The Credibility Factor
Nehemiah 5:6-5:19
Around 586 BC Nebuchadnezzar, king of the Babylonians, came into Jerusalem, came into Israel and destroyed the temple and destroyed the walls and took a bunch of guys prisoner, to put an end to Israel as a super power.
Fifty years later, things had changed in the world and the Babylonians were no longer the super power, the Persians were. King Cyrus, looked around and there were all these foreigners that the Babylonians had brought in.
Cyrus declared an edict to release the prisoners and about 50,000 Jewish people left Babylon and went back to Israel to try to rejuvenate that nation and rejuvenate that economy.
If you read the book of Ezra, you can read about that first group that went back under a man named Zerubbabel. And they rebuilt the temple, sort of—it never had the glory of Solomon’s temple. The economy got a little better, but then faltered because there was no wall around the capital city. The nation of Israel was in incredible debt to all the surrounding nations and things were really bad.
Time goes by, and the new King Artaxerxes continued to send people home.
Well, he just happened to have an official that worked with him, he was referred to as a cupbearer, the cupbearer to the king, who was Jewish. And his name was Nehemiah.
The way the story begins is… Nehemiah is with King Artaxerxes. Nehemiah’s brother, who lived in Jerusalem, visited Nehemiah. Nehemiah asked his brother, “How are things going in Jerusalem?”
And so his brother says, “Nehemiah, I don’t know how to tell you this, it’s worse than ever. The gates are burnt, there are no walls, things are disorganized, the economy is terrible, most of the citizens are enslaved outsiders and foreigners, they’ve had to leverage their houses, their businesses, their crops. They’ve even had to use their wives and children as collateral for all the loans they’ve taken out. Things are absolutely chaotic.”
When Nehemiah gets this news, it breaks his heart and he begins to weep. And he begins to pray that God would give him favor in the eyes of King Artaxerxes and King Artaxerxes would allow him to leave his responsibilities in the capital city of Persia and go to Jerusalem and do something for his people. It’s an incredible prayer.
So one day when the King is in a good mood, Nehemiah goes to the king and says, “King Artaxerxes, here’s the news I’ve received. It’s broken my heart. Would you give me an extended leave of absence to go to Jerusalem and see if I can bring some order to the chaos of my homeland?”
King Artaxerxes says, “Yes, and I’m actually going to make you the governor of that province. And I’m going to give you letters to every single king or leader between here and there to support you and to help you and to give you anything you need in order to make your journey successful, as long as you’ll promise me that eventually you’ll come back and serve me.”
So, Nehemiah spends several weeks putting together this large entourage of people and materials and wealth that the king gave him. All along the way, he collected lumber, everything he would need to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, and eventually he arrives at the city of Jerusalem.
And when he does, the Jewish people there assumed here comes another governor that’s just going to add more taxes and take more from us as all the previous governors have in the past.
BUT NEHEMIAH DIDN’T DO THAT. He settled into the city, established a residence, and then night after night he would go out and survey the city and survey the broken-down walls. Then Nehemiah gathers the people together and cast this vision that we’re going to rebuild the walls, we’re going to re-establish our credibility with the surrounding nations. And the people said, “Let’s do this.”
As they begin their work, Nehemiah realizes that the biggest impediment, the thing that’s going to hold them back more than anything else is DEBT!!!
The leaders of the households, were so indebted to the surrounding rich people and the surrounding nations and the surrounding merchants that they were so afraid that if they missed a single payment, they were going to lose their land… going to lose their farms… could lose their daughters… could lose their sons. They could even lose their wives. And he realized, “If I’m going to get their undivided attention to get this wall built, I’ve got to do something about our economy.”
So, Nehemiah dips into his own personal resources and the money that the king had given him to get the job done. He goes around and he finds out who owes who what and he begins to pay the debts of the people personally so they can get their homes back in their names, their land back in their names. They can begin to relax a little bit and enjoy the fruits of their own labors without feeling like at any point somebody is going to come in and take what belongs to them. Their children wouldn’t be threatened anymore; their families wouldn’t be threatened.
Nehemiah spent an enormous amount of personal wealth to buy the people out of slavery. Then, in exchange he said, “You’ve got to work on the wall. You’ve got to harvest your crops. But any spare time you have, it’s all hands on deck. We’re going to get this wall built.”
And things began to improve under Nehemiah’s leadership. And then… Nehemiah discovers something that makes him so mad he can hardly see straight.
Just as things were beginning to go well, they’re beginning to work on the wall, everybody had an assignment—he discovers that the wealthy Jews in Jerusalem and the surrounding area saw this as a business opportunity for themselves.
And they began to work to trick some of these people back into debt—to re-leverage their property, re-leverage their houses. And so the rich Jewish people, began to take advantage of the situation and put the people of the city back into debt… to them!
And Nehemiah finds out. And that’s where the story picks up: Nehemiah 5:6.
6 When I heard their outcry and these charges, I was very angry.
Can you imagine how betrayed he must have felt?
7 I pondered them in my mind and then accused the nobles and officials. I told them, “You are charging your own people interest!”
What? I mean in the Old Testament when God set up the nation of Israel, he said, “You are to be a nation that loans; you are not to be a nation that borrows. And you should not charge your own people interest. If you want to charge interest, charge the Gentiles interest, don’t charge your own people interest.”
7 So I called together a large meeting to deal with them
8 and said: “As far as possible, we [talking about himself and his group that came from Persia] have bought back our fellow Jews who were sold to the Gentiles.
In other words, I spent my own money to free them up so they could work on the wall and now you are selling your own people, only for them to be sold back to you.
Listen to their response…
8 They kept quiet, because they could find nothing to say.
And they’re speechless... DEFENSELESS
9 So I continued, “What you are doing is not right.
You know in your hearts you are taking unfair advantage of people who aren’t as educated as you. You’re taking unfair advantage of people who aren’t as wealthy as you. You’re taking unfair advantage of people who are part of you.
9 Shouldn’t you walk in the fear of our God to avoid the reproach of our Gentile enemies?
Then he admitted…
10 I and my brothers and my men are also lending the people money and grain. But let us stop charging interest!
In other words, If people need something loan it to them, give it to them, but quit trying to enrich yourself off the disadvantaged people around us.
11 Give back to them immediately their fields, vineyards, olive groves and houses, and also the interest you are charging them—one percent of the money, grain, new wine and olive oil.”
They were charging basically the equivalent of credit card annual interest on all this stuff.
Here’s how they responded.
12 “We will give it back,” they said. “And we will not demand anything more from them. We will do as you say.”
And Nehemiah looks at them and says, I’m not buying it. Look what he did.
12 Then I summoned the priests and made the nobles and officials take an oath to do what they had promised.
Nehemiah is thinking… That was too easy. This must be a trick.
He told them… I don’t trust you. Then, he said this:
13 I also shook out the folds of my robe. [This is sort of an ancient curse.] and said, “In this way may God shake out of their houses and possessions anyone who does not keep this promise. So may such a person be shaken out and emptied!”
13 At this the whole assembly said, “Amen,” and praised the LORD. And the people did as they had promised.
Now, you hear a story like that and you try and picture like the President or somebody facing down business leaders, or people in the banking industry, or some group that you think has taken unfair advantage of poor people or uneducated people, or whatever it is. It’s just hard to imagine a group of bankers saying, Yes, you’re right. We’re going to pay back everything we took through foreclosure… and we’re going to pay back the interest too.
((Remind you of anyone in the NT?))
Alright, time to wake up for a couple of minutes and get this… the point of the sermon
What would make these men, business men, greedy business men who had tapped into a goldmine have such a change of heart that they were willing to make a change like this?
They were not doing anything illegal, so they were not afraid of prosecution.
They did not fear Nehemiah or Atrexerxes… so why the change?
That is what I am trying to tell you… what can cause people to make dramatic, life-altering changes in their life???
CREDIBILITY
cred•i•bil•i•ty
noun
the quality of being believable or worthy of trust
Credibility is walking the walk… being genuine… the real Mc Coy… having integrity… the same in the dark as in the light…
The governors who came before Nehemiah had no credibility or integrity… they could not be trusted… the just wanted to feather their own nest at the expense of others
Nehemiah had something beyond the authority that went with being a governor. He had something that had taken him over time, actually, and we learn later on about twelve years to fully earn. He had credibility
Nehemiah was cut from different cloth… he bucked the norm
Listen to what Nehemiah told the rich Jews who were fleecing the flock…
14 Moreover, from the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when I was appointed to be their governor in the land of Judah, until his thirty-second year—twelve years—neither I nor my brothers ate the food allotted to the governor.
Now, what that means is this—as the governor of Judea, as the governor of this area, he was entitled to a percentage of all the grain, all the crops, all the land, all the wealth. In other words, he had the opportunity to come in as the governor and say, I’m going to impose on you the governor’s tax; you have to give me a percentage of everything. After all, I’m the governor.
Nehemiah said, When I showed up, I decided not to take anything I was entitled to.
15 But the earlier governors—those preceding me—placed a heavy burden on the people and took forty shekels of silver from them in addition to food and wine. Their assistants also lorded it over the people.
In other words, the previous governors were surrounded by these cronies, who just went out and leveraged their positions and authority for their own benefit.
15 But out of reverence for God I did not act like that.
16 Instead, I devoted myself to the work on this wall.
This is so huge. In other words, he said, I came here to get this wall built, so that’s what I focused on. I came here to get this job done; that’s what I focused on.
16 All my men were assembled there for the work; we did not acquire any land.
This is huge as well. The way you enriched yourself in that ancient culture is much like today, but even more so then. Whoever owned the land basically owned the resources. And as a wealthy person coming into a very depressed economy, there were lots of good land deals. And he told his guys, “We do not purchase land. We are not going to leverage our power and wealth to become wealthier and more powerful. We are not going to purchase any land.”
He goes on.
17 Furthermore, a hundred and fifty Jews and officials ate at my table, as well as those who came to us from the surrounding nations. 18 Each day one ox, six choice sheep and some poultry were prepared for me, and every ten days an abundant supply of wine of all kinds. In spite of all this, I never demanded the food allotted to the governor, because the demands were heavy on these people.
So, when Nehemiah gathered the wealthy and the powerful, they were eyeball to eyeball with a guy who had not only obeyed the law, but had gone above and beyond.
When he stepped up and demanded of the rich and powerful that they do what was best for the nation, they were shamed into doing it because they were looking at a guy whose words had matched his actions at the deepest, deepest level to a level where it had actually cost him financially.
Nehemiah had something that went beyond the authority of his position. Nehemiah had what we refer to as moral authority.
Moral authority: it’s simply the credibility you earn by walking your talk.
Now, the phrase “moral authority” isn’t in the Bible, but there is a biblical phrase that communicates the same thing. In the Bible, we find this phrase: beyond reproach. Beyond reproach. That is, a person, that as we look deep into his life, we find there is extraordinary consistency between what he says, what he claims to believe, what he claims to be here for, what he actually says, and what he is actually all about.
It’s the credibility you earn when people look at you and say, I may not believe what he believes, but there is no doubt in my mind that he believes what he says he believes.
There is no doubt in my mind that there is consistency between the way he or she acts and he or she views the world.
He or she is sincere. He or she speaks the truth, and he or she is absolutely committed to what they say. There is no hidden motive, no hidden agenda, there is no duplicity, and there is no separation between what they say and what they do.
And when you are eyeball to eyeball, when you are face to face with somebody who has earned and has moral authority it is a powerful, powerful thing. Because their moral authority is more convincing than any position of authority that someone might grant them.
I would love to know that my life has such moral authority, that people will just know that there is no duplicity in me… no hidden agenda… no separation between what I’m asking them to do and what I would do myself.
Based on “The Credibility Factor” by Andy Stanley
