Sermon Transcript
Now when Sanballat and Tobiah and Geshem the Arab, and the rest of our enemies heard that I had built the wall and that there was no breach left in it— although up to that time I had not set up the doors in the gates— Sanballat and Geshem sent to me, saying, Come and let us meet together at Hakaphiram in the plain of Ono. But they intended to do me harm. And I sent messengers to them, saying, 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? And they sent to me 4 times in this way, and I answered them in the same manner.
In the same way, Sanballat for the 5th time sent his servant to me with an open letter in his hand. In it was written, it is reported among the nations, and Geshem also says it, that you and the Jews intend to rebel. That is why you are building the wall. And according to these reports, you wish to become their king. And you have also set up prophets to proclaim concerning you in Jerusalem, there is a king in Judah.
And now the king will hear of these reports. So now come and let us take counsel together. Then I sent to him, saying, no such things as you say have been done. For you are inventing them out of your own mind. For they all wanted to frighten us, thinking, their hands will drop from the work and it will not be done.
But now, O God, strengthen my hands. Now when I went into the house of Shemaiah the son of Delaiah, son of Mephibosheth, who was confined to his home, he said, let us meet together in the house of God within the temple. Let us close the doors of the temple, for they are coming to kill you. They are coming to kill you by night. But I said, 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. And I understood and saw that God had not sent him, but he had pronounced the prophecy against me because Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him. For this purpose he was hired, that I should be afraid and act in this way and sin, and so they could give me a bad name in order to taunt me. Remember Tobiah and Sanballat, O my God, according to these things that they did, and also the prophetess Noadiah and the rest of the prophets who wanted to make me afraid.
So the wall was finished on the 25th day of the month Hill in 52 days. And when all our enemies heard of it, all the nations around us were afraid and fell greatly in their own esteem, for they perceived that this work had been accomplished with the help of our God. Moreover, in those days the nobles of Judah sent many letters to Tobiah, and Tobiah’s letters came to them. For many in Judah were bound by oath to him because he was the son-in-law of Shecaniah the son of Ara, and his son Jehohanan had taken the daughter of Meshullam the son of Berechiah as his wife. Also they spoke of his good deeds in my presence and reported my words to him, and Tobiah sent letters to make me afraid.
Many of us could probably tell stories of when we let fear influence us to do something that we knew we ought not to have done. Maybe we were single adults, whether that was high school, college, in our 20s, 30s, 40s, or beyond, when we were dating someone and the person we were dating was maybe pressuring us to compromise the limits of what we knew were right in terms of our physical relationship with them. But there was, uh, there was fear, right? If I don’t do what this person wants, maybe I’ll lose the relationship, or maybe I’ll be single forever unless I compromise my limits. Or maybe when we were students, we feared we wouldn’t get a high enough GPA unless we cheated on assignments.
Maybe today, even still, we fear that we won’t measure up to the standards demanded by our employer, so So, we cut corners, we lie, we cover up our mistakes, we fear failure, and so it compels us to do things that we know we ought not do.
As parents, we fear our kids won’t be successful, right? Remember, not too long ago, there was the scandal of these wealthy parents who were bribing collegiate officials to get their kids into top-ranked universities. Do you remember that? Why would anybody do that? Why would you take the risk and bribe somebody to get your kid into a certain university?
Fear, right? It’s either fear that your kids won’t be successful or it’s fear maybe how you will look if your kid doesn’t perform as well as other kids, right? You don’t wanna be at a party and need to admit that your kid was rejected from I’m better than you university, so you bribe the school officials to get them in, right? So it might be about your kid’s success, or it might be about your kid’s, or it might be about your reputation, but either way, it’s fear that’s driving that decision.
Fear is not from the Lord.
Fear is not from the Lord. From the Lord. The most often repeated command in Scripture is fear not, or do not be afraid, or some other variant. 2 Timothy 1:7, we are not given a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-control. Fear is never a legitimate reason to compromise our integrity, to cross a line of fidelity, to treat people unlovingly, never, fear is never a legitimate reason to cross those lines.
As a church, we’ve been studying the book of Nehemiah. Nehemiah lived 2,500 years ago and he had this, he had a massive project. He was rebuilding the fortress walls around his hometown and he had to sort through all kind of problems. He had lack of resources, he had a lack of authority, so he had to convince someone else who had authority to help him accomplish his mission because he didn’t have any authority of his own. He faced external opposition, he had a tight time window to complete the project, he had to overcome internal conflict within— from people on his own team.
If you are any kind of leader, it would be wise for you to study the book of Nehemiah because he had to deal with all the same stuff that you have to deal with today. But today in this message, we’re looking at Nehemiah dealing with his fears. Will his fears conquer him or will he conquer his fears? As we look at our text for today, we’ll see 3 great fears that Nehemiah faced, which we still face today, and the good news, the antidote to those fears. There are 3 times in this passages— in this passage, excuse me, Nehemiah notes that his opposition tried to make him afraid: verse 9, verse 13, verse 19.
Now remember, Nehemiah’s opposition consists of other regional authorities who do not want Nehemiah to rebuild the walls around Jerusalem. They realize they will lose some of their power and influence if Jerusalem rises in power and influence, and they’re very upset about that. So they want to stop Nehemiah from building the walls through whatever means possible. In this passage, before they start trying to scare Nehemiah, they try to lure him to a meeting away from the city where they plan to to kill him. Um, Nehemiah sees right through their facade and says, uh, no thanks, I’ll just keep working and not die, thank you.
Um, so when their plan to kill Nehemiah fails, uh, the opposition starts trying to bring Nehemiah down through different scare tactics. Um, they try 3 times to make Nehemiah afraid, and each time they threaten something something different. So fear number 1, scandal. They threaten a scandal. They try to ruin Nehemiah’s reputation.
They send an open letter from one end of the region to another. That’s verse 5. And an open letter back then was exactly the same as an open letter is today. It is not a private letter. It is writing a letter to you, but I want as many other people as possible to read the letter.
So today how we do this is we put an open letter on the internet so everybody can read it, right? In those days, if you were, if you were writing a private letter, you would fold it, pour wax on it, press your seal on top of it, and then hand that to a messenger. The messenger knew not to open the letter, right? The messenger knew, if I break the seal and open the letter, they will come and break me, so I’ll just keep this closed. But an open letter was not like that.
With an open letter, they didn’t fold it and pour wax and press their seal. They just handed it to the messenger open. Opened, so anyone could read it, meaning everyone did read it. In every village, in every stop along the way, everyone read the letter, which is exactly what Nehemiah’s opposition wanted to happen. The opposition, these guys, Sanballat, Geshem, and Tobiah, they wanted everyone to hear the rumors they were spreading about Nehemiah.
They wanted it to get out and be public. They said, all of this was lies, but they said, Nehemiah, we know you plan to declare yourself king. You’ve even hired a prophet to announce it. You and your countrymen are going to rebel against the Persian King Artaxerxes. That’s why you’re rebuilding the wall.
Everybody knows it, Nehemiah. Everyone knows it. That’s verse 6. It’s reported among the nations, this story we’re telling. It’s not just our opinion.
Everyone knows that you’re doing this. That’s what their letter said. Sanballat and Geshem are— they’re running a smear campaign. They want to damage Nehemiah’s reputation. They want him to look bad.
They want Nehemiah worrying about what everyone else is thinking him. Now, the truth is Nehemiah is not planning a rebellion. He’s not going to declare himself king. He’s buddies with the king. But these, these false accusations, if these false accusations get around, it’s going to be a scandal.
Nehemiah’s credibility will be tarnished. People will be whispering, did you hear why we’re really rebuilding the wall? Nehemiah’s gonna get us into trouble. Like, the king’s gonna hear about this, then we’ll They want Nehemiah to worry about the scandal, and they hope if he worries about it enough, he will stop building the wall and then the opposition will get their way.
Have you ever feared for your reputation before? Have you ever feared that you will look bad?
Do you stress when someone criticizes you? Have you ever feared that you won’t be accepted or understood?
Like, you’ve tried your best, but people are still finding fault with what you’re doing. Do you ever stress about this stuff? This ever happen to you? This ever not happen to you?
If so, if you’ve ever stressed about this, like, how much time do you spend fixating on what other people think about you? Especially if it’s like Nehemiah’s case and they’re false accusations against you. Like, if people are believing false claims about you, like the rumors, there’s rumors out there about you and they’re gaining traction, you lose any sleep over that?
How much time do you spend scheming ways to minimize the damage to your image?
Wouldn’t it be nice to be free from all of that?
Wouldn’t it be nice not to feel the pressure to clear your name? Wouldn’t it be nice not to obsess like, I must be accepted, I must be affirmed, people must see it my way? Wouldn’t it be nice not to be distracted?
I mean, how many hours have you lost? How many work hours have you lost because your mind is chasing this stuff instead of doing your work?
We need an antidote, right? This is a real problem. It’s a real fear. And we’ll talk about the antidote. Okay, fear number 2, harm.
They threaten to harm Nehemiah. Tobiah and Sanballat try to make Nehemiah think that he will be physically harmed. They hire a prophet, Shemaiah, to lie to Nehemiah and claim that people are coming to kill him. Tobiah and Sanballat assume that Nehemiah will listen to a clergyman They know Nehemiah won’t believe them, but he’ll probably listen to somebody associated with ministry. Nehemiah is faithful to God, so they figure he’ll pay attention to another person who is supposed to be faithful to God.
And so Shemaiah the prophet, the supposed man of God, says to Nehemiah, verse 10, let’s go hide in the temple together to spare your life. Nehemiah, your life is in danger. Escape while you can. Let’s go hide in the temple. What Nehemiah knew and what Shemaiah the prophet knew was that only priests were allowed to go into that chamber of the temple.
It would be a violation of God’s law for Nehemiah to go in there and close the doors behind him. So if Nehemiah hides in the temple like the prophet suggests, he will be discredited among among the Israelites. That’s what he’s talking about in verse 13. If I, if I go in there, I’ll— I, I will sin, I will sully my name, and I will, I will make the case against myself. My opponents won’t— will no longer have to try to discredit me.
I will have discredited myself. I will have dug my own grave. Um, so, so even if, uh, the prophet is telling the truth about Nehemiah’s life being in danger, Nehemiah is not going to go into the temple. Now, Nehemiah assumes the prophet is lying. He doesn’t fall for it.
He stays right where he is building the wall. Nehemiah says, um, I am not moving from where I know God wants me to be, even if my life is in danger. My life probably isn’t in danger, uh, but either way, I’m not moving. It’s a bold stand on Nehemiah’s part. Now, chances are for us, Lord willing, we won’t face potentially life-threatening situations if we follow what God wants us to do.
There are certainly places in the world where living out your Christian faith can get you executed or imprisoned, Certainly, Voice of the Martyrs will give you information about persecution currently taking place in the world today. It really happens, but thankfully it’s not here.
But let’s think a little bit about the type of harm that we might face here, the harm that can come to us if we live a life of obedience to God where we live.
After residing in this area for coming up on 5 years now and having numerous conversations along the way, it seems to me, you guys can argue, always feel free to argue, but it seems to me like a significant percentage of Christians have a genuine fear about being identified as Christians, being outed as Christians. You know, I’ll go to church privately, I’ll believe in Jesus personally, but I won’t confront my friends, relatives, neighbors, coworkers about their critical need for Christ. I mean, maybe I’ll talk to my neighbor, but definitely not somebody at work. Not gonna mess up what I got going on at work.
Can you tell— I mean, can you tell me, can you discuss amongst yourselves, like, what is that?
What is that a fear of? What’s the presumed consequence that’s going to happen if you live out your Christian faith like that? Like, will your job be in jeopardy? I mean, will they actually fire you?
If that’s the case, then the real potential harm you face for obedience to God would be financial harm, right? Is that it?
And I guess financial harm is enough of a threat to shrink back from sharing your faith. I mean, I don’t know, right? You guys discuss it. There might be something else there that I’m not seeing. But if anything, if there’s anything that hinders us from helping other people see their critical need for Christ, then we are succumbing to some kind of fear and we need an antidote.
Okay, verse— fear 3 and then the antidote, but fear number 3, isolation. They attempt to isolate Nehemiah, verse 17 to 19. Tobiah is a well-connected man. He’s in a powerful position. So, there are people around Nehemiah who are obligated to Tobiah in some way.
Tobiah’s got extended relatives. He’s got people on the payroll. So, Tobiah sends letters to all the people in his circle of influence who are near Nehemiah, Tobiah’s plan is to get all these people, to get all his people to talk in Nehemiah’s ear about how great Tobiah is, right? Like, Tobiah is right. Tobiah is amazing.
We should listen to Tobiah about this wall stuff.
Implication, we don’t agree with you, Nehemiah.
We support the other guy.
Tobiah is trying to make Nehemiah feel isolated and alone.
Perhaps this is the hardest fear to face. If your reputation is in jeopardy, you know, there’s some false scandal against you and it’s gaining momentum, as long as you can retain a few people around you who will continue to say, I still believe in you, right? As long as you still have a few supporters, like, you can make it.
If your life is in danger, but you have some people with you in the foxhole, right, it is much more manageable. If you are worried about being a Christian at work, if you have 5 other people with you being Christians at work, All of a sudden it’s a lot less scary, right? But as soon as you feel alone, as soon as you feel unsupported, all right, you’re fighting the battle all by yourself, it’s a lot harder. You really do want to throw in the towel, you just call it a day. You really do need people around you, and if someone has gone around to all your friends and turn them away from you, if someone has come in and poisoned your friends against you, it really is difficult to continue.
It really is.
So what’s the cure?
If you’re facing a potential scandal in the form of maybe a damaged reputation, if you’re facing harm, whether it be physical or financial, if you’re facing isolation How do you handle that? What’s the antidote? How did Nehemiah conquer these fears and keep going in spite of them? Because he did, he kept going. How did he do that?
We have a clue here in verse 13 when the false prophet tells Nehemiah, you know, let’s go hide in the temple, and Nehemiah says, I am not going to sin.
You go ahead and kill me. I am not going to disobey God. That’s a clue. As one commentator said, Nehemiah was more afraid of sinning than he was of dying.
The antidote to fear is paradoxically more faith. Fear, but proper fear, specifically fear of the Lord. The antidote to fear is fear of the Lord. Proverbs 9:10, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And just in the last chapter that Steve covered last week, Nehemiah chapter 5, Nehemiah twice mentions fear of the Lord, verse 9 and verse 15 of chapter 5.
Nehemiah says fear of the Lord should have enabled to do the right thing, like Steve talked about. And it was fear of the Lord that enabled Nehemiah to do the right thing in chapter 5. It kept his head straight in chapter 5. And here in chapter 6, we see Nehemiah staying fast to what God wants him to do and not falling victim to these other fears because he fears the Lord. He doesn’t want to sin.
He fears the Lord. What God thinks of you must matter more to you than your reputation, than your relational needs, and even your life. What God thinks of you has to be primary. Self-preservation can’t be primary. Image enhancement can’t be primary, not even friends.
It has to be God and what he thinks of you if you want to overcome your fears.
That’s fear of the Lord. I’m going to orient my life around what God says and not anything else. Doing that will neutralize your other fears. It’s like at work, your boss gives you assignments. Your boss would represent God here.
Your boss gives you assignments, but also some peers try to unload their work on you as well, right? So, who do you listen to? Do you listen to your coworkers? Or do you listen to your boss? Your boss, okay?
You listen to your boss. If you didn’t already know that, now you do. You listen to your boss. That was some free professional advice. You are welcome.
We’re here to help in any way that we can. You can send your thank-you letters at any time. You orient what you do at work around what your boss says, not around what your coworkers say. Why?
Because what your boss thinks matters more than what your coworkers think, obviously, right? If you are— now, what if your coworkers come back and say, we are going to tell everyone that you aren’t a team player unless you do all of our work. So now they’re gonna attack your reputation, right? They’re gonna name-call you. You’re not a team player.
What are you gonna do now? You’re gonna give in?
I think what you say is, you know, my boss is happy with what I’m doing, so I’m good.
You go ahead and tell people I’m not a team player. Player. I’m still going to get a good performance review, and my boss is going to tell the same people that you’re talking to, um, my boss is going to tell these people that I’m doing great, and those words carry more weight than your words do, so I’m not too worried, right? You’re not afraid of these coworkers because you’ve aligned yourself to the right Because you, because you have feared correctly your boss, your other fears are neutralized. Like if your boss accepts you, like who cares what these other people think, right?
I mean, I know it still hurts a little, right? If they’re lying about you, of course none of us would enjoy that, but you don’t fall prey to that fear that they are trying to stir up, right? You have properly aligned yourself. Fears. You have feared the right person and it has clarified everything else.
You have submitted to the correct authority and now you don’t have these other fears. So, in a similar way, if you submit to God’s authority, if you orient your life around him, if you care more about what he thinks than what anyone else thinks, your fears will be neutralized.
If you know you’ve done right by Him, then you’re okay.
I know in our day and time we resist words like authority.
It might seem strange or unnecessary for some of us to talk about orienting everything in our lives around God and what He thinks, but we already know the alternative, right? And how is that going? You already know trying to maintain your reputation will drive you neurotic.
If you orient your life around your reputation, you’re going to lose your mind. You already know cowering in fear instead of sharing your faith doesn’t improve your life. I mean, it diminishes it, makes it smaller.
You already know you can’t live your life stressed over whether your friends will still want to be your friends. You can’t stress about that. You can’t orient your life even around something as great as friends, right? It’ll ruin those friendships and it’ll drive you crazy. All of those, all of those end up being cruel masters, right?
If you don’t wanna pledge your allegiance to those, they demand more and more and more and they never deliver the peace that they promise, right? You’re just chasing smoke. You know that. You have experienced that. But there is a Master who is kind.
There is a Master who instead of making you worry about your reputation, He took the blame for your scandal and He traded you His spotless reputation.
There is a master who instead of threatening your life, he sacrificed his life for yours. There is a master who instead of leaving you in isolation, he went to the farthest reaches of loneliness so you would never be alone.
On the cross, Jesus gave up his reputation. He gave up his life and he endured the ultimate isolation so you would never have to fear.
If he’s willing to do that for us, why would we want to orient our lives around anything or anyone else?
Why would we want anything else to be our Master.
Let’s pray.
Father, we have fears.
We have worries in this world. We want, we want to protect ourselves, reputation, things that we consider important to us. Lord, we don’t want to be alone.
But Lord, we know you have provided all of our needs. We know you are a kind master who leads us beside quiet waters, whose yoke is easy and burden is light, Lord. We know that you have given us everything that we could ever need, that you sacrificed everything that you had in order to provide everything that we could ever need.
Lord. So we pray that our fears would be neutralized. We pray that we could increase our trust in you. Pray that we could align to what you want for our lives. Pray that listening to your voice would quiet our anxiety about listening to all these other voices.
Lord, take away our fears. Help us walk in faithfulness. Thank you for always rescuing us when we fall short. We pray those things in Jesus’ name.
Amen.
