Well, today we come to the end of Nehemiah’s experience in Jerusalem. We're going to look at
chapters 11 and 12 today. There is a chapter 13. That's like the appendix. We're going to look at
that next week. But after today's experience, Nehemiah is now going to move back to Persia
sometime after this experience. I don't know exactly when. He was in Israel for twelve years.
During that time he built the walls, and then they had a time where they spent with revival
among the people, and then trying to deal with different challenges they had among the things
that were going on there. But after twelve years, he leaves. Before he leaves, somewhere before
there, we have this dedication time, this celebration in chapter 12. In chapter 11 we have a
problem he's going to solve. So that's what we're going to look at today as we examine God's
word in Nehemiah 11-12.
Now in chapter 11, we're going to look at the first two verses and then we're going to skip the
remaining part of the chapter because it’s about 500 names that I'm not going to read to you. And
then chapter 12 starts with another about 500 names and then we come to the dedication time. So
I'm going to deal with the first two verses of 11 and then the last verses of chapter 12 in order to
draw some applications, some things that we can learn from our lives as we try to understand
what God has for us today.
Now before I read these verses in chapter 11, let me point out that there's a problem that exists in
the city. They've rebuilt the walls, they've even rebuilt some of the buildings inside. But there
aren't enough people living inside of Jerusalem. Enough people that would be this whatever
number of people you’d need in order to keep the city going. And so they need more people
inside the city to live there. So they're going to solve that problem in verses 1-2 of Nehemiah 11
in a way that makes me feel a little bit uncomfortable if I were one of these people that were
going to move in.
Well, let's stand and let's read these first two verses together. And then we'll make some
comments. I think we're going to find some interesting applications for our own lives in this
passage. But let's read these first two verses together.
Nehemiah 11:1-2 reads this way. Now the leaders of the people settled in Jerusalem. And the rest
of the people cast lots to bring one out of ten to live in Jerusalem the holy city of Jerusalem,
while the remaining nine were to dwell in their own towns. And the people blessed all the men
who volunteered to live in Jerusalem.
Alright. You may be seated.
So did they volunteer or were they just appointed? I'm thinking I'm feeling a little uncomfortable.
Because if I'm one of those people that was appointed, I'm saying, “I wasn't planning on moving!
You know, I got my roots here. I got my farm here, my sheep here, and whatever I got. I wasn't
planning on going somewhere else.” So I was pondering that this week. How can these people do
this and feel so good about it? How could it be such a positive experience? And then I realized
it’s because of all the things that happened in the previous chapter in chapter 10.
Now remember, as we've gone through Nehemiah, we spent about one week on every chapter
going through until we got to chapter 10. When we got to chapter 10, we slowed the whole story
down so we could get as much as we could. Because in chapter 10 we spent three weeks looking
at how people dedicated themselves to the Lord, what it means to grow up in Christ, what it
means to be converted maybe, even just this revival experience that touched them deeply.
If you remember, the first thing they did as they were coming to the Lord after they read the
scriptures, they realized they needed to separate themselves from the people in the culture. A
very important thing that we must learn how to do. We must separate our identity from the
people around in the culture to be dedicated and separated to the Lord. That was the first thing
that they did. Then next they dedicated their marriages to the Lord and marriage itself. Then last
week we looked at business and finance and money and rest, and how all of those things fit in,
and they dedicated themselves to the Lord in those areas.
By doing so, I think, essentially what they did was they pulled up the tent pegs in their lives that
attach them to this world. They made God the priority in their lives and say, “God, no matter
what happens in my life, no matter what experience I'm going to have, I want to follow you in
everything I'm doing.” Now as soon as you pull up the tent pegs in your life and you aren't so
latched into things, then you're much more spiritually flexible. That God can use you in ways He
wouldn't be able to use you before. I think that's what's happening in this passage. I think these
people are saying, “Okay. We'll move into Jerusalem,” and they're going to be able to follow the
Lord in this very interesting way. I think it's fascinating. I think sometimes we have to organize
our lives so that we're spiritually flexible so that God can use us.
One man said to me, “I wish I could go back to Bible college. That's what I want to do. But I
can't go back to Bible college because I have so much debt. I just got to keep working now for
about ten years to pay off all my debt before I can do anything.” And I think, yeah, I can
understand that. There are ways to organize our finances according to God's principles that free
us up so that we are more flexible.
So I think what's happening in this passage is that these people have so dedicated themselves to
the Lord, that they're able to move forward in their lives. I think it's because of these two big
ideas. I want to share these ideas because this is where I think the application happens for us.
Comfort versus fruitfulness. I think we make choices as Christians, you and I, we do this all the
time. Comfort versus fruitfulness. You get really angry with someone and you want to tell them
off. Well if you told them off, you'd probably feel better temporarily. That's comfort. But instead
of telling them off, you restrain yourself because of fruitfulness in your own heart and for the
relationships that you want to keep or enhance. That's an example of fruitfulness over comfort.
I think we engage in fruitfulness over comfort every Sunday morning. That's why you're here
today. You could have slept in. That would have been very comfortable. But you chose
fruitfulness instead. I think this is why some people teach Sunday school. It's fruitfulness over
comfort. Or greeters, or the people working in the children's program, or come early at eight
o'clock in the morning to pray here on Sunday mornings. Because they choose fruitfulness over
comfort. You do it in your life. And why do we do it? Here's why. Because the world says
comfort is our goal and if you have comfort you'll be satisfied. God says, no, that's not going to
work. It's fruitfulness. It's through fruitfulness that we find ourselves experiencing purpose and
mission in life. It's through that we get the satisfaction that God has for us. So we're involved in
fruitfulness. Fruitfulness over comfort.
A couple weeks ago, we had the VBS Planning Family Day event. We had a record attendance
of people helping with the VBS preparation going on. We're really grateful for all the people
who came out, but those people sacrificed comfort for fruitfulness. That's what we do in our
lives. That's what Christians are. We sacrifice comfort for fruitfulness regularly.
So I imagine these guys now. Okay, let's go back into the Jewish culture there. We have some
volunteers that went to Jerusalem and some that were chosen by lot. Let's imagine the family
where they become volunteers. The mom of the family says, maybe around dinner, “You know,
they're looking for more people to come into Jerusalem. I'm thinking maybe our family would
benefit from that. I'm thinking maybe we should go and participate in that.” Dad says, “Well, I
hadn't thought about that before. Let's think about that.” The Lord works in their hearts and they
say, “Yes, we're going to volunteer, and we're going to go and plant ourselves in Jerusalem. Yes,
we're going to volunteer.”
And then there's the people that were the lots take place. Determining things by lot was God's
way of often making decisions and helping them know what God wanted them to do in their
lives. Dad comes home on this day and he says, “Honey, you're not going to believe this, but I
was at the city center and they were drawing lots for who's going to live in Jerusalem and our
name came up to go live in Jerusalem. I think we're going to Jerusalem.” Mom says, “Wow, I
hadn't thought about that. I guess that could be a great thing. We do want to serve the Lord.”
So do you see that spiritual sensitivity? You must feel that sometimes with God. We call it He
places a burden on your heart to do something. He places a burden on your heart to participate in
something, either to grow or to serve or some way be fruitful. Because fruitfulness is more
important than comfort. It is a primary principle that we live under as Christians and that we
appreciate in our lives.
Some people are afraid of that, actually. They say, “Oh, I don't know. If I give myself to the
Lord, likely He’s going to send me to Africa.” And they [laugh], you know, like that’s the
biggest penalty in the world. I've been in Africa. I lived there for nine months. It is the most
beautiful place that our family could have enjoyed God and what He was doing in our lives.
We came back from Kenya where we spent our nine months, and we planted a church called
Calvary Chapel Mercer County. One of the couples that was in that church was Jeff and Linda
Simpson. Oh I remember them well. At the very first meeting (we were just a Bible study)
getting ready to start, Jeff comes in and he says, “Would you mind if I brought my guitar in?” Of
course I'm behind the scenes praying, “Lord, would you bring us a worship leader?” Well he
became the worship leader for the church at Calvary Chapel Mercer County. It was so fun to
have him lead worship and allow him to participate in worship. He really developed the whole
worship team. And then the Lord called him and his wife to say, “You know what? I think
maybe we'll go to Africa.” And they moved to Africa. Left us with a hole in our worship team,
which has since been filled with all kinds of godly people. That's great. But God called them to
Africa and they have a great ministry. Over ten years now they've been in Africa and they have a
ministry with young people there. And that's who's sharing tonight. They're bringing one of the
young people, one of the Kenyans from the young people's group, they're bringing to our church
tonight to share. So I would just encourage you, if you have young people and you want them to
get an understanding of God's work in another culture, what God might even do in their lives,
come to church tonight.
There's this ability that takes place when we pull our tent pegs up out of the world system and
we're spiritually flexible, we're spiritually attuned to what God has for us, and He can move us
then. He can allow us to move to a different location. Some of you are in transition right now. I
don't know what God is doing in your life in the midst of that transition, but as we're spiritually
sensitive, we allow God to move us. He's able to do that in ways that we might not ordinarily do.
That's what I think is taking place in this casting of lots. That people are saying, “Okay. If that's
what God wants for me, I'm going to do that.” Sometimes we wrestle with the will of God in our
lives. We say, “Lord, I'm not sure what you want me to do here. But I want to serve you no
matter what I do.” God may move us into a place that feels uncomfortable in our lives because
that's part of fruitfulness inside of our heart and with other people around.
So it's a beautiful picture, I think, of what's happening in this story with Nehemiah and how the
people are so responsive to the Lord. When you get a lot of people like this in a church who are
all kind of being sensitive to the Lord and asking the Lord to speak, amazing things happen. I'm
really grateful to be a part of this fellowship, where God is placing on people's hearts ways that
they can contribute and start ministries and be parts of ministries. Just so many good things. It's
great to see that.
Well, we're going to skip over the next many verses in chapter 11 that you can see there and
we're going to actually skip over the parts in chapter 12. Because now we're going to go to the
end of chapter 12 to the celebration. Now we don't know exactly where this happens and how
many years after this Nehemiah stays around before he leaves. But this is the last grand finale.
This is the big event for the folks here in Nehemiah’s time. Because now they're going to
dedicate the wall that they built. That was Nehemiah’s goal. Let's build the wall. But then it
turned out to building all the people and all these things. But let's go back now and look at the
wall. Let's dedicate the wall. So I want to read to you the verses starting in Nehemiah 12:27.
It says this: At the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem the Levites were sought out from all their
homes and brought to Jerusalem to celebrate the joyous dedication, with thanksgivings and with
singing, accompanied by cymbals, harps, and lyres.
You see, the Levites were the people who didn't have a particular land. They were the ones who
were spread out throughout the land, representing God and all of these different places. And they
lived in these towns and so on. But Nehemiah is calling for this big music festival. For all of
those Levites to come back from wherever they are to be a part of what God wants to do in
Jerusalem for this music festival, for this big dedication of the wall to the Lord. So these people
are coming back. As they're coming back to celebrate this, they're leaving where they are for this
big music festival.
Notice the word thanksgiving in there. We're going to see it again. Because this whole
celebration is one of thanksgiving and being grateful for what God has done for them. They're
singing and they're accompanied by their musical instruments. So they're bringing their musical
instruments with them for the dedication of the wall.
Now when you look at lyres and harps, those are basically stringed instruments that you play
strumming. They're basically guitars, okay. That's what they are. So you can imagine all these
people with their guitars on their back coming down to Jerusalem to be part of this big
celebration. And they're going to march. This is a marching band. So they got their marching
guitars with them and they're all going to be moving together.
Let's read on and see what happens. The singers were also assembled from the region around
Jerusalem, from the villages of Netophathites; from Beth-gilgal and from the fields of Geba and
Azmaveth, for they had built for themselves villages around Jerusalem. So the singers are all out
there somewhere and they’re going to pull together to be this large multi-city choir meeting in
Jerusalem for the big dedication.
I wonder about the dress rehearsals that they had. I wonder how their practices were. I wonder if
they sent out word – “We're going to sing these three songs, practice these songs, or these ten
songs. Practice these in advance.” So they're out there singing in their fields or whatever. But
then they come together to Jerusalem in order to experience this choir. And so the music festival
is about to begin and all of these people are coming into Jerusalem. It's all a great part of what
God wants to do on this special day. They live also in the regions around Jerusalem, notice, and
they're coming together.
Notice verse 30 it says – After the priests and the Levites had purified themselves, they purified
the people and the gates and the wall. So that’s the first thing they did. They had this kind of
purification time. It's kind of like what we do when we are starting an event or starting a meeting
or starting a Bible study, whatever you do. Often someone will say, “Let's pray first,” and we
open up the meeting or the event with prayer. “We just want to dedicate this time to the Lord.
Lord, we just want you to be honored in whatever we do in this conversation. Whatever we do in
these activities, we want you to be honored.” So that's what they're doing here. They're having
this initial prayer of dedication and purifying everybody as they get started.
Now what's going to happen in verse 31 is they're going to form these two choirs. One choir is
going to go to the right, the other choir is going to go to the left, and they're going to march on
the actual wall. These choirs are going to sing as they go along. It must have been an amazing
sight to watch them. Let's read about it.
Then I… This is Nehemiah because this is Nehemiah’s diary, his journal that we're reading as
part of one of the books of the Bible. He says – Then I brought the leaders of Judah up on the
wall and appointed two great thanksgiving choirs. Isn’t that interesting? These are called
thanksgiving choirs. One’s going one way, one’s going the other way, and they’re going to give
thanks to the Lord in their song. One was to proceed along the top of the wall to the right toward
the Dung Gate. Hoshaiah and half of the leaders of Judah followed, along with Azariah, Ezra
(Ezra’s important to note because he’s going to lead this one), and those other guys there, and
some of the priests with trumpets. Now we added another instrument there as part of this, that the
trumpets were there. And also Zechariah the son of Jonathan, the son of Shemaiah, the son of
Mattaniah, the son of Micaiah, the son of Zaccur, the son of Asaph; and his associates, all these
other guys, with the musical instruments prescribed by David the man of God.
They're going into the rich history of music and instruments, and they’re remembering David.
You know David. David is the psalmist, the shepherd boy who wrote songs. We have many of
them in our book of Psalms, where we can read about his Psalm 23 or Psalm 1, those beautiful
songs. David organized musicians, musical groups that would lead the people in worship. David
even danced before the Lord. Music was a very important part of David's legacy. The people
now were kind of reflecting back on that legacy and taking some of the things that they
experienced there in the past.
That's what we like to do at GraceWay. We like to dig into the spiritual legacy. Where churches
even today have written songs and those become our worship songs, our praise songs that we
sing. And then we have songs that are older, even the hymns that we go back. There's a legacy of
worship that they're bringing with them into this thanksgiving choir that's rich. That's what's
mentioned. That they go back to even David himself, the man of God.
I remember a conversation I had with a woman that really marked me. She's not a believer or she
wasn't when she visited our church. She came into the church and she sat through the whole
experience. I asked her at the end, “What did you think about that?”
She says, “You know, one of the things I realized is I don't have a space in my life where I sing
with other people.” I thought, wow, that's really interesting, because I take that so much for
granted. I grew up in the church. I sing with people all the time. Every Sunday morning I sing
with people, I really enjoy singing with people. It's a beautiful thing to do. For someone to say I
don't have a space in my life where I sing with other people, I just think that's sad. I love singing
with other people.
I think one of the reasons we come together is because the worship is so powerful that we enjoy.
It draws us in our work with the Lord. Often God will speak to you in the worship time even
more powerfully than He may speak to you through a sermon. That worship is this opportunity
for us to connect our hearts directly to God. Sometimes it's because it connects through intellect.
But music has this ability to bypass all of our stuff, all of our intellect, all of our worries, all of
our concerns, all of our things that are on our to-do list and go straight into our heart. And so
we're able to lift up this worship to the Lord. It's a beautiful thing. So they're engaging these
thanksgiving choirs to walk along the wall and sing these beautiful thanksgiving songs to God
and to draw attention to His greatness.
Notice it says in the next part of verse 36 – Ezra the scribe led the procession. So he’s going to
the right. At the Fountain Gate they climbed the steps of the city of David, on the ascent of the
wall and passed above the house of David, to the Water Gate and on the east.
The second thanksgiving choir (that’s the one to be led by Nehemiah) proceeded to the left and I
followed it with half the people along the top of the wall—past the Tower of the Ovens to the
Broad Wall, over the Gate of Ephraim, the Jeshanah Gate, the Fish Gate, the Tower of Hananel
and the Tower of the Hundred, as far as the Sheep Gate. And they stopped at the Gate of the
Guard.
The two thanksgiving choirs then stood in the house of God; as did I, along with half the officials
accompanying me, well as the priests with their trumpets…and all these guys names. Then the
last part says – Then the choir sang out under the direction of Jezrahiah. So Jezrahiah pulls both
choirs together, okay, and he leads them in these great songs of thanksgiving. It’s such a
beautiful celebration that they’re experiencing now.
What were they thanking God for? I think back on their lives, they didn't have really an easy life
as they were building this wall. In fact, it was rather challenging at times. Do you remember
earlier in our story that Tobiah was mocking them and he said, “If a fox crawled up on that wall,
it would just tumble over.” And now they're marching on it. I don't know what OSHA would say
without any railings or whatever. But anyway, they’re walking along the wall with their all of
their trumpets and their guitars and their songs and it's this beautiful choir of thanksgiving.
They're grateful, not only that they built the wall, but that God protected them in the midst of
that. It wasn't easy. There were some pretty anxious times for those people.
Do you remember there was one point where they had their swords in one hand and a trowel in
the other because they were building the wall, but they had to watch out for the enemy. It just
reminds me that often we have times of thanksgiving even in the midst of the struggles of
suffering and anxiety and pressure that exists in our lives.
I hope today that if you’re experiencing… [lengthy audio glitch]
…you are my disciples, if you have love one for another. In other words, the mark of being a
Christian is love, they're going to know that.
But notice in the last phrase of this verse it says – And so that the joy of Jerusalem was heard
from afar. In other words, it was like resounding joy that people saw. That they saw, wow,
something's going on over there in Jerusalem. They're hearing the joy that's happening over
there.
See, I'm convinced that when we choose fruitfulness over comfort, that God produces this thing
inside of us that other people are attracted to. It's that love that allows us to overlook offenses.
It's that love that allows us to go the extra mile with people. It's that joy that’s resident, even
when they're in the midst of pain and suffering. It's that peace we can experience even when our
world is in chaos. And people take notice of that. They say, wow, what's going on over there in
Jerusalem? Oh, what's going on in that person's life? What's going on in that family's life? And
they're able to see something very powerful that God is doing because, well, that is the result of
this fruitfulness in our lives. We make choices regularly. We choose fruitfulness over comfort.
And we do that because God calls us to do that. But it's not just out of duty. It's because we know
there's a great reward in that. That it's the fruitful life that produces the fulfillment, the joy, the
peace that God wants us to experience in our own deep hearts.
I just walk away from this story in Nehemiah saying, yes, I want to be like the Nehemiah
believers who are willing to sacrifice so many things, kind of pull up the tent pegs from their
lives so that God can use me in ways that just allow me to move with His Spirit. So I can take the
extra time with this person, or I can stop and help this person, or I can do this other study that
God wants me to do. There's this sense of dedication to the Lord that's powerful, that we want to
enjoy, we want to experience, we want to be part of what God has, for us, each one in our lives.
