Guarding What God Has Restored
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Good morning!
Please keep your bibles open to Nehemiah 12. We are getting really close to the end of our time in this wonderful book, and our passage today helps set the stage for the conclusion of the book. So far, we have seen
The wall being rebuilt
The people being restored, and…
The community being reformed
Over the last several weeks, before our brief break for Easter, we saw celebration after celebration for all that the Lord had done in the midst of the people. They celebrated the wall being rebuilt, being restored to God as His special covenant people, and the return of the Levitical priesthood and their ceremonial rites and practices. And we’ve spoken extensively about how celebrating what the Lord has done is a natural outflow of the Lord being at work in His people. If the Lord is at work in the church, worship that is honoring and glorifying to the Lord should be the natural result of that. That worship and celebration becomes a big part of our witness to each other and to the community around us.
As we come to our passage today, I am reminded of the words of Solomon, who wrote this in…
1 There is an occasion for everything, and a time for every activity under heaven:
2 a time to give birth and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to uproot;
3 a time to kill and a time to heal; a time to tear down and a time to build;
4 a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance;
5 a time to throw stones and a time to gather stones; a time to embrace and a time to avoid embracing;
6 a time to search and a time to count as lost; a time to keep and a time to throw away;
7 a time to tear and a time to sew; a time to be silent and a time to speak;
8 a time to love and a time to hate; a time for war and a time for peace.
The reason I am reminded of this is because the Jews in Jerusalem have come from a natural time of celebration to a time when that initial phase of celebration ceases, and the work of sustaining what the Lord has rebuilt becomes the priority.
I once worked for a cabinet shop in Spokane where the owner had worked for about 30 years or so to develop systems and a network of clients that made the shop work as an organization. Money was coming in, work was steady and things ran decently well for the size shop it was. When the owner neared retirement age, he sold the company and all its assets to one of the guys who had worked with him in the shop for about 20 years or so. This worker was an excellent cabinet maker - there wasn’t a problem that could arise that he couldn’t come up with a solution for. The owner had relied on this one employee for years to keep the things in the shop moving well, so he thought it would be a good fit. Unfortunately, the employee was a far superior cabinet maker than he was a business owner.
Within four years of taking over the business, the employee, now owner of the shop, failed to maintain the systems the previous own had in place, failed to maintain the relationships with his clients and failed to keep the shop properly staffed to keep the work flowing through at an appropriate pace. So what the previous owner spent 30 years building was destroyed in four short years due to a failure to maintain what was put into place.
What we see in our text today is a warning against such an occurrence to happen where God had already restored people, systems and infrastructure. The big lesson that we get from this, and the one lesson I pray you take home with you today is that Spiritual renewal requires faithful stewardship and holy obedience.
If you didn’t get a copy of the bulletin insert today, here is an overview of the outline we will be looking at today:
Steward the Work (12:44)
Sustain the Worship (12:45–47)
Safeguard the Community (13:1–3)
Steward the Work (12:44)
Steward the Work (12:44)
Please read with me in verse…
44 On that same day men were placed in charge of the rooms that housed the supplies, contributions, firstfruits, and tenths. The legally required portions for the priests and Levites were gathered from the village fields, because Judah was grateful to the priests and Levites who were serving.
After the celebration, the people established systems. They organized leadership. They created accountability. They ensured sustainability.
Revival moved from emotion to administration > from building to maintenance.
God’s work does not continue accidentally, it continues through intentional and faithful stewardship.
This verse shows:
Intentional structure, Responsible leadership, Faithful management, Ongoing provision. They didn’t just celebrate the wall, but they also planned for the future and worked towards those goals.
The Key Principle we see in this portion of our passage today is that God’s work must be stewarded, not merely started.
Do we have any dreamers here today? I tend to be a bit of a dreamer. I am really good at starting things, but sometimes fail in terms of follow through and maintenance. I don’t know how much of that is my ADHD, how much might be a result of my brain cancer, or how much of it is a result of the personality God gifted me with, but I have come to recognize that I start things better than I finish them. And if you’re a dreamer like me, you probably have a lot of really good ideas for things to start, but perhaps lack details and specifics in terms of what maintaining the plan and vision entails.
What I’ve learned in my life and my experiences in ministry - and as the dad of a dreamer is that God makes people different for different reasons. Sometimes, God uses visionary people who are really good at coming up with creative ideas and solutions, but then uses others who are good at the administrative side of things to continue working the systems put in place by others to keep it going. This is the whole plan behind many business start-ups. They get started with the specific goal of getting to a certain point before selling to a larger company for a large payout.
God has a purpose for dreamers, and He has a purpose for administrators - what we need to do is be careful not to look at either with the judgmental premise that because one person might not be as strong in one area as another that there is some kind of moral failure happening. I can’t look at a dreamer and find moral fault because their giftings might not lend themselves as well to maintaining a vision as much as they do vision casting and starting something from scratch.
If you are a dreamer like me, you’ve probably started something - or even a few things - and have seen them fail… That’s okay! God uses even bad experiences as experience to grow us as people. As many of you know, I will be stepping out of my role as the pastor of Sprauge Community Church at the end of this month due to the effects on my mind and body from my recent brain surgery and ongoing brain cancer diagnosis. I’ve had to try and figure out how God is going to use me both in the church and in my community, and through much prayer and consultation with those around me, I will be transitioning to leading a new ministry helping educate, encourage and equip ministry leaders to carry out their roles with a sound Biblical foundation and professional excellence. I’ll be using my unique experiences as a worship leader, youth leader, counsellor, associate pastor, and now, senior pastor to help churches minister to their people as faithfully and excellently as possible.
Because I am a bit of a dreamer and have experienced failure in the past from different things I have tried to do, there is honestly a certain amount of trepidation I am feeling - but that’s not a lack of faith in God, it’s more of a lack of faith in the person He is using to start the ministry - myself. However, I believe that God is faithful, and that where the Lord guides, He also provides - so we are pursuing this with all diligence as the Lord has made it clear that He is leading me elsewhere.
Our passage starts out by saying - “On that same day…” Which day was he referring to? In verse 43, Nehemiah said
43 On that day they offered great sacrifices and rejoiced because God had given them great joy. The women and children also celebrated, and Jerusalem’s rejoicing was heard far away.
This was the same day that the rejoicing of Jerusalem was heard far away. It was practically in the midst of their celebration. What Nehemiah is trying to show here is a sense of immediacy and intentionality in transitioning from the celebration to the administration of continuing the work the Lord had done - maintaining what God had built through the various means He had ordained and prescribed to the nation of Israel. It shows almost a sense of joy in the mundane tasks of collecting the tithes and offerings of the people for the Levites, but the people even did this with great joy! Nehemiah knew that the celebration couldn’t carry on forever and be the sole purpose of the Israelites, but that they had a job to do and they needed to make the switch from celebration to administration and get the work done. This is the heart of intentionality and stewardship.
Spiritual renewal requires faithful stewardship and holy obedience.
Sustain the Worship (12:45–47)
Sustain the Worship (12:45–47)
Let’s continue reading, starting in verse…
45 They performed the service of their God and the service of purification, along with the singers and gatekeepers, as David and his son Solomon had prescribed.
46 For long ago, in the days of David and Asaph, there were heads of the singers and songs of praise and thanksgiving to God.
47 So in the days of Zerubbabel and Nehemiah, all Israel contributed the daily portions for the singers and gatekeepers. They also set aside daily portions for the Levites, and the Levites set aside daily portions for Aaron’s descendants.
The key thought behind the Israelites actions here is that spiritual health is sustained through consistent worship: Not occasional enthusiasm, Not emotional moments, but faithful rhythm.
They followed the commands established by David and Solomon that were intended to provide for the material needs of those serving the nation as priests and ministry leaders. Their worship was not only spiritual, but it also had a very practical aspect to it - meeting the needs the Lord designated them to provide for those designated to receive it.
This was not spontaneous worship, it was structured, disciplined, consistent worship - they were coming out of such a long season in exile that they lost their cultural identity as it related to their worship of the Lord. As the Lord restored the wall, the people and the community at large, He is also restoring their worship back to the way He intended it from the beginning. If you look at the book of Leviticus, much of what you read in our passage today might seem to be somewhat reminiscent of the commands in Leviticus. The language is the same and the intent is the same. It is now generations after it was given and it is now being recognized and put faithfully back into practice by a generation eager to repent for the sins of their ancestors.
I have had a song stuck in my head for the last two weeks, and I was able to thumb through it with a younger guy showing me his progress on guitar - it’s called Heart of Worship by Matt Redman. The chorus says,
I’m coming back to the Heart of Worship,
where it’s all about you,
it’s all about you Jesus!
I’m sorry Lord for the thing I’ve made it
when it’s all about you,
it’s all about you Jesus!
They didn’t just celebrate once, it was ongoing! It was built into their culture like God had designed it from the days of Moses - they kept worshiping.
In a heavy indictment from A.W. Towzer, he said:
We have lost the art of worship.
A. W. Tozer
Many in the church consider worship to be nothing more than singing songs together. To be frank, that’s like saying someone is a responsible adult because they turned 21. Singing songs together is one of the ways we express worship to the Lord, but that is simply the form, not the substance of corporate worship.
Worship may be expressed in song, but it is ultimately what emanates from the heart and mind that defines it as worship - if you are singing “It is well with my soul…” when your hearts says, “It is not well with my soul…” it should be a sign to you that there are things you should be working out with the Lord in your heart - then when you come to the Lord in awe and wonder of who He is because you have found contentment, then that overflowing sense of “it is well with my soul…” becomes the substance of your worship - not just the lyrics and the melody you sing.
Likewise, if you sing, “How great thou art…” but the lyrics don’t bring a reminder of that sense of “awesome wonder” to your heart, but you aer merely singing the lyrics and melody, has true worship taken place? No! You are able to go through the motions of worship week in and week out and offer nothing of value to God at all if your mind and heart are not in the right place. Likewise, you could be a grammy award winning singer or instrumentalist - capable of selling out stadiums across the country, offering what sounds to be beautiful and compelling worship to the Lord, and if your heart, mind and soul are not involved in lifting the honor, praise and glory due to Jesus’ wonderful name, have you actually worshipped or performed?
Worshiping God requires love for God and is an outflow both the emotional and intellectual wonder of who God is. I say intellectual because God designed us to be a thinking people and gave us His word to stimulate both our hearts and our minds. If we only responded to God out of emotions, but not out of the conscious thought of God’s sovereignty and holiness, are we offering to God all that He desires? No!
37 He said to him, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.
2 Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.
15 I will meditate on your precepts and think about your ways.
God wants worship that proceeds both from the emotional centers of our hearts and from the intellectual centers of our minds - that’s one of the reasons why I believe the doctrinal stances we hold are so important! There are many who hold to a health, wealth and prosperity view of God that says God only desires that we be happy, healthy and wealthy, and I believe that such a perverted misunderstanding of who God is and what He desires for us actually impacts the nature and quality of our worship.
I say this because if we are worshipping a god because he promises to make us happy, healthy and wealthy when the God of the Bible never promised us those things, are we worshiping the God of the Bible or a god of our own invention?
Remember the words of Jesus:
24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and in truth.”
We must worship God in truth! So worship comes from two places - from the emotional centers of our hearts, and the intellectual centers of our minds.
God is not honored by worship that is passionate but uninformed, nor by worship that is accurate but cold. He is honored when our hearts are stirred by truth and our minds are anchored in who He has revealed Himself to be. Worship that God desires is not simply an emotional reaction to a moment—it is a response to reality. Yes, worship involves feeling. It involves awe, gratitude, joy, even tears. But those emotions must be rooted in truth—truth about who God is, what He has done, and how He works. God is honored not by worship that is loud but shallow, nor by worship that is sincere but ignorant. He is honored when our hearts overflow because our minds have been shaped by the truth of His character.
When Jesus says we must worship in spirit and truth, He is telling us that worship must involve the whole person. "Spirit" means our hearts must be engaged—real affection, real reverence, real love. But "truth" means our worship must be grounded in reality—not imagination, not preference, not emotion alone, but in who God actually is as He has revealed Himself in His Word.
So the question for us is not, "Did I feel something during worship?"
The question is, "Was my heart responding to truth about God?"
Friends, this is not about criticizing emotion in worship. God created our emotions. He calls us to rejoice, to give thanks, to stand in awe. But Jesus says we must worship in spirit and truth.
And that means this: if our understanding of God is off, then our worship will eventually be off, because we will be responding not to who God has revealed Himself to be, but to a version of God shaped by our assumptions rather than His Wor
Spiritual renewal requires faithful stewardship and holy obedience.
Safeguard the Community (13:1–3)
Safeguard the Community (13:1–3)
Let’s conclude in our passage today, read with me this final section in verses 1-3…
1 At that time the book of Moses was read publicly to the people. The command was found written in it that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever enter the assembly of God,
2 because they did not meet the Israelites with food and water. Instead, they hired Balaam against them to curse them, but our God turned the curse into a blessing.
3 When they heard the law, they separated all those of mixed descent from Israel.
This is, I admit, a difficult passage for me. If you go back in my family line about 170 years or so, one side of my family owned a small tobacco plantation in the south with the typical workforce you would see in a southern tobacco plantation at the time - salves. The way it was explained to me is that my family’s history as slave owners put my ancestors in a particularly deeply-rooted position of racism that has lasted all this time. I’ve never had contact with the more extreme extensions of my family that still live in that area of the country, but I know that the sentiments of their hatred were taught through the generations, even to me as a young child - teachings of which I am thoroughly glad that Jesus has rescued me from and has used His word to teach me that all men are created equal under heaven.
But family, I wont lie - this is a hard passage to understand - especially from our context as 21st century American Christians. The church - after all - is supposed to be made up of people from all sorts of different backgrounds and ethnicities (all of which started with the Jews and Gentiles throughout Acts and the Epistles). However, I was reminded in the course of my study that this is still an Old Testament text and might not have a 1:1 counterpart within the church. The Jewish nation was following after commands given to them by God for a specific purpose for a specific time. Originally, we see in the books of Exodus, Deuteronomy and Joshua where God commands the Israelites not to intermarry with the pagan nations around them because God didn’t want their women to be led astray to worshiping false god’s by pagan husbands, or the sons of Israel being led astray by their pagan wives either. It was a policy God put into place to keep idolatry out of the Israelite’s camp because God even said:
5 Do not bow in worship to them, and do not serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, bringing the consequences of the fathers’ iniquity on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me,
He goes on later to explain in
12 Be careful not to make a treaty with the inhabitants of the land that you are going to enter; otherwise, they will become a snare among you.
13 Instead, you must tear down their altars, smash their sacred pillars, and chop down their Asherah poles.
14 Because the Lord is jealous for his reputation, you are never to bow down to another god. He is a jealous God.
15 “Do not make a treaty with the inhabitants of the land, or else when they prostitute themselves with their gods and sacrifice to their gods, they will invite you, and you will eat their sacrifices.
16 Then you will take some of their daughters as brides for your sons. Their daughters will prostitute themselves with their gods and cause your sons to prostitute themselves with their gods.
What we see in Nehemiah 13:1-3 isn’t racism or hatred-based segregation like we would see in the Jim Crow laws in the 1950’s and 1960’s South. It was a desire to get back to what the Lord had commanded of them to refrain from relationships that would pull them farther away from the Lord rather than draw them closer. I believe that is where the 1:1 application comes to the church.
How many people do we have in our lives that lead us further away from the Lord than they lead us closer to Him? How many people do we - potentially - lead further from the Lord than closer to Him? There are people in our lives who we should definitly be careful to how much influence we allow them to have in our lives. We should always strive to be people who posibitively impact a person’s walk with the Lord, either through evangelism to help them get to know the Lord for the first time, or through discipleship, where we mentor younger Christians and help them grow and develop in their maturity in Christ and in their spiritual disciplines that will yield fruit throughout their entire lives.
Scripture teaches us that influence is powerful, and therefore wisdom sometimes requires limits. We are called to love all people, but we are not called to give all people equal influence in our lives.
20 The one who walks with the wise will become wise, but a companion of fools will suffer harm.
17 Now I urge you, brothers and sisters, to watch out for those who create divisions and obstacles contrary to the teaching that you learned. Avoid them,
33 Do not be deceived: “Bad company corrupts good morals.”
This is safeguarding the community as a whole because the intention of the Jews of time was not to expound ethnicity-based hatred, but rather to get as close to the baseline as they could that they saw illustrated for them in Scripture. They were trying to enact the boundaries that God told their ancestors were important, but to their disgrace, they ignored. They didn’t want to ignore God anymore, so they were going back to the commands as simply as they possibly could. Boundaries will look very different for different communities at different times.
There was a book released by Henry Cloud called “Boundaries.” It was a good book, but caused no little stir in the modern church as many people used it as permission to cut off relationships with non-Christians in their lives when that wasn’t the case Cloud was making. He rather intended to communicate the same idea I believe this portion of our passage today is also trying to communicate:
Healthy communities establish wise boundaries based on God’s desire for the community to thrive.
So it would be a pertinent question to ask - what boundaries does Sprague Community Church have in place or need to put in place to help it thrive the way God desires a community to thrive?
A few common boundaries that we see (some of these I have discussed with the board at length) would be:
Formal church membership requiring prospective members be regenerate, born-again believers in Christ. A formal membership structure would put into place safe guards to ensure only those people voting in various measures are those who actually have a stake in how those measures are played out. Formal membership would ensure that there is an equal amount of commitment from the people coming to the church as the people would want the church to have for them. I wont get into the nitty-gritty on church membership, but that is a valuable boundary that many churches have put into place - “You cannot have voting rights if you are not a committed member of the church…”
Unrepentant sin cannot be tolerated within the church. Matthew 18 describes a process that the Lord Jesus put in place for us Himself that describes how to confront a brother or sister in sin in the hope that they repent and be restored in their relationship with the Lord - it’s never meant to be punitive (or for the sake of punishment) but is rather designed as a restorative measure to help people see how serious of a situation they are in.
Another boundary for the church that would be a decent point of consideration would be the idea of qualifications of leaders - Elders and Deacons are given specific qualifications in Scripture that are an essential part of their ministry. Don’t hire a pastor with an anger problem or a drinking problem - those go directly against Scripture. Don’t have deacons in place that are given to a lot of gossip or quarreling - those go against Scripture too!
Those would be just a few examples of healthy boundaries that would help a Christian community thrive.
Spiritual renewal requires faithful stewardship and holy obedience.
Conclusion
Conclusion
This text speaks directly to a reality many churches face:
They experience renewal… but fail to maintain it.
Not because they lack passion, but because they lack: Systems, Accountability, Boundaries or even Ongoing obedience.
Spiritual renewal requires faithful stewardship and holy obedience.
It’s not something done overnight or simply reset with new systems put in place or a new pastor - the onus for this is on everyone: every single person in a church has a role to play in being faithful to the Lord and being willing servants for His use. If we were a people who only anted to come and fellowship with one another - devoid of want God commands of us - than we are nothing more than a social club and guilty of the darkest of all sins - using the Lord’s name in vain - claiming to be His but living for ourselves instead. Social clubs don’t need pastors, or worship leaders, or even Bibles - they can be whatever the whim of the establishment desires - but a church, in order to be the church, must strive after belonging to God in Christ Jesus with everything it has. When God starts a revival, it is not a work He is intending to be completely on Himself alone, but He is recruiting the church to participate in a long and faithful obedience in what He has called us to.
My hope and prayer today is that we have heard about the importance of being faithful to God by continuing the revival work He starts under His loving care and guidance. No community of faith can survive if being faithful to Christ is of low priority. We cannot fall into the habits of this world that say obedience is a pre-cursor to legalism: it’s not! Just because that’s what ended up happening with the Jews and the Pharisee’s doesn’t mean that it will necessarily happen to a Christian community seeking after the Lord in His Word. It requires sensitivity to the Holy Spirit and it requires humility to Christ. Coming to Christ in every situation and acknowledging his superiority in understanding and wisdom, asking Him for guidance and grace along the way is the best possible place for a community to be.
“Revival is not finished when the walls are built. Revival is finished when faithfulness continues.”
Let’s pray
