’re faith must be a counter-cultural faith as well.  So let’s look at Nehemiah’s faith and then we’ll see why I think that same counter-cultural faith is so critical for us if we want to make our lives count.  And we’re going to do that by looking at 2 things about Nehemiah’s faith. 

(1) what it wasn’t; (2) what it was

(1)  Nehemiah’s faith Wasn’t self-absorbed

Nehemiah lived in a self-absorbed, self-obsessed city in Babylon.  Consider, for example, their religious practices and how utterly self-absorbed they were.  The Babylonians were polytheistic—meaning they had many gods.  They had both personal gods and national gods.  For instance, take the national god….

Enlil: god of weather and storms.   In an agrarian economy, weather was critical.  This wasn’t San Diego with automatic sprinkler systems where you can make deserts green.  So, if you weren’t getting the proper weather patterns to sustain your crops, then this could be economically devastating.  According to the prevailing Babylonian cultural view, the gods responded to your offerings.  So there was an elaborate daily presentation of offerings to the gods of food, money, and other treasures.  If the god was satisfied, then the weather patterns would be right.  

The same held true for…
Enurta: god of war
Shamash: god of the sun and of justice

But weather and war and sun---these are all national or communal issues.  The same system applied on a personal level.  Each Babylonian had a personal god that they made regular offerings to who looked out for them individually.  I love what one commentator said, “There was a business-like attitude on the part of the Babylonian in this relationship…If the worshipper felt he was not getting sufficient benefits in return for his offerings, he would threaten to abandon his god and seek another.”  So this was the classic, “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine.  And if my god isn’t treating me right, then I’ll just get another one.  There are lots of them out there and I just need to find one that works for me.  Faith, in Babylon, was completely self-absorbed. 

Contrast this with the counter-cultural faith of Nehemiah.  As we saw last week in   v2-5, Nehemiah begins to weep and mourn and fast and pray when he hears about the destruction of 2 things:  (1) the church (which v2 describes as the Jewish remnant), & (2) the city.  And v4 says, “When I heard these things, I sat down and wept.  For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed.’  When you combine this with chapter 2:1, we see that Nehemiah mourned and wept and fasted for 3 or 4 months.  This wasn’t just I am bummed out b/c the Chargers lost to Denver on Monday night.  For 3-4 months, he fasts and mourns and weeps and prays over the destruction of the church and the city. 

You see this even further in v5, “O Lord, God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and obey his commands, let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer your servant is praying before you day and night for your servants, the people of Israel.”  Nehemiah is praying day and night for the church—the people of Israel as he puts it.  His heart breaks for them.  This isn’t some divine bartering system where he is just trying to get stuff from God to make his life better.  No.  Nehemiah’s faith has what we like to call around here an outward face to it.  His faith is in a God who keeps reminding him—Nehemiah, this isn’t just about you.  And he keeps turning him out in mission.  His faith is outward facing.

Now this, to me, provides a stinging critique of faith in San Diego in 2009.  See I encounter so many religious people in San Diego whose religion is really all about them.  Some call themselves Christians, others go by different faith traditions—the practice, however, is often the same.  Often, San Diegans religious practice is just like the Babylonians, only they don’t name individual gods such as the earth god or goddess of love.  But, in practice, you religion is bound up in the “I scratch your back, you scratch mine.”  Westerners have advanced too far, so we think, to put money and food in front of wooden objects.  So instead we think that the gods, or god, is impressed with our morality.  I behave this way and you, god, must give me what I want—sex, money, power, the right job, health.  And if I don’t get those things, well, then obviously you must not exist or, you must not be worth serving.  Why?  b/c I prayed for those things, and, well, I am a good person. 

Here is what you must realize.  If you come to your god with these “if/then” statements—if you give me a raise, then I will serve you; if you give me a girlfriend, then I will worship you—then at the very least be clear about this—the god you are worshipping isn’t the God of the bible.  Your god is whatever is on the other side of if.  “If I you give me a job, then I will worship you.”  In this case, your god is a job.

See the Babylonians were just more honest about this than we are.  They named the god of wealth, the god of weather, the god of war.  For the most part, most Americans won’t admit they are worshipping the god of money, the god of health, the god of safety, the god of jobs.  But, if we are honest, that is the truth.  And at the end of the day, our religion is built around ourselves and we just use God for self-aggrandizement.  How can my quality of life be better?  Have a better job, have the perfect family, have a nice house.  This is a completely self-absorbed faith.

(2)  Faith was oriented toward Jesus

Not Nehemiah.  And this is the second point on the outline.  Not only is his faith outward facing (as opposed to self-absorbed), but Nehemiah’s faith was oriented toward Jesus.

You see this in v5 where he says, “O Lord, God of heaven, the great and awesome God.” Nehemiah delights in and reveres making the name of the Lord great.   Nehemiah delights in the Lord, but remember he is pre-Jesus.  This is B.C. But see we know the rest of the story.  The gospels tell us over and over again that the Lord, the God of heaven, the great and awesome God, showed up and took on flesh in the person of Jesus.  And this was exactly what Nehemiah was asking God to do in v8-9—to show up and lead them out of exile and return them to the promised land, where the place of His great name dwelled.

Read verses 8-9,  ⁸ "Remember the instruction you gave your servant Moses”  Now when he says “Remember” Nehemiah isn’t saying, “God, I let me bring something to your attention in case you have forgotten.  No, This phrase in Hebrew means “to act upon.  So he is saying, “God, act upon the words you gave to Moses, which were, 'If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations, ⁹ but if you return to me and obey my commands, then even if your exiled people are at the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen as a dwelling for my Name.'   See he is saying, “God, gather in the exiles from afar and bring to this place where you name dwells so that your name will be even greater.  Nehemiah loves making the name of the Lord great, so much so that in v11 he repeats it again in case you missed it.  “O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of this your servant and to the prayer of your servants who delight in revering your name.”  Nehemiah delighted in making the name of the Lord great. 

Friends, my life has really become simple as a pastor.  Like Nehemiah, I have one aim—making the name of Jesus great.  Sure, Nehemiah cared about lots of things that we have mentioned already—the church, the city—but he cared about those things b/c Jesus cared about them.  And when the church was more glorious and the city was more glorious then the name of Jesus—the king of the city—was more glorious.

But see making the name of Jesus great isn’t just limited to pastors.  If you are a follower of Jesus, then that is what you are to be about.  1 Cor. 10:31 says it should be—whatever you do, do it all for his glory….(not yours). 

If you claim to be a follower of Jesus, is this true of you?  Let me give you a diagnostic question to help you determine whether or not this is true.  And it is going to be counter-intuitive.  You ready—here it is.  Is          confessing your sin like brushing your teeth?  Is confessing your sin like brushing your teeth?  Now I am going to give all of you the benefit of the doubt in here that you regularly brush your teeth.  At least daily, hopefully more.  Brushing your teeth really isn’t hard.  It is just part of who we are.

Well, for followers of Jesus, confession of sin should be like brushing our teeth.  It should be something that we do so regularly that it becomes easy and routine.  Look at how easy and regular it is for Nehemiah.  Look at v6, “Let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer your servant is praying before you day and night.  Nehemiah is praying this   same prayer day and night (the times when most of us brush our teeth at a minimum).  And guess what one of the central components of his prayer is, “Confession.” 

Look at verse 6b, “I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father's house, have committed against you. ⁷ We have acted very wickedly toward you. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees and laws you gave your servant Moses.”  Nehemiah confesses the sins of his people and also his own sins personally, no less than morning and evening for 3-4 months.  It is like brushing his teeth. 

San Diegans, for the most part, don’t like confession.  Here is why.  Religious people—not people who have trusted Jesus—but religious people don’t like confession for 2 reasons.  First, Maybe you have really bad flashbacks from Catholic church and you were forced into some confessional booth.  And at some point you just said, “No thanks.  I don’t really need the biggie size Mcguilt combo meal.”

Or, for others of you it wasn’t the Catholic church that turned you off to confession, but rather our culture. Think about how second nature it has become for Americans to cover up rather than confess our sin.  Pete Rose, Roger Clemens, A-Rod==I could keep going in baseball, but you get the point.  Or remember when Coach George O’Brien, the new Notre Dame coach, was fired briefly after he was hired for making up a made-up degree and putting it on his resume.  It isn’t just sports.  Think business.  I could list endless examples.  Enron to name one—trying to look like something you aren’t.  Making the numbers tell a different story than the true story. 

In America, you are taught to cover up your sin b/c if you don’t produce, you are out.  If you blow it, you are fired.  So we think God must operate the same way.  As a result, we don’t confess our sin, b/c, well, I am trying to impress God with my resume so that he will see that I am a 5 star recruit that he should want on his fantasy team in heaven. 

But that is the very thing that keeps you from relationship with him.            Is. 64: 6 puts it this way, “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.”  See the true God, the God the Bible, knows that all of us are unclean.  He knows that we are all like A-Rod and Pete Rose—and not in our ability to hit a baseball, but rather in that we have done so many things that make us unclean and we know it and He knows it.  Filthy rags is a horribly tame translation—some translations use dung or excrement.   And God says, “These righteous acts that you do to try to impress me are like filthy rags—they stink.  Why?  B/c they are keeping you from a life-giving relationship with me.  Your trusting in them to make you right with me rather than trusting in me to make things right.

Jesus puts it this way in Mark 2:17, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."  See for the doctor—the great physician, Jesus Christ—to come into your life and to keep drawing near, you have to actually acknowledge that you are sick and that you need his healing presence.  That is why confession brings such spiritual life.  Because it signals the doctor, “Come, Lord Jesus, I am sick.  What I have done has led me to this dark place.  I feel exiled.  Alone.  And I can’t fix it.”  And by faith you turn to him and the doctor who came for the sick says, “I will be right there.”

See, my friends, the Israelites wouldn’t confess & repent of their sin is what kept them in exile so long.  They were about their glory—not that of Jesus.  Finally, Nehemiah comes along and his faith is in Jesus, not himself, and the way you know this is how freely he confesses his sin, day and night.  And so Nehemiah begins to lead the people out of exile and back into the promised land of God’s presence.  But, Nehemiah was very clear that he wasn’t the ultimate Redeemer who would lead his people back into the promised land of God’s presence.  In v6 he confesses that he is full of sin himself and then, in v8, he says, “God, remember—God, act upon your gracious promise to make a way for exiled people to come back into the promised land where your name is great.

The gospel is that God made good on this promise.  God remembered.  God acted, and John 1:1 says the word became flesh.   The good news—the gospel—became flesh.  And the great one, the great and awesome God himself, came and did exactly what Nehemiah asked in v9.  Jesus obeyed God perfectly and, in doing so, he made a way for exiled people to come home to the promised land filled with the light of God’s presence.  But that way didn’t come easy.  It was a road marked with  blood, thorns, nails, spit, and worst of all, darkness.  The light of God the Father’s presence was gone as God the Son endured the brunt of the exile.  But 3 days later, the one to whom Nehemiah points, rose up out of exile, and started returning all those who would confess their sin and their need for Him back into the promised land.

All of us really need to do the same thing this morning—confess our sin and put our faith in Jesus.  Some of you never have…

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