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Preached in Markham Baptist Church, April 27, 2008

THE REAL DEAL

It could be said that we are surrounded by what is fake. Think of it – we have artificial turf, artificial flowers, artificial sweeteners, faux fur, and imitation diamonds.

The worst thing in the world of fakery – the worst thing – is a fake Christian. Fake Christians are those who say one thing but do another. The Biblical term is hypocrisy.

And fake Christians are as attractive as garden full of artificial plastic flowers. People don’t like fake Christians. We hear it all the time – “the church is full of hypocrites”. To be sure, that is sometimes said quickly and without much thought. But it does remain a criticism of the church that we must address. The world looks at the church and often says you are fakes, not genuine.

But even more important to realize is that our God hates fakery. Jesus expresses this hatred in Matthew 23 where He looks at the religious rulers of the day, the Pharisees and says – the Pharisees pray in public and they follow the law to the letter, but if you look beneath the surface you see that the Pharisees, they only pray in order to win the praise of people – they are full of greed and self indulgence (Matthew 23:25); they don’t practice what they preach (Matthew 23:3). They are slow to offer grace and quick to judge sins they themselves are guilty of (Matthew 23:2, 28).

It’s interesting that no tax collector or sinner is ever called a hypocrite in Scripture. It is a disease that is particular to religious folk.

And it is the same is our day – hypocrisy is a sin that is particular to religious folk, to the people of God. Take a look at this video and you’ll get a picture of a fake God follower. Of course this is lampooning a phenomenon in our culture – where we Christians are more concerned about looking Christian to the world around us than actually being Christian.

It’s an easy trap to fall into. We get to thinking that Christianity is all about doing the right things, looking the right way, having the right Bible and saying the right things on our bumpers. And we very quickly can become fake Christians – all surface and no substance.

How do we avoid being fake? Well one way is to look at those who are genuine in their faith and think of what makes them genuine. Scripture gives us some wonderful pictures of people who are genuine in their faith and as we look at them we discover how to avoid being a fake God follower.

One of these people is Nehemiah. This coming summer at our Kids’ Kamp our kids will be studying the book of Nehemiah so this will be a bit of an introduction for them. But as we open this book and read it, we discover that Nehemiah is the real deal. He’s not a fake God follower.

Just open it and let’s take a look at this real deal kind of guy. Verse one and two reads “The words of Nehemiah son of Hacaliah. In the month of Chislev, in the twentieth year, while I was in Susa the capital, one of my brothers, Hanani came with certain men from Judah; and I asked them about the Jews that survived, those who had escaped the captivity, and about Jerusalem.”

Now, just a short history lesson – the nation of Israel is a great nation under King David and King Solomon – But soon after that the kingdom is split in two – it would be like Quebec separating from the rest of Canada – and so you have the Northern Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom. The Northern Kingdom is eventually taken over by the Assyrians (722). Some time later another world power arises – the Babylonians, led by Nebuchadnezzar – they take over the Assyrians and the Southern Kingdom. They flatten Jerusalem, burn the temple to the ground and leave the place desolate.

50 years later, a new world power comes on the scene – the Persian empire led by Cyrus (Billy Ray and his daughter Miley are named after him. It’s true - Cyrus had an achy, breaky heart and the best of both worlds!)

Anyway, Cyrus allows the Israelites to go back home and rebuild. At this time the temple is rebuilt but the city of Jerusalem is left a mess. And this brings us to Nehemiah – a God follower who is serving in the court of a new Persian King called King Xerxes.

So Nehemiah asks his brother, how are things going in Jerusalem? How is the rebuilding going?

And they reply at verse 3. “The survivors there in the province who escaped captivity are in great trouble and shame; the wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been destroyed by fire.”

Now to us Jerusalem is only a city, but for the Jew it was the capital city where David had built his palace. It represented the promised land given to them by God. But more, it was the place where Solomon built the temple and it was here that the glory of God came and dwelt in an awesome cloud. It was here that the people of God met with their God, intimately and powerfully. To be sure we can meet with God anyplace and anytime, but even in our minds there are those special places where we have met God that we still long for. For some of us it is camp, where we met God powerfully and intimately. So Jerusalem is in the Jewish mind.

So Nehemiah is crushed by the news. And the text says at verse 4 that when Nehemiah heard these words he “sat down and wept, and mourned for days, fasting and praying before the God of heaven.”

For me this is the first characteristic that makes Nehemiah the real deal. This is a great picture of a real God follower. If you don’t want to be fake in your Christianity, allow your faith to rest in a relationship with God.

You see, Christianity is not about keeping rules – as soon as we say that our faith is about keeping a set of rules then we become hypocritical, because who really can keep all the rules?

No, the Christian faith is about falling in love with God and knowing that we can have a relationship with Him. We know this better than Nehemiah because we have the revelation of Jesus Christ.

What does this relationship look like?

First, he allows the things that break God’s heart to break his. Of course we need to have our heart broken by the horror of sin. We need to see how awful sin is and allow our pride to be broken – we aren’t all that good. God is good and gracious and wonderful and restores us, but in ourselves, we aren’t that good and we need to see that.

But more, we need to allow our hearts to be broken by the situation around us. For Nehemiah it was the broken walls, which really told him something of the complacency of God’s people in Jerusalem. It had been ninety years and the walls of the city still were not built, no one cared. And you can imagine the enemies of God saying – this is the city of God? Ha – what a sham, what a mess.

But for us, do you see that we are losing a generation? They are living without the joy of Christ, the grace of Christ? Are you weeping over that situation? Being a real deal Christian begins with a broken heart.

Long time ago John Wesley was a great preacher, and he was famous because he went to where the people were. He preached outdoors in the parks, and if you asked him why he did this he would reply, “I am haunted by the faces of the thousands of helpless people who are in bondage without the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.”

Have you ever wept like that over those who are lost without Christ? I know that I don’t cry often enough. I would suggest that we need to ask God to break our hearts with the things that break His. That we would truly be in tears over the fate of the lost – that we would really be in tears for those kids in the high school across the street that face so many pressures in life but do it without the presence of the living God in their lives. I would suggest that we, I need to be broken by the state of church, the lost.

Now, Nehemiah doesn’t just mourn over it, he fasts – that is, he denies himself food so he can concentrate on this issue, and he prays before the God of heaven. Truly there is a relationship that exists between Nehemiah and God.

But it’s also a relationship in which Nehemiah knows God’s place and his place. Verse 5 – “O Lord, God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and obey his commands, let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer your servant is praying before you day and night for your servants the people of Israel.”

It is a relationship in which Nehemiah knows his place – he is a servant and he knows God’s place. “O …great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love …” God is seen as great – not us. God is awesome, not us.

You see, that was Jesus’ problem with the Pharisees – the Pharisees wanted every one to see that they were awesome, they were great. You want to be real in your faith? Then recognize that God is awesome and great – we are just His servants.

So Jesus says in Matthew 6:1 – “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them.” Why? Because we get the praise.

Do you know in the same sermon (Matthew 5:16) Jesus seems to contradict Himself – He says, “Let your light shine before men that they may see your good deeds.”

So which is it? The problem is not the doing of good deeds, it’s the motivation. Don’t do them so that you can be seen and win praise, because you are only a servant, but do good deeds so that people will see them and praise your Father in heaven. We are the real deal when we recognize God as God and ourselves as His servants.

Next, it is a relationship of obedience. See the last part of verse 5 - “You keep your covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments.” Our obedience grows out of a relationship with God.

David Kinnaman in his book Unchristian states that hypocrisy is one of the top six reasons the new generation wants nothing to do with Christ and His church. The new generation are telling us that “Christians say one thing but live something entirely different.”

Kinnaman’s research is sad really. He surveyed born-again Christians and asked them to identify their activities over the last thirty days, and what he discovered is that born-again Christians when compared to non-Christians were just as likely to “bet or gamble, to visit a pornographic website, to take something that did not belong to them, to consult a medium or physic, to physically fight or abuse someone, to have consumed enough alcohol to be considered legally drunk, to have used an illegal, nonprescription drug, to have said something to someone that was not true, to have gotten back at someone he or she did, and to have said mean things behind another person’s back.”¹

And the young generation sees it and says, “Your faith really doesn’t make much difference in your life – who needs it?” And they turn away from Christ and His church.

Scripture calls us ambassadors for Christ. And if we are going to be effective ambassadors for Christ, our actions have to match our words. Here’s a question we need to ask ourselves – If you were arrested for being a Christian would there be enough hard evidence to convict you? Do our actions really match our words?

So a genuine faith grows out of a relationship with God. Then there is this: A real faith grows out of a recognition of our own sinfulness. Nehemiah’s prayer continues. Verse 6 and 7 - “Let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer of your servant that I now pray before you day and night for your servants, the people of Israel, confessing the sins of the people of Israel, which we have sinned against you. Both I and my family have sinned. We have offended you deeply, failing to keep the commandments, the statutes, and the ordinances that you commanded your servant Moses.”

You know, Nehemiah could have lashed out at those people who in Jerusalem who had failed to build the walls, “Why haven’t they done the work? Those sinners, those lazy people”.

Instead he looks within and sees his own sin and says, “God forgive me.” He is genuine in his desire to be real before God.

Then there is a dependence upon God’s sovereignty and not self. Verses 8, 9 and 10 - “Remember the word that you commanded your servant Moses, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples; but if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though your outcasts are under the farthest skies, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place at which I have chosen to establish my name. They are your servants and you people, whom you redeemed by your great power and your strong hand.’ ”

I get so tired of people who say that the church cannot do this or the church cannot do that. It’s a lie. We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. We are living hypocritical lives when we say God is almighty and all powerful, but in the same breath say that the church cannot win this town for Christ. What? That’s not real.

We need to go back to the root of our faith and realize that it is based on a relationship with God who enables, for whom all things are possible and as we bow to His sovereignty and His power and His promises then we understand that yes indeed it is possible for God.

The last thing we learn from Nehemiah about a genuine faith is that it is a faith that is acted on. In verse 11 Nehemiah prays, “O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant, and to the prayer of your servants who delight in revering your name. Give success to your servant today and grant him mercy in the sight of this man!”

Nehemiah has a plan for action. He’s going to take a proposal to the king – and in chapter 2 we see that he does indeed win a favourable response from the king.

So Nehemiah was one who was the real deal. He didn’t just weep over the situation, he didn’t just feel it in his gut, he didn’t just recognize God’s sovereignty and leave it with him, but he took action. He was willing to step out and take a chance. He was willing to step out do something radical. He was willing to take a risk and move into action.

How is it with you? Are you a fake God follower? Are you saying one thing but doing another? Are you all talk but no action? What do you think of our church – are we all talk and no action?

The world is no longer paying attention to the church because we are so fake. And we need to allow God to break our hearts with the things that break His. We need to get our relationship with God straightened out. He is the awesome God, we are His servants and if we do anything worth anything, He gets the glory.

We need to realize that He is sovereign and can do what He promises to do. And then we need to take action, recognizing that we are His ambassadors and He is to get the glory.

ENDNOTES:

David Kinnaman, Unchristian, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 2007) 47.