CONFLICT RESOLUTION

Nehemiah 5:1-19
Key Verse: 5:7a

“I pondered them in my mind and then accused the nobles and officials.”

In Nehemiah 4, we learned that to succeed in life we cannot just sit down and presume and assume that God will bless us. Nehemiah succeeded because he never sat down. Instead, he always had a weapon with him, and he never backed down from any challenge or difficulty. He taught us to confront fear with faith and fight the good fight. At West Loop, let’s fight the good fight until God blesses us with 1,000 members, 100 couples and 10 weddings a year.

In Nehemiah 5, there was a major problem among the people that could cause a complete division and bitterness, which would definitely stop the rebuilding of their broken walls. What could Nehemiah do? No one likes to face and deal with problems and conflicts, because it is emotionally draining and exhausting and very hard to deal with. But Nehemiah found God’s wisdom in dealing with a very difficult conflict, which could have destroyed them. Let’s learn from Nehemiah how to deal with problems, issues and conflicts. Toward the end of chapter 5, we’ll also learn what kind of man Nehemiah was from his own personal testimony.

I. INTERNAL CONFLICT (1-5).

From the day they began to rebuild the walls, different kinds of opposition and problems arose. At this time, Nehemiah would face the worst kind of problem, which is internal conflict. Look at verse 1. “Now the men and their wives raised a great outcry against their Jewish brothers.” In verse 2, the first problem was food shortage. In verses 3-4, those who had money where taking advantage of the poor people telling them, “If you sell me your house, I’ll give you food. I’ll lend you money but it will be at high interest rates. And if you can’t pay the loan, I’ll take your kids as collateral.” They were exploiting their own people. Rather than helping and giving to the poor they were charging high interest and repossessing their homes, taking their children as slaves with total disregard for the misfortunes of other people, only thinking of themselves. This was clearly against God’s law. God allowed the Jews to charge interest to other people, but they were not allowed to charge interest to their fellow Jews. The Bible also said that they were not to enslave another Jew (Leviticus 25:35-46).

So the result of this great outcry is division among the Jews. They could no longer work together as a team and it was stopping the work of God. At West Loop we repeatedly emphasize the importance of teamwork because life is a team sport. As a church, the only way God can bless us is when we work together as one. Jesus says that where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them. Our testimony to non-believers should not be because of powerful messages and an awesome praise band, but our testimony should be more about oneness. Jesus said that people will know that we are his when we love one another. In a family, a beautiful family is when there’s togetherness. At work, the best workplace is when there is team effort. At one time we had a meeting and my boss was very upset because of the way we were handling phone calls. One says, “O it’s not my job, it’s this other person’s job,” or “It’s not my area, is this other person’s area.” So we were making it sound like there is no team effort. My boss said something that made me respect him more. He said we should be like a family. This is why God desires for us to love one another. Oneness is very beautiful in the sight of God and it leads to peace, genuine friendship and heart to heart fellowship and true community.

Now what causes conflict? The root cause of this internal conflict is always selfishness. James 4:1 says, “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you?” When my wants conflicts with your wants, we’ve got a problem! We’re going to have a divisive conflict.

Here, greed for money made the wealthy people selfish. This was the same problem Judas had when he turned Jesus in to the religious leaders. This conflict must be resolved, otherwise the wall would never be done, and unity would be broken. Let’s see how Nehemiah solved this conflict.

II. THE CURE FOR CONFLICT (6-13)

How does a leader resolve conflict? Look at verse 6. “When I heard their outcry and these charges, I was very angry.” So step one is that we need to get angry. It’s OK to be angry. Nehemiah did not ignore the problem; he took it seriously. One of the roles of a leader is to always protect and maintain the oneness of the church. If there is division caused by conflict at work, or at home or between friends, we need to get angry because it is a serious matter.

Sometimes anger is very appropriate. Sometimes it's the right thing to do. Verse 6 says that Nehemiah was very angry. Now this kind of anger is not something we get from road rage or when our kids spill juice on our favorite shirt, or when someone wrongs us and we get angry and we seek revenge. That’s the wrong kind of anger. Ephesians 4:26 "In your anger do not sin"." You can get angry and not sin. God got angry. Jesus got angry. Nehemiah was angry at the selfishness of these rich people. He's deeply disturbed by their exploitation. Nehemiah is thinking "What good is a wall if the people inside the wall are ripping each other off? What good is a wall if we're exploiting each other?"

Step 2 is to think before you speak. Look at verse 7. "I pondered them in my mind."  The Living Bible says, "So after thinking about it…” And the King James Version says, “Then I consulted with myself.” Normally when one gets very angry, he gets out of control, blows up at everyone and says things we can only hear in R rated movies. But Nehemiah was different. A good leader has to have self- control and Nehemiah possessed that. Nehemiah had to think it over and talk to himself about it. He also needed God’s advice. He got alone with God and said, “God, what do you want me to say? How should I handle this?”

Step 3 would be the hardest of all. In order to resolve internal conflict, we must privately confront the offending party and rebuke them. How many of you like to confront people? Or who likes to be confronted? It is not fun to confront people or to be confronted. In fact, we hate confrontations! It’s because we’re afraid we might be disliked and cause hard feelings.  We wish we could just send an email and say, “repent” with several exclamation points. Because it is difficult to do, some would go and gossip telling how terrible that person is. This is their way of rebuking the person but it only worsens the problem. Or instead of confronting, some would just expect that the person do better or improve without speaking to them directly about it.

We need to go directly to the source and we need to act right away. The longer we wait the worst it gets. And we become more and more of a chicken the longer we wait. Jesus gives us a good example. In Matthew 18:15-17 Jesus spoke about how to handle conflict: "If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you've won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along so that every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. If he still refuses to listen, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector." How did Jesus tell us to treat pagans and tax collectors? He tells us to love them and pray for them. Jesus said that the purpose is to win our brother over. So our purpose in doing this is to restore the relationship and to restore unity.

In their situation, everybody knew about what was happening: The rich people were ripping off the poor people. So, it had to be dealt with publicly.  Nehemiah publicly took on the city leaders. He is rebuking the wealthy owners of Jerusalem, the very people he must depend on to fund the rebuilding of the wall. The devil is probably saying, “Nehemiah if you call this public meeting and you loose their support, who's going to pay for the wall? You'll never finish the project.” But Nehemiah was committed to doing the right thing regardless of the consequence. Look at verses 9-11. “’So I continued, "What you are doing is not right. Shouldn't you walk in the fear of our God to avoid the reproach of our Gentile enemies? I and my brothers and my men are also lending the people money and grain. But let the exacting of usury stop! Give back to them immediately their fields, vineyards, olive groves and houses, and also the usury you are charging them—the hundredth part of the money, grain, new wine and oil."

The result was they repented. Look at verse 12. "And they said, `We will give it back,' they said. `And we will not demand anything more from them. We will do as you say.'" Nehemiah must have breathed a sigh of relief at that point. But Nehemiah was finished with them. He made them take an oath, a public contract. In those days the men would wear a kind of apron around themselves. He takes his apron and shakes it and says, “This is a symbol of what God is going to do to you if you don't keep this oath that you've taken. He's going to shake you up so bad you'll loose everything you've got.” He's making a visual object lesson here. He publicly dealt with the division.

God’s desire is for us to grow into a huge family that reaches to the ends of the earth. But Satan is always there to hurt our family through division. Let’s make every effort to keep the unity in our church, family, in our work place, among friends and wherever we may be. Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God” (Matthew 5:9). Jesus is our true peacemaker when he gave his life to restore our relationship with God. When he went back to heaven, his followers became one in heart and mind. Let us be peacemakers for the advancement of God’s kingdom.

Part III. NEHEMIAH, A GREAT LEADER (14-19)

When we acquire some kind of leadership, there is always a temptation to misuse it and abuse leadership. In verse 14, Nehemiah had been the governor of Judah for 12 years. He identifies the fact that the governors before him were different: they misused their power, they misused their privilege, and they misused their position.  But Nehemiah did not take advantage of this position. He was a man of integrity. He said, “But out of reverence for God I did not act like that.” What does “reverence for God” mean? First, Nehemiah knew that it was God who sent him to Jerusalem. God gave him a project. He never forgot that God put him there. Psalm 75:6 says “For promotion and power come from nowhere on earth, but only from God.” Great leaders realize that they are stewards. It is God who promotes us. John 19 teaches us that it is God who promotes us. Pilate said to Jesus, "Don't you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?" And Jesus said, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above.” Second, Nehemiah knew that God holds him accountable. He had the fear of God in his heart. The reason why people take advantage of their position is because they don’t fear God. The Bible says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Pr 1:7, 9:10). Nehemiah knew that God Almighty, Creator of the heavens and the earth was his boss. He knew who he was before God. Look at verse 16. “Instead, I devoted myself to the work on this wall.” Nehemiah knew that God gave him the mission to build the wall and it needed to be done right away. Nehemiah was a man of mission. At work, we get projects that we need to complete by a certain due date. When we work for God, the due date is ASAP. It is because God knows that our sinful nature wants us to take it easy and start on the project at the last moment when the due date is near. That’s why God didn’t give a certain date when Jesus is coming again because he didn’t want us to waste time. Nehemiah knew that God was watching him.

The governors before him abused their position to get rich and gain more power, and honor for themselves. Nehemiah wanted recognition from God. Nehemiah wanted God to say to him, “Well done son, I am so proud of you!” As a Christian, we want to put a smile on God’s face and hear him say, “Well done, son or daughter, I’m so proud of you!”

And finally what made Nehemiah a great leader was that he depended on God. The last verse in Nehemiah 5 was his prayer to God. “Remember me with favor, O my God, for all I have done for these people.” We could say that Nehemiah was a born leader, but Nehemiah became a great leader because he depended on God.

In this passage we learned that internal conflict is a very serious problem and it needs to be resolved properly and promptly. It is because we must maintain unity if we want to keep growing. Also in this passage, a great leader is one who knows God personally and depends on God in every situation. May God bless us to continue to grow as one body in Christ and raise up many great leaders.