Remember the Titans is a movie based on a true story of the
1971 TC Williams High School football team in Alexandria, VA.
Up to this point, schools had been segregated by race and now
3 high schools in the area were forced to integrate and this
caused a lot of tension in the community and many resisted the
change, especially when their new head coach was Herman Boone,
a black man. But the biggest opposition that
they faced was the internal struggle, the internal division
between the white and the black players.
They refused to trust one another.
They refused to work together as a team.
And the tension reached a climax when they're at training camp
and Coach Boone wakes the team up at 3:00 in the morning.
And they run and run across several miles in the dark until
they finally reached the Gettysburg Cemetery, where
51,000 American men had died during the American Civil War
fighting their own people, fighting against one another.
And then Herman Boone gave this speech.
Anybody know what this place is? This is Gettysburg.
This is where they fought the Battle of Gettysburg on this
field, fighting the same fight that we're still fighting
amongst ourselves today. This Greenfield right here,
painted red, bubbling with the blood of young boys, smoke and
hot lead pouring through their bodies.
Listen to their souls, man. I killed my brother with malice
in my heart. Hatred destroyed my family.
You listen and you take a lesson from the dead.
If we don't come together here on this hallowed ground, then we
too will be destroyed just like they were.
This was the turning point for the team.
Slowly, they began to trust and respect one another and they
came together as a team. They went on to finish the
season undefeated and won the Virginia State championship.
This morning, as we're picking back up in the book of Nehemiah,
we see the same principle. Now remember, as we began the
book that Nehemiah heard of the destruction in the ruins of
Jerusalem. And so he began to pray, and the
Lord paved a path for him to go back with a vision on his heart
to rebuild the walls. And as he cast that vision to
the people, they caught on. They bought into the vision, and
the work began. But no sooner did the work begin
than outside pressure began to come from their enemies and they
began to be attacked and slandered.
But they put their trust in God and they continued on the work
on the wall, and it seemed like there was nothing that was going
to stop them until they began to fight one another.
In order for them to succeed on building of the wall, they
needed to come together. They needed to come as one body
and recognize that they were a team.
The success of the mission was now at risk, however, not
because of enemies from the outside, not because of attacks
from the outside and persecution, but because of
quarrelling and conflict among themselves.
The title of my sermon this morning is We Are One Body.
Let's live like it. The success of the church today
depends on this same sort of unity, the same sort of unity
that Israel needed. They needed to come together as
one body and work together. And that's exactly what we need
to do. The success of God's mission is
dependent on us coming together in unity as his people, as one
body, as we work together to bring him glory.
Before we dive into our text this morning, let's bow for a
word of prayer. Father, we thank you that this
narrative, this story has been recorded for generations, and we
thank you, Lord, that it has blessed many over the years.
And we are so grateful, Lord, that you have preserved your
word for us over the years. We believe that your word is
authoritative. It is true, it is instructive,
each and every part of it for every area of life.
And Lord, we come to it this morning thinking that it is not
just words on a page, but that it is Your word.
It is living, it is active, it is sharper than the sharpest 2
edged sword, dividing between soul and spirit, between joint
and marrow. And Lord, we recognize that each
and every one of us is accountable to you.
Before you, each and every one of us are naked.
Lord, you see our inmost thoughts and hearts and desires.
And we pray, Lord, that you would give us a desire as Your
people to be pleasing to you. That as we open up your word
that you would teach us, that you would instruct us that Lord
you would correct sin in our hearts, and that You would unify
us together as your people as we seek to make Your name great in
all the earth. We ask this in Jesus name, Amen.
Would you open your Bibles with me to Nehemiah chapter 5?
Nehemiah chapter 5. I will read the whole chapter
now. There arose a great outcry of
the people and of their wives against their Jewish brothers.
For there were those who said, with our sons and our daughters,
we are many. So let us get grain that we may
eat and keep alive. There were also those who said
we are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards, and our houses to
get grain because of the famine. And there were those who said we
have borrowed money for the King's tax on our fields and our
vineyards. Now our flesh is as the flesh of
our brothers, our children, or as their children.
Yet we are forcing our sons and our daughters to be slaves, and
some of our daughters have already been enslaved, but it is
not in our power to help it, for other men have our fields in our
vineyards. I was very angry when I heard
their outcry in these words. I took counsel with myself and
brought charges against the nobles and the officials.
I said to them, You are exacting interest.
Each from his brother and I held a great assembly against them,
and said to them, We, as far as we are able, have bought back
our Jewish brothers who have been sold to the nations.
But you even sell your brothers that they may be sold to us.
They were silent and could not find a word to say.
So I said, The thing that you are doing is not good.
Ought you not to walk in the fear of our God to prevent the
taunts of the nations, our enemies?
Moreover, I and my brothers and my servants are lending them
money and grain. Let us abandoned this exacting
of interest. Return to them this very day
their fields, their vineyards, their olive orchards, and their
houses, and the percentage of money, grain, wine, and oil that
you have been exacting from them.
Then they said, we will restore these and require nothing from
them. We will do as you say.
And I called the priests, and made them swear to do as they
had promised. I also shook out the fold of my
garment, and said, So May God shake out every man from his
house and from his labour who does not keep this promise, so
may he be shaken out and emptied.
And all the assembly said, Amen, and praise the Lord.
And the people did as they had promised.
Moreover, from the time that I was appointed to be their
governor in the land of Judah, from the 20th year to the 32nd
year of Artaxerxes the King, 12 years, neither I nor my brothers
ate the food allowance of the governor.
The former governors who were before me laid heavy burdens on
the people and took from them for their daily ration 40
shekels of silver. Even their servants lorded it
over their people. But I did not do so because of
the fear of God. I also persevered in the work on
this wall, and we acquired no land, and all my servants were
gathered there for the work. Moreover, there were at my table
150 men, Jews and officials, besides those who came to us
from the nations that were around us.
Now, what was prepared at my expense for each day was one ox
and six choice sheep and birds, and every 10 days all kinds of
wine in abundance. Yet for all this, I did not
demand the food allowance of the governor because the service was
too heavy. On this people, remember, for my
good, Oh my God, all that I have done for this.
People, as we begin, the first thing that we're going to see
this morning as we strive to be a part of the body together, is
that we must expose sin in the body.
This chapter opens with the problem.
It opens with what's going on among the Jews.
There are those who are sinfully taking advantage of their
brothers and sisters in the Lord, their own body, but the
oppressed people come and expose the sin.
It says there arose a great outcry of the people and of
their wives against their Jewish brothers.
Now remember that that Nehemiah had come and asked everyone to
come and join in building the wall.
So everybody left their farms, they left their fields, they
left their vineyards and, and couldn't devote that attention
that they needed to on the work of their hands because they had
devoted their work to the building of the wall.
And that may have contributed to a famine that is going on here
at this time. And the situation was desperate,
but their own people began taking advantage of those people
who were oppressed and poor. Some were being denied food by
their own people. Some were selling their
vineyards and their fields and their homes to buy people to buy
grain, this from their own people.
Some were borrowing money from their own people to pay the
King's tax and then being charged high interest rates.
Some people say maybe up to 50% interest rates is what was being
charged. Then some were selling their
children to be slaves to their own people in order to get food.
And what we learned from this passage is that there was
nothing that they could do. They said we're that we can't
help it. We don't have any way to stand
up to these people. We don't have any defense.
We are helpless, but rather than remaining silent, they expose
the sin of the leaders, They bring it out, they shed light on
what is going on. And the reason they're confident
to confront, to expose the sin is because they were disobeying
God. He had commanded them.
In Leviticus chapter 25, if your brother becomes poor and cannot
maintain himself with you, you shall support him as though he
were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you.
Take no interest from him or profit, but fear your God that
your brother may live beside you.
You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him
your food for profit. God wanted his people to act as
one body, as one people taking care of each other and blessing
one another. But instead they took advantage
of each other out of selfish gain.
So those who were oppressed exposed the sin in the body
because they realized they recognized if we allow this sin
to go on, if we allow it to go on unchecked, it has the
potential not only to stop the progress on the wall, but to
completely destroy us as a nation.
And so they exposed the sin. And many of you remember the
story of King David in the Bible.
He was anointed as Israel's next king as a young man, but then he
suffered many years of torment from the present king, King
Saul, who was jealous of him. Finally, after many years of
patient trust and waiting on the Lord, David is anointing king.
And sadly, one of the most memorable things about King
David's life is his sin with Bathsheba.
In an attempt to hide his sin, he sleeps with Bathsheba.
And then in an attempt to hide his sin, he kills her husband
Uriah. And God sends the Nathan the
prophet to confront David. He tells him a story of this
wealthy king who has all the pastures and all the all the
sheep and, and herds of goats and lambs, and then the story of
a man who, who just has one. And he treats this lamb like a
child, like a son. It eats from his table.
He he snuggles it on the couch. This is his lamb that he loves
and cherishes. And, and when the rich king has
a guest come for a meal, he doesn't take from one of his
many, many sheep. He takes the sheep of the man
who just had one. King David is outraged, and he
says, as the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to
die, and he shall restore the lamb fourfold because he did
this thing and because he had no pity.
Nathan said to David, You are the man.
Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel.
I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the
hand of Saul, and I gave you your master's house, and your
master's wives into your arms, and gave you the House of Israel
and of Judah. And if this were too little, I
would add to you as much more. Why have you despised the word
of the Lord to do what is evil in his sight?
You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and have
taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the
sword of the Ammonites. Now the interesting thing about
all this is David has described as a man after God's own heart,
and yet he sinned greatly against God and the people that
he was leading. But because of his love for
David, God exposes his sin through Nathan the prophet,
rather than allowing it to go on unchecked and to lead deeper
into sin. Brother and sister, if you have
placed your faith in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior,
you're a child of God. You're a member of his family.
You're a brother and sister in Christ.
We're brothers and sisters in Christ.
We are one body. Paul says that in his letter to
the Corinthians. He says that we are, though we
are many members, we are one body.
Now we generally, if we look at our own bodies, we don't do
things that would bring harm to my own body.
So then why do we sin against our brothers and sisters,
bringing harm to them? We are commanded by Paul to
treat one another better than ourselves.
He says in Philippians chapter 2.
Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility
count others more significant than yourselves.
The truth is, sadly, that we do sin against one another.
And when that happens, we need to expose that sin.
It's tempting to ignore it. It seems easier to just sweep it
under the rug. But we must expose it, or else
unforgiveness and bitterness will settle into our hearts.
And others could be harmed as well.
If we don't expose their sin, they could harm other people as
well. And this threatens the work that
we are seeking to do in building God's church.
So maybe a brother or a sister in Christ has hurt you, has
sinned against you. If you feel safe enough to do
so, you should go to that person and expose that sin.
Maybe they didn't realize what it was that they did wrong.
Or maybe they will confess that they wronged you and then you
can work towards reconciliation. If you don't feel safe enough to
go to them privately, then you should come to a leader in the
church or someone that you respect, someone that you see as
having wisdom who can help you navigate that situation with
that person so that you can work towards reconciliation.
I'm not talking about gossip and going to someone and telling
someone else what that person is doing.
We're talking about finding someone who can help you have a
conversation with that person to bring it to reconciliation, to
bring it to restoration. If we are going to be the people
of God, then we must keep Christ's church pure.
And in order to do that, we must expose sin in the body.
The next thing that we learned from chapter 5 is that we must
confront sin in the body. The people understood the
seriousness of the situation, that that sin needed to be
exposed, but it's not enough to just expose it or to just
uncover it. It now needs to be confronted,
and this is exactly what Nehemiah does.
But as we look at Nehemiah's confrontation, we're going to
learn some principles for how we can confront people when we're
bringing up sin in the body. And the first thing is that
confrontation should seek self-control.
Now Nehemiah when he learns of what happens he gets angry but
listen to how he shows self-control in verse six and
seven. He says I was very angry when I
heard their outcry in these words.
I took counsel with myself and I brought charges against the
nobles and the officials. He was angry, but he didn't rush
out in his anger hastily and and confront that sin.
He counselled with himself. He took himself back, he
stopped, he paused, he waited, and he even brought charges,
right. He formalized his complaint to
these people. He didn't just come and rattle
off whatever he wanted to say in the moment.
He thought about what it was that they were doing and how
they were sinning against their people and brought those charges
to them. He showed self-control.
The next thing is that confrontation should seek the
truth. As he brings these charges
against the leaders. He's wanting to present the
facts accurately, which is why he he brings these charges.
He is seeking the truth. In verse 7 and 8 it says I said
to them, you are exacting interest.
Each from his brother and I held a great assembly against them
and said to them, we, as far as we are able, have bought back
our Jewish brothers who have been sold to the nations, but
you even sell your brothers that they may be sold to us.
They were silent and could not find a word to say.
So notice that he carefully brings the charges that he's
bringing against them. He's seeking the truth, but we
also see that he's seeking the truth because he gives them an
opportunity to respond. They don't have a word to say.
But again, he's not trying to blast them and just overpower
them with words and confrontation so that they don't
have an opportunity to speak. He wants to seek the truth.
He wants the truth to be made known.
The third thing is that confrontations should seek God's
glory. We see here in this passage that
Nehemiah is concerned about God's reputation.
Look at what he says in verse 9. So I said, the thing that you
are doing is not good. Ought you not to walk in the
fear of our God to prevent the taunts of the nation's our
enemies? Nehemiah understood that when
God's people treat each other sinfully, that reflects poorly
on God. And as the nations begin to
taunt them because of the way that they're treating one
another, God's name is dragged through the mud.
And so Nehemiah is concerned about God's glory and his
reputation. 4th Confrontation should seek reconciliation.
The goal of confrontation is not not just to get something off
your chest or to vent towards someone.
It's to reconcile. It's to make things right.
Look at verses 10 through 12. Moreover, I and my brothers and
my servants are lending them money and grain.
Let us abandoned this exacting of interest.
Return to them this very day. Their fields, their vineyards,
their olive orchards and their houses, and the percentage of
money, grain, wine and oil that you have been exacting from
them. Then they said we will restore
these and require nothing from them.
We will do as you say. And I called the priests and
made them swear to do as they had promised.
So notice what Nehemiah does. He confronts the sin, but he
calls them and tells them what to do.
Not just confronting the sin, but here's how we remedy it.
Here's how we fix the situation. Here's how we bring
reconciliation. Stop charging interest.
Return all that you've taken sinfully and an amazing thing
happens. They do it, they confess their
sin and they return it all. And look at what happens in
verse 13. The result is worship.
Nehemiah says in verse 13. I also shook out the fold of my
garment and said, so May God shake out every man from his
house and from his labor who does not keep this promise, so
may he be shaken out and emptied.
And all the assembly said Amen and praised the Lord.
And the people did as they had promised.
Sin had been exposed, sin had been confronted, and the leaders
repented and the people offered their forgiveness and joy was
restored, leading to worship. When we are faithful to expose
sin in the body and confront sin in the right way with the right
motivation, we restore the brokenness in our relationships
and bring glory to God. Now if you live long enough, you
will experience hurt and pain from someone, a family member, a
friend, a Co worker, somebody. Many of you I would guess have
had very painful experiences where where you allowed someone
into your life you shared intimately and deeply and you
were burned. This happened to Paul after
spending a year and a half in the city of Corinth, pouring
into these people, sacrificing for these people, teaching these
people, giving of himself for these people.
He after he left after a year and 1/2, he goes away and a
false teacher came into the church and was able to turn all
the church against Paul, calling into question everything that he
ever did, his authority, his teaching, his work.
Paul was incredibly hurt by this.
And so he wrote a very severe letter to that church.
We don't have that letter, but he wrote a very severe letter to
that church confronting them in their sin, rebuking them for
their sin. An amazing thing happened.
Those people repented. They repented of their sin and
they even disciplined the person who had come in and stirred them
up. They disciplined this man and an
even more amazing thing happened.
He repented and he turned back and he confessed the sin that he
did wrong. Now the problem was that the
people were slow in welcoming this man back and so Paul had to
write to them. In Second Corinthians chapter 2,
verses 5 through 8, he says now if anyone has caused pain, he
has caused it not to me, but in some measure not to put it too
severely to all of you for such a one, this punishment by the
majority is enough. So you should rather turn to
forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive
sorrow. So I beg you to reaffirm your
love for him. In that severe letter he had, he
had called them to turn back from their sin and they
listened. But now they disciplined this
man and they kept disciplining him even though he was
repentant, even though he had confessed what he had done.
And Paul tells them now the time for confrontation is over.
It is now time to forgive, to comfort, to affirm your love.
John MacArthur, speaking on this passage, says Paul knew there
was and is no place in the church for man made limits on
God's grace, mercy and forgiveness toward repentance
sinners. Such restriction could
restrictions could only rob the fellowship of the joy of unity.
Nehemiah understood this as well.
He understood and was willing to confront sin in the body because
the goal was reconciliation and restoring joy, restoring unity,
restoring worship of the true God.
This must be our goal as well, which is why we must confront
sin in the body. We need to expose it.
We need to confront it so that reconciliation can happen and we
can restore the joy of unity. So what is the best way to do
that? How do you seek reconciliation
and restoration when when confronting sin?
We follow Nehemiah's example. First, we seek self-control.
When others sin against us, our, our emotions tend to be high.
And so this is not the time to run out and confront someone.
We need to take the time to think, to pray, to come up with
with what we're going to say and the best way to approach.
We must be self controlled. 2nd, we must seek the truth again,
when when our emotions are, they're clouding our judgement
and we need to seek the truth. We need to slow down and think
about what we're saying and, and think about what is best and
allow the other person a chance to respond.
And maybe there's pieces of information that we're missing
that we need. And so we go in on a fact
finding mission trying to find out what is going on.
Often times they've been hurt as well.
And so we need to share in their pain and work together to seek
the truth. 3rd. We must seek God's glory.
If we want to confront someone, we must be concerned not about
our who we are and what we're going through.
Not just our well-being and the fact that we're offended.
But we must take the time to consider how our actions and how
actions of others towards us affect God's name and
reputation. Scripture is our ultimate guide,
so use it in your conversation. And when we follow God's word,
he is glorified. 4th We must confront people but seeking
reconciliation. Now again in our confrontation
we sometimes we were tempted just to want to vent to to want
to be able to show our thoughts, show our feelings and just dump
on someone. And if this is your motivation
then you're not self controlled and you're not ready to confront
someone in their sin. You need to ask yourself the
question, am I seeking revenge or am I seeking for this
relationship to be restored? Pray that the Lord gives you the
desire to reconcile. If you don't have it, and if you
do desire the relationship to be reconciled, then say to that.
Say that to the person that you're confronting.
I'm coming to you because I want our relationship to be restored.
I want unity to be present once again, that we can worship the
Lord together and you can do all the right things and someone may
still reject you. They will deny that they've done
anything wrong and maybe still not want anything to do with
you. But if you follow this pattern
in confronting someone, it has a greater potential of leading to
reconciliation, restore joy, unity, and worship.
The next thing that we learned from chapter 5 in the book of
Nehemiah is that we must kill sin in the body.
Now when sin happens, we must expose it and we must confront
it. But the better way is to kill
sin altogether and to avoid the pain that it causes.
As we close Chapter 5, Nehemiah begins to give us insight into
how he lived as the governor of Judah.
The reason this is important is because if he is confronting
those leaders for taking advantage of the people, they
could think that he's a hypocrite if he's doing the very
same thing. And so as we look at Nehemiah
and how he lived as a governor, we're actually going to see how
we can learn to actively kill sin in our lives, how we can
learn to kill the sin of selfishness and greed in our
hearts. And the way that we do that, the
way that we kill that sin of selfishness, that sin of greed,
is having a heart to serve. But the way that you serve
matters. You should serve not to get, but
to give. We don't know exactly when, but
at some point after Nehemiah arrives, he's appointed the
governor of Judah. He was willing to serve, but as
we see from his life, and it was not because of what he could
get, but what he could give. Look at verses 14 through 18.
I'll read these few verses. Moreover, from the time that I
was appointed to be their governor in the land of Judah,
from the 20th year to the 32nd year of Artaxerxes the King, 12
years, neither I nor my brothers ate the food allowance of the
governor. The former governors who were
before me laid heavy burdens on the people and took from them
their daily ration, 40 shekels of silver.
Even their servants lorded it over the people, but I did not
do so because of the fear of God.
I also persevered in the work on this wall, and we acquired no
land, and all my servants were gathered there for the work.
Moreover, there were at my table 150 men, Jews and officials,
besides those who came to us from the nations that were
around us. Now what was prepared at my
expense for each day was one ox and six choice sheep and birds,
and every 10 days all kinds of wine in abundance.
Yet for all this I did not demand the food allowance of the
governor because the service was too heavy on this people.
So though Nehemiah had the right to the food allowance as the
governor, he didn't take it. Governors before him use this as
an opportunity, use their position and their authority as
an opportunity to take advantage of people, and even their
servants would Lord it over these people.
But Nehemiah killed that sin by serving to give.
Nehemiah provided food for himself for 150 men, Jews and
officials who sat at his table. He provided.
There were even people outside of the community who came to him
asking for food, and he provided for them as well.
He did that for 12 years. This gives us a little bit of
insight into the wealth that Nehemiah had gained as the cup
bearer to King Artaxyrxes. The fact that he's able to
provide for over 150 people for 12 years, he had grown
incredibly wealthy and he was coming here to serve not out of
what he could get, but what he could give.
You also kill sin by seeking to serve, not to please man, but
God. After mentioning all of these
personal sacrifices for the people, Nehemiah says in verse
19, Remember for my good, O God, all that I have done for this
people. Nehemiah is willing to make all
of these sacrifices personally because of his desire to be
pleasing to God. Obviously his work and his
sacrifice was a benefit to the people he was serving, but
ultimately he wants to do what's pleasing to God.
And this distinction is really important because at times
Nehemiah had to do really hard things and he had to say really
hard things. And if our desire is to please
man, then we we are tempted to not say the hard things.
We're tempted not to do the hard things.
But when our desire is to please God, as Nehemiah's desire was,
then we're willing to do those hard things.
We're willing to say those hard things because our desire is to
be pleasing to our Lord. And so the way that Nehemiah
killed sin in his own life was by seeking to serve.
And his heart of service was motivated by what he could give
and how he could be pleasing to God.
Now, the reason that we struggle so much with sin is because of
our selfish desires. It is because of our selfish
nature. Rather than seeing ourselves as
a body, we think of ourselves individualistically.
James addresses this very issue as he writes to believers who'd
been scattered because of the persecution.
They're facing persecution from the outside, but they're also
beginning to face internal conflict.
And James exposes and confronts the heart of the issue in James
four, verse 131 through three. What causes quarrels and what
causes fights among you? Is it not this that your
passions are at war within you? You desire and you do not have,
so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so
you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do
not ask. You ask and do not receive
because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions.
The reason they had sin and fighting in the body was because
of their selfish desires. They were more concerned about
their personal desires and their selfishness than what was good
for the body as a whole. And so James goes on and says,
You adulterous people, do you not know that friendship with
the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a
friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
Or do you suppose it is Nope to no purpose that the Scripture
says? He yearns jealously over the
Spirit that he has made to dwell in US.
So he calls out their selfishness, but then says,
Don't you know that your selfishness is putting you as an
enemy of God? God had given them His Spirit,
and he wanted them to find their true delight in him, not in the
things of the world. Thankfully, James gives the
remedy to their selfishness, but he gives more grace.
Therefore, it says God opposes the proud, but gives grace to
the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to
God. Resist the devil and he will
flee from you. Draw near to God and he will
draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners,
and purify your hearts. You double minded.
If they humbled themselves before God, He would give them
grace if they draw near. If they were going to draw near
to God, then God would draw near to them.
If they pursued God's ways, then their hearts would be pure.
The believers that James was writing to were quarrelling and
fighting because of their sin. They forgot that they were a
body. They needed to kill their sin by
seeking to serve and be pleasing to God.
Is this not exactly what we struggle with, brothers and
sisters? The reason that we have
quarrels, the reason that we have fights among us, is it not
because we fail to recognize that we are one body.
If I truly saw that you were a part of me, that we were a part
of the body together, then I would be just as concerned for
you as I am for myself. If you truly understood that I
was a part of you as the body, then you would be just as
concerned for me as you are for yourself.
That is the result of us being a body together.
Well, how do we kill the sin of selfishness in our own hearts?
We follow Nehemiah's example. We seek to be servants.
Do you view church, this body of believers, as a place to get
what you want? Do you view it as a place to get
your needs met, to have your preferences satisfied?
If you're going to kill the sin of selfishness and greed, we
need to be willing to serve one another, to sacrifice and to
surrender for one another, not out of what we can get.
A good reputation, a good feeling on the side, on the
inside, people looking at us from the outside and thinking
that we're good people. It's not out of what we can get,
but it's about what we can give. If you've placed your faith in
Jesus Christ as your Savior, His Spirit has given you a gift.
That gift is not so that you can elevate yourself.
That gift is so that you can use it in service to help the church
to grow, to help the body to grow into the fullness, the
maturity of Christ. And we should do this not to
please one another, but to please God.
Our desire should be to be glorifying to Him.
And this means at times confronting sin, exposing sin,
but when we desire to please God, we're willing to do those
hard things. So I have some uncomfortable
questions for us this morning. If you are a part of this body
of believers, are you more concerned about what you can get
or what you can give? And I'm asking these questions
to myself as much as anybody. Are you more interested in
looking good to others or pleasing God?
Do you see the people around you as this part of the same body as
you? What are you doing to help them
grow? If you want to kill sin in the
body of Christ, you must become a servant to your fellow
brothers and sisters in Christ. We are one body.
Let's live like it. The only reason that we can live
as a body is because of what Christ has done for us, the work
that he has done on the cross, reconciling a people to himself.
Because you see, God has exposed our sin, He said in Romans 323
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and
God has confronted our sin. And he says in Romans 623, the
wages of sin, the wages of sin is death, but God has killed our
sin through Jesus Christ. He goes on to say the gift of
free. The free gift of God is eternal
life in Christ Jesus our Lord. How did Christ do this?
How did he accomplish this? He accomplished it by emptying
himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the
likeness of men and being found in human form.
He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death,
even death on a cross. Friend, God loves you enough to
tell you that you're a Sinner and to tell you that your sin
will lead to death. But God also loved you enough to
send his Son Jesus Christ to die on a cross for you to take your
sin on himself to himself. Bear the wrath of God in your
place so that you can be forgiven, so that you can have
the hope of eternal life. And if you will confess your
sins and believe in Him today, you can be saved.
Have you done that? After the service today, I would
encourage you to talk to a pastor or a leader.
Talk to someone who's sitting around you.
As you go out for lunch and go this afternoon and go watch the
Super Bowl somewhere this evening, talk to someone, Talk
to a friend and ask them what it means to follow Christ.
What it means to give your life to Jesus as your Lord and
Saviour and to accept His sacrifice that He has made for
you. Brothers and sisters in Christ,
those who have placed their faith in Him.
Since Jesus loved us enough to humble Himself, to take on the
form of a servant, to die on a cross so that we could be saved,
we should desire to follow His example and seek to live our
lives in humble sacrifice for one another.
Thank God that even though we fail, He gives us grace.
Amen. If we turn to God in humility
and repentance, He will give us grace.
He will strengthen us by the power of His Spirit to be
unified as we seek to build His Kingdom and make His name great
and bring glory and honour to Him.
Let's pray. Father, we thank you for all
that Christ has done for us. We thank You that You have saved
us as a body. Lord, would you kill selfishness
and pride in our hearts? Would You help us to be willing
to surrender and sacrifice for one another, not looking to only
our own interests, but looking also to the interests of others
and in this same way having the mind that Christ had?
Or would you strengthen us? Each and every one of us needs
your help. We cannot do it on our own, but
we praise you and thank you that You have given us your Spirit to
walk with us, to guide us. And we confess this morning that
that far too often we grieve the Holy Spirit through our sin.
We ignore his promptings. We ignore as He leads and guides
us and strives to to point us in your ways.
And we pray, Lord, that you would continue to soften our
hearts, continue to make us more willing to live for your glory
and honour. Or would you help us to forgive
one another, to work towards reconciliation?
And Lord, would you restore to us the joy of your salvation as
we seek to be the faithful body of Christ building your Kingdom?
This we ask in Jesus name, Amen.