Our God's A God of the Festival

What do you hope to accomplish today?

A thought for your to ponder. Jesus told us that what we are looking for is very important. So I want you to think about what you hope to accomplish today. Look at the people around you and point to your head. We’re thinking. You come today, to worship, to be at church, to be with others, and this is a spiritual place, a place dedicated to Jesus.

Last week, we talked about a Holy Day, and how if we did a Holy Day the way the Bible does it, that means more of a celebration than something close to a funeral.

We talked about a man beginning worship by blessing God, not God blessing him, but Him blessing God.

The smart ones out there know that

you can’t possibly bless God unless God blesses you first with the ability to bless him.

As I have said before, just your ability to speak and reason is something we all should be grateful for every day.

Today, we gather to bless God with what God has given us.

I reminded you, and so did Jaxson Gamez, that God blessing us to give back to him, is like a Dad giving his kid money to buy Dad a birthday gift. My sons got me great stuff for my birthday this past Tuesday, by the way. The only thing I really got out of that was not more wealth, I gave them the money, instead I got their love and concentration to try and purchase or make something I would enjoy. I received their love as the value added to my money.

Jaxson told us it would not be nice, if you took the money your Dad gave you and then spent it on yourself.

Our heavenly father, gave us, each of us amazing gifts, most of which we take for granted. Like the ability to think, walk, talk, have moving fingers, ability to love, and then each of us have unique talents some we use for work, some for joy, some we don’t even know we have. Yet each of these is given to us to bless the Lord.

There is a question that many elite athletes get asked about when did they know they were really good, better than most. It almost always is in a game, when they recognize that they fill made for this.

Today, you can recognize that you were made for blessing God.

Perhaps though, a mission from God, either makes you think of the Blues Brothers or some boring person.

What if a mission from God really does exist? What might it produce?

Today I invite you to look into the ancient text of the Bible with me, to see how a mission from God can be found and what it can produce for you.

We go back to the book of the Bible we have been looking at for months. Today we look at the day after what we talked about last week. Last week, as we read the Biblical book of Nehemiah, we talked about all the people who could understand, no matter their age or gender gathering to hear God’s word read to them, in the new re-walled city of Jerusalem.

Today, is the next day, when the leaders of the families, the city leaders gathered to learn more from God.

Nehemiah 8:13–18 CSB

13 On the second day, the family heads of all the people, along with the priests and Levites, assembled before the scribe Ezra to study the words of the law. 14 They found written in the law how the Lord had commanded through Moses that the Israelites should dwell in shelters during the festival of the seventh month. 15 So they proclaimed and spread this news throughout their towns and in Jerusalem, saying, “Go out to the hill country and bring back branches of olive, wild olive, myrtle, palm, and other leafy trees to make shelters, just as it is written.” 16 The people went out, brought back branches, and made shelters for themselves on each of their rooftops and courtyards, the court of the house of God, the square by the Water Gate, and the square by the Ephraim Gate. 17 The whole community that had returned from exile made shelters and lived in them. The Israelites had not celebrated like this from the days of Joshua son of Nun until that day. And there was tremendous joy. 18 Ezra read out of the book of the law of God every day, from the first day to the last. The Israelites celebrated the festival for seven days, and on the eighth day there was a solemn assembly, according to the ordinance.

Nehemiah 8:13 (CSB)

13 On the second day, the family heads of all the people, along with the priests and Levites, assembled before the scribe Ezra to study the words of the law.

My wife loves to watch these science fiction movies. Often stories will go with some secret message left by someone a long time ago, or maybe from the future. Even in spy movies, it’s a message that has to be understood.

Yet the Bible is the ancient message to us that gives us the direction for our current time.

I once saw a message, a meme that was meant as an insult, that church is just a book club.

Why is the church just not a book club for the Bible?

It can be, it certainly can be. Like a book club the best thing about church could just be the friends and the snacks. It could be a gathering where only one or two people actually read the book? I hope that is not true for you and once again I want to say it is so easy to find our weekly Bible study.

Truly for many Christians we aren’t reading what we actually say we believe. I get it. Not everything I read is profound. Sometimes it is hard to understand.

Let’s be honest about the good things in our life. If you skip brushing your teeth nothing bad is going to happen to you. Yet if you skip brushing your teeth for long periods or make it such an irregular habit, your teeth will start to decay.

If you workout for a day, or a week you will notice your body being sore and then maybe a little bit of increased energy and muscle but you will not be in great health or muscular. It is a discipline that needs to occur regularly. Even small bits of regular will increase your health.

God’s word is vital for our spiritual health. It is the sword of the Holy Spirit. It is where we find out the universal truth of our faith.

It isn’t significant what happened in verse 13, that made the whole gathering with Ezra special it is what happened in verse 14.

Nehemiah 8:14 (CSB)

14 They found written in the law how the Lord had commanded through Moses that the Israelites should dwell in shelters during the festival of the seventh month.

If you look at the verse you can see that I underlined and bolded a word. The sense of the Hebrew word that is translated found here is like the television that my wife likes to watch, this Hebrew word is like a discovery. The people of Ezra’s day discovered a festival that they didn’t know about.

When they found something in the Bible they acted on it.

The most important thing to take away from today is that when you discover something in the Bible, that is new to you or different from how you live, act on it. You change. God is revealing something to you.

If your wondering where the power, the joy, the blessing of God is in your life.

It has been said that we are living in a time of political crisis when many who claim to be Christians do not read the Bible or when reading see something they do not like and ignore it.

I hate reading statements about “Churches in America” or the church in America or Christianity, etc. Because I don’t control America. You don’t control “The Church,” or whatever people call those similar to us. What you do have impact on is you.

As you read the Bible and you like these leaders see something you didn’t know, realize something in your life that doesn’t agree, your role, my roll, our role, is to go to God and change our life. If the Bible isn’t practical in our life than our life needs to change.

It gets bigger, this part of the Bible that we are reading

Nehemiah 8:15 CSB

15 So they proclaimed and spread this news throughout their towns and in Jerusalem, saying, “Go out to the hill country and bring back branches of olive, wild olive, myrtle, palm, and other leafy trees to make shelters, just as it is written.”

They discovered the Festival of Shelters, Booths or Tabernacles as written in the Bible

Leviticus 23:34 NLT

34 “Give the following instructions to the people of Israel. Begin celebrating the Festival of Shelters on the fifteenth day of the appointed month—five days after the Day of Atonement. This festival to the Lord will last for seven days.

It’s a really cool festival that occurs near September in which the Jewish people remember that they lived in the wilderness for 40 years after crossing the Red Sea and receiving the 10 commandments.

That is cool but what is crucial, essential, monumental is to look at who did this

Nehemiah 8:15 (CSB)

15 So they proclaimed and spread this news throughout their towns and in Jerusalem, saying, “Go out to the hill country and bring back branches of olive, wild olive, myrtle, palm, and other leafy trees to make shelters, just as it is written.”

Who did this, “They did”

The priests were not the main lead in taking action, the people were the main lead in taking action

God moves through people like you. Your discovery in scripture can dramatically effect all of us. It doesn’t matter your age, gender, ability level, education, God loves to use you.

These people were leaders of their families because they were the oldest males. If your old, then you are in a perfect place to be used by God. And someone always thinks your old, no matter what your age is. I know 11 year olds that are thought of as the old ones because they have been at the school the longest. God doesn’t care what others think your limitations on, He cares about your character.

We as a church family stand ready for all of us to “find” in the scripture direction for our lives.

This is why we study the Bible. Why we have a women’s group before worship. It is why we have zooming with pastor Jerry. It is why we have a link on our app. It is also why I am thrilled that Deborah is teaching our children. Soon, even more of you will be able to find a team to study the Bible with as EJ will be launching a Bible study this fall.

Let us discover what God wants to show us through the Bible and change our lives because of what we discover. The people of Nehemiah did it because they knew what the consequences of not following God.

Nehemiah 8:16–17 (CSB)

16 The people went out, brought back branches, and made shelters for themselves on each of their rooftops and courtyards, the court of the house of God, the square by the Water Gate, and the square by the Ephraim Gate.

17 The whole community that had returned from exile made shelters and lived in them. The Israelites had not celebrated like this from the days of Joshua son of Nun until that day. And there was tremendous joy.

They took action because they had returned from exile, they lived the consequence of others disobedience to God

They knew what it meant to lose God’s protection and lose their identity. They came together to rebuild Jerusalem and know they were going to pursue the God when the forefathers had not.

The coolest part is a side effect of the obedience to God.

The result was tremendous joy and a better celebration than any king ever created. It was an outpouring of worship and obedience from the people.

Last men’s camp a man asked me how He could get his son’s to desire to go to church. I answered serve God with them. Find a way you can serve God together as a family.

Last week, we found that in the Bible Holy is closer to party than it is to funeral. Today we discover that

obedience to God is closer to fun than it is to homework.

I have to confess I don’t think I’ve been doing this right. We don’t need fake joy or happy. None of you have to be extroverted if your not or introverted if your not. Yet for many of us, let us search God’s word so that we too may discover what needs to happen in our lives, let us pursue that change and experience true joy in our lives.