SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to the Redemption Church Podcast.
SPEAKER_00: We're a church in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada that exists to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission and the spirit of the Great Commandment.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining us today.
SPEAKER_01: You can grab your seat.
SPEAKER_01: It's so good to worship together this morning.
SPEAKER_01: If you have your Bibles, and I hope you do, you can open them up to Nehemiah chapter 8.
SPEAKER_01: And if you don't have a copy of God's Word, the ushers are going to make their way down the aisle, and you can stick your hand, get their attention, and they'd love to give you a copy of God's Word as a gift.
SPEAKER_01: We'd love for you to keep that and to dig into it this week.
SPEAKER_01: As you're turning to Nehemiah chapter 8, I just want to put a few announcements.
SPEAKER_01: Well, one announcement really before you, and that is that this Wednesday we are meeting here for our worship and prayer night.
SPEAKER_01: We love God's presence at this church.
SPEAKER_01: Amen?
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: And so we seek it together, and we're especially excited to seek it together this Wednesday at 7 p.m.
SPEAKER_01: here at ANOVA.
SPEAKER_01: Nehemiah chapter 8, verses 9 to 18.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, as we read God's word, why don't we stand together?
SPEAKER_01: Sorry to make you go up and down and get a little workout in.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what God's Word says in Nehemiah chapter 8, verse 9.
SPEAKER_01: Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people, said to all the people, This day is holy to the Lord your God.
SPEAKER_01: Do not mourn or weep.
SPEAKER_01: For all the people wept as they heard the words of the law.
SPEAKER_01: Then he said to them, Go your way, eat the fat, and drink sweet wine, and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready, for this day is holy to our Lord, and do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.
SPEAKER_01: So the Levites calmed all the people, saying, Be quiet, for this day is holy, do not be grieved.
SPEAKER_01: And all the people went their way to eat and drink, and to send portions, and to make great rejoicing, because they had understood the words that were declared to them.
SPEAKER_01: On the second day the heads of fathers, houses of all people, with the priests and the Levites, came together to Ezra the scribe, in order to study the words of the law.
SPEAKER_01: And they found in 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.
SPEAKER_01: And they 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.
SPEAKER_01: So the people went.
SPEAKER_01: 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 of the water gate, and in the square at the gate of Ephraim.
SPEAKER_01: 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 the day of the people of Israel had not done so.
SPEAKER_01: And there was very great rejoicing.
SPEAKER_01: Day by day, from the first day to the last day, he read from the book of the law of God.
SPEAKER_01: They kept the feast seven days, and on the eighth day there was a solemn assembly according to the rule.
SPEAKER_01: You guys can take a seat.
SPEAKER_01: Last week I was preaching in Nehemiah 8, and in the middle of the sermon I decided to secretly try to do this.
SPEAKER_01: I just hit the eject button.
SPEAKER_01: And as I was parachuting down from the plane that was that sermon in the closing song, I realized that everybody right now is watching me parachute out of this sermon.
SPEAKER_01: You can't say that you have four points and then read all of Nehemiah and then only preach two points and then get away with it.
SPEAKER_01: And so I didn't get away with it.
SPEAKER_01: The church was in pandemonium.
SPEAKER_01: I was surprised in the middle of the week that by splitting that sermon in two, I had not split the whole church in two.
SPEAKER_01: And so this morning we come to the second half of Nehemiah to finish the four-point sermon.
SPEAKER_01: And this morning I actually have three points.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that amazing how God's grace multiplies over the weeks?
SPEAKER_01: So what was a four-point sermon now becomes a five-point sermon.
SPEAKER_01: I also recognize this, though, that it was my intention to preach all of Nehemiah 8.
SPEAKER_01: And in the first half of Nehemiah, what you really have is the requirements that we must bring to God as we gather around the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: We talked that we must gather with a great expectancy, expecting that as the Lord speaks, as his voice echoes through this room through his word, he is gonna have something for us by the power and the presence of his Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: We gather with a great expectancy, but we also talked about how we must gather responsively and what that looks like in our day and age.
SPEAKER_01: And my intention was that maybe 40 to 50 percent would be about the requirements of our gathering, but simple math tells you that when you cut the sermon in half, that 40 to 50 percent actually becomes 80 to 100%.
SPEAKER_01: That was not my intention, and yet I trust that the Lord had a word for us, and as I spoke to many of you over the week, you affirmed that God was speaking to us through his word, not always an easy word.
SPEAKER_01: And yet it builds up this anticipation in me for this week because really what you have in the first half of Nehemiah 8 are the requirements of gathering, and then in the second half, you have the results.
SPEAKER_01: The result of gathering.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, what we found last week, as we talked about gathering expectantly and gathering responsively, really were two keys to the doors of the floodgates of God's grace, that if you open up those floodgates, if you come with a sense of expectancy, if you come desiring to respond to God's word, then you will be filled with the results of God's grace pouring out into your life.
SPEAKER_01: This is what we saw the people of Israel do in the first half of Nehemiah chapter 8.
SPEAKER_01: They said to Ezra, bring the book.
SPEAKER_01: Bring out the book.
SPEAKER_01: And because they had then gathered expectantly, we're told by Nehemiah, listening attentively to God's word, hanging on every word, because they then responded to God's word properly, lifting their voice by saying, Amen, lifting their hands in praise.
SPEAKER_01: What we find then here in verse 12, notice what Nehemiah says, is that they left rejoicing.
SPEAKER_01: All the people went their way to eat and drink and to send portions and to make great rejoicing.
SPEAKER_01: Church, here is God's purpose for you this morning, that as we gather together on a Sunday morning, as we gather around his word, as we say the same thing the Israelites say, bring the book, and we attentively listen to it, we expectantly expect God to speak and we respond properly.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the promise for you that his grace will overflow into your life.
SPEAKER_01: That's the intention here is that what you receive on a Sunday morning is overflowing grace that then overflows into the rest of your week and saturates every day with a sense of God's presence, with a sense of God's grace.
SPEAKER_01: God has a word for you this morning.
SPEAKER_01: And the word is that there is great blessing if we will posture ourselves properly when we gather together to sing God's praise and to sit underneath his word.
SPEAKER_01: Three more postures then for us this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Three more postures we must embrace as we gather together in the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: And the first one I want you to see is this that we gather joyfully.
SPEAKER_01: Now, is it the first one or is it the third one?
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna say the first one in this sermon.
SPEAKER_01: We gather joyfully.
SPEAKER_01: Look here at verse 9 with me and notice that the the people are weeping.
SPEAKER_01: See, you see there in verse 9, for all the people wept as they heard the word of the law.
SPEAKER_01: The people are weeping because they are driven to repentance.
SPEAKER_01: They are in Jerusalem, and they as they read about the feast of the booths, and Ezra from morning, we are told, to mid-afternoon, exposes the law of God to them.
SPEAKER_01: They are weeping because they've seen God's glory and they've seen God's command to keep the feast of booths, but they recognize that because they have been in exile for the last years, in fact, for most of them, their entire life, they have not been able to walk in obedience to God's word.
SPEAKER_01: They're overcome with weeping, they're overcome with a desire for repentance, and I want you to understand that this is the right response.
SPEAKER_01: Conviction is good.
SPEAKER_01: You and I, let me encourage you, you and I ought to seek conviction.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it sounds a little twisted to say that, but the reality is that as we sit under God's word, what we desire is that the scalpel of God's word pierces us open with conviction so that the healing balm of the gospel can then be applied.
SPEAKER_01: I'll give you another illustration of what we're longing for here when you go to the gym and you work out for the first time, there's a lot of muscle soreness.
SPEAKER_01: And if you are in the house with a spouse that is like mine, they find that.
SPEAKER_01: They poke you, they tell Amber, Oh, my shoulders are sore, my lats are sore.
SPEAKER_01: She says, Where's your lats?
SPEAKER_01: She's trying to find the pain.
SPEAKER_01: And I keep telling her that my lats are right here.
SPEAKER_01: You just keep poking right here and you'll find them.
SPEAKER_01: And this is what we want spiritually.
SPEAKER_01: When we open up God's word, we are in the spiritual gymnasium, and the desire that we have is for salvation to be so worked out in our soul that there is this spiritual pain of conviction because we've seen God for who He is, and in the light of who God is, we realize who we are not and enter in conviction.
SPEAKER_01: Conviction is good.
SPEAKER_01: Well, here's the application for us then that as you and I open up God's word, whether it is on a Sunday morning or in our own personal pursuit of the spiritual discipline of reading God's word, our aim is repentance.
SPEAKER_01: This morning, as you gather together as God's church before his word, your prayer ought to be, God, by the power of the presence of your spirit, supernaturally convict me of the ways that I am not living in the light of your holiness and grace, so that I might walk out of here with rejoicing.
SPEAKER_01: Recognize that there's no repentance, there's no joy rejoicing without repentance.
SPEAKER_01: And so we need to take a moment just to ask, what are we doing here?
SPEAKER_01: As we open up, whenever we open up God's word, what are we after?
SPEAKER_01: And I want to remind you that we are not just after knowledge.
SPEAKER_01: Knowledge is good, and I pray that as you receive a steady diet of expositional preaching at this church and you open up God's word regularly in your own study of it, that you get knowledge.
SPEAKER_01: But knowledge will do nothing for you if it just goes beyond that.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to recognize that what we are after this morning is not just encouragement.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not just looking to, you know, sort of provide you with another verse that you can sort of plaster on your morning coffee mug out of context and find encouragement and strength to go on another week.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to recognize that our goal in opening up the scriptures is that we might repent, that we might see God's holiness for what it is and change our lives accordingly.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, we do not just read God's book, we open up God's book to be read by it.
SPEAKER_01: The word of God, we are told, is a living word.
SPEAKER_01: It speaks to you.
SPEAKER_01: And if you are in the right posture, it chases you.
SPEAKER_01: And it finds those areas of life where you're not living in alignment with God's will and God's word, and it exposes it and draws you to a spirit of conviction.
SPEAKER_01: Other words, we don't just aim to interpret what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_01: We aim to allow the Bible to interpret us.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to recognize that it does this by showing us God.
SPEAKER_01: What is this book ultimately about?
SPEAKER_01: It is not ultimately about you, it is ultimately about God.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus says to the Pharisees that they search the scriptures, not understanding that all of the scriptures speak about him.
SPEAKER_01: You open up the Bible and you see God.
SPEAKER_01: You see, when we read God's word, our desire needs to be to see God.
SPEAKER_01: I was reminded of this this week.
SPEAKER_01: My wife is reading through Judges, and she was in Judges 11 when Jephthah makes a vow to offer her daughter, his daughter, up to the Lord, if the Lord will act in his favor.
SPEAKER_01: And it's a pretty brutal portion of Scripture, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01: Because then the Lord moves and He's made this vow and he has to offer up his only daughter as a sacrifice to the Lord, and he for sure did the wrong thing.
SPEAKER_01: Now, let me tell you, when my wife came out of that room, I was really glad she didn't have any practical application to take from that chapter.
SPEAKER_01: I was glad that she didn't say, you know, the Lord spoke to me, and I always want to pull application out, and so I'm just gonna take one of our daughters and say goodbye.
SPEAKER_01: I was glad.
SPEAKER_01: You know what she did see that she shared with me was that she took a step back.
SPEAKER_01: She she saw God's holiness, she saw God's justice, she saw God's righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: This is what we need is to see God.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, what the what the Bible is to us then is it's it's much like a spiritual mirror.
SPEAKER_01: You guys ever woken up in the morning and just like, I'm worried about what I'm gonna see in the mirror this morning?
SPEAKER_01: Is that just me?
SPEAKER_01: I woke up this morning, by the way, and the Lord is, you know, he when you have an illustration, he will really sometimes really drive it in.
SPEAKER_01: And I woke up this morning and I've been trying to really just get to God's word.
SPEAKER_01: I don't want any distraction, I don't want to see how the maple leafs absolutely annihilated the Habs last night.
SPEAKER_01: I just want to keep all that out of my mind, get to God's word.
SPEAKER_01: And so I got to the kitchen table, I opened up God's word, and I lifted up my head, and in front of me is a window, and I saw my reflection in the window.
SPEAKER_01: I was I was terrified.
SPEAKER_01: You know, my hair is getting long, my beard is getting long.
SPEAKER_01: It was not a pretty sight.
SPEAKER_01: And I looked in that reflection, I said, I better spend some time in front of the mirror before I get up to preach this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, it's gonna be an ugly sight.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you guys are thinking right now, oh, so you never got to the mirror, I guess then, eh?
SPEAKER_01: I did.
SPEAKER_01: I did get to the mirror.
SPEAKER_01: Well, here is exactly what happens spiritually when we open up God's word.
SPEAKER_01: He exposes our spiritual flaws, and unless you apply the comb and brush of the gospel, you will remain with this spiritual ugliness.
SPEAKER_01: Now, let's be honest for a minute.
SPEAKER_01: This is why Bible reading is so difficult for some of us.
SPEAKER_01: You ever thought about that?
SPEAKER_01: Like, Bible reading, it should be really easy, shouldn't it?
SPEAKER_01: Like, shouldn't it just be like this?
SPEAKER_01: Shouldn't it be kind of be like the easiest thing to do is just to open a book and to read it, and yet it's hard.
SPEAKER_01: Why is it hard?
SPEAKER_01: Because when you open it, you are confronted.
SPEAKER_01: If you're reading rightly, you're confronted with these spiritual realities that you must deal with.
SPEAKER_01: It's a hard work.
SPEAKER_01: It reads you, it exposes you, and it makes you spiritually transform, that you become increasingly more like the beautiful person of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And you know who hates that is Satan.
SPEAKER_01: Satan loves spiritually ugly people.
SPEAKER_01: Satan has plastered on his walls the ugliest spiritual people you have ever seen.
SPEAKER_01: That is what he is attracted to, and he loves to keep you in that place.
SPEAKER_01: So every time you open up God's word and his transforming scalpel starts cutting off what is ugly, of course, Satan is going to do everything to keep you away from the living word.
SPEAKER_01: We need repentance.
SPEAKER_01: Read God's word for repentance.
SPEAKER_01: There is no spiritual restoration, just like there is no physical restoration without a mirror, there is no spiritual resurrect uh restoration without the mirror of God's word.
SPEAKER_01: And so notice then that Nehemiah says in chapter 8, verse 9, he says, Do not weep.
SPEAKER_01: Do not weep.
SPEAKER_01: Do you guys see what the sound guys are doing to me?
SPEAKER_01: It says I've been preaching for 40 minutes here.
SPEAKER_01: They're trying to get me off early this week.
SPEAKER_01: That's crazy.
SPEAKER_01: We'll fight.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna stay here all mourning, and I'm not gonna get many amens to that.
SPEAKER_01: Umiah 8.9.
SPEAKER_01: Nehemiah says to the people as they are weeping over the word of law, do not weep.
SPEAKER_01: I love, again, you know, God will give you when you preach his word, he gives you illustrations.
SPEAKER_01: And so on the week that I was supposed to preach this message last week, there was a some drama in the home's household.
SPEAKER_01: Now I know that doesn't shock you because you know there's four women in my household, and so it is like a constant, you know, episode of drama and for drama.
SPEAKER_01: And there's some drama at the dollhouse, some real drama, and there's pushing and shoving.
SPEAKER_01: And so I pulled aside my oldest daughter, and I was in a good frame of mind.
SPEAKER_01: I was ready to start, you know, drawing out her heart of selfishness and preaching the gospel and reminding her that you know mom and dad are selfish too, and we're so thankful that God saved us.
SPEAKER_01: I was ready to start doing this, but there was this heckling voice in the background from my three-year-old who decided to take it upon herself to preach the gospel, and she's yelling, God likes you, God loves you, God no wants you cry.
SPEAKER_01: God no wants you cry.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what she was talking about.
SPEAKER_01: No one was crying, there was no conviction.
SPEAKER_01: It was not relevant at all, but it is relevant here.
SPEAKER_01: Here is what Nehemiah says to the people God no want you cry.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 10.
SPEAKER_01: Then he said to them, Go your way, eat the fat, drink sweet wine, and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready, for this day is holy to our Lord, and do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.
SPEAKER_01: For the joy of the Lord is your strength.
SPEAKER_01: What is it that draws us out of spiritual repentance into rejoicing?
SPEAKER_01: Nehemiah's answer is that it is the joy of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Now notice that it's not joy in the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that interesting?
SPEAKER_01: Nehemiah doesn't say, hey, listen, you just got to get your joy in the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: What Nehemiah says is that your strength is in the Lord's joy.
SPEAKER_01: It is the joy of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: The thing that gives you strength is reflecting on the heart of God, the very thing that God is passionate about, his supreme, his unchanging joy.
SPEAKER_01: Well, then the question, of course, then is what is the joy of the Lord?
SPEAKER_01: I want you to understand this that biblically, God's unchanging joy is himself.
SPEAKER_01: For all of eternity, God has been happy in himself.
SPEAKER_01: He has found full delight in the triune display of his holiness, his justice, his goodness, his love.
SPEAKER_01: This is for all of eternity.
SPEAKER_01: God has been supremely satisfied in himself.
SPEAKER_01: I love what Jonathan Edwards says.
SPEAKER_01: He says this so helpfully.
SPEAKER_01: Look at it's gonna come up on the screen here.
SPEAKER_01: He says, God is infinitely happy in the enjoyment of himself, and perfectly beholding, and infinitely loving and rejoicing in his own essence and perfections, so that he is infinitely and essentially self-sufficient and has all possible fullness of joy in himself.
SPEAKER_01: Praise God, he does not need us.
SPEAKER_01: For all of eternity past, God was satisfied in his own glory.
SPEAKER_01: And you know, you and I say that, look at that, and you and I think, well, that's isn't that kind of conceited?
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that kind of prideful?
SPEAKER_01: And let me tell you, if I were to tell you that your greatest joy should be in me, that would be entirely conceited and prideful.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because I'm not the greatest good, because there are many things that are greater than me.
SPEAKER_01: And yet, for God, who is the highest good, to enjoy anything less than himself, who is the greatest good, it would be to stop short of the fullness of joy.
SPEAKER_01: God is sufficient in and of himself, he is satisfied by himself.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if this is true, the the question for you and I then is why should that be our strength?
SPEAKER_01: Why should it be our strength that God is satisfied without us?
SPEAKER_01: I want you to understand here that Nehemiah is applying the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Think about the gospel to Nehemiah.
SPEAKER_01: Nehemiah now stands in Jerusalem, the walls of Jerusalem are finished, the temple of God is restored.
SPEAKER_01: People of God are back in Jerusalem and they are listening obediently and responsively to God's word.
SPEAKER_01: God has done a mighty work and he is establishing his kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: It is clear to Nehemiah that the joy of the Lord in himself overflows in that his glory is magnified in the redemption of his people.
SPEAKER_01: God does not need you, but he takes great joy in the glory that he receives from extending his grace to people who are not sufficient in and of themselves to earn righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: God loves salvation because God loves the glory that he receives from your story.
SPEAKER_01: And a part of his infinite joy now in these redemptive times is that he has reached out his hand to you and extended an arm of grace to you and I when we could not pull ourselves up.
SPEAKER_01: And if by faith you have grabbed onto his arm, he for all of eternity will receive the glory of your salvation story.
SPEAKER_01: Do you know we'll sing about that for all of eternity of what God has done to save us?
SPEAKER_01: I love it.
SPEAKER_01: I was saved in a country style nearly 22 years ago and for all of eternity.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, thankfully, country style will be long out of business.
SPEAKER_01: But I will sing of the glory of what happened in that country style, and God will receive the glory and the joy.
SPEAKER_01: Because he extended his arm to an unworthy people.
SPEAKER_01: You and I need to recognize this then that his joy is not diminished in saving us.
SPEAKER_01: His joy is not diminished in saving us.
SPEAKER_01: You know, you and I, when someone asks us, you know, to do something for them, to be honest, you ever have a unjoyful response?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I can expose this right now.
SPEAKER_01: Has anyone ever asked you to drive them to the airport?
SPEAKER_01: I'm preaching to people in this room right now.
SPEAKER_01: You know, like I'll do it.
SPEAKER_01: I will do it.
SPEAKER_01: But I'm not gonna be happy about it, okay?
SPEAKER_01: I'll save you.
SPEAKER_01: But I'm gonna make some passive-aggressive comments about how Uber is really cheap lately.
SPEAKER_01: That's not the case with God.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, Jesus says it was the joy that was set before him that caused him to endure the cross.
SPEAKER_01: Which means the depths of your sin, you stit you sit in this room and you feel like I'm such a sinner, I could never be saved.
SPEAKER_01: The deeper your sin, the greater God's heart is to save you because he gets glory when you can't save yourself, and he's the only one who can do it.
SPEAKER_01: This is why works righteousness doesn't glorify anyone.
SPEAKER_01: Work righteousness, it only glorifies you.
SPEAKER_01: Look how great I am, look at all the things I've done.
SPEAKER_01: But the gospel, it glorifies God because he's the only one who can who has mercy so deep that it can reach to the extent of your sinfulness and redeem you and save you.
SPEAKER_01: Your sin, it doesn't diminish his joy, it multiplies his joy.
SPEAKER_01: He gets glory from mercy, from extended mercy.
SPEAKER_01: And so let's be honest then.
SPEAKER_01: There are certain days in this life, can I say it like this?
SPEAKER_01: They're just gonna suck.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes in our Christian ease, we try to like make it seem like this world isn't broken, but I think as soon as you read Ecclesiastes, you kind of realize like there's no corner that you can turn to in this world that is not just broken.
SPEAKER_01: There's no corner, there's no well you can drink from that at the end of the day doesn't leave you just empty and unsatisfied.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that a reality?
SPEAKER_01: Some days you will wake up and there's just nothing to be happy about.
SPEAKER_01: You're not satisfied with your job, your marriage is in shambles, your parents, you feel like you're a failure of a parent.
SPEAKER_01: You look everywhere in this world, but there is nothing to be happy about, and here is God saying, Listen, I am extending to you an unchanging source of strength.
SPEAKER_01: It is my joy.
SPEAKER_01: Nehemiah says, Be strong in the joy of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: You see, the gospel is the foundation of your joy.
SPEAKER_01: I love this morning.
SPEAKER_01: I was reading and praying through Psalm 40, and Psalmist says in Psalm 40, verse 2, He drew me up from the pit of destruction out of the miry bog and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure.
SPEAKER_01: You know what's so fascinating about the fact that David says that his steps are secure is that in verse 14, he says, he says, Those, let those who put be put to shame who are and disappointed altogether, who seek to snatch away my life.
SPEAKER_01: At the same time that these people are seeking to snatch away David's life, he's saying, Hey, listen, I'm on a firm foundation.
SPEAKER_01: And we look at David and we say, No, you're not.
SPEAKER_01: Look out, someone's got a spear behind you.
SPEAKER_01: That is not a firm foundation.
SPEAKER_01: You see, you and I, in the joy of the Lord, are offered a strength amidst the uncertainty of life.
SPEAKER_01: The strength is the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: I reminded us again in Matthew chapter 11.
SPEAKER_01: What does Jesus say, Come to me and find rest, for I am gentle and lowly in heart.
SPEAKER_01: What is Jesus' heart for you this morning?
SPEAKER_01: It is your salvation.
SPEAKER_01: That's Jesus' passion project.
SPEAKER_01: What gives you joy?
SPEAKER_01: Do you like what are you most adamant about right now, Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: The salvation, the seeking and saving of the lost people in this room.
SPEAKER_01: If Jesus had an Instagram on the tag handle would be to seek and save the lost.
SPEAKER_01: That is what he is all about.
SPEAKER_01: It is his heart, it is what his heart beats for, it is his passion.
SPEAKER_01: And the more lost you are, the more eager he is to save.
SPEAKER_01: This is who Jesus is.
SPEAKER_01: And so, what a strength we have when everything else in our world is crumbling, when we feel like absolute failures, there is Jesus extending his arms of grace to us.
SPEAKER_01: It is his heart.
SPEAKER_01: Further meditate on this.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to see what the prophet Zephaniah says in Zephaniah 3, 17.
SPEAKER_01: See these words, for the Lord your God is in your midst.
SPEAKER_01: A mighty one who will save.
SPEAKER_01: He will rejoice over you with gladness.
SPEAKER_01: He will quiet you by his love.
SPEAKER_01: Listen to this church.
SPEAKER_01: He will exalt over you with loud singing.
SPEAKER_01: God has a song stuck on his mind.
SPEAKER_01: And he is in heaven bellowing a loud song.
SPEAKER_01: You know what the song is about?
SPEAKER_01: It's about you.
SPEAKER_01: The album is salvation, the song is your testimony.
SPEAKER_01: And God exalts to sing in it.
SPEAKER_01: He loves to save, and so we come with a spirit of conviction, and we leave with a spirit of joy.
SPEAKER_01: This is what the gospel always does.
SPEAKER_01: I'm reminded of this in this quote from Tim Keller.
SPEAKER_01: I've shared this before, I'll share it again because it's so helpful.
SPEAKER_01: He says, the gospel is this we are more sinful and flawed than we ever dared believe, yet at the same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus than we ever dare hoped.
SPEAKER_01: Every time we open up the Bible, we are reminded of those two realities.
SPEAKER_01: We are convicted of the reality that we are more sinful than we knew before, and we are reminded of the reality that we are more loved than we ever thought.
SPEAKER_01: So we gather expected.
SPEAKER_01: God has a word for us.
SPEAKER_01: We gather with response and repentance and find joy.
SPEAKER_01: Second thing I want you to see here is that we gather intentionally.
SPEAKER_01: Gather intentionally.
SPEAKER_01: Notice on in verse 13, all of what happened in verses 1 to 12 happened on one day.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 13, we come to the second day.
SPEAKER_01: What happened on the second day?
SPEAKER_01: After they had read the word from morning to late afternoon on the first day, on the second day we find them gathering together to then study it and apply it to their lives.
SPEAKER_01: Now we've we draw application from this, and the application is that a requirement, if you really want to drink from the fountain of God's grace, a requirement is that you both hear the word preached and then at another time gather around with other believers who then help to press the word in deeply to you.
SPEAKER_01: All throughout scripture, we find that you cannot have God's word pressed into you in the way that it ought to be if you are not gathering with other believers.
SPEAKER_01: And here we have such practical application in that the thing that they are applying is the word that they had heard preached.
SPEAKER_01: And so God has a special plan for the preaching that we hear in our local church to then use that word to shepherd us specifically through the ministry of the other saints around us, pressing that word deep into our lives.
SPEAKER_01: We need it.
SPEAKER_01: We need to gather with other believers in order for God's word to be pressed into the place of our heart that He desires it.
SPEAKER_01: He designed us that way.
SPEAKER_01: Now there's a thousand ways to do this.
SPEAKER_01: Different formats that you can make this possible.
SPEAKER_01: In our church, for 95% of our people, this is happening in small group.
SPEAKER_01: This is why most of the time in our small group, we do what we call pulpit curriculum.
SPEAKER_01: We take the sermon and we ask application questions from it.
SPEAKER_01: We gather together as God's people throughout the week, and we then uh continue to exposit the text with our face in the book, and we continue to ask this question: what does this mean for me?
SPEAKER_01: And so understand, miss this, and you are missing blessing.
SPEAKER_01: This is God's intention to drive God's word deep through the fellowship and ministry of other believers.
SPEAKER_01: They are tools of grace to be used in your life.
SPEAKER_01: Yet commit yourself to this, and you find what many in our church are experiencing, you find great blessing.
SPEAKER_01: God speaks.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm on like week three of our small group meeting together, and it's astounding how fast God starts to work through the ministry of believers.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because you do what He promised, He did what He told you to do, and He promised grace for when you do it.
SPEAKER_01: God called us to gather together, He modeled it all throughout the Old and New Testament.
SPEAKER_01: He gives us so many commands in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_01: Do this with one another, forgive one another, pray for one another, carry the burdens of one another.
SPEAKER_01: And then we don't do it, and we expect, we ask God, why is our life so dry?
SPEAKER_01: Why is our spiritual life so empty?
SPEAKER_01: It's because you are not doing the thing that God called you and designed you to do.
SPEAKER_01: You're not meeting with other believers.
SPEAKER_01: It's required.
SPEAKER_01: Notice then who gathered.
SPEAKER_01: They gathered, but noticed who it was: it was the men.
SPEAKER_01: Here they are at the center of God's mission.
SPEAKER_01: The walls have been established, the temple has been rebuilt, and now the question is this: what must be instituted in our nation in order to be the people of God again?
SPEAKER_01: They are at the very heart of the establishment of God's kingdom, gathering together as men to ask this: what does God require us in this day and age to do?
SPEAKER_01: Now, for them, it was to establish again the ceremony of the feast of booths.
SPEAKER_01: But for us, we've seen this all throughout Nehemiah, that the way that we can't build God's kingdom is by building up the spiritual temple of God, which is his church.
SPEAKER_01: The mission now is the great commission that Christ has given us to go and make disciples.
SPEAKER_01: And as you see lost people saved, you are grabbing a brick from the world and putting it onto the temple that is God's church.
SPEAKER_01: And as you see saved people matured, you are polishing that brick so it looks as God designed it.
SPEAKER_01: And as you see mature people multiplied, the temple of God is being built up and the kingdom of God is being established.
SPEAKER_01: This is how you and I seek to establish the kingdom in our day and age.
SPEAKER_01: It is through the pursuit of the Great Commission.
SPEAKER_01: Notice then that it is the men who are at the center of it.
SPEAKER_01: Now, women, you can do something for me.
SPEAKER_01: You can take your fingers, you know, you can plug your ears right now if you want.
SPEAKER_01: Because I have a word for the men.
SPEAKER_01: Let me ask you this question: are you doing this?
SPEAKER_01: Is the building of God's temple your main priority?
SPEAKER_01: Is this a reality in your life?
SPEAKER_01: As your family looks at you, men, do they see you building up the kingdom of God?
SPEAKER_01: Do they see that your obsession is to do what Christ said?
SPEAKER_01: Go and make disciples.
SPEAKER_01: I can't get these words out of my head that Christ told us to do one thing.
SPEAKER_01: He said, Go and make disciples.
SPEAKER_01: Men, are you doing it?
SPEAKER_01: He did not say, go and make great businesses.
SPEAKER_01: That's great.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, climb the ladder of your career, build great businesses, that's great.
SPEAKER_01: But know that that was not the one thing Jesus said to his disciples.
SPEAKER_01: He said, Go and make disciples.
SPEAKER_01: He did not say, make sure your kids have all the access to the extracurricular activities that they want, that they become great hockey players, that they become great musicians.
SPEAKER_01: He said, Go and make disciples.
SPEAKER_01: Do you model it?
SPEAKER_01: Does your family see you at the center of God's chosen institution, desiring to push forward the kingdom of God through the church?
SPEAKER_01: May it be so.
SPEAKER_01: May we not be distracted by the priorities of this world.
SPEAKER_01: May we be busy with the toil of the kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: I love I was studying this with the elders this week, first, Timothy, chapter four.
SPEAKER_01: I love what Paul says to Timothy.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna find it here.
SPEAKER_01: In verse 10, he says, for to this end we toil and strive because we have our hope set on the living God.
SPEAKER_01: We have our hope set on the living God.
SPEAKER_01: And listen, the reality, men, men, men, the reality is that some of you are toiling and striving with your hope set on things of this world.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you are toiling.
SPEAKER_01: Is anyone not busy here?
SPEAKER_01: Men, can you put up your hand?
SPEAKER_01: You're not busy?
SPEAKER_01: Because I got some things for you to do.
SPEAKER_01: We are toiling and striving.
SPEAKER_01: Is your hope set on the living God?
SPEAKER_01: Recognize this is in the context of 1 Timothy, which is a letter to a pastor.
SPEAKER_01: Paul is saying this.
SPEAKER_01: I know you're hard at work in the church.
SPEAKER_01: I know you are preaching the word.
SPEAKER_01: I know you are raising up men to be leaders.
SPEAKER_01: Know this.
SPEAKER_01: I know it's hard work.
SPEAKER_01: I know at times you feel burnt out, but you're doing it with your hope set on a living God.
SPEAKER_01: You're building something purposeful.
SPEAKER_01: So let me ask you this: man, do you aspire to be used by God at the center of his mission?
SPEAKER_01: You know what Paul says to Timothy in chapter three is so relevant for us.
SPEAKER_01: He says the saying is trustworthy, if anyone, and by anyone, he's speaking specifically of men here.
SPEAKER_01: This is in the context of elders who in this chapter is clear as a role reserved for men.
SPEAKER_01: He says, if any man aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task.
SPEAKER_01: You ought to aspire.
SPEAKER_01: Men, the biblical call is that you aspire to a role of leadership in the church because you long to be used by God for his purposes in his chosen institution, that is the church.
SPEAKER_01: Do you aspire?
SPEAKER_01: Listen, this doesn't mean that you'll be an elder.
SPEAKER_01: It means that you need to walk down that path as long as you are able before your giftings disqualify not disqualify you, but make you aware that eldering's not for you.
SPEAKER_01: You walk down the path as far as you are able.
SPEAKER_01: You get as involved in the leadership of the church as you are able until God reveals that you are ready for that role.
SPEAKER_01: Each of us must do this.
SPEAKER_01: So, men, let me ask you: here is the application.
SPEAKER_01: As the men were with Ezra, do you aspire to the role of elder?
SPEAKER_01: Are you walking down those steps?
SPEAKER_01: Is there a plan in place for you to have leadership in the role in the life and the health of the church?
SPEAKER_01: Called to this.
SPEAKER_01: Notice who they gather to.
SPEAKER_01: They gather in Nehemiah to Ezra, who is the teacher.
SPEAKER_01: Notice it's not a man of charisma.
SPEAKER_01: The man that the church gathers around is the man who opens up God's word and teaches it rightly.
SPEAKER_01: There's so much application for me here.
SPEAKER_01: In what I lean on in my leadership, do you know that the main tool that God has given to his church is the preaching of God's word?
SPEAKER_01: The preaching of God's word is primary in his plan right now to reach the lost.
SPEAKER_01: It is primary in his plan of your sanctification and growth, is the preaching of God's word.
SPEAKER_01: And so here's application for me.
SPEAKER_01: I'm preaching the word to myself.
SPEAKER_01: I better not rely on anything other than the preaching, the right and truthful preaching of God's word to build his church.
SPEAKER_01: There are many temptations week in and week out for me to rely on charisma.
SPEAKER_01: Now it's not that much of a temptation.
SPEAKER_01: I don't have a lot of it, so I'm stuck back to the word every week.
SPEAKER_01: There are many temptations for me, week in and week out, to build up the church in sort of like a CEO business way.
SPEAKER_01: There are many temptations for me to be a leader that does not fall in line with what Christ said he gifted the church in Ephesians 4.
SPEAKER_01: He said Christ ascended to the heaven and he gifted the church preachers, teachers, pastors.
SPEAKER_01: Right now, at this point in the kingdom of God, God's plan is that he has gifted you a pastor who preaches the word.
SPEAKER_01: And that is my calling.
SPEAKER_01: I recognize that Paul says that he is an ambassador for Christ.
SPEAKER_01: What is an ambassador?
SPEAKER_01: An ambassador is a person who stands in the presence of a king.
SPEAKER_01: And so listen, you're not hearing directly from Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: There is a day, praise God, when you will hear directly from Jesus, and I'll be out of a job, and I'll be happily out of a job.
SPEAKER_01: But until that day comes, what God says is you have an ambassador.
SPEAKER_01: That ambassador is your pastor to stand in the place of Jesus Christ and preach the word of God.
SPEAKER_01: You don't understand the weight of responsibility I carry that with.
SPEAKER_01: That is so important to me that I rightly preach God's word because of the place that it is to have in your life.
SPEAKER_01: And yet it is equally important that you and I respond properly to the preaching, that as we hear God's word preached in our local church, our shepherd who is shepherding us, we gather around the preached word and then apply it to our lives.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, I'm not trying to exalt myself here.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not trying to put myself in a position of authority that is not given to me by God.
SPEAKER_01: What I am recognizing is that God gives an authority to the elders of the church that is incredibly weighty.
SPEAKER_01: It's incredibly weighty.
SPEAKER_01: Notice what the people do, they study.
SPEAKER_01: They study.
SPEAKER_01: They study the words of the law.
SPEAKER_01: Let me ask you.
SPEAKER_01: Loved one, do you study?
SPEAKER_01: You study God's word?
SPEAKER_01: Listen, I know that many of us are struggling even to read it.
SPEAKER_01: But I want you to understand it's not enough just to read it and to check the box.
SPEAKER_01: We must be students of God's word.
SPEAKER_01: Are you growing in a knowledge of what God's word says?
SPEAKER_01: Listen, for this kind of thing to happen, you need to get beyond the devotionals.
SPEAKER_01: They're great to warm the heart, but you need to get your head into God's word to study what the Old Testament says about Jesus, to understand how the gospels praise Jesus as God and Lord and Savior, to understand what Paul means in the epistles, to become a student of what God's word says, to study it.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, as we read through Nehemiah 8, we're kind of given a paradigm for life changing reading.
SPEAKER_01: Have you noticed that?
SPEAKER_01: Three things that you and I need to do if we want to read God's word rightly.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna put this up on the screen.
SPEAKER_01: I think this hopefully will be helpful for you.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to notice this all in Nehemiah 8 that life-changing Bible reading asks this.
SPEAKER_01: What does it say?
SPEAKER_01: It's a simple question.
SPEAKER_01: What does it say?
SPEAKER_01: Ezra does that from morning to afternoon.
SPEAKER_01: He reads the Bible, just he's just saying, this is what it says.
SPEAKER_01: There's no understanding of what it means.
SPEAKER_01: It is not until after that that next question is asked.
SPEAKER_01: And here's the second question: what does it mean?
SPEAKER_01: After it is read, we are told in verse 8 that the Levites, alongside Ezra, go around to people and give the sense so that the people understand the reading.
SPEAKER_01: We must not only know what the Bible says, we must ask these questions of interpretation.
SPEAKER_01: What does it actually mean?
SPEAKER_01: What does it mean to the reader, to Nehemiah, to the Israelites?
SPEAKER_01: What does it, as Paul writes his letter to the Romans, what does it mean to the first century church?
SPEAKER_01: Which leads us to the last question.
SPEAKER_01: And the last question is this: what does it mean for me?
SPEAKER_01: What does it mean for me?
SPEAKER_01: Once we have found the principle that is given to the original hearers, we then apply that principle to our lives and we ask this question, what does it mean for me?
SPEAKER_01: And that's exactly what they do.
SPEAKER_01: They apply God's word.
SPEAKER_01: Verses 14, 15, 16.
SPEAKER_01: They commit themselves to the feast of booze.
SPEAKER_01: And I want you to see this lastly, that we gather obediently.
SPEAKER_01: We gather obediently.
SPEAKER_01: They did it.
SPEAKER_01: They heard God's word, they were convicted, they applied God's word to their life.
SPEAKER_01: And my question is this where does this obedience come from?
SPEAKER_01: And I want you to see that already, all throughout this chapter, we have this sense that Nehemiah and Israel understand the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: They know that it is God who has done the work for them.
SPEAKER_01: It is God who said that he would deliver them from captivity back to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: And there Nehemiah, Ezra, and the Israelites stand in the walls of Jerusalem having been completed.
SPEAKER_01: The temple of God is restored, and they are reminded of this reality.
SPEAKER_01: God has already done the work.
SPEAKER_01: He's done it.
SPEAKER_01: This obedience, it flows from a place of understanding that they are loved by God.
SPEAKER_01: It can only come from the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: You know, you and I often think that obedience is motivated by the reward that we'll earn from it.
SPEAKER_01: And so there are many, even in this room, I'm so aware that there are many who have a gospel of legalism that says, God will love me if I just do this thing.
SPEAKER_01: If I just do this thing, then I can earn God's love.
SPEAKER_01: You know what the problem with that is?
SPEAKER_01: It's kind of like trying to chase your own shadow.
SPEAKER_01: Has anyone ever done that?
SPEAKER_01: I'm talking about when you're a kid.
SPEAKER_01: I haven't done it recently.
SPEAKER_01: You just keep chasing it and it just keeps getting just out of reach.
SPEAKER_01: And until you get the righteousness that you're longing for to live by your own works, you are filled with a sense of guilt, you're filled with a sense of shame, you're filled with a sense of fear because you just do not have it.
SPEAKER_01: But no matter how hard you try, it is always just out of reach.
SPEAKER_01: But the gospel comes down and it says this that you already have it so you can live in light of it.
SPEAKER_01: I'm so reminded of Deuteronomy 10.
SPEAKER_01: God says to Israel, What does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all of his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and all your mind, to obey the Lord, to obey the commandments and statutes of the Lord that I am commanding you today.
SPEAKER_01: Now you hear that list.
SPEAKER_01: Are you a little terrified?
SPEAKER_01: Like you kind of expect it to be like, hey, what does the Lord your God require of you?
SPEAKER_01: Nothing.
SPEAKER_01: You're good, okay?
SPEAKER_01: That's what I was hoping for.
SPEAKER_01: Instead, what you get in Deuteronomy 10 is what does the Lord your God require of you?
SPEAKER_01: Well, you better serve the Lord with all your heart, you better love him with all your heart, you better fear him every minute of every day, you better walk in all of his commandments, you better love him.
SPEAKER_01: And we're screwed.
SPEAKER_01: And yet there are three words at the very end of Deuteronomy, of that verse in Deuteronomy 10, for your good.
SPEAKER_01: For your good.
SPEAKER_01: What does the Lord your God require of you?
SPEAKER_01: You get to do all these things for your good.
SPEAKER_01: You know when the bird, when he's given his wings back, he gets to fly and he gets to obey all the laws of aerodynamics, but he has so much joy because he has been given his wings.
SPEAKER_01: You understand what the gospel has done?
SPEAKER_01: It has transformed your heart so that now you can obey.
SPEAKER_01: You get to obey, you get to live in a way that is for your good, God says to us.
SPEAKER_01: This is what obedience does.
SPEAKER_01: Gospel, it opens us to obey and find life.
SPEAKER_01: Reminded of the prodigal son.
SPEAKER_01: Loved by the prodigal father.
SPEAKER_01: After a wayward life, invited into his banquet.
SPEAKER_01: And the prodigal son, in delighting in the love of the father, goes into that banquet and is filled with so much joy.
SPEAKER_01: You could just imagine him sitting at the banquet table.
SPEAKER_01: Everything there is so satisfying to him.
SPEAKER_01: He's not complaining about having to eat at the banquet table, but there is someone complaining.
SPEAKER_01: This is the older brother.
SPEAKER_01: The older brother is the Pharisaical rule keeper, and he's he's sitting in the back of that feast with his arms crossed.
SPEAKER_01: Well, I don't want any, I don't want to have to do any of this.
SPEAKER_01: Why do I have to do this?
SPEAKER_01: They should have thrown a feast for me.
SPEAKER_01: You know, it was the same feast.
SPEAKER_01: He could not enjoy it because he was pursuing it in a heart of legalism.
SPEAKER_01: You know what you and I have been given in the gospel?
SPEAKER_01: Identity as children of God.
SPEAKER_01: The obedience for us is delighting in the love of the Father, being able to do what he designed us and called us to do for our joy.
SPEAKER_01: We're told at the end of Nehemiah 8 that they left with great rejoicing, greater than any had seen from the day of Jeshua, the son of promised to us this morning.
SPEAKER_01: You know, this church, God extends his arms, is open to us, and he calls us to come, that we might by obedience in him delight in the good life that he has won for us by Jesus Christ on the cross.
SPEAKER_01: Let's turn to him now in prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Father, we thank you.
SPEAKER_01: God, thank you, you call us.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, you extend your arms to us.
SPEAKER_01: Call us to come.
SPEAKER_01: Now as we stand to sing your praise, Lord, our response is this Lord, we come.
SPEAKER_01: We are gathered to you.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we are living in light of your gospel.
SPEAKER_01: It has been applied to our hearts, and there is nothing for us to do but to praise your name and to live in light of the gospel by obedience.
SPEAKER_01: And so help us, Lord, even now to respond properly by singing the song with a heart filled with praise and awe and wonder of what you've done.
SPEAKER_01: God, we give you the praise and thank you.
SPEAKER_01: Praise the name of your Son.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Could you stand and worship with me?