Nehemiah 13:1-31; A Foundation of Need

Martin Wagner November 23, 2025 Faith Presbyterian Church Birmingham, AL Bulletin

Thank you for listening! Please visit us at www.faith-pca.org.

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:24):
Some of you may remember the Saturday Night Live
character Debbie Downer.
Debbie is a character that nomatter where she was, it could
be a family reunion or DisneyWorld or Thanksgiving dinner
this week.
Everyone around her was having agreat time.
Everyone is celebrating.
And then she comes off with aline like, Well, did you know

(00:46):
that your chances of gettingbird flu were increasing
exponentially every day?
And the mood in the room drops,and she stares at the camera,
and the sad trombones come out,and it's wah wah.
Debbie Downer's favorite chapterin Nehemiah is chapter 13,
undoubtedly.

(01:08):
We come off of chapter 12 lastweek, and there's this big
celebration.
We've walked the walls.
Everyone is worshipingthanksgiving.
God had answered prayers.
They had reflected upon hisgoodness.
Everyone is overflowing withgratitude.
The future looks bright forGod's people.

(01:30):
And then we come to chapter 13.
And what we see in our passagetoday is that everything is
unraveling.
Everything that they hadpromised that they were never
going to do, they've done.
Everything they said theywouldn't do, they have
compromised on.
And the sad trombones makeanother appearance in chapter

(01:52):
13.
Nehemiah does his best DebbieDowner impression, and he turns
to the camera and he says, Well,did you know that Tobiah, our
arch enemy, now lives in thetemple?
Or a little later in thechapter, did you know that the
Levites, they've all gone homebecause they couldn't afford to

(02:13):
eat while living in the temple?
The contrast between chapter 12and chapter 13 is not just
jarring, it's sobering for us.
Because when you think about thetime span between chapter 12 and
13, it's not centuries.
It's only a few years.
In less than a decade, they hadgone from one of the high points

(02:36):
of the Old Testament, thegreatest worship service they'd
had in generations.
And in less than a decade, theyfind themselves full of
forgetfulness and compromise.
This hits home to us because, inmany ways, our church right now
is in a Nehemiah 12 kind ofseason.

(02:59):
God has been extraordinarilygracious to our church.
He's answered our prayers.
We get to see, we experiencegreat unity and growth.
There are new buildings comingup.
God has been extraordinarilygracious to us as a church.
So the passage confronts us withthe question: how do we keep the

(03:20):
chapter 12 we're experiencingright now from turning into a
chapter 13 collapse that we see?
How do we keep blessing frombecoming forgetfulness and
compromise?
How can we keep Nehemiah 13 frombecoming the story of Faith
Presbyterian Church?
Well, we can think that chapter13 is a bit of a downer for us.

(03:41):
This is not exactly the way thatwe want to go into the
Thanksgiving holidays.
This chapter is actually a giftto us because it is a reminder
to us that all of us, withoutGod's sustaining grace, we will
all drift from faithfulness toGod.
The danger of success, thedanger of blessing is that we

(04:02):
begin to think that we don'tactually need the grace that
brought us here all along.
And in this series, we've talkeda lot about the kind of
spiritual foundations that welong for God to build in us.
And so this morning we're goingto look finally at the last part
of this series at a foundationof need.
A foundation that we long forGod to build in us that says we

(04:25):
can't save ourselves, afoundation that says we can't
keep ourselves faithful to ourGod.
And therefore we stand indesperate need of a redeemer to
do for us what we can't do forourselves.
We're going to read the passage.
We're actually going to read theentire chapter.
It's a long passage, but hangwith me as we read through it.

(04:45):
I think you'll see in the firstpoint why we want to read the
entire chapter.
Um, but listen as we read this,listen for ways that we see the
people of God abandoning whatthey said they would never do.
Hear God's word to us today fromNehemiah 13.
On that day they read from thebook of Moses and the hearing of

(05:05):
the people, and in it was foundwritten that no Ammonite or
Moabite should ever enter theassembly of God.
For they did not meet the peopleof Israel with bread and water,
but hired Balaam against them tocurse them.
Yet our God turned the curseinto blessing.
As soon as the people heard thelaw, they separated from Israel
all those of foreign descent.
Now before this Eliashab thepriest, who was appointed over

(05:26):
the chambers of the house of ourGod, and who was related to
Tobiah, prepared for Tobiah alarge chamber where they had
previously put the grainoffering, the frankincense, the
vessels, and the tithes ofgrain, wine, and oil, which were
given by the commandment to theLevites, singers, and
gatekeepers, and thecontributions for the priest.
While this was taking place, Iwas not in Jerusalem.

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For in the thirty-second year ofArtaxerxes, king of Babylon, I
went to the king, and after sometime I asked leave of the king,
and came to Jerusalem, and thenI discovered the evil that
Eliashib had done for Tobiah,preparing for him a chamber and
the courts of the house of God.
And I was very angry.
And I threw out all thehousehold furniture of Tobiah

(06:11):
out of the chamber, then I gaveorders, and they cleansed the
chambers, and brought back therethe vessels of the house of God
with the grain offering and thefrankincense.
And also found out that theportions of Levites had not been
given to them, so that theLevites and the singers who did
the work each had fled to thefield.
And so I confronted theofficials and said, Why is the
house of God forsaken?

(06:32):
And I gathered them together andset them in their stations, and
then all Judah brought the titheof grain, wine, and oil into the
storehouses.
And I appointed treasurers overthe storehouses, Shalemiah the
priest, Zadok the scribe, Padiahof the Levites, and their
assistant Hanan, the son ofZachar, son of Mataniah, for

(06:53):
they were considered reliable,and their duty was to distribute
to their brothers.
Remember me, O my God,concerning this, and do not wipe
out my good deeds that I havedone for the house of my God and
for his service.
In those days I saw in Judahpeople treading wine presses on
the Sabbath, and bringing inheaps of grain and loading them

(07:15):
on donkeys, and also wine,grapes, figs, and all kinds of
loads, which they brought intoJerusalem on the Sabbath day,
and I warned them on the daywhen they sold food.
Tyrians also who lived in thecity brought in fish and all
kinds of goods, and sold them onthe Sabbath to the people of
Judah in Jerusalem itself.

(07:35):
Then I confronted the nobles ofJudah and said to them, What is
this evil thing that you aredoing, profaning the Sabbath
day?
Did not your fathers act in thisway?
And did not our God bring allthis disaster on us and on this
city?
Now you are bringing more wrathon Israel by profaning the
Sabbath.

(07:56):
As soon as it began to grow darkat the gates of Jerusalem before
the Sabbath, I commanded thatthe doors should be shut, and
gave orders that they should notbe opened until after the
Sabbath.
And I stationed some of myservants at the gates, that no
load may be brought in on theSabbath day.
Then the merchants and thesellers of all kinds of wares

(08:16):
lodged outside Jerusalem once ortwice.
But I warned them, and I said tothem, Why do you lodge outside
the wall?
If you do so again I will layhands on you.
From that time on they did notcome on the Sabbath.
Then I commanded the Levitesthat they should purify
themselves, and come and guardthe gates to keep the Sabbath

(08:38):
day holy.
Remember this also in my favor,O my God, and spare me according
to the greatness of yoursteadfast love.
And those days also I saw theJew who had the Jews who had
married the women of Ashdod,Ammon and Moab, half of their
children spoke the language ofAshdod, and they could not speak
the language of Judah, but onlythe language of each people.

(09:02):
And I confronted them, andcursed them, and beat some of
them, and pulled out their hair.
And I made them to take an oathin the name of God, saying, You
shall not give your daughters totheir sons, or take their
daughters for your sons or foryourselves.
Did not Solomon King of Israelsin on account of such women?
Among the many nations there wasno king like him, but he was

(09:24):
beloved by his God, and God madehim king over all of Israel.
Nevertheless, foreign women madehim even to sin.
Shall we then listen to you anddo all this great evil and act
treacherously against our God bymarrying foreign women?
And one of the sons of Jehoiada,the son of Eliashib, the high
priest, the son-in-law ofSanbalat the Horonite, therefore

(09:45):
I chased him from me.
Remember them, O my God, becausethey have desecrated the
priesthood and the covenant ofthe priesthood and the Levites.
Thus I cleansed from themeverything foreign, and I
established the duties of thepriest and Levites, each in his
work, and I provided for thewood offering at appointed

(10:06):
times, and for the first fruits.
Remember me, O my God, for good.
Amen.
Let's pray.
Father in heaven, this is yourholy word given to us.
You have given this to us, youhave spoken this for our good,
but yet we confess that ourhearts are slow to hear and to
receive your word.

(10:27):
And so by your spirit we praythat you would open our eyes to
what is true, that you woulduncover what is hidden in us,
and that you would gentlyconfront what has grown
calloused in our hearts.
And so let this word search usand humble us, and let it lead
us to Christ, our Redeemer.
Speak, Lord, for we are yourneedy people, and we are

(10:48):
listening.
We pray this in Jesus' name.
Amen.
And so how does Nehemiah 13, howdoes it show us how we are to
build a foundation of need?
Or to put it another way, howcan we be a church that doesn't
look like Nehemiah 13 in 10years from now?

(11:09):
How can we, as followers ofChrist, remain faithful to our
God?
To answer that, I want to lookat this passage in three parts
this morning.
The first is that the word ofGod reveals our need.
Second is that our effortscannot fix our need.
And the third point is that onlyChrist can meet our need.

(11:30):
So first, the word of Godreveals our need.
It seems obvious from the textthat the people had been
ignoring the word of God.
Because how does the passagestart?
They begin by reading the word.
Everything, from the moment theyread the word of God in verse

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one, everything that was hiddennow comes to light.
The reading of the word exposedtheir need.
It showed them what they haddone, the things that they had
excused.
It had shown them how far theyhad wandered from God.
The cascading events of chapter13 were set off by simply

(12:10):
reading the word of God.
They read in God's Word that noMoabite, no Ammonite should
enter the assembly of God.
And so then they think, oh yeah,remember that guy, Tobiah, our
arch enemy, the guy who has beena thorn in our side since we

(12:32):
arrived 30 years ago.
The guy who at every turn hastried to oppose us, who has
threatened to stop the work, whohas harassed us every moment.
Yes, this guy also happens to bean Ammonite.
This is the guy, for somereason, we set him up a really
nice apartment in the temple.

(12:53):
We thought that was a good idea.
We have moved out all the holythings of God, and we've given
him enough space to be able tolive in the temple.
But it's not just that the wordof God being read exposed
Tobiah's new living arrangement.
In verse 10, we read that theLevites, these are the tribe of
people who were commanded towork in the temple, that they

(13:15):
had left their post, they hadgone back to work in the fields
because they couldn't, thepeople had stopped giving their
tithes.
They couldn't eat.
The pastors didn't get apaycheck, and so they had to go
find other work.
And the same thing happens withthe Sabbath.
In verses 15 to 18, Nehemiahsees the people of God treading

(13:40):
wine presses on the Sabbath,bringing grain into the city,
running a marketplace inJerusalem on the Sabbath day.
Foreign merchants are campingoutside the gates.
They're just tromping at the bitto get in and to make some money
off of the people.
What is going on?
The people had forgotten theSabbath.
They'd forgotten that God gavethem this as a gift to remind

(14:01):
them that their productivity isnot what sustains them, that it
is their God that sustains them.
And then as we go on in thepassage, there's this issue of
intermarriage that shows up atthe end in verses 23 to 27.
And if you read the OldTestament, you know that one of
Israel's perennial sins was theissue of intermarriage, marrying

(14:22):
people who worshiped other gods.
Over and over, we see this thatthe people of God lose their
identity and they forget whothey are.
Nehemiah shows up.
Think about this, less than adecade later, and half of the
children didn't speak thelanguage of Judah.
What that meant?

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They didn't know the worship,the language of worship.
They were speaking the languageof Ashdod.
In other words, the nextgeneration was losing the
ability to know and to worshipthe Lord.
But once again, nobody saw thisuntil the Word of God exposed
it.
And that's why Nehemiah 13begins where it does.

(15:04):
Because before God restores us,he exposes our sin.
Before God heals us, the word ofGod diagnoses us.
The word of God shows us wherewe have fallen short.
And this is the mercy of God'sword to us.
It shines light on us, it shineslight on the places in our lives
that we would rather keephidden.

(15:26):
And it still does that today.
That's why every week when wegather together as God's people,
we are called to confess oursins, to be honest with God
about how we have sinned.
Bully led us in that part of theservice this morning.
But it wasn't bully juststanding up here saying, Here's
my opinions on all the ways thatyou people have sinned this

(15:47):
week, and here's how you need torepent.
No, Jeremiah 17 is read.
The word of God is what calls usto repent and to turn.
And so one of the ways that weknow that we are reading the
Word of God rightly is that whenit confronts us, when the Word
of God says things we'd ratherit not say, when it shows us our

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sins.
But exposure, our sins beingexposed, can't change our
hearts.
And that leads us to our secondpoint, and that our own efforts
can't fix the need that has beenexposed.
When Nehemiah comes back toJerusalem, what we see in the
first part of this chapter isthat Nehemiah went away.

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He went back to Babylon for aseason, and then he comes back,
and this is what he finds whenhe comes back.
And when he comes back to town,he begins a series of necessary
and bold reforms to address thesins of the people.
But there's a pattern that younotice as you read through this
chapter is that reforms canclean up the mess, but reforms

(16:54):
can't cure the disease.
Look at the pattern.
When Nehemiah learns that Tobiahis living in the temple, he
throws his furniture out to thestreet.
He kicks him to the curb.
He orders the room to becleansed.
He puts the vessels of worshipback in.
He does everything that a godlyleader should do in this
situation.

(17:15):
But the deeper question stillremains: why on earth was Tobiah
in there in the first place?
What was going on in theirhearts that made it seem like
that was a reasonable, goodthing to do?
Nehemiah can evict Tobiah, buthe cannot evict the compromise
that made room for it.

(17:35):
When he sees that the Leviteshave left their posts, that the
Levites are starving, Nehemiahconfronts the officials.
You notice he doesn't go to theLevites, he goes to the
officials who let it happen.
And in verse 11, he says, Why isthe house of God forsaken?
He reorganizes the Levites, hebrings them back in from the
fields, he reinstates tithing inverse 12.

(17:56):
He appoints faithful overseers.
He comes and he patches togetherthis broken system.
But the hearts of the peoplethat let the worship of God
collapse, those remainunchanged.
Nehemiah can restore thestructure, but he cannot produce
devotion in the people.
Nehemiah sees the peoplebreaking the Sabbath.

(18:18):
And so he shuts the gates and hestations guards in verse 19.
He goes and he warns the foreignmerchants.
He says he will lay hands onthem.
He's going to fight them if theytry to get into the city on the
Sabbath.
And for a brief moment it works.
But nothing inside the peoplehas changed.
Nehemiah can make the peoplestop working, but he can't make

(18:40):
them trust their God.
Nehemiah sees Israelitesmarrying people who worship
other gods.
He sees the next generationlosing the language of worship,
losing the ability to know theLord.
And he confronts the people.
It says he disciplines them andhe curses them.

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And in verse 25, he beats themup and he pulls their hair out.
And we do not have time to talkabout Nehemiah's anger issues
that come out in this chapter.
But we can see that Nehemiah isnot a man afraid of physical
confrontation.
I take that as descriptive, notprescriptive, for the people of
God today.

(19:22):
After he beats them up and ripstheir hair out, he makes them
take an oath that they willnever do this again.
But again, he can't create faithin the next generation.
The mind can address behavior,but he can't create, he can't
transform hearts.
And this is the pattern we see.

(19:43):
We have external reform withoutinternal renewal.
Reform can restrain sin, but itcan't remove sin.
Reform can clean the room, butit can't cleanse the soul.
And that is why every attempt atself-reform eventually fails.

(20:04):
You and I in our own strength,we can try to change our habits.
We can change our scenery, wecan change our structure, we can
develop accountability anddifferent schedules.
But apart from the work of theSpirit renewing us, we are the
same as the people in Nehemiah13.

(20:24):
All of this reminds me of asketch on Saturday Night Live.
And I know that I have two SNLskits, which puts me over my
quota for the sermon.
But if you'll bear with me,forgive this indulgence.
Comedy has a way of exposing ourfoolishness and our folly in a
way, in a very unique way.
And I can't think of a betterexample of that than Adam

(20:47):
Sandler's skit on Romano Toursthat came on SNL a few years
ago.
In this skit, Adam Sandler playsa brutally honest tour guide,
Italian tour guide, who istalking to potential customers
and he gives them some verybrutal truths about what his
company can and can't do forthem.

(21:09):
He says this, but remember,you're still going to be you on
vacation.
If you are sad where you are,and then you get on a plane to
go to Italy, the you in Italywill be the same sad you from
before, just in a new place.
There's a lot a vacation can dofor you.

(21:29):
It can help you unwind, it canlet you see different-looking
squirrels, but it cannot fixdeeper issues about like how you
behave in group settings or yourgeneral baseline mood.
Then he says, We can take you ona hike.
We cannot turn you into someonewho likes hiking.
We can take you to the ItalianRiviera.

(21:52):
We cannot make you someonecomfortable in a bathing suit.
We can provide the zipline.
We cannot give you the abilityto say we and mean it.
We can give you a wine-tastingtour of Tuscany, but we cannot
change why you drink or theperson you become when you do.
And yes, our friendly tourguides will take your picture.

(22:15):
But remember, the pictures willhave you in them.
If you don't like how you lookback home, it's not going to get
any better in a gondola inItaly.
We laugh, but that is the pointof Nehemiah 13.
You could move Tobias' furnitureto the curb, but you can't move

(22:37):
a sinful heart to repentance.
You can shut the gates, but youcan't shut out temptation in our
hearts.
You can discipline behavior, butyou can't create delight in God.
And once we see how limited ourown efforts are, it opens us,
Nehemiah prepares us for whatonly God can do.

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And this is where this textmeets us with where we are as a
church.
A new sanctuary will not keep usfaithful to our God.
A capital campaign, as great asit is, it cannot produce
spiritual fruit.
It cannot bring new life.

(23:21):
The all generations campaign,the new building, it is a gift
of God's grace to us, but itcannot be the foundation.
It is not the solution.
New buildings have no ability tosustain us.
We need something better.
We need something better thanwalls and structures.
We need new hearts.
We need a redeemer to come forus.

(23:42):
Nehemiah shows us what humaneffort can accomplish in these
reforms.
But more importantly, whatNehemiah shows us is that
ultimately human effort is goingto fall short.
And that brings us to our finaltruth, to the third point, that
only Christ can meet our need.
If the Word of God reveals ourneed, if even Nehemiah's best

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reforms can't fix our need, thenthe chapter leaves us asking the

most important question (24:08):
where is it that our help comes from?
There's something remarkableabout this passage that is
actually easy to miss as we readit.
When you zoom out, what you seeis that Nehemiah 13 is the very
end of the Old Testament'shistorical writings.

(24:29):
This chapter right here, what wejust read, is the last recorded
scene we have in Old Testamenthistory.
There's a sense in which Matthew1 could be Nehemiah 14.
After this begins 400 years ofsilence.
And how does the Old Testamentstory end?

(24:51):
It doesn't end in triumph, itdoesn't end in revival.
It doesn't end in lastingobedience from God's people.
It ends in failure and infrustration and in longing.
The Old Testament doesn't endwith God's people celebrating.
We finally did it.
We finally remained faithful toGod.

(25:14):
It ends with God's peoplewhimpering.
Lord, we still need rescuing.
It's as if the entire OldTestament takes a long, deep
breath and says, we needsomebody better.
We need someone better thanNehemiah, someone stronger than
Nehemiah to come, someone morefaithful than what we can

(25:36):
provide.
And we feel that ache mostclosely as we read the prayers
of Nehemiah through thispassage.
As we read it, you probablynoticed a pattern that
throughout this chapter,Nehemiah has offers these
prayers in the middle of hisreforms.
In verse 14, he says, Rememberme, O my God, concerning this,
and do not wipe out my gooddeeds that I have done for the

(25:58):
house of my God and for hisservice.
And verse 22, remember this alsoin my favor, O my God, and spare
me according to the greatness ofyour steadfast love.
And verse 29, remember them, Omy God, because they have
disecrated the priesthood andthe covenant of the priesthood
and the Levites.
And finally, in verse 31, thelast words of Nehemiah, the last

(26:20):
words of recorded Old Testamenthistory.
Remember me, O my God, for good.
This is not a victory lap.
These are not shouts of triumph.
These are the groans of afaithful leader who has reached
the end of his strength.

(26:43):
It's as if Nehemiah is saying,Lord, I have done all that I
can, and it's still not enough.
Lord, if you are not merciful tome, then I have no hope.
And it's exactly where the OldTestament would want us to
arrive at the end.
Not in self-confidence, but in aholy longing.

(27:05):
A longing for a redeemer tocome.
The season of Advent, which wecelebrate and anticipate the
coming of Christ, technicallybegins next Sunday.
But Nehemiah 13 actually won'tlet us wait that long.
There is a sense in which Adventbegins today.

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Because this passage in a uniqueway is crying out for a redeemer
to come to us.
Because we know that in thefullness of time, the 400-year
silence would break, that theword becomes flesh and makes his
dwelling among us.

(27:47):
Jesus does what Nehemiah couldnever do.
Where Nehemiah says, Lord,remember me for the good that I
have done.
Jesus says, I will remember youfor the good that I have done.
Where Nehemiah fears the nextgeneration drifting, the next
generation falling away from theLord, Jesus says, I will lose

(28:10):
none that the Father gives tome.
That I will be a God to you andto your seed after you for a
thousand generations.
Where Nehemiah confronts sinswith reforms, Jesus removes the
sins of his people as far as theeast is from the west.
Where Nehemiah sighs, Lord, I'vetried.

(28:34):
Jesus from the cross declares tous it is finished.
This is where Nehemiah 13 comeshome to us.
Because the need that is exposedin this chapter is the same
need, the same longing that isin our hearts.
One of the things that issomewhat depressing and somewhat

(28:57):
assuring to us is that the sinsthat Israel was committing in
Nehemiah 13, these are the exactsame sins they've been
struggling with for hundreds, ifnot thousands of years.
They have uh been strugglingwith these same sins all along.

(29:17):
And you might be in the sameplace and you think, Lord, you
must be getting tired of me.
Here I am, I'm coming back toyou with the same sin that I've
struggled with for so long.
And here I am needing your mercyagain.
Some of you hear a passage likethis and you feel discouraged
because you say, That's me.

(29:38):
That I make promises to God thatI never keep.
I drift away from God, I forgetwho I am, I forget who God is.
I can't keep myself faithfulunto my God.
And the good news of Nehemiah13, the good news of Advent, the
good news of the gospel is thatGod already knows that about

(29:59):
you.
He knows that you can't keepyourself faithful, he knows your
weakness, he knows yourfailings, and he does not grow
weary of you.
God loves you anyway, he longsto show mercy to you.
We think that God, that God'sgonna love us to the extent and
to the degree that we love andobey Him.

(30:21):
Nehemiah 13 and the rest.
Of the Old Testament tell usthat that can't be true.
Because God did not give up onhis wayward people.
He did not give up on hiswayward people in the Old
Testament.
And He's not going to give up onyou and me.
The foundation of your life asone who follows Jesus cannot be

(30:43):
your resolve.
The foundation of our life asfollowers of Jesus must be our
Redeemer.
This chapter is, Nehemiah 13 isnot in the Bible to condemn you
and to make you feel worse aboutyourself.
This chapter actually does anincredible job of diagnosing us,
of telling us why it is that wecan't keep ourselves spiritually

(31:06):
faithful, why we feel sospiritually inconsistent.
It does a great job of showingus why self-help actually isn't
enough.
To show us why every time wesay, this time I'm going to do
better.
I'm never going to do thatagain, why that always runs out
of steam.
But more than just explainingour behavior, Nehemiah 13 points

(31:27):
us to our Savior.
A Savior whose mercy, Saviorwhose love for you will never
run out.
A Savior who keeps covenant evenwhen you and I break covenant.
Some of you are here thismorning and you're not a
follower of Jesus.

(31:48):
You're not a Christian.
And you listen to a passage likethis, and something feels
uncomfortably familiar to you inyour life because you feel the
inconsistency in your life.
You feel the drift.
You say, Well, life is not theway that I think it should be.
No matter how hard I try, Ican't keep my life together.

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And what you're tempted tobelieve is that you've got to
get your life together in orderto come to God.
But what I want you to hear isthis that awareness of your
need, that feeling of your needis not a barrier for you to come
to God.
It actually is the doorway foryou to come to God.

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Christianity does not begin withstrength, it begins with need,
begins with weakness.
You were never created, you werenever meant to be your own
foundation.
And Jesus came for people whocan't hold themselves together.
And that includes everyone inthis room around you.

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And if you entrust yourself tohim, give him your past, your
present weakness, your future,Jesus promises to give to you
what you've been looking for allalong.
When we started this series inNehemiah and Ezra, we did it in
conjunction with a campaign.
We did it in conjunction with anew building that was going up

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before our eyes.
And it was easy to think thatthis series was going to be all
about what we were building as achurch, building physical things
like buildings and classrooms,spiritual things, like building
up faithfulness and habits andspiritual practices.
But the more we have walkedthrough these books, what we
have found is that thefoundation is not about what we

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build for God.
It is about what God is buildingin us.
And this passage reminds us whythat left to ourselves, that
even in our best moments wedrift away from God.
That you and I need rescue atthe beginning of our journeys,
and we will need rescue allalong the way.
Which means that the goal ofthis whole series was never

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self-improvement.
It was never self-praise.
We looked at this to show us ourneed of a Savior and to point us
back to Jesus.
Jesus is the foundation that westand on now and forever.
A foundation of our ongoing needmet by his unfailing love.

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Let's pray.
Father, we confess that we seeourselves in this passage much
more than we would like, that weare quick to drift from you,
slow to remember your goodness,and we are unable to keep
ourselves safe.
Thank you that you have not leftus to our own resolve, but you
have given us your Son.
And so, Lord Jesus, you are thetrue and better Nehemiah, and we

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pray that you would cleanse ourhearts, that you would rebuild
our love, and you would hold usfast when we wonder.
Holy Spirit, keep your word openbefore us.
We pray that you would exposeour sin, but that you would not
leave us there, that you wouldlead us unto Christ, and that
you would deepen our longing andour confidence that in Him we
are remembered and forgiven, andthat we are kept forever.

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And we pray this in Jesus' name.
Amen.