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One more time, if you have your Bibles, would you open them to the book of Nehemiah, and this time, I want you to find Nehemiah chapter 13, which is the last chapter in the book. This is our last week in the book of Nehemiah, which makes me a little sad, to be honest, because I've actually really enjoyed this book. How about you? Have you enjoyed our study of Nehemiah? Me too. I want you to think with me as you're turning there to Nehemiah 13, give you a second to find it. I want you to think with me about terrible endings to terrific stories. For you Gen Xers, the Seinfeld finale remains one of TV's most divisive endings. Instead of a heartfelt, emotional send-off, George, Elaine, Jerry, and Kramer end up jailed for violating the Good Samaritan law in a local town, and past characters from the show like Abu, Abu and Newman, come testify before a jury about what jerks they have been. Fans who were expecting emotional closure and for Jerry and Elaine to finally get together felt blindsided by the ending's cold, ironic tone, yet there were others, including Larry David, the writer himself, argued that it was brilliantly self-consistent, a show about nothing and selfishness ending with isolation. So anti-climatic, let-down, or insightful, satirical self-reflection? The jury's still out, yada, yada, yada, right? More recently, people have been all fired up over the conclusion of Stranger Things, or as the kids would say it, they were in low-key meltdown mode over Stranger Things. And by the way, don't worry, I'm not about to give away any spoilers here, but the series finale which came out on December 31st was so bad that a lot of people assumed it was a parody episode and that the real finale was going to drop 24 hours later on midnight New Year's Day. In fact, there was this whole TikTok trend where people were pointing to these little hints in the last episode, hidden frames, little Easter eggs, that kind of stuff. People hosted live TikTok parties in preparation for the real finale that they assumed was about to come out, but then midnight New Year's Day came and went, and people realized that

the terrible finale they saw actually was really the end. The ending was chopped, as the kids say. I share all that because Nehemiah 13 ranks up, ranks up there with most unsatisfying endings. Nehemiah 13, of course, ends not just the book of Nehemiah, it actually ends the entire Old Testament. As we have discussed, the events of the book of Nehemiah are the last recorded historical events of the Old Testament, which means that Nehemiah 13, verse 31, the final verse of this chapter, closes out the timeline of the Old Testament. It is abrupt, and when the final curtain falls, nobody stands up to applaud. In fact, nobody stood up, period, because nobody was really even sure the show was over. One guy in the back finally yells out, wait, was that it? The manager sheepishly walks out on stage, hat in hand, and he's like, I'm sorry, folks, that really was the end. He holds up a script showing that we really have gotten to the last page. Everybody starts booing and throwing tomatoes at him, and it becomes a whole thing. This unfulfilling ending is intentional, however, because it sets us up for the greatest finale of all time. It paves the way for the ultimate closer who's going to stride onto the set a few hundred years after Nehemiah closes. So one last time, in our study of the book of Nehemiah, could I ask that we all stand at all of our campuses for the reading together of God's Word. Nehemiah 13, we're going to begin, I'm going to read to you the majority of this chapter. We're going to begin in verse 4. I want you to listen as I read it, and I want you to think this is the conclusion to the Old Testament. Now, Eliashib, the priest who was appointed over the chambers of the house of our God, and who was related to Tobiah, you remember Tobiah? Tobiah was one of Nehemiah's chief adversaries. Well, Eliashib, the high priest, prepared for Tobiah a large chamber where they had

previously put the grain offering, the frankincense, the vessels, the tithes of grain, the oil. He put them right there in the temple. While this was taking place, Nehemiah said, I wasn't in Jerusalem for, in the 32nd year of Artaxerxes, king of Babylon, I had gone back to the king. After some time, I asked leave of the king, and I came to Jerusalem, and then I discovered the evil that Eliashib had done for Tobiah, preparing for him a chamber in the courts of the house of God, and I was very angry. And I threw all the household furniture of Tobiah out of the chamber, which is kind of awesome if you ask me. Verse 10, I also found out that the portions of the Levites had not been given to them, so I confronted the officials and I said, why is the house of God forsaken? Verse 14, remember me, O my God, concerning this, and do not wipe out my good. the deeds that I have done for the house of my God and for his service. In those days, I saw in Judah people treading wine presses on the Sabbath. Then I confronted the nobles of Judah and I said to them, what is this evil thing that you were doing profaning the Sabbath day? Did not our fathers act in this very way? And for that very reason, did not our God bring all of this disaster on us and on this city? Remember this also in my favor, oh my God, and spare me according to the greatness of your steadfast love. Verse 23, in those days, I also saw the Jews who had married women of Ashdod and Ammon and Moab and half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod. They couldn't even speak the language of Judah.

So I confronted them and I cursed them and beat some of them and pulled out their hair, which again, it's kind of awesome. Verse 25, and I made them take an oath in the name of God saying you shall not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, for yourselves. Did not Solomon, king of Israel, sin on account of such women? Among the many nations, there was never a king like Solomon. Nevertheless, foreign women made even him the sin. Remember them, verse 29, oh my God, because they have desecrated the priesthood and the covenant of the priesthood in the Levites. And if we could, can we all read this last verse together? The last verse, not only of Nehemiah, but the last verse of the whole Old Testament. Okay, here we go. Verse 31, remember me, oh my God, for good. Remember them, God, for all the bad they did and curse them for it. And remember me for good, and that's it. The curtain falls and thus ends the Old Testament. This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. You may be seated, you may be seated. Okay, here is the context. Nehemiah has been called back to Persia for a bureaucratic meeting with King Artaxerxes, and while he is gone, Israel goes off the rails. In Nehemiah 10, Israel had made

three specific promises to God. Nehemiah 10 is the last chapter dealing with Israel's big spiritual revival that had taken place just a few years before Nehemiah 13. We've already spent a couple of weeks on that revival. We saw in Nehemiah 8, you remember, how they had stood literally all day long to hear God's word read to them? And then in chapter nine, we saw how they had wept and confessed their sins in response to God's word. Well, in chapter 10, they made a covenant with God that they would honor God in all things, and they highlighted three specific areas that they would seek to honor God. Number one, this is chapter 10, verse 30. We will not give our daughters to people around us, meaning the four nations, and we will not take their daughters for our sons. By the way, this was not a racial purity thing. This was a avoiding spiritual compromise thing. You see, God had always told Israel that intermarrying with unbelievers was the quickest way to destroy the faith for the next generation. In fact, in what the scripture they read aloud there, in Nehemiah 8, that was a prominent theme. It appears multiple times in Deuteronomy. Kids get raised in a home where mommy worships one God and daddy worships another. On one side of the home,

mom lives with a certain set of priorities, and dad lives on the other side of the home with a whole different set of priorities. That all but kills faith, not just in the marriage, but it definitely kills it for the next generation. It was very famously the downfall of Solomon. Solomon, the wisest, most blessed king in Israel's history. Solomon was brought down, not through armies, but through marriage to unbelieving wives. Promise number two, chapter 10, verse 31. The people said, we will not buy or sell on the Sabbath. In other words, we will honor God by devoting one day to rest and worship just like God commanded. And then finally, number three, verse 32, we will not neglect the house of God, meaning they promised to support the work of God generously to tithe out of the first fruits of their produce to support what God was doing through the means of the temple. Those, of course, are the very three things that Nehemiah 13 says that they went back on. Y'all, it is so easy. Don't get self-righteous. Don't say, how in the world could they do that? It is so easy to promise great things in a moment of inspiration, only to falter in a moment of exhaustion. In fact, write this down. It is not inspiration that counts in the Christian life, it's perspiration.

It's not excitement, it's endurance. You see, it's less about how intensely you. Start, and it's more about whether you actually go the distance. Starting is easy. All it takes is a good speaker and a good theme song and a motivational talk. It's enduring that is difficult. Where so many people falter is not the good intention stage of the Christian life. That's easy. Where they falter is the endurance stage. The Anglican theologian J.I. Packer has the greatest description of the Christian life. He says, our spiritual life, I love this, is a fragile convalescence, easily disrupted. Convalescence is that time you got to spend in the hospital or on bed rest after you've been healed from some sickness. That time where doctors and nurses are really paying attention to you, monitoring all your vital signs, and strictly controlling your diet, your rest, your medicine regime. You got to be really, really careful during that time of convalescence, or you're going to fall back into your sickness. That is what the entire Christian life is like. You never really get to where you're just strong and healthy and have no need of the doctor, Packer says. Your whole life is a fragile convalescence. It is so easily interrupted. It requires constant monitoring, constant vigilance, because I'm telling you, the moment you stop paying attention to this spiritual convalescence you're in, you are going to fall back into old habits and you are going to undo any progress that you have made.

I shouldn't tell you this, but my wife got one of those red light masks for Christmas that is supposed to help your face not get wrinkled or whatever. And the deal is, you got to basically wear it every single day for, like, five weeks straight. And then after that, you drop down to, like, once or twice per week. So I decided I would do it with her because I don't want her face looking like warm sunshine while mine looks like a raisin. But, y'all, I'm telling you, who can remember to put that thing on every day? So I would do it for, like, a week straight, and then I'd forget for three or four days. And then the manual said I had to start the five-week clock over. Because if you want it to work, they say you got to be consistent. So this is me right now every night. Even thought about putting it in the car so I can drive around with it on, but that totally freaks people out. Our spiritual life is a fragile convalescence easily disrupted. So let me just ask you, where have you fallen away from some promise that you made in good faith? Maybe in the first of the year, you made a decision to read your Bible every day, and you did that for about two weeks, and then you stopped. Or you made a decision to start attending church. You were going to give it a year, just like I challenged you, but now you stopped. And I know some of you sitting here in front of me, you're like, well, JD, obviously, we're the ones that are still doing it, right? We're still here. How are the people who've actually stopped coming, how are they going to hear you say this? They're watching online right now, okay? I see you.

Listen, I'm glad you are joining us that way. But just know, sitting on your couch at home does not fully count as church. That online experience is for extraordinary circumstances. It's not replacement church. It'd be like never coming home to your wife at night and just FaceTiming her. That doesn't count. Maybe you decided that you would stop some sinful habit. Maybe you're like, you know, I'm going to stop looking at pornography, I'm going to stop drinking too much alcohol. You even got an accountability partner. And you started out so well. January was awesome. But it's been several weeks since you checked in with that partner, and just this week, you've fallen back into those old habits. Maybe you were going to meet with some guys for Bible study and accountability, but now you've petered out. Or, you know, maybe you faltered in one of the three specific areas mentioned here that Israel faltered in. I mean, these things are three perennial problems. You made a decision to break off a bad relationship. Relationship that was bringing you down, a dating relationship, a friendship, and now you've gone back to it. Or maybe you've started to date an unbeliever. Like Nehemiah warns here, that is literally the quickest way to destroy both your own faith, not to mention the faith of every future generation of your family. Scripture is clear. Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. Second Corinthians 6, which means you are not to date or marry an unbeliever. If you marry, Paul says, you marry only in the Lord.

First Corinthians 7, which means you got to date only in the Lord. And don't think that you're the one exception to this, because Nehemiah says, if it brought down Solomon, it's going to bring down you. Or maybe it's in how you treat the Sabbath. Let me encourage you, by the way, to think of a Sabbath as more than just a ritual day that you take off, but think of the Sabbath as emblematic of the priority that you give your relationship to God. Are you giving your relationship with God the priority? that you told him you would this year, which includes taking one day off a week where you stop working or studying or whatever it is that you do, and you rest and you focus on your relationship with God, have you faltered here? Or maybe you committed to tithe, to give God the first place in your budget, to give him that first 10%, and you tried it for a month, but then it got hard, so you stopped. Again, it is not inspiration that counts in the Christian life. It's perspiration. It's not excitement. It is endurance. So there is an admonition in this final story of the Old Testament to follow through on your commitments. But see, this final scene actually raises some deeper questions.

You see, this scene here in Nehemiah 13 that marks the end of Israel's Old Testament history, listen, is nearly identical to the scene in the book of Exodus that opens Old Testament history. In Exodus 19, God had appeared to the people of Mount Sinai and the people experienced revival just like the people did in Nehemiah 8 and 9. In Exodus 24, the Israelites promised to obey God and to keep his commands forever just like they did in Nehemiah 10. And then Moses, Exodus 32, left for a while just like Nehemiah left in chapter 13. Moses had gone back up into Mount Sinai to receive some more instruction from God just like Nehemiah went to see King Artaxerxes. But just like Nehemiah, Moses ended up being gone a little longer than the people expected. And so the people fell away and reneged on all their commitments. They fashioned a golden calf to stand in for God. They began to worship that calf and ended up engaging in a drunken orgy. What that means, do not miss this. Listen, Old Testament history ends the same way it started. The people obey in a moment of high inspiration in the presence of a compelling leader, but they fall away whenever that inspiration has died down

and that leader is absence. And that is depressing because that is not the kind of obedience God wants, right? God wants a people who obey whether there's somebody there to enforce it or not. I mean, you parents, isn't that the kind of obedience you want from your children? I don't want my children doing right simply because I'm physically present to coerce it. No parent wants that. I want my children to do right because it's become a part of their nature. I want them to tell the truth because they love integrity. I want them to be kind and selfless because that's just who they are. Not because I'm present to enforce it or because I promised to reward them with an ice cream cone for their selflessness. That's what God wants from his children too. I've kind of compared it to this before and I will warn you, this is a gross analogy, but it makes the point. In fact, the grossness is part of the point. I've compared it to how you would respond to a pile of vomit that you encounter. Somebody gets sick between services here and they throw up right down here in the middle of the floor. Nice steaming pile of vomit, middle of the floor. It looks gross, smells terrible.

All of you instinctively avoid it. I do not have to stand up here and say, hey folks, everybody, we're gonna dismiss, but I gotta warn you, it is strictly against summit policy to come down here and play in somebody else's vomit. I mean it. If I catch any of you up here playing in this vomit, we're gonna have to escort you out. I don't have to say that. I don't have to station a security guard up here to enforce that obedience. No, you avoid vomit because it's gross to you. Now, that's not true of course, if you're a dog. A dog is like warm vomit, yum. Half digested breakfast sausage, amazing, right? God doesn't want a generation of spiritual dogs who avoid the vomit of sin only because there's a strong leader standing in front of it with a big stick. He wants a generation of spiritual sons and daughters who love what he loves, delight in what he delights in, and hate what he hates by nature because there is offspring. The question is how is God gonna produce a generation of people with those kinds of hearts? The law hasn't worked. That's the question the Old Testament ends with. So here's what I'm gonna do with the remainder of our time. First, I'm gonna show you really practically where all these compromises started

because it's got a very practical lesson in it for you, and I don't want us to miss that. But then more importantly, I'm gonna show you how the anticlimactic, depressing end of Nehemiah answers the central question. Old Testament leaves you hanging with, and that is how God is gonna create a generation of people who obey Him from the heart. First, the practical lesson. This is important. The first step in falling away is letting Tobiah into your temple. How did Israel get to the place that they reneged on every commitment they made in Nehemiah 10? Well, I think the way that Nehemiah writes the chapter is very significant. He opens the chapter with Eliashib, the high priest's choice to give Tobiah a room in the temple. Eliashib, as I noted, was the high priest, and the temple, of course, was the most sacred place in Israel. Verse four says Eliashib provided Tobiah a place to stay in the temple, and not just a little closet either. Verse five tells you he gave him a large chamber there. In other words, he gave him a place of influence. Now, Tobiah, as I reminded you, was one of Nehemiah's chief antagonists from the beginning.

Back in chapter four of Nehemiah, Tobiah had tried to sabotage Nehemiah's wall-building efforts. In chapter six, Tobiah had even participated in a plot to assassinate Nehemiah. On top of all that, Tobiah, we learn, was an Ammonite, and God had said in Deuteronomy 23 that no Ammonite was to enter the assembly of the Lord because of how badly the Ammonites had treated God's people during the exodus. God had said that the ban on the Ammonites extended down to the 10th generation, which was a Hebrew way of saying forever. Eliashib knew all of that. It was part of the law that Eliashib had helped read out loud in Nehemiah 8. As the high priest, he was in charge of the reading of the law. But did you notice that little detail in verse four that said that Tobiah was a relative of Eliashib? They were family by marriage. And you know what? Family relationships are complicated, aren't they? Sometimes it's easier just to get along and go along in the family than it is to rot in the boat by standing up for what's right, just to keep your mouth shut. For example, when you're the only one in the family who believes a certain thing

and you know that the rest of the family is gonna give you a hard time if you speak up about it. Or to be the one parent in the group who says, you know, I don't think that's a good idea for our children. Or we just don't talk that way in our family. Or our family is not okay with these things. Or to be the one guy in the group of friends who objects to some activity or some line of joking. Or the one person in your class who is willing to stand up for a biblical conviction that has become wildly unpopular in our culture. Eliashib, under family pressure. The high priest allowed a compromised man to occupy a place in the temple. And from there, everything else began to unravel. If I look down at verse 28, we didn't read this a moment ago, but here's what it says. One of the sons of Jehoiada, the son of Eliashib. So one of Eliashib's grandsons was the son-in-law. Oh, look at this. Sanballat the Horonite. One of Eliashib's grandsons married Sanballat's daughter. Sanballat, of course, was the other arch enemy of Nehemiah. In fact, he was way worse than Tobiah. He was to Tobiah what Voldemort was to be at Bellatrix. Parents, here's the point. Sin, compromise, never stays in your private life. It multiplies into the next generations. Eliashib's grandson was like, well, granddaddy Eliashib seemed okay with Tobiah.

Sanballat's daughter can't be that bad. I mean, she's super cute. Yeah, she worships differently than we do. She doesn't love Jerusalem like we do. She's got different priorities than we do, but she can't be that bad because granddaddy Eliashib brought Tobiah into the temple. Parents, hear me. Compromise is a seed that multiplies like a weed into the hearts and lives of our children. You know, it's devastating as a parent when you see one of your sins manifested in the lives of one of your kids, isn't it? Not talking to anybody else out there? What's especially weighty is that your compromises quite often will multiply in them. You're a little materialistic, for example. As in, you talk about money, and it's obvious you like nice things, and your discontentment with what you have or your jealousy toward others, you have a little bit more than you. It seeps out from time to time. You don't think it's really that obvious, but your kids pick it up. Your kids rarely hear you talk about generosity, and they know that you don't really delight in generosity. If anything, it's more of a duty, but you don't talk about it. It's not a delight.

What you delight in is. the thought of more stuff in the future. You don't talk about your commitment to tithe, that multiplies in them so that they grow up entitled and entirely focused on money. Or you're super conscious about how you look. You're pretty dialed in to what you weigh or how you compare to your friends and that kind of stuff always seeps out to your kids. They can tell. And then your kids grow up obsessed with self-image. Or you enjoy slinging a little gossip around your house or on the phone with your friends. You think it's just you talking to your friends, but your kids are picking that up. And they grow up with backbiting and exclusivist tendencies. Or how about this one? You don't abandon church, but you don't exactly prioritize it either. You'll skip it pretty easily. Ballgames, travel, beach houses, those always take precedence over consistency in church. And that multiplies in your kids to the point that church is not a priority at all as young adults, they rarely go to church because you know what? There's always something else on the weekend to do. And you've raised them to assume that there's something more compelling to do on the weekend.

Time with God's people takes a back seat. I'm not saying there's never a time that it's okay to miss church. I'm not saying that at all. I'm just saying that what you sow in seed form multiplies into your kids. And since it's Mother's Day weekend, let me just pause here and say this very plainly. Thank God for the faithful women of the church who refuse to compromise in this area. I say that because so many of us are here because of a mother who prayed or a grandmother who believed or a wife who stayed faithful and refused to let go the importance of church. So praise God for faithful women, okay? But man, let me talk to you for a minute. Some of you are here today solely because your wife said, it's Mother's Day and I want all of us to go to church as a family. The reality is that if she didn't, appreciate that. The reality is, I'm not talking about whoever's with you, but the reality is that if she didn't drag you here, you would never come. But listen, okay? So many questions right now, but listen. Listen, men, God did not call you to be spiritually dragged through life by a woman who loves you.

He didn't call you to be passive when it comes to life's most important questions. At some point, you got to stop outsourcing spiritual leadership to your wife and you got to step up and lead, okay? My point in all of this is that places that we allow compromise into our lives have a significant impact on our children. Now, I'm not trying to say, listen, any problems your kids have are your fault or they're your responsibility. No, our kids make their own decisions and you can raise them wonderfully and they might still make bad decisions, okay? I'm just saying that compromise has a way of multiplying itself into the next generation. What is neglected in one generation is abandoned by the next. That is certainly true in a family. As you see in Elijah's family, it's also true for a whole religious community. When Elijah, the high priest, brought compromise into the temple, it affected more than just his family. The whole community of Israel started faltering in their obedience. Listen to me. When compromise is given a place in the temple, other sins very quickly follow. For example, when a church starts to question

the inerrancy or the authority of God's word, it is not long before its members start questioning some of the Bible's supposedly outdated teachings. Things like Paul's insistence that only qualified men serve in the office of pastor are the truth of what the Bible teaches about sex or gender or marriage. Y'all, I remember when I was in college, my religiously affiliated college, some of my professors, religion professors, who would readily say that they were Christians, they felt perfectly free declaring certain New Testament teachings to be outdated. Oh, and they had the most clever way of doing this. They'd say, well, Jesus is our standard for interpreting the Bible. And what they meant by that is they would apply their understanding of Jesus to anything the New Testament said they didn't agree with, and then they would declare that New Testament thing that they disagreed with to be outside of the Jesus that they had in their head. For example, if what Paul said in one of his epistles was inconsistent with how they understood Jesus, they would just say, and I heard them say this, well, Paul was just wrong here. Because the real Jesus didn't like that. And I always wanted to ask them where they got their understanding of the real Jesus from. I mean, don't we get that from the New Testament?

Can you explain to me the logical consistency of saying you learn about Jesus from the New Testament and then use your understanding of Jesus to rule out things said by the New Testament? It sure sounds like you got a version of Jesus that you really want to be true, which is basically just a glorified version of your own preferences. And then you use that image of Jesus as the standard to rule out anything God's word says that you don't want to be true. Problem is you won't want God, you just don't want God to be God, you would prefer to be God, okay? Just say it like it is. We don't judge God's word, God's word judges us. See, when you allow that kind of compromise into the temple, when you start questioning God's word, that always ends in way more severe compromises. Every affirming church in the triangle who now ordains homosexual clergy started by questioning whether the New Testament was really authoritative for their beliefs and practices, and they thought making a few exceptions was okay. It didn't start with the homosexual question, it started with something else. But the point is, once you let Tobiah have a place in the temple, it corrupts the people from the inside out. It's like I've told you, Jesus is not a salad bar

where you take the items you want and leave the ones you don't. When my girls were little, we'd do the whole build a bear thing where you go to the store and you pick out the materials to design the bear that you wanted to cuddle with at night. Build a bear. Nobody else got to design your bear, that was your bear. That may work for a kid-stuffed animal, but there is no build-a-God store. You either receive God as he is, or you reject him. Parents, listen, I don't know why I feel so especially burdened to talk with you today. Maybe the Holy Spirit has really put some things on my heart for you, I don't know. I'm just telling you, beware compromise. Beware bad relationships. Listen, it's true, bad company corrupts good morals. Your kids, we always say, will become the average of their five closest friends. Their friends are the future them. I always say, you show me their friends, I'll show you their future. I read recently that the most reliable predictor, most reliable predictor of whether a kid raised in church goes on in church involvement post high school, most reliable predictor, you know what it is? How you vote, is that it? How often you read your Bible every day, is that it? Most reliable predictor is if five adults in the church

know them by name and have some kind of relationship with them. Five adults in the church who know them through the church. If your kid has those five relationships when they graduate high school, the chances are really, really high, they will continue on with church in college and then as a young adult. And the only way they can have those relationships is for you to actually be involved in church, not come every other work and sit through a service involved, not sit at home and watch online involved, but involved in small group, in volunteering, in student ministry. Student ministry is one of the things I love most about this church. It's one of the best kept secrets of the Summit Church. Other people, other adults who are speaking into and ministering to my kids. So I say all of this, especially to you parents, but there is a word in this for all of us. Beware bad relationships. Compromise always starts, usually because of family or peer pressure. It starts in the temple, but when you let some form of compromise or unbelief occupy a room in the temple of your heart, and then when you do that, it won't be long until that compromise has worked its way out until it has leavened

the whole loaf keep to buy you out of the temple of your heart. Compromise accomplished what all the enemies of Israel could not. Nehemiah had successfully parried every external attack. They'd overcome all the obstacles. They'd overcome all the saboteurs. They had rebuilt Jerusalem from nothing. What brought Jerusalem down was compromise. Hear this, persecution will never, ever kill the church. Compromise always will. But that brings us to our last observation. And the last observation, not only of the book of Nehemiah, the last observation of the whole Old Testament. Jesus answers the question left hanging in the Old Testament. As I've shown you, the book of Nehemiah ends on such a downer. Nehemiah goes on a little trip. People bring to buy to live in the temple, and then the people renege on every commitment they made during the revival. Tim Mackey of the Bible Project says that chapter 13 of Nehemiah negates all the accomplishments of chapters one through 12. In one chapter, they throw away everything. Ah, but at least you say, at least you say Nehemiah stays faithful, right? Sort of. I mean, Nehemiah is certainly zealous for obedience,

and that's good. I mean, verse nine, he throws out all of Tobitah's furniture in a tantrum. Verse 25, he cuts us out a bunch of Hebrews who break God's law and intermarry with unbelievers, and he pulls their hair out with his hands. Then verse 28, he chases the grandson of Eliashib who married Sambalich's daughter out of town with a stick. I mean, this. That guy's like Rip on Yellowstone, or so I'm told. Or for you Gen Xers, he's the Jack Bauer or the Chuck Norris of the Old Testament. For you Gen Zers, he's the John Wick or the Jack Reacher. Now, I told you, none of these characters fully captures the spirit of Nehemiah, which is why he can only be played by Nicolas Cage, okay? So Nehemiah is certainly zealous for righteousness, which is great, but there's just something off with Nehemiah's behavior, right? I mean, where's the Nehemiah of chapter one who's broken, weeping over sin, who identifies himself with the people of Israel, who confesses their sins as his own? Where's the Nehemiah who literally risked his life for his people, who presents his problems to God and then waits for God to act? That guy seems to be gone by Nehemiah 13, and in his place, we got the red-faced, cussing, stick-waving, hair-pulling out screamer who tries to coerce obedience

to the force of his personality, who ends the book of Nehemiah praying only for his own blessing and not really caring about anybody else. Literally, the last verses of the book of Nehemiah are him praying a curse against the people. Verse 29, remember them, my God, for all the bad stuff they did and punish them. And then Nehemiah brings it to a close. Verse 31, remember me and only me, oh my God, for good. Don't miss the significance of this. The last leader of the Old Testament closes the Old Testament by praying for his people's cursing and his own blessing. Plus, the Jerusalem he's restored is only a pittance of what it once was. Technically, the temple's been rebuilt. Technically, the walls are rebuilt, but they're only a shadow of what Solomon's former temple and city walls were in all of their glory. In fact, it says that when they got done with the building of these things, that the elders of Israel, who were old enough to remember what the old looked like, they wept because of how insufficient this was compared to what it used to be. That's how the Old Testament ends. A bitter, cranky, defeated old man standing in a very unimpressive Jerusalem saying, to heck with all of you, God, at least save me.

Then it fades to black. You're like, that's it? I mean, stranger things, Seinfeld, the Sopranos, the end of the first Lord of the Rings movie. Remember that one? Basically, everybody's dead. These two little short, hairy goobers are headed off into the dark forest of Mordor. And you're like, that's it? I sat here three and a half hours to get to that conclusion. That's the end of the movie? The message is clear though, isn't it? You need a reformer that is greater than Nehemiah. You need somebody greater than Moses. You need somebody who can change his people from the inside out. A reformer who does more than just instruct us in the law. We need a reformer who gives us the spirit to obey it. We need a reformer who will not lose his temper and cast us away when we disappoint him. We need a reformer who will restore Zion, the city of God, not only to its former glory, but as a city radiating with the unveiled glory of God himself. A city on a hill, Isaiah said, whose light would break over nations like the dawn. A city where sadness flees and songs of redemption echo in our streets. That's the Psalms. A street, excuse me, a city that would be a crown of beauty

in the hand of the Lord. Just like you promised, a city, Hosea says, that no longer goes by the name forsaken, but is instead called my delights. Yeah, Nehemiah 13, 31 may feel like an anticlimactic ending to the Old Testament, but can you think of a better way to set up the new? See, 425 years later, another reformer rode into Jerusalem, not on the horse this time with the riches of an earthly king in his back pocket, this time on a donkey with the power of the Holy Spirit in his heart. He too would be a man of sorrows acquainted with grief. He too would weep over the broken down state of Jerusalem. He too would face incredible opposition, both from within and without. His greatest enemies would be from within Israel, enemies who hated him, friends who betrayed him, disciples who disappointed him. He too would ride into the temple and throw out the enemies who had taken up residence there, and he would lead the people in spiritual renewal. But this reformer, at the end of his life, after his people had disappointed him again and again and again, he didn't cuss them out or pull out their hair and say, remember me and only me, my God, for good. Instead, this reformer allowed himself to be cursed by them and then to have the hair in his face pulled out by them.

And when that was all over, he prayed, for they know not what they do. In other words, he didn't end his life saying, remember me, oh my God, for all the good I have done. He ended his life saying, remember them because of all the good that I have done. my death be counted as a sacrifice for their sins. Let the good that I have done be credited to their account. Maybe most importantly, this reformer, resurrected from the dead so that he could put his spirit into his people and abide with them forever. And you see, that addresses the biggest problem, the book of Nehemiah, the biggest problem the Old Testament leaves us with, the problem of a constantly backsliding people who only obey when there's a leader present there to threaten them. We needed a reformer who could transform us from the inside out, and what that meant is we needed not a lawgiver or a reformer, what we most needed was a savior. Listen, some of you really need to learn this. You cannot live the Christian life. You can't, you can't. I don't care how hard you try or how sincere your promise is. The depravity of your sinful flesh is just too much. You cannot overcome it. You can't, only he can overcome it through you. I've told you before, the Christian life is not just hard, it is impossible.

It's so impossible. Only one human being in history has ever been able to even get close to living it. And y'all, he was so good and perfect at it, they named it for him. And the good news of the gospel is that he offers to come and live it in and through you. I'm crucified with Christ, Paul says. In other words, everything in my flesh is worthless. There's really nothing I can bring to this Christian life. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not I, it's Christ who lives in me. The spirit of Jesus is the answer to backsliding. Imagine with me for a minute, you were about to go into some spiritual battle, some temptation, some obstacle, but just before you went, Jesus, a physical Jesus grabbed you, put his hand on your shoulder and said, listen, first, I am praying for you. I am personally asking my father to give you victory in this. Second, he says, I'm gonna put my spirit into you right now. And then he breathes on you and says, receive the Holy Spirit. And then he says to you, listen, when you get in the heat of this battle, I want you to access the power of that spirit I've just put into you. Don't try to do this in your own strength because you'll fail.

I want you to lean into that spirit. I just put him in you. I want you to lean into that when you feel under pressure. Imagine how you would feel facing that temptation now. Imagine when you encounter that opposition. Imagine how confident you would be. Well, of course, that's exactly what he's done. So when you feel yourself backsliding, you pray to him. Jesus, my heart, prone to wander. Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. God, renew in me a heart to pursue and please you. I can't do this, Jesus. Sometimes I don't even have the desire to do it, but it's you who works in me, both the will and the do of your good pleasure. Anything good in me, it actually comes from you. So God, I'm bringing all this mess and all this depravity and all this unwillingness and all this failure. I'm just bringing to you because it's never been in me. I need your spirit to do it. You are the spirit that accomplishes these things in me. Listen, Nehemiah, contrary to popular opinion, is not primarily a book about leadership. It's not a book about how to build your church. Nehemiah is a book about Jesus, a book to make you stand in awe of Jesus, a book like all books in the Old Testament that urges you to put your hope and your faith and your confidence in him.

So let me ask you, if you will, on all of our campuses, could we bow our heads, bow our heads, at all of our campuses. You see, here's the thing, as we come to the end of Nehemiah, I think there are a bunch of you in here that are struggling with what the people struggle with in Nehemiah 13. You've compromised. You started out so well. You intended so very, so very good, but your flesh feels weak. I wanna give you a chance to come today to the altar of God and just confess that. Maybe give up trying to do it in your own strength and just ask him for his. Renew your resolve to follow him and say, I can't, nevertheless, I live. It's just not I, it's gotta be you and me. Look, let the Holy Spirit move in your heart for a minute, would you? Where is it for you? Is it with your habits, your relationships, your loose tongue, your spending habits? You're wrestling with an addiction? Maybe you need this power in your marriage. Maybe you need it to follow through on something you know God wants you to do. Whatever it is, friend, the altar of God is open for you to come and get strength. Listen, as always, I'm gonna ask our elders

and prayer team members right now for them to stand off to the side at every campus, kinda down front to the side. I put them there, they're there every week. They have anointing oil because maybe you need physical healing and we're ready to pray with you for that. Maybe you need freedom from an addiction or a stronghold, just something you know you need spiritual power from. Take advantage of them. Go to them, let them pray over you. Others of you can use the space down here. Yeah, you can always do it in your seat. I understand that. And yes, that's fine. I'm not saying that's, I'm just saying there is something we've learned about the posture of just saying, God, I need you and coming to the altar and saying, God, give me the Holy Spirit. Luke 11, 13, he will not, he will not turn away those who ask for the power of the Holy Spirit. So let's stand to sing right now at all of our campuses. I want you to stand to sing. We're going to sing together. Our worship teams are coming. Our prayer teams are off to the side. The altar is open. I want you to respond as the spirit of God urges you. Father, I pray, come Holy Spirit, draw your people, fill your people, change your people. I pray in Jesus' name, in Jesus' name. You come at all of our campuses as our worship team comes to lead us.