A Ledger of Love: The Names God Kept

He had always known his father loved him, but then he found something that made him realize just how much. See, his father was an immigrant, who had given up everything to move his family to a country with nothing, all to try and give them a better life. he had little money, could barely speak the language, and had worked a difficult job tirelessly for decades.

The son knew all of this. He had lived inside that love his whole life. Years later after his father was gone, he was cleaning out his home and in the back of the drawer he found an old notebook. It was a dusty ledger that had become worn and faded over the years. And he almost set it in the discard pile, because it was mostly full of numbers. It was the dull arithmetic of a poor man doing what he could to scrape by.

But then he looked closer at it. Line after line. Page after page. Dates down one side and amounts down the other. Rent. A pair of shoes. Bread, by the loaf. A few dollars here and a few dollars there.

Then, it suddenly dawned on him. He wasn’t just looking at a ledger of expenses, He was looking at a ledger of love. Because that’s what every line was. It was showing the love he had lived inside of his whole life, that he had never seen the full size of before. And he had almost thrown it away.

Church this is exactly what Nehemiah chapter 7 is. It’s not a pointless ledger of names. It’s a ledger from our God of love who loves every name in it. So this morning, we aren’t going to throw this old dusty ledger away, We are going to gaze into it and see the great love of our God.

To not overlook the love of God, we must remember the God who:

1. Protects His Citizens
2. Populates His City
3. Prioritizes His Worship

1. Protects His Citizens

In Nehemiah 7, the wall is finished after fifty-two days of hard labor as the people of God came together for the work. While facing challenges, enemies from without, and enemies from within. But because “the good hand of God” was upon them, by faith they completed the work.

And yet… we’ve only reached the half-way point of the book, And that’s because there’s still more work to be done.

In verse 1 it reads:

¹ Now when the wall had been built and I had set up the doors, and the gatekeepers, the singers, and the Levites had been appointed,

Nehemiah 7:1 ESV

As this verse shows us, the wall wasn’t all of the work. The people are. Which is why God uses Nehemiah here to protect His people. And the protection here is both spiritual and physical. That’s why this verse mentions gatekeepers - which are physical protectors, but also singers and Levites - which protect the people spiritually.

The wall keeps the enemy out, but worship keeps the enemy from within the human heart from overrunning the work. Remember, Jerusalem is God’s city. Zion is meant to be a place where the people of God gather to worship and praise His holy name. And as we saw in the last two chapters, if the people aren’t protected from themselves - that won’t happen.

What do I mean? I mean that worship is warfare church. And if we don’t guard our hearts, we will worship… we just won’t worship God. Which is our greatest threat. Because all of our hearts are “prone to wander, prone to leave the God we love.” And Nehemiah understands this. Which is why he combines the sword and the song to protect the people.

In verse 2, it says:

² I gave my brother Hanani and Hananiah the governor of the castle charge over Jerusalem, for he was a more faithful and God-fearing man than many.

Nehemiah 7:2 ESV

This verse shows us that Nehemiah understands that one of the greatest threats to God’s people are leaders who are not faithful and do not fear Yahweh God. And so he appoints leaders to shepherd and care for the people of God. The first is his brother Ha-na-ni, who’s name means “gracious,” “favored,” or “my grace.” This is the same person who came to Nehemiah in chapter 1, who told him about the walls lying in ruin. The man who first carried the burden is now trusted to keep the city. The second is a man named Hananiah, And his name means, “the LORD is gracious” And so in these two men, we find the grace of God and the fear of Him working in harmony.

But notice what qualifies them. it’s not their résumés. Not their ability to organize. It’s their character. They are faithful and God-fearing.

Nehemiah had just run a building project. He knew exactly who his most capable administrators were. When it came time to hand over the city, he did not reach for the most skilled. He reached for the most trustworthy. And the ones who are most trustworthy are the ones who feared God.

This is something our country had right when it was first founded. it’s why if a witness would not swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth “SO HELP ME GOD.” They were not trusted to testify in court honestly. And if you think about it. That’s true.

Why tell the truth if there isn’t a sovereign God who sees all and hears all and will one day judge the living and the dead? Nehemiah understood this. Which is why he appointed men who Feared the Lord. And while they feared the Lord, they also understood the graciousness of the Lord. And that’s because the two go hand in hand.

See, we sometimes think that God’s grace and God’s terrifying nature are opposites. It’s grace or fear. You can’t have both. But that’s not true! And that’s because we believe in costly grace. God’s grace is free to us, but immensely costly to God. And the cross of Christ proves this.

Fear doesn’t weaken grace, and grace doesn’t weaken fear. They strengthen and complement each other. And the second a leader forgets any one of these is the moment they become a terrible leader.

Husbands. Are you in a leadership role in your home? Yes you are. So fear God and remember His grace.

Pastors Are you in a leadership role in your church? Yes we are… Which is why the church must ensure their pastors fear God and remember His grace.

I told you at the start of this sermon series that most people turn Nehemiah into one of two things. Either a manual for a building project, or leadership principles. And we’ve largely ignored both of those focuses, but right here we can simplify all of the leadership skills down to two things. Remember God’s grace. And remember the fear of the Lord. Because if we do those two things the rest will fall in place.

Nehemiah then instructs the people about vigilance in verse 3: Open the gates late, shut them while the watch is still awake and standing, take no chances. And post even the ordinary citizens, having them keeping watch over the stretch of wall in front of their own doors, guarding what is nearest to them.

The point is, Nehemiah doesn’t get complacent here. He knows Tobiah’s spies are still in their city. He knows the threat is still real. And so he takes steps to counter that very real and present danger.

And yet, what do we do? We get complacent… Maybe we haven’t been arguing much with our spouse - so we neglect the relationship. Maybe our kids are doing well in school - so we don’t guard their hearts and protect them spiritually like we should. Or… maybe our church is doing well as of late, and so turn on the cruise control, thinking things will just stay that way on their own. But they don’t! In this world, peace is not the default setting. conflict is!

¹ I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, ² with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, ³ eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Ephesians 4:1-3 ESV

The point is simple church. What God builds, Gods people must not break. And to not break it, requires constant maintenance! It requires regularly changing the spiritual oil. Regularly rotating the spiritual tires. And regularly pulling spiritual weeds out of the garden.

And that’s because

¹² For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

Ephesians 6:12 ESV

Church, do you live your life aware that we face an enemy who will gladly stroll through the gates of our lives and wreak havoc on us if we let them? Nehemiah realized this, And because he did, he experienced the blessing of being used by God to protect God’s people.

To not overlook the love of God, we must remember the God who:

2. Populates His City

After the wall was built and the city was secured, there was still a major problem. Look at verse 4.

⁴ The city was wide and large, but the people within it were few, and no houses had been rebuilt.

Nehemiah 7:4 ESV

The wall had been rebuilt, but the city was a ghost town. Imagine this. You’re walking down the city streets but almost no one is home. And that’s another reason why the book didn’t end at chapter 6. Because the wall wasn’t the work. The people were.

And yet, how often do we get this backwards? All of the time! There’s a popular pastor’s saying that says: “The ministry is great, it’s the people that are the problem.” And that’s sort of funny. But it’s most not funny. Because it showcases the wrong idea we so easily fall into.

The PEOPLE ARE the ministry. The ministry is for the people, not the people for the ministry. And the second you get that backwards is the moment everything you’re building is an empty and hallow shell.

This mindset is how pastor’s end up spiritually abusing their people. This mindset is how the people start abusing their pastors. And it’s the people start abusing each other. Because the project isn’t for people. The people are not for the project. And when that happens, the project isn’t ministry - it’s idolatry.

Why do the walls of this church exist church? They exist for worship. For the gathering of God’s people to gather together in love and proclaim the grace and fear of the Lord!

Do you know what this is? It’s the mindset of the Pharisees who thought man was for the Sabbath, when the truth was, as Jesus told them, Sabbath was for man. It was meant to be a day of rest. Not a day or laboring to rest!

Their focus was all off. And our’s will be too if stop forgetting what our God is like! For our God is a God who loves people! And that’s why God led Nehemiah the way He did in verse 5.

⁵ Then my God put it into my heart to assemble the nobles and the officials and the people to be enrolled by genealogy. And I found the book of the genealogy of those who came up at the first, and I found written in it:

Nehemiah 7:5 ESV

Did you catch that? “My God put it into my heart.” That’s the heartbeat of this entire book. The Good hand of God working for His glory and the good of HIs people.

The burden to rebuild the walls did not start in the heart of Nehemiah, it started in the heart God! For our God is a people-person God! He’s the One who turned the heart of a pagan king. He’s the one who protected the people from a greater and powerful enemy. And He’s the one Who is populated Zion, the city of God, with the people of God! And He does it through a list of names that most of us skip right over in our daily Bible reading.

This is a Divine initiative from start to finish church. And He does not build a city and then cross his fingers and hope that someone shows up. he fills it Himself. We do not serve a God who hands us a finished work and then walks away telling us to figure it all out. We serve a God who raises the walls, gathers His worshipers, and protects them.

Beginning in verse 7 we are introduced list of names that represent 42,360 people that most of us skip over. And verse 6 tells us who they all are. They are the people who returned from exile. The people who returned from captivity. Church, these aren’t just random names. They are trophies of God’s grace that show how faithful our God is! They are the fulfillment of the promise God made to the prophet Jeremiah who said:

¹⁰ “For thus says the Lord: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place.

Jeremiah 29:10 ESV

Every single name on this list is a name that should NOT exist BUT FOR GOD’S MARVELOUS GRACE! And to REALLY understand this, we have to know what exile was. it wasn’t just relocation - it was ERASURE. The whole point of it was to END a people entirely - that’s what the pagan nations used it for. They wouldn’t just conquer your people, they would kill you or haul you off to be absorbed into their people. That was their the way their war machine worked - and it worked quite well!

Which is why to this very day, the 10 tribes of ISRAEL are called the LOST TRIBES OF ISRAEL. Because they were scattered and lost to history. And with Judah, the same thing SHOULD have happened - but it didn’t for one reason and one reason alone. God didn’t let it happen! For God promised to bring His people home. That’s what this list is showing us. It’s showing us the FEAR of God in Exile, with the GRACE us God is His people’s restoration!

The list of names here in our Bible is not God’s way of punishing us, it is a ledger of His loving kindness. And when you read it that way, it completely changes your perspective on the chapter, and your perspective on God!

I get it. We don’t know who most of the people are, and we won’t until we are with them in glory. But even beyond looking at the long list of names, look at what their names are saying! Hananiah means the LORD is gracious. Jeshua means the LORD saves. Nehemiah means the LORD comforts. Azariah means the LORD helped. Raamiah means the LORD thunders. Nahamani means comforted, or compassionate. Joab means the LORD is father. Shephatiah means the LORD judged. Hezekiah means the LORD strengthens. Jedaiah means the LORD knows. Kadmiel means God is from of old. Hodevah means the splendor and praise of the LORD. Reaiah means the LORD has seen. Delaiah means the LORD delivered. Tobiah means the LORD is good. Hobaiah means the LORD sheltered. Hanani means gracious. Nehum means comfort, or consolation. Hanan means gracious. Harim means consecrated, or devoted. Padon means ransom, or redemption. Do you hear it, church? You thought you were reading the names of the dead. But in truth you were reading the character of the living God! For our God is not a God of the dead but of the living!

And you don’t have to look at these names alone to see this, Just look around this room. Zachary means the LORD remembers. Rebecca means binding, secured by God. Joshua means the Lord Saves. Sarah’s means princess, and God made that princess the mother of His promise. John means the Lord is gracious. Jack means God is gracious. Matthew means the gift of the Lord. David means beloved, and he was beloved of God. Jeremy means God will exalt. Gracie means the grace of God. For Christians, Emily has to do with striving in faith. Ian means God’s is gracious. Norah means awe inspiring or Divine light. And Lewis means “Renowned warrior.” Ok…that last one has nothing to do with God. But here’s the thing: Even if you’re here today and your name has nothing to do with God. If you’re a child of God whatever your name is it HAS MEANING!

In Christ, your name now means: Remembered by God. Loved by God. Known by God Chosen by God Forgiven by God Bought by God Adopted by God And kept by God. And why? To the praise of His glorious grace!

That’s what this chapter is about church. It is a list of trophy names to the praise of God’s glory.

Maybe you’re hear today and you’re wondering if you have any value at all. Maybe you’ve looked at your life and felt like one more name in a long list that’s too long for anyone to read or remember. But hear what this register says to us. It’s saying that in Christ we are known and loved by God.

¹ See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God.

1 John 3:1 ESV

Church… this list shows us the love of God for us! And it’s why we can look at our name in the midst of a world with 8 billion people in it, and say, my name will not be forgotten. it will not be overlooked. For as the apostle Paul said:

²⁰ I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Galatians 2:20 ESV

Do you believe that? That Christ Jesus, the Son of God, loved YOU! NOT YA’LL - but YOU personally, so much that He gave himself for YOU! Because if you do, it will change way you read this list, and it will change the way you read your life!

¹¹ For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; ¹² as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.

Psalm 103:11-12 ESV

Pastor Dave was preaching this text last week, and he made a great point. How far do you have to East until you’re going west? Forever… That’s God’s love for us church. It never runs out. It never ends. It never exhausts itself! And by God’s grace we know that even though our names aren’t written here in Nehemiah 7, they are written in the Lambs book of life!

That’s why this list is here. It’s here as a ledger of God’s love for us

¹⁷ so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith - that you, being rooted and grounded in love, ¹⁸ may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, ¹⁹ and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God

Ephesians 3:17-19 ESV

And in response to such glorious truths how should we respond? There’s only one way. With worship.

To not overlook the love of God, we must remember the God who:

3. Prioritizes His Worship

In verses 61-65, we find that some of the people could not prove their lineage and whether or not they belonged to Israel. They made the long journey out of Babylon. They are standing in the assembly. But when the records are searched, they cannot prove their line. And so some of the priests were excluded from the holy food and the priestly service. And why? Because that’s what God had commanded. To be a priest required that you were descended from Aaron. And if you weren’t, you couldn’t serve as a priest. And so the people did this because obedience God, even though this was hard, was an act of worship.

And that’s where the text goes next. Verses 70-72 describe all of the sacrificial giving the people did when they returned from exile. And it was a lot! And it lists it here because it shows us the people giving back to God in thanks for all that He had done for them.

Does it make sense now why we don’t talk about the importance of giving around here without first talking about the grace of God? It’s because trying to get people to open their check books and give without first showing what they’ve been given is a fruitless endeavor! Because that approach only serves to guilt trip everyone into doing something they don’t want to do. But the gospel changes all of that! It doesn’t making giving our time, treasures, and talents into something to be reluctantly obeyed, but into something we relish and enjoy! It’s A DELIGHT!

This is why the Apostle Paul writes:

¹ I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

Romans 12:1 ESV

Notice what Paul doesn’t say: He doesn’t say: “Come now on… if you want to be a good Christian, give your money so we can get this building project done!” He doesn’t say: “Shame on you for not giving you selfish prude!” No… he says, “BY THE MERCIES OF GOD - GIVE!” He’s saying, “I appeal to you, to REMEMBER THE MERCIES OF GOD!” Because if you do… you will give. Not reluctantly. Not sadly. BUT JOYFULLY! For this is our spiritual WORSHIP! It’s a response to the ledger of God’s love for us!

That’s just one of the reasons we haven’t turned Nehemiah in a building project call! Because not only does that miss the point of the text. But it misses the point of WORSHIP of OUR MERCIFUL GOD!

Church, we have been called out of darkness into His marvelous light! We have been brought from spiritual death into spiritual life! We have been raised with Christ and seated with Him in the heavenly realms And ALL OF THE RICHES of CHRIST ARE OURS! THAT’S the mercies of our God that Paul is appealing to!

And when when you appeal to that, giving our time, our talents, or our hard-earned treasures is a SMALL THING compared to what Christ has given for us!

Nehemiah and his leaders understood what God’s law demanded and so they guarded the entrance before a Holy God. They kept the unqualified from drawing near. Does that remind you of anyone? Because this time it shouldn’t!

Because where Nehemiah and his leaders kept the unqualified out, Jesus Christ brings us in!

¹² So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood.

Hebrews 13:12 ESV

Do you understand what this verse is saying? Those priests were set outside as unclean. And Christ, the only One who was truly clean, the only One truly qualified to draw near, went outside Himself. he went outside the gate. To the place of the unclean. And there, by His own blood, He did what no record could ever do. He made unclean people holy. He sanctified the very ones who could never qualify, so that they could be brought in.

¹⁹ Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, ²⁰ by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, ²¹ and since we have a great priest over the house of God, ²² let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

Hebrews 10:19-22 ESV

In Hanani and Hananiah, we found men who embodied both grace and fear. But in Christ, we find the grace of God and the fear of God meet in perfect harmony on a cross. The fear cast us out, but grace brings us in! And it does so at foot of the cross.

One day soon, The record books will be opened. The genealogies will be examined. And those not spiritually related to Christ will be cast out into eternal darkness. But… if you belong to Christ by grace through faith Him, your name will be found. Not because of your qualifications, but because of His. And when that day comes, we will join Him in the New Jersualem.

10 … the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.

Hebrews 11:10 ESV

This is the manuscript the sermon was preached from, so the recording may differ in places.