Renewal (Nehemiah Week 5)

Hey there, everybody. Hope everybody had a great week so far. I'm recording this talk tonight on Thursday. And we're going to continue our time series in Nehemiah and tonight will be week 5 as we prepared to close out the book of Nehemiah on this Saturday at Faith Tri-Cities at 6 p.m. Where we will conclude this book together has been a fun series. I'm all talk more about why I'm so passionate about this book at the end of my top tonight before I get into tonight's talk. I want to ask you a question. I what do you do to get refreshed? When you find yourself feeling down and out. My challenge for you is to begin to discover and position yourself to get refreshed. If your juiceless you're useless, that's what a mentor of mine tells me. He challenges me every day to bring the juice in every aspect of my life. I will admit Sunday's I'm really good at it either days or moment. I'm not so good at it. But we want to be people that's full of juice Full of Life full of joy with taxes and to Nehemiah a week 5. I challenge you to go back and listen to the four previous weeks on the book of Nehemiah. You can do that through our website at try to Gathering. Com. You can watch or listen I'm tonight. I'm going to focus on a lot of content, but I'm going to focus on Nehemiah 9 and 10 a little bit. Which will take us to the last few chapters on Saturday night to conclude the series. So in Nehemiah 8 we are now at the point in the story where the completion of the wall and the Gates of Jerusalem are done as we learned last week. It took 52 days to do it. That was very quick very efficient. And it was because it was a team effort. It wasn't necessarily the most gifted people in building Outlaw. It was people that were willing and passionate about the purpose. That was a that was given to them by God. Azra, enters a story here in chapter 8 I I spoke about Ezra in week 1 of this series. If you want to know more about who he is and he was a priest and inside of chapter 8. What happens is he brings out the pentateuch? Where was the first five books of the Old Testament and he literally just begins to read it out loud to them? 40000 to 50,000 people are were in attendance. That's a lot of people all the people gathered to learn and listen. In other words. They gathered together to grow and go live it out in their culture sound familiar. They participated in a form of corporate worship and they did it attentively that word attentively is used in different translations inside of chapter 8. They were attentive the entire time as Ra was reading scripture to them. And while this was happening people were weeping people were praising people were agreeing with Ezra as he was reading, but I want to focus on the people who were weeping and why they were weeping simply because they were full of guilt. Jill Came Upon them because they realize in that moment when they were hearing the readings of scripture. They had realized in their hearts and their lives in their actions and their words and their demeanor that they were so separated from God the one true God their savior the god that their ancestors were taken through Incredible Journey where he he rescued them and he gave them incredible favors read that whole entire rescue. Specifically in Nehemiah chapter 10, it says for the joy of the Lord is my strength a very common saying throughout scripture so much so that this meant for them and this particular moment azra want this moment to be a time of Joy a time of remembering the promises of a God who wants to rescue and redeem their stories, even though they had turn their back on him. So he literally instructed them that tonight they were to go and eat drink and celebrate. That sounds familiar to me. It sounds like something that we just did as a church last weekend with our dinner groups. I've told you guys this before everything that we do at the Gathering everything that we do and say has a purpose. There's a y behind it. You may not catch it in the moment, but you may catch it a day a week a month or a year from now we are hah I get it now. That's what was happening inside this story at that time as well. He didn't want them weeping. He wanted them as road wanted in celebrating remembering that his promises that were given to this ancestors were coming true and they had a part in it and that God was not done with them and he'll never be done with them because God Delights in you and rejoices over you. You see after the people at 8 and celebrated. They returned the next day for more. They were challenged to start back up old fils old traditions that help remember God's promises for them. This kept them full of joy. You see when we remember God's promises. It's impossible for joy to not take over our thoughts and our minds because his strength conquers all no matter what obstacle or fear stands in your way his strength conquers all through there are times. Excuse me through our X gathering together. That was when we began to be rebuilt and renew. It's the same for us. It was the same for them. See this is what happens when we take time to be in God's presence to gather together to be to learn about him. It's a praise him. It's a wheat to him. We begin to be rebuilt and renewed just like they were in chapter 8 What was cool their identity in this moment began to be reshaped back to its original purpose and we learned and Week 1 our purpose is shown to us when we spend time in his presence Nehemiah spent time in God's presence through prayer and learned his purpose the same is true for us and we take time to be in his purpose together on Saturday nights when we when we gather together just to hang out that is when his purpose is revealed to us. You see day remembered not who they were in this moment. They remembered they were witches we talked about that in our previous series. That's what matters. That's what we need to remember whose we are. You know, who you are. You are a son and daughter of the one true God you are image bearers of him. Let's fast-forward to Nehemiah 9 and Nehemiah 10 people continue to prioritize and me and my nine gathering together. They began Now to respond to what they're learning. They want to go now and live it out. So they begin to consistently set aside time to gather in large groups in small groups and they take time to fast praise God confess their sins the guy and begin to ask God for incredible things in their lives. They can include their time by committing their lives moving forward to remaining faithful to the one true God in the promises that he promised their ancestors into them chapter 10 is literally I just a list of all who signed and sealed this commitment. So here's the ultimate recap for you his strength to hide strength conquers. All that leads to Joy that leads to remembering the promises that lead to remembering you are an image Bearer III son and daughter of the one true God do you believe it is your life and thoughts right now showing that showing that Will you commit the Gathering on a daily basis with God will you commit to growing and beginning to live out what you are learning inside of those times? If you struggle with this reach out to us, we would love to provide support and resources to help you out. Might I ask of you tonight and moving forward as is will you commit to making the Gathering on Saturday night a regular occurrence for you? And your family? I promise you doing this will put you in your household in the best possible position to grow and go live out of life that leads to Joy out of life that leads the transformation to lead lead to rebuilding and reshaping and things will begin to be revealed to you that you never could have ever imagined. So will you commit also to join a community group at the Gathering? We have three of them offered you can go on our website try the Gathering. Calm and sign up for one through our connect card. They happen twice a month your group leader. Once you sign up will reach out to you with those dates and times and in locations. It's a smaller a gathering of of a circle of people that come together to eat and celebrate together. Just like we just read in chapter 8 because we truly believe life change happens in circles. Not Rose. We talked about Jesus right? Because Jesus is the reason for everything. Jesus wants to do three things in your life tonight tomorrow and forever. He wants to rebuild renew Andres shape. Let me see that again. She wants to rebuild you. He wants to renew you. He wants to reshape you. He wants you to know that you're loved that you're forgiven. You're empowered that you are full for the joy of the Lord is your strength with Jesus. You are a conqueror. The promises have not changed. We must remember that if not about who you are. It's who you are. So whatever you were up against tonight or tomorrow or next Monday, whatever Obstacle of fear staying in the way. His strength conquers all let's pray father. Thank you for everybody. Who hears this? Thank you for everybody who will be at the Gathering on Saturday and the rest of our Gatherings Moon forward God. I pray that you will begin to rebuild renew and reshape individuals families and this church and more importantly the community needs you father. I pray that this is the beginning of a time just like it was in the time of Nehemiah and Ezra as they were trying to reshape a culture a community. That was lost help us do the same thing for our own live our own homes in our own communities help us. Remember that your strength conquers all your name. I pray before I leave you guys with a couple of announcements are some things that are coming up that are really exciting and time-sensitive. The first one is Easter is coming fast for 2 weeks away actually less than 2 weeks. Week and a half away. Who are you inviting? Who are you going to have sit by you? Is it a neighbor? Is it a co-worker is an awesome time for a lucky couple that will be drawn out of a hat on where they'll get a free night stay at a resort with all of it covered on us for one night. We will also provide dinner and dessert through food trucks that night. We will provide family photos. We will have great music and awesome talk and the coolest part about it. All is that it's all three who you bringing think about it pray about it and invite them. Like I said before our church is only going to grow if we all buy into the purpose behind it and going out and inviting people. This is the last one. I think I want to share with you is this Saturday? We are gathering at Faith Tri-Cities at 6 p.m. Everything is back to normal after last week's dinner groups. We're going to have an awesome night of worship while conclude the series of Nehemiah. I'm super excited for what we're going to talk about on Saturday. I'll give you a little teaser about it, but it's about setbacks and how I believe your setback can become a set up for the ultimate come back which will lead us right into Easter which goes right with that theme, so I'm praying for you guys. I think about you guys constantly. If you ever need anything, please reach out to me if anyone knows my schedule just reach out. I'll make time. I promise I can't help you if I don't know something's going on, so Have a great rest of the knights and a Friday tomorrow, and I hope to see everyone Saturday. Thanks for listening.