SPEAKER_00: Nehemiah chapter eleven.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to read verses one and two for us to begin.
SPEAKER_00: The leaders of the people lived in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: 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 other towns, and the people blessed all the men who willingly offered to live in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: You know, every culture in the world has some sort of rite of passage.
SPEAKER_00: This is an event that marks a child's transition into adulthood, and everyone goes through it.
SPEAKER_00: And until you do go through it, you are, in many ways in society, considered a child.
SPEAKER_00: And after you go through it, you are considered an adult.
SPEAKER_00: And these passages, or these rites, their rite of passage, I don't know what the plural would be, they serve as a major milestone in life.
SPEAKER_00: And they're they vary, of course, culture to culture.
SPEAKER_00: It might encourage you to know that in the dark ages, there was basically one rite of passage, that was marriage.
SPEAKER_00: Until you were married, you were considered a child.
SPEAKER_00: Or you could become a nun or a priest and escape the childhood moniker.
SPEAKER_00: But until it happened, you were considered a child.
SPEAKER_00: Once it happened, you were considered an adult.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, the typical age for a male to marry in the dark ages was 14.
SPEAKER_00: Girls was 12.
SPEAKER_00: And once they were married, they were out of the house and on their own.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, the average life expectancy back then was 24 for a girl and 26 for a guy, but let's not focus on that.
SPEAKER_00: That was the rite of passage, graduation day.
SPEAKER_00: In Mexico, the passage for females, even to this day, is the quincinera, more elaborate and more expensive than an American wedding.
SPEAKER_00: It marks a change from being a young girl into a woman.
SPEAKER_00: In rural Africa, for a man, it's a hunt.
SPEAKER_00: For a boy to become a man, he has to go on a hunt, kill a buck, and eat a bite of raw liver.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: I think in our culture, the closest thing I could think of is high school graduation.
SPEAKER_00: Slightly less gagging than a buck liver.
SPEAKER_00: It is nevertheless a transition from adolescence to adulthood.
SPEAKER_00: High school graduation is marked by sentimental teens, you know, with their arms around each other, singing friends are friends forever, and writing bad haiku in each other's yearbooks.
SPEAKER_00: It is an important transition where you go from being a child to adult and sent out into the world.
SPEAKER_00: You may not know this, but Christians have their own graduation day.
SPEAKER_00: You graduate from this world and you're promoted to the next world.
SPEAKER_00: When you die in this world, you stand before the Lord and you are promoted to your real life in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Everything that happens here in this world is just preparation for that next world where you really get what the Lord will have you to do.
SPEAKER_00: As you reign with him in the kingdom, you've graduated from this world into the next.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the day we're all looking forward to.
SPEAKER_00: This morning in this passage, we have the graduation day for Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: Jerusalem had been being built for 90 years, since Ezra chapter 1, verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: It has been 90 years until this day.
SPEAKER_00: 90 years since the Israelites had come back into Jerusalem with the focus on rebuilding the city, and they came back with, you know, tens of thousands of people streamed into Jerusalem back in the days of Ezra.
SPEAKER_00: By now the numbers have dwindled and dwindled and dwindled, and they're down to 10,000 or so.
SPEAKER_00: What started out with such hope and triumph, now the city is complete, the wall is complete, the temple is complete, and the city is diminished.
SPEAKER_00: Many people have left.
SPEAKER_00: And so we find in Nehemiah chapter 11 is the striving to rebuild the city, the striving to repopulate the city in light of the fact that it has been rebuilt.
SPEAKER_00: And so you see here in verse 1, all the rest of the people cast lots to bring out of one one out of ten to live in Jerusalem, the holy city.
SPEAKER_00: And nine out of tens lived in their town.
SPEAKER_00: What you're seeing here in the book of Nehemiah chapter 11 is this really, it's a tithe to God.
SPEAKER_00: It's the Israelites looking around and seeing that for the past century, for the past hundred years, they have worked on rebuilding Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: Now the temple is done and it has been dedicated, and they wept, they weren't happy with it, but it's done.
SPEAKER_00: Now the wall is done.
SPEAKER_00: Earlier, remember the the naysayers, the opponents said, You'll never build that wall.
SPEAKER_00: You know, a fox could hop on that wall and topple it over.
SPEAKER_00: You guys are wasting your time.
SPEAKER_00: But now the wall is done.
SPEAKER_00: And now people have gone home.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody that streamed into Jerusalem to work, all the action we saw through the entire book of Nehemiah, now the book of Nehemiah is coming to a close.
SPEAKER_00: That action has ended, and the people have gone back home.
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember even when they were working on the wall?
SPEAKER_00: They were working on the sides of the wall closest to their houses, even those that live further away.
SPEAKER_00: And now the wall is done, and everybody went back home.
SPEAKER_00: And so they're looking around the city, and the wall's not going to do a lot of good if there's not people living there.
SPEAKER_00: The wall's not going to defend a ghost town.
SPEAKER_00: You need people to live there.
SPEAKER_00: And it is worth asking why.
SPEAKER_00: Why did they need people to live in Jerusalem?
SPEAKER_00: Why do they need the wall?
SPEAKER_00: Why do they need the temple?
SPEAKER_00: Because they understood that for them to have a functioning religion, they needed sacrifices.
SPEAKER_00: For them to have sacrifices, they needed the temple.
SPEAKER_00: That's the point of this.
SPEAKER_00: When the Israelites were conquered by the Assyrians and taken into exile, and then Jerusalem fell by the Babylonians and the temple was destroyed, and the Persians conquered, and the Persians were allowing the Jews to come back and rebuild.
SPEAKER_00: They knew they had to come back and rebuild the temple.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't, this whole time, between the time they were conquered and this time, they weren't able to properly worship.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, the Jewish religion is a religion of sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: They have to bring the Passover lamb.
SPEAKER_00: They're making atonement for their sin.
SPEAKER_00: They know they've sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: They present an animal, the blood of the animal takes away their sin.
SPEAKER_00: That's the way the whole Jewish religion functions.
SPEAKER_00: You understand that, right?
SPEAKER_00: The law shows them their sin, the Torah shows them their sin.
SPEAKER_00: In order for them to have their sin removed, propitiated, the wrath of God held back and their sin removed from them, there had to be a sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: They can't just say, God, I'm really sorry for my sin.
SPEAKER_00: Please do something about it.
SPEAKER_00: God has to actually transfer the sin from the sinner to a sacrifice and pour out his wrath on the sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: That was what the Old Testament sacrifices were.
SPEAKER_00: And I know it's very common to say the sacrifices just pointed to the future sacrifice of Christ, and that's true.
SPEAKER_00: All the sacrifices in the Old Testament point to the future sacrifice of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: But the Old Testament, when it describes the sacrifices, never uses the word just.
SPEAKER_00: It never says they just pointed to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It says the sacrifices were done to make atonement for sin.
SPEAKER_00: So the people know they're sinners.
SPEAKER_00: They're feeling the judgment of God.
SPEAKER_00: There's no ambiguity about this.
SPEAKER_00: They have broken God's law.
SPEAKER_00: God has judged them.
SPEAKER_00: The prophets have come to them and said, Hey, you guys are sinning, repent.
SPEAKER_00: And they said, No thanks, and God threw them out of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: So they're very much aware of their sinfulness.
SPEAKER_00: In exile, they're aware of their sinfulness, only they can't do anything about it.
SPEAKER_00: There's no way to remove their sin from them.
SPEAKER_00: There's no Passover lands being offered in the temple.
SPEAKER_00: There's no temple.
SPEAKER_00: There's no priests making intercession for them in the temple.
SPEAKER_00: There is no temple.
SPEAKER_00: There's no priests in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody has been exiled.
SPEAKER_00: So they really are hopeless.
SPEAKER_00: When you see Daniel throwing open his window and facing Jerusalem in his prayers, back in the book of Daniel, chapter 6, I think, he's not doing that simply to make a political point, like, hey, he said we can't pray, so I'm going to pray facing Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: He's really placing his hope in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: That city needs to be rebuilt.
SPEAKER_00: The temple has to come back.
SPEAKER_00: The sacrifices have to return.
SPEAKER_00: Now they are back.
SPEAKER_00: Now Jerusalem is rebuilt.
SPEAKER_00: Now the temple is rebuilt.
SPEAKER_00: The wall is rebuilt to defend it.
SPEAKER_00: Only now there's no people.
SPEAKER_00: And so what you see here is a bit of a draft, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: It's a bit of a draft.
SPEAKER_00: One out of ten, they're drawn lots.
SPEAKER_00: One out of ten are gonna be forced to go live in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: Ten percent of all the Jews that came back are being sent back to live in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: What was a person's disposition back in the Vietnam era, which I was not alive for, but back in the Vietnam era, what was a person's disposition when they were drafted?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they weren't stoked.
SPEAKER_00: Many of them fled to Canada.
SPEAKER_00: It's gotta be really bad to make you want to run to Canada.
SPEAKER_00: And they fled.
SPEAKER_00: Look at the disposition here.
SPEAKER_00: They're drafted, told they have to move to Jerusalem and live in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: The people blessed those men, and then look at verse 2.
SPEAKER_00: They willingly offered to live there.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna see in chapter 12, they're rejoicing.
SPEAKER_00: These people are voluntarily, even though they were drafted, they're voluntarily going.
SPEAKER_00: So the image here is not that Jerusalem is repopulated with reluctant or recalcitrant people here.
SPEAKER_00: No, they were okay to go back.
SPEAKER_00: They they they, in a sense, won the lottery.
SPEAKER_00: They lost the draft, won the lottery, is the idea that God chose them through this lot, and they are excited about it.
SPEAKER_00: Now, any of them could have gone.
SPEAKER_00: They're trying to get people to go there.
SPEAKER_00: All of them could have moved back.
SPEAKER_00: But the point here is that once the lot fell on these people, they were stoked about it.
SPEAKER_00: They realized this is God's providential hand leading me back to his people.
SPEAKER_00: This is a sacrifice they were willing to make.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what follows here from the rest of chapter 11, which again I won't read all of these names, but it is a long list in chapter 11 of names, and even the start of chapter 12, uh, all the way down to chapter 12.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we can just jump down to verse 25, 26 of chapter 12.
SPEAKER_00: These were in the days of Jehoiakim, the son of Jeshua, the son of Josedak, and the days of Nehemiah the governor, and of Ezra the priest and the scribe.
SPEAKER_00: So this is the, remember, Ezra came back, he his life was about the midpoint of the book of Ezra, 90 years since the start of the book of Ezra, 40 years since that midpoint back there.
SPEAKER_00: Here they are in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: Nehemiah is the governor, Ezra is their priest, he's been leading the all-day prayer services, the all-day preaching services.
SPEAKER_00: That's what's been happening there.
SPEAKER_00: Now they're all back and they are excited to be there.
SPEAKER_00: These two chapters are almost entirely a list of names.
SPEAKER_00: And you might wonder why, you know, why in this book would God devote two whole chapters to a list of names of people that are dead and I don't know?
SPEAKER_00: And that's the answer is because these people made an extreme sacrifice to come back to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: One reason you should be familiar with them is that you'll be looking at the backs of their heads in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: The idea is that they made a sacrifice for the gospel advancement in the world.
SPEAKER_00: The Jews, for the most part, were prosperous in Babylon, they were prosperous in Persia.
SPEAKER_00: After the initial exile, those that assimilated into the culture were prosperous.
SPEAKER_00: You see that for the through the window of the book of Esther.
SPEAKER_00: They were wealthy.
SPEAKER_00: That's why Haman wanted to steal their goods.
SPEAKER_00: Remember at the end of the book of Esther, they wanted to steal the Jews' wealth, they wanted to steal the Jews' goods and possessions.
SPEAKER_00: The God had blessed them even in exile, but they just had no religion.
SPEAKER_00: And so now these people are back and they are excited to be back to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: Couple comments in the list that we just skipped.
SPEAKER_00: As I mentioned, we started with a few thousand.
SPEAKER_00: The return started at the beginning of the book of Ezra with a few thousand, but by the end of Ezra had grown up to 16,000 that were living in Jerusalem permanently.
SPEAKER_00: Now it had dwindled, as I mentioned earlier, down to 10,000.
SPEAKER_00: The city was shrinking, and that's the problem.
SPEAKER_00: They were subject to ridicule by those that were around them, and this is, you know, some of it's just normal attrition.
SPEAKER_00: People die or they retire and they move back to where the rest of their family is, the wall job wrapped up and they went home.
SPEAKER_00: But these people are gonna go back, these names listed in these two chapters, they're gonna sacrifice, they're gonna go back to live in what the Bible calls the holy city.
SPEAKER_00: Why is Jerusalem called the holy city?
SPEAKER_00: The answer is because when the temple was there, that's where God dwelt.
SPEAKER_00: Now God's omnipresent, he dwelt everywhere in the world at the same time.
SPEAKER_00: But in a very real way, he manifested himself in the temple.
SPEAKER_00: His spirit filled the temple.
SPEAKER_00: If you wanted a more intimate encounter with the Lord, the temple is where the spirit was.
SPEAKER_00: The holy of holies in the temple is where nobody could just walk in whenever they wanted to, they'd be struck dead.
SPEAKER_00: So there's a very real and special presence of the Lord in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: That's why it's called the holy city.
SPEAKER_00: That presence has been removed when the temple was destroyed.
SPEAKER_00: Now they're longing for that presence to return.
SPEAKER_00: They're longing for that presence to return.
SPEAKER_00: A couple other comments in this list that we just uh skipped.
SPEAKER_00: In Ezra 2, that list was 14% priests.
SPEAKER_00: I did the math myself, it could be off.
SPEAKER_00: If you were in the 9 o'clock service this morning, you saw how poor I was at math.
SPEAKER_00: I ditched that whole part of the sermon at the 11 o'clock service, so I wouldn't be embarrassed.
SPEAKER_00: However, Ezra 2, I'm pretty sure the list is 14% priests.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this list we see in Nehemiah 11 and 12 is 40% priests.
SPEAKER_00: It's by and large the priests that have been brought back, and the priests that are going to stick this thing out.
SPEAKER_00: Most of the list here is two tribes, Judah and Benjamin, which makes sense.
SPEAKER_00: This is Jerusalem, is where those two tribes were located.
SPEAKER_00: But now, by the end of Nehemiah, Benjamin drastically outnumbers Judah.
SPEAKER_00: This is a huge reversal from the end of the uh the book of 2 Kings.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, at the end of 2 Kings, Benjamin was the smallest tribe.
SPEAKER_00: They're the tribe that almost got annihilated by the end of the book of Judges.
SPEAKER_00: Now they're the majority of the people are from the tribe of Benjamin.
SPEAKER_00: The Levites returned by their families.
SPEAKER_00: Again, there is a lot more I could say about this, most of which would find you boring, but the you'd find boring.
SPEAKER_00: But the the main point in this is that God protected his line of priests, brought them back.
SPEAKER_00: Only certain families could be priests.
SPEAKER_00: God had sovereignly and providentially protected them.
SPEAKER_00: Three generations after the start of the book of Ezra, they are now back in the land and back at the temple.
SPEAKER_00: The dedication of the wall of Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: They sought the Levites in all of their places, to bring them to Jerusalem, to celebrate the dedication with gladness and with thanksgiving, with singing, with cymbals, with harps, and lyres.
SPEAKER_00: This doesn't sound like people fleeing to Canada.
SPEAKER_00: This is a celebration.
SPEAKER_00: Notice the phrase again, to celebrate.
SPEAKER_00: This is a happy day for them.
SPEAKER_00: There is music, there is ceremony, there's singing, there's dancing, there's thankfulness, all kinds of loud instruments.
SPEAKER_00: The sons of the singers gathered together from the district surrounding Jerusalem and from the village of the Nethephilites, and from Bethgegal, and from the region of Gebah and Asmavath.
SPEAKER_00: For the singers had built for themselves the villages around Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: So the singers, remember, were there for the pomp and circumstance here, and they had built little villages of the singers.
SPEAKER_00: Singers had to be in a certain family.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't all vocal skill.
SPEAKER_00: Some of it was your family identity.
SPEAKER_00: The singers are now separated and they're living in villages around Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: The priests and the Levites purified themselves, and they purified the people, and they purified the gates, and they purified the wall.
SPEAKER_00: Why do they have to purify the gates and the wall?
SPEAKER_00: Because this place had been operated by Gentiles for so long.
SPEAKER_00: Unclean Gentiles.
SPEAKER_00: This place was used for idol sacrifices.
SPEAKER_00: This place had been, it was ridicule.
SPEAKER_00: There had been trash everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: This was not ceremonially pure.
SPEAKER_00: And so now they're dedicating it.
SPEAKER_00: They're purifying themselves.
SPEAKER_00: That's the ritual washing and the mikvas.
SPEAKER_00: They purified the people on the gates in the walls, verse 30 says.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 31, Nehemiah brought the leaders of Judah up onto the wall and appointed two great choirs that gave thanks.
SPEAKER_00: And one went to the south on the wall of the dung to the dung gate.
SPEAKER_00: After them went Hoshiah and half the leaders of Judah, and Azariah and Ezra and Meshelim and Judah, Benjamin, Shemiah, and Jeremiah, and certain of the priests' sons with trumpets, Zechariah, the son of Jonathan, the son of Shemiah, the son of Mataniah, the son of Mekaiah, the son of Zakur, the son of Asaph, his relatives, Shemel, Azarel, Meliah, Giliah, Mile, Nathanael, Judah, Hananiah, with the musical instruments of David, the man of God.
SPEAKER_00: And Ezra the scribe went before them.
SPEAKER_00: So again, don't lose what's happening in the list of names here.
SPEAKER_00: There's a massive choir, not one choir, two massive choirs assembled.
SPEAKER_00: And did you notice where they were assembling?
SPEAKER_00: On the wall.
SPEAKER_00: If you've been to Jerusalem, and I remember when we started Nehemiah, remember I showed you pictures of this, you get tour groups will walk along the wall today.
SPEAKER_00: You can fit people on the wall.
SPEAKER_00: There's wide enough to walk.
SPEAKER_00: And remember, the point of the wall is that you could put you know soldiers up there, but now it's filled with two choirs.
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember what Sandball and Tobias said?
SPEAKER_00: If even a fox stepped on the wall, the thing will crumble over.
SPEAKER_00: Now they have two choirs, choir robes and everything, maybe up there on the wall.
SPEAKER_00: And they're splitting up and an army of trumpeteers behind them.
SPEAKER_00: They're marching around.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's what the trumpet is for, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: They're marching around on the wall, singing.
SPEAKER_00: They split up from the gate where they start.
SPEAKER_00: They're going to split up and go around the city, and the wall, remember, is going to join the temple at two different points.
SPEAKER_00: They're starting opposite of the temple, they're splitting up and going around the city, and they will reunite these two choirs back at the wall.
SPEAKER_00: They're literally surrounding the city in song.
SPEAKER_00: At the fountain gate, verse 37.
SPEAKER_00: They went up straight before them by the stairs of the city of David at the ascent of the wall, above the house of David to the water gate in the east.
SPEAKER_00: The other choir, those who gave thanks, went to the north.
SPEAKER_00: I followed them with half the people on the wall, above the tower of the ovens and the broad wall.
SPEAKER_00: This is the backside where all the bakers will remember when Nehemiah described Reese building the wall.
SPEAKER_00: This is where he started.
SPEAKER_00: Above the gate of Ephraim, the gates of Yeshaniah, and the fish gate, the tower of Hananiel, the tower of the hundred, the sheep gate, they came to the halt of the gate of the guard.
SPEAKER_00: So both choirs of those who gave thanks stood in the house of God.
SPEAKER_00: I and half of the officials with me, and the priest, El Kaih, Messiah, Meniam, Mekekiah, Eloniah, Zechariah, Hananiah with trumpets, Messiah, Shemaniah, Eliezer, Uzai, Jehoannon, Melkaijah, Alam, and Azar, and the singers with Jezariah as their leader.
SPEAKER_00: They offered great sacrifices that day and rejoiced, for God had made them rejoice with great joy.
SPEAKER_00: See the redundance in that word, in that sentence.
SPEAKER_00: They offered great sacrifices.
SPEAKER_00: They number one, rejoiced, for God had made them.
SPEAKER_00: Number two, rejoice with great.
SPEAKER_00: Number three, for rejoice.
SPEAKER_00: You get four uses of the same word.
SPEAKER_00: It's translated great there in English, but it's four uses of the word joy.
SPEAKER_00: Nehemiah is piling this up.
SPEAKER_00: It is a happy, festive, joyful occasion.
SPEAKER_00: He can't underline it enough.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, he's going to do it again.
SPEAKER_00: The women and children also rejoiced.
SPEAKER_00: And one more time, the joy of Jerusalem was heard far away.
SPEAKER_00: Six times in that verse.
SPEAKER_00: This was a joyful occasion.
SPEAKER_00: The priests are back.
SPEAKER_00: Everything is ready for the celebration.
SPEAKER_00: On that day, men were appointed over the storerooms, the contributions, the firstfruits, the tithes, to gather into them the portions required by the law for the priests and for the Levites according to the fields of the towns.
SPEAKER_00: For Judah rejoiced over the priests and the Levites who ministered.
SPEAKER_00: They performed the service of their God and the service of purification, as did the singers and the gatekeepers according to the command of David and his son Solomon.
SPEAKER_00: For long ago in the days of David and Asaph, they were directors of the singers, and there were songs of praise and thanksgiving to God.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 46 is pretty insightful.
SPEAKER_00: They're singing here the psalms, mostly songs by David and Asaph.
SPEAKER_00: And each, this is our book of Psalms.
SPEAKER_00: This is the indication that Ezra the scribe had compiled the book of Psalms by this point.
SPEAKER_00: They were using it.
SPEAKER_00: This very well could be the first massive corporate use of the Psalter that we have in our Bible now.
SPEAKER_00: They're singing through the Psalms of praise and thanksgiving to God.
SPEAKER_00: And all Israel, in the days of Zerubbabel and the days of Nehemiah, gave the daily portions for the singers and the gatekeepers.
SPEAKER_00: They set apart that which was for the Levites.
SPEAKER_00: The Levites set apart that which was for the sons of Aaron.
SPEAKER_00: The true priests are back, the true songs are back, the true music is back.
SPEAKER_00: True worship is returning back to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: Ninety years since Ezra III.
SPEAKER_00: Ninety years since the foundation of the temple was laid, and now it's graduation day for Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: Let me give you a couple points as we reflect on these two chapters.
SPEAKER_00: First, sacrifice relates to gospel expansion.
SPEAKER_00: Why is there so much joy?
SPEAKER_00: Why the connection between sacrifice and joy in these two chapters?
SPEAKER_00: Because that's the theme here, right?
SPEAKER_00: Over and over again, they're making sacrifices and it's causing them joy.
SPEAKER_00: They're leaving their villages, moving to Jerusalem, it's causing them joy.
SPEAKER_00: Why are sacrifice and joy so connected?
SPEAKER_00: In the world's perspective, sacrifice is opposite joy.
SPEAKER_00: Sacrifice does not lead to joy, but in Christian economy it does.
SPEAKER_00: Here's three reasons why.
SPEAKER_00: First, sacrifice relates to gospel expansion.
SPEAKER_00: The temple wall and the city were all important for their salvation.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't know why.
SPEAKER_00: Do you get that?
SPEAKER_00: The people who are marching around singing and playing the trumpets here, they didn't fully understand why the temple was so critical.
SPEAKER_00: They just knew they were longing for God to dwell.
SPEAKER_00: Back with them again.
SPEAKER_00: There's no way they could have known how ironic their desire is.
SPEAKER_00: They wanted sacrifices to return to the temple.
SPEAKER_00: They're putting their hope in sacrifices returning to the temple without understanding the irony of it.
SPEAKER_00: And I call it ironic because the sacrifice that takes away the sins of the world is not the 200,000 lambs sacrificed every year there.
SPEAKER_00: The sacrifice that takes away the sins of the world is the one lamb who will come.
SPEAKER_00: And when he comes, he drives out all the money changers from the temple.
SPEAKER_00: He drives out all the sacrifices being sold there.
SPEAKER_00: He turns over the tables and purifies the temple.
SPEAKER_00: What they did here to the wall, Jesus does in the temple.
SPEAKER_00: And he becomes the ultimate sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: Their hope, they're seeing it dimly.
SPEAKER_00: You know, they're looking into the future, they're looking for their Savior to come to the temple.
SPEAKER_00: They don't know how all the pieces are going to connect, but it is true that the Savior will come to the temple.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, hey, tear this temple down, I'll rebuild it again in three days.
SPEAKER_00: Speaking of his own body, Jesus himself would be the temple.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, when you come to faith in Christ, you're united to Christ through the indwelling of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: You're adopted into Christ, you're hidden into Christ, and so you in that sense become the temple as well.
SPEAKER_00: Every believer is a brick in the temple of God.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the true temple.
SPEAKER_00: We are connected to him.
SPEAKER_00: We are the temple.
SPEAKER_00: They don't understand this right here.
SPEAKER_00: They just know that for salvation to come, it's going to come through the temple, through the sacrifices at the temple.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, Jesus will purify the temple and make it his true dwelling place where he will live in this world through his church, the temple of God.
SPEAKER_00: But so much of this prefigures what will be seen in the church.
SPEAKER_00: This is kind of like a church service.
SPEAKER_00: We've noticed that a few times in Nehemiah.
SPEAKER_00: There's long prayer, long singing, long preaching.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you laughed at that for the entirely the wrong reasons.
SPEAKER_00: This prefigures what will be seen in the church.
SPEAKER_00: They're singing these songs of celebration.
SPEAKER_00: They're purifying themselves.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, purifying is the baptismal rite.
SPEAKER_00: They're washing themselves in the mikvas.
SPEAKER_00: They're purifying their own bodies.
SPEAKER_00: This is exactly what you see in the church.
SPEAKER_00: And then heartfelt worship as they long for their Savior.
SPEAKER_00: That's what you see in Christian worship, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: In a fuller sense than this.
SPEAKER_00: This is just prefiguring it.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't fully understand how it all fit together.
SPEAKER_00: We're living at the reality of that.
SPEAKER_00: We don't purify ourselves in ritual washings every time we open a new church building, but we do purify ourselves in ritual washing every time we add a new person to the church.
SPEAKER_00: That's the point of baptism.
SPEAKER_00: You're united to Christ, you're confessing your sins, you're washed in the water, you're buried with Christ to the waters of baptism.
SPEAKER_00: You resurrect with Christ as you emerge, you're proclaiming that you are purifying yourself.
SPEAKER_00: It's actually God that's purifying you.
SPEAKER_00: You're making that profession to purification, and you're now united to the church.
SPEAKER_00: We sing every single church service.
SPEAKER_00: And we look forward to the return of Christ to his world to claim, to reclaim his temple for himself.
SPEAKER_00: The same things they're doing here, we practice every Lord's Day in church.
SPEAKER_00: What a strange scene this would have been this band of singers weaving their way along the wall, this brand new finished wall, places it would have been.
SPEAKER_00: There's places that overlook a cliff on one side of this, okay?
SPEAKER_00: They better be confident in their uncle's construction as they walk along that thing.
SPEAKER_00: They're weaving around, not fully understanding why they're doing it, but we know they're doing it pointing to the gospel expansion that will come when Jesus Christ comes.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, sacrifice relates to joy because sacrifice leads to gospel rewards.
SPEAKER_00: When you make a sacrifice for the gospel, the Lord rewards you for it.
SPEAKER_00: This is not works righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: Works righteousness teaches that if you do good things, you're earning righteousness for yourself.
SPEAKER_00: As you do good things, you are accumulating righteousness that God will then reward.
SPEAKER_00: And in the sacrifices you make, God rewards them.
SPEAKER_00: God rewards every deed.
SPEAKER_00: He sees every deed that you do, and he rewards it.
SPEAKER_00: I had a slide up earlier that I skipped through, but Ecclesiastes teaches us.
SPEAKER_00: Ecclesiastes chapter 12.
SPEAKER_00: This is, I'm using this verse because it is an Old Testament verse that's looking back at this concept that God rewards you.
SPEAKER_00: This is the end of the matter.
SPEAKER_00: The book of Ecclesiastes ends with this.
SPEAKER_00: All has been heard.
SPEAKER_00: Fear God, keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.
SPEAKER_00: God will bring every deed into judgment, every secret thing, whether good or evil.
SPEAKER_00: Paul is essentially quoting this in 2 Corinthians 5 when he says, Well, I'll stand before the Bemis seat, the judgment seat of Christ, to give an account for the deeds done in the flesh, to be rewarded for the deeds done in the flesh, whether good or empty is the New Testament word.
SPEAKER_00: Falon, just meaningless.
SPEAKER_00: God sees every action you do, and he rewards them.
SPEAKER_00: This should be a positive motivation for holy living, noting that every sacrifice you make, God rewards.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: We looked at it this morning in Mark chapter 10.
SPEAKER_00: He made the same point.
SPEAKER_00: I'll show you a different way of saying it from Matthew 19.
SPEAKER_00: This is the same exchange from Mark chapter 10, but I'll quote from Matthew tonight since we looked at Mark this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew 19, see, Peter says, We've left everything and followed you.
SPEAKER_00: What then will we have?
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus said to them, Truly I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone who's left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name's sake will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see the difference between Mark and Matthew?
SPEAKER_00: Mark this morning, the focus was on this world, you'll receive every sacrifice back.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew's focusing on the next life.
SPEAKER_00: There is rewards in the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, nothing done for Christ is in vain.
SPEAKER_00: No sacrifice you make is in vain.
SPEAKER_00: No sin you repent of, you will be disappointed in.
SPEAKER_00: You'll never sin and say, That was a good choice.
SPEAKER_00: And you'll never resist sin and later say, Oh, man, it would have been the right thing to sin back then.
SPEAKER_00: Sin is so deceptive.
SPEAKER_00: And when you choose obedience, even when it requires sacrifice, the Lord sees that and the Lord rewards you.
SPEAKER_00: In this life, he rewards you, and in the next life he rewards you.
SPEAKER_00: That's the principle behind this in Matthew 19.
SPEAKER_00: The same thing from Ecclesiastes 12.
SPEAKER_00: God sees your sacrifices, He knows the things that you turn down for obedience to Christ, and He will reward you.
SPEAKER_00: Now, obviously, not every believer makes the same sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: There's different degrees of sacrifice, of course.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, store it for yourself treasure in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: It follows that not every believer is going to obey that command equally.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm dwelling on this just because there are people who have a difficult time with this teaching that there's rewards in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: I've heard people say it's, you know, it's that's sounds like worse righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: It's not fair that some believers get one level of reward and other believers another level of reward.
SPEAKER_00: Well, Jesus is the one who said it.
SPEAKER_00: Store up for yourself treasure in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: He knows what you're putting there.
SPEAKER_00: Is it fair for a teacher to say, you know, do your extra credit and we'll increase your grade?
SPEAKER_00: Of course.
SPEAKER_00: That's what how teachers operate.
SPEAKER_00: Do the extra credit.
SPEAKER_00: That's what God is telling us.
SPEAKER_00: You know, everybody, the first will be last, the last will be first.
SPEAKER_00: We will all get to heaven through faith.
SPEAKER_00: We all receive the same salvation through faith.
SPEAKER_00: But on top of that, there's additional rewards for people who make sacrifices.
SPEAKER_00: Not every Christian makes the same kind of sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: Not all Christians are going to be missionaries, not all missionaries are going to go to Cameroon or some or Chad or wherever.
SPEAKER_00: I remember at a missions conference once.
SPEAKER_00: There's a panel of missionaries, one in China and one from Cameroon, and the guy from Cameroon was talking, and the guy from China started talking and said, I could never do what this guy did.
SPEAKER_00: Like that's crazy going to there in Africa.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I go to China, I just have to learn a new language.
SPEAKER_00: This guy's going to the middle of nowhere.
SPEAKER_00: It was sobering for me to hear some guy who packed up his family and moved to China look at some other missionary and go, that sacrifice is too much for me.
SPEAKER_00: I can't do it.
SPEAKER_00: No way.
SPEAKER_00: Different Christians make different kinds of sacrifices, and the Lord knows how you've been gifted, the Lord knows how you've been called, and He rewards everybody appropriately.
SPEAKER_00: Every Christian will make sacrifices for the gospel, though.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone will leave houses and families and lands for the sake of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We looked at that this morning.
SPEAKER_00: But the Lord rewards you.
SPEAKER_00: This is why.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see the connection between sacrifice and joy now?
SPEAKER_00: If you're losing the reward, if you don't see the reward, you don't see why it would be joyful.
SPEAKER_00: But if you see the reward, then it should make you joyful.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus says, rejoice when you are persecuted for my name's sake.
SPEAKER_00: And you think that's that's crazy.
SPEAKER_00: How can someone tell you rejoice when you're persecuted?
SPEAKER_00: That makes zero sense.
SPEAKER_00: You don't rejoice when you're persecuted.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you write an angry letter to the editor, you demand to see the manager when you're persecuted.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, rejoice.
SPEAKER_00: Why would you rejoice when you're persecuted?
SPEAKER_00: Why would you rejoice when something bad is happening to you?
SPEAKER_00: Because you see the reward that it produces.
SPEAKER_00: That's why.
SPEAKER_00: And the reward is what motivates the rejoicing.
SPEAKER_00: When you see that connection, why are they rejoicing if they have to get relocated to Jerusalem?
SPEAKER_00: They're so happy about it because they know what it's leading to.
SPEAKER_00: They know it's pointing to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So, sacrifices relate to gospel expansion or gospel rewards, and then thirdly, sacrifices produce gospel joy.
SPEAKER_00: They produce gospel joy because we understand the rewards that the Lord gives us.
SPEAKER_00: This is the New Testament is marked by joy.
SPEAKER_00: Philippians 4, verse 4, rejoice in the Lord when always.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, come on now, you don't mean that.
SPEAKER_00: Always rejoice in the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Come on, Paul.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe he didn't mean it.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Thessalonians 5, 16 says, rejoice.
SPEAKER_00: Always.
SPEAKER_00: So he said it twice.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe he means it.
SPEAKER_00: Nehemiah 12, verse 43.
SPEAKER_00: All of those words piling up.
SPEAKER_00: Rejoice, rejoice, rejoice.
SPEAKER_00: You realize that your sacrifices cause joy when you realize that your sacrifices are an investment.
SPEAKER_00: That's why I harped this morning with my very bad math about how much you're rewarded.
SPEAKER_00: You step away from things in this life.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord rewards you a hundredfold.
SPEAKER_00: The man who sold everything to buy the field with treasure, he didn't mourn the selling of everything because he knew the treasure that was in the field.
SPEAKER_00: We rejoice, even though we don't live like the world, we rejoice in this world because we have something better than this world.
SPEAKER_00: So sacrifices are evidence of belief in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Do you believe what the Bible says about heaven?
SPEAKER_00: Then you'll rejoice about sacrifices.
SPEAKER_00: Send as much as you can ahead to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: The nine of the ten people that didn't move to Jerusalem, they weren't sinning.
SPEAKER_00: You got ten family members gathered around, the lot falls on one of them, that guy's got to move to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: The other nine weren't sinning by not going.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, they'd already separated themselves from the world by relocating to Israel.
SPEAKER_00: They'd already made sacrifices, they'd already left Babylon and Persia to relocate to Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Let them just go back to their family's lands.
SPEAKER_00: But the one who gets to go to Jerusalem, that's even better for him.
SPEAKER_00: Christians aren't sinning by not going into the mission field.
SPEAKER_00: They're not sinning by not giving more money to the ministry or whatever the sacrifice is.
SPEAKER_00: You're not sinning by not doing that.
SPEAKER_00: But those who do those things increase their reward.
SPEAKER_00: Practically speaking, not everyone's called to be a missionary.
SPEAKER_00: But those that make sacrifices like that should be honored and esteemed.
SPEAKER_00: The nine that stayed were celebrating with the one that goes.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see that?
SPEAKER_00: Everybody turned out for this.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody turned out.
SPEAKER_00: It's this huge parade, unlike anything they'd seen before.
SPEAKER_00: They're celebrating on their new wall, but the walls hold them all.
SPEAKER_00: That's also incredible.
SPEAKER_00: It worked.
SPEAKER_00: And everybody's rejoicing.
SPEAKER_00: Then nine of ten are going to go back home to their village, leaving the 10% back in Jerusalem, experiencing the joy of the sacrifice they make.
SPEAKER_00: We too should rejoice, knowing that we will be remembered by God for the sacrifices we make.
SPEAKER_00: It's worth just flipping over to the very last line of Nehemiah chapter 13.
SPEAKER_00: Look at how Nehemiah ends.
SPEAKER_00: I'll save this when we finish the book of Nehemiah in two weeks, but I just want you to see the last phrase of Nehemiah, how the book closes.
SPEAKER_00: It's Nehemiah's prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Remember me, oh my God, for good.
SPEAKER_00: Nehemiah knows the Lord sees all of his sacrifices.
SPEAKER_00: He knows all he's walked away from.
SPEAKER_00: He walked, he was one of the emperor's ministers.
SPEAKER_00: He was the cupbearer for the king, and he stepped away from that to go back and be governor of a tiny province that most of Persia hadn't even heard of.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he took a demotion to go here.
SPEAKER_00: And he knows the Lord sees, and he knows the Lord will remember.
SPEAKER_00: That's why this book ends with remember my sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: That so motivated him.
SPEAKER_00: I want this to challenge you.
SPEAKER_00: I want you guys to lead this kind of life where you're willing to make sacrifices for Christ, that when you see opportunities to make sacrifices for the gospel, you take them because you're motivated by the joy that you know that will come with it.
SPEAKER_00: The joy that comes with sacrifices.
SPEAKER_00: You believe that there is joy, you believe there's treasure in heaven, you believe that all of your sacrifices are related to the gospel going to the world, people coming to faith in Christ, and you want to be part of that.
SPEAKER_00: When you're focused on yourself and your own life and your own property and your own family, you don't see the importance of sacrifice to expand the gospel through the world, to bring more people into the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: And when you start focusing myopically and just on those that are around you, you lose sight of the fact the Lord wants to reward you through sacrifices, and so you're robbing yourself of joy.
SPEAKER_00: But when you can get your eyes off of yourself and to the world, you see the great need for the gospel in the world.
SPEAKER_00: You want to participate in getting the gospel there through giving, through sacrificing your own self, your own time, your own family, your own life, your own money, your own investments to expand the gospel in the world.
SPEAKER_00: You get excited about that because you know the Lord will reward you for that, and that produces a real, transcendent joy in your life.
SPEAKER_00: You have to see the connection between what you give and where the gospel goes to your joy in the next life because of it.
SPEAKER_00: That motivates joy.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we're grateful that you have called us to lead sacrificial and joyful lives.
SPEAKER_00: One or the other would have been unbalanced.
SPEAKER_00: You don't call us to be happy and greedy, and you don't call us to be sacrificial and mopey.
SPEAKER_00: But you've brought together sacrifice and joy.
SPEAKER_00: Two virtues really not paired together in the world, but you've brought them together for us here in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We understand, of course, that the center of our religion is a sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: The center of our religion is Christ crucified on the cross for us.
SPEAKER_00: And yet it was for the joy set before him that he endured the cross, scorning at shame.
SPEAKER_00: So of course it makes sense for us to live the same way.
SPEAKER_00: It makes sense for us because the heart of our religion is a Savior who sacrificed his own life with joy.
SPEAKER_00: Let us sacrifice our possessions, our time, our talents, our resources for the sake of others here in the gospel, and let us do so with joy.
SPEAKER_00: And that's how you've designed us.
SPEAKER_00: We pray that you would work that in our hearts in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: We pray, Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining us today.
SPEAKER_00: If you're in the Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: area, I would love to meet you personally at Emmanuel Bible Church.
SPEAKER_00: Our service times and other church information is on our website at ibc.church.
SPEAKER_00: If you want information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: location, go to tms.edu.
SPEAKER_00: I hope this resource has been an encouragement to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel of Jesus Christ with boldness.
SPEAKER_00: May the Lord bless you.