Nehemiah 8:13-18 - Full and Glad

Notes
Transcript
# Nehemiah 8:13-18
Good morning once again. As always, it's a joy to open the Word of God with you. Go ahead and open to Nehemiah chapter 8. It's been a couple of weeks since we were in Nehemiah so let me recap what has been going on. During the time of exile, the Jews were exiled to Babylon. Nehemiah, comes back, with the permission of the king to lead the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem. He faces opposition in the area, but with reliance upon God, the walls and gates are rebuilt. The people have turned their attention to the Word of the Lord which caused them to weep over the sin but then for that weeping to turn to rejoicing as per the command of their leadership. They had heard the Word of the Lord read and were reminded that they are a covenant people. They had been chosen by God as His special possession and this was a renewal of that understanding among the people. This was an intense time. Let's pick up the story in the last part of chapter 8. We will be reading verses 13-18.
READ Nehemiah 8:13-18
Nehemiah 8:13–18 ESV
On the second day the heads of fathers’ houses of all the people, with the priests and the Levites, came together to Ezra the scribe in order to study the words of the Law. And they found it written in the Law that the Lord had commanded by Moses that the people of Israel should dwell in booths during the feast of the seventh month, and that they should proclaim it and publish it in all their towns and in Jerusalem, “Go out to the hills and bring branches of olive, wild olive, myrtle, palm, and other leafy trees to make booths, as it is written.” So the people went out and brought them and made booths for themselves, each on his roof, and in their courts and in the courts of the house of God, and in the square at the Water Gate and in the square at the Gate of Ephraim. And all the assembly of those who had returned from the captivity made booths and lived in the booths, for from the days of Jeshua the son of Nun to that day the people of Israel had not done so. And there was very great rejoicing. And day by day, from the first day to the last day, he read from the Book of the Law of God. They kept the feast seven days, and on the eighth day there was a solemn assembly, according to the rule.
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Say: This is the Word of the Lord. Let's pray and ask Him to bless it.
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I. Unmodified and Happy Obedience.

Have you ever been reading scripture and all of a sudden it seemed like the scripture was actually reading you? You sat there and began to see in it all of the places where you fall short of what expects in His Word?
Let's just sit on that for a minute.
Look at verse 13. Who is leading this? The heads of the fathers' houses of all the people, with the priests and the Levites. They go to Ezra to study the scriptures. There's no way around this: this was a men's meeting. When the men of the community seek to study the Word of God and obey it, the community is changed. Men - this is spiritual leadership.
They had extensive teaching followed by this intensive teaching. To study the Word implies more than passive listening. They were actively listening and learning.
These men, as heads of fathers' houses were to be the once's to spread the knowledge of Scripture to the families in their clans.
Deuteronomy 6:6 ESV
And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.
The men discover this command to observe the Festival of Booths or Tabernacles or Shelters in a specific way and they immediately do it.
This is where full and glad obedience comes in. This kind of wholehearted and happy obedience is what scripture demands from Christ followers.
Romans 6:17 ESV
But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed,
Ephesians 6:6 ESV
not by the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart,
I John 5:2
There is simply no way that we can honestly get round this. In these men we see them see the demand of scripture and then immediately move to obey it. There is no mention of questioning, making excuses, or delay... only obedience.
James 1:22 ESV
But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
1 John 3:7 ESV
Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous.
Now, many Christians get up in arms when we start talking about obedience a lot. They quickly say you're talking about legalism. They think that talking about obedience smacks of works based righteousness. This is the wrong way of thinking about obedience.
Romans 3:28 ESV
For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.
Romans 4:6 ESV
just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works:
James 2:20 (v. 26)
James 2:20 ESV
Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless?
Faith works. Our faith produces works/obedience in us... if it's real.
What legalism really is: Not simply obeying the Word of God. Legalism is an instinctive urge to think we can be saved by rule keeping. We come by this naturally. We think if we just do x, y, and z, then God will approve of us and not send us to Hell. But that's not how this works.
The Bible hates legalism because it's adding to the justifying work of Jesus Christ.
There's an opposite side to the coin that is also dangerous. The opposite of legalism is lawlessness. These people fear obedience seems too legalistic or that it get in the way of their "free grace." They ignore the passages that talk about living like Jesus lived and what God expects of His children.
So, the people obeyed immediately what the Lord had commanded.

II. The Joyful Feast Celebrated

7 days
Read Torah during the fest: Deut 31:9-13
Rules for it: Lev 23:39-43
Leviticus 23:39–43 ESV
“On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the produce of the land, you shall celebrate the feast of the Lord seven days. On the first day shall be a solemn rest, and on the eighth day shall be a solemn rest. And you shall take on the first day the fruit of splendid trees, branches of palm trees and boughs of leafy trees and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days. You shall celebrate it as a feast to the Lord for seven days in the year. It is a statute forever throughout your generations; you shall celebrate it in the seventh month. You shall dwell in booths for seven days. All native Israelites shall dwell in booths, that your generations may know that I made the people of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.”
Family oriented fest
Highlighted God’s protection of Israel in the desert before the conquest of the Promised Land.
Kids would have likely thought this was great fun. (Backyard camp out story?)
- flat roofs
- Though it had been celebrated since Joshua’s time it had not been done in this overwhelming joy or in these unsettled conditions or with all of the people participating.
- The camping element may have been reduced to a mere token or lapsed altogether
- How we sometimes give token obedience that is not total obedience.
UNMODIFIED OBEDIENCE
Delayed obedience is disobedience?
What things has God commanded us as a church or as individuals that we have stopped doing or simply give token to and need to therefore repent and return to?
Token obedience?
The last section, this section, and the next section detail part of the renewal of the covenant between the people and God. The people had strayed from their side of the covenant and were repenting of that and coming back. Let me illustrate this for you:
Old man and old woman
ILLUSTRATION: The old man and old lady driving down the road when they see the young couple hugged up in the pick up truck… dual antenna whipping in the wind, there ain’t a country station that he can’t tune in…. “Why don’t we sit like that anymore?” “I haven’t moved.”
Their joy was in the Lord.
Their focus was on the Lord, not themselves.
Solemn Assembly - we will see what happens as this gathering next week…
We don’t celebrate this because we have Jesus who fulfilled the law perfectly. We don’t celebrate the provision for the Jews in the wilderness but we celebrate God’s provision for us to be saved from our sins in Christ Jesus.
Where are you at on that big truck bench seat?
Unmodified obedience…
Not just token obedience…
Often times we lean in one of these directions because something in our hearts is already out of alignment.
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