THE RIGHT PLATFORM: Breathing in God’s Word
Nehemiah 8:1-4
1 all the people assembled as one man in the square before the Water Gate. They told Ezra the scribe to bring out the Book of the Law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded for Israel. 2 So on the first day of the seventh month Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly, which was made up of men and women and all who were able to understand. 3 He read it aloud from daybreak till noon as he faced the square before the Water Gate in the presence of the men, women and others who could understand. And all the people listened attentively to the Book of the Law. 4 Ezra the scribe stood on a high wooden platform built for the occasion.
This is an amazing moment in their history… over 50-60 years of exile and captivity depending on when they were deported by the conquering Babylonians. After now 40-50000 of them returning to their home state… and then with the leadership of Ezra they rebuilt the temple… taking 46 years by some accounts. Then Nehemiah comes… last week we discussed them protecting the wall as they rebuilt it, and secured the city once again… an impossible task accomplished with the people in 52 days…
Jeremiah had prophesied that there would be 70 years of captivity and exile… now they were out… back home, the temple rebuilt… and now the walls back up… becoming a society once again…
And Nehemiah 8 comes about… the build a platform specifically for the occasion… and on purpose they are standing in the Watergate… a place where an underground stream goes to the temple to provide moving or living water for the priests to prepare themselves in for their duties.
And Ezra brings the book of the law to them… and for some…
• The first time in many years they get to hear the word
• Religious leaders, priests, politicians, artists, merchants, all the best and brightest were enslaved and taken from their homes to serve in the Babylonian capital. The Jews call these periods of their history the Babylonian Captivity, and the Exile.
• And during this Exile, during their captivity, many, if not most of the Jewish people lost touch with their scriptures and their way of life. Our passage from Nehemiah takes place a couple of generations later, after they are allowed to return home.
• At the Water Gate, the priest Ezra reads from a text which the people have not heard from in many, many years. Ezra reads the Law of Moses, the first five books of the Bible, and as I said, for many of the survivors of the Captivity and Exile, it is the first time in decades they have heard these words. For their children and grandchildren it may have been the very first time they have heard this scripture.
• For others, it may have been the first time ever… born into captivity they have never known them as a separate society governing and functioning themselves…
This is the backdrop of our story today… the power of God’s word… our response to it… and our need for God’s word.
THIS MORNING I WANT TO TALK WITH YOU ABOUT 3 SIGNIFICANT POINTS…
1. THE PURPOSE FOR GOD’S WORD – AND MAKING IT CLEAR
2. THE SIGNIFICANE OF THE WATER GATE
3. AND THE SIGNICANCE OF THEIR RESPONSE TO THE WORD (FEASTS)
Purpose of the Word:
2 Timothy 3: 14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, 15 and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
All scripture is God-breathed…
Our series… learning to breathe in the things of God… and exhale ministry…
All scripture is God-breathed… v. 17 – so that man may be equipped for what??? Good works…
Breathe in the word of God… breathe out ministry… !
SIGNIFICANCE OF MAKING IT CLEAR:
Me – When did God’s word begin to become clear to me… as a child… my notebooks…
That this is the living word…
Let’s look now at verses 7-8:
The Levites — Jeshua, Bani, Shere-biah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodiah, Ma-aseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan and Pela-iah — instructed the people in the Law while the people were standing there. They read from the Book of the Law of God, making it clear and giving the meaning so that the people could understand what was being read.
You see what’s happening here:
Ezra is up on the stage and the people are standing all around them.
Now, the phrase, "while the people were standing there" actually should say, "the people remained in their places."
And the phrase, "making it clear" could also mean that they were "translating it."
In other words, Ezra would read the Bible, but it was written in Hebrew and most of these Jews spoke Aramaic or the Babylonian language,
So while "the people remained in their places," These Levites would walk around among them,
1) Translating the words into Aramaic and Babylonian, and then
2) Making the meaning of those words clear.
We need to learn, study, be trained up, find correction, in the WORD OF GOD. We must learn, grow, and study together so that we can BE EQUIPPED FOR GOOD WORKS!
IMAGINE LEARNING A TRADE… BEING GIVEN A MECHANICS MANUAL… AND TOLD TO BECOME AN EXPERT ON A CERTAIN CAR, AND THEN NEVER WORKING ON THAT CAR.
OR LEARNING TO BE A CARPENTER… BUT NEVER BUILDING A HOME, OR EVEN A BIRDHOUSE FOR YOUR KIDS.
IMAGINE LEARNING TO BE AN ELECTRICIAN – YET NEVER USING IT TO EVEN CHANGE A LIGHT BULB.
So it is with us… if we hear the Word of God, yet do nothing with it… I have been so proud of many in our church who are stepping up and helping… using the Word of God as an active part for their life…
• Talked with people who are looking for ways to reach out to their neighbors friends… and bring Jesus to them.
• Many of you last week coming and talking with our leaders and signing up to help in Rangers, Mpact, kitchen… and serving the body of Christ and our city through the church.
• Today I have 21 people signed up to come to our LG meeting right after church (couple spots open).
The more we make the word of God active in our lives… the more we will grow. The more you will grow… the more God will do among us…
ONE OF THE CHALLENGES BEFORE US… To make the Word of God clear to all of those that come… to Life Groups… to Services, to Sunday school…
Just as they had to translate it for the hearers… we live in a day where we have generations they have never really heard the Word of God… it’s not been translated to them in a way they can understand.
The vision of Scripture is clear… God breathed information to change us from the inside out… we must find ways to communicate that to our city and neighborhood… THIS IS THE RIGHT PLATFORM…
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE WATER GATE AND THE FEAST:
In their response… later in Nehemiah 8… they celebrate the Feast of Booths or also known as the Feast of Tabernacles… and for the first time in generations they follow the word God gives them and conduct this feast…
The first reason for the Feast of Tabernacles was to remind Israel how they dwelt in booths as they journeyed from Egypt. Yahweh told Moses the reason for the feast. "That your generations may know that I [Yahweh Elohim] made the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt (Lv. 23:43):" Yahweh wanted Israel to remember that He brought them out of Egypt to remind them that He can release them from any state of bondage and chaos.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE WATER GATE:
On the first day of the new year, the people gathered in a public square on the south side of the temple near the Water Gate. This was a place where the whole family could meet. It was not only for men, but also for women and children. The Water Gate was given that name because an underground stream ran nearby that was used to provide water for the temple. The Water Gate led into the temple area where a ritual bath was taken by the priests to make them clean to do their duties in the temple. This area required the use of "living water" or running water, not just water in a pot. Because it was the first day of a new year (Rosh haShanah), the priests blew the ram’s horn, called a shophar (pronounced SHOW-far) to celebrate.
a. The Watergate was a symbolic place… one that Jesus would use 400 years later.
A few days later they began to observe the Feast of Tabernacles. Now let me take you forward in time. About 475 years later at this feast, the priests were bringing jars of water in to the ritual bath area through the Water Gate. The Lord Jesus stood up and called loudly to the people, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He promised to give the Holy Spirit to those who believed on him. That would be like a living water cleaning them on the inside!
John 7:37-38 - 37 On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." 39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.
b. The Watergate symbolizes for us… a moment of truth… to receive the word of God… and respond…
c. The platform by which we are to come to God…
LESSON FROM THE FEAST: God can free you from any captivity if you follow Him…
LESSON FROM THE WATER GATE: God’s Word is a living Word… and The Spirit of God carries that living water quenching our thirst forever. THE ONLY THING THAT FILLS US AND MAKES US WHOLE IS THE ONE TRUE GOD.
TRANSLATION: GOD’S WORD IS THE ONLY THING THAT CAN SET YOU FREE AND QUENCH YOUR THIRST!
IT’S THE ANSWER IF WE LEARN IT AND APPLY IT!
Like the breath we breathe… or the water we drink
John 4: 4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour. 7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?" 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." 11 "Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?" 13 Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
The world is starving and thirsty… and we know the answer! Nothing else will fully quench the thirst… nothing.
WHAT IS OUR RESPONSE TO THE WORD OF GOD?!
IMAGINE : Genuinely encountering the Word of God… and finding it being the living water that from we draw the essence of life.
Imagine God’s Word becoming that important…
The challenge before us:
1. Like Paul – become all things to all people that we might save some… to CLEARLY BRING THE WORD OF GOD to those around us. help them understand in ways that are relevant to them.
2. Remember how we should respond – remember that God through His Living Word can set us free from anything.
3. Remember God’s Word can quench our thirst.
TRANSLATION: GOD’S WORD IS THE ONLY THING THAT CAN SET YOU FREE AND QUENCH YOUR THIRST!
IT’S THE ANSWER IF WE LEARN IT AND APPLY IT!
We are so desensitized to the power of it… we don’t take it to heart. OR we have lost the fear or wonder of God… and just don’t take it seriously. The people of Israel responded as Ezra spoke from the word of God form daybreak until noon… a 4 hour church service…
8 They read from the Book of the Law of God, making it clear and giving the meaning so that the people could understand what was being read.
9 Then Nehemiah the governor, Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who were instructing the people said to them all, "This day is sacred to the Lord your God. Do not mourn or weep." For all the people had been weeping as they listened to the words of the Law. 10 Nehemiah said, "Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is sacred to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength."
Our response should be reflective, life changing… and then there should be celebration in the camp.
Response one: Weeping, repentance… 9B For all the people had been weeping as they listened to the words of the Law
Response two: Celebration – we are not alone… 10 Nehemiah said, "Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is sacred to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength."
• God has not left us alone.
• God has given us instructions for life.
• God is with us… and the Joy of the Lord is our strength…
o We don’t have to fear God, if we are walking with God.
o He has left us instructions for life… use them.
o Celebrate them… we are not alone!
Response Three: Application of the instructions.
13 On the second day of the month, the heads of all the families, along with the priests and the Levites, gathered around Ezra the scribe to give attention to the words of the Law. 14 They found written in the Law, which the Lord had commanded through Moses, that the Israelites were to live in booths during the feast of the seventh month 15 and that they should proclaim this word and spread it throughout their towns and in Jerusalem: "Go out into the hill country and bring back branches from olive and wild olive trees, and from myrtles, palms and shade trees, to make booths"--as it is written.
• Anyone else here hate to read the instructions and you would rather just figure it out?
• Anyone here really messed something up because you didn’t
What is its purpose…
2 Timothy 3: 14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, 15 and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Teaching – giving us understanding of how we should live, how we treat each other, and what we should believe.
Rebuking – if we are off course it helps us get back on course.
Correcting –
Training – this is the way you should go
ALL FOR WHAT PURPOSE… so that we are equipped for every good work.
So if we hear about the word of God and then don’t let it compel us to good works… we are misusing the tools given to us!
