Let the word of Chriat dwell in you richly.....
Notes
Transcript
4-5 year olds you are dismissed at this time to go up to children’s church.
The rest of you, go ahead and grab your Bibles and open them to the book of Nehemiah. Today we’re going to cover 2 chapters…Neh. 11-12, so we have a lot to get across. My plan is to spend 2 more weeks in this book..I hope. And think.
I know I’ve mentioned this already, but happy Mother’s Day to all of those in the room. Honestly, as a pastor, this is one of the most difficult holidays to navigate. I want to honor all of the mom’s in here—mine specifically & the mother of my children—because of what you do. Your job is often thankless, unseen, and never-ending. One day is absolutely not enough to express our gratitude for you.
On the other hand, I recognize that this holiday for many women is just another reminder of what they can’t have, never had, or lost. It hurts. In fact, I know women who just stay home on Mother’s Day. The grief is real. The feeling of the curse of sin found in Gen. 3 is evident. And if that’s you, I’m sorry.
Regardless of which of those two camps you fall into, I think Neh. 11-12 offers us a word of encouragement and direction today. Motherhood is hard. We long for a day when there isn’t conflict, or loss; stuff stays clean, and we’re physically & emotionally rested. More than that…we long for a day when there’s no sin, no death, no curse. And because Christ has come once we can be certain that he will return and give our hearts their complete rest. But until Jesus returns, you labor. And that’s not just true of mothers…it’s true of all of us.
What we’ve looked at so far in Nehemiah is this movement…it’s a movement of God’s people building the city, the temple, and the walls with the hope and the expectation that God’s people will dwell in God’s land amidst God’s presence. Neh. 11-12 is the culmination of it. The building has been accomplished and now to dedicate the wall and to fill the city the people throw a huge worship service and celebration. God’s faithful provision had led the people to worship.
Worship the Lord because of His faithfulness.
Worship the Lord because of His faithfulness.
And that’s is true for us too. God’s faithfulness should lead us to worship. Whether life is good or bad…whether Mother’s Day is joyous our heartbreaking…we have faithful God. So Neh. 11-12 then calls us to: Worship the Lord because of His faithfulness.
What we’re about to look as is the description of the wall dedication & in it we’re going to see 8 different ways in which the people worshipped the Lord on this day of historic celebration. Since this is such a long passage with a couple lists of names, I’m going to read the main narrative portions of the text as we go. Let’s start with Neh. 11:1-2, pray, and then we’ll dive into it.
Now the leaders of the people lived in Jerusalem. And the rest of the people cast lots to bring one out of ten to live in Jerusalem the holy city, while nine out of ten remained in the other towns. And the people blessed all the men who willingly offered to live in Jerusalem.
This is God’s Word for God’s people. And we respond: Thanks be to God. Let’s pray.
We worship the Lord because of His faithfulness, and there’s 8 ways we see the Israelites do that here. Here’s the first:
1. Worship sacrificially.
1. Worship sacrificially.
Last week the people made a commitment to not neglect the house of God. It’s the very last phrase of chapter 10. They were on a wholehearted mission to living in the presence of God. Almost everything is at it should be except one thing…the city of Jerusalem is sparsely populated. The promises God had made to his people pointed towards a complete restoration of the city—which included a thriving metropolis bustling with people. But in order for that to happen either generations would have to pass, or people had to be willing to give up what was comfortable, preferred, and maybe even seemingly ideal—everything—and move to the city of Jerusalem.
So they cast lots to see who would go. Now, this isn’t some sort of gambling or game of luck. Instead, the people all seemed to have a disposition of, “I’ll go,” but needed clarity on who should go. To cast lots was to look to the Lord and ask him to provide that. “What they preferred was secondary to what the Lord wanted” as one commentator said. And another pointed out, “Before sacrifices could be made in Jerusalem they had to be made in the people’s lives.”
Now there’s a number of practical application that I think we can take from this…while the people of Israel are a good, but flawed illustration of complete obedience to the Lord, they point to someone greater. Someone who would come later and say, “Lord, let this cup pass from me, but not my will but yours be done.” Jesus was obedient to the Father to the point of death, even death on a cross. The Israelites obedience was to bring about relational renewal with God, but fell short. But they pointed towards a greater reality…one in which God would dwell with His people through Christ by the Spirit. And now through repentance and faith in Jesus you receive the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
When Christ dwells within you then, your obedience is actually empowered by His presence. Sacrifice then—laying aside what is comfortable, or even makes the most sense—doesn’t become some obligatory measure we take, it actually is something we step into willingly & in faith because we know that in our sacrifice & in our suffering we will come into deeper communion with Jesus which is what the Israelites desired and what Paul talks about in Philippians.
So then the question becomes, where is it that Jesus is calling you to sacrifice so that you might know His faithfulness and worship him more fully? If Jesus called you to sell your home and move somewhere else so that His presence might be known and experienced through you, would you say yes? Have you already said yes? What if He asked you to share the gospel with your neighbor or coworker? Do you treasure Jesus so much that you’d sacrifice anything to see Him be worshipped?
The second point of application from this I think is actually discerning where God is calling you. We don’t have to cast lots, we have His Spirit. God has granted unto us all things that are necessary for life & godliness through His Word & by His Spirit. So you can ask, wait, and trust that He will bring clarity and when he does you can step forward in faith trusting in God’s faithfulness and not your understanding or ability to carry out what it is God is calling you to.
The faithfulness of God displayed through the cross calls us to worship sacrificially. The second thing is calls us to is to:
2. Worship in community.
2. Worship in community.
I’m sure you’ve caught on to this by now, but there’s a quite a few lists of names in the books of Ezra-Nehemiah. We could zoom out further and look at the whole of the Old Testament and there’s even more lists. We might skip over them for time’s sake, or so that you don’t have to listen to my terrible Hebrew pronunciation. But these lists have a point. They do tell us something and God has preserved them in His Word for all of time. Why?
God does not and has not accomplished his mission through lone rangers. There is a long list of faithful people who have remained committed to Him that have carried forth his mission to make His glory known throughout the earth. And the other thing these lists show us is that people served in different ways and different places according to their talents & abilities.
If you have your Bibles just run your eyes over the first few phrases of each paragraph in chapter 11…v3 “these are the chiefs of the province”…v7 “these are the sons of Benjamin”…V10 “Of the priests”…V15 “Of the Levites”…V19 “the gatekeepers”…v22 “The overseer of the Levites”…v25 “and as for the villages”…different people in different places serving in different roles. In restoring His people, God is reestablishing interdependent worship life.
The point is God has given you specific gifting, ability, and passions so that you can make the glory of God known in unique ways. Those gifts aren’t for you to just serve yourself, but to serve the whole body. And when we do use the gifts God has given us to serve the body…what happens? People worship! Are you helping cultivate worship by using the gifts God has given you?
One of the specific ways people use their gifts in this passage is directly tied to music. So the third way we worship is musically.
Worship musically.
Worship musically.
There’s actually a couple of places within the list of names that people who lead music or are participating in singing are mentioned. But let’s go ahead and jump down to Neh. 12:27-29
And at the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem they sought the Levites in all their places, to bring them to Jerusalem to celebrate the dedication with gladness, with thanksgivings and with singing, with cymbals, harps, and lyres. And the sons of the singers gathered together from the district surrounding Jerusalem and from the villages of the Netophathites; also from Beth-gilgal and from the region of Geba and Azmaveth, for the singers had built for themselves villages around Jerusalem.
We’re going to come back to these verses towards the end, but notice there is singing with cymbals, harps, and lyres. One of my professors, Tony Merida, pointed out that each of those instruments had different purposes for different genres of music. Cymbals are loud and for leading a joyous procession. Harps are more quiet and intimate. Lyres…well, we just don’t trust them. I’m kidding.
The point is that the music they sang covered the spectrum. Honestly, we try to do something of the same thing here at Liberty. Often we start with a song that’s got a little more pep in the step. But it tends to work its way towards a more somber and intimate type of music.
The other thing worth noting about their music is found down towards the end. Look at Neh. 12:46
For long ago in the days of David and Asaph there were directors of the singers, and there were songs of praise and thanksgiving to God.
David and Asaph…these two guys account for 85 of the 150 psalms. The music that Nehemiah & Ezra are signing and probably even the tunes they’re accompanied by had been sung by the Israelite people for over 500 years.
Our faith not only spans a large community, it covers all of history. It is a good thing for us to not just know our heritage, but to sing the songs that carried the saints before us through life.
I’m sure you know the story of It is Well with My Soul, but it’s worth telling again. Horatio Spafford, a successful Chicago lawyer & businessman lost his young son to scarlet fever & then that same year lost much of his fortune in the Great Chicago Fire. Wanting to get away and rest and recover he decided to book a trip to Europe for his wife & four daughters. They went on ahead of him on a ship but during the journey their boat collided with another and all four of his daughters drowned. His wife sent a telegram back home with the words “Saved alone” on it.
He boarded the first ship he could and as he drew near the location where his four daughters had drown he penned the words:
When peace like a river, attendeth my way
When sorrows like sea billows roll
Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say
It is well, it is well, with my soul.
The theological richness, the life experience and depth found in some of the great hymns of old—this is just one of them—help carry us forward.
That doesn’t mean we forsake the new. There was a time when It is Well with My Soul was a modern pop song. Hard to think, right? There is still people using their gifts to serve the community by writing new music that is really good and helpful. We try to balance both, and honestly, I’d encourage you to do the same in your personal life. There is place & a time for loud music, and there’s a place and time for something more quiet. God in his faithfulness has given us both to worship Him with, so worship musically.
Number 4:
Worship purely.
Worship purely.
We have a group of people who have made the sacrificial decision to move to Jerusalem permanently. The entire nation has reorganized itself around where they live and the roles they serve in so that worship can continue. They’ve brought back the greatest hits from 5 centuries ago…it’s the first Wow hits cd. If you know, you know. Yet before they get this ceremony started, they purify themselves.
And the priests and the Levites purified themselves, and they purified the people and the gates and the wall.
While the songs, the location, the instruments are all important, the heart of the people matters more. Raymond Brown points out, “The Lord is not moved by lofty words and captivating tunes if he discerns unworthy and unacceptable things in our lives.”
Yes, the people did offer sacrifices to purify themselves, but it wasn’t just the act of sacrificing an animal, it was the heart behind it.
David pointed out this exact thing in his prayer after being confronted about Bathsheba.
For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
If we show up to this place thinking that by our singing of words, or giving, or observing the Lord’s Supper that those good deeds will help outweigh our sin and get us back in good graces with God then we’re painfully mistaken. The Lord has granted us these things to remind us of His faithfulness in the midst of our brokenness.
I caught a clip of Matt Chandler unpacking, as he likes to say, “Blessed are the pure in heart.” He said we tend to think that once we’re pure in heart by doing all these good things that then we can come to the Lord and hear from him or earn his favor, but that’s not purity, that’s dishonesty. “God knows whether the words on our lips are matched by the quality of our lives.” Being pure in heart is coming to the Lord and saying, yeah, that’s true of me. Yes I failed there. Yes I chose pleasure, comfort, or control here. And looking to Jesus saying, I’m sorry, but I need you to deal with that too. It’s seeing our sin for what it truly is, allowing it to break our hearts, and then taking those broken hearts to Jesus to be bound up. And here’s the thing, Jesus delights in saving you.
So to worship purely then for you and me means that we walk into this place not necessarily trying to hide our limp. But to come in here honestly before the Lord and one another saying, Jesus help me. And I love this line I read this week, “The miracle of grace is that the God who exposes our sin does not cast away the brokenhearted.’ So I can truly come here saying, the joy of the Lord will be my strength and I need to be reminded of that. There is joy in the house of the Lord because He has brought His people together to worship in His presence.
So worship purely.
The fifth thing we see them do is:
Worship loudly.
Worship loudly.
After the priests and levites have purified everything the ceremony begins. Look down to Neh 12:31
Then I brought the leaders of Judah up onto the wall and appointed two great choirs that gave thanks. One went to the south on the wall to the Dung Gate.
Then verses 32-37 talk about the direction that this first choir went up and around the wall with their instruments. Then Neh. 12:38
The other choir of those who gave thanks went to the north…
Two different choirs ascend the wall that surrounds the city. One going one way, the second the other. It reminds me of that one July where we turned the chairs in the auditorium. A lot of you weren’t here for that, but we split the auditorium in half…this half facing that direction and that half facing the other. Don’t worry, I don’t plan to do that this July. I actually kinda liked it. You had each half of the room singing towards one another. It seemed to make it louder. Which is exactly the descriptor of these two choirs. Look to Neh. 12:43
And they offered great sacrifices that day and rejoiced, for God had made them rejoice with great joy; the women and children also rejoiced. And the joy of Jerusalem was heard far away.
Do you remember the role of the people of Israel? They were to be witness to the surrounding nations. They were to testify to who The Lord of heavens and earth truly was. Their rejoicing was so loud that it was heard far away. They were fulfilling what God had called them to do by the way they worshipped because a restored people cannot contain their joy in the Lord.
Our worship is a way we testify to the glory of God. When we come in here with our arms folded and just sitting there or standing there and we’re not engaged what are we saying about the God we are singing to, praying to, giving to, or hearing His Word proclaimed? But when we wholeheartedly engage…whether that’s during our singing or our time of prayer or giving or listening to the sermon…do you know what our children see? Do you know what a guest sees? They see, they encounter a group of people who actually believe in what we’re proclaiming. There’s a sense of vitality to what we do.
Look, I like quality musicianship. Our band is great and they work so hard to every week to come prepared to lead us. Thank you. But truth be told, we’re not professionals. I understand the desire for that…shoot, I get to play some and I wish I was that. But, what serves as a greater testimony to who God is…a killer band, with a killer worship set, or a group of people who sing so loud that you can’t even hear the band? My favorite Sundays are the ones when I can say, man, our people sang today. I’m glad I can say that pretty often to be honest.
Yes, there are some of you who can’t carry a tune in a bucket, but I’d rather hear bad singing than no singing at all. If our inability to sing well is what prevents us from singing, then who are we really singing for?
I can’t get the line from the movie Elf out of my head…remember they’re trying to get everyone to have the Christmas spirit, and Buddy the Elf says, “The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear.” The way we sing does soo much more than spread cheer…it witnesses to those around us about the God who has come to save us.
So when you worship, do so wholeheartedly. Do so loudly. It affects your heart, and the hearts of those around you. When our hearts are full of joy because of the faithfulness of the Lord, it flows out for others hear. Which leads me to our next point:
Worship rejoicingly.
Worship rejoicingly.
Look again at. Neh. 12:43
And they offered great sacrifices that day and rejoiced, for God had made them rejoice with great joy; the women and children also rejoiced. And the joy of Jerusalem was heard far away.
Now, we’re going to take our last 3 points here and I want to bring clarity to 3 words that I think are really important here at the end of Nehemiah 12. Starting with rejoice…we see this word 3 times in this verse. “To rejoice centers on emotional exultation and bodily expression. The Hebrew term conveys “a smiling, cheerful, merry countenance, free from care.”
In Neh. 12 there is an emphasis to how big a deal this was. In verse 31 there’s “two great choirs.” In verse 43, “they offer great sacrifices” with “great joy.” The reason they do this is because a great God had made them to rejoice.
If we were to go back to Nehemiah 9 where we studied the people’s confession you’d find in Neh. 9:19 that in God’s “great mercies” he did not forsake the people of Israel in the wilderness. And then in Neh. 9:25 you’d find that because of God’s “great goodness” the people ate and were filled. Yet according to God’s great compassion he remained faithful to his people and in doing so he made them rejoice.
When the people of God have experienced and reveled in the the faithfulness of our great God they can’t help but have hearts that become so full that they rejoice…they smile, be cheerful, have a merry countenance, free from care. It flows out of them without even trying because God did it.
We started with Is. 61:10 this morning
I will greatly rejoice in the Lord;
my soul shall exult in my God,
for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation;
he has covered me with the robe of righteousness,
When we remind ourselves of what God has done for us in Christ; when we see that in Jesus we are clothed in His salvation; and because of that when God looks at us He doesn’t relate to us according to our mess, but according to the robe of righteousness that is granted to us through faith in Jesus what flows out of our heart is rejoicing. God causes us to rejoice with great joy. It’s what leads to loud worship.
This causes me to pause and ask, has your loud singing, your reflections, your meditations on the work of God caused you to rejoice? While the winds of life are blowing all around us today, can you come into this place, pause, remember, and truly rejoice because of what God has done? When we truly revel in and recognize the goodness of our God we can’t help but worship rejoicingly.
God’s faithfulness to the people of Israel led them to worship rejoicingly—outwardly, but it also caused them to worship with thanksgiving. That’s point number 7.
Worship with thanksgiving.
Worship with thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving is what the people came with to celebrate the dedication of the wall. Look back at Neh. 12:27
And at the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem they sought the Levites in all their places, to bring them to Jerusalem to celebrate the dedication with gladness, with thanksgivings and with singing, with cymbals, harps, and lyres.
Now our last point will be gladness, but let’s unpack thanksgiving for a second. These three words—gladness, thanksgiving and rejoicing. If rejoicing is what flows out and is seen in us, then thanksgiving is the disposition of the heart that is directed towards God. I read it summarized this way: “Thanksgiving acknowledges God’s specific work in restoration and blessing, making it more reflective & acknowledging than pure emotional joy.”
I’m working backwards here. We started with outward expression—rejoicing—and are moving inward towards heart disposition. But why is this distinction important? I heard the phrase once, “confident liar.” We’re at risk of walking into this place, of living in Christian community as confident liars. We can put on the exterior of rejoicing all the while having a heart disposition of bitterness.
Hebrews 12:15 warns against that. It tells us that bitterness springs up and causes trouble when we fail to receive the grace of God. But Eph. 4:31-32
Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
You can put away all bitterness because God in Christ has forgiven you. When you receive the forgiveness that God gives what happens to your heart? You become tender. You become forgiving. You become thankful.
Now I want to be clear…bitterness & sorrow are not the same thing. The irony and beauty of the Christian is that they can walk into this place with hearts that are sad, hurt, and yet thankful. Jesus helps rightly emote so that the brokenness of the world can and does bring us to tears, but it doesn’t leave us there. The cross meet us in our sorrow and transforms it into rejoicing, because the empty tomb tells us that all sad things become untrue in Jesus.
So then, what is the true disposition of your heart this morning? Why are you rejoicing? Can you rejoice? We can worship rejoicingly because we have a heart of thanksgiving, but there’s one last undergirding principle to our thanksgiving. That’s point 8
Worship with gladness.
Worship with gladness.
The Hebrew word used in Neh. 12:27 for gladness is the word shimah. It’s also used in Neh. 12:43 for the word joy. The people of Israel worshipped with gladness or joy because God had proven himself to be faithful.
And what did we see about joy back in Nehemiah 8? It isn’t the people’s joy that strengthens them…it’s the joy of the Lord—and what is the joy of the Lord? It’s His redeeming of His people back into His presence. The good news of great joy that the angels tell about at the birth of Jesus is that God has come to redeem his people & through faith in His death and resurrection we might be restored to him.
As a farmer, we talk about soil health. We want to steward the soil that our crops grow in so that they’re healthy and bear much fruit. We don’t want to sterilize or kill or deplete all of the good things in our dirt.
The Scriptures repeatedly show that our hearts are the soil of our lives & left on their own, they’re dead soils. But when we trust in Jesus by repenting of our sins and placing our faith in Him he comes and he brings life into our hearts. When Christ dwells in us, the soil of our hearts are infused with joy because it’s full of him. Joy is the soil in which thanksgiving grows and rejoicing is the fruit that thanksgiving bears.
Now here’s what’s amazing and what Nehemiah shows us…the joy of the Lord isn’t something that’s just believed, it’s experienced. As one scholar put it, “The joy (or gladness) that God gives is genuine and can best be experienced in fellowship with the community of God’s people.”
You see when we gather together and worship the Lord I see in you and you see in me the faithfulness of our God. In our gathering we are reminded of the sacrifice of Jesus to save us scoundrels and that compels us to serve sacrificially for one another so that we might experience and know the great mercy of our God. We long to be in community worshipping musically, sing psalms & hymns and spiritual songs over and to one another so that our hearts might find the joy of the Lord to be our strength. We worship purely, coming truthfully before the Lord with hearts prepared and expecting. We worship loudly because he is the one who makes us pure and draws us in and that causes us to rejoice. Our hearts are thankful because He has made us glad. Our God is faithful. He was faithful in Nehemiah’s day and he’s not stopped. And that causes us to worship.
