Intro: Variation on a skit from The Ideas Library: Drama, Skits, and Sketches 3 (Working Parts, 97-99)
The last few weeks we have been looking at opposition that we face in our lives. We talked about verbal ridicule and discouragement two weeks ago and growing opposition last week. Both weeks we touched upon the importance of having a support group. This was a major reason that the Israelites were able to continue their work on rebuilding the wall both when they were facing the verbal ridicule and when the opposition increased and got worse.
What I would like to focus on tonight is when we face opposition that comes from within our support group. Just like in the skit, where a car is supposed to be a help to us, getting us from place to place, sometimes things go wrong and it suddenly isn’t a help and support but instead, becomes a frustration and discouragement. This is what can happen in our support groups from time to time. Instead of being a help, sometimes certain parts, in a sense, break or go bad, and they become an opposition that we didn’t expect.
This is exactly what happened with the Israelites as they continued building the walls of Jerusalem. In Nehemiah 5:1-13, it tells us about the opposition that came from within their support group that threatened the building of the wall once again.
***Read Nehemiah 5:1-13***
Right away in chapter 5 we see that there are a number of issues that the Israelites are facing. In verse 3, there is mention of a famine. Obviously there had been a lack of rain and a failure with crops that led to lower amounts of food than normal. In verse 4, the people are complaining about being able to pay their taxes to the king. As these are both major issues that can cause a lot of stress and frustration, neither is the main issue in these verses. Notice verse one does not say, “The men and their wives raised a cry of protest against” the king and his taxes or against God and the lack of rain. Instead it says that, “The men and their wives raised a cry of protest against their fellow Jews.”
What was happening here was a case of the rich Jews exploiting the poor Jews. In other words, the rich were getting richer and the poor were getting poorer. Here is the sequence of events that would have likely happened in Jerusalem. Due to the fact of the drought and famine, there was a shortage of food therefore likely driving up prices due to the demand but also leaving farming families crippled due to the fact that they had little food to sell. These problems, along with the issue of taxation from the king, lead these poorer families to mortgage their fields and take out a loan from the richer Jews in order to buy food. When the families then ran into difficulty paying the loan back with interest, their fields and land was taken from them. The families, in turn, then had to sell their sons and/or daughters into slavery just to have money to live and survive. Culturally, this was a very normal process that happened often in nations all over the world.
The problem though, was not in the process itself, but instead in commands that God had given the people earlier. Three times in the Bible, Exodus 22:25, Leviticus 25:36, and Deuteronomy 23:19, the Israelites were told not to charge a fellow Jew, a brother, interest to gain a profit. They were not supposed to take advantage of them. Instead, they were supposed to care for the poor among them.
Even though the practice was normal for other countries, God exclaimed to His people, “I want you to be different!” He didn’t want the people treating one another with greed and selfish reasons on their hearts but rather love, support, and encouragement.
This claim stands for us today. As most of us can not relate with this situation of loans, and losing land, and selling our children to slavery, we can relate to the issue of how to treat people based on God’s Word. In Matthew 22:39, Jesus says the second greatest commandment is to “Love our neighbors.” God exclaims, “I don’t care what the world says are ok and not ok ways to treat someone. I want you to different; I want you to love one another.” It is when people ignore God’s Word and begin to live in greed and selfishness just like the Israelites did, that we face opposition from within our support groups.
One of the biggest forms of opposition that comes from within our support groups is verbal attacks on one another. The book of James claims that the tongue is like a fire that can do a lot of damage. All too often, we have a tendency to cut one another down and make fun of one another. Most of the time, we claim that it is just harmless joking around but I think there are more times where people go away feeling hurt instead of laughing. I know that we do it because we are uncomfortable with a situation so we make fun of someone else to shift the focus but it is a selfish act that causes more harm than harmless laughter.
Another form of internal opposition that happens often is disrespectful actions. As we hang out down stairs playing gaga or other games, as we are in the sanctuary, or as we sit in small groups, what are our actions communicating to each other? We all talk over one another instead of listening to someone the way that we want to be listened to. We goof off and fool around, saying to whoever is speaking, “I don’t care about you or what you are saying!” We gloat or brag about beating someone in a game or just bluntly ignore someone. These acts do not build support or a safe place for one another but instead is greedy and selfish as we fight for attention.
One other form of internal opposition that I see regularly is that of our attitudes. All too often we just write someone off as a support or friend before we even get to know them. We just claim they are weird, too young or old, or whatever. This hurts both parties as we ourselves possibly miss out on a great relationship and communicates to the other person they have no worth. This is really just a judgmental and prideful attitude that does not build support but instead tears it down.
So what do we do about this? Just like with the car, the pieces need to be fixed and worked on before it can help us again. This is the case with our support groups as well when they are “broken” Let me quickly explore four things from our text to help us.
First, we need to start take God’s call to love one another seriously! In verse 6, Nehemiah says he got angry about the fact that the people were treating each other wrong. This is the attitude that we need to take!
Second, we need to take time to think and pray about these situations of opposition. We need to make sure that our anger is justified and that we don’t respond inappropriately out of anger.
Third, we need to confront these situations out of love. We can’t flip out at someone or just ignore the problem. We should sit down and talk it through and challenge one another to this calling to love one another.
And fourth, we need to respond out of respect and love as well. No one here likes to get in trouble, be yelled at, or corrected most of the time but we need to put ourselves in the other person’s shoes, taking the time to understand where they are coming from. This doesn’t necessarily mean we have to agree or be best friends with the person after but we should at least listen, respect, and love the other person. Too often we start the whole process of selfishness, disrespect and pride over again by just ignoring the challenge and not even listening.
We are challenged to be different than the world around us by our words, actions, and attitude to one another. People should walk into this youth group and see and hear a difference than what they see and hear at school or home. We need to learn how to handle these situations with love and respect and sometimes, just like a car, we need to not be afraid to get a little dirty and fix some things that are broken. “And the second commandment is like the first, love your neighbor as yourself.”
