Nehemiah 8 - How to Worship

Nehemiah; Arise and build  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented
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Introduction

The walls are rebuilt, the gates are repaired, the people are back in Jerusalem and now it is time for worship. They were going to rejoice in the word of God and the things that he has done.

We must be unified vs. 1 a

Notice all the people gathered together as one man. There were many people there but they were all unified for one thing, and that is the word of God.
Paul likes to use the analogy of a body when speaking about the church, there are many different people that make up the body, but it is only one body.
To truly worship God there must be unity in the church.

The Word of God must have its proper place vs. 1b-8

Notice first they were asking Ezra to bring out the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded to Israel.
They were hungry for God’s word. They had been spiritually starved while in captivity and now they were hungry for God’s word.
It seems like our world today is no longer hungry for the things of God, especially his word. We would rather be entertained than read God’s word. We need to get back our hunger for God’s word.
Do we crave Gods word? or are we satisfied feeling spiritually starved?
Ezra here is mentioned for the first time even though he had arrived 13 years before Nehemiah.
Ezra 7:6 “This Ezra went up from Babylon; and he was a ready scribe in the law of Moses, which the Lord God of Israel had given: and the king granted him all his request, according to the hand of the Lord his God upon him.”
The bible tells us that Ezra was a ready scribe
Ezra brought the law before the congregation
The men
the woman
and all that could hear with understanding i.e the older children
This was done on the first day of the seventh month which was Rosh Hashanah beginning the new year of the Jewish Civil calendar.
He read from the morning until midday to the men, woman and those who could understand.
That would have been a long reading, but look at the response of the people
and all the ears of the people were attentive unto the book of the law
Are we attentive to the word of God? or do we get bored with it? We should be attentive and excited about Gods word.
Here are three good reasons to be attentive to the reading and teaching from the word of God
To honor God
For your own soul
to encourage the preacher
Ezra stood on a pulpit of wood that the bible says was made for the purpose
you might ask what was the purpose?
The purpose wasn’t to lift Ezra up, but rather to lift the word of God up. Its the same reason we have a pulpit today, not to lift up the preacher, but to lift up the Bible
Ezra read the law with 6 people on his right and 7 on his left
In order to teach or preach from the bible, you must first open the bible
As Ezra unrolled the scroll the people stood out of reverence for the word.
And then Ezra blessed the Lord
Notice the peoples response
amen amen - they were in agreement with what Ezra had said
They lifted up their hands
they bowed their heads towards the ground and
worshipped with their face towards the ground
Do we reverence the Word of God this way
In Weirsbes commentary he wrote this convicting thought “We wonder how the Holy Spirit feels When he sees Bibles on the church floor, or used as a portable filing cabinet for miscellaneous papers, or even left behind in church where they are stacked up and finally given to the local city mission. We will defend the bible as the Word of God, but we don’t always treat it like its the word of God.
We find some men and the Levites causing or helping the people to understand the law.
vs. 8 describes their role
they read in the book in the law of God distinctly or clearly
They gave the sense or meaning of what was read
they caused or helped them to understand the reading
If we want to have true worship the word of God must be in its proper place

We must respond to the word of God 9-12

Notice there initial response was to mourn
Nehemiah the Tirshatha or Governor and Ezra the scribe priest taught all the people that the day was holy unto the Lord mourn not, nor weep
This was to be a time of rejoicing because of God’s forgiveness of sin after the day of atonement.
They were mourning because the law brings a realization of their wrongdoing
Romans 3:20 “Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.”
Then Nehemiah tells them the Joy of the Lord is their strength.
Someone said “the secret of Christian Joy is to believe what God says in HIs word and act upon it.”
We shouldn’t just read the word or receive the word, we should also rejoice in the word
Psalm 119:162 “I rejoice at thy word, As one that findeth great spoil.”
In Bible days sometimes people would hide their wealth in jars and bury them in the ground. If a farmer was plowing a field and suddenly discovered a jar full of gold he would rejoice.
There are great treasures buried in the Bible and we must diligently dig for them as we read, meditate and pray.
We must be careful that we don’t just read the Word out of duty, but we should delight in it as we search and find the treasures that God has for us in his word.

We must obey the word vs. 13-18

When we obey the Lord and serve him because we rejoice in him then our service will be a delight and not a drag.
“To the believer without joy, the will of God is punishment, but to the believer happy in the lord, the will of God is nourishment.”
In the seventh month the Jews celebrated the feast of tabernacles just 5 days after the day of atonement.
During the feast of tabernacles the Jews lived in booths made of branches and usually were built on the flat roofs of their houses.
It was a time of looking back and remembering the 40 years the nation spent wandering in the wilderness.
It was also a time of looking around at the good that they had been blessed with. The Lord had given them the good of the land, and they were never to forget the Giver as they enjoyed the gifts
The Bible isn’t saying that this feast hasn’t been celebrated since Joshua, because we see this feast celebrated in 2 Chronicles 8:13. But rather it hadn’t been celebrated with this much enthusiasm since the days that Joshua crossed into the promised land.
During their celebrations they had been going through the motions, but now that Jerusalem is rebuilt people came from all around to celebrate.
Do we celebrate what God is doing or are we just going through the motions?
During the week of celebration Ezra continued to read from the word of God.
The combination of Joyful fellowship, feasting, and hearing the Law must have greatly strengthened the people.
On the 8th day they concluded with a solemn assembly, and then returned to normal activities.

Conclusion

God’s Word makes known God’s good pleasure, and God’s mighty acts on behalf of His people show them that He loves them. Those mighty acts are then celebrated in the memorials that God gives His people so that they remember what He has done for them and how He loves them.
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