Nehemiah 8
Introduction: They did a lot of things right when they founded America, but as a country we started over with holidays. I’m not sure that was so smart.
Countries in Europe have been hanging on to their holidays for centuries. The right calendar will give you some of them: Bank Holiday; All Saints Day; St. Stephen’s Day; Day of Reformation. Boxing Day – those Europeans, they like their holidays. But we Yanks, we streamlined life. From the start we were too busy building a country, exploring the frontier and fighting Indians to take many days off.
We’ve been wisely adding them along the way. In fact, there are even many lesser-known holidays you can celebrate if you just find out about them:
• Jan 21st – National Hugging Day
• Aug. 8 – National Sneak some zucchini onto your neighbor’s porch night
• Aug. 13 – National Blame Someone Else Day
• Sep. 5 – National Be Late for Something Day
• Oct 11-15 – National Pet Peeve Week
• Oct 13 -- National Bring Your Teddy Bear to Work Day
But, as a whole, we’ve cut down on our “holidaying” in the USA.
Israel knew about holidays. They had a lot of them, and most of them came by direct order from God: “You will celebrate this feast.” There were at least 8 feasts the Jews celebrated every year. Even the land got some time off – every 7th year a field had to lie fallow.
Why? Because God knows the value of rest to His creation. He knows that in the busyness of life, when life gets BIG, we need sometimes to BIG back by taking a big pause.
Let’s consider this principle of Sabbath. When He took the 7th day off work, God didn’t need the rest! But He knew we’d need to understand it, so He set a divine precedent when He took off 1 day out of 7 and stopped work.
Jesus set the same precedent when He was on earth. He reminded the Pharisees that the Sabbath was “made for man.”
Luke 4:16
He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom.
Luke 5:15-16
the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.
Mark 6:31
because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to [the disciples], “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”
The point is simply that God knows us and knows that we need to take pauses in life to get things in line again.
Ill – Instruments and indicators have to go through what’s called recalibration. Airplane controls have to be reset, scales have to be set to zero, musical instruments have to be retuned. All of these have to be recalibrated – they have to be adjusted for their circumstances, to make sure they’re reading, playing, and weighing like they should be.
BIG living means setting aside special moments to worship and to re-calibrate our lives according to God’s word. Remember, Nehemiah’s not just rebuilding broken walls. He’s rebuilding broken people. They’ve strayed from God. They’ve been weakened and shamed. There are a lot of things that have been knocked over in Israel. Sound familiar?
Life is BIG. And the times present us with the need to “come apart”; to “set aside”; to take a BIG pause. Let’s look at what Israel set aside…
I. Set Aside Special Moments for Worship (8:1-3)
Seems like the book would be fine it would just end after the wall was finished. 6:15 “So the wall was completed on the 25th of Elul, in 52 days.” The end.
But this isn’t just about walls. In fact, within a week or less, we find something else going on.
Nehemiah 8:1 (NIV)
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.
The mortar’s still green. People have just moved on back into the city and are getting re-settled, and they have an assembly. They set aside a special moment to worship the Lord.
(1. Everyone)
Look who’s there. “All the people assembled as one man.” Now, I don’t know if that means it was very crowded, if they had a great unity about them, if there was a certain singleness of purpose, or maybe all of the above. What I do know is that everyone was there except for the nursery and Jr. Church!
Nehemiah 8:2 (NIV)
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.
Seems like this idea of setting aside a special moment to worship God wasn’t just for a few. Everyone who could understand the moment was there.
2. Openly
Here’s an interesting outline for a worship service, Jan: (v6)
1. Bless God out loud;
2. Say “Amen, Amen!” while lifting hands;
3. Bow low, with our faces to the ground and worship.
Wouldn’t it be interesting if next Sunday that’s what was listed in our bulletins?!
They saw each other worshiping. It wasn’t just a “private matter between God and me.”
3. Sacrificially
This happened (v 3) “from daybreak till noon” – 5-6 hours on their feet.
The Greek Orthodox church has always had the practice of standing for their entire time of worship together. That may help you if you think we stand too long while we’re singing!
Now here’s the point of considering this: We need, as a church body and as individuals, to set aside special moments for worship.
They don’t just happen accidentally. In fact, left to chance they won’t happen.
Can you imagine that on that day, everyone from a certain age on up would just happened to be milling around in the square by the Water Gate, and the priests just happened to get up on a podium in front of everyone and they just happened to spend the entire morning standing there worshiping?
Do you think that we all just happened to show up here this morning? That the lights happened to be on, the doors happened to be unlocked, and Jan happened to have assembled our time of singing? Believe that, and you have what it takes to believe in evolution!
-Ill - I’ve noticed this: on vacation trips where my family is away from home on a Sunday, unless we give a lot of attention to finding a church and planning where we’ll worship and what time the services begin and how to get there - unless we’re very deliberate and plan it out, it’s a real strain to get it to happen.
And I’ve noticed this: when I’m all alone and I don’t have a bunch of work laid out in front of me, and I start to think about the Lord, worshiping Him seems very easy and natural. That tells me something about special moments that are set aside for being in solitude and away from work.
Story – Remember those rides at county fair? I loved them, except for the ones that go in circles. Those do something to me! In OH, we put Jenni and 3 of her friends on one. I’ve heard that some of those ride operators have kind of an inside contest going about the number of people they can get to throw up on their ride each day. We watched as our giggling daughter and her friends went around, and around, and around, and after about the 5th time around, their laughter turned to somber looks. Their rosy cheeks flushed to a pale green. Their eyes half closed. And, we parents who were watching knew they needed to get off. Surely the ride operator saw them, didn’t he? Here they came again, 5, 10 more times, greener with each revolution. We began to holler to the ride operator, “Stop the ride! They’re going to get sick! In fact, they’re going to die.” He didn’t hear us, or at least acted like he didn’t. Finally, the ride began to slow, and stop. Our girls stumbled off. The poor dears! We all rushed to help our daughters. “Oh, honey, are you OK?”
Suddenly, they were all better! “Can we do it again?!”
Life can be a lot like one of those rides. Sometimes, we just want someone to turn off the switch and let us get off for a few minutes so we can catch our balance. But, unlike those rides at the fair, it’s completely up to us to make sure it happens.
Each of us needs in our lives to set aside special moments for worship. Parents, we need to make sure it happens for our children too.
We need to come together to openly worship. We all need that. We need to openly adore God. We need to be willing to be uncomfortable for the sake of honoring Him; to set aside the time, whether we find that convenient or not.
We need to create moments also when we’re all alone, just God and me, no TV or radio, no internet, no work, nothing to distract.
That means you and I need to observe the principle of Sabbath. God knew we need a day off. That means you may need to schedule an occasional personal retreat. It may mean that you rise in the morning before the rest of the day starts. Whatever it takes, do it! Set it aside. It won’t happen by chance.
We need those special moments for worship.
But there was more than just a “worship service” . . .
II. Set Aside Special Moments to Listen to His Word (8:5-8)
See the focus of that morning?
V2 says Ezra read the LAW. No NT written yet. The Jews were gathered to listen to God’s word. As a nation, they’d forgotten it. So, to start correcting it, they set aside that day to listen to God’s word again.
(1. Everyone)
Notice again who’s there:
v3: “And all the people listened attentively to the Book of the Law.” Everyone who could understand.”
There was a certain value for everyone hearing what God had to say.
2. Respectfully
I love
Nehemiah 8:5 (NIV)
Ezra opened the book. All the people could see him because he was standing above them; and as he opened it, the people all stood up.
When Ezra stood to share what God had said for His people, it was over 1,000 years old, but it wasn’t “yawn time.” It was stand up time! Maybe this was just a matter of respect for what God cares about. But there’s also a value in this that’s very practical:
I know sometimes it’s hard to stay awake when you’re listening to someone, or maybe even reading. Maybe you worked last night. You’re settled. You’ve had breakfast. The coffee did its work and got you out the door, and now it’s wearing off. It’s kind of warm and stuffy. You’re sitting very still. And now your eyelids are getting heavy.
Not so when you’re standing! (Try it for a minute - stand up!) There’s something about being on your feet that helps you be attentive – Maybe it’s the fear of your head hitting the ground! For those 5-6 hours, the people all stood.
3. Understandably
Nehemiah 8:8 (NIV)
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.
Picture this: The remaining 2 tribes of Israel had been conquered. They were exiled from their homeland, and over time began to mingle with the people around them.
Nehemiah 13:23-24 (NIV)
Moreover, in those days I saw men of Judah who had married women from Ashdod, Ammon and Moab. Half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod or the language of one of the other peoples, and did not know how to speak the language of Judah.
The language of Judah had been Hebrew. It was lost, and it has remained changed to this very day.
So when the OT Law was read to them, for some it was to them a foreign language.
Ill - If I were to stand up here and read from Hebrew or even Old English, you might find it interesting to listen to, but you mostly wouldn’t be able to appreciate what it meant. So the Levites “instructed the people,” “making it clear, giving the meaning, so the people could understand.” God’s word hadn’t changed, but the people and the times had.
*The reading of God’s Word that day wasn’t just a ritual. It wasn’t convenient. It wasn’t just for show. The people hadn’t heard it for a long time. The goal was for everyone to hear and understand what God had said.
We need a big pause -- to set aside some special moments to hear what God has to say. It needs to be something we all do. It needs to be something we respect, and it needs to be something we can understand .
There’s no secret language when God wants to give His word to people. We need to take advantage of the ways we can take it in and understand it. There are enough translations available, enough ways to fill ourselves with God’s word today that every one of us should be full of it.
I regret that the average American’s attention span is so much shorter than it used to be. But if that means we have to present the message in shorter bites, OK. Let’s do it. I regret that we’ve become such a visually-dependant society, but if using visual aids helps people to get the message, let’s do it! Let’s set aside special moments to listen to God’s word in a way that we will understand it! And let’s make sure that when we share that word with others it’s in a language they can appreciate.
Make a note also that we’re a lot like Israel in another way: as a whole, we’ve neglected the Word too long.
• Would we show enough respect to give it our undivided attention until we knew what God wants us to do?
• Would we each care enough about it to be involved in a SS class where we can learn it better?
• Would we care enough that God has spoken to us to set aside a time each day to hear what He has to say?
I’ve noticed this: in daily, normal living, unless I give attention to making the time, and to having a plan for reading the Bible, unless it’s very deliberate and planned out, it’s a real strain to get it to happen.
We all need a big pause – special moments that we set aside to listen to the word.
III. Set Aside Our Own Agendas to Respond the Way We Should (8:9-12ff)
The result of this first meeting was a lot of crying. (v9)
I don’t think it was “Oh, that’s just so beautiful!” or “Oh, that reminds me of the good old days!”
I think it was more like “Oh my! We’ve been so negligent! We’ve wandered so far from God!”
vv10-11 Nehemiah and the Levites calmed the people, convinced them to not grieve
8:12
Then all the people went away to eat and drink, to send portions of food and to celebrate with great joy, because they now understood the words that had been made known to them.
They set aside their own agendas to respond the right way. In fact, the next day, the leaders returned to hear more from God’s word, and they were reminded that it was almost time for the Feast of Booths. God had commanded it years ago. Everyone was to build little shelters outside and live in them for a week. Imagine it – No TV. No work. Lots of time to think and to consider God’s word again. A BIG pause!
They did it. And after 7 days of a big pause, ch9, they came back changed people! That whole chapter is the peoples’ prayer of praise and repentance, asking God to forgive them and help them. Ch10 finds the leaders signing a renewed contract with God, promising to follow the Lord’s commands.
Taking a big pause means also setting aside our personal agendas and conforming them to what God wants us to be.
How should we respond to hearing God’s word? (This is the application part…)
1. With tears? Maybe.
Psalm 51:17
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
Maybe today, or some other time we set aside to look into God’s word, there’s a place for tears. But we need to go beyond just feeling bad for what we have or haven’t done.
2. With Immediate Action
The Israelites didn’t wait around in all this. In fact, it was less than 3 months from the time the work began until ch9 where the people are coming before God to ask His forgiveness. When they heard about the Feast of Booths, they spread the word, and within 2 weeks, they were celebrating it in a way that hadn’t happened for some 946 years!
I know most of us aren’t going to go take a week off to contemplate what we hear today. But it’s too easy to hear something from God and say, “I ought to do that sometime.” The most effective way to remember it and make it a viable part of ourselves is to take immediate action.
If you hear a sermon about taking a big pause, take one - today, or tomorrow, or schedule one for this week. Start with a time in God’s word, today! Start by committing yourself today to not missing worship services. Sign up for Wednesday Family nights. Respond before you leave the building today! Don’t put it off.
3. With joy that we know His desires
Along with the weeping and changing, there was a lot of joy – a joy that comes from just knowing what God desires. (8:12)
It’s OK to find out you were wrong. It’s OK to be saved from disaster! Just like it’s OK to sing, “Amazing grace! How sweet the sound – that saved a wretch like me!” From there should come a joy that you still have time, while there’s time, to make it right.
*Big living means setting aside special moments to worship and to re-calibrate our lives according to God’s word
Conclusion:
By being here today you’ve already made the effort to set something aside for God.
The world wants quick fixes and easy answers, but God wants us to realize that it takes time – time in special moments that are set aside for Him to do something to us.
This morning, we’re going to sing to each other a song that reminds us of the vital need we have to take a pause. It’s a song to God regarding the way that we need to get back to what we’re doing here. (invitation fits into that time)
