The Village Church
Interrupt My Life - Audio
Oh how he loves us, how he cherishes us, how he cares for us, how he sustains us, how he provides for us, how he heals us, how he cares for us, more than we can ever give you credit, oh how he loves us, just look at the cross, look at the cross, look at his son dying on the cross, bleeding for our transgressions, oh how he loves us, a lot of father has become now before you, before the preaching of your word, we pray that your spirit will take with its breach and apply to the hearts of the people, apply to the hearts of your men, your underserved and his main Lord, apply to my heart so first, we all are beggars at the foot of the cross, we all have issues at the foot of the cross, the cross is there to deal with our issues, cover those issues with us and now we bear them no more, no more, we stand in his righteousness, we stand in his goodness, we stand before him now as son or as a king of goodness, in the cross, in my heart, amen. If you have your Bibles, please open them to Nehemiah chapter 5. We're going to begin in verse 6, Nehemiah chapter 5 verse 6, I was very angry when I heard the outcry in these things, I took counsel with myself and I brought charges against the nobles and the officials, I said to them, "You are adding interest each from his brother and I had a great assembly against him and said to them, 'We as far as we are able have brought back our Jewish brothers, we have been sold to the nations, but you even sell your brothers that they may be sold to us, they were silent. I could not find a word to say, so I said, the thing you are doing is not good, aren't you not to walk in the fear of our God to prevent the talks of the nations, our enemies? Moreover, I am my brothers and my servants holding in the money and grain, let us abandon this adding of interest. Return to them this very day their fields and vineyards, their altarchets, their houses and the percentage of money and grain and wine and oil that you have been taking from them. Then I said, then they said, "We will restore these things and require nothing from them. We will do as you say and I call the priests and made them swear to do as they had promised. I also shook out the fold of my garments and said, 'May God shake out every man from his house from his labor who does not keep his promise. So may he be shaken out and empty.' And all this assembly said, 'Amen praise the Lord and the people did as they promised.'" Verse 14, "Moreover from the time that I were appointed governor in Judah from the 20th year or the 30th year of the art sees the king, 12 years, neither nigh nor my brothers ate the food allowance of the governor. The governors before me, the former governors who were before me laid heavy burdens on the people took from them their daily ration for the sickles of silver. Even the servants lorded 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 who were gathered there for the work. Moreover, they were at my table 150 men, Jews and officials beside those who came up from the nations that are around us. Now, what was prepared there was at my expense, for each day was an ox, six choice sheeps and birds. Every ten days, all kinds of wine and abundance. Yet for all this, I did not demand the food allowance of the governor because service was too heavy on this people. Remember for my good, oh my God, all that I have done for this people. Amen? This guy's holy word. Schedules, routines, habits, rituals, traditions, plans, agendas, goals, visions, dreams. Are you familiar with those terms? You should be. Many of us are creatures of habit. Many of us have schedules, family schedules, work schedules, school schedules, sports schedules, and all these schedules rule our life. That tells us what we need to do, what we need to be, how we need to be there. We follow them. We have daily routines that we have, goals, agendas, plans. We have dreams, most of all, dreams for our life, for our career, for our family, for our kids. We all have them. We try to attain them. So we have all these different things going on, but we also know there's something else that play in this world. This world is filled with interruptions, right? Oh, interruptions. What happens when your schedule is indirectly? You like it? Are you saying yes? Thank you for the interruption. No, you're frustrated. You're angry. Sometimes interruptions are a good thing because the gospel is a gospel of interruption. Not a gospel of convenience that caters to us, that caters to what we want. The gospel is not a gospel of convenience that we can just pencil into our day timer. So yeah, I believe the gospel today. No, it's a gospel of interruption. It interrupts your life schedule. It interrupts your routines, your plans, and your dreams when they go, of course, when they're out of line with this. And so we have to learn to accept that. We have to learn to embrace those interruptions. See them as mercy. See them as grace. And so you need to say to Jesus, "Enter up my life for my good." "Enter up my life, my plans, my dreams, my actions, whatever I'm doing, interrupted for my good because you love me." This is what God did to nobles and officials in Jerusalem and near my five. He interrupted the way they were treating their brothers. He did. Last week, if you were here last week, we saw the people bringing complaints to Nehemiah, cried out to Nehemiah because their wealth of your Jewish brothers were taking advantage of them, charging them interest, treating them like slaves. As we say last week, they were operating off that second golden rule. What's the second golden rule? Yes. That's how they will live in. The wants with the goal sets all the rules. And so God is showing up. He's going to interrupt that rule today. And he uses Nehemiah to do that. You see, he don't always use circumstances. He sometimes uses people to interrupt his people. He uses his people to interrupt his people when his people go off course. And this is what Nehemiah does here. He brings the interruption of conviction to the nobles, to the officials. Verse 6, "When I was very angry when I heard that outcry in these words, I took counsel with myself and I brought charges against the nobles and the officials and I said to them, 'You are adding charges 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 brought back our Jewish brothers who have been sold to the nations, but you sell them that they may be sold to us. They were silent and cannot find a word to say." So Nehemiah listens to the outcry of the people and he's mad and he's upset. This is the first time in the book you ever see Nehemiah have an angry response. He doesn't say he's angry when Sam Ballad and Tabaya are attacking him. He never said he got angry about that, but he's angry now. He's very angry now. Why? Because those who are part of the people of God should treat each other as so. Right? But this was not taking place here. They were not treating each other like they were part of the people of God. They were treating each other like they were enemies. I'm taking advantage of you. I'm not here to help you or to serve you. I'm treating you like an enemy would treat you and he's upset because of the Jew on Jew exploitation that was taking place up under his nose. Jews taking advantage of their own brothers. It should anger and frustrate you when you witness Christians not treating each other very Christianally. It should anger you. It should frustrate you because it shouldn't be that way. If we are all pursuing Christ together, shouldn't that show itself in how we treat one another? And how we talk to one another? And how we love one another? Even if we disagree on something. My love should trump my gristic, my disagreement. My love for you should always come first. So near my was angry enough to do something about it. And what I love him, he loved here. He doesn't respond in his anger even because if he were responding in his anger, that could have added flame to the fire, right? It could have been unhealthy to to go to them in his anger and say, you guys are doing wrong. But no, he took counsel with himself. I took counsel with myself because he knew as a leader, he had to deal with this situation wisely because you don't want to have further division in the camp. And as the leader, he had to make sure he deals with it in a way that it brings healing to the camp, not for the divided. And every leader needs to understand that. You got to lead in such a way that when there's disagreements among the people under you, you got to lead in such a way that you bring the people together. They don't further divide them. So he took counsel with himself, praying for wisdom, praying for the sermon. He had to contemplate and think about what would be the best course of action. How can I do like this? You see, the goal, the goal for him is to bring the guilty party to conviction. That's the goal. He wants to interrupt their life, interrupt what they're doing with conviction. That's his motive. That should be our motive. When those who sin against us, when we get when a thing is that I'm not going on right, and when we have to confront people, other brothers and sisters and Christ, we should want them to be convicted of what they have done, not beat them up, not go, give them elbows and knees to the face. But you want them to have conviction because you love them. And when, and so that means you don't always, you don't respond any emotional anger. You don't say the first thing that comes to mind, you need to take the time to go take counsel. And you should see there's a lot in the marriage relationship. When you have arguments with your spouse, it's not always wise to say certain things at that moment when there's a disagreement. You may need to go to each other corner and take counsel. And then come back later when you're both the same. Because once you say something, you shouldn't say it's hard. You won't hard take it back. You don't want to hurt. You want reconciliation to take place. And so you want to interrupt your sin with conviction, not come to nation. Now, I know this sounds good in theory. Sounds good in the sermon, but putting into practice is not always easy. And that's why it's important. You pray for boldness. You pray for discernment. You pray that God will give you the words to say. See, I'm a non confrontational person. I don't like conflict. I can't stand it. I wish air back and just get along. I don't have any issues. But I know I'm not in a position where I can just turn my back on it. I have to confront things. And I'll take counsel with myself. Pray that God will give me wisdom because I don't like doing it because I want everybody like me. So I have to pray that God will give me the words to say. Pray the spirit will keep me aware even of my own brokenness. And one of the things I've learned to do when I confront other believers, is I have to be aware of my own sin or my own brokenness as I go and confront the other person because it's not me looking down on you. It's meeting the other beside you at the cross with the hey brother. I got drunk too. So I stand for goodness to you. It's never this. It's this. We're all beggars. I don't care where you are in life. You're a beggar. Meeting Jesus is grace. And so it's like you pray what David said in Psalms 139. Search me on God. Know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any grievous way in me and lead me in a way of everlasting. That's the prayer you should pray before you go confront anybody. That God will search your own heart. Show you your stuff. So when you deal with the person, you will deal with them graciously as you confront them about their sin. So we need to pray that. Think about that. I'm not sure if Nina near my pray that but that's my counsel to you. You pray that. So he brought the charges against him. I brought charges against the nobles and the officials. What were the charges? Two things we talked about last week and an entrance to their loans to their brothers. Something that God said it should not do in the villages 25. You are not to charge interest to your brother. You are not to profit from your brother's poorness. Two was to issue a debt slavery. They were not supposed to treat their fellow Jews like slaves. That's what treating them as hard help but they were not. They were treating them like slaves. Again, the Vegas 25 spells all this out on how they're supposed to treat one another. Treat the less fortunate within the community because the system that God set up was supposed to benefit those within the community who were less fortunate. It was set up to benefit them not to further oppress them. But in near my five that wasn't going on. They were kicking their brothers when they were down. Not really serving them. Helping them. They were kicking them when they were already down. So he brought these charges against them in front of a greater assembly before the people. This greater assembly was probably made up of those who were actually being sent against. And his charges against him is not an assumption. Know that. He doesn't have the second-hand information. A group of people came to him complaining. He got his facts right. He knows that these people are actually doing this stuff. And the group of people that are there with him are there just in case the nobles and officials are the reason they're way out of it. He has the witnesses there to prove to back him up if they try to deny it. So he had everything together. He was presenting his case to them. This is what you're doing. And here are the witnesses that they backed me up. And so he knows they give to him. And they know him. And they know him. And so again the goal is not to divide a camp. The goal is to bring conviction and healing to the camp. And near my I was not trying to shame them. He did not demonize them. He did not crucify them. He was graciously firm with them here. And what they were doing. He wanted to interrupt their life with conviction. And he did. And the text says what they were silent. It didn't have a word to say. And what's that a sassigner? What does that show you about them? No defense. No words of self protection. They were guilty. They were convicted. They were interrupted. We got it. We did it. We're not loving our brothers here. This week two people lives have been interrupted because of things they've been doing. One is a heck. One would used to be a head football coach. One is still a congressman. They did things. Now that life is interrupted. I don't have to go to details. If you know college football, you don't want to talk about. You follow politics. You know what I'm talking about. Their lives have been interrupted. And when they got caught, they try to lie their way out of what they did. They would not take personal responsibility. But as more and more evidence came out against the coach, more and more evidence came out. It came out against the congressman that could not longer no longer hide behind the lies. It was clear that they were guilty. You see as believers, we have done and will do some messed up things to one another. You're just going to happen. We're going to say things, do things. We're going to do it. It's going to take place. But praise Jesus that he interrupts your life when you do it. That he interrupts your centering and gossiping tone. He interrupts your jealousy. He interrupts your envying other people who you think got it better than you. He interrupts your self-righteousness, thinking you're better than everybody else. He interrupts your unrighteousness as well. He interrupts our sinfulness with conviction in order that we may repent of it. Repent of it. Take responsibility. Say that Jesus, bring on the conviction, Jesus. Bring it on. Interrupt my life for my good because you love me. If you didn't love me, you wouldn't interrupt me. You let me continue doing what I'm doing. You got to see that as love. When he interrupts you, something that you're doing, that's love. Not let you do what you want to do. That's not love. That means I don't really care about you. But he interrupts you because he loves you. He does it with conviction, but he also does it with what I call surrender. The interruption of surrender. Look at verse nine. I need to get a big a Bible with big a print. Verse nine. So I said, "The thing that you are doing is not good or you not to walk in the fear of our God to prevent the taunts of the nations, our enemies." The nobles and officials were functioning, not like those who belong to the people of God. We already established that. They were actually functioning like enemies, functioning like Tabaya and Sam Valley. What they were doing was no different. And so, he calls them out. He asked them a question, a question that has only one obvious answer, all you not to walk in the fear of our God to prevent the taunts of the nations, our enemies. What's the answer? The answer is yes. That's not a trick question. You should walk in the fear of our God, and pay attention to what Nehemiah does here. He is letting them know that there is a disconnection in their life, a disconnection to the Lord God in certain areas of their life. For these individuals, there was a disconnection in the way they were treating their less fortunate brothers, or it could be in their business practices, that somehow the Father is not connected to that. Because if the nobles and the officials were walking in the fear of the Lord God, they would not be continuing to do what they're doing without any conviction, by any sense of, "Hey, maybe I shouldn't be charging my poor brother as much interest." It says in his word, "I shouldn't do that, but I'm going to be doing it anyway." They've taken advantage of them. If you're walking in the fear of God, you're going to be convicted eventually by the things that you do that you know is not aligned with his word. Walking in the fear of God is surrendering every area of your life to him. This is near my point. Every area, not some other. When I wrote that Chick-fil-A, I had this one boss. He, one of our staff meetings, he would tell us that, "You know, I'm a Christian, but I'm also a businessman." What's wrong with that? I'm a Christian, and I'm also a businessman. Do you see anything wrong with that statement? It's separated. Why can't he be a Christian businessman? You see, that statement reflects a disconnection that is seen in many lives today within the church. Jesus is not a telephone line. You know that you can connect and disconnect from your life at will. Well, I need Jesus today, so I'm going to pull the phone into the jack today. Then when you're no longer niggin', you pull it out. I got the day Jesus. Pull them in, you pull them out. You pull them in, you pull them out at your convenience when it's beneficial to you. Jesus don't throw like that. Y'all have heard me say that before. He's connected to every area, not the one you want to give him. Every singer area of your life. Walking in the field of the Lord is having him at the center. This is done when you surrender to his rule, to his authority, to his standards. Things I said last week, it's you giving up the car keys to him, giving them over to him, giving him the power. All to Jesus, I surrender. All to Jesus I freely give. That's the song. Words from the hymn. You have to let surrendering interrupt you on a daily basis. You know why? Because every day you try to steal the keys back. Because it doesn't mean every day you try to steal the keys back. Here you go Jesus. Then the next day you take them back. And so it's the daily surrendering to him, not just at the moment of conversion, but every day of your life. When he convicts you of something, repent of it, surrender, move on. If you can't do it, pray the Spirit to give you the power to do it. And when you begin to surrender more of your life to him daily, you begin to reflect more of him in your life. And as you begin to submit to his will, our power, his Spirit, you begin to reflect him in what you value, in what you cherish, in what you love. What does Jesus love? He loves people, particularly his people. And if you're reflecting him, then you're gonna do the same thing. You're gonna love his people. And I only love him. You're gonna want to be with his people. Whenever I hear people say I love Jesus, but I don't love the church, you don't really love Jesus. Because if you love Jesus, you're gonna love with people he die for. That's what I mean by that statement. If you love him, you're gonna love his people, you're gonna put up with his people, you're gonna forgive his people, you're gonna fellowship with his people. Because he brought us together through the cross. And if the cross can't bring us together, then nothing will. Paul says in Philippians 5, "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ." As I'm growing more and embracing the interruption of surrendering and submitting to Christ, that would naturally lead me to submitting to you, as a brothers and sisters in Christ, in honor of him. Submitting to one another within the church is us putting other Christians before ourselves, which was not taking place in the roof from here. The wealthy Christians were not submitting to their less fortunate brothers and sisters. They were not submitting to them out of fear of God. They didn't. Nehemiah also told them, "You should walk in the fear of God to prevent the taunts of the nations." What the nobles and the officials were doing were giving the nations reasons to taunt them. Because what they were doing was no different, like I said. They were treating each other like enemies. They were hurting the community as well. And when the world looks within the church, the world looks within the church, and all they see is unreconcilable disunity, no repentance, there's no love, lack of forgiveness, there's no grace. You tear one another down, you just all see a righteous. They look at us and say, "You know different from me. Why do I need to come there and put up with your junk?" When I got no junk on my own, they see no difference in how we deal with our own sin and issues and drama, that all they see is real in this, not Jesus. Difference here, different does not mean perfect. Don't hear me saying that. Different does not mean perfection. It means that the people of God, we have a different currency that we live off on within our community, a different currency. It's a currency of grace, currency of mercy. You know that right. That's how we deal with the Christian community, grace, mercy. All of us here freely receive those currencies from Jesus on a daily basis. Don't you? Every day He gives you mercy. Every day He gives you grace. And all these currencies, grace and mercy, He doesn't give them to you as alone that accumulates interest. Does He? Does this grace and mercy put you in His debt? Now you owe me. Alex, don't give you so much grace and mercy. Eventually I'm gonna call you up for something. What put us in His debt was our sin and His death counts of that out. And now because of that we live off the currency of grace and mercy and against what? Jesus never filed for bankruptcy with that. He never runs out of grace. Never gonna run out of mercy. His love will always be there for us. Endless grace, endless mercy without measure. And so if you're never surrender your life to Jesus and saving faith this morning is your turn. Jesus interrupt my life in order that you may say I surrender all this day to you. All of us here this morning we're wealthy. What do you mean by that Alex? We're rich in grace. We're rich in mercy. You see you receive all this grace. Some of you your pockets have so much grace and mercy in it. It's just falling out. And so some of us have to get a backpack and put it in there. Some of us got it up on our mattress. You see all the grace you've been given you supposed to extend. Not hoarded. And if you ain't standing it, expressing it, is something I write. So what does that mean? What do you mean by that Alex? I need to be given people the handshake of grace and mercy. There you go brother. I forgive you. Jesus forgives me. Jesus gives me grace. Jesus gives me mercy so that I can extend it to those who sin against me. When the world looks within the church that's what I need to see happen. Not an issue free church but a church that deals in the currency of grace and mercy. When they see we should be seeing handshakes. There you go. It's some more grace. Some more mercy. I forgive you. Let's just see repentance taking place. Reconciliation taking place. Restoration taking place. And in the last verses of this chapter those are the things that we see. In verses 10 to 19 we see the nobles and the officials making things right with the brothers and sisters. Nehemiah tells them to this day you don't turn to them the things that you took. You give them back the interest that you've been charging them. And they did. And they did it. And then in verses 14 to 19 we see another example of Nehemiah how he treated the less fortunate on Jews there. He sacrificed. He didn't even take the governor's food around. He could have. He had a right to do that but he didn't. He he sacrificed. Spent out of his own pocket. Even fed folks as well. He gave loans but he didn't charge them any interest. So there's a right way and a wrong way to treat one another. And we see that if we're operating on a grace, currency of grace and mercy. We're going to repent. We're going to extend grace. We're going to forgive one another. Now I know those things to take time depending upon what's been done to you. But if the spirit of God lives in you eventually you would get there. So I'm not trying to give you a quick fix or a bad name gospel. I know things take time but the point is the spirit will put you on the path to forgiveness. Remember the sermon. It's a path to forgiveness. You won't just not forgive the person. So Jesus said in Matthew 5, "Let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and get glory to your Father in heaven." That light has to shine here amongst ourselves first at the body of Christ. I mean people look at the village church. I mean I won't even say, "Man, y'all are still people. You got some serious issues but you know what I see with people. They reconcile the issues. They restore one another. I see sacrifice in that church. I see people serving one another without expecting anything in return. I see the love there. I see realness, honesty, short accounts, forgiving. I see the currency of grace and mercy constantly at changing hands at the village church. And all of that flows all of a daily surrendering to God, growing in your faith with Jesus, growing in your relationship with Him. That's the story of the place. Because if you're not growing there, then you're not going to serve one another way. They've got to be firm in that. Living in the forgive God. Let Him to rip your life for your good. This week our youth group was here serving alongside of South Wales youth group and you guys did a great job. I thank all you guys for serving. It was great getting to know some of you. I'm glad you came down to work with us. And now last week I messed up. Because last week I failed to even mention that the youth group was going to be down here. He didn't even pray about it. And so this week a friend of mine brought that to my attention. Because during the service I prayed about another member and what she was going to be doing. But I failed to mention about what our kids were going to be doing alongside what our brothers and sisters from South Wales. You know, he pulled me to the side and we talked about it. And I told him, "Man, you know what, I made a mistake there. I told these out the ball." It wasn't me not trying to give them no attention, let them know to show that they were serving. But I told this one over my head. But you know what? He didn't let it sit there. It was a small issue, but you know what happens to small issues, they pile up on top of other small issues like dirty laundry. And eventually they're going to start smelling. And eventually they're going to resent me. It's going to be there. He's not going to like me anymore. He's going to have hurt feelings. And everything I say, he's not going to be able to receive. Because all the small issues are piled up. And so I thank my friend for coming to me in the spirit of keeping sure it accounts to do the laundry. And I don't care what the issue is. You do the laundry. You deal with it. Don't say, "That's the way he is." He don't really mean that. If your feelings are hurt, if someone stands against you, you go to that person because you love him. If you love him, you won't let it pile up. So I'm telling you, it's going to pile up. And then you're going to either leave the church or you're going to break our fellowship. And so we deal with one another and currencies of grace, currencies of mercy. Father God, thank you for the conviction of the interruption of conviction that you give it to us because you love us. And then you don't let us continue down in the far country without bringing it to us. So I thank you that you use brothers and sisters for that. You use your word for that, your spirit for that. And so I have my prayer for myself and for all of us that will be sensitive to that father. So whenever you do it, we will see that as love. Opportunity to repent, Lord, when we're blind to our sin. Thank you that you do it because you love us. Thank you for the interruption of surrendering, that daily father who holds to surrender our life to you. Because our life is really in good hands with our God. And so whatever it is in my heart that I haven't given over, whatever it is in their heart that they have not given over, help us to give it over to the power of the spirit and press them up. Sing the last verse of this song. Thinking onward to the prize before us. Onward to the prize before us. Soon his beauty will be home. Soon the glory gates will open. When we all get to heaven, get to heaven. What a day of rejoicing I will be.