Episode 170: Why Worship Feels Empty (Neh. 8:1-12)

Why does worship sometimes feel empty?

In Book of Nehemiah chapter 8, the people of Israel experience something powerful—true, joyful worship. But it doesn’t begin with music, singing, or even celebration.

It begins with God’s Word.

As the people gather during the Jewish feast known as Rosh Hashanah, they listen to the Law for hours. The Word convicts their hearts, leads them to repentance, and ultimately fills them with joy.

And only then does worship overflow.

In this episode of Moments to Ponder, Betsy explores what this moment teaches us about worship today—and why many churches may be missing the very thing that brings worship to life.

You’ll also hear reflections from:
 • a mission trip in Mexico
 • a worship night that looked like a failure—but wasn’t
 • the revival at Asbury University in 2023

Each story points to the same truth:

Worship is not the beginning.
 It’s the response.

If you’ve ever wondered why worship can feel dry—or how it can come alive again—this episode will encourage you to prepare your heart before you ever walk into church.

Take a few moments in God’s Word…
 and discover the joy that leads to real worship.

To find out more about me, or to book a speaking engagement, head to
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Transcript

Welcome And Episode Setup

Rebuilding For Safety And Worship

Feast Of Trumpets Context

Six Hours Of Scripture Reading

Standing For Scripture And Reverence

From Tears To Worship

Asbury Revival As A Parallel

Why Nights Of Worship Fell Flat

Understanding Through Teachers And Levites

Joy Of The Lord Is Strength

The Repeatable Pattern Of Revival

Confession Community And Lasting Joy

A Practical Challenge For Sunday

SPEAKER_00 0:06

What if I told you that there is something missing in our churches today? And it has to do with worship. Worship is often a sticking point in churches. It causes people to share strong opinions and even leave their church. But what if worship doesn't start with music? Like many of us think it does? What if it actually starts somewhere else? Today we're in the book of Nehemiah, chapter 8, and there we see the answer. Hi friends, I'm Betsy, and I just want to welcome you to Moments to Ponder. If you're interested in learning more from your Bible, but sometimes struggle to know how it connects to your everyday life, then you've come to the right place. I pray our time together will be an encouragement for you. This is episode 170. As we dive into our study today, the Jerusalem Israelites have finished this amazing wall around the city. And that's not all. God has been working on their hearts. As Nehemiah continually reminded them of the why behind the wall building, which was safety and worship, they kept looking toward that. I mean, think about it: safety and worship. People need to feel safe before they can gather in this way. And when they are safe, they're able to spend time listening and opening their hearts to what God has for them. Safety and community is something that's been built over time as they've built the wall together. It's kind of like when kids aren't hungry, they can't really focus on learning. When people don't feel safe, they can't really focus on what's being taught. But now they're safe. And their hearts are ready. And we're going to see this as the chapter unfolds. We begin in Nehemiah 8. In October, when the Israelites had settled in their towns, all the people assembled with a unified purpose at the square just inside the watergate. They asked Ezra the scribe to bring out the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had given for Israel to obey. Nehemiah notes that it's October, which in the Jewish calendar is the seventh month of the year. It's important because it marks the Feast of the Trumpets, or Rosh Hashanah, which is the first of three important holidays during this month. Understanding this feast actually will bring some clarity as to what's happening in this chapter. This feast commemorated the sounding of the trumpets when the when Moses came down from the mountain with the Ten Commandments. It was to let everyone know that Moses was coming. This feast began a 10-day period known as Yamin Noramim, or days of awe, leading up to the Day of Atonement. For the Jewish people, it was a time of remembering God's covenant and repentance. See, this feast was a reminder that the people lived in a covenant with God and that sin breaks that covenant, thus the need for atonement. And it also reminded the people of God's promises of restoration when repentance was given. So God's promises through his covenant with them. So the people are unified with a purpose. They want to honor this feast, and they ask Ezra to read from the book of the law of Moses as a reminder of God's covenant and his promises. And they're gonna be reminded of what God requires of them. So, verse 2. So on October 8th, Ezra the priest brought the book of the law before the assembly, which included the men and the women and all the children old enough to understand. He faced the square just inside the water gate from early morning until noon, and read aloud to everyone who could understand. All the people listen closely to the book of the law. Everyone is there, men, women, and children, and they're listening to the Bible, which actually the first five books of the Bible, which they call the Torah. These are the books of the laws of Moses. And they're gathered just inside the water gate. So if you remember our city, this is on the east side, fairly close to the temple, and he reads for about six hours. And the people listened closely. I mean, seriously, even the children. Today, most people in church get antsy if it goes over an hour. But these people listened closely for six hours. I mean, they asked Ezra to do this. It wasn't like Ezra said, Come on, you're all gonna listen. They said, We want this. They were hungry for the word of God. And I think that's one of the elements of worship that we miss today. The power of God's word. I'm not talking about sermons, whether they're topical or exegetical, which means verse by verse. I think sermons are really important and I enjoy giving them. But I'm talking about those in attendance, meaning you and me. I think we miss the power of God's word. Meaning do we prepare to hear it? Let me ask you this. Do you prepare for church? You might be thinking, prepare for church? I'm just happy to get there before the first song is done. Or if you're my husband, you're happy to get there when the last song is done. But what if you did prepare it, and I'm not talking clothes? I know that young kids and traffic can derail the best of intentions on a Sunday morning, but what if you took a few minutes to set your heart right before you even get there? What if the greatest preparation for worship is in us in our hearts? The Israelites came so prepared to hear God's word that they listened for hours. And they listened closely. Okay, let's continue into verse four. Ezra the scribe stood on a high wooden platform that had been made for the occasion. To his right stood Matiah, Shema, Anana, Uriah, Hilkiah, and Messiah. And to his left stood Padiah, Mishel, Meliah, Heshem, Heshebandana, and Zachariah, and Meshalam. Ezra stood on the platform in full view of all the people. When they saw him open the book, they all rose to their feet. The builders had made a platform for this day so that everyone could see Ezra and his thirteen helpers, which shows us that this wasn't a spur of the moment decision. It had been planned and prepared for. They knew the feast day and they had asked for this to happen. Ezra, a scholar and scribe, meaning as a scribe, he wrote out the Bible verse by verse so that people could have copies of the scripture. I mean, he knew these scriptures well. And as he opens the book, all the people stand up. Have you ever attended a church service where the people stood for the reading of God's Word? I can still remember my first experience with this. Early in youth ministry, we took our students to Mexicali, Mexico to serve alongside a pastor in his church. We spent the day with children, playing sports and leading women's Bible study. And in the evening, we led a church service for everyone, men, women, and children. And as a part of the service, the pastor would often share. On the very first night with Pastor Rafa, he opened his Bible and everyone stood. So, well, we quickly did too. And as I looked around and listened to Pastor Rafa read his Spanish Bible, it was a moment that deeply affected me, and I hadn't expected it to. I mean, I had owned a Bible my whole life, but the respect and the listening and the importance of God's word that all of these people had, it just hit me like a brick. Did I value God's word like that, or had it just become a book? The people were hungry to hear the scripture. They didn't even put their Bibles on the ground. This radically changed my view of my Bible. I took groups to Mexico for over 17 years, and every time we stood to hear God's word, I was reminded of how important and holy his word is. Now, to be clear, I don't think standing or sitting is the point. It's the value placed. Those moments have shaped me and how I engage with my Bible. And the Israelites stood because they wanted to remember and they wanted to honor the scripture. And they listened to Ezra and others read for six hours. Okay, let's continue in verse six. Then it says, Ezra praised the Lord, the great God, and all the people chanted, Amen, Amen, as they lifted their hands. Then they bowed down and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground. There's a few details in the next verses that we'll come to, but we're going to skip down to verse 9 just for this moment. So they have their faces to the ground, and it says in verse 9, For the people had all been weeping as they listened to the words of the law. So as Ezra has been reading, their hearts have brought them to tears. After time spent in God's word, Ezra is praising the Lord, and the people respond, they've wept, and then they lift their hands and they bow down and worship with their faces to the ground. I mean, as they listen, we can see that they're going through a process. They recognize their sin and they repent of that sin, which is the point of the feast, to remember God's law. And as they listened, they recognized their sin. And then as they remember God's law and his promises, which is the whole point of the Feast of Trumpets, it brings them to repentance. It brings them to tears. But they don't stay in the tears, right? They bow down and they worship. Before we move on, I want you to notice something here. We're seeing it in Nehemiah as just a moment in time, but it's actually a pattern. When people encounter God's word, their hearts are convicted, repentance follows, joy returns, and worship becomes the response. And throughout history, whenever a revival happens, this pattern shows up again, sometimes in small ways, small revivals, and sometimes in really large ones, which seem to be happening all around our college campuses. Let me give you an example. I don't know if you remember it, but in February of 2023, there was a spiritual revival at Asbury University. It flooded the news and the town as students and others worshiped, prayed, sang, and were healed at the small Christian university in Kentucky. What began as a regular chapel had become so much more. And it started with a simple, heartfelt message from a pastor named Zach Meerkrebs. You can actually Google his message if you'd like. He spoke from the book of Romans and he called the students to love and to live this love. And then at the close, he encouraged them to come to the front and pray about it if they wanted to. And a few students actually didn't leave the chapel. And then others came, and still others. And it continued 24-7 for 16 days. It was all over social media and YouTube. It was incredible to watch it unfold. People came literally from all over the world to be a part of it. Later that year, Pastor Zach actually came as a guest to our church, and I can remember being struck by his humility as he literally knelt in prayer on the stage and gave all glory to God. After Zach's visit, our pastor, motivated by the event in Asbury and Zach, was interested in having a night of worship at our church. So he approached the young adult group, which I happened to be leading at the time, and he asked us to have to pull off the night of worship. And as we discussed it with the young adults, they had a lot of ideas. And one was to hold the event on a Saturday night. Okay, pause right there. I need to give you a little backstory. It's good for you to know that the young adults knew what revival worship was like. They had all experienced it in different ways and in different places, and they did have a deep desire for their church to experience it. Now they knew that the majority of the congregation of our church had not ever had this kind of experience and would probably wonder what it was. So kind of keep that in mind. The young adults pushed a little bit, and with honestly, with a shrug, the pastor conceded to having this event on a Saturday night. Our big question was this would people be willing to give up a Saturday night and come to church to worship? Because we knew that would be the feeling. It wouldn't be we get to go to church for a night of worship on a Saturday night. It would be a sacrifice. You can hear the issue there. And it would be telling. Yet as our team prepared, we knew this might be what we would see. We knew we had some hard cultural walls to climb in the worship world. So we just prayed that God would move even if no one else came, if it was just us. My ministry team did show bless their hearts, and and they served and they worshiped. And other than the pastor who asked us to do this, the other pastors from our church didn't come. No other adult worship team leaders came. A couple of the staff. If our pastor was hoping for some radical revival worship movement, this was not it. Yet in that intimate group, there was a baptism and another life that was radically changed by the presence of God. Many of the people there were anointed. There was worship and prayer and words spoken. I mean, it was a night that I will hold on to as a precious time. We knew that worship was not about the audience in the seat. But we also learned that our congregation is not currently drawn to nights like that, especially on a Saturday night. If we were hoping to see revival in our church, we probably should have done a little more work from Nehemiah 8. We needed to see our people get into God's word first at a level that would actually make them uncomfortable. And we needed to call people to confession and repentance and obedience. And when their hearts were transformed, the worship would naturally flow. That's what I see when I look at Asbury and Nehemiah 8. That's the significant piece that I think our churches are missing. That worship is a response, not a beginning. We were trying to start something at our church when a night of worship should have been a response to work God was already doing. If you read Zach Meer Creeb's book lower, you discover that his story and the work that he'd been doing with students had already laid the foundation of getting into God's word. So they were ready to be convicted and repent and go into the wonder of worship. It was the foundation, it was already laid. So when the students stayed, they were responding, not starting. God's word and a humble heart of repentance and gratitude. That's what transforms hearts for worship. And there's one more thing, and we see it in the next section, starting at verse seven. The Levites, Jeshua, Bani, Sherebiah, Jamin, Hekub, Shabbatney, Hodai, Masada, Khalidah, Azariah, Jacobad, Hanan, and Peliah. These Levites then instructed the people in the law while everyone remained in their places. They read from the book of the law of God and clearly explained the meaning of what was being read, helping the people understand each passage. So now Nehemiah is breaking down a bit of what was happening during the six hours. And we get the impression that Ezra read some of the book, maybe his helpers also read, but then these Levites gathered up smaller groups to help them understand what they were hearing. So maybe they did get to sit down for a little bit in those six hours. These small group leaders would have shared context and language differences because it's been hundreds of years since the Torah was written and they needed help understanding. This is still key today. We need people to help us understand much of our Bible because it does have cultural and language differences that give meaning to words. For instance, when you know the background of the Feast of Trumpets, it helps us understand the foundation of why these people are gathered to hear the book of the law. And as the people came to understand what they were hearing, it transformed their hearts. Verse 9. Then Nehemiah the governor, Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who were interpreting for the people said to them, Don't mourn or weep on such a day as this, for today is a sacred day before the Lord your God. For the people had all been weeping as they listened to the words of the law. The people are taking these words to heart, they're taking them personally as they should. And it brings them to tears. They know they have broken God's laws and how they had disobeyed him. But Nehemiah and Ezra are saying, Don't weep. Today is a sacred day. And it goes on in verse 10. And Nehemiah continued, Go and celebrate with a feast of rich foods and sweet drinks, and share gifts of food with people who have nothing prepared. This is a sacred day before our Lord. Don't be dejected and sad, for the joy of the Lord is your strength. And the Levites too quieted the people, telling them, Hush, don't weep, for this is a sacred day. So the people went away to eat and drink at a festive meal, to share gifts of food, and to celebrate with great joy, because they had heard God's words and understood them. There's the pattern. Hearing God's word. His word brings conviction of sin, which leads to repentance. That repentance brings a freedom which connects us to God and brings such joy. And that joy leads to worship. So what's missing in our churches? Are we bringing conviction leading to repentance? Are we remembering the freedom that comes when repentance occurs? And when that freedom comes, it brings joy. And from that, we worship. I'd like to share just one more story with you, real quick. During our week of ministry to the Mexican church for all those years, it was the work of myself and the other leaders to do ministry to our students as they served the Mexican people. And at night, we would lead them through various activities, which, now that I think about it, actually reflect Nehemiah 8. After a time of community building and creating a safe place to discover what God had for us, we took a good look at our lives. We spent a night focused on confession before the Lord. There were a lot of tears and some pain, but the lightness that comes after that confession was tangible. We knew we were loved, that we were forgiven, and that the people around us still saw us as people of God. And that lightness brought joy. We knew Jesus. We knew his sacrifice covered our sin. And we are told in 1 John that if we confess our sin, he is faithful and just to forgive our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And in response to this, we worship. In Mexico, we would worship for hours. Later at fall and spring retreats, the students would worship for hours in response, laughing and singing and praying and simply sitting in his presence and taking it all in. There is such a freedom in that kind of worship. And it's just a reminder that the joy of the Lord is our strength. I learned that whether it was a retreat, a camp, or a mission trip, that we needed to make sure that we revisited this pattern every year, just like the Israelites did. It was a reset, a reminder to get rid of the things that were broken before the Lord and let him bring his healing forgiveness. I learned that true worship is a response to God's word, transforming our heart. And when we bring that to the church, it changes how we experience a Sunday morning. Dear one, here's my challenge for you this week. Before you walk into church this coming Sunday, take a few minutes with God. Open his word, confess what needs to be confessed, quiet your heart, and allow to be cleansed. Then, when you walk into worship, meaning the church service, expect to hear from him so that when the music begins, you're not just singing, you're responding. Because worship was never meant to start the moment the band plays, it begins the moment God's word reaches your heart. Amen.