A Holy Nation

Introduction

We’ve reached the end of Nehemiah. I’ve really enjoyed getting to know this man. Nehemiah didn’t waste his life chasing silly things. He didn’t hide from problems or sit at home hoping someone would fix them. No, he had strong convictions that inspired mighty courage to do great things for God. God used him to transform a nation and to create the community into which Jesus was born 400 years later.

Our theme this year is “Your Next Step.” Nehemiah embodies this theme. You don’t want to stagnate. You want to live a life that matters. You want to make an eternal impact and hear the Lord say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

Be like Nehemiah. Grow a passion for God’s eternal glory. See the needs around you and how you can make a difference. Then stretch yourself to take an uncomfortable step of faith. Expand your ministry, expand your impact. We need more Nehemiahs!

This morning, we get to look at one more example of Nehemiah’s godly ambition. We started Nehemiah 13 two weeks ago. Remember that Nehemiah governed Judah for 12 years. Then King Artaxerxes called him back to Susa. Sadly, while Nehemiah was away, Israel spiraled. When he returned for his 2^nd term, he found a mess. In Nehemiah 13 he confronts 5 spiritual crises. Today, we’ll cover the final 2 crises.

As we do, remember the 3 levels of application that I highlighted last time. First, don’t commit these 5 sins. Instead, imitate Nehemiah’s passion for holiness and obedience. But at a 2^nd level, this chapter warns us that past spiritual successes don’t guarantee future ones. Ezra and Nehemiah had already fixed these issues. But past spiritual successes don’t guarantee future ones. And your spiritual health never stands still. You’re either going forward or backwards. Make sure you are going forward.

Third, since Nehemiah 13 is the very last moment in the OT before the 400 silent years and the story of Jesus, Israel’s continued failure reinforces the OT groans for Messiah to come. Israel needed a new heart. They needed their Messiah. So do you. Look to Jesus as your only hope for true salvation and godliness.

Praise the Lord that there is hope for salvation and godliness in Christ. You don’t have to live in defeat, constantly taking one step forward and two steps back. No, Romans 8:37 says, “We overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.” You can make spiritual progress. And someday, you will enjoy the beautiful, holy presence of God in heaven for all eternity. That’s where I want you to focus today. Our text will call us to flee from sin. But remember we never just flee from sin; we also run toward the beauty of God’s presence. The final challenge from Nehemiah is, Draw near to God with clean hands and a pure heart. To do this you must…

I.  Honor the Lord’s Day (vv. 15–22).

A few Sunday nights ago, I talked about the fact American Christianity has largely abandoned any concept of Sabbath rest. We know we should probably go to church, but otherwise Sunday is another day to work, play, and do my own thing. We struggle to devote a day to rest and worship.

So did Israel. Remember that Israel made a covenant with God to honor the Sabbath just a few years prior (10:31). That’s great! But past spiritual successes don’t guarantee future ones.

The Problem (vv. 15–16): Rather when Nehemiah returned for his 2^nd term as governor, he toured of the Judean countryside. He soon noticed Israelite farmers treading wine and transporting their wine, grains, and other crops to market on the Sabbath. They were working, not resting.

But before you condemn them, understand that none of their neighbors had anything like a Sabbath rest. That’s not because they spent Sundays at the beach. No, people who are living hand to mouth will take any chance they get to make a dollar. Honoring the Sabbath took tremendous faith.

This is especially when your livelihood depends on the weather. I remember times on the farm as a child when it rained all week, and we were behind getting the crops planted. It’s hard to stay off the tractor when you finally get a dry, sunny day, but of course it’s Sunday.

And many Israelites stopped resisting. They stopped trusting the Lord, and they stole the Lord’s day to solve their own problems.

They also gave up their commitment not to buy from foreign markets on the Sabbath. Israel needed fish, and the people of Tyre were great sailors, and they had fish. But they didn’t care about the Sabbath. When they set up their fish market on the Sabbath, the Israelites stopped resisting. They did business rather than devoting the day to God.

The Warning (vv. 17–18): If we have learned anything about our guy Nehemiah, it’s that he won’t ignore this. He “reprimanded the nobles.” Obviously, everyone was at fault, but the Law was Israel’s constitution. The nobles were responsible to enforce it.

That seems strange to us. But it was essential because the Israelites did not have the Holy Spirit like we do. They didn’t have the same new heart or know the same grace. They needed the government to enforce the Sabbath like any other law.

But they didn’t. As a result, vv. 17, 18 both lament that the Sabbath had been “profaned.” That simply means they had taken something sacred, something holy, something that belonged to God, and they had made it common or ordinary. Israel turned God’s holy day, into an ordinary day.

We’ll get to the idea of holy days later but consider the concept of profaning holy things. 1 Peter 2 says Christians are a holy nation. 1 Corinthians 6 says the Christian’s body is a temple of the Spirit. Christ bought us with his blood. So, Christian, understand that you are not like everyone else. You are not ordinary. God has called you be holy. So be sure to act like it. Christ’s redemption must shape all of life—where you go, how you dress, what you do, etc. Do not profane what God has set aside as holy.

Then Nehemiah also rebukes the nobles for forgetting how God’s past judgment for profaning the Sabbath. He’s probably thinking of Jeremiah 17. Notice the choices he set before them. “‘If you listen attentively to Me,’ declares the Lord, ‘to bring no load in through the gates of this city on the sabbath day, but to keep the sabbath day holy by doing no work on it, then there will come in through the gates of this city kings and princes sitting on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they and their princes, the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and this city will be inhabited forever…But if you do not listen to Me to keep the sabbath day holy by not carrying a load and coming in through the gates of Jerusalem on the sabbath day, then I will kindle a fire in its gates and it will devour the palaces of Jerusalem and not be quenched’” (Jer 17:24–27). Israel chose the latter, and Nebuchadnezzar burned Jerusalem. Nehemiah did not want it to happen again. This must stop! Israel must draw near to God in holiness.

The Response (vv. 19–22): So, Nehemiah took aggressive action. He locked the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath to shut down the markets. But the sellers didn’t take the hint. Some of them camped outside the wall, grasping for a crack in Nehemiah’s resolve. Maybe they hoped people would come outside the wall to buy. Nehemiah didn’t budge. He threatened them with military force. That got their attention! They left.

During election cycles, we often hear Christians argue that we shouldn’t legislate morality. They claim it must come from the heart. And some Christian parents refuse to legislate morality with their kids. They instead wait for righteousness to spring from their children’s hearts.

They’re going to be waiting a while. We’re sinners. We need accountability. We need correction. The Bible teaches that authority and correction are graces God uses to protect us and to produce righteousness. Righteous laws produce righteous convictions. There’s a time to shut the gate, take the device, and snatch the sinner from the flame. That’s what Nehemiah did.

The Significance: He did it because the Sabbath was the Lord’s. God set it aside for rest and worship. I want to be clear that we are not under the Law of Moses. Colossians 2:16–17 say we are not required to observe the Sabbath.

However, Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:2 both say that the church gathers on Sunday, clearly because that’s the day Jesus rose from the dead. We are not bound to the Sabbath, but our Sundays are Sabbath-like.

As well, in Revelation 1:10, John calls Sunday “the Lord’s Day.” I read several quotes a few Sunday nights ago from early church fathers that demonstrate this was not an isolated statement. The early church considered Sunday to be the Lord’s Day. It’s not an ordinary day.

Sadly, American Christianity is blindly following our culture and losing all sense of the Lord’s Day. We cram our Sundays with all sorts of travel, play, work, and other things, oftentimes to the point that all those other things take priority over the church and truly refreshing rest.

Jesus said special circumstances come up (e.g., donkey in a ditch). But build your weekly schedule with the assumption that Sunday is the Lord’s Day. It’s for worship and rest. We go to church on Sunday, and the bar is very high for what will keep us away. Our Sundays are sacred. They belong to the Lord.

Then leave room for spiritually refreshing rest. That’s different from laziness and gluttony. I doubt watching 6 hours of TV and eating Doritos is going to leave you full of the Spirit. Some of that is fine, but meditate, read a good book, take a walk, spend time with family. Recharge to serve Christ.

I know you have stuff to do. But you aren’t God. You can’t fix everything, and you don’t have endless strength. But God does. Humble yourself. Obey God’s will. Trust him enough to honor the Lord’s Day. Nehemiah’s final challenge is…

II.  Protect your purity (vv. 23–31).

The Problem (vv. 23–24, 28): Remember that our 2^nd level of application is that past spiritual successes don’t guarantee future ones. We easily slide into old sin patterns, and that’s exactly what happened here.

Specifically, when Ezra led the 2^nd return over 25 years before our text, the primary problem he had to confront was mixed marriages. Ezra 9–10 are all about how he confronted the problem.

Then Malachi confronted the problem again. He says, “Judah has dealt treacherously, and an abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah has profaned the sanctuary of the Lord which He loves and has married the daughter of a foreign god” (Mal 2:11). Some had even divorced their Israelite wives to marry foreigners.

Malachi fixed it, right? Wrong! As Nehemiah moved among the people, he noticed many of the children didn’t speak Hebrew. Instead, they spoke the languages of Israel’s enemies. That’s a problem because it’s really hard to train a new generation of godly people when they can’t even follow the temple liturgy. This is a major threat to Israel’s godliness.

It was so widespread that 28 says the high priest’s grandson was even married to Sanballat’s daughter. Nehemiah couldn’t believe it. Sanballat tried to kill him. He planned a violent invasion to stop Israel from building the wall. Now an heir to the priesthood had married Sanballat’s daughter. Nehemiah was appalled. It’s another warning to us of how persistent and deceptive sin truly is.

The Warning (vv. 26–27): So, Nehemiah uses the tragedy of King Solomon to warn the people. If you are ever tempted to marry an unbeliever, or your kids are pushing to date one, turn to v. 26. Everyone wants to think their faith can’t fail. “He or she won’t cause me to compromise. I’m strong.”

But Nehemiah says, “Among the many nations…” Solomon enjoyed God’s greatest blessing. “Nevertheless the foreign women caused even him to sin.” By the end of his life, Solomon worshiped pagan gods and resisted God’s purpose. As a result, God divided Israel into two nations, a civil war ensued, and Israel was never the same.

Nehemiah’s point is that if Solomon couldn’t stand, what makes you think that you will. Bad company consistently corrupts good manners. If you are single, commit to never travel that road. Don’t even play with the temptation by dating someone who is ungodly (matters more than a profession). Stay away for the good of your soul and for the souls of your future children. Even if you stand, parenting with an unbeliever seriously raises the chances that your children will reject Christ and end up in hell.

By extension, be careful with all your friendships. Bad company corrupts good manners. Lean into friends who point you to Christ and who will say hard things when you need it. Don’t be so arrogant and foolish as to think you can play with a beehive and not get stung.

The Response (vv. 25, 28): Nehemiah understood the danger, and he took aggressive action to solve it. Verse 25 is shocking, right? Imagine if we exercised church discipline by cursing people and pulling out their hair. It’s pretty intense.

Don’t worry. We aren’t planning to start that. Rather, Nehemiah is acting as an agent of the state. If you think of this in the realm of legal justice for breaking the law, it’s not extreme at all. Our legal code includes punishments far worse than a clump of hair.

But Nehemiah’s response also communicates the urgency of the matter. I’m sure some of these foreign women were really attractive. And intermarrying with their neighbors brought major economic and security advantages. But God’s people are not ordinary. They belong to God. They are holy.

And holy is not a bad word. Holiness brings us into the presence of God with of his grace and goodness. We don’t hate sin because we’re weird or because we want to be better than other people. We hate sin because we want to be near to God.

Nehemiah understood the value of God’s blessing and the threat these marriages were, so he acted aggressively. He cursed the guilty. He made the people swear to stop these marriages, and he purified the priesthood. God’s people must be holy if they are going to approach a holy God and enjoy his grace.

Similarly, God says to the church, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’sown possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy” (1 Pet 2:9–10). That’s awesome. The sovereign, holy Lord of creation has shown us mercy, and he has brought us to himself as his “chosen race.”

So, why would we ever long to return to a world of darkness and wrath? No, God saved you to make you holy. “The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age” (Titus 2:11–12).

Sin is attractive. That’s why it’s tempting. Sometimes we are afraid, and we think a little compromise can solve the problem. But you can’t improve on the nearness of God. Flee from sin. Draw near to God with clean hands and a pure heart.

I must emphasize that truly doing so demands that you first receive Christ as your Savior. You are a sinner, and no amount of discipline or self-help will ever make you acceptable to God. You need forgiveness and grace that only God can provide. And Jesus provided it when he died on the cross. We heard testimonies earlier from people who have received Christ. If you have never done that, please talk to us about how you can be born again.

And if you are saved, keep walking in grace. We don’t have to live in the same defeat that Israel repeatedly endured. No, Titus says that gospel grace teaches us righteousness. So, walk in that grace every day. Praise God that we have a hope for victory that Israel didn’t have because we serve a risen Savior.

Finally, be encouraged that as you seek the Lord and walk in holiness, God sees, and God will reward you. Notice how Nehemiah ends both sections we’ve studied today (vv. 22b, 29–31).

When we think of Nehemiah, we always think of the wall, but he ends the book by saying he wants to be remembered for worship and holiness. And we know God answered his prayer. God saw Nehemiah’s efforts, and he is basking today in the glory of God’s presence and grace. And Christian, when you serve the Lord and walk in holiness, you can know that God sees, and he will not forget. He will give grace today and unimaginable grace for all eternity. So Draw near to God with clean hands and a pure heart.