There Is Great Rejoicing In The House Of God"

There was a little girl, whose father was a pastor. One day, she came to her

father and said, "Daddy, can a person go their whole life without sinning?"

The father answered, "No, honey, I’m sorry, but that’s just not possible."

"What about a year, daddy? Can a person go a whole year without sinning?"

She continued. "No, I don’t think that’s possible either." "What about a

day, can a person go a day without sinning once?" "It’s very unlikely, no, I

don’t think they can." "What about one moment, daddy, can a person go one

moment without sinning?" "Yes, that is possible." "Then daddy, I want to

live my life, moment by moment."

Only Christians win at life. That’s because none of us who is human

has the power to hold back our awful enemy, death. But when we have

persevered, we are given the ultimate victory: LIFE that will not end

because our lives are in the hands of the one who defeated death!

"There is great rejoicing in the house of God" Neh. 11:2, 12:30, 43

1. WE ARE IN NEED OF GIVING OURSELVES TO GOD. 11:2

There needs to be a giving of our lives to God. We find in Nehemiah 11 that

the city of God where His presence was in his house was neglected. The

people had come to live back in the land but few were going back into the

city where the temple was to worship God. The city of Jerusalem had many

inhabitants at this time; but not enough to safeguard the city, which was

now encompassed with a wall. Nehemiah therefore asked 1/10 of the country

people to come and dwell in it, that there might be enough for the

safeguarding and defense of the city. Ten were set apart, and the lot cast

among them to see which one of the ten should take up his residence in the

city.

Some volunteered their services, which was considered a sacrifice to

patriotism at that time, as Jerusalem afforded very few advantages. It was a

place of considerable danger. When we choose to be in place of leadership,

we face danger as a Christian. Most of the workers in a church are not paid.

They volunteer and without them, we would be hurting to have good worship

services and a friendly church. I want to thank each one of you who do a

work in the church.

There are people whose hearts were now turned towards the Lord and they

should make the best support for God’s work; but this could not be very

great, as the complete service was not yet established, and the ministers

were few in number. Jesus told us to pray for laborers for harvest was ripe

but the workers were few. Have you been praying for more workers? Have you

offered yourself to work?

It seems these people preferred their own ease and advantage and not to

the spiritual need, which is something that seems to be in every age. Why is

it that even those who have religion seek their own comfort and not the

things of Christ? These people had a connection to holy things and holy

places but found it hard give up pleasure they enjoyed. Should not our souls

delight where opportunities of spiritual development most abound?

If we have not this love to church, and to every thing that assists our

communion with the Savior, how shall we be willing to depart to be absent

from the body, that we may be present with the Lord. To the natural minded,

the perfect holiness of the New Jerusalem would be harder upon them than the

holiness of God’s church on earth. Why do you want to go to heaven?

We need to seek first the favor of God, and his glory. We need to be

patient, contented, and useful in life, and wait, with cheerful hope, for

God’s blessing. It wasn’t enough to see the city walls rebuilt and the

spiritual renewal of the people of Jerusalem now they concerned themselves

with getting more people into the city. For more than seventy years, it had

been a ghost town. Now, over the last eighty or so years, it has been

repopulated, with a new temple built and the walls rebuilt. But the city

still needed more people. Nehemiah also knew the bigger the population of

Jerusalem, the greater the resources for defense and strength in battle. He

didn’t rebuild the walls just to see some conquering army come and break

them down again! It was in these days in the rebuilding of Jerusalem that

God asked and important question through the prophet Zechariah: "For who has

despised the day of small things?" (4:10). My look at this in a spiritual

way is that we need to find more people and bring them into a right