Road Trippin With Rachael

When I hear the word “consistency” I always think of the Tortoise and the Hare from the fables of Aesop. I don’t think of the adage that slow and steady wins the race, but I do think about the “steady” part – how it is an ongoing, plodding along that allows the Tortoise to win. Or if you are like me, you may also have medical professionals telling you that being healthy is a matter of consistency – which is why I don’t understand why eating ice cream everyday isn’t good for me. After all, I’m being consistent.

But as we take a closer look at Nehemiah 7, we are going to see that there are several ways that God proves his consistency. We see it through his word, through how he interacts and remembers individuals, and how we should be in awe of his faithfulness to keep to what he says that he is going to do.

God’s Word is Consistent

“The grass withers, the flowers fade, but the word of our God remains forever” – Isaiah 40:8 (CSB)

One of the things that I love most of the the Bible is how unchanging it is. I’m not talking about the physical binding, or the language that I read, or how pretty it looks. I’m talking about how the message that is a part of scripture never changes. The God who speaks the world into existence in Genesis 1:1 is the same God who extends grace in Revelation 22:21.

As we look at Nehemiah what we see is the consistency that is the word of God. He gave a directive of who was able to be priests and serve in the temple, and then he gave a further directive that the high priests were to come through the line of Aaron – we see this play out in Exodus 28. The directive rang true now in Nehemiah when the people were reestablishing themselves for the priesthood and the temple. Although we no longer have the need for a physical high priest, since we have a Great High Priest in Jesus, we can count on the consistent desires that God has for his people. As Isaiah 40:8 tells us, the word of God is eternal. Psalm 119 tells us of the beauty of God’s word, the statutes that are presented to his people, the commands that he gives are good because they are for the benefit of those who believe in him. We can depend on God’s word to always be applicable – even when the the context changes. For example, many of the dietary laws that the Hebrew people were given don’t apply to us today. It doesn’t mean that they were bad; but the purpose of those dietary restrictions was because they were to be different from the people that were around them, and because a lot of the restrictions were connected to the surrounding peoples’ worship. Likewise, today, Christians are to be different from the world around us in how we care for others and in how we act; most notably, we are different because of the hope that we have in Christ.

God’s Care for the Individual is Consistent

“I also saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life, and the dead were judged according to their works” – Revelation 20:12 (CSB)

“What is good for the goose is good for the gander” is a common fraise to mean that we need to think of our whole community when we are making decisions. Although not an incorrect thought, it doesn’t capture the whole story, since it is not the gander than takes responsibility for the goose’s choices, but the goose himself/herself. The developing tension in the Western Church is bring this more and more into focus as churches seek to bring the emphasis from being fully focused on the individual to a focus on the faith community. In my opinion, I believe that there is a happy middle ground.

God cares about the individual Christian. We know that – it is a common part of the Church’s vernacular, and we see through scripture that we are each, individually, called to come to God in faith and repentance. God doesn’t assign his flock ID numbers that have to be referenced or saved in our cell phones. We don’t have to have it ready during prayer, and that number isn’t tracked to see how many times we have messed or how many times we have to go to him in prayer.

Unlike the world we live in, where we market the group by making the key customer the individual, it really is personal with God. He knows who his sheep are, what we struggle with, what our strengths are, and how we can use those gifts, talents, and struggles to share the Gospel with others. As we read through Nehemiah 7 what we see is that God knows the names of the people. There isn’t anyone that he forgets. Nehemiah was able to look back through the records – which in an of itself only proves that the people were good record keepers – and then God, through the work of the Holy Spirit, inspires Nehemiah to record all those names. We are able to go back and see where these people were not forgotten – families still existed, and they still had their histories.

In the same way, God not only calls us to himself, but when we come to Christ our names are recorded in the Book of Life. We see this in Revelation 20:12. The records of what we do, and who we live are recorded. Not only does this apply to those who are believers (the Book of Life), but the deeds are recorded for those who aren’t as well. When judgement comes, it is not based on families, socioeconomic level, country of origin, or how you voted. It is going to come down to the individual decisions that we each make and whether we responded to the calling of the Holy Spirit. As I stated earlier, it is personal with God, and individually we will face consequences for our actions.

God’s Consistency Should Inspire Your Consistency

“Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been declared to you from the beginning? Have you not considered the foundations of the earth?” – Isaiah 20:21 (CSB)

Although the purpose of this Bible study is to look at the book of Nehemiah, it is throughout the whole of scripture that we see God being consistent in who he is and in what he does. It is the consistency of God that should inspire his people, those who call themselves Christians, to also be consistent in who we are and what we do. As we focus on Nehemiah, we see that the response of the people was to give, and to give generously. This was a sign of their worship and their faith that God would continue to do what he says he will. The people saw this throughout the Old Testament and that is why the gave with such faith and assurance.

Someone’s track record is the standard by which they are judged. Let’s consider a few examples. I previously held a position where I did hiring; if a person applied and didn’t have a record of any sort of longevity at their previous jobs, I wasn’t interested in interviewing and hiring them. There was nothing to prove that the effort I would make through interviewing, hiring, and training would be a good investment. Another example would be out in the wild and wooly world of dating. As a woman, if a man has been married and divorced multiple times, I’m far less willing to date him because there seems to be a common denominator in those failed relationships- him. His track record would indicate that he isn’t good at maintaining or working on relationships. Contrastingly, we don’t have this issue with God; he has a track record of fulfilling what he has said, so we are able to believe that what he says will happen eventually will occur (Isaiah 40:21). Throughout the Pentateuch God speaks in “If/then” statements telling the people of what the outcome of their actions will be. Low and behold, he has followed through and that was how they ended up in Babylon to begin with.

God’s track record also shows that he brings salvation to his people. Throughout the vast majority of the Old Testament, the release from captivity in Egypt is the salvific motif used. Exodus 3:6 has God telling Moses what he is going to do and later we see the statement, “I am the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery” (Exodus 20:2) is regularly repeated to remind the Israelites of who god is and why they are in a relationship with him. Similar statements are also made in Leviticus 26:13 and Deuteronomy 5:15. It is a reminder that God said he would bring his people out of slavery, and that is exactly what he did. When we look at our problems and when we are in those valleys, we can trust that God is not going to leave us in slavery to our sins. This does not mean that we are going to be removed from all the things that we go through, or that life will become easier. It means that we have the hope of salvation, and the assurance that if God is for us, there is nothing that can stand against him (Romans 8: 31).

Not only do we have assurance that God follows through on what he says, and that we see the faithfulness of God, we also see that the faithfulness of God inspires awe. In Joshua 2:8-11, Rahab does an excellent job of explaining to these two Hebrew spies that came into Canaan that they had heard about the things that the Hebrew people had accomplished. They had also heard of the God the Hebrews worshipped. Rahab said in verse 11, “When we heard this, we lost heart, and everyone’s courage failed because of you, for the LORD your God is God in heaven above and on earth below” (Joshua 2:11 CSB). The same God who oversees the heavens above and the earth keeps his promises and can be depended on to follow through on his word. It may not happen in our timing, but it will always happen. How can we not be in awe of the mighty God that we have the opportunity to have a relationship with?

Final Thoughts

As we look through Nehemiah we see that God is consistent. His word is consistent; what he says will happen in Genesis or Exodus is fulfilled, as Nehemiah himself experiences. God’s involvement and relationship with people is consistent. He knows who his people are and he sees them as individuals – hence the reason we get to see the names of the people who return to Israel. But this same consistency, of how God is unchanging and how he stays the same throughout time, is also the reason that he should inspire awe. The God who creates is also the God who judges and calls us to the floor for our sins. Through it all, he is the same yesterday, today, and will be the same tomorrow.