Text: Nehemiah 6:1-16, Title: Finishing Strong, Date/Place: NRBC, 10/14/07, PM
A. Opening illustration: story of Greg Louganis’ victory in the ’88 Olympics, pp. 76-77, Nehemiah, Boice
B. Background to passage: After dealing with some external conflict against the work, and taking some time off to call a community meeting to deal with internal conflict, Nehemiah is nearing the end of his initial burden. And so the attacks become much more personal against Nehemiah. But when the going gets the toughest, the toughest lead like Jesus and finish strong. And in a generation of quitters, church hoppers, never finishers, the church of Jesus Christ needs some people that will commit to service and endure to the end.
C. Main thought: So in the text, God shows us four things required of the godly who finish strong.
A. Requires Proper Focus (v. 1-4)
1. When Nehemiah’s opponents see that the project is nearing completion. They decide to change their strategy a bit. They appear to look like a political candidate that is conceding an election. “Come on down, and we will drink to your new governorship, and work out our differences. But Nehemiah knew that without the gates in place, the whole project could suffer destruction at the hands of an enemy. And Nehemiah has a good order of priorities, and adequate self-discipline to say no four times.
2. Matt 6:33, John 6:27, Phil 3:8, Heb 12:1,
3. Illustration: "It took me until I was fifty-five years old to think about all this in any detail", he went on, "and by that time I had lived through over twenty-eight hundred Saturdays. I got to thinking that if I lived to be seventy-five, I only had about a thousand of them left to enjoy." "So I went to a toy store and bought every single marble they had. I ended up having to visit three toy stores to round-up 1000 marbles. I took them home and put them inside of a large, clear plastic container right here in the shack next to my gear. Every Saturday since then, I have taken one marble out and thrown it away." “When you fully comprehend that there is more to life than just here and now, and you realize that life is just preparation for eternity, you will begin to live differently. You will start living in light of eternity, and that will color how you handle every relationship, task, and circumstance. Suddenly many activities, goals, and even problems that seemed so important will appear trivial, petty, and unworthy of your attention. The closer you live to God, the smaller everything else appears. When you live in the light of eternity, your values change. You use your time and money more wisely. You place a higher premium on relationships and character instead of fame or wealth or achievements or even fun. Your priorities are reordered. Keeping up with trends, fashions, and popular values just doesn’t matter as much anymore.” –Rick Warren, “It sounds bad but it’s true, we all must choose to cheat. It’s simple, the problem is not a lack of discipline or time management, it is simply lack of time. With only 24 hours in each day, we cannot do everything. We think we can give 100% to our family, 100% to our job, 100% to our hobbies, 100% to our leisure, but that’s 400%! It can’t be done. Any time we set a priority we have said that something else in that moment is less important. Anytime we say ‘yes’ to something we’ve also said ‘No’ to something. It’s a fact of life, we have to choose to cheat. The key is learning when and where to cheat.” It’s true isn’t it? We are faced with choices all the time that put one thing over another. Oh, many of us would say our priorities are God, family, work and leisure, but how many really live out that verbiage?” –Andy Stanley
4. In our lives we must have an order of priority to finish strong. There are always things to do. And many good things we may not be able to do because we are doing the best things. Diplomacy (if it was legit) would have been good for Jerusalem, but not at the expense of the completion of the walls. We must allow the bible to give clear guidance on what our priorities should be. Christ should be your first priority at the expense of all others. Your walk with Jesus should not take second place to sleep, or computers, or friends, or parents, or kids, or commitments, or sports, or food, or job, etc. Second your family and their walk with Christ is the second thing. Getting priorities out of order will hurt your testimony, your spiritual growth, your family, and your church. We live for an audience of One, and when our priorities line up with His, He will be pleased. He is the most God-centered being in the universe, so we should follow His example. And once we get priorities in order, we must have the self-discipline to say “no” under repeated attempts and pressure for us to change them. Pressure wears us down, but discipline and accountability helps us hold…
B. Requires Playing Hardball (v. 5-9)
1. On their fifth attempt to coax Nehemiah into leaving the walls vulnerable, they put aside all the pretense of friendship and began a little political hardball. They threatened to send and unsealed letter to the King, which would allow everyone in the kingdom to read how that the Jews were rebuilding and planning to rebel against the King’s authority. Nehemiah understood the damage, but he was still committed to God, and so he answered this rumor directly and publicly.
2. 1 Sam 17:43-48, Dan 3:17-18, John 19:10-11, Matt 26:63-65
3. Illustration: tell about Keith taking steps to remove a deacon from the deaconate, and the man threatening him over the phone, and him sharing that with the congregation,
4. If we are to finish strong, we might be required to test the amount of Christian backbone that we have. It may mean confronting others, and it may be withstanding persecution because of our convictions. But “the quota of wimpy Christian has been filled.” –Charles Lyons. It may mean sacrificing a job for righteousness sake, or disappointing family, because you refuse to participate. It may mean offending a friend or boss with the facts of the gospel. It may mean being blackballed for life at your office. It may mean being unpopular at school. It may mean missing some sports event or family reunion. But Jesus never called us to be popular, compromising, people-pleasing pansies. God tells us to gird up your loins like a man, take up your cross and your squirt-gun and charge hell with all the God-glorifying passion that you can muster up under the empowerment of His strength and His Spirit!
C. Requires Discernment (v. 10-13)
1. Nehemiah then is attempted to be taken down in an even more sinister plot. The enemy hires a prophet of God to tell Nehemiah he has a message for him. So, Nehemiah goes to this meeting because he is a godly man, hoping to hear from God. But he realizes from the advice given, that it is another trick. How did he do this? He noted that the advice given was contrary to what he knew he was called to do, and what God would want Him to do in the face of danger, and in diametric opposition to the reveal truth of Scripture. Nehemiah realized the scheme of Sanballat and Tobiah was a scheme of the devil to make him afraid, to make him sin, and to make him look bad in front of all.
2. Eph 6:11, 4:14, 27, 1 Peter 5:7-8, Mar 13:22, 2 Cor 2:10-11
3. Illustration: the woman on Oprah who had a long standing affair with a married man, and declared who happy she was, and that she was a Christian, was questioned by the audience about Christian convictions about adultery. "Wait a minute," the woman protested. "I am a Christian, but my personal life and my religion don’t have anything to do with one another. God wants me to be happy, and if I am happy with this man, then God doesn’t mind." Tell about Ronnie’s decision to go into the ministry of evangelism, and the advice that he got from fellow pastors that were his friends,
4. If we are to finish strong we must be discerning about Satan’s schemes. If we think we hear from God and he tells us to do something that His Word has expressly forbidden, then we can discern that what we think is God is not really God. Also, if we know that God has a direction for us, and the advice given is in direction opposition, or contrary in general to the way Christians should act, we can reject that advice. Satan’s goal in all his scheming is to cause us to fear (when we have no reason to), to sin (when we have been set free and given a hatred for it), and to harm our reputation and testimony as well as Christ and His church (when our express purpose as a person is to glorify God and as a church to manifest the manifold perfections of Christ). We must make our aim to finish strong and discernment is a key.
D. Requires Godward glory (v. 14-16)
1. Nehemiah has been very God-centered up to this point—waiting on the hand of God, trusting in God, spending time in prayer with God. And it comes to its culmination at this point in the story. The wall is finished in 52 days! Amazing! And if it were most of us we would begin to pat ourselves on the back, expect a promotion, a raise, and plaque, and maybe an article in the paper. Not Nehemiah, he says that the enemies melted because they could see that “our God” has done this! God strengthened Nehemiah, and did a miracle through them, so that His fame and value and worth would be magnified.
2. John 17:1, Rom 1:21, 15:6, 9, 1 Cor 6:20,
3. Illustration: talk about Mackenzie’s catechism question—the three-year-old version, talk about the prayer request that the 6 AM prayer people have been agreeing upon—that NRBC become obsessed and consumed with the glory of God and how we can best make that known,
4. As I mentioned earlier, this is the reason for which you were created—to reflect and magnify the worth of God. And a key to finishing strong is making is having and maintaining a focus on the glory of God. That is God’s foremost purpose in everything that He does. And he will supply all that you need to finish strong if you are attempting and achieving things that make Him look great! God will pour forth all His resources into projects that make people say not “what a great church,” but “what a great God that church or individual must serve.” When you make decisions, especially those that affect your life long-term, do you ask the question, “will this glorify God the most?” Do you glorify your God in the way that you dress, the way you talk, the recreation that you do? Do you honor God with your family life, with what you watch on TV, with the way you spend your money (Ross telling me about six of their SS teachers that were not giving at all to the church)? Do you honor God with your thoughts, your friends, your music that you listen to? Don’t just look at the sins that you don’t do and feel good about yourself. Does God get glory from your life? Will people look at your life and say, “with sacrifice like that your God must be valuable?” When that happens, you can rest assured God will empower you to finish strong. And as a side benefit your life will be more fulfilling at that point that you live solely to honor Him!
A. Closing illustration: story of Bron Clifford, p. 124, Rebuilding, Hawkins
B. Recap
C. Invitation to commitment
Additional Notes
• Is Christ Exalted, Magnified, Honored, and Glorified?
