10,000 Bricks: Building The Covenant Series

[clearly you will subsitute in your own church family's history]

10,000 BRICKS: Building the Covenant

Nehemiah 9:1-10:39

#10000bricks

CCC PART 1

The idea of having a Cincinnati Christian Church originated among a group of believers who were sharing the use of the Union Church located across the road from Cincinnati Christian Church. Union Church was built in the year 1875 and was shared on different Sundays by different denominations. Each denomination would use the church once a month and a minister would come by train. Maybe that is where some of you get the idea that church is just once a month? Funny? No? The group of 20 or so that started Cincinnati Christian Church was one of those groups that used the church for services.

The land where we sit now was donated to be used for the purpose of building a church in 1917. There were promises made to saw the lumber for the original church building and after some hardships, it was done. A one room frame building was completed and dedicated as a place of worship in October of 1919. At the dedication, there was a dinner. Donations and pledges to pay for and furnish the church were made at this dinner. The seats and pews were obtained from the Bloomfield Opera House at no cost and were transported to the church by a horse drawn wagon. I still can’t wrap my head around that Bloomfield had an “Opera House.” Thomas Cox was the first minister of the church who served from 1919 to 1927.

There were a lot of firsts for the church. The first funeral was held in 1921. The trustees were bonded in 1924. The first youth group was formed between area churches in 1930.

TRANSITION / BACKGROUND ON NEHEMIAH

Today, we winding down in a series of sermons from the Book of Nehemiah all about some building efforts. We have just a few more weeks in this book that has 13 chapters containing 406 verses. We have seen in Nehemiah 1-8 that the building efforts led by Nehemiah for the walls around Jerusalem were successful. According to the Biblical record, the Babylonian armies smashed Jerusalem to pieces (2 Kings 25) including the temple and all the palaces (2 Kings 25, Jeremiah 52). They devastated the countryside as well (Jeremiah 32). Nehemiah was one who had not yet returned to Jerusalem, but heard the city was in ruins many years after it should have been rebuilt. He fasted and prayed. He received a burden from the Lord to rebuild the walls. He did that fighting off distractions and oppositions outside of Jerusalem and inside Jerusalem. Nehemiah is someone who obeyed God.

We know about Nehemiah from the Bible, but also from sources NOT in the Bible. Josephus, a Jewish historian says this about Nehemiah (XI, 183, 8]: “Then, after performing many others splendid and praiseworthy public services, Nehemiah died at an advanced age. He was a man of kind and just nature and most anxious to serve his countrymen; and he left the walls of Jerusalem as his eternal monument.”

We are in Nehemiah 9-10.

Nehemiah 9–10 recounts a national spiritual revival where the Israelites, having returned from exile and rebuilt Jerusalem's walls, gather for confession, fasting, and repentance. They pray, recounting God’s faithfulness despite their ancestors’ disobedience, and sign a binding covenant to obey God’s laws, specifically regarding temple support and intermarriage with unbelieving people.

As we read Nehemiah 9-10, we will find the people assembling in fasting and sackcloth, separating themselves from foreigners to confess their sins and the sins of previous generations. They are led by a prayer from the Levites. This is not a short prayer, but a long ‘ol prayer of reflection on history which highlights God as the faithful Creator and Redeemer Who provided, guided, and gave land to Israel. The Levites contrast God's mercy and grace with Israel’s historical tendency to rebel against Him which lead to their current state of servitude in their own land.

The section of Nehemiah 9-10 concludes with the strong commitment: "We will not neglect the house of our God” (Nehemiah 10:39).

READ NEHEMIAH 9:1-3 (ESV)

“Now on the twenty-fourth day of this month the people of Israel were assembled with fasting and in sackcloth, and with earth on their heads. 2 And the Israelites separated themselves from all foreigners and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers. 3 And they stood up in their place and read from the Book of the Law of the Lord their God for a quarter of the day; for another quarter of it they made confession and worshiped the Lord their God.”

Nehemiah 9 opens with showing us the heart of the people by their outward actions. The people who had returned to Jerusalem and who were part of the rebuilding efforts were focusing on purifying their community and returning to covenant obedience to God. They wanted to be God’s people in all senses of the word. They came to God humbly and with much repentance. What did this look like? This looked like the people fasting, wearing sackcloth which is a coarse itchy fabric, and put dirt on their heads. These were all physical signs of deep sorrow and humility before God the people wanted to express.