Vow of Faithfulness
Notes
Transcript
Conversational & SIMPLE!
Do you ever swear (sworn) … to do something.
Maybe you’ve made a promise?
Taken an oath?
Vowed to do something?
Are we faithful to what we say we’re going to do?
Let me tell you a story about Danny, a young man in his junior year of college.
Mom & Allison (friend)
"Mom, don't get stressed out … this is just an arrangement for rent … we live in separate rooms … we’re just friends … it's just cheaper this way”
His mom thought, "There's no way!”
…
“Danny, obviously I’m not saying that you are sleeping with Allison. But the fact remains that had she been sleeping in her own bed, she would have found the watch on her pillow right where I left it.”
Everyone sins!
It’s what you do after you sin that makes the difference … between life and death.
13 The one who conceals his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them will find mercy.
MAIN POINT
MAIN POINT
When you realize how forgiving and faithful our God is, you will dedicate your life to Him — honoring and serving Him, the Church, and others.
Pausing to Solidify
Pausing to Solidify
I can’t get over this idea of repentance.
Repentance: A godly grief that changes mind, heart, and life through trust in Christ.
What are the steps to repentance?
The beginning of repentance is the confession of guilt.
John Calvin (French Reformer)
It’s a change of direction.
Turning from your sins to God.
Submitting to His authority and leadership.
Listening (Word/Spirit)
Obeying His instructions
Steps to Repentance Slide
Listen when God speaks .
Agree and confess your sins.*
Turn & Trust God to lead you.
Receive forgiveness and walk in His ways.
One of the most fundamental marks of true repentance is a disposition to see our sins as God sees them.
Charles Simeon (Leader of the Evangelical Revival)
There’s no repentance in the grave.
Isaac Watts (Hymn Writer)
Repentance is acknowledging God’s conviction of sin in our lives, turning and confessing it to Him, receiving forgiveness, and following His lead, trusting His way is better.
Change of heart
… mind
… direction
… actions
10 For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, but worldly grief produces death.
There’s a turn … we’re to trust … we’ll see a transformation … of heart, mind and actions.
A Call to Repentance
1 Come, let’s return to the Lord. For he has torn us, and he will heal us; he has wounded us, and he will bind up our wounds. 2 He will revive us after two days, and on the third day he will raise us up so we can live in his presence. 3 Let’s strive to know the Lord. His appearance is as sure as the dawn. He will come to us like the rain, like the spring showers that water the land.
Repentance makes us see the evil of sin, not merely as a theory, but experimentally—as a burnt child dreads fire.
Morning And Evening, Page 574
Charles Spurgeon
When you realize how forgiving and faithful our God is, you will dedicate your life to Him — honoring and serving Him, the Church, and others.
Look back at Verse 38 in Chapter 9.
Israel’s Vow of Faithfulness
Promising Obedience
Promising Obedience
Verses 9:38-10:29
38 In view of all this, we are making a binding agreement in writing on a sealed document containing the names of our leaders, Levites, and priests.
Are we faithful to do what we say we’re going to do?
We need reminders.
Ring … Uniform … child …
Here, we see God’s people making a written, binding agreement before God and men.
1 Those whose seals were on the document were the governor Nehemiah son of Hacaliah, and Zedekiah,
Those who attached their names to this sealed document would have done so by signature rather than by the stamp of their personal seals.
They were putting their name on the line.
I thought about a handshake
Down Home by Alabama
Down home, where they know you by name and treat you like family
Down home, a man's good word and hand shake are all you need
As we know, sometimes we need more than a spoken word or a handshake, we need it written so we don’t forget what we’ve said we are going to do.
There are a total of 84 names.
First is Nehemiah (v. 1),
Followed by a group of priests (vv. 2–8),
Levites (vv. 9–13)
And their leaders (vv. 14–27)
Look at Verse 28
28 The rest of the people—the priests, Levites, gatekeepers, singers, and temple servants, along with their wives, sons, and daughters, everyone who is able to understand and who has separated themselves from the surrounding peoples to obey the law of God—
29 join with their noble brothers and commit themselves with a sworn oath to follow the law of God given through God’s servant Moses and to obey carefully all the commands, ordinances, and statutes of the Lord our Lord.
Faithfulness to family is subordinate to faithfulness to God.
The people committed completely to the covenant.
Practicing Separation
Practicing Separation
Verse 30
30 We will not give our daughters in marriage to the surrounding peoples and will not take their daughters as wives for our sons.
This commitment addresses the problem of intermarriage … but wait, there’s more!
The problem with intermarriage with those of other people groups does not arise from something on the surface.
The problem is intermarriage with people who have not separated themselves from the abominations of the peoples of the lands and instead separating themselves to the Torah (law, word) of Yahweh.
Parents controlled marriages
This part of the covenant came from them.
They knew that God prohibited marriage with “people of the land”
Why? Because they worshipped idols, not God.
This stressed the serious matter of marrying a heathen from an idolatrous people.
The had seen the effects of this right before their eyes
King Solomon had brought wicked idolatrous ideas into his life and into the nation by marrying women who did not worship the Lord. The people now, by contrast, would honor God by obeying his commands.
Nehemiah forcefully condemned Judean men who risked their allegiance to God by marrying women who worshiped other gods.
The Israelites who entered into this covenant meant to separate themselves from those who had not devoted themselves to Yahweh. They committed not to intermarry with idolaters.
We have to ask ourselves this question
How could marriage be what God intended it to be if the man and wife were not united on this most fundamental question?
In Genesis 2:24 the man shall cleave to his wife and they shall become one flesh.
This one-flesh speaks to a union of all they are. Such a one-flesh union is impossible without agreement on who God is and what it means to know and worship Him.
Marriage should strengthen faith, not test it.
Providing Offerings
& Participating in God’s Plan
Providing Offerings
& Participating in God’s Plan
Verses 31-39
Keeping the Sabbath highlighted Israel’s identity as God’s people.
The remainder of the conditions they made involved matters of the temple.
There was brokenness, there was humiliation, and there was separation.
Adrian Rogers, Nov. 1978, preached a message entitled, "Not Forsaking the House of God."
You know, we don’t hear much today about separation. Everything is just sort of muddy; it’s not separated anymore.
We sort of have a “good Lord, good devil, take-it-or- leave-it” type of Christianity.
The church seems to be becoming more worldly, and the world seems to be becoming more preachy [churchy].
And I tell you, if that happens very much longer, you’re going to find houses of God forsaken all over America.
These people separated themselves. They refused to be chloroformed by the spirit of the age.
By boiling down their commitments to these three sets of obligations, those singing this covenant identified their overarching concerns in life.
What were those obligations?
They promised Obedience
They would practicing Separation
They’re would be participation in God’s plan for their His Church and their lives.
They would provide offerings — sacrifices and provisions would be made.
In the OT, the house of God was the temple.
In the NT, the house of God is the Church—not the church building, the church, the people.
In the OT, God had a temple for His people. In the NT, He has a people for His temple.
—Adrian Rogers
The people of God are called “God’s household”
15 But if I should be delayed, I have written so that you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.
The people realized that God had richly blessed them with all the resources they needed, and they could use a portion of it to improve God’s house.
As Tony Evans notes …
Likewise, God has provided his people with all the money and talents needed to rebuild our churches and our communities. We have the gospel of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. He will bless our submission to his program, but we must step out in obedience and give in order to access those blessings.
We also see something else in these verses, a key idea
THE CHURCH — God’s Covenant People
Public worship ceremonies lead God’s people to renew their covenant commitments to him.
God’s people often find it necessary to write down the characteristics that identify us as people of God and the commitments we make to him that distinguish us from all other people.
The Israelites in Nehemiah’s day set a good example for all succeeding written covenants.
Today we have the Baptist Faith & Message
From previous generations of Christians we have the various catechisms
They are a summary of the principles of our faith in the form of questions and answers that are used for the instruction
39 For the Israelites and the Levites are to bring the contributions of grain, new wine, and fresh oil to the storerooms where the articles of the sanctuary are kept and where the priests who minister are, along with the gatekeepers and singers. We will not neglect the house of our God.
We will not neglect the house of our God.
We don’t neglect that which we love.
We see to it that it’s cared for, cherished, looked after, remembered.
We are called to …
leave
abandon
reject
desert
depart from
forsake — apostatize
Apostasy
: an act of refusing to continue to follow, obey, or recognize our faith
: abandonment of a previous loyalty
We are called to commit ourselves to following Jesus and allowing Him to transform us by His Spirit and His Word to be more like Him.
CLOSING
CLOSING
What changes in our lives because of this message? Church?
Are you willing to take a stand for Jesus?
Are you willing to commit your life … your home … marriage … parenting … that God might be honored and glorified.
Are you in or are you out?
Curry Dukes, 87
Humble
Softest handshake
Not someone you’d see up front
Faithfully serving behind the scenes
He never met a stranger
Would go out of his way to speak to someone
Always prayed for those around him.
He shared his birthday with Jesus
And never missed an opportunity to talk to others about Salvation
From his obituary, “He was an exceptional example of a loving husband, father, grandpa, and great grandpa. He was loved by all who knew him and will be dearly missed by many.”
Turn from your sin toward God
Confess your sin and receive forgiveness
Trust His way is better.
MARRIED: Are you both seeking the Lord?
If you’re living together and not married, fix that.
If you’re dating/not married, don’t be unequally yoked.
It’s like pulling in different directions.
MEN: Take a stand, make a commitment.
If the dad is active in church, the whole family will come.
When you realize how forgiving and faithful our God is, you will dedicate your life to Him — honoring and serving Him, the Church, and others. We give our lives to Him because Jesus gave His!