The sermon, 'Serving, Not Being Served,' delivered by Jason Dohm, examines Nehemiah 5:14-19, where Nehemiah, appointed as governor, chooses not to claim his rightful provisions to avoid burdening the people of Judah. This decision contrasts with previous governors who imposed heavy burdens, showing Nehemiah's fear of God and commitment to serving others. Dohm draws parallels to Matthew 20:28, emphasizing Jesus' teaching that greatness in God's kingdom comes through service. The sermon highlights seven truths from Nehemiah's example, including his focus on work over wealth, his motivation by the fear of God, and his use of personal resources for the community's benefit. Dohm encourages believers to consider what rights or comforts they might forgo to bless others and expand God's kingdom, urging them to follow Jesus' example of selfless service.

Our sermon text is Nehemiah 5 verses 14 through 19. Moreover, from the time that I was appointed to be their governor in the land of Judah, from the twentieth year until the thirty-second year of King Artaxerxes, twelve years, Neither I nor my brothers ate the governor's provisions. But the former governors who were before me laid burdens on the people and took from them bread and wine, besides forty shekels of silver. Yes, Even their servants bore rule over the people, but I did not do so because of the fear of God. Indeed, I also continued the work on this wall, and we did not buy any land.

All my servants were gathered there for the work. And at my table were one hundred and fifty Jews and rulers, besides those who came to us from the nations around us. Now that which was prepared daily was one ox and six choice sheep. Also fowl were prepared for me, and once every ten days an abundance of all kinds of wine. Yet in spite of this I did not demand the governor's provisions because the bondage was heavy on this people.

Remember me my God for good according to all that I have done for this people." The title of the sermon this morning is, Serving Not Being Served. Of course I'm pulling that out of Matthew chapter 20 verse 28 where Jesus, After rebuking his disciples for their own attitudes of wanting to have the place of honor, he tells them that he didn't come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. We're seeing the same attitude in Governor Nehemiah here in Nehemiah chapter 5. Last week the title of the sermon was An Ethic of Open-Handed Love. In other words, the Bible puts forward a consistent message about what is good and right, and that's that we love each other.

We who are among the people of God, we love each other in a very particular way. It looks like this, open hands. And we don't clench our hands tightly around our stuff, but we're willing to share. As God has given us, we view it as a stewardship and are glad to have the ability to open our hands to help our brothers and sisters. So in the text last week, we had lots about charging excessive interest and lots about indentured servitude.

There are some interesting things to know and study about that. But at the root of it, beyond that, is that love killers were operating among the Lord's people. And there had been a loss of love. So Nehemiah is really trying to reclaim a culture of love. A culture of open-handed love.

At the end of last week's text, we saw there was repentance. It's a beautiful end to a section of Scripture. All the assembly says, Amen, and then they all praise the Lord together. So they should. Love has been restored among the Lord's people.

So they should all say Amen to that. And it is a cause for praising the Lord together. And that's exactly what happens. This week is really just a continuation of that. The very beginning, the very first word of verse 14, our text for today, we have this connecting word, moreover.

And so the author is letting us know this is just more of the same, down the same track, a continuation of the theme that had been developed in last week's text. As we go to the text, let's go to the Lord in prayer. Oh Lord, I pray that you would help us to be like Jesus. Please conform us into His image. When we see what He is like in the Gospels, our hearts burn within us.

We know we are not like that. We know that He sets forth such an image of beauty, and we want to be less like ourselves and more like Christ. So I pray God that as we work through Nehemiah chapter 5, the end of the chapter, that you would use this text in a mighty way to bring us more into conformity of this precious image of your Son Jesus Christ. I pray it in His name. Amen.

Well, the normal pattern is to break the text up into many sections and then work through the many sections. I didn't really think that this particular passage lends itself to that. So it will be a bit of a different structure this morning. And what I'll be doing is extracting from these, how many verses is that? From these six verses, seven truths that I think we should consider and come away with, wisdom that we should acquire from this text.

So we'll just work through 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Here's number one. And if you're taking notes on the handout, you've got to fill in the blanks. Number one, Nehemiah gave up his right in order to be a blessing to the Lord's people. So if you're filling in blanks, right in people.

Nehemiah gave up his right in order to be a blessing to the Lord's people. Verse 14, The beginning of the text gives us the time frame. It says that what he's getting ready to describe is from the 20th year of the reign of King Artaxerxes. If we go back to chapter 1 verse 1 or chapter 2 verse 1, we find out that the whole book of Nehemiah, everything that's recorded, begins in the same year, the 20th year of King Artaxerxes. We're finding out here that Nehemiah was appointed governor by the king from the very start.

And then it's until the 32nd year of the reign of King Artaxerxes. So we have this 12 year span. When we get to chapter 13, in chapter 13 verse 6, we are going to learn that after this 12 year span, that Nehemiah is recalled to the king's court to serve the king. And then after an unspecified time, he comes back as governor again. So it doesn't even say how long he was back in Shushan serving the king.

He has a second stint of governors as well. He's right now in our text today describing something about his first stint, his first term if you would, of governor. It's a 12 year period of time. Nehemiah says here that he never laid claim to the governor's provisions. So there's an allotment for the governor.

If you're the governor, you don't have to feed yourself out of your own pocket. There's an allotment for you. This is already a well-established pattern. It's been going on. Previous governors have been benefiting from an allotment of food and provision for themselves and their administration.

This isn't unique to Judah. The Persian Empire has many, many provinces. I think in the book of Esther, at the time of the book of Esther, there were 127 provinces. So many, many provinces. You have a governor per province.

In every province, the governor is not serving at his own expense. He has the right to raise funds to supply his own table. But Nehemiah says very plainly that He never took advantage of this right that every governor, every Persian governor would have. He passed over that right. So I think there are two things in play here, and If you mix them up, you're going to end up very confused and thinking unbiblically.

So there is what was common practice in the Persian Empire, and all the way from before that to after that till today. In other words, if we were to get invited to the governor's mansion in Raleigh, and we were to go to Governor McCrory's table for dinner, He's not personally footing the bill for that. The taxpayers of the state of North Carolina go pay for that dinner. So that's common today. And if you come to this passage and the big takeaway for you is that's illegitimate.

That's not what the Bible is teaching. There's this practice, a right of a governor to be supplied. But then there's also how that practice was being used by Nehemiah's predecessors. So don't jumble those up or you come away not thinking rightly about it. Turning your Bibles to Romans 13, Paul will help us make the distinctions, draw the distinctions here.

So turn to Romans 13 and let's see what Paul says about ministers of God. In Romans 13 Paul calls civil governors ministers of God. In other words, they work for God. Whether they know they work for God or not is irrelevant. God wants there to be civil government.

It's actually a blessing to people. Anarchy is a curse. You want to know what's worse than tyranny, it's anarchy. Tyranny is bad, anarchy is worse. God has given civil governments to actually constrain evil and that's a blessing to everyone.

So in Romans 13, there's a lot to be said there, but let's begin in verse 5 and read through verse 7. Paul writes, Therefore, you must be subject, not only because of wrath, but also for consciences sake. For because of this you also pay taxes, for they are God's ministers attending continually to this very thing. Render therefore to all their due, taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor. So Paul talks about taxes and he actually says you should be paying your taxes.

God actually wants men to be set aside to serve this function. It's God's function. Civil government is not an invention of man. It's actually God's institution. Sometimes it's conducted in the most ungodly ways, but that shouldn't make you think that God has nothing to do with civil government.

He actually wants you to pay taxes so that there are full-time civil servants, That's what they're supposed to be. We call them that, and sometimes they act like servants, and sometimes they don't. They're civil servants, and they're appointed by God for a really good purpose. So we should pay our taxes so that somebody's giving their time to that function. Now turn to 1 Corinthians 9.

1 Corinthians 9 is again Paul's writing, but it will help us to understand that This is grounded in Old Testament law that Nehemiah would be navigating by. So we don't just come to Romans 13 and say, well, Paul, look at Paul, he's rolling out something new here. A new teaching. No. This is based in Old Testament law that Nehemiah is navigating by.

And Paul teaches on it in a very interesting way. In 1 Corinthians 9, I'll begin in verse 4 and read through 15. So Please follow along because this is a long reading. 1 Corinthians 9, beginning in verse 4. Paul writes, Do we have no right to eat and drink?

Do we have no right to take along a believing wife, as do also the other apostles, the brother of the Lord and Cephas? Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working? Whoever goes to war at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its fruit, or who tends a flock and does not drink of the milk of the flock. Do I say these things as a mere man?

Or does not the law also say the same also? For it is written in the law of Moses, you shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain. Is it oxen God is concerned about? Or does He say it all together for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written, That he who plows should plow in hope, and he who threshes in hope should be partaker of his hope.

If we have sown spiritual things for you, is it a great thing if we reap your material things? If others are partakers of this right over you, are we not even more? Nevertheless, we have not used this right, but endure all things lest we hinder the gospel of Christ. Do you not know that those who minister the holy things eat of those things of the temple, and those who serve at the altar partake of the offerings of the altar. Even so, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should live from the gospel.

But I have used none of these things, nor have I written these things that it should be done so to me. For it would be better for me to die than that anyone should make my boasting void." Paul does something really interesting here in 1 Corinthians 9. He goes back and he quotes Deuteronomy, something about an ox. You're not supposed to make the ox, to muzzle the ox while he treads out the grain. So making him work while not supplying provision for him.

You just work your ox to death, that way you muzzle him so he can't get at the grain that he's treading out. And Deuteronomy says, don't do that. So Paul takes that, he pulls the principle out of Old Testament case law and says, did God give us that law so that our oxes would be well treated? Was that God's big concern in giving this case law in Deuteronomy. So Paul says, no, no, this is about us and this is an enduring principle that people who work should work in hope.

People who work shouldn't be withheld from provision while they're working all the while. And so Paul says, I have a right to be provided for by you, but I am passing over this right. So he establishes the right, because of my labors you owe me my provision. But he says, ok, we are going to set that aside. I am not going to partake of my right so that there won't be any barriers between you and the Gospel.

So for the sake of the Gospel, for the sake of the expansion of the Kingdom of God, I'm going to set aside this rite that is so well established in the Law of God and Deuteronomy, so that there won't be any hurdle between you and salvation, between you and receiving the gospel of grace. Now flip over one page to chapter 10. 1 Corinthians chapter 10. And let's read verses 23 and 24. It's the same topic, but he really drives it home in 1 Corinthians 10, 23 and 24.

All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful for me, but not all things edify. Let no one seek his own, but each one the other's well-being." So applying this to Paul in Provision, he makes it very general in verse 10, but just going back and applying it to provision. It's lawful for him to insist on being provided because he's laboring. But that would netify in that case.

That wouldn't be helpful in that case. So he's not going to seek his own, but the other's well-being. That's what Paul is doing, setting aside his right to being provided for. That's exactly what's happening in Nehemiah chapter 5. Nehemiah has the same intent that Paul expressed.

He does not want to be a burden. He doesn't want there to be any hurdles between himself and the good of the people. And so, he doesn't lay claim to an allotted provision for the governor that is actually a rightful allotment. Verse 15 says that his predecessors, the governors that came before him, laid burdens on the people. If you look at that actual Hebrew word, instead of laid burdens, it's translated laid burdens.

But it's literally make heavy. He didn't want to make things heavy for the people. Put this big boulder on their backs that they have to add to the rest of their labors and the rest of their striving. So he can keep this from being made heavy for the people by setting aside his right for an allotment of provision. Just bypassing that right that he has.

In Nehemiah chapter 5 verse 4, this was last week's text, we saw that Some people are borrowing money to pay the king's taxes. There's famine. They don't have their usual crops to trade and get money. And so they're having to borrow money for the king's taxes. Nehemiah looks at that.

He looks at people borrowing to pay taxes to the king and he says, I'm not about to add to that. I'm not about to add to that to supply my table. You see his heart is towards the Lord's people. This is about Nehemiah's heart. What's the condition?

What's the trajectory? What is the object of Nehemiah's heart? It's God and His people. Nehemiah loves God. He loves God's people.

And he'd rather put his own resources in play than to make things heavy for the Lord's people. So this brings us to a question. What are you willing to forego to be a blessing to the Lord's people? What? It's got to be to be a proper application to this.

It's got to be something you can't be blamed for claiming. No one can call Nehemiah a bad guy if he takes an allotment. He's working as the governor. He has a right to be supplied at the government. No one should look on Nehemiah with furrowed brow if he takes provision.

So something like that. What are you willing to forgo? Something no one would ever blame you if you took advantage of it. I don't mean that in the bad sense. If you made use of.

Is there something, is there anything you would just forgo? It's coming to you. You say, I'll just pass by that for the good of my brethren. It's good to ask ourselves that question frequently. Are we forgoing anything that is coming to us rightfully?

In order not to be a stumbling block, in order not to be a barrier, in order to be a blessing, so that it won't be heavy for my brother or my sister. If we're going to follow the example of Nehemiah, we'll be able to identify something that we're just bypassing. It was coming to us, rightfully so. We said, no, it's better. It's more helpful.

It's lawful, but it's more helpful if I don't. Number two, the former governors not only did it, they overdid it. If you're filling in blanks, it's did it, overdid it. They did it, in other words, they took the allotment, it was a rightful allotment, and they took it. And then some.

They overdid it. They started thinking wrongly about what they really had a rightful claim to. Interestingly, the governors aren't named. So we've got Between the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, we've got a span of something like a hundred years. So you've got a hundred years of governors here.

The first wave of captives come back from Babylon led by Zerubbabel. He is called governor, but he's not called out by name. From what we learned about Zerubbabel and Ezra, I think it's doubtful that Nehemiah is talking about Zerubbabel. Then 85 years later, Ezra leads the second wave back from Babylon. He's never called governor.

So when you look at how Ezra functions, he definitely is functioning as an authority. He might be governor, but if he is, the text never calls him governor. And then 13 years after Ezra, now the third wave comes back with Nehemiah. The last wave of captives returns with Nehemiah. So it's probably the immediate predecessors of Nehemiah, probably, is who he's talking about.

But they're not named. In verse 15, as I said, it says that these predecessors, these governors that were before Nehemiah, laid burdens on the people. They took from them bread and wine and forty shekels of silver. This only makes sense if this is a daily allowance, the 40 shekels of silver. It's about a pound of silver.

So if you Google and you get out your calculator and you make this into today's dollars, 16 ounces of silver today would get you a little less than 300 bucks for a daily allowance so you're talking about about a hundred thousand dollars a year for food That's pretty good provision for any governor. $100, 000, and that's not the money that's coming into you for your labors or anything. That's just, I'm supplying my table with $100, 000 a year. That's not bad provision. I think the text makes it clear, the language of the text indicates that this is above and beyond what was necessary.

The governors of Judah don't really need $100, 000 a year in provision. They could do with less, particularly in times of want. Remember how Nehemiah starts. He gets a report. The people are in reproach.

The walls are broken down. The gates are burned. We're hard pressed by our enemies. This is not the time to be supplying your table with $100, 000 a year worth of provision. They're living luxuriously.

They're taking something that is a rightful claim, an allotment of provision, and they are going overboard with it. They have started to think wrongly about what should come to them from their labors. Worse yet, the governors are allowing their servants to have a heavy hand. Do you see that in verse 15? So it's the governors and that's bad enough, but their servants also are dealing with the people in a heavy-handed way.

Verse 15 says, even their servants bore rule over the people. NASB renders that domineered the people. ESV renders that lorded it over the people. So all the translations are picking up on this. Like the servants are dealing with the people in a heavy handed way, as if they're not even brothers.

It's sort of an extension of the problems that we were seeing last week. You're not acting like brothers. You're not acting like we're all in the same family. So The governors are doing it, but it's not even limited to the governors, their servants. They're dealing with people in a heavy-handed way as well.

So now we have this comparison. We have the former governors overdoing it. Not just taking the allotment, which they had the right to do, but going beyond what is necessary. Versus Nehemiah, who is forgoing the right altogether. He is not even taking his allotment.

So far from overdoing it, he is not even underdoing it. He is not doing it at all. And this is a very searching comparison. How are you doing with the stewardship of authority? Wherever it is in your life that God has given you authority.

How are you doing that with that stewardship? It's very easy for stewardship to become privilege. That's the problem that's happening in this text. They've been given a stewardship by God, but now it's being viewed as privilege. I have a right to a luxurious table.

I'm the governor. It's a stewardship. You're making it heavy. You're making this a burden on the people, and that's not right. We always have to be on guard about this whenever God puts us in authority.

We just have to see clear-eyed about it, that it is a stewardship. God is giving you that authority in order to be a blessing to the people under your authority, not a curse. So when the governor starts taking $100, 000 worth of provisions for his table, What was intended by God to be a blessing begins to become a curse for the people and begins to be way down on the people. It's a boulder that they have to add to the other boulders that they're under. Number three.

Nehemiah's motivation was the fear of God. This is what is driving Nehemiah. So if you're filling in blanks, motivation, fear, God. Nehemiah's motivation was the fear of God. Verse 15 just says it explicitly, but I did not do so because of the fear of God.

What the former governors were able to talk themselves into, I never could talk myself into. I couldn't do it because I feared God. And the implication of this is that Nehemiah is not thinking he is a great guy having done something above and beyond, he is thinking he has done his duty. Otherwise it wouldn't be the fear of God. If it is above and beyond, and you don't have to act that way to still do your duty, then you are not worried about the fear of God.

Nehemiah sees this as his duty, and we will talk more about that in a minute, about why that would be. Here's something really helpful that Matthew Henry says. It's really helped me galvanize in my mind the fear of God, the fear the Lord, which permeates the Bible. You can't hardly read a page of the Bible without the term, the fear of God or the fear of the Lord. It is everywhere.

Here's what Matthew Henry says, He had an awe of God's majesty and a dread of his wrath. Nehemiah had an awe of God's majesty and a dread of his wrath. I was getting a little nervous when a definition of the fear of God, the fear of the Lord, becomes one-sided. So I think Matthew Henry has really nailed it here. The fear of God is the fusion of these two things.

Fusion meaning welded together, never to be separated. You've got these two elements fused together forming the fear of God. One is there's a recognition of His Majesty. Some people want to make the fear of God all that and nothing else. That is a truncated, abbreviated definition of the fear of God.

They get you part way there, but it's missing something critical. But it's actually essential too. So this would be a recognition of His Majesty. This would be standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon and looking out over that. Or going out in the middle of the countryside where there's no other lights on a clear night where you can just see every star in the sky.

And you look up and it just presses on you. God is not a perfected version of me. A perfected version of me doesn't make a canyon like that. God is something completely different and you just have a sense of His Majesty pressing down on you and It's a kind of fear where you are acknowledging that this is another category. God is another category.

It is an acknowledging of the majesty of God, and then it is a healthy fear of His displeasure. There is a paralyzing fear, and then there is a healthy fear of his displeasure. In other words, God is good, God is kind, God is compassionate, And God is a righteous judge. And for all those reasons put together, I would never want to displease Him. It makes me afraid, just the thought of displeasing.

A righteous judge like that, and a kind Father like that, all rolled into one. It's a fearful thought to displease this God. So someone who gets that, someone who has a recognition of His Majesty, they've stood at the edge of the Grand Canyon, and they've thought about a righteous judge who said what was right and how fearful it would be to contradict that righteous judge. And that person says, wait, These aren't my people, these are God's people. I'm not free to just do whatever I would want.

I'm not free to enrich myself at the expense of these people, because they're not my people. This is not a place of privilege, this is a place of stewardship. These are God's people. This is how every husband should think of his wife. Every Christian husband should think of his wife in these terms.

They are like, I don't own her. I married the daughter of a king. This should make husbands fear. In the right way, I'm not talking about paralyzing fear. Husbands should fear knowing that they've married the daughter of a king who has entrusted this daughter to him for her care and her good.

Woe to the husband who doesn't care for this woman. This is how we should think of our children. They are not our children to do with whatever we want. They have been entrusted to us by God for their good, for their blessing. Heaven help you if you become a curse to these children.

Heaven help you. Nehemiah is doing this. He fears the Lord. He knows these aren't his people, they're the Lord's people. So he better do them good.

He wants to do them good. He doesn't want the displeasure of God for not having conducted Himself in the right way towards the Lord's people. So in chapter 5 verse 9, last week's text, he's addressing the rulers and the nobles who are exploiting the people. And he's saying, should you not walk in the fear of God? That's what he tells them in last week's text.

Shouldn't you fear God? And we see in this week's text, he fears God. Nehemiah himself fears God. So he stands on the ground able to exhort these nobles and these rulers and say, fear God, I fear God, you should fear God too. It's a blessing when someone in authority really fears God.

They see the majesty of God and they don't want to displease God and then they're able to lead those in their care also to a fear of the Lord. I think we see this. Number four, Nehemiah's focus was work not wealth. If you're filling in blanks, work, wealth. How was his focus?

His focus was on the work. Let's read verse 16. We're in Nehemiah 5, we're in verse 16. Indeed, I also continued the work on this wall, and we did not buy any land. All my servants were gathered there for the work.

We're here for the work. We're here for the result. We're here for accomplishment of the mission that God has given us to do. We are after results. And the results are about the building of the Kingdom of God.

This isn't about the stupid wall. It's not about the wall. It's about the building of a Kingdom. Yes, there is a wall. But It's not about the wall.

It's about the building of a kingdom. Yes, there's a wall. But it's not about the wall. It's about a kingdom of God. Charles Fincham is a commentator.

He's relatively modern. He died within my lifetime. Not within a lot of your lifetimes. But he's written a commentary on Ezra and Nehemiah that I found to be extremely helpful. Here's what he says, and he just backs up and keeps us from staring at the wall like the wall is the objective and helps us to see the big picture.

Here's what Charles Fincham says, We must Remember that Nehemiah and the Jews were at that moment the sole bearers of the true religion. What they were doing for themselves, they were doing on behalf of the maintenance of their religion. What Charles Fincham is saying is that there's an immediate view which is like we're exposed to our enemies. We've got to get this wall up so that we can defend ourselves from our enemies. So we're protected and no longer living in reproach.

And that's legitimate, that's all happening, but there's a bigger picture. In 1 Timothy 3, verse 15, Paul says that the church is the pillar and the ground of the truth. The church is today what Israel was then in the sense that We have God's words. The church is entrusted with the gospel and the truth of the new covenant. And Israel had been entrusted with the oracles of God.

There was nowhere else to get truth in the world. It was God's people. It still is God's people. That's still where you have to go for truth. So there's more at stake than just being able to build the wall.

They're building a kingdom of their God. Jerusalem was the centerpiece of that kingdom then. Nehemiah and the people in the book of Nehemiah, they were the sole bearers of the true religion on earth at that time. Make no mistake, Nehemiah and his servants could have been amassing wealth. We saw that people were having to sell low.

They needed money for taxes. They were desperate. You could buy low. It was the time for buying low. And many were buying low and exploiting their brethren.

So the opportunity exists to amass a tremendous amount of wealth. They would be exploiting their brethren and they would be distracting from their missions, so for those reasons they can't do it. They can't bring themselves to exploit their brethren. Praise the Lord. And they can't spare a moment to worry about getting richer.

They can't spare one second for it. Remember, Nehemiah is sleeping in his clothes during this period of time. Nehemiah is working every minute and he's sleeping ready to get up and fight. A final point on number four. All the servants in this passage are acting like the governors they are serving.

Did you notice that? We have two patterns in play here. We have the predecessors to Nehemiah, the governors who have come before him. And they're overdoing it. They're living in luxury.

They're making a heavy burden on the people. And their servants are acting just like them. Their servants are taking their cue. The governors are setting a pace. And the servants are taking their cue and they're running at the same pace.

He's exploiting them, we'll exploit them. So that's the first pattern. The second pattern is Nehemiah and his servants. Nehemiah is setting a pace. My guess is, if he had to, he would also constrain his servants and not allow them to exploit the people.

I have no doubt in my mind. Chances are, I would say, They don't want to. They're around a leader that they see is willing to sacrifice themselves, and they wouldn't dare think of it. Because they have a leader who's setting a good pace, a right pace. The same way that his predecessors were setting a bad pattern, and of course it was followed by his servants.

Nehemiah is setting a good pattern and of course it's followed by his servants. Authorities always set a powerful example for good or not for good. Fathers, are you paving the way for sinful patterns in your children? Dads. I wrote that this morning.

This part of the sermon was written early this morning. And I had two or three things come to mind where the patterns of my own life are exposing my children to sinful patterns in their own lives. You're going to set a pace. It doesn't Excuse your children. They're guilty of their own sins too, that you participated and you led them into it.

Through sinful patterns, carelessness in your own lives. Fathers, it's a good idea to sit down and just think through my patterns. Are there any ways in which my children are just like me and that's a bad thing? I better adjust. And don't start beating on them, literally or figuratively, until you've got the plank out of your own eye.

Number five, God entrusted Nehemiah with great resources in advance. God made Nehemiah ready for this moment in every way. He made his character ready. He made the patterns of godliness that we've been seeing in the first five chapters of the book. He made him ready with these godly patterns.

Prayer. Carefulness. Thoughtfulness. Planning. And he made him ready in his finances.

Nehemiah has a lot of finances. When you start to look at the expenses that he's bearing, it's probably equal to or greater than the expenses of his predecessors. Only he's picking up the bill. An ox a day, Six sheep a day. So now we make that a year.

It's 365 oxen. It's 2190 sheep. And now we're going to multiply by 12, a 12 year. This is a tremendous amount of resources. Plus poultry, plus wine, every ten days.

First, we should note that the king's cupbearer wasn't kitchen help. He's not the waiter who makes 15% and goes home and pays rent. He is one of the king's most trusted servants. And he has his own resources and a lot of them. And he's someone who would be worthy of being named the governor of a province.

The king has entrusted his cup bearer with governing one of his provinces. So think rightly about what a cup bearer is. Secondly, Nehemiah obviously spent less than he earned for a long time. Or somehow he has these resources. That's normally how people get resources.

They spend less than they earn over time. However he got these resources, it's clear that Nehemiah has been a good steward of them. When he had abundance, he didn't say, The abundance is for my consumption. That much is clear. Whether you say he got it if it was family money or paid a lot as the cup bearer or whatever.

You would have to say that he's been a good steward, and at the points in his life where he had an abundance, he didn't say, this is for my consumption, and consumed it. Because he has it now. He has it now when he needs it. That's important. When these circumstances converged, Nehemiah understood why God had given them that abundance.

Okay, for this. So that the people won't be burdened, so that I'm not laying a heavy weight on the people who already are having to borrow money to pay the king's taxes. That's why the abundance. You might not have known before now, but he saw this And he recognized, now's the time to spend it. Now's the time to consume it.

It would be a blessing to the Lord's people. Fathers and mothers, whatever resources God gives your family, you should ask, why? Whatever resources, we all are being given resources. So we have to ask the question, why? And the answer is not, for my consumption.

When God gives you abundance, it's not. Now we have a beach house fund. He's staging resources in advance to push forward the boundaries of his kingdom later. Don't consume everything you get. Paul says this.

Paul says we should work diligently so that we have something to give to him who is in need. If God is giving you extra, wonder, wonder why. Look around, see if you can find the answer. You might have to wait. Nehemiah has apparently waited.

He's had these resources accumulating, my guess is, for a long time. Number six. Nehemiah's good works were for the reward of God. If you're filling in blanks, works, reward. Nehemiah is good works.

He's doing good things. Good things are things that are consistent with the law of God, but they're for the glory of God. It's not enough to just do something consistent with the law of God, the laws of love. If it's not for the glory of God, not a good work. So he's been doing good works and for the reward of God.

He's looking to God to be rewarded for his good works. Now, I was nervous about the wording of this, and I changed the wording on this one at least once. And I'm just scared to death it will be taken as, works righteousness. I work and God gives me a paycheck for it. No, Nehemiah is not doing that, and I'm not suggesting that we should do that.

But, let's read verse 19. There's no getting away from Nehemiah looking to God to be rewarded. It's impossible to wiggle out of that. And we shouldn't want to. Nehemiah 5.19, Remember me, my God, for good according to all that I have done for this people.

ESV renders it, Remember for my good. Remember for my good. It's also a good translation. So Nehemiah is asking God to be pleased and to look favorably on him and to do him good for the service that he's rendered to the Lord's people. If you're uncomfortable with that, consider Hebrews 11 verse 6.

In other words, if you think we should just be disinterested, we should just do good for good sake, and not ever want to be rewarded by God, it sort of messes it up. If we want to be rewarded by God, that's very unbiblical. I think the person who develops this the best is John Piper in his book Desiring God. A lot of people hate that book. They just feel like the goods are evacuated out of anything you do if you want to be rewarded by God for it.

But that is not what the Bible teaches. So I'm thankful for Piper's book. Consider Hebrews 11 verse 6. This is the great faith chapter, but without faith it is impossible to please Him, to please God. For he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

So no pleasing God without faith. It's impossible to please Him without faith. You can do things that seem like they're conforming to His prescribed will in the Scriptures. But if it's not mixed with faith, it is impossible to please Him. For he who comes to God must believe that He is, That's the part we're not surprised about.

And that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. So not only does God not frown on us seeking reward, He says it's essential. God says it's essential that we believe that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. This is what we have in Nehemiah chapter 5. Nehemiah is diligently seeking God through the patterns of his life and then he's looking to God to be rewarded for that.

But God insists that we look to Him for the reward, not to the world and the things of the world. In Genesis 15 verse 1, you have this great encounter between Abram and God. And God says to Abram, Genesis 15, I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward. So you have to believe that God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him, but you've got to be looking for a certain kind of reward. If you're not satisfied in God, this will never work.

Because God says He's your exceedingly great reward. We should enlarge our appetites for God so that when he rewards us that way, we'll say, yes! Turn to Matthew chapter 6. I think Jesus completely shines the light on this in Matthew chapter 6. Verses 1-4, Jesus is teaching about charitable deeds, about doing things like paying for your own provisions when you could have had others paying for them.

Matthew 6 verse 1, Jesus teaches, take Heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward from your Father in heaven. Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, Do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory from them. Assuredly I say to you, they have their reward, but when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. Your charitable deed may be in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly.

The vision of God that Jesus puts before us in Matthew chapter 6 is a people who are living out of a well of gratitude, and they're doing good because they love God and then they look to Him for the reward. They don't self promote the things that they're doing. Surely Nehemiah is not self promoting that He's paying for his own provisions. My guess is he's very quietly going about this. Probably people know it.

I don't know how some people would have to know it, I would think. He's not doing it to be seen by men. He does good and then looks to God. He's not looking around. Who noticed?

Verse 19 shows that Nehemiah is not doing it for the applause of men because he's appealing to God for his reward. By the way, he'll do this three times. When we get to chapter 13, he's going to say almost the same thing. Remember me for good, remember me for good, remember me for good, about other good works that he's done for the glory of God in chapter 13. In other words, Nehemiah will keep on doing good for the glory of God, looking to God for the reward.

This is the pattern of his life. He wants to live to God's honor, and then when he's done something for the honor of God, he looks to God for the reward. Number seven, Jesus is our perfect example. If you're filling in blanks, perfect example. It's Jesus.

Jesus is our perfect example. It would be a shame for the point of the sermon to be, be like Nehemiah. Look at the great guy in Nehemiah chapter 5. He pays his own way. You do that too.

You pay your own way. Be like the good guy, Nehemiah. Of course, in a sense we should be like Nehemiah. Nehemiah is exemplary in Nehemiah chapter 5, but this actually teaches us about the glories of the kingdom where the mature are those who are raised up by God and then set to serving his people and building his kingdom. Let's not be like Nehemiah.

It's look at the glories of this kingdom where the king raises up people to maturity. Over time he teaches them a hundred different ways. He gives them lots of resources and then instead of them glorying in their maturity and consuming the resources on themselves, then they turn around, and to those who have just come into his kingdom, he sets them serving them. Look at the glories of that kingdom. That's the point of the text, not that Nehemiah is a great guy and we should be like him.

Look at what kind of a kingdom God has, Jesus has, that he raises up and teaches and brings along so patiently and then brings children to maturity and then he sets them about serving and blessing people who he has just brought into his kingdom. Then the cycle repeats itself a thousand times over through the ages. What a glorious kingdom that is. And the foundation of that is Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God. If you want to know the example of all examples, you look at Jesus taking on flesh.

That's why I said the incarnate Son of God, He left all the privilege of heaven. Think about the provisions at that table. He left all that to take on the form of a servant, to humble himself to death, even the shameful, disgraceful death of the cross to serve you, to serve me. Last week, one of the things I said in the sermon is, we can never be more open-handed than God. It's impossible.

Nowhere do we see God more open-handed than Jesus going to the cross for sinners. Turn to Matthew 20. Matthew 20 is our last scripture we're hitting today. We're on a sprint to the finish so I can beat the hour mark. It's not going to happen.

Matthew chapter 20. Let's read 25 through 28. James and John have just come to Jesus and asked for the places of honor. I guess in Matthew's account It's their mother who instigates this. But it's James, John, and their mother.

They want the places of honor. I want to be on the right and he wants to be on the left. Here's Jesus' response in Matthew 20 verses 25 through 28. But Jesus called them, all his disciples, who were mad at James and John and their mother. Jesus called them to Himself and said, You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lorded over them, and those who were great exercise authority over them.

Yet it shall not be so among you, but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave. Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many. All of this is grounded in Jesus and what He has come to do. God is not pressing something on us that he wasn't willing to do himself.

No, he led the way in sending Jesus to be the ultimate example of this. So Jesus is the gold standard. There is no other example like Jesus. And Nehemiah is exemplary. Worthy of being imitated, but we are also called to it.

Jesus is the gold standard, Nehemiah is exemplary, but we are called to it as well. This isn't just something that we admire in Nehemiah. It's something we are called to. To a humble spirit that's ready to serve our brothers and sisters. So this question, have you embraced this mighty work on behalf of sinners?

Jesus came to serve you in the ultimate way and to do what you never could do, which was to pay the debt for your sins. Have you embraced it? Have you run to the cross for mercy? And if so, my guess is there's a lot of people in this room who could say yes, But if so, have you followed him in this? In the glory of the kingdom where somebody is raised up to maturity and then turns around to serve, assumes that people are being raised in maturity.

Like are we still babies? That's the sign of the mature actually. They're serving with all their might. They're open handed with their resources and they're serving their brothers and sisters. That's how you know how mature you are.

Are we following Jesus in this? Applications, I just have one with about seven sub-applications. With about seven sub applications. It's this, and it's a question. What things can we bypass to be a blessing to the Lord's people, to build the Lord's kingdom.

I think you have to, Christians have to come away from Nehemiah chapter 5 asking that question. What things can we bypass to be a blessing to the Lord's people and to build the Lord's kingdom. Here's a thought that popped into my mind. My sister and her family had a pattern for a while. I think it was a year, I think it was one night a month.

I could have the details wrong. But anyway, the pattern was beans and rice for dinner. One night. And to take the difference and give it to missions. Super simple.

Costs you some flavor. You still eat, still have a full stomach, but you'll feed yourself really, really cheap, like a lot of the world, and you'll take the difference. We normally spend $15 to prepare an average dinner, and this is 75 cents So we'll take the $14 and 25 cents, and we'll just give it so it's a net no Hit on the budget I'm not saying we can't be or shouldn't be more sacrificial than this. I'm just saying, hey, that's a great idea. That's sort of in the direction I'm talking about.

They bypassed normal dinner, and they took the resources and gave it to the advancement of the kingdom in missions. You say, well, $14.25 a month. Let me tell you something. I was on the phone yesterday morning with a church from Wisconsin. Hopefully I'll be having dinner with the pastor tomorrow night in Charlotte.

But they're supporting the pastor of the first church that Frank Maxon planted in Malawi. They're supporting him, fully supporting him with $100 per month. Your family could probably scrape together enough to support a pastor full-time in Malawi. You think, oh beans and rice for one night, big whoop. If we use our money efficiently, don't underestimate what one family can do.

Could you, if you had to, scrape together $100 a month to support a pastor in Malawi? The dome's good. We could scrape it together. Maybe we should. Maybe we will.

But think not just in terms of money. Nehemiah chapter 5 just sort of sends us off thinking about money. But think about your time too. It's your other precious resource, money and time. Maybe your Saturday mornings are sacred to you.

But maybe you should take one of them once in a while and go out to the abortion clinic. I know what you're thinking. He's just beating the abortion clinic drum again. Well yeah, I'm doing that, but I'm also doing more than that. Just think about things like that, time slots like that, where you've considered them off limits, It's me time, but you might be able to redeploy a couple of those slots to something that would be a blessing to the Lord's people or where they advance His Kingdom.

We all need rest. Let me suggest, if you need a day of rest, maybe the Lord has given us one. We should labor six days, and then we should rest. We should have a mighty rest. Where we really are made ready for another week of labor by coming together and rejoicing in the Lord together.

The point is this, we have this treasure in earthen vessels. We have the gospel of Jesus Christ. We have the truth that will set sinners free from their sins. Let's go. Let's sprint.

And Let's look to God for the reward. God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. I don't think, like if we go from a loping jog to a sprint, I don't think we'll look back and be sorry and just wish we had paced ourselves more. I'm pretty sure that won't be true. We'll find that God is the rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

Let's pray. God, I do thank You for the treasure of the Gospel. I give into Your church with a mandate to go and to give as we have received. We've received so freely, then we should go give freely. And I pray, God, that you would change us.

We know we need to be changed. We know it wouldn't be pleasing to you, It wouldn't bring you honor if we just stayed where we are. We need to be very different than we are today. All have mercy on us, God. Please come.

Bring change. Bring the change that we need. Help us to love your kingdom so much more than we love it now. Help us to love our brothers and sisters so much more than we love them now. Help us to build lives to your honor.

And then we'll look to you to the reward. We know you'll reward those who diligently seek you. Help us to have more of you, that you would be our exceedingly great reward in Jesus name. Amen.