One of the things I like about GraceWay is that there's real openness to single people. I don't
know, we maybe take that for granted here. But in some churches single people have a hard time
breaking in. You know, finding places to serve or participate or grow or connect. GraceWay has
a lot of different opportunities for that. These Summer Family Nights are a great opportunity for
single parents to interact with other single parents, certainly, but single people to interact. If you
are a single parent, there's an opportunity for children to be involved as well as an opportunity
for you to grow and develop your own spiritual strength. So I invite you to be a part of that. The
reason we asked you to sign up for the Summer Family Nights that start this week is so that we
can plan accordingly. In fact, that's why all the signup sheets are out there. If you're coming to
the Seniors’ Luncheon this week, we asked you to sign up so that we know how many people are
coming. So I encourage you to stop by the information table. It's a great hub of activity. Good
things are happening there. Thank you.
Now one other thought. My grandson is in the nursery today. I'm really grateful for the people
who serve there. But there aren't enough people in the nursery. I volunteered to work in there
today. But I think that would conflict with some of the other duties that I have. So if you'd be
willing to help with children's ministry or in the nursery occasionally, would you stop by the
information table and just let them know? Or let me know. I'll be happy to put you in touch with
the right people in order to make that happen. Alright?
Let's pray together.
[PRAYER] Father, when we see the struggles that are happening in our world, we're drawn to a
great sense of humility and crying out for your mercy. When we see war, when we see violence,
when we see famine, our hearts just go out and we see the persecution of Christians around the
world. Lord, we're just drawn in humility to your mercies and ask for your grace to pour down
on this place. Even in our own hearts, Father, we recognize our own weaknesses and our ability
to be easily tempted to speak wrongly or to do something wrongly. Our humility just is
accentuated and we just need you. We need your power, we need your strength. We are so
grateful that we don't live this life alone. That we have you. We can trust in you, we can
appreciate you, and we do. So we worship you this morning. Thank you for who you are and
what you've done in our lives, and what you continue to do. In Jesus’ name, amen.
When I'm studying a narrative passage like Nehemiah, I like to put myself into the story. In order
to do that, I have to understand the culture and the history, even the geography and where the sun
is shining, all those things are going on in the passage. When I put myself into the passage, then
I'm able to see what's going on in Nehemiah’s life and take some of the applications then and
turn them over to my own life and understand what God might be doing inside of my own heart.
Today we're going to do that. We’re going to get into the story of Nehemiah. Understand a little
bit more about Nehemiah’s experience. And as we do, we'll catch a little bit more about
applications for our lives. That's why we're here. We want to study God's word, not just as a
wisdom book, but as a book about God. A book that God has shared with us so we know how to
live our lives, so we know our position before God and how we can function this week. So I
expect you're going to see some of that today as, again, we open up God's word.
Now you know that Nehemiah is known for building the walls. That's what he's known for. But
he finishes in Nehemiah 6. We finished it last week. You ought to be asking the question in your
mind, “Well, if he finished the walls, what's he going to do for the rest of the seven chapters?”
And so today is one of those chapters that’s very important in our Christian life because we have
done some things in our lives, we’ve finished some things, or God has done some things in our
own hearts. We need to solidify those things before we move to the next thing. That's what's
happening with Nehemiah. He's going to solidify the things that are happening already before he
turns his heart and God lays something else on his heart we're going to see today as he moves
forward. So think about it in your own heart. What does God want you to solidify that He's
already done in your life? And where's He taking you next? I think that's what we're going to see
today.
Let's stand as we look at Nehemiah 7. I want to read to you verses 1-7. So if you'd stand in honor
of God's word and listen to it as it's being read.
Now when the wall had been built and I had set up the doors (that means it’s already done), and
the gatekeepers, the singers, and the Levites had been appointed, I gave my brother Hanani and
Hananiah the governor of the castle charge over Jerusalem, for he was (listen to this,
interesting) a more faithful and God-fearing man than many. And I said to them, “Let not the
gates of Jerusalem be opened until the sun is hot. (We’re going to have opening and closing
hours for Jerusalem now. It’s not going to be open at night. It’s only going to be open during
these hours when the sun is hot in the morning.) And while they are still standing guard, let them
shut and bar the doors. (So they’re going to close them at a certain point.) Appoint guards from
among the inhabitants of Jerusalem, some at their guard posts and some in front of their own
homes.” The city was wide (this is the next thing that Nehemiah is going to work on) and large,
but the people within it were few, and no houses had been rebuilt.
Then my God put it into my heart to assemble the nobles and the officials and the people to be
enrolled by genealogy. And I found the book of the genealogy of those who came up at the first,
and I found written in it (this is the same book that we found in Ezra, the exact same words and
genealogy in Ezra 2 and this is how it starts): These were the people of the province who came
up out of the captivity of those exiles whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had carried into
exile. They returned to Jerusalem and Judah, each to his town. They came with Zerubbabel,
Jeshua, Nehemiah, Azariah, Raamiah, Nahamani, Mordecai, Bilshan, Mispereth, Bigvai, Nehum,
Baanah. And the list goes on for sixty-seven more verses, which we will not read now. I will
spare you that.
You may be seated as we continue on here.
I want to go back and I want to talk about this solidifying that Nehemiah does. He's already built
the walls and the gates. They're already there. So what does he do now? He establishes these
gatekeepers. And notice I underlined the word guards at the bottom of the slide there and you
can circle those on your page. This is probably page 30 in your little booklet, if you have one. If
you want one, the booklets are on the windowsills if you don't have one. And that will allow you
to follow along with what we're doing. Circle those words because those are words where
Nehemiah is saying, okay, we want to capture what we already have. We want to solidify what
we already have.
I think in our own lives, we want to solidify things that God has already done in our lives. Just
think back on the last couple years of your life. Think back on the last six months of your life or
the last month. What is God doing? Because whatever is happening in the world, God is doing
something in our hearts. If something bad has happened to you (you've lost someone, or you lost
a job or something, you've gotten sick or something), God is still working in your heart. There's
an upward progression of our spiritual growth that continues up even in the midst of dark times.
We continue to grow and learn new things about the Lord. We may learn in those dark times
how to trust the Lord some more. Or we get a greater sensitivity for the pain of other people. We
want to solidify those gains. “Lord, thank you for providing those things. I want to protect those.
I don't want to lose my sensitivity to pain as I start to feel better. I want to always be sensitive to
the pain of others.” Or maybe you haven’t lost a job. Maybe you got a new job, or maybe you
bought a house, or things are going great for you. And in those moments, you want to solidify
those gains inside of your heart. “God, thank you for your grace. I want to rely on you more and
trust you. I want to thank you for all the things you provided for me.” It's in the midst of that,
that we're able to experience God in a greater way.
Always our progression and our sanctification should be moving higher. Whether it's through
bad things or good things that take place in our lives, God is doing things in our hearts. He's
growing them. He's solidifying them. We want to be the gatekeepers. We want to put the guards
there. Notice the guards were not only stationed at their posts, they were also stationed by their
homes. I think we need to guard our homes, we need to protect our homes because danger can
easily creep in to those places. We want to solidify the gains that God has given to us. I think
that's the first thing that we see in this passage.
But notice also that he appoints these singers and the Levites to worship. They're going to
establish the worship. And worship is so important, so valuable. Because what worship does
inside of our hearts, it acknowledges that God is great and we are small and we need Him. That's
what worship does. We're drawn in this presence of God that is so great. We're just reminded that
we're in need of Him and that He has given to us all that we have. So we're continually trusting
the Lord and growing in our lives because of worship.
Worship is a powerful thing. If you think about the Levitical worship, this worship that they
experienced on a regular basis, it wasn't just the Saturday when they took off from work. That
was true that they would spend time on each Saturday not working. They would reflect on God
had worked for six days, but took that seventh day to rest. And they would worship the Lord on
that day. But there were nineteen other feast days that they had in the course of their time. I'm
going to introduce you to those today. I want to share those or remind you what those are today
because we're going to use them over the next three weeks.
So this chart I'm going to throw up, you might just jot down these in your workbook, if you'd
like, or take a picture of the slide, or whatever you want to do. Because we're going to come back
to the same idea over time.
There are seven feasts that took place in a Jewish festival time, ways to worship. Each one of
them very important. The first one here is this worship of Passover. This is when the people had
grown to this place and they recognize that God had the death angel passed over the house
because blood was on the doorposts of their house. This is when they were coming out of Egypt.
Now that's important because this, as all the other feasts have their perspective of Jesus Christ
who's yet to come, who will fulfill this in our lives. So this particular feast, this first one is
reminding the people of God's deliverance.
The second one is the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Now this one lasts seven days. They would
take these crackers… They wouldn't have any leaven or yeast in their house to remind them of
how quickly they had to leave Egypt and come and start this new life. And so they would eat
crackers for this seven days to bring unleavened bread instead of bread, and would remind the
people of their new way of living that they would have.
Then there was a Day of Firstfruits. This is when the barley harvest started to come. They would
take a cup or a bowl, depending how big their farm was, and they would take the firstfruits and
they would give it to the Lord as an offering to the Lord, thanking God for His provision and His
gift of the harvest.
And then comes the next one, the Day of Pentecost. And this day of Pentecost (which just
happened in our calendar on June 6, which was just this last week) it is a very important holiday
because it's recognizing the harvest. The harvest of the barley before the wheat comes. But it's a
recognition of this harvest. That God is the one who provides for us. We are so grateful for all
His provisions.
Here's three more. Just jot these down too. The next one is the Feast of Trumpets, which we are
going to look at next week. The Feast of Trumpets is the one where it's the new year. Now notice
it's in the seventh month, first day. And you're saying, “Well shouldn't new year be on the first
month, first day?” Well, even in our culture, we start over, don't we in September. We kind of
say, “Okay, summer's over. I'm getting ready for my next period of time.” Your September
becomes this kind of first day of the next season. That's what it was here. The Feast of Trumpets,
which was their new year, and it was just a beautiful celebration of thanksgiving to God.
Then the next one is the Day of Atonement. The Day of Atonement was a special celebration,
just remembering the atonement of God and of course fulfilled in Jesus Christ for us, that we can
recognize that we now have fellowship with God.
And then lastly, this one, the shelter. This is my favorite one. This is the Feast of Shelters, the
Feast of Booths, Feast of Tabernacles. It's called all of those things. It's the week of camping. So
all the people would go out and camp in their backyards. They’d build these shelters. We'll talk
more about it in two weeks. I'll tell you more about that feast, but it's a very special one.
The point is that worship was very much a part of the Jewish culture. It was integrated into their
lives. I hope that in your worship, it's not just something we do here on Sunday morning and we
sing with great leaders, beautiful instruments, and we worship the Lord. It's just great. But I hope
you'll take that as practice. So when you go home, you can practice on your own and you can
enjoy worship as a lifestyle with who you are.
You know in Jewish history (let’s stay in Jewish history for just a moment), when something
great happened they would worship the Lord. Several times in the Old Testament, we see this.
We see it not only here with Nehemiah, but we're also going to see it when they finished the
temple, when Solomon finished that great temple in 2 Chronicles 5. Let's go into that worship
experience. Let’s just get a picture of what worship looked like.
And all the Levitical singers, Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun, their sons and kinsmen, arrayed in
fine linen, with cymbals, harps, and lyres (those are like guitars), stood east of the altar with 120
priests who were trumpeters (I wonder if the trumpets drowned out the guitars; I’m not sure);
and it was the duty of the trumpeters and singers to make themselves heard in unison in praise
and thanksgiving to the Lord), and when the song was raised, with trumpets and cymbals and
other musical instruments, in praise to the Lord (and here’s the words of the song), “For he is
good, for his steadfast love endures forever,” then house, the house of the Lord, was filled with a
cloud, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the
Lord filled the house of God.
Just imagine the worship that they experienced even in Nehemiah’s time. Because we need to
take that same worship into our own lives. Why? Because it's worship that draws us into the
presence of God to recognize how great God is, how awesome He is, and how small we are.
Because there can be a tendency when we finish the walls to think how great we are. How I got
this new job, or I bought this house, or I accomplished this particular activity, or I got this reward
or an award. And we say to ourselves, “I'm really great.” Yet worship keeps us in place. Helps us
to recognize that God is the one who's at work in all of this.
One time a lady said to me, after she had come to church, she had never been at church before.
This was her first experience at church. And she came to church and as she was leaving, she said,
“Wow, I realized that I don't have a space in my life where I sing with other people.” I take that
so much for granted in my own life. I love singing with other people. It's part of what we do
corporately, but worship is much bigger than that. That's why Paul, when he writes about
worship, he says this: I appeal to you, therefore brothers, by the mercies of God to present your
bodies as living sacrifice holy and acceptable to both to God, which is your spiritual worship.
Our lives are a lifestyle of worship. Nehemiah is doing that with the people. He's appointing the
singers and the Levites to establish worship as a very important part of who they are and what
they're doing.
Well, let's go on. That's just verse 1. I know we better keep going here.
Notice that in verse 2 it talks about this governor. The governor who now allows this person
who's going to be the mayor, Hanani. But notice what it says about him because I think this is
application for us. If we look back and solidify the gains that we have, as Nehemiah is doing
with the walls, we can also look at this idea of Hanani and the integrity that Hanani has as what
is God doing in our own lives? What does He want us to develop in our own hearts as we're
moving forward? This integrity… Well, let's read the verse. It says – For he was a more faithful
and God-fearing man than many.
The word faithful is the word ‘integrity’ or it means true. Integrity means to have the internal
strength to deal with the pressures from outside. Integrity means that you have the internal
character to deal with the temptations that might exist out there. And when you have this internal
character, you have integrity, then you can withstand some of the pressures that are out there. So
God wants to do that in each of our lives. This man was appointed because he was faithful, had
integrity, and he was more God-fearing than many. We all wish that the people we elect to be
government officials would be more faithful, have integrity, and more God-fearing than many.
That's what we want. Because those are the peoples that ought to be leading.
But let's apply this to ourselves. We want to be faithful and God-fearing. What is God-fearing?
Well, does it mean to be afraid of God? I think in part does. I do think we need to be afraid of
God. He is so big, so awesome that there's kind of this tension we feel while at the same time
somehow understanding how Jesus introduces us to God as Father. So there's this closeness we
experience. There's got to be that tension that exists.
But I think the fear of God is bigger than just a feeling. I think it's such an awesome respect, that
we allow God to work. “Oh God, you're here. Well, you take charge then. God I want to fit into
your plans today.” To allow God to run our lives.
Hanani was like that. He was more faithful and God-fearing than many. A great testimony to us.
I like those words that are said about him there and a good application, I think, for my life, and
maybe for yours as well.
Let's go on into the next verses. In verse 4 we see the new mission that Nehemiah is becoming
aware of. It says there in verse 4 – The city was wide and large, but the people within it were few,
and no houses had been rebuilt. He'd worked on the walls for some time, and now he's going to
start working with the people. We're going to see the shift in his life. Notice it says – And my
God put it into my heart. God does that. And I'm sure God does that in your life. That sometimes
He puts something on your heart that says, you know, I probably should step up and do that. Or I
should do something more in my family. Or I should do something more in this relationship. I
should do something more in my church. Whatever He's saying to you, He lays it on our hearts.
This is the beautiful thing. And it just comes from our heart. It doesn’t just come from some
external reward that I'm going to get if I do this, but it’s just on my heart to do something more.
And that's what's happening with Nehemiah.
It's been said you're never too old for God to use you more. And Nehemiah is now moving into
this place where God is laying something else on his heart. We always want to be sensitive to
this plan that God has that we can be a part of. That He's laying things on our hearts so that we
can dovetail with others, and we can serve Him, or we can grow our family, or we can do better
in our work. Whatever it is, God lays it on our hearts. We want to be very sensitive to that.
Well, I want to take you to one more application. And this is at the end. So if you go through all
of the names of all of these people, which I'm not going to read today…although we do need to
recognize that every person is important to God. Whenever I see those genealogies, that's what I
think of. Every person is important to God, including you and me.
But let's go down to verse 70 (which you'll find on page 34 in your little booklet) and read those
words, because there's another interesting application. Here are people who are giving to the
project, that are giving financially to the project. I find it interesting that we have two ways that
we give financially to the Lord's work. One is that we just discipline ourselves regularly to be
giving out of our paycheck. That we get a certain amount each week or each month and we
dedicate a certain amount of that to the Lord. We call that our tithes that we give to the Lord's
work. But then there's the offerings. This is more than the tithes. This is when there's a project
and you give to that project in one way or another. And when God is working, you want to give.
That's the principle that we see here.
Let me read it. It says – Some of the heads of the families contributed to the project. The
governor gave to the treasury 1,000 darics of gold, 50 bowls and 530 priestly garments. Some of
the heads of the families gave to the treasury for the project 20,000 darics of gold and 2,200
minas of silver. The rest of the people gave a total of 20,000 darics of gold, 2,000 minas of silver
and 67 priestly garments. The priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers, singers and the temple
servants, along with certain of the people and the rest of the Israelites, settled in their own
towns. And by the seventh month the Israelites had settled in their towns.
Very important part that Nehemiah is playing here in the roles of these people. I just find it
interesting that…and here's the principle: When God is working, God's people like to give. We
see that here in this passage.
As I look at this whole passage, what I see is a progress of spiritual activity or progress of
spiritual growth that you and I need in our lives as well. God is progressing in our lives, growing
us. The process (the theological word is sanctification) is always moving up as long as we're
following the Lord. No matter what happens to us, it's always moving up. Now if you end up
going the wrong direction in your life, running away from the Lord, then of course, you can
digress in that. But if we're serving the Lord, no matter what happens to us, we're moving in this
direction. Because God is at work. He's working our lives.
That's why I like Ephesians 2:10, which says – For we are his workmanship, created in Christ
Jesus, for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. We're all
part of that process. God is doing a work in our hearts. It’s beautiful thing that He does. As we're
growing together or growing independently, just growing spiritually, God is at work. We see that
in Nehemiah’s life and I appreciate his character and what he's doing. We continue to take those
same applications and apply them to our lives.
I spent some time just in my own thinking, in this idea of worship as I looked at this passage.
And I'm going to teach you a song, a song that we're going to use over the next few weeks, a
Hebrew song. Now when I was in seminary, they required that you take two classes of Hebrew. I
took eleven classes of Hebrew, because I really liked the Hebrew language. I just enjoyed getting
in and understanding the words and how different Hebrew is than English, certainly. We also
talked about the culture and we sang songs in the class. It just made an impression on me. So I'm
going to teach you a song today called Baruk Hashem. Now I want to explain to you (because
we're going to sing it in Hebrew), I want you understand what you're singing. So I put the
translation underneath in yellow. The translation is this. The words are: Baruk hashem
hamasheak Yeshua, baruk hashem Adonai. The words mean bless the name. Hashem means “the
name”. Ha means “the.” Hashem (the name) “of the Messiah.” Ha means “the.” The masheak
(“the Messiah”) Yeshua. Yeshua is “Savior.” Baruk hashem Adonia (which is “Lord”). Baruk
hashem hamasheak Yeshua, baruk hashem Adonai. I think you'll get it. Sing it with me as you're
able to join in and get it. Okay.
[Singing Baruk Hashem]
I think we ought to have a cymbal or something as we’re playing, but you can sing it acapella
because that’s how they did a lot of songs in Hebrew. Let’s continue and sing it again.
[singing Baruk Hashem]
Before the worship team comes and leads us in a final song, let's pray together. Would you stand
with me?
[PRAYER] Heavenly Father, I ask that you'd be at work in our hearts. We want to grow in you.
Lord, I pray that you point out the places where we need to grow more. But also, Lord, help us
solidify those gains and help us see that you are growing us, that we have made progress in our
life. Sometimes we think so much in the present that we don't recognize what you've done and
what you are doing and how you're growing us. We ask you to continue to do that work,
encourage our hearts, Father. Put other things on our hearts as we follow you and become part of
your plan. We ask this in Jesus’ name, amen.
