Each time we have new members come into GraceWay we like to acknowledge them. And we
have a couple that has joined us here at GraceWay. That couple is my wife, Carrie, and me. So
congratulations. So we are officially members here at GraceWay. I just want to tell you, things
are going very well and we're grateful for what God is doing. We're going to have communion
after our worship service today. And we're grateful for just our time to be together.
If you're wondering how are things going? Well, I've been here six weeks now and things are
going really well. I'm enjoying things. I'm getting to know people. I think my favorite thing is
getting to know the stories of individuals and the things that are going on in people's lives. So I
really appreciate that. If you're wondering about the Calvary Chapel/GraceWay merger, I saw a
sheet today of 85 people that have come over from Calvary Chapel to be part of GraceWay. And
so that is all working well too. We're very grateful for that.
Alright. Let’s spend some time praying and talking to the Lord before we look at His word
today.
[PRAYER] Heavenly Father, thank you for just the privilege of being part of a church. I'm
grateful, Lord, to find a church family and to enjoy this church family. Lord, I pray for those who
have not found that, those people that we know, and they're discouraged or they're lonely. They
just need to be part of your church. We thank you, Father, for the privilege of gathering together
and we ask for your continued blessing on us now. Right now we're going to look at your work,
so we ask that you would teach us through it, grow us as we look at your word today from
Nehemiah 6. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Today we're going to look at people who instigate. They instigate conflict. Sometimes they're
angry with us and so they try to provoke us and get us baited into some kind of dialogue or
interaction that's unproductive. Or sometimes they're not even angry with us. They’re just people
of chaos, you know. They come into the office or even sometimes in the family and they just
bring conflict and tension into the home, or the office, or the neighborhood, or wherever they are.
It's as if they come into the room and they bring this cloud into the room. And when they leave,
you feel sorry for the people they're going to meet. There's this kind of challenge that people
have. Some people are just angry, and they don't like to be angry alone. So they try to bait other
people to be angry with them. It's like they’re saying, “I'm having an anger party and I want to
send out invitations to my anger party. Would you join me?” It surprises me how many people
RSVP. “Okay, I’m in. I'll do that. I'll get involved.”
Today we're going to watch Nehemiah. He's going to be in a situation where others are
instigating, these people who are angry and are creating chaos. How's he going to respond? Our
lessons today will come out of this passage as we try to model what Nehemiah does. Let's learn
from Nehemiah. How does he handle these instigators in his life? What can we do in our lives to
handle those people who come into our situations and they bait us. I titled this sermon, “Don’t
Take the Bait,” because I think that's what we need to apply in our own lives today.
Would you please stand with me. I want to read the first three verses of Nehemiah 6. Now I'm
going to teach you the whole passage of Nehemiah 6. But in honor of God's word, let's read these
first three verses together.
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 Hakkephirim 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.” That’s just a
great sentence. I’m going to stop right there. I am doing a great work and I can come down. Say
that with me. I am doing a great work and I cannot come down. We could just leave now. This is
really good. We all need this. Let's say it one more time. I am doing a great work and I cannot
come down. Oh I love that. And he finishes this verse by saying – “Why should the work stop
while I leave it and come down to you?”
You may be seated.
As I was studying this this week, I was so impressed with Nehemiah’s ability to deal with
instigators that I started drawing a diagram. This is the diagram I came up with. There's this hook
that represents the bait that we're often attracted to. We get sucked in or we take the bait and we
end up in places we don't want to be in. We've been arguing with people and we say, “Why am I
arguing with this person?” Or we get sucked in, we get angry. “Why am I getting upset about all
of this?” We're going to see that take place in the passage. But we also see three things
continually in this passage. I want you to watch for them. As we go through the passage, you're
going to see that Nehemiah is able to focus on this great work by doing three things. He has
determination, we're going to see his discernment, and we're going to see his dependence on
God. Those three things allow him to focus in on the great work that he was doing.
Let me just show you. This is the first part of my notes. I know you can't read any of the words,
but you can see the colors. So as I'm preparing my sermon this week, in red I put all of
Sanballat’s words that he's using to instigate. Then in green I put all of Nehemiah’s responses.
You're going to see these as we look through the passage. And then in yellow I put all of the
dependence on God or references to God in the passage. The other comments I made are me
forming the sermon and the title is at the top, “Don’t Take the Bait.” Because I look at this and I
say as I'm doing my study, that's going to be the title. Because I think we tend to take the bait
sometimes when we shouldn't and it distracts us from the great work.
Do you see in the middle there “the great work” of my diagram? The verse we read together was
– I am doing a great work and I cannot come down. I think we look at our own lives and the
great work that God is doing. We all have the same great work. It's discipleship. That God is
growing us as disciples of Jesus Christ. We want to have peace in the course of our days because
we're disciples of Jesus. We don't want to get baited into conflict. We want to have joy in our
lives. So not we're not baited by discouragement. We want to have love in our hearts. We're all
disciples, and to a certain extent we all have the same great work that God is doing in our hearts
and lives. But on another hand, we all have a unique work in our lives. Maybe you're raising
children. That is the great work that God has called you to. Maybe you're in a marriage and
you're intentional about your marriage. And that is the great work that you don't want to be
distracted from. Very important work in your life. Maybe you're going to school and getting an
education. That's the great work that you as a disciple of Christ are doing. So there's a uniqueness
that takes place. Nehemiah’s uniqueness is that he's building these walls. That is the great work
that God has given to him in order to do those things.
Now if we go back into the passage that we've already read, we see that the first distraction or the
first thing that happens for Nehemiah is this distraction to go down to the plain of Ono. Ono. Just
the name itself should ring a bell. You say oh no. You probably say that in your own mind. “I
don't think this is a good idea.” Maybe you ought to listen to the “oh no” part of that sentence.
But they're saying let's come down to the plain of Ono, which is about thirty miles away from
Jerusalem. Jerusalem is up high, rather cool. But the plains of Ono are nice and warm. Let's go
down there to the resort area. Let's have a talk together. Let's enjoy some time. Let's distract
Nehemiah from the work, is what they're saying.
But notice it says – But they intended to do me harm. Do you see the discernment in Nehemiah’s
words there? I need more discernment in my life to see that the thing that's baiting me out there
probably isn't the best thing for me. There's a lot of good things. There's nothing wrong with the
plain of Ono. There's nothing wrong with going and spending some time in there. But it's going
to take away from the great work that Nehemiah has been called to do. So he's going to say, “No,
I'm not going to do that. I don't want something to take me away from the great work that God
has given to me.” Just think about the bait that sometimes takes you away from the great work.
We have to fight, we have to say “no” to things in order to stay on track and to do the great work
that God has called us to do. So we have this statement of determination: I am doing a great
work and I can cannot come down.
So in this first illustration in Nehemiah’s words here we have two of our three circles. One is this
determination and the other is discernment that he has. I'm not going to come down there. I'm not
going to be distracted. There are distractions that are pulling at us from all kinds of places. It's
like they reach into our lives and grab us. And we’re going, “What am I doing doing this? I'm
getting away from the great work.”
I'm going to tell you a story that I picture in my mind that illustrates this same idea. I was invited
to go to Dubai (that's a country in the Middle East) to do a parenting seminar and to meet with
some other Christian leaders about family ministry. I took my fifteen-year-old grandson,
Hudson, with me. And so one of the days we took off and we went to the market, an old market.
And if you've been in in another country, you've probably seen these kinds of markets where
they have these booths that are ten-foot by ten-foot, and they're lined up one right after another.
So you're passing by them. In one, you might have some incense and in another one you might
have some cloth, some trinkets for tourists, you might have some food in another one. And so
there's all these different booths all along on both sides. You're trying to walk down the middle
of these, maybe there's a hundred of them. Hudson and I are walking through. I've been in this
environment before. Every one of the booths has someone they're calling out, “Come on in and
see. I have everything you want right here.” And they're calling out from their booth to try to
have you come in. But they do it in a lot of creative ways.
Now I just ignore them because I've experienced that before. And I can say no or I don't say
anything. I just keep going. But Hudson is such a polite boy. He's fifteen years old.
And so they say to him, “Oh, are you from America?”
And he says, “Yes, I'm from America.”
“Oh, what state are you from?”
“I'm from Maryland.” And pretty soon he's in a dialogue.
“Come into my shop and see.”
So I'm kind of just smiling it and all of this. At one point, I just remember one guy said, “Oh,
you're from Maryland. Here, oh, I want to shake your hand.” Takes his hand, drags him into the
booth there with him.
I just think that's what happens in our lives. We're trying to go on in life and do the great work
that God has called us to do. But there are all kinds of distractions around that pull us in these
different directions. We need determination in our lives. We need discernment to know which of
these things are the best things for me. Discernment is this ability to see the consequences of our
actions, to see what's coming down the road here. Well, we see that demonstrated Nehemiah’s
life.
It says – And they sent to me four times in this way, and I answered them in the same way. So
there's this persistence on the part of these baiting techniques, these instigators. There's
persistence there. We have to be very single-minded if we're going to do what God has called us
to do.
Well, now I want to take you starting in verse 5 to the second kind of bait that takes place. As we
enter verse five, we're going to see this bait of fear. In particular a fear of being misunderstood.
You know how it is. Sometimes you're in a family and someone says, “Well you never…” and
you're going, “Wait a minute,” and you're drawn in. All somebody has to say is “you never” and
you're drawn in because you feel like your reputation is at stake here. “Wait a minute. It’s not
‘you never.’ Maybe I didn’t do it this time. But if you look at my life, a lot of times…” and now
we're in dialogue. We've been baited into this situation. Or “you always.” Those are two favorite
ones. “You never.” “You always.” When you hear those, you ought to think, “No, that's bait. I'm
not taking it.”
Well, let's see how Nehemiah handles the bait of the fear of being misunderstood starting in
verse 5. In the same way Sanballat for the fifth time sent his servant to me with an open letter…
Open in the sense that other people can read it on its way. It reminds me of Facebook. You're
going to complain on Facebook so everybody else can see. An open letter in his hand. In it was
written, “It is reported among the nations, and Geshem also says it... (Oh, wow, yeah. So I've
got other people that agree with me. So classic.) …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.”
Do you see that fear of being misunderstood, this baiting that he's trying to draw Nehemiah into
a discussion or to come down to the plain of Ono and have this dialogue? That bait is out there
trying to grab us. These instigators have these ways of saying things. “Dad wouldn't do it that
way.” “Well…” And so we're often running then in some trouble.
Listen to these words. I really like these words. I had to write these down and put these
somewhere on my desk. This is what Nehemiah says – “No such things as you say have been
done, for you are inventing them out of your own mind.” And that's it! I'm done. I'm not getting
involved in this discussion. Notice, that's the determination.
Verse 9 starts this way – For they all wanted to frighten us. That's the discernment. He realized
what they're trying to do is just to frighten us into defending ourselves or rationalizing or
justifying to take the bait. And then it says – to frighten us, thinking, “Their hands will drop from
the work, and it will not be done.” I have a great work God is calling me to do. I'm not going to
get baited into the office politics. I'm not going to get baited into the dialogue that's going on and
the conflict these people are trying to instigate.
Notice the end of verse 9. But now, O God, strengthen my hands. He just throws that little prayer
in there. He doesn't say, well, I went away into my prayer closet and… He just throws it right
into the midst of that. Seven-word prayer that he throws up to the Lord. It’s only four words in
Hebrew that he throws up to the Lord. And he says, “Lord, strengthen my hands.” What a great
prayer that we could pray every day. This is one of those kind of in-process prayers. Not waiting
for our time at the end of the day where we kind of get right with the Lord or morning time. This
is like “in life, Lord, I'm starting to get distracted. The bait’s coming on here. Lord, strengthen
my hands”. And that's what Nehemiah prays. This is the dependence on God part of my diagram.
The dependence on God that he has. O God, strengthen my hands.
So the second way of instigating is to take the bait of fear for being misunderstood. There's a lot
of fears that we have. Fears to be liked, fears to fit into the group, fears of losing something that
we have. And they often distract us so much that we lose our focus on the great thing that God
has for us.
You know, in this verse where it says the great thing. The word great… And you can write this
down in verse 3. Just circle the word great and draw a line across and write gadol. That's the
Hebrew word gadol. God has given us a great thing. This is a word great used often in the Bible.
But the first time it's used as in Genesis 1 where God says… Well, first He created light. Then
He created the atmosphere. Then He created land and sea in day three. And day four it says He
created two great lights so that we would know the difference between day and night. The
greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night. The two great lights are the sun
and the moon. Which reminds me every time I see that sun and I enjoy that sun, “oh, this is a
great day, a nice sunny day,” or I look and I see that full moon, I can say, “Those are the great
lights.” They can remind me in my own life, God has given me a great work. I need to focus on
the great work and not go down, not be taken down, dragged down by others who want to get me
into trouble. I think that's what we're seeing in this passage is all three of those. The
determination of Nehemiah, we're seeing the dependence of Nehemiah, and the discernment of
Nehemiah. All three of those together. I think that's what we're going to take away from this as
we walk away from this passage in this section.
But let's go to verse 10. Because now we're going to see another kind of bait that's presented.
Watch how he does because all three of those things are going to be presented now in the next
part of the passage. Verse 10 says this: Now when I went into the house of Shemaiah the son of
Delaiah, son of Mehetabel, who was confined to his home, he said (now this is going to be one of
those spiritual deceptions), “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.” This is a deception that's taking place here to try to bait him.
I think of all of the deceptions…I don’t know about deceptions…all the distractions that are out
there. Someone says read my book, follow my email list, like me on Facebook, come to my
webinar, come to my conference. Not all those are bad, of course, but sometimes we need to say,
“That's a good thing, but it's not for me.” And there's other times when we just need to say, “That
is just plain wrong. That is deception at its worst.” And sometimes we're dragged into those
things that we need to say, “Nope. I've got a great work. God has a great work for me. I'm
focusing in on this great work.” And so these guys drag him into this idea.
But notice what he says in verse 11. But I said (and this is his determination again), “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.” He’s determined. Verse 12. Notice his discernment. 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. So he has the spiritual perception to
realize what's going on in the situation.
I was a part of starting Calvary Chapel Mercer County many years ago. It was a great
experience. People started coming to church right away. The church grew greatly, quickly. One
man came to me and he said, “I have a word from the Lord for you.” Now I don't believe that
that is a spiritual gift that is still used today. But when someone says they have a message for me,
whether it sounds spiritual or not, I want to listen. Because God speaks to me through other
people. Sometimes He speaks to me through kids. Sometimes He speaks to me through my wife.
I need to listen to her because God speaks to me through her. And so this man said, “I have a
word from the Lord.”
I said, “Okay, well tell me what it is.”
And he said, “I believe there's someone in your inner circle of this church that’s starting who's
going to betray you.”
I said, “Okay, thank you.” And I went away. I started thinking, “I wonder if it's that guy. Hmm. I
wonder if it’s that guy. I wonder if it’s her.” And I start to become paranoid about what's going
on in this situation.
So I mentioned this to Joe Focht over at Calvary Chapel Philadelphia. I said, “What do you do
with these kinds of things?” And he said, “First of all, you always need to be ready for someone
to betray you. You just need to live your life in a godly way so that you're ready for something,
should that terrible thing happen. But,” he said, “God is not the author of fear. So if you're just
becoming fearful about this, you probably should ignore it. It's probably not something from the
Lord.” Oh, I value that so much. And nobody ended up betraying me. Even to this day, those
people I still love them. They don't betray me. I think it's great.
But it just illustrates this idea. Here, I've got a spiritual idea. Let's go lock ourselves in the
temple, then you won't get killed. And Nehemiah’s response is, “No way. I'm not doing that. I'm
not getting involved in that.” Notice we have determination, we have discernment, and notice he
jumps right in in verse 14 to the dependence on God again. Just a quick prayer.
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. Wow. Those
three things demonstrated here, just a beautiful picture of how we can handle the intimidation or
the instigation that people bring into our lives. Let's not get sucked in.
So notice verse 15. This is the victory verse. So the wall was finished on the twenty-fifth day of
the month Elul, in fifty-two days. Congratulations, everybody. We did it. Fifty-two days we
finished the wall.
Now when you're serving the Lord and you're doing the great work that God has for you, then
you are different than everybody else. You're at peace in the office and you're not getting into all
the chaos that's going on. Or you have joy in your life, even though other people are complaining
and arguing and the whole political situation of the office is decreasing. Or in your home, you
have this sense of mission and you're going forward, even though there's struggles and
frustrations going in your family. Or extended family often are the ones who are bringing the
chaos into your life. But you're just trusting the Lord in the midst of that and you're serving the
Lord for the great work, the great work that God has for you. When you do that, other people are
watching, and they see those things.
Let's see the other people that are watching in the passage. He says in verse 16 – And when all
our enemies heard of it, all the nations around us were afraid and fell greatly in their own
esteem. That's an interesting statement – they fell greatly in their own esteem. What that means
is, they're not as big as they thought they were. They're not as powerful as they thought they
could be. There's something bigger than them that allows this person to live at peace in the midst
of chaos. There's this other person who can be loving even when other people are being hateful.
That's this great, great work that God has called us to do. So their own esteem of themselves fell
because they recognized God is doing something better. It says – for they perceived that this
work had been accomplished with the help of our God. Wow.
Moreover, in those days the nobles of Judah sent many letters to Tobiah, and Tobiah's letters
came to them. So now we’ve got this inner office politics going on where people are back and
forth and forming allegiances and so on. For many in Judah were bound by oath to him, because
he was the son-in-law of Shecaniah the son of Arah: and his son Jehohanan had taken the
daughter of Meshullam the son of Berechiah as his wife. Sounds to me like a lot of family stuff
going on in there. We’ve got allegiance here. You know how it is sometimes in a family,
extended family. There’s some people that generate tension and conflict. I’m not going to be part
of that is what Nehemiah is saying. I’m not going to get sucked into that.
Let’s just finish the passage. I’ll go back to the diagram. He says in verse 19 – Also they spoke of
his good deeds in my presence and reported my words to him. And Tobiah sent letters to make
me afraid. So there's this instigating that continues to go on in Nehemiah’s life. But he's not
going to get sucked in. He's not going to take the bait.
So I go back to this verse, I think this is the key verse in our passage today. Don't take the bait.
I'm doing a great work and I cannot come down. I'm going to focus on the great work that God
has given to me. In order to do that, I need determination, I need discernment in my life, I need
dependence on God. I can't do this by myself. Lord, I need to allow you to work in my heart to
allow me to be at peace in the midst of the struggles that are going on right now in my life.
Maybe you're here today and you're just kind of getting introduced to discipleship and Jesus
Christ. What does it mean to follow Christ? Maybe you're coming to this place in your life where
you're saying, “Oh, wow, I think I'm interested in this thing they're talking about” or in this
church or in Christ or something. I just want to tell you what your next step is. Your next step is
to trust Jesus Christ as your personal Savior. You ask Him to come into your life, to run your
life. We call it becoming a Christian, being born again, getting converted, whatever you want to
say. But there's a sense of allowing Christ to take over your life.
Which reminds me about Jesus. When He was here on earth, He had a mission. He talked about
His work. He said to His disciples, “I'm here to do the work that my Father has given to me.” He
had a focus in His life of where He was going. And that focus was the cross. Because Jesus
Christ died on the cross for us. That was His great work that He did. And that's why when He
was on the cross, hung on the cross, He cried out in a loud voice, “It is finished,” because He had
finished the work of dying on the cross for our sins. That is so encouraging. Because when we
rely on the finished work of Jesus Christ, we don't have to rely on ourselves. We don't have to
think we're going to impress God with our good works. We rely on the works of Jesus Christ. So
when you accept Christ into your life, when you trust Him as your personal Savior, you're
making that statement before the Lord that says, “I want to serve you, I want to be a disciple of
Christ.” And when you do, then He allows you to see what that great work is that He wants to do
in your life.
Let's pray together.
[PRAYER] Heavenly Father, I thank you for your work in our hearts. Lord, I ask that you'd
continue that work. When we get distracted, cause us to come back to you and to focus on that
great work you've given to us. Lord, we trust you to do that in our lives now. In Jesus’ name,
amen.
