So the wall was completedâŚin fifty-two days. When all our enemies heard about this, all the surrounding nations were afraid and lost their self-confidence, because they realized that this work had been done with the help of our God. (Nehemiah 6:15-16)
While detained in a concentration camp in 1941, Olivier Messiaen, a Christian and renowned composer, cobbled together a few dilapidated instruments in the camp and miraculously composed a masterpiece called Quartet for the End of Time. Years later, when an esteemed pianist sat down to master Messiaenâs wordless music, she was an ardent atheist. âBut as she pored over the music and tried to comprehend what Messiaen was trying to say, it had a profound effect. âLittle by little,â she said, âI started believing.ââÂ
That story powerfully illustrates a truth we see in todayâs passage from Nehemiah: Excellent work can preach a powerful sermon about the glory of God! While not a musical masterpiece, Nehemiahâs work rebuilding the walls of Jeru...
Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. (Ephesians 5:11)
Paul is crystal clear in todayâs passage that Christians are called to expose darkness. To, as pastor Timothy Keller says, âbring every dimension of lifeâŚunder the rule and law of God.â
Now, this doesnât mean that we hold non-Christians to the same standard as Christians (see 1 Corinthians 5:12). But we can still expose darkness and fight for kingdom principles without appealing directly to âthe rule of Godâ with our non-believing co-workers. Why? Because as C.S. Lewis says, Christian or not, âhuman beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it.â Your co-workers likely agree that discrimination, fraud, and lying are wrong, even if you donât quote the myriad of Scriptures that call these things sin.Â
So if we arenât going to run around saying, âBecause the Bible tells me so,â how can we expose the darkness w...
âŚwhen Sanballat, Tobiah, the Arabs, the Ammonites and the people of Ashdod heard that the repairs to Jerusalemâs walls had gone ahead and that the gaps were being closed, they were very angry. They all plotted together to come and fight against Jerusalem and stir up trouble against it. But we prayed to our God and posted a guard day and night to meet this threat. (Nehemiah 4:7-9)
Nehemiah was leading the people in rebuilding Jerusalemâs walls, but they were met with considerable resistance and threats (see Nehemiah 4:7). How would Nehemiah and team respond? Todayâs passage provides the answer: âwe prayed to our God and posted a guard day and night to meet this threatâ (emphasis mine).Â
The word âandâ is the key to appreciating this text. Nehemiah and company didnât just pray. They didnât âlet go and let God.â They trusted in prayer and the abilities God had given them to work and protect the wall.
We see the same thing earlier in the book of Nehemiah. Even though Nehemiah knew âthe ...
Then I [Nehemiah] said to them, âYou see the trouble we are in: Jerusalem lies in ruins, and its gates have been burned with fire. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, and we will no longer be in disgrace.â I also told them about the gracious hand of my God on me and what the king had said to me. They replied, âLet us start rebuilding.â So they began this good work. (Nehemiah 2:17-18)
As we saw last week, Nehemiah was a Jew in exile, working for King Artaxerxes of Persia (see Nehemiah 1:11 â 2:1) when he heard that his ancestral home of Jerusalem had been destroyed (Nehemiah 2:3).Â
Decades before Nehemiah heard this news, another Jew, Ezra, led Godâs people to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem (see Ezra 6:14-15). But todayâs passage shows us that when Nehemiah made it to Jerusalem, the rest of the city remained âin ruins.â So Nehemiah led the people in the âgood workâ of restoring and renewing the city that surrounded the temple.
This passage reminds us of an important truth we...
I [Nehemiah] took the wine and gave it to the king. I had not been sad in his presence before, so the king asked me, âWhy does your face look so sad when you are not ill? This can be nothing but sadness of heart.â I was very much afraid, but I said to the king, âMay the king live forever! Why should my face not look sad when the city where my ancestors are buried lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?â The king said to me, âWhat is it you want?â Then I prayed to the God of heaven, and I answered the king (Nehemiah 2:1b-5a)
Scripture commands that we âpray without ceasingâ (1 Thessalonians 5:17, ESV). But what in the world does that look like at work? Todayâs passage helps answer that question. But first, some context.
Nehemiah was a Jew in exile, working faithfully as a cupbearer to King Artaxerxes of Persia (see Nehemiah 1:11) when one day, he heard that Jerusalem, âthe city where [his] ancestors [were] buried,â was in ruins (Nehemiah 2:3).Â
This grieved Nehemiah...
Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. (2 Corinthians 9:6-8)
The Association for Psychological Science describes a âscarcity mindsetâ as âpeople seeing life as a finite pie, so that if one person takes a big piece, that leaves less for everyone else.â The opposite is an âabundance mindsetâ which ârefers to the paradigm that there is plenty out there for everybody.â
In todayâs passage, the Apostle Paul is calling believers to live their lives with a mindset of abundance. Why? Because we worship the God who owns âthe cattle on a thousand hillsâ (Psalm 50:10) who will ensure that âat all timesâ we will have âall that [we] needâ to do hi...
For Titus not only welcomed our appeal, but he is coming to you with much enthusiasm and on his own initiative. And we are sending along with him the brother who is praised by all the churches for his service to the gospel. What is more, he was chosen by the churches to accompany us as we carry the offering, which we administer in order to honor the Lord himself and to show our eagerness to help. We want to avoid any criticism of the way we administer this liberal gift. For we are taking pains to do what is right, not only in the eyes of the Lord but also in the eyes of man. (2 Corinthians 8:17-21)
For years, my friend had sold millions of dollars in artwork featuring a passage of Scripture. Then he discovered that the Bible translation he was using in the artwork was copyrighted, which could have meant he owed the copyright owners a lot of money in royalties.Â
The chances that the copyright holder wouldâve ever noticed my friendâs oversight were slim to none. But my friend knew what...
Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? (2 Corinthians 6:14-15)
The dictionary defines a âyokeâ as âa wooden crosspiece that is fastened over the necks of two animals and attached to the plow or cart that they are to pull.â When two animals are yoked together, they have no choice but to move in lockstep as they work. They are bound to the unilateral actions of the other.Â
In the context of human relationships to be unequally yoked with unbelievers is, in the words of one commentary, âto be in a situationâŚthat binds you to the decisions and actions of people who have values and purposes incompatible with Jesusâ values and purposes.â
With that in mind, itâs clear that Paul is not saying we arenât to befriend, work with, or purchase products and services from non-Christian...
All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting peopleâs sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christâs ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christâs behalf: Be reconciled to God. (2 Corinthians 5:18-20)
On August 31, 2001, millions of children sat in front of their TVs to watch the final episode of Mister Rogersâ Neighborhood. Eleven days later, a dramatically different scene unfolded on those same screens as the world watched terrorists fly airplanes into the World Trade Center.Â
Recently retired, Mister Rogers was drafted back into service to help comfort children and their parents. After recognizing the horrific events of 9/11, Rogers ended his televised address on a hopeful note saying, âNo matter what our particular job, especially in our world today,...
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:18)
If youâre not careful, this well-known verse can be easily misinterpreted to mean that the only thing of eternal significance at work are the souls we come into contact with.
But based on what we see throughout Scripture, we know that canât be right. Isaiah 60 makes it clear that some of the things we make today will physically last forever. In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul said that some of their work would âsurviveâ Godâs judgment (see 1 Corinthians 3:10-15). And of course, Jesusâs own ministry was just as much about redeeming the âseenâ material world as it was about the âunseenâ spiritual one. He turned water into wine, multiplied food, and spent as much time healing physical bodies as he did preaching to immaterial souls.
OK, so if Paul is not telling us to ignore the material world of work, what does 2 Corinthians 4:18 ...