Sermon: There’s Still More to Do

Uh, URC, it's good to be with you. Good morning. Uh, thank you for having me and uh, it's a privilege to be with you, even greater privilege to bring God's word to you this morning. So would you take a Bible and open with me to the Old Testament book of Nehemiah? Nehemiah, your Bible is after Samuel King's Chronicles. If you get to Job or Psalms, you've gone too far or if you're using a Pew Bible, it's on page 408. 4 0 8 and this morning we're looking at

Nehemiah chapter 13. This is the final chapter in this book and it's a long text so it'll take several minutes to read it, but Nehemiah chapter 13 verses one through 31, and before we read it together, let's pray again and ask for God's help.

Our gracious heavenly Father. Lord, we do thank you that you have been our strength and our shield and our guide and our helper and our refuge and our leader. And Lord, we pray now that as we open your word together, that you would feed us with the bread of heaven. Oh Lord, we, we believe your promise that you will land us safe on Canaan's side. You will lead us through this pilgrim life and bring us to that celestial city,

but we also confess that we need strength for the journey. And so we come to you now asking that you would fill us up, that you would give us spiritual food and drink and that you would lead us to the bread of life himself. The Lord Jesus Christ. Oh God, bless us as we open your scriptures in the reading and preaching of your word. We ask in Jesus' name, amen. We'll follow along as I read for us Nehemiah 13 beginning in verse one.

On that day they read from the book of Moses in the hearing of the people and in it was found written that no ammonite or Moabite should ever enter the assembly of God for they did not meet the people of Israel with bread and water, but hired baam against them to curse them. Yet our God turned the curse into a blessing. As soon as the people heard the law, they separated from Israel, all those of foreign descent. Now before this, Elias Sheb, the priest

who was appointed over the chambers of the house of our God and who was related to Tobiah, prepared for Tobiah, a large chamber where they had previously put the grain offering the frankincense, the vessels, and the tithes of grain, wine and oil which were given by commandment to the Levites singers gatekeepers and the contributions for the priests. Well, this was taking place I was not in Jerusalem for in the 32nd year of art of Xerxes, king of Babylon.

I went to the king and after some time I asked leave of the king and came to Jerusalem and I then discovered the evil that Elia Sheb had done for Tobiah, preparing for him a chamber in the courts of the house of God. And I was very angry and I threw all the household furniture of Tobiah out of the chamber. Then I gave orders and they cleansed the chambers and I brought back there the vessels of the house of God with the grain offering and the frankincense.

I also found that I also found out that the portions of the Levites had not been given to them so that the Levites and the singers who did the work had fled each to his field. So I confronted the officials and said, why is the house of God forsaken? And I gathered them together and set them in their stations. Then all Judah brought the tithe of the grain wine and oil into the storehouses and I appointed as treasurers over the storehouses,

shelemiah the priest, zadak the scribe and padia of the Levites, and as their assistant Hannan, the son of Akur, son of Matia, for they were considered reliable and their duty was to distribute to their brothers, remember me, oh my God, concerning this and do not wipe out my good deeds that I have done for the house of my God and for his service. In those days, I saw in Judah people treading wine presses on the Sabbath and bringing in heaps of grain

and loading them on donkeys and also wine, grapes, figs, and all kinds of loads which they brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day and I warned them on the day when they sold food. Syrians also who lived in the city, brought in fish and all kinds of goods and sold them on the Sabbath of the people of Judah in Jerusalem itself. Then I confronted the nobles of Judah and said to them, what is this evil thing that you are doing?

Profaning the Sabbath day did not your fathers act in this way and did not our God bring all this disaster on us and on this city? Now you are bringing more wrath on Israel by profaning the Sabbath as soon as it began to grow dark at the gates of Jerusalem before the Sabbath, I commanded that the doors should be shut and gave orders that they should not be opened until after the Sabbath. And I stationed some of my servants at the gates

that no load might be brought in on the Sabbath day. Then the merchants and sellers of all kinds of wares lodged outside Jerusalem once or twice. But I warned them and said to them, why do you lodge outside the wall if you do so again, I will lay my hands on you. From that time on, they did not come on the Sabbath. Then I commanded the Levites that they should purify themselves and come and guard the gates to keep the Sabbath.

They holy. Remember this also in my favor, oh my God, and spare me according to the greatness of your steadfast love. In those days also, I saw the Jews who had married women of Ashdod, Amman and Moab and half of their children spoke the language of ashdod and they could not speak the language of Judah, but only the language of each people. And I confronted them and cursed them and beat some of them and pulled out their hair.

And I made them take an oath in the name of God saying, you shall not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons or for yourselves. Did not Solomon king of Israel sin in account of such women among the many nations. There was no king like him and he was beloved by his God and God made him king overall Israel, nevertheless foreign women made even him to sin. Shall we then listen to you and do all this great evil

and act tre against our God by marrying foreign women. And one of the sons of JE Joa, the son of Elia ship, the high priest, was the son-in-law of Sendal the horror night. Therefore I chased him from me. Remember them? Oh my God, because they have desecrated the priesthood and the covenant of the priesthood and the Levites. Thus I cleansed them from everything foreign. And I established the duties of the priests and Levites each in his work and I

provided for the wood offering at appointed times. And for the first fruits, remember me, oh my God, for good. Amen. Thus ends this reading of God's holy inherent sufficient word and he write its eternal truth on all our hearts.

Well, have you ever been underwhelmed in your life or perhaps unimpressed, maybe go to Cedar Point and a rollercoaster failed to thrill you as you thought it would, or perhaps you've been in a vacation that was just eh, okay. In fact, I remember when I was young, my family went out west and I was so excited to see Mount Rushmore, and I don't mean to spoil it for you, but you have to stand a very, very long way off to see Mount Rushmore and it's quite a bit smaller than I

thought it was going to be when we looked at pictures before we went.

You know, sometimes the real world is quite a bit less impressive than it is on the brochure. How often does a first date fail to match the dating profile or don't raise your hands, but how many people in their forties have been frustrated by the lack of growth in their career that they hoped to see? Listen, what's true with vacations and relationships, if we are honest, is also true in our own Christian lives. Sometimes even churches can be stubbornly slow to develop,

to grow or accomplish their goals because underneath all of it is this inconvenient truth that our own growth and maturity, our personal progress and holiness, the the deepening of our love for Jesus Christ is often much slower and much less impressive than we once hoped. It's underwhelming even at times discouraging. So how do you make sense as a Christian of the lack of progress you see in your life and even in the lives of other Christians around you?

If the book of Nehemiah ended after chapter 12, we wouldn't be asking this question this morning. See, Nehemiah is a post exilic book, which means that the people of God were judged for their sins and sent into Babylonian captivity in exile and eventually the Lord had brought them out back to the city of Jerusalem to reconstitute the people, to reinstitute faithful worship. And the events in this book which took place in the mid

century, uh, the mid fifth century bc, these events narrate for us part of what's known as the second temple period in Judaism, which is so named for that second temple that was reconstructed and built under Ezra's leadership.

By and large, there's been a lot of rebuilding that has happened. The temple's rebuilt most of the book of Nehemiah tells us the story of how the walls of Jerusalem were rebuilt. And then Nehemiah is after even a deeper rebuilding project. See, he is aiming at a spiritual reformation or rebuilding in the hearts of God's people. It's not enough just for the walls to make them physically secure. They need to be renewed.

Inwardly in Nehemiah 12 shows us a picture of such renewal. It's the picture of a corporate worship service As chapter 12 ends, God's people are renewed in their hearts. They want to follow him. They're recommitted to worship and faithful Christian living. This is all on the heels of this great restoration of the, the physical security of the city. And so chapter 12 ends on this note of rejoicing and hope. But do you know that your Bible is realistically honest

even sometimes overwhelmingly honest? Enter Nehemiah chapter 13. We read here not of renewal and reformation but actually of backsliding sin and frustration. And the Bible is honest enough with us to talk to us plainly about sin. The book of Nehemiah ends leaving us with a cliffhanger leaving us wondering if the real rebuilding the reformation in the heart of God's people, is that beginning to crumble just like the walls of Jerusalem once had?

Or to put it a different way, how do we make sense of the lack of progress we see in our own Christian lives? The text here for us gives us three answers this morning. And before we get to three practical answers to that question, I want you to see how Nehemiah responds to Israel's backsliding. Nehemiah was a leader of God's people and he is responding here to the people's sin. So let's first look at his response to four different sins

and then we'll draw those three applications in verses one through three in our text, Israel is busy in worship the the reading, the law of God like they had done back in Nehemiah eight. And they come to read Deuteronomy chapter 23, which is quoted in verse two of our text. This verse taught that Israel needed to pay careful attention to who they allowed into their assembly. And in particular the Moabites and the Ammonites were forbidden from worshiping

with the Israelites because of their prior sins against Israel. All of this becomes important in verses four through nine because Nehemiah we learn in verse six has spent some time away from Jerusalem. The details here are a little bit murky, but most scholars think Nehemiah had gone back to the city of Babylon to the Persian king art of Xerxes and spent about 12 years there. Now he comes back to Jerusalem and you imagine some of you live this,

you imagine a a mom busy at home to clean up after her kids and set the house in order. And so she's putting the toys back in the bins and folding the clothes and showing the kids that this is how you fold them. They go in the drawer and she's wiping the countertops and again instructing the kids. This is how you And she says to the kids, please, please, please, while I am away running my errands, please do not return this house to the state of chaos.

It was in before I started cleaning. And of course what happens? Well, she comes back and it looks as if she never cleaned in the first place.

Nehemiah returns to Jerusalem after 12 years and he finds God's people in a state of moral decline. They've deteriorated in four specific areas. The first of which this morning is furniture. Yes, the furniture. See there was a priest named Elia ship in Israel and he had decided as one scholar says that comradery trump's covenant. Elia was related by marriage to an ammonite named Tobiah, an ammonite who according to Deuteronomy 23,

was not allowed in God's temple. In fact, this is a specific ammonite who we have met earlier in Nehemiah chapter two and then chapter four because he was opposing the people of God and the work of God. But because Tobiah was in with the high priest, this enemy of Israel was able to pull some strings and set up his furniture. That is he moved into a room in the temple that was to be reserved to offerings and worship supplies.

And so when Nehemiah discovers all this upon his return, he immediately takes action. Look at verse eight. He has the furniture thrown out of the temple and then in verse nine he has the vessels of the vessels of worship and the offerings brought back in

verses 10 through 14. Then they take us from furniture to finances. The finances are important here because the Levites who were the worship leaders in Israel, they made their income from the gifts of the people. But since the offerings couldn't come in to buy occupied the chamber, the Levites had to go away from the temple and work in their fields to make ends meet. See, the ministry is suffering because the people are not giving.

And so Nehemiah, he confronts these temple officials. Look at the confrontation in verse 11, why is the house of God the temple forsaken? Don't you understand when there's a failure to tithe, worship is brought to a standstill.

Nehemiah no doubt remembered what the people had vowed in chapter 10, verse 39 where they said, we will not neglect the house of our God. And yet he sees that very house neglected, abandoned financially. And so he takes action, he gathers up the officials, sets them in place, verses 11 through 13 brings in the tithe, this appoints treasurers to manage them. The picture here is not some patient deliberation considering

every side of the matter. No, Nehemiah has stormed into the temple quite violently to rebuke and correct the financial injustice. Just like one day his master Jesus would do furniture, finances. Now the fourth commandment verses 15 through 22, the fourth commandment as we read it in scripture in Exodus 20 says, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days shall you labor and do all your work, but the seventh is a Sabbath

to the Lord your God on it you shall not do any work. And though the people here had promised to recommit themselves to Sabbath keeping, we see them in verse 15 working their trades and selling their goods. They've brought in the therians in vi Syrians in verse 16, people who were famous in the ancient world as merchants, there are even salespeople in verse 20, setting up kind of a secondary market just outside the walls of Jerusalem

because they were trying to claim they couldn't be in the wrong because technically they're not inside the walls. And so like we saw earlier, we see another confrontation. Nehemiah confronts them. Verse 17, what is this evil thing that you are doing profaning the Sabbath day? And to that confrontation he adds then a warning, did not your fathers act this way and did not our God bring all this disaster on us and on this city?

Now you are bringing more wrath on Israel by profaning the Sabbath. His logic is catch the logic here. Don't you guys realize that a major part of why we were sent to Babylon, an exile in the first place was failing to keep the Sabbath? Don't, don't, don't you realize that we are going to incur greater wrath. So in verse 21, he warns the merchants outside the city. If you do this again, I will lay hands on you. Nehemiah wasn't mincing words. He confronted them.

He warned them. And then he also took action. In verse 19, he shuts the city gates. He ensures that they won't be opened on the Sabbath to limit trade in and outta the city. He was so grieved by the people's disobedience that he took practical measures to make it harder for them to sin. And yet the warning has been issued. The gates have been barred and still still it was impossible to keep sin out of the city if the heart of the people was not made right.

Nehemiah was willing to confront, he was willing to warn, he was willing to take action. And we see this same pattern for us again with a final issue. The issue of family. In verses 23 through 29, family, as Nehemiah returns to the city, he sees again and again Israelites who have intermarried intermarried with Ashdod, uh, to the west and with Amman to the east and with Moab to the southeast, even the aforementioned priest, Elia Sheb

has married off his own son to the daughter of Sanballat who was one of Israel's enemies. We met back in chapter two. Now the issue here is not interracial intermarriage because of ethnicity. The issue is intermarriage with those who worshiped false gods. And Nehemiah yet again is not afraid to confront the sin. He issues a a stern warning in verses 26 and 27 holding up the king of Israel, king Solomon as a negative example, Solomon

of course whose heart was led astray from worshiping God by his marriages to foreign women, confrontation, warning and action. Perhaps the most colorful action we see in the entire book of Nehemiah is here in verse 25. He says, I cursed them and beat some of them and pulled out their hair. I made them take this oath not to give their daughters and not to take the daughters of foreign nations. Now he's cursing here. Doesn't mean that he's speaking vulgarities.

No, he, he's pronouncing a religious curse calling down the covenant curses on the covenant people. And when he goes around pulling out people's hair, it's not that he was just yanking it out at random from whoever he saw on the street. No, this was likely a formal public ritual designed to bring shame and to administer discipline. But still, you get the picture that Nehemiah wasn't timid in his response. He was angry, he was zealous,

and he was forceful in his action. And so we, before we move on to application here, just a brief word about Nehemiah's character. This chapter shows us this man who is facing the danger of a failed reformation. And so he's upset and he's aggressive and he's likely grown unpopular among the people should we interpret nehemiah's actions as zealous for the Lord or as sinfully overreacting? Commentators argue for both sides on this question

and it may very well be that Nehemiah's heart fell into sinful anger. It's perfectly okay to admit that Nehemiah is not Jesus. And yet we must also recognize that he as the leader of God's people, is facing deep-seated hypocrisy the kinds of wrongs that couldn't be addressed by a complacent leader. The emergency conditions in Jerusalem called for extreme measures. You know, the same zeal to rebuke and avoid sin. It's illustrated for us in the life of Christ, not only

by his clear teaching in Matthew five that we ought to radically take steps to avoid sin, but also by Jesus's anger and zeal in Matthew 21 where he flips the tables in the temple and drives out the money changers. We can take a further cue from Nehemiah's own cleanliness of conscience which is preserved for us here in God's word in verse 30, he does not say I came. I saw I conquered. Rather he says, I cleansed, I established, I

provided Nehemiah sees as his own greatest accomplishment, not the rebuilding of some walls but the reestablishment of right worship in Jerusalem. And this is why three times in our text he appeals to his God to remember me. Verse 31, he says, simply remember me, oh my God for good. Verse 22, he says, remember this also in my favor. Oh my God, spare me according to the greatness of your steadfast love. And then back in verse 14 says this, remember me, oh my God

concerning this and do not wipe out my good deeds that I have done for the house of my God and for his service. Now those latter two verses verses 14 and 22, they both use the same Hebrew word, a word you've heard before, the word hesed, which is often translated as it is in verse 22, as steadfast love this term, it refers to God's own unwavering faithfulness to his covenant promises. And it's the same word used in verse 14

to describe Nehemiah's faithfulness to this same covenant, his good deeds. So I think it's best to conclude here that nehemiah's anger is a righteous anger. It's motivated by love for God and hatred for sin. And look, we need leaders like Nehemiah who apply godly wisdom based on covenant faithfulness, that that are led to a godly confrontation, a godly warning, and even godly action. And this is a word to anyone who is in spiritual leadership.

You who would be elders and pastors in the church. Those of you here leading growth groups, discipling younger Christians, you who are parents of children or anyone here who's aspiring to any of those roles, are you willing to lovingly but boldly confront sin, warn of its consequences and we are necessary to take action against it. This is the kind of leadership we ought to be looking for in encouraging, confident, bold, zealous for God's glory,

not willing to minimize or turn a blind eye to sin, but instead willing to take radical steps to curb it. Just as Nathan will say to David, you are the man or just as Christ will speak of gouging out eyes and cutting off hands. Or just as John Owen famously said, you must be killing sin or sin will be killing you. So we ought to be deadly serious about putting to death what is earthly in us. So if we step back for a moment here, where, where are we?

Well, besides the furniture in the temple, Nehemiah has aimed to correct three issues, finances the fourth commandment and family. Now if you turn in your Bibles with me, just back one or two pages to Nehemiah chapter 10, I want you to see that these are the same three areas that the people have just vowed their obedience in. This was their spiritual reformation, chapter 10 verse 30. They promise not to intermarry with people

who worship false gods. In verse 31 of chapter 10, they promise to stop working on the Sabbath. And then in verse 32 of chapter 10, they promise that they will give generously. Do you see it? Family Fourth commandment, finances. The exact promises that were made early are now in chapter 13 broken explicitly. It's like we got the brochure headline back in chapter 10 of how good it would be. But now we face the underwhelming

uninspiring reality of backsliding. In chapter 13, God's people have drifted. They've experienced spiritual and moral decline even though they've already witnessed great renewal. And so here is the great truth of this chapter for us, this is the main idea this morning that even after redemption and restoration, even in the midst of an ongoing reformation, sin still remains. There's still more to do. There's more work to be done

in the ministry of God's people. There's there's more need for growth, more need for sanctification, more need for pursuing Christ's likeness, putting sin to death. And this is a principle for all of the Christian life. This is true in our individual lives, this is true in our families, this is true in our churches, this is true in our lame ministry as we teach and disciple and mentor. This is true in pastoral ministry

and ordained elder ministry. This is true in the leadership of denominations. Every Christian and every group of Christians must come to grips with this truth. There's always more to do 'cause we are sinful people living in a sinful world. And that will be true until Christ comes again. Whether you've been a Christian today for five days or five decades, you still have sin in your life to kill. You still have fruit that you ought to be bearing

as the Holy Spirit works in you. And I get that this can feel underwhelming. We can go even a step further. This can actually feel discouraging, can't it? But be encouraged with this that that the Bible, when when God inspired the scriptures, he was realistic. The Bible is realistic about our lives. The Bible is realistic in its view of humanity. The Bible is realistic in the way it tells us the history of God's people.

Because even good churches like Nehemiah's, sometimes they take two steps back before they can take one step forward. Heaven had not yet then and it certainly has not yet now come down to earth.

And that takes us back to our question, how ought we to make sense of this reality? What do you do when you are rather unimpressed by the holiness you see in the church by the holiness you see in yourself? Three answers this morning. First, orient your expectations. Orient your expectations. See there have been some movements in the history of the church that have taught perfectionism the idea that we can or even will be completely rid of sin

and fully perfected morally in this life. Would you listen to how this error is actually corrected in the Westminster confession of faith? Chapter 13, the confession says sanctification meaning growth in christlikeness is throughout in the whole man. Yet imperfect in this life there abiding still some remnants of corruption in every part. When a riseth, a continual and an irreconcilable war, the flesh lusting against the spirit

and the spirit against the flesh. Do you know this irreconcilable war? Christian? The confession nails it here. The the idea of perfectionism is manifestly unbiblical. What is biblical is the honest truth that we will all always struggle with some measure of remaining sin because we continue to live as fallen people in a fallen world. My favorite proof of this is the apostle Paul himself, Paul who wrote much the New Testament in in in one Corinthians

chapter nine in one Corinthians chapter 15, verse nine, Paul will say this, he'll say, I am the least of all the apostles. And they go, that sounds humble, Paul, the least of the apostles, you probably weren't. But it's humble of you to say, you know that Paul, who is probably more advanced in personal holiness than any of us. The the older he got, the more he grew as a Christian, he actually became more convicted of his own sin.

So first Corinthians was written early in Paul's ministry, but later in his ministry he writes Ephesians. And in Ephesians three verse eight, he refers to himself again this time as very least of all the saints.

As he got older, still nearing beginning to near the end of his life, Paul will write in one Timothy one 15, he says, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the foremost, least of the apostles, least of the saints, foremost of sinners. Paul says, look, it doesn't mean that Paul grew in the amount of sin he committed. It means he grew in his conviction of sin, his understanding of the depth of his sin.

Even while throughout his Christian life, he certainly advanced in his fight against sin. We can say it this way, Christian, you should sinless, but you will never be sinless.

Progress not perfection. That's our goal. See, orienting your expectations means you hold these two truths. Intention, there ought to be measurable progress in the Christian life, but there will never be perfection until glory. We will always be engaged in the fight. And sometimes that will mean we fall and regress, but then we get back up and we aim to kill that sin that once knocked us down. And so when you are knocked down, this is so practical.

When you see sin in your life, do not view it as a death blow.

It doesn't deal the death blow to your Christian life. Proper perspective on our own sanctification is an absolute lifeline because it frees us from a lifetime of despair. Do not be surprised at your own sin, at other sin. In fact be grieved at your sin and other sin. In fact, the the fact that you are grieved over sin more times than not, that's actually a positive sign. Because if you are dissatisfied with sin, if you hate

what is ungodly in you, that means that you have not given up. It means you are an imperfect, fallen sinner. Just like every Christian who's ever lived. And just like every Christian who's ever made it to glory, your continued struggle with persistent sin ought to be a source of encouragement because you are still struggling against that sin. It's an evidence that God has not given you over to it. See, one of the signs of a callous heart

that is far from God is that the conscience becomes no longer troubled by what ought to trouble it. So I'm far more alarmed by the person who lacks conviction then by the person whose heart is grieved. If God is continuing to convict you, it is because his kindness is leading you to repentance. And that's exactly what he's doing in Nehemiah's day for these Israelites. So orient your expectations. You won't reach perfection in this life. Be realistic.

But then second, we must keep on fighting. We need to resolve to keep fighting. This is our second point of application. What do we do with this lack of progress we see in ourselves? Well, first we orient our expectations, but second, we resolve to keep fighting. Do not let the reality of remaining sin diminish your zeal for putting sin to death. See, the temptation is to think this. Well, if full and final victory is impossible in this life,

then sincere effort must not be necessary, right? It's not worth it to fight. If I know I'll never win, well no fight. We must because when we will, scripture is absolutely clear on this. See, Paul will say again in one Corinthians 15 that he himself worked harder than anyone else in his Christian life. The apostle Peter, as he writes his letters in the New Testament, he fills them with moral and ethical commands using language like

obedience, put away abstain, do and do not make every effort. Hebrews of course, will famously exhort us to strive for holiness. You can hardly turn to a page in the New Testament without reading commands to put off sin and to put on new righteous ways of living. It's the same battle Nehemiah was engaged in confronting warning and taking action. As Christians, we don't simply resign ourselves to continuing in the same patterns

of sin we were once enslaved to. We don't say, you know, I guess I'll never overcome this addiction. I'll never break this habit. I guess I'll just keep giving in. No, we fight by the power of the Holy Spirit motivated by the grace of God because friends, here's the truth. The power of Christ in you is far, far greater than the power of remaining sin in you. It's greater. He has conquered sin objectively on the cross and

therefore he will conquer sin subjectively in your life. This is why the Westminster confession, confession can be so hopeful with these words, which follow from what I quoted earlier. It says in this war of of sanctification, although the remaining corruption for a time may much prevail and corruption may much prevail yet. Yet through the continual supply of strength from the sanctifying spirit of Christ, the regenerate part does overcome.

And so the saints grow in grace, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. Friends, are you discouraged about sin in your life? If you are and if you hate it, that thrills me as a pastor because it means you're engaged in the fight. And so here's your response. Every time you see sin rear its ugly head, be reminded that the spirit of God is at work within you. Be renewed in your motivation to fight against it with the spirit's help.

And if you are a Christian, commit again and again to putting to death what is earthly in you. There is always more sin to kill. And that means we must never give up. We always keep fighting. Why? Because Christ has secured the victory. And that leads us this morning to our third answer, our final response to this question. How do you make sense of the reality that your growth is not what you hoped it would be? Well, ultimately, you let it lead you to the righteousness

of Jesus Christ, long for the righteousness of Christ. Trust in the righteousness of Christ. If there is one thing that this chapter of God's word teaches us, it is that there is something wrong with these people.

Remember they had confessed and they had recommitted and they had renewed the covenant and yet try as they might, they just can't throw off their sins. Do you know this experience? If you look at the big picture of the Old Testament and you see this cycle over and over again, don't you, the people sin, they experience judgment, they're convicted, God forgives them. The people then promise a new obedience. Things start to go well, but

before long, they are right back to the same sins they started with.

So God brings his people out of Egypt in the Exodus and it doesn't take away the sin in their hearts. My kids for their school this year in a chapel series on the exile, and if I can spoil the end of that series for you, the exile, as painful as it was and as much judgment as there was, the exile was not powerful enough to cleanse the hearts of God's people. Doesn't the failure of Israel here make you want to look for an Israelite who will not fail

broken promise After broken promise cycle after cycle of sin, will there ever be a faithful covenant keeper? And the answer of the scriptures is of course, yes. And his name is Jesus. Not in Nehemiah's generation, but in one that would come. All the people's failures, all of our own failures, what do they drive us to do? They drive us to look and to long for the perfect righteousness of another. You think what? What will be your hope

when eventually you stand before God at the end of this life of all these ups and downs. Friends, do not trust in yourself. Do not claim I have done it. No, your confession is not in me, but only you Do not trust in your obedience, even in your most committed moment. Be honest about how tenuous your commitment and devotion to God is. What are we often seeing? I am prone to wander. Lord, I feel it. I'm prone to leave this God that I love.

And it is healthy for you to admit this truth because it will drive you to place your hope in another. This is the gospel. Though I have made a wreck of the covenant I was obligated to keep, there is another righteous one who has kept it in my place. Not only who has died to pay the penalty I deserve for breaking the law, but then also keeping the law perfectly for me on my behalf so that his obedience is credited to my account.

Praise God. Dear Christian, when God looks on you, he does not look on you with an expression of disapproval or disgust at your continued failures. He is not constantly frustrated with you in Christ. No. He looks at you covered with the blood of Jesus, not with a record of law breaking not even as a blank slate that's been brought back to zero, but as one possessing the very record of obedience of his son Jesus. Your father loves you because he loves his son.

So every time you are discouraged and satisfied and dissatisfied with your sin, let it lead you back to the gospel. You run to Christ, you claim his righteousness, not your own. You trust his obedience, not your own.

Your claim is not your promise to do better, but the trust that he has done everything that's sufficient. So yes, be realistic in your expectations. You'll never be perfect in this life. And yes, be resolved to fight you must keep putting sin to death, but ultimately you, you cast yourself on the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ because it is ultimately his obedience, his life, his death, his resurrection that secures your eternity.

At the end of the book of Nehemiah, here we see a people desperately in need of one who will keep the law for them and who will inwardly renew them, that he might then teach them how to keep the law and friends, praise God. This is exactly what we have for us in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Amen. Let's pray together.

Our Lord and our God, we are thankful this morning. We are thankful for your great lavish love that you have poured out on us so richly, we who were once evil and alienated from you, hostile in our deeds and in our minds. You have drawn near by the blood of your son Jesus. Father, every one of us in this room struggles with sin. Each one of us has things in our lives that make us say, I cannot do the good. I want to do the evil that I don't want to do.

I keep on doing. Would you help us to cry out with the apostle Paul wretched men and women and children that we are who will rescue us from this body of death? And Lord, then don't leave us there, but lead us to confess. Thanks be to God. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord, that there is now no condemnation for the one who is in Christ. Father, we cast yourselves. We cast ourselves on your mercy this morning

and we pray that out of the assurance of faith, you would give us strength and motivation to continue on this pilgrim journey. Lead us to the bread of life and give us strength newest day by day. Help us to fight and help us, most of all, to keep our eyes fixed on Christ himself, the hope of heaven. Would you make him our hope? Would you make him our trust? And would you make him to be our vision now and forevermore? Amen.