Be Different for God’s Glory

1:17We want to be modest, we want to exude humility that is Christ-like, a self-forgetfulness that does not send the message that the world is all about me. But on the other hand, we're definitely not called to blend in. As Christians, either. We're actually called to stand out from the crowd. In fact, both the Old Testament and the New Testament books tell us that our lives should be distinct. They should be different from the people around us.

1:45Well, unfortunately, I think it's true that, at least for the American church, it is becoming more and more the case that Christians don't stand out from the people around us. That year after year, we blend in more and more. There's nothing unique or distinct about the way that we live. Well, today we come to Nehemiah chapter 10 in our study of the book of Nehemiah. And in this chapter, the people are going to follow up what happened last week as they gather to pray and confess their sins with a renewal of the covenant with the Lord their God.

2:16They're going to declare today that they intend to obey everything written in the law so that they can stand out for the glory of God from the people around them. What we're going to learn today is that God's people are to live holy, distinct lives for his glory. So let's pick up here in the text in chapter 10. If you look back at the last verse of chapter 9, it says this, Because of all this, that is, because of all the confession that they've made of their sin, we make a firm covenant in writing. On the sealed document are the names of our princes, our Levites, and our priests.

2:53And so this is what the people do at the beginning of chapter 10. They are reaffirming their commitment to do everything written in God's law. And they're putting it in writing. I want you to see that here. They're putting everything down in writing. They're making a firm covenant. And I think it's significant that in spite of all of their disobedience, in spite of all their rebellion against God, they don't simply come together and say, God, we commit to try harder to do better.

3:22They don't just kind of give this general sentiment, some vague notions that they haven't done well and that that needs to change. No, instead, they are going to make a firm covenant in writing. That gives it specificity. Make sure that the terms are clear so that there's no ambiguity and that they can hold one another accountable to actually doing the things that they said. Look at what Raymond Brown wrote. He said, In Christian life and witness, so much is lost because we are indefinite.

3:56The devil is not worried by our pious aspirations. He is troubled when, in obedience to God, for the glory of Christ and in the power of the Spirit, we make firm, practical decisions to do specific things for the Lord. That's why at New Life, we don't just have a statement of faith, a document that spells out what we believe the Bible teaches on a variety of important issues. We also have a church covenant. And in the church covenant, we are saying together, this. This is how we intend to actually live out what we believe the Bible teaches.

4:35And every time we come together for a members' meeting, the first thing that we do is we recite that church covenant to remind each other that we are called not merely to believe the right things, but to live in accordance with them. Making a firm covenant in writing helps to ensure that our pious aspirations translate into practical decisions to do something for the Lord. So the people draw up this written covenant and all of the leaders sign it. That's what you see in verses 1 through 27 of the chapter. Nehemiah, the governor, signs it, followed by all of the princes and the priests and the Levites, the chiefs of the people. Then, if we pick up in verse 28, we find that all of the people, not just the leaders, they join in affirming this covenant. And look at what they promise.

5:24They say that they are promising to walk in God's law that was given by Moses, the servant of God, and to observe and to do all the commandments of the Lord our Lord, and his rules, and his statutes. Now we can read that and we can think, oh, you know, he's talking about the Ten Commandments. Well, certainly he's talking about the Ten Commandments, but God's law was far broader than just the Ten Commandments. Hundreds and hundreds of commands were issued by the Lord to His people because God's law was intended to rule and regulate every Aspect of life, not just some aspects of life.

6:05The law is God's expression of his holiness and his righteous and just authority over his people. And so the danger is that the people would come together and they would reaffirm their commitment to God's law, but they would not think specifically about the parts of God's law that they have struggled to obey recently and long into the past. Don't forget that for the past 140 years, God's people have been living in exile. They've been living in a society that did not recognize God as the one sovereign Lord of the universe. They did not believe what the Israelites believed, and they did not value the things that the Israelites valued.

6:46That's been their life for almost a century and a half. That sounds very similar to the situation that is faced by Christians today in China and Iran and in Europe and increasingly here in America also, where we have been living in a society that for some time does not believe what we believe about God, does not believe what we believe about his law, does not believe what we believe about Jesus as the Christ. So they've been living in this for 140 years, and there's no doubt in my mind that the Israelites sincerely desired to recommit themselves to obeying God's law. I think they were serious in their intentions.

7:30But they also recognize that the same things that have been a struggle for them in the past are going to continue to be a struggle for them today. And so they don't stop with just simply reaffirming their commitment to the law. In verses 30 through 39 of this chapter, what they do is they make specific application. They highlight particular parts of God's law that they have repeatedly broken and that they would be tempted to break again in the future.

7:57So they highlight God's laws about marriage and the Sabbath and about financially supporting the temple and its workers. Friends, God's word is relevant in every generation. And so it should be no surprise to us this morning that those very same issues are issues for believers and professing believers today in the church. That we too have struggled to obey God's laws in these ways. And so we're going to look at the rest of the chapter now and consider how we are called to live holy lives in terms of our distinct relationships, our distinct rhythms, and our distinct generosity.

8:40And so let's look together now at verse 30 and God's call to live distinct relationships. Here in verse 30, it says, We will not give our daughters to the peoples of the land or take their daughters for our sons. Remember that they are living. In the Persian Empire. And Persia, of course, was a pluralistic society where people worshipped a wide variety of gods and goddesses. So when two people got married in Persian society, it was often the case that the husband-to-be and the wife-to-be came from two different families that worshipped two different gods or two different, completely, completely different sets of gods and goddesses.

9:22That wasn't uncommon at all. But see, that wasn't an issue because no one was monotheistic, no one believed and worshipped just one God. So if you came from two different families that worshipped two different gods or goddesses, and then you brought that together into a new family, they thought that was great. Now you have even more of a chance of earning the favor of even more gods and goddesses. So they thought that was actually a good thing. But, friends, this worldview and the cultural practice of syncretism and religious assimilation, that was something that was forbidden and completely at odds with what God had revealed about Himself and His Word to Israel. You see, God did not claim to be merely one God among many, He claimed to be the creator and sustainer of the universe. He claimed to be the only God worthy of worship and obedience. And so, when God rescued his people from slavery in Egypt and He brought them out of Egypt into the promised land, he said, These were. Words in Deuteronomy chapter 7.

10:33You shall not intermarry with them, that is the peoples of the lands, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, for they would turn away your sons from following me to serve other gods. Then the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly. This is very important to understand. God did not prohibit intermarriage with other peoples because he was teaching that the Jews were ethnically superior to other people groups. All you have to do is read the Bible and you will see that the Jews were not ethnically superior. They were not morally superior to anyone. The scripture is filled with descriptions of their own failures.

11:19No, God prohibited intermarriage not because he was trying to send the message that any ethnic group, any race, is superior to any other race, far from it. He says, I don't want you to intermarry with those other people because inevitably they will lead you into idolatry. They will lead you away from worshiping me as the one true God. This was illustrated so sadly and powerfully in the life of King Solomon, David's son. He got off to a great start worshiping the Lord, but then he began marrying many foreign women. And before long, he was worshiping their false gods, setting up idols, setting up places of worship for them in Israel.

12:01What a stark contrast that is, for example, to Ruth and Rahab, two foreign women, two women from entirely different ethnicities, who were happily welcomed into the community of Israel because they turned away from their false gods to worship the one true God of Israel. And not only that, these are two women who are included in the lineage of Jesus our Savior. Friends, our 21st-century culture tells us you love who you love, and religious differences are inconsequential.

12:41But God's Word exposes that belief as a lie. You see, we can pretend that it doesn't really matter if your spouse or your future spouse believes that God exists, or that the Bible is his inspired word, or that Jesus Christ is the Savior as he claimed, or that heaven and hell exist. We can pretend that what really matters is whether he has a good sense of humor, or whether she has an accomplished academic record, or whether he's on a good career path.

13:23But after years of marriage, the trials and the sorrows of life. As children are born and raised, as your health deteriorates, as death approaches and eternity looms on the horizon, it matters a great deal what your husband or wife believes about God and his word and Jesus Christ and the reality of heaven and hell. It matters a great deal. Now, if you are married to an unbeliever because you came to faith later in life after you were already married, or if you're married to an unbeliever because your spouse walked away from the faith, even if you're married to an unbeliever because you were disobedient to God and married a non-Christian, I want you to understand that there is hope for you. Your situation did not catch God off guard, and you are encouraged in 1 Corinthians 7 and 1 Peter 3 to take heart because God can use you to powerfully influence your spouse and your children. So don't despair.

14:38But if you're not yet married, please don't play with fire and start dating a non-Christian. Dating leads to engagement, and engagement leads to marriage. And the longer that you play with that fire, the more and more likely it is that you are going to end up burned. You see, God's people are called to distinct relationships, and that belief and that value has to be lived out long before you're married. In verse 31, they move on to this next issue: distinct rhythms. You see, in verse 31, that they promise that they're not going to buy any grain on the Sabbath if people from the foreign lands come to sell to them. They will also forego the crops in the seventh year and the collection of every debt.

15:38So, what they're doing is they're promising to have distinct rhythms, that they're going to honor the Sabbath day each week, and they're going to honor the Sabbath year every seventh year. See, the Sabbath day was given as a gift from God. He created the world in six days, and on the seventh day he rested, not because he was tired, but as an example to us, for us to follow, and as a gift. Remember, when the people came out of Egypt, they had been enslaved for 400 years. Think about that for a minute. 400 years. How many generations is that? Every single day, seven days a week, sun up to sundown, you are slaving away for taskmasters that hate you. 400 years. And so, when God called them as they left Egypt, as he was bringing them into the promised land to observe... The Sabbath, it must have been a welcome relief to actually have a day to rest and worship. But I'm willing to bet that it also exercised faith, and I think we see that in the book of Exodus as well. See, it's both a gift and it requires faith. It's a gift because, tired and weary of everything that life in this world requires, we are given as a gift a day each week from God to rest and to worship.

16:58But it also requires faith to stop what we're doing, to stop our studying, to stop our working, and to set aside that time simply to rest and to worship and to serve, to receive God's love and to give God's love to others. That requires faith. The Sabbath year, then, was the practice of not planting any crops in the seventh year and releasing every debtor from his or her debt. Now, of course, if you talk to anyone who works in agriculture, they will tell you that letting the land lie fallow, as it's called, not planting anything, is a good practice for farming. But God had a higher purpose than that. Because even though you don't plant anything in that seventh year, some of the crop is going to reseed naturally and it's going to grow on its own, even if you don't do anything. And that crop was reserved for the poor. They could come and pick some of those crops. For themselves. And because every field was cycling to the seventh year at a different time, there was always food in Israel for the poor. That, along with foregoing the exaction of every debt in the seventh year, made sure that no one in the community was entrapped into cyclical poverty that they couldn't get out of.

18:23You see God's wisdom and God's love in those commands. The Sabbath is given to help us receive love from God and also to give his love to others. It's a demonstration of his love for us and it allows us to demonstrate love for others. But again, Israel has been living in Babylonian and Persian culture for the last 140 years. Cultures that recognize no weekly day of rest. Cultures who believed that if you were poor, you were simply getting what you deserved. Think about the Hindu belief of reincarnation that we are exposed to today. If you're poor, that's your fault. You did something wrong in the previous life.

19:08Even before the exile, the Jews struggled to honor God's commands about the Sabbath, the day and the year. Listen to what the prophet Amos said before the exile. This shows you how long this has been a struggle. Hear this, you who trample on the needy and bring the poor of the land to an end, saying, When will the new moon be over, that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, that we may offer wheat for sale, that we may make the epha small and the shekel great and deal deceitfully with false balances, that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and sell the chaff of the wheat.

19:52See, it's very evident from Amos' words that God gave to him that the people were not honoring the Sabbath day and not honoring the Sabbath year because of greed. They wanted to be just like the people around them. They wanted to engage in commerce seven days a week so they could make the epha small and the shekel great, make more money. They didn't want to let their fields lie fallow in the seventh year. They didn't want to release anybody from debt. They wanted to exploit the poor so they could become more and more wealthy. See, this has been a problem for a very long time. It's not just a recent issue, and that's why they bring this area up specifically to say we are committing ourselves to these things and observing these laws.

20:41So, friends, fast forward to today. We live in a global economy that does business every day of the week, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Your choices are to get ahead or to get left behind. If you aren't working seven days a week, your coworkers look at you. At you like you're slacking off. And in that culture, this culture that we live in, we are called to live holy and distinct lives that are different from the people around us.

21:14You see, when we refuse to work seven days a week and instead receive the good gift of Sabbath from God, we are acknowledging that He is our provider. We don't ultimately provide for ourselves, God provides for us. When we take one day in seven to rest and to worship, we are acknowledging that we are not God. We are not infinite. We are finite creatures who need food and water and rest in order to survive. When we take one day in seven for worship and rest, we are sending a powerful message to the world that money and success and climbing the academic or corporate ladder is not our God.

22:01We worship and serve a different God. Friends, Jesus has fulfilled God's law perfectly. He has become our Sabbath rest. And so we are not commanded or obligated as new covenant believers to keep the Sabbath in the same way as old covenant believers were commanded to do so. But I want to encourage you to consider whether observing The Sabbath, honoring it and keeping it holy, as the law says, isn't still appropriate for us as believers today. Are we not commanded to meet regularly with one another and encourage each other? Are we not commanded to meet regularly together to hear God's word read and preached, to pray together, to sing together, to build one another up?

22:55Do we not need at least one day a week to acknowledge that we are not God, that we need rest, that we are finite, and that we cannot study or work forever on end? Is honoring the Sabbath not one of the clearest ways that we can communicate to others that we don't bow at the altar of success or money or academic achievement or sports achievement or anything else? I want to encourage you to consider that as new covenant believers, even though we are free from keeping this law, that maybe if we treat Sunday just like every other day, it might be just one more way that we're blending in with the world around us.

23:44God's people are called to distinct rhythms. Finally, in verses 32 through 39, we see that God's people are called to distinct generosity. As you heard the text read this morning, again and again, And again, you have this phrase, the house of our God, the house of our God, the house of our God, and they are promising not to neglect it. They are saying that they're going to financially support God's work and God's workers. Now, God addresses money all throughout Scripture, and I think that's because money is the great truth teller.

24:22Money is the great truth teller, it tells us what we love and what we value. So, whether it is comfort or security or pleasure or gaining the approval of man, money is the great truth teller because it tells us what we love and what we value. Now, prior to the exile, the people of Israel had become more and more like the nations around them. They were bent on accumulating and then hoarding wealth and neglecting important things like the temple and the temple workers, which revealed their priorities, and then at different points in Israel's history meant that worship had to essentially shut down.

25:05So, now they're promising to support God's work by providing the money and animals and supplies needed to maintain the temple sacrifices, and to support God's workers by financially supporting the Levites and priests, who, according to verse 38, if you saw this, are also required to give. God's workers are not exempt from these things either. And so they would do this how they commit in the text to giving a third shekel per year, donating wood for the offerings, tithing or giving a tenth of everything that they had, and then giving the first fruits of everything that God gave them.

25:51That's a lot. Probably far more than you expected if this is the first time reading the Old Testament law. It's a lot, but God intended it to be that way. Jesus Himself said, Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. You see, our money follows our hearts, and our hearts follow our money. Living lives of distinct generosity wasn't just uncommon then, it's uncommon today in a society that is increasingly characterized by greed and selfishness. But, friends, living lives of distinct generosity is important for us as God's people for at least a couple of reasons. The first is that generous giving is an act of worship.

26:45Generous giving is an act of worship. Every time we give generously, whether that amount is large or small, whenever we give generously, we are declaring, God, you are valuable, your work in our world. Is valuable. Your workers are valuable. It is an act of worship, and that's why we have the offering as a part of our worship service still today. Perhaps you attend a church where, or have attended a church where there's just offering boxes in the back of the room. We have one at the back of the room, right back there. Nothing wrong with that.

27:23But we intentionally chose to continue to pass baskets around and to talk about offering every single week because it's an important part of our worship. Our money follows our hearts, and our hearts follow our money. And so it's a way that we can honor God by saying, God, you are valuable. Your work is valuable and your workers are valuable. But second, generous giving is a declaration of independence from the love of money. It is a declaration of independence from the love of money. So when we give our first fruits to God, before we spend our money on anything else, when we give our first fruits to God, we are saying, God, you are more important than anything else in my life. You and your work in the world is more important to me than any of my wants or any of my personal objectives. Friends, nothing will set us free from the love of money like generous giving. But it is a Spiritual discipline, just like reading the word and prayer, just like fasting, just like regularly gathering together for worship. It's a discipline, and it's not easy at first. It is painful at first, like all discipline is, but it yields fruit in the long run.

28:52We're not given specifics as to our giving as the people of Israel are. Instead, we are called in the New Testament to give cheerfully and generously. And we're called to give cheerfully and generously, not on the basis of some ethereal concept out there, but on the basis of Jesus Christ and His work on our behalf. In 2 Corinthians, Paul says that Jesus was rich. He had everything at his disposal as the Son of God. And yet, for our sake, he became poor. He gave all of that up to take on flesh, to live a perfect life of obedience in our place, to die on the cross in our place and for our sins, and then to rise again from the dead so that we, through faith in him, could become rich.

29:39That's the good news of the gospel. Friends, in 21st-century America, we're asked to invest in so many different causes, so many different institutions. Many of them are worthy. But let's ask ourselves: what is the most important investment that I can make? What could be more important than funding the advance of the gospel, particularly through the local church, where your soul is cared for by pastors and other members who are believers in Jesus Christ, like you are, where young and old are being taught the gospel and taught to live in light of it, and where missionaries are being commissioned and sent to the ends of the earth so that those who have never heard the gospel can hear it. What a worthy investment that is. As believers, we're called to live distinct lives of generosity that reveal that what we love the most in this world is God.

30:44Friends, as we look at the text this morning, perhaps you're here today and you've always considered yourself a Christian. But as you look at this particular text and you consider the law of God and how every single part of life is to come under his jurisdiction, that every part of your life is to be an act of worship to God. Maybe today you're beginning to realize for the first time that you're not living a distinct life.

31:11You may have called yourself a Christian your entire life, but there's really nothing different about you than anyone else in this world. If that's the case, then you're no different than me just a few decades ago. I had always considered myself a Christian until I saw the distinction. Lives of my college roommates until I heard the good news of Jesus Christ and its implications for all of life, I had never come face to face with the reality that there was nothing different about me. I learned at that point in my life that a Christian is a worshiper of God, one who has turned away from self and all of the things of this world to worship Him alone through the person and work of Jesus.

31:58And so, if you're coming to that realization that your life is not distinct, it isn't marked by worship and obedience to God's Word, I want to invite you today to receive Jesus by faith, to transfer your trust from whatever you're putting it in to the only one who is worthy and the only one who can save you, Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And if you're here today and you're already a follower of Christ, I want to leave you with this thought.

32:30We have tried the whole, let's look like everyone else around us so that Christianity will be easier to accept. We've tried that thing for a long time here in America. We've tried hard to make Christianity easier to accept. But all we've done is made it easier to ignore. The natural man cannot receive the things of God. And so, I want us to be challenged to think today that instead of trying to live just like everyone else around us, that we try instead, by the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit, to live distinct lives in our relationships, in our rhythms, in our generosity.

33:22Not only will those distinct lives bring glory to God, but they will give us the opportunity to point to the hope that we have in Christ. Let's pray. God, we are so thankful that you have revealed your word to us, your law to us, because it so clearly shows us the reality that you are holy and righteous and set apart, and that we fall far short of your glory. It points us to our need for a Savior, but it also shows us how to wisely and faithfully live in this world.

34:15And we pray that we would be both wise and faithful as we seek to live distinct lives for your glory. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening. Listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. For more information or to support our ministry, visit us online at newlifecs.net.