Sharon Reformed Presbyterian Church · Sermon study sheet

The Cost of Redemption - Nehemiah 5:1-19

Bryan Schneider · October 5, 2019

Nehemiah 5

sharonrpc.org/sermons/the-cost-of-redemption

Summary

Famine, taxes, lost land, debt, and debt slavery produce a great outcry among God's people while they are rebuilding Jerusalem.
Nehemiah responds with thoughtful righteous anger, publicly confronts exploitation, and recognizes his own participation rather than only accusing others.
Repentance requires restitution: the lenders promise before God to restore fields, homes, money, grain, wine, and oil and to stop charging their neighbors.
Redemption and oppression cannot coexist as compatible patterns among God's people.
Nehemiah bears the financial cost of leadership by refusing the governor's allowance and feeding many at his own expense.
Nehemiah points beyond himself to Christ, who relinquished glory, became poor, and redeemed his people not with silver or gold but with his precious blood, freeing them to pursue holiness.

Whose distress or economic burden am I tempted to dismiss because a contract or custom makes it technically permissible?
Can I respond to injustice with thoughtful, governed anger rather than profit, indifference, or impulsive rage?
When confronting another person's sin, have I first allowed God's Word to expose my own participation?
What restitution would make my repentance concrete rather than merely verbal?
Do my lending, business, employment, and purchasing practices relieve or deepen a vulnerable neighbor's bondage?
What privilege, income, comfort, or status might faithful leadership require me to relinquish?
Do I live as someone purchased by Christ's blood and therefore no longer mastered by sin?

Debt slavery: A system in which people or their children entered servitude because property and resources could no longer satisfy an outstanding debt.
Usury: The exploitative charging of interest within the covenant community that deepened a neighbor's poverty and loss.
Righteous anger: Moral outrage governed by thought, self-examination, God's law, and a restorative purpose rather than uncontrolled rage.
Restitution: Concrete restoration of what wrongdoing has taken, demonstrating repentance beyond words alone.
Redemption: A costly act of purchasing someone out of bondage and restoring that person to freedom and belonging.