Restored By The Feast (Nehemiah 8:13-18)

Introduction

A. Preliminaries

Good Morning.

We will continue our series in the Book of Nehemiah this morning, and we find ourselves at the end of Chapter 8. The text on which the sermon is based will be verses 13 thru 18. You can find it on Page 475 of the Bibles in your pews.

If you remember from last week. The construction of the city wall complete, and the people gathered to hear from God’s Word. They heard the Word and they heard it explained. And they were told not to weep, even though it broke their hearts to hear how far they were from God’s commands.

And now, they carry on with the festival. Though they sort of have to remember it first. You have heard me say a few times in the last couple of weeks that they are celebrating the Feast of Booths, but the text itself has not said much about that specifically until now.

So, if you will join me at verse 13.

Let us once again stand for the reading of God’s Holy Word.

B. Sermon Text

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.

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God!

You may be seated.

C. Opening Remarks

The books of Ezra and Nehemiah are about Reformation. They are about a return to God’s Words. And they are about Revival or Renewal—an awakening among the people by the Spirit that enables them to repent of sin and to delight in all God’s Words.

We have seen the grief and repenting earlier in Chapter 8. Which was actually stopped short by the leaders in Jerusalem who called the people to rejoice.

And today we start to see some of the fruit of this might work of the Spirit in their midst.

There are at least three movements in this text that I want to give some attention to this morning:

D. Sermon Points

1. There is a Return to God’s Words

2. There is a Recovery of God’s Ways

3. There is a Renewal of God’s People

E. Sermon Prayer

Let’s Pray.

God, Our Father,

We confess that there is no ignorance as dark as what we think we know. We pray that your Spirit would banish any ignorance of this sort this morning, and that we would let go of it gladly, and without a fight. Teach us from your Word, for we pray in Jesus’s name, and Amen.

(A Prayer by Douglas Wilson)

I. A Return to God’s Words

Nehemiah 8:13 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.

What a glorious beginning.

So just to remind you of the timeline. They finish the Wall. Then an assembly gathers to hear Ezra and the Levites teach and preach the Word. There is grief over their disobedience. They are called to rejoicing. They do rejoice. And now, on the second day, the fathers show up. The heads of household gather for a meeting. And they seek Ezra out and they say “We know we need more. Teach us.”

I freely confess to you I cannot imagine a more glorious root and fruit of revival than fathers coming together and saying “Teach us from God’s Word.”

And this is what we must understand about revival. Contrary to what Charles Finney taught, revival doesn’t come about because we invent some new way of doing it.

Both Reformation and Revival come about because we return to something we forgot. That’s what the Reformation was all about, right? It was not a new invention. It was a return to something we had forgotten.

And there’s a principle in play here, sitting quietly underneath our texts and that is if Fathers are Covenant Heads of their home, and if this is a gathering of those Fathers, we should take note, Dads—that we never stop learning, and we never stop needing the humility to learn. These men sought Ezra out so that they could understand God’s Words.

They knew they were responsible. So they acted. They knew nobody was going to do this for them. So they went to fix the problem of their own ignorance.

That’s why I said this is a glorious start to our passage this morning.

Because as I have said before healthy families are built on healthy marriages. Healthy churches cannot exist without health marriages and families. And healthy cities must be given Gospel and witness and testimony and mercy and wisdom of healthy churches.

And all of it rises or falls on whether or not fathers take responsibility or drift into negligent forgetfulness. Because Reformation doesn’t start with a Church Program. It starts with Dads with open bibles and open hearts.

And I say that, brothers, not to discourage you. But rather, to give you a sense of the glory that is hidden underneath your ordinary work and humility. This is how God loves to work.

II. A Recovery of God’s Ways

Nehemiah 8:14–16 ESV

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.

So these Dads at their Bible Study realize that there’s a Feast and Festival they have been neglecting.

It’s called the Feast of Booths, also called the Feast of Tabernacles.

And it was about as exciting as Christmas is for us. It’s a big deal.

The Feast of Booths was an eight-day festival where the Jews would essentially re-experience life in the wilderness by setting up tents (either on the roofs of their home or on the streets) and living in those tents for eight days. It’s basically a backyard camping trip. And you must imagine that the kids loved it. It was camping, and just like Christmas brings special foods and treats, so it was with the Festival of Booths. It happened at Harvest time. So fruits, dates, grapes, olives, all kinds of delicious food, along with special food and stories.

And Kids, listen for a moment: Imagine that you made it a point to go camping at least once a year (some of you already do!). And on that camping trip, you eat special foods, you tell stories of how God has taken care of you, and you remember that He has never stopped loving you—not even for one minute.”

That’s what the Feast of Booths was like. God wanted even the youngest children to know: “I took care of your family yesterday. I’ll take care of you today. And I’ll take care of you tomorrow.”

And it was probably great fun. For the first day or two. Until it rained. And they still have to hang in the tent. Then they get reminded of hardship.

They remember that their ancestors walked in the wilderness for 40 years. And that their ancestors were often hungry and thirsty, such that they cried out—a prayer God always answered. And while hearing about that hunger and thirst, they were feasting and enjoying lots of good food.

Which is a kind of delightful paradox. While they’re hearing about the trials and tribulations of their forefathers, they are sitting right smack dab in the middle of all God’s Promise Land blessings.

So that’s the Feast of Booths. But I want to bring us back to the point of the text. The point is that they had all but forgotten about this. And this was a recovery of God’s ways. God’s calendar. God’s commands.

And to some extent you might be familiar with this. If you try to do some sort of “Through the Bible in a Year” reading plan, or if you just read the Bible regularly, you will very often trip over parts where you’re like “That’s in there? Did I know that?”

And this is especially memorable if the Scripture that just caught you off guard also knocks you down with a weighty command. And that first use of the law hits you. And you’re thinking “Oh wow, wait, does God expect that of me? Is that how I am supposed to be living?” So then you grab that third use of the law—rule of life—and say “Ok. Guess that’s how I’ll be living now!”

That’s exactly what these men did.

The text says they read about the Feast of Booths, and then they went and did it.

Excursus: On Legalism

Now whenever a preacher starts talking about obedience to God’s Word, people start getting nervous. And I’m not talking about those who are living in unrepentant sin. I’m talking blood-bought saints who know their Bibles and know the Gospel that has saved them. We get nervous when we hear chatter about obedience.

Because it smells like legalism. And if you know anything at all about Christianity, you know that you are not saved by your works. You know that God doesn’t love you on the basis of your obedience. You know that you have never for one second of your life earned the love or approval or smile of God. You know that Christ has already accomplished all of it, and you stand before God not just totally forgiven, but given a record of perfection by faith alone.

And legalism is anything that would threaten that, and try to insert your good behavior into that equation as an answer to why God loves you and saves you and forgives you, and calls you his son.

Now, I want to be clear here. That’s what legalism is. Legalism is not reading God’s commands and saying “Go and do likewise.” If that’s legalism, then Jesus is a legalist.

Legalism is slipping your works into the equation of why God has saved you or why he keeps on saving you. I really like Derek Thomas’s definition:

Legalism—true legalism [is] the instinctive urge to think we can be saved by rule-keeping...

—Derek W. H. Thomas From Ezra and Nehemiah (REC, P&R Publishing, 2016), pg. 344

And it is a terror and a false teaching, and a load of nonsense.

It also has a twin brother, that is just as wicked. Called “antinomianism.”

Which is a big word.

Anti—Against

Nomos—Greek word for law

So against law. Or against the law of God.

Antinomians fear that too much talk of “obedience” threatens the “free grace” of justification, blurring the Gospel.

So they reason, if you have to fall into one ditch, fall into that one. Better to be an antinomian than a legalist. But that’s not what Scripture teaches. We are not saved by any effort or obedience on our part, but those who are saved demonstrate it in a life of willing and joyful obedience. It’s why James tells us to be “doers” of the word and not hearers only (James 1:22).

Or, as our confession puts it

Faith, thus receiving and resting on Christ and His righteousness, is the alone instrument of justification: yet is it not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is no dead faith, but works by love.

Westminster Confession of Faith 11.2 (“On Saving Faith”)

In other words, true faith is not a work, but true faith always gets to work, especially when it hears God talking.

And so this feast was a recovery of God’s ways. In fact the text tell us they had not kept this feast since the days of Joshua:

Nehemiah 8:17 ESV

...for from the days of Jeshua the son of Nun to that day the people of Israel had not done so...

That’s almost 1,000 years. From texts like these we begin to understand why knowing and remembering what God has said is so important, because we are so forgetful. And sometimes this is just the error of forgetfulness, but if we are honest, I think we also have very selective memories.

In other words, the problem we face in the Church today usually isn’t ignorance. The bigger problem we face is selective amnesia. We forget the commands that cost us something. We forget the commands that we don’t like to hear. We forget the commands that would demand radical shifts and changes in the way we think, the way we talk, and the way we act.

So brothers and sisters, let me just put it to you this morning—are there commands of God you are ignoring on purpose?

Perhaps some of the commands of God are really painful to hear. Perhaps they would be costly to obey. Perhaps they would make you look stupid. Maybe obedience to them would make you appear out of touch or old fashioned or regressive or whatever else.

And if that’s you, let the men of Israel in Nehemiah 8 challenge you, refresh you and convict you. Let the Holy Spirit speak to you with greater volume from the very words of Scripture than any other competing voice, including the one in your own head.

For some of us, we need to think about how to keep the 4th commandment today, and what Sabbath Rest means. Some of us need to surrender our fear of man so we can actually practice hospitality. Perhaps you need to surrender the way you protect your patterns of gossip and return to the wisdom of Matthew 18. Perhaps your marriage is upside down, and you know what God has said, but it just seems so contrary to what you’ve been doing for years. Perhaps your parenting has been more informed by modern gurus than the Bible. Perhaps the therapeutic world and the voice of the therapist speaks with greater priestly authority than God’s own words. Whatever it is, the way of God is better, and it is in fact the path of the joy that we were made for.

That is the next point...

III. A Renewal of God’s People

Specifically, a renewal of their joy.

Nehemiah 8:17–18 ESV

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.

So the fathers in Israel hear the commands of God, and they immediately put them into practice. Tents go up everywhere. They keep the festival. And what is the result?

Underline: “there was very great rejoicing”

And why? Because they were drenching themselves in God’s Words. Look again at verse 18.

Read Verse 18.

Day by day—for eight days—they were hearing God’s Words.

And all of it was tied up with joy.

Now please hear this part. It’s the third point of the sermon. I get it. If you’re going to tune out at any time, it’s probably now. But please tune back in.

Because we must know this brothers and sisters. We must know this in our bones, that there is an unbreakable connection between our love of God’s Words and our own joy.

Don’t miss the connection between obedience and the Festival. Obedience and the joy. Obedience and the party.

Now isn’t that something?

Usually, when the world throws a party, it’s so everyone can forget their troubles and probably enjoy some sinning. In the world’s way of thinking, we throw big parties to get away from God’s commands.

But the parties, festivals, and feasts of God’s people accomplish the precise opposite. We don’t throw parties to get away from what God has said. We throw parties to remember his goodness, and preach to each other once again that all his ways and all his words are good.

And this tells us that reformation, revival, and renewal are not marked by sourness, but by celebration. Of all God’s wonderous work.

In fact, Deuteronomy commands that the Festival of Booths was to be marked by joy.

Deuteronomy 16:14 ESV

You shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow who are within your towns.

Everybody is in on the party and the celebration.

And how could they not be? They were obeying God, and obedience and joy go together—don’t believe the lie that they are separate.

As John Piper has famously said “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.”

And, I’ll quote J.I. Packer as well, he writes that

“Nothing compares to knowing that you are doing God’s will.”

J. I. Packer

From A Passion for Faithfulness: Wisdom from the Book of Nehemiah (Crossway, 1995), pg. 160. Quoted in Derek W.H. Thomas Ezra and Nehemiah (REC, P&R Publishing, 2016), pg. 347.

And they knew. How did they know? Because God had written it down and told them. We sometimes hear the word obedience and we think “Well this is going to be the opposite of fun.” But the reality is that joy and God’s ways always go together. Don’t believe the lie that they are opposed to each other. Your Father loves you better than that.

Conclusion: A Call to Remember

So what is set before us this morning is a call to remember. The Jews forgotten that God had called them to remember. Called them to a Festival. Called them to re-tell the story so they didn’t forget. Which sounds so hopelessly ironic. They had forgotten that they were called to remember.

But the reality is that we are no better at remembering than they were.

We forget God’s Words, or else we ignore them. We drift from His ways, and we lose our joy.

And if our hope ultimately lies in our records of obedience, we are lost.

This is why we bank all our hope on our only comfort in life and death. The work of the One greater than Nehemiah or Ezra. The one who has accomplished what Israel failed to do, and what you and I fail to do.

Because Jesus Christ is the true and better Ezra who opens His Word to you, and gives understanding by His Holy Spirit, so that you can continue to grow.

And this means that while the call to obedience is as real as the breath in your lungs, the other reality right alongside it is that your joy is not rooted in how well you have preformed. It is rooted in what Christ has done for you when you were dead in trespasses and sins.

Today, we hear the call to return to our God and return to his ways, and that call is only given to us because God Himself has come to us first in His Son.

So yes, obedience is commanded, and it does bring joy. But never forget that obedience is not what the Gospel demands, it is what the Gospel produces.

So the call this morning is not “Just do better.” The call is Come to Jesus Christ and live. Hear His Words. Rest in His finished work. Rediscover His ways—not to earn His delight, but because in Him you already have it.

For renewal begins when we come to Jesus again and again. Our true Priest, our true Temple, our true and better Feast. And that is where we find true joy in the God who has saved us.

In the name of Jesus, Amen.