So the purpose of this series we had over the summer was to inspire and create within you a purpose and/or calling to be gospel oriented — that is to say that I want all of you to be on fire for something that you would give your lives to. And to do it in a way that seeks to change your being through your actions. I know a lot of us don’t have what it takes to lead a movement. Most of us are behind the scene influencers that drive value with our personalities and characters as we show others what it mean for us to be Christ like. So it is even more deftly more important that our lives exhibit some type of integrity. Actually, it’s not some type of integrity, it is Christ like integrity. We are going to look at Nehemiah today and learn how that godly integrity is exhibited in our everyday lives. 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 are 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 and our vineyards.” (Nehemiah 5:1-5 ESV) Let me set this up for you, if you don’t get it. People were so heavily taxed that they were borrowing money to pay taxes that they couldn’t afford. This is a bad tax system. It was a flat rate tax not based on income. I’m going to teach you some economics– people think that this type of tax is fair, but it is inherently unfair and biased toward the rich, that is, they pay less of their income toward taxes, because it is a flat tax. You have people who are now lending their neighbors money at extremely high rates because there are no options to do otherwise. And then when they can’t pay back the money they borrowed, they were taking their neighbors’ kids as slaves and or just taking a lien on their properties. I know what you are thinking– how can these people sell their children away as slaves!? Well it is simple– it’s either be a slave and have a chance at earning your life, or die of starvation, both you and the kids, you get to choose. It was the lesser of two evils. This I the rock and the hard place where most of our decisions are made. Getting in trouble for doing the right thing. The first time I met my cousins on my dad’s side was when I was 16. There was a totally unnecessary family gathering in Canada, of all places, and I was there with my younger brother. Mind you, none of these people spoke English and we didn’t really speak Korean. So we hung out together and kind of ignored people and rules and cousins and such. But anyways, my brother and I were walking in through the doors and I got the brunt of trouble meant for one of my cousins. I don’t know what he did, but I do know I got yelled at like the world was ending. — inherent injustice always leads to hypocrisy. I took the bad part to suffer so nobody else had too. Integrity mixed with injustice led me to believe that I shouldn’t do the right thing. I mean why a waste of time. We hear stories all the time about people getting tickets for doing the right thing. In Philly, this lady who was giving out food to poor kids because the government didn’t got a fine of 600 dollars a day for doing the right thing. I was very angry when I heard their outcry and these words. I took counsel with myself, and I 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. – Nehemiah 5:6-8 So the big deal here was that these people were fuming over other nations owning Jewish slaves, but when they owned Jewish slaves, it was no big deal. That was pretty much cool, because they were doing it. It wasn’t even a thing. It was only a big deal when they are not the ones doing it. Here’s what I mean: like when somebody is late to meet me, I start to fume saying, “these people, they are late, they don’t know how valuable my time is, don’t they know how much I have left to do, I can’t waste five minutes here waiting. Ugh.” But, but, when I’m late, I say, “my bad, I was held up, I had to get my coffee before I met with you.” I’m not even apologetic about it. What hypocrisy! Maybe that was too close to home. Let me get closer to home then. Here is what I love, I’m talking about when your parent forbid the very thing that they are doing and they are doing it in your face while telling you no! So, here’s how it goes, my mom tells me– son, you’re fat, you shouldn’t eat my melon bar ice cream, you may get diabetes. But it’s like mom, common, you got diabetes and you’re eating ice cream, its 11pm! What are you doing? Let me read to you what Jesus says in Matthew. 10And he called the people to him and said to them, “Hear and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.” Then the disciples came and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?” (Matthew 15:10-12 ESV) Having integrity is not the same as making a justification for ourselves! We do stupid things to make it look like we have integrity, we need to stop playing the games. It is a lack of integrity that makes us say and do stupid things and make us arrogant about our position in life. Let’s go back to Nehemiah 5. 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 abandon 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. (Nehemiah 5:9-12 ESV) Integrity compels you to challenge people and the very thing that they do that violates conscience. Most of us, if doesn’t directly affect us, don’t bother speaking up against something. It’s wise and prudent, but not necessarily the most Christian thing we can do with ourselves. Nehemiah basically tells these people to give up their profit! I mean, they weren’t helping their neighbors out of the good will of their hearts, so I mean, to tell these people to give up the very reason they did anything resembling benevolence in the first place is an outcry. But you see that he does it. But he also uses himself as an exemplar. If you want to live with integrity, you want to be an exemplar for what you are advocating for. Look at what Nehemiah did, he turned around and said in verse 10, that he and his men were lending without interest. He gained nothing from this. Here is what our problem is in the 21st century. We want the church to do something for us, but we, want others to do something for us. We want there to be this equal tit for tat type of exchange between us and our counterparts. But the matter of fact is simple: there is no equal exchange, there never was. A life of integrity isn’t counting, nor is it measuring what the exchange rate is. You see the type of integrity I’m talking about is above and beyond a moralistic dilemma a lot of us have with ourselves in our minds. The type of integrity I’m talking about exists in knowing that we fail. We always fail and we will never move on past our failure. See, the story of Nehemiah is about Nehemiah, but it’s not about Nehemiah. If you think about his story, his story is not unique. Nor is it just interesting history. There is a satirical humor that cannot be denied, a parallelism if you will, to another story, a story we are more familiar with. Now, you can call this conspiracy or what not, but the people who put together the old testament, and it wasn’t the Christians, so don’t get conspiracy theory on me, created an archetypal history. Nehemiah is the redeemer figure in this story. He redeems people who cannot redeem themselves. He stands up to the oppressors on behalf of the oppressed crying out for freedom. Jesus, does this metaphysically, spiritually and physically in our lives today. If we are in the bind of borrowing to pay elsewhere, especially in terms of addictions, habits, debts and maybe even finances and relationships, then we are bankrupt. We kept borrowing against credit we never had in a famine we created on our own. Jesus, in his sacrifice, giving himself to us freely without return in godly integrity, buys our freedom back and doesn’t ask for anything in return. This is salvation. This is our good news. It is a shame that most of the time, we don’t get it and we live without that integrity. It is sadness to our faith. Live with integrity! Look at how Nehemiah lived with integrity, knowing that he was on credit himself: Moreover, from the time that I was appointed to be their governor in the land of Judah, from the twentieth year to the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes the king, twelve 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 forty 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 ten 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, O my God, all that I have done for this people. (Nehemiah 5:14-19 ESV)
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