Integrity Over Productivity | Nehemiah 5:1-19
Integrity Over Productivity
Nehemiah 5:1-19
It’s great to see you this morning! It’s September. College football is back. And at least some of you have the day off tomorrow. It’s a good day! Next week is going to be good, too. We have some brand new, exciting news to share, and we have Parent Commissioning, so you need to be here next Sunday. And the Sunday after that, we are celebrating 10 Years as City Awakening Church!
In fact, on your seat you have an invite card. We’d love for you to take those and use this as an opportunity to invite someone to church. We’re going to have lunch after the service and some activities for kids. It’s going to be great. This is a big deal for us because it has been a long journey. In the first 5 or 6 years of planting, we often had to remind each other that this is a marathon, not a sprint. And there were many times when our staff and elders sat around talking about what we need to change…how can we reach more people and grow faster to have a bigger impact in our city? And there are things we could’ve done. We could’ve given out AirPods on Sundays or hired professional musicians. We could’ve watered down our messages to appeal to the masses. But we didn’t do that because we couldn’t compromise on who God had called us to be.
We didn’t know exactly what the results would be, but we knew who God had called us to be. And we wanted to be faithful to that calling, even when we couldn’t see what faithfulness would produce.
Maybe you can relate to that temptation in your own life. It’s tempting to cut corners and do things the easy way. For instance, we recently changed the preaching schedule around so I didn’t have as much time to study in advance as I usually do. I thought ChatGPT would be useful to at least get a jump on things. So I pulled up my web browser….. went to the Bible, and started studying.
What did you think I was going to say?…. I didn’t use AI. If the message is bad, you can blame me. If it’s good, you can thank the Holy Spirit for working through me.
We live in a world where it’s incredibly easy to choose whatever is easiest, most efficient, or most likely to produce the results we want. You can wrestle with the math problem, or you can let AI show you the answer. You can go to your doctor for a professional diagnosis, or you can go to WebMD and convince yourself you’re dying.
This is true in our spiritual lives as well. We pray for less hardship, for success, and for quick results, but God has us on a spiritual journey, and he’s shaping us through every season and decision. God cares more about who we become than what we accomplish.
That’s the Big Idea today: God cares more about our integrity than our productivity.
The world tells us to take the path that helps us achieve the greatest results, but we’re going to see how the Bible addresses that today. And as we walk through this passage, we’re going to see four ways integrity changes the way we live.
I want to invite you to turn in your Bibles to Nehemiah 5. We’ve been in Nehemiah for a few weeks, and we’ve seen that Nehemiah is a man who demonstrated great faith, a devotion to prayer, and a willingness to take bold action as he led God’s people to rebuild the wall around Jerusalem. Today, we’ll see more of his character unfold even in the midst of challenging circumstances.
There was a widespread outcry from the people and their wives against their Jewish countrymen. 2 Some were saying, “We, our sons, and our daughters are numerous. Let us get grain so that we can eat and live.” 3 Others were saying, “We are mortgaging our fields, vineyards, and homes to get grain during the famine.” 4 Still others were saying, “We have borrowed money to pay the king’s tax on our fields and vineyards. 5 We and our children are just like our countrymen and their children, yet we are subjecting our sons and daughters to slavery. Some of our daughters are already enslaved, but we are powerless because our fields and vineyards belong to others.”
This widespread outcry is about an internal conflict that’s happening among the people. Last week we saw resistance coming from outside the camp, but this time the problem is within the community. The Israelites are in the middle of this massive construction project, and it’s taking a toll on the people. Everyone is working on the wall, which is causing an issue because people can’t tend to their normal daily chores, like growing food, which is how they fed their families. On top of that, they still had to have money to pay taxes to the king.
Apparently, taxes have always caused a widespread outcry. So, the working-class Jews had to turn to the upper-class Jews for help. Their solution was to lend money with interest or buy their children as indentured servants. As you can imagine, the people felt trapped. They are trying to do what’s right and help with the wall, but the injustice is costing them everything.
6 I became extremely angry when I heard their outcry and these complaints. 7 After seriously considering the matter, I accused the nobles and officials, saying to them, “Each of you is charging his countrymen interest.” So I called a large assembly against them 8 and said, “We have done our best to buy back our Jewish countrymen who were sold to foreigners, but now you sell your own countrymen, and we have to buy them back.” They remained silent and could not say a word. 9 Then I said, “What you are doing isn’t right. Shouldn’t you walk in the fear of our God and not invite the reproach of our foreign enemies?
Nehemiah was extremely upset when he heard what was happening. This literally means he was burning with anger, but notice that the text doesn’t indicate that he sinned in his anger and that he didn’t immediately jump to action. He spent some time thinking about the situation, and based on what we already know about Nehemiah, it’s safe to say that once again, he prayed before he responded.
That’s important because it allowed him to go to the officials and address the real issue without flying off the handle and doing more harm than good. This was not just a matter of fairness or convenience; this was a sin issue…and that’s really what Nehemiah cared about. He asks, “Shouldn’t you walk in the fear of our God?”
These Jewish leaders knew what they were doing was wrong. They were ignoring God’s law. Leviticus 25:35-36 says, “If your brother becomes destitute and cannot sustain himself among you, you are to support him… 36 Do not profit or take interest from him, but fear your God and let your brother live among you.” Clearly, they were doing the opposite of this, and Nehemiah had a righteous anger.
And notice something else in verse 9: Nehemiah says their actions could “invite the reproach of our foreign enemies.” Their integrity wasn’t only about what God saw in them. It was also about what the world saw of God through them.
That matters for us too. Our integrity isn’t just personal. We represent Christ to the people around us. The way we treat our spouse, our employees, our neighbors, our customers, our church family—people are watching.
It seems like the nobles and officials were justifying their behavior by keeping the project moving forward. They were taking advantage of the people, but this allowed for greater productivity on the wall, and it helped the productivity of their bank accounts. They showed a severe lack of integrity by taking matters into their own hands, acting out of greed, and doing things their way instead of walking in the fear of God.
This leads us to the first reason God cares about integrity.
1. Integrity asks us to trust God’s way over our own.
We are all going to come to these decision points. We face these multiple times a day, when we can choose to take matters into our own hands….we may even be able to justify it…or we can choose to trust God’s way, even though it seems harder, less efficient, or just less fun.
Sometimes the choice is clear. One example of this is King Saul in 1 Samuel 15. God gave Saul clear instructions to completely destroy the Amalekites, but he didn’t. He didn’t kill their king, and he kept some of their livestock. He told Samuel it was because he wanted to use the best animals as a sacrifice to the Lord—justifying his choice—but Samuel told him God didn’t want his sacrifices; he wanted his obedience. The result of his lack of integrity was that God removed Saul from his position as king and replaced him with David.
Sometimes the choice is not as clear, as in the case of Daniel. When he and his friends were brought in to be trained in the king’s court, they decided to request a special diet and not eat all the food the king and his officials ate. Some of that food may have been unclean according to the Mosaic Law, but overall Daniel and his friends made the decision to set themselves apart from the rest of the palace. They probably could have justified eating the food, but they trusted God to strengthen and bless them, even without the provisions of the King. As a result, God did bless them, and Daniel was raised to a place of authority under the king.
What I love about that story is that Daniel trusted God even when he couldn’t guarantee the outcome.
And that’s important, because doing what’s right doesn’t guarantee the results we want. Scripture is full of faithful people who suffered. Jeremiah suffered. John the Baptist suffered. Paul suffered. Jesus suffered.
But doing what’s right does produce the kind of fruit God values.
So integrity isn’t saying, “If I obey God, I’ll get the outcome I want.” Integrity says, “Even if I don’t get the outcome I want, I’m going to trust God enough to obey.”
So far, these Jewish leaders were acting in their own best interest and doing things their way, but let’s see how they respond when Nehemiah addresses them.
10 Even I, as well as my brothers and my servants, have been lending them money and grain. Please, let’s stop charging this interest. 11 Return their fields, vineyards, olive groves, and houses to them immediately, along with the percentage of the money, grain, new wine, and fresh oil that you have been assessing them.”
12 They responded, “We will return these things and require nothing more from them. We will do as you say.”
So I summoned the priests and made everyone take an oath to do this. 13 I also shook the folds of my robe and said, “May God likewise shake from his house and property everyone who doesn’t keep this promise. May he be shaken out and have nothing!”
The whole assembly said, “Amen,” and they praised the Lord. Then the people did as they had promised.
The leaders were in the wrong, but praise God that they were willing to admit their mistake and make it right. That’s evidence of true repentance, and it points us to a second reason God cares about integrity.
2. Integrity highlights our need for gospel-centered transformation.
The Bible does not teach us to pursue a self-righteous, moral high ground. It demands an admission of imperfection and brokenness.
There’s an important Gospel connection here we need to clarify because if we aren’t careful, we can think that we need to do what’s right in order to please God or to be the best version of ourselves. Integrity can become a means to salvation or to earn God’s favor. That’s never going to work.
Jesus is our righteousness, and we trust in his perfect life and sacrifice, not our own. In the ultimate act of integrity, Jesus chose to obey his Father and lay his life down on the cross for our sins. His love is demonstrated not in what he demands from us but in what he offers us…repentance and forgiveness.
Every time we miss the mark in doing what’s right, it highlights the fact that we need a Savior… that our transformation will never happen by our own efforts, but only by the grace offered to us through Jesus.
Integrity isn’t perfection. When God shows us we’re wrong, we don’t defend it—we repent. God cares about our integrity because he wants us to trust his plan over our own, including his plan for redemption.
There are so many things I like about this part of the story. I appreciate the willingness of the leaders to admit their mistake. I also like that Nehemiah was willing to have the hard conversation.
So often in the church we feel like we have to pretend to have it altogether, and we are afraid to address the hard issues, the real sin issues. That would be understandable if our faith was built on performance, but it’s not.
If our faith is built on the gospel, then it frees us to follow this model of vulnerability, teachability, and repentance.
Notice that after this interaction, they had a worship service. They weren’t bitter; their feelings weren’t hurt…they were unified as God’s people.
This is the kind of church we want to be….We want to pursue integrity, not so we can have “holier-than-thou” attitudes, but so we can allow grace to bring about continual gospel transformation.
The gospel gives us a different kind of freedom; we don’t have to hide our sin… because our righteousness isn’t dependent on pretending we have it all together.
Let’s pick up in verse 14 to see what else we can learn from this story.
14 Furthermore, from the day King Artaxerxes appointed me to be their governor in the land of Judah—from the twentieth year until his thirty-second year, twelve years—I and my associates never ate from the food allotted to the governor. 15 The governors who preceded me had heavily burdened the people, taking from them food and wine as well as a pound of silver. Their subordinates also oppressed the people, but because of the fear of God, I didn’t do this. 16 Instead, I devoted myself to the construction of this wall, and all my subordinates were gathered there for the work. We didn’t buy any land.
17 There were 150 Jews and officials, as well as guests from the surrounding nations at my table. 18 Each day, one ox, six choice sheep, and some fowl were prepared for me. An abundance of all kinds of wine was provided every ten days. But I didn’t demand the food allotted to the governor, because the burden on the people was so heavy.
Nehemiah called his brothers to repentance and integrity, and then he demonstrated how he lived this way, as well.
Remember, Nehemiah came back to Jerusalem to rebuild the wall under the permission and blessing of the king. This meant that he had power and authority. He had the right to collect food and supplies from the people. He had access to resources, and the permission to accumulate more.
But he chose not to. He didn’t want to add to the burden of the people. Not only that, but he chose to live generously with what he did have. Verse 17 says he fed over 150 people every day at his house! Nehemiah was rich, but he was choosing to live in a way that benefited others over himself.
It may seem like he’s bragging…patting himself on the back, but I don’t think that’s the case. Nehemiah is modeling an important principle—a third reason God cares about integrity.
3. Integrity leads us to look beyond what’s permissible to what’s fruitful.
It would have been permissible to exercise more power, to accumulate more wealth, but the text says that because Nehemiah feared God, he chose not to. Similar to the example of Daniel, this was not a black-and-white issue, but one that required discernment and the ability to step back and see the bigger picture.
This might be the most convicting part of the text because it’s easy for us to get into a pattern of asking what we can get away with rather than what’s better long-term.
We tend to live with a very short-term mindset, but God wants us to think bigger. He wants us to live with an eternal mindset…remembering that this world is not our home, that we are not building our kingdom but His Kingdom. He doesn’t want us to settle for what’s allowed, but to consider what will yield long-term fruit.
You can be completely within the rules and still be becoming someone you don’t want to become.
Parents, you probably have these conversations with your kids. There aren’t really any immediate wins from completing the trigonometry exercises or the research paper, but we understand that the discipline to do the work and the benefit of learning will have a long-term payoff, even if their career has nothing to do with those assignments.
Another example is what we allow to shape our minds and hearts. There’s endless content for us to consume through TV, internet, and social media. It’s not all bad, and we can argue that a lot of it is permissible, but when we step back and think long-term, we have to ask how what we’re consuming is shaping us….what type of person are we becoming from it. What fruit will that bear down the road?
The question isn’t only, “Is this allowed?” The better question is, “What is this doing to me?”
What am I becoming because of what I repeatedly watch, listen to, pursue, and give my attention to?
Nehemiah allowed his faith to shape his decisions around what was best for the people, the city, and ultimately God’s kingdom instead of his own. His integrity caused him to look beyond what was permissible to what was fruitful.
And he believed that God would see that decision….
19 Remember me favorably, my God, for all that I have done for this people.
This is a short, honest prayer from Nehemiah that we shouldn’t overlook. He knows God sees what he has done, and he entrusts the outcome to Him.
Nehemiah isn’t saying, “God, I did the right thing, so now you owe me.” He’s saying, “God, you see my faithfulness. You see what I’ve done for your people. I’m trusting you with the results.”
And that gives us a fourth reason God cares about integrity.
4. Integrity trusts God with the results.
There is nothing wrong with asking God to bless what we do. The problem comes when we turn obedience into a transaction…when we think, “If I do this for God, then God owes me that.”
Nehemiah’s prayer isn’t a demand for a particular outcome. It’s an expression of trust. “God, you see me. You know what I’ve done. You know why I’ve done it. Remember me.”
Sometimes God blesses our faithfulness with the results we hoped for. Sometimes He doesn’t. Sometimes the blessing is immediate. Sometimes it comes years later. Sometimes we won’t experience the fullness of it until eternity. But our job is not to control the results. Our job is to be faithful.
The Bible is full of examples that remind us that there is a reward for faithfulness. The Proverbs talk about the path that leads to life versus the path that leads to death. Jacob wrestled with God until he gave him his blessing. God promised the Israelites military success, good land, and health in the Promised Land if they continued to trust him. Even in the New Testament, Jesus taught that he would provide for physical needs and that good stewardship will be blessed.
Just like a parent wants the best for their child, God wants good for us. He wants to bless us. That doesn’t mean that we don’t experience hardship or suffering, or go through seasons of discipline and pruning. Those are all important parts of our spiritual growth because they allow our faith to grow and help us see more of who God is. They provide us opportunities to turn from idols and place our trust in Him….just like these Jewish leaders in chapter 5.
The point is not that faithful people never suffer. The point is that faithfulness is never wasted. God can use obedience to produce fruit in us, through us, and sometimes even beyond us in ways we may never see.
The Apostle Paul put this in athletic terms in 1 Corinthians 9:24
Don’t you know that the runners in a stadium all race, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way to win the prize. 25 Now everyone who competes exercises self-control in everything. They do it to receive a perishable crown, but we an imperishable crown.
Paul had the end goal in mind. Nehemiah saw the bigger picture.
And that’s the tension we have to live with: we want results now, but God is often working on a timeline we can’t see.
We want productivity. God is producing fruit. We want outcomes. God is forming us. We want to know what our faithfulness will accomplish. God is asking us to trust Him.
And the Big Idea is that the Bible teaches us that God cares more about our integrity than our productivity.
So as we come to the end of this passage, I want you to think about where you are tempted to choose results over faithfulness.
Where are you tempted to cut a corner?
Where are you asking, “What can I get away with?” instead of “What would honor God?”
Where are you holding onto something because you’re afraid that if you do things God’s way, you won’t get the results you want?
Where is God more concerned with who you’re becoming than what you’re accomplishing?
We will be tempted to cut corners, to see what we can get away with, and to make the choice that yields the quickest results, but God cares more about the work he wants to do in you than through you.
He cares more about who you become than what you accomplish.
And that’s actually good news.
Because if God only cared about our productivity, we'd always have something to prove.
We'd have to constantly perform, constantly accomplish, constantly show God—and everyone else—that we're good enough.
But that's not the gospel.
Because Jesus already accomplished the greatest work of all.
When he was dying on the cross, he said, “It is finished.”
The work of your salvation is finished. The price for your sin is paid. The righteousness you could never produce for yourself has been provided through Christ.
You don't have to prove yourself. You don't have to manufacture results. You don't have to take shortcuts to make your life count.
Jesus has already done what you could never do. And because the greatest work is finished, you are free to be faithful.
Free to obey when obedience is costly. Free to tell the truth when lying would be easier. Free to repent when admitting you're wrong is humbling. Free to choose what is fruitful instead of what is merely permissible.
Free to do what’s right even when it doesn’t seem productive.
Because your job is faithfulness. God's job is the results. And that's why we get to come to the Lord's Table.
Communion reminds us that our relationship with God isn't built on what we've accomplished for Him. It's built on what Christ has accomplished for us.
In just a moment, we're going to take the bread and the cup.
The bread reminds us of the body of Jesus, broken for us. The cup reminds us of his blood, poured out for the forgiveness of our sins.
And as we take communion, it’s a time to examine your heart.
Where have you chosen productivity over integrity? Where have you tried to take control because you didn't trust God with the results? Where do you need to repent?
Come to the table remembering that Jesus proved His love for you and covered you with grace.
Don't come trusting in your performance. Come trusting in the finished work of Christ.
