3/10/24 Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-12 “Come to Jesus & Live!”

07 Mar 3/10/24 Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-12 “Come to Jesus & Live!”

3/10/24    Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-12         “Come to Jesus & Live”

This is our last week in the Old Testament in our journey through the Bible unless something comes up to change that.  I enjoy preaching from the Old Testament even though at times it is very hard.  I think the reason for this is that it was usually written to all the people of Israel and not to individuals.  I also have found that it is a little harder to find good materials to go along with these lessons.  However, I would like us all to learn something from this series.  I would like us first of all to know the stories of the Bible a little better.  And secondly, when we read or see something that doesn’t seem exactly right, we need to learn to go to the Bible for the answers.  When you begin to do this consistently, then you are really moving ahead.  Today, I wanted to preach from Malachi, the great Italian prophet, but I just couldn’t.  It was just too heavy and condemning.  So instead, we are going to look at Nehemiah to see how they worshipped.  I don’t know if this is possible or not, but maybe you can put a little more joy in your worship.

Tim Smith tells the story of a young girl who was baptized and became a Christian at a revival meeting at her church.  When she got home, she was on cloud nine as she was dancing and singing all through the house.  I think we all know that this is exciting for someone and she was so happy she was floating on air.  Finally, her grandfather yelled at her saying, “You ought to be ashamed of yourself.  You just joined the church and you are singing and dancing on the Lord’s Day.”  The crushed girl went to the barn and sat on the fence watching a sad, droopy faced mule who had teary eyes.  She patted the mule and said, “Don’t cry, ole mule. I guess you’ve got the same kind of religion that Grandpa has!”  Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., who was a member of the U.S. Supreme Court for 30 years, explained his choice of a career by saying: “I might have entered the ministry if certain clergymen I knew had not looked and acted so much like an undertaker.”  Sometimes I wonder ‘where has the passion gone in many churches?’  I think that you can go to some churches and it seems like you are at Bible camp every Sunday.  They are very joyous!  The next church is like a funeral home.  There must be some sort of balance.  After all, Jesus did teach us that we are to try to balance truth and grace.

Let’s take a little look at Nehemiah.  I would like to note that as we begin this book, Nehemiah was a cupbearer to King Artaxerxes.  We have a cupbearer who God chooses to send back to rebuild Jerusalem.  Once again God chooses someone who lives in obscurity.  Another miracle that has happened is that these people rebuilt these walls of rock around Jerusalem in 52 days.  It would take the remnant years to rebuild the Temple but the walls went up in a hurry.  Remember that it was all done by hand and they had to place guards on their work at night because their neighbors didn’t want them there and would try to destroy what they had built that day.   I think the Bible is full of miracles that we miss because the stories are so familiar.

Anyway, things have been going along pretty well.  But it seems that there was something missing.  Now I know from experience what this is all about.  I’m sure that many of you do also.  It’s like the story I’ve told of the mobster who had everything.  Money was no object for this crook.  If he didn’t own it, it was because he didn’t want it.  But he found that his life was empty.  Something was missing.  One day he met a pastor who gave him the message of salvation.  The crime boss couldn’t sleep that night because the Holy Spirit was convicting him.  So, he got up and found the pastor at his church.  He was going to kill him because he figured it was the pastor who made him feel so bad.  He ended up accepting Jesus into his heart in the middle of the night.  Something had been missing and Jesus was the answer.  He still is the answer and He is your answer today!

This is basically what had happened to the remnant.  Something was missing.  I want you to notice how, even though we are in the book of Nehemiah, we have Ezra, the priest, speaking.  They were doing this together.  They gathered all the people who could understand to the Water Gate and Ezra read from the Book of the Law of Moses, which God had commanded, from daybreak to noon.  These people were hungry.  They stood and listened to the reading of their Bible for 5-6 hours!

How many of you could do this?  Doug Henry gives a couple of fine examples of this.  Suppose that I gave you some tickets to the next Super Bowl game and it had your favorite team playing.  Would you go?  Chances are you would go and you would go early to catch the warm ups and pregame hoopla.  There is a good chance that you would stay after for the awards ceremony and all that goes with that.  I would guess that you would probably spend at least 6 hours at the game which only lasts about 3½.  You would do this because you are passionate about your team and the game.

Or let’s say you love to go shopping and you need shoes.  So, you go to about 10 different stores to find that perfect pair.  If your spouse is with you, he probably dropped out of this at about store 5 if he really had stamina.  Finally, you find yourself in a shoe warehouse and it is huge.  The men’s and children’s sections take up a little corner, about the size of small church.  The rest is all women’s shoes.  You have spent hours finding the perfect pair of shoes…again.  You do this because you have a passion for shopping.

Both of these examples show that you not only have a passion for football and shopping, but you also have endurance to do this for long periods of time.  You have endurance and passion for a game that no one will remember in 5 years.  You have the patience and passion for a pair of shoes that will probably end up in the back of your closet.  Wouldn’t it be something if we could ignite that kind of passion in our churches; the kind of passion where you don’t mind if we run 10 minutes late, the kind of passion where we all come for our adult Sunday school, or the kind of passion where we could spend hours loving worship.  We can show a tremendous amount of passion on things that don’t make any difference in the world but we leave little time for the one who made everything possible, Jesus Christ.

There is something else that this passion for God gave the remnant and that is emotion.  These people stood for hours listening to the Word of God.  They were weeping openly as only God can make us do.  This was a scene of raw emotions.  This happens quite often when God is talking directly to us.  And then after the reading was done, they stayed together for a feast.  They celebrated because this was a time of great joy.  They had been lost but now they were found.  They were running through many emotions and now they were celebrating.  This scene had to be breath taking!

Now I know that as a church we might not be the most emotive people in the world and that is ok.  There is nothing wrong with this.  As a pastor I don’t think that there is anything better than an ‘Amen’ once in a while during the sermon but that is just me.  You probably aren’t the type of folks who do this and that is ok.  Plus, I could never hear you through cyberspace.  Therefore, when I do get an ‘Amen’ it is really something.  But that isn’t the type of emotion that I am really talking about today.

The type of emotion shown in our reading is the type where there is genuine sorrow for your sins.  These people had turned their backs to God a long time ago.  They had all but forgotten what it was like to worship.  I would think that this would almost be like what might have taken place in Russia when the churches were allowed to open up again after decades of hard communism.  We are so blest in this country because we are still free to worship, although they are trying to take this away also but that is a whole other topic.

So here is the question I have for you today, “Are you grateful, emotional or in tears, when Jesus takes away your sin?”  I don’t mean that you have to get so demonstrative but you do need to be totally aware of all that has gone into the program that God made whereby Jesus forgives your sins.  This is not something small.  This is huge.  God wants to have fellowship with you all the time.  However, He won’t do this when you are covered with sin.  Because Jesus came and died on the cross and then was raised again on the 3^rd day, you can confess to Jesus and be in fellowship with God.  Just about every time I begin a prayer on a personal level, I begin with confession.  I think that this is the key to God listening and acting on your behalf.

Now on the other half of this same coin, when you have confessed and acknowledged what God has done for you and through you, then it is time to celebrate that you have been cleansed.  The remnant gathered and had a huge celebration because they now understood the words that had been proclaimed.  Like I said, this really must have been a sight to behold.

This should be our celebration also.  Maybe the best time to have a pot luck dinner would be on Communion Sunday, after your confession.  Or maybe you need a time to get together in small groups and celebrate your hearing and understanding the Scriptures.  Or maybe there are lots of other ways in which you can celebrate.  I’ll leave that up to you.  But let’s celebrate and celebrate often.

There is a small point that may need a little clarifying here.  These people celebrated as they understood.  You can do the same.  However, we have some people in our midst who do not understand the Bible.  They will never understand until they develop a personal relationship with Jesus.  People cannot really understand the Bible until this happens.  Many if not all of the people who critique the Bible are those who don’t understand it because they don’t know Jesus.  Knowing this should give us a whole new perspective on our critics.  When we hear that the stories are myths, when miracles are impossible, or that it is all fiction, know that the people behind these statements don’t have a clue as to what they are talking about because they don’t know Jesus.  I need to remember this more than anyone.  These people don’t need our correction.  They need our prayers and concern.  They need someone to help them into a relationship with Jesus.  If you don’t know Jesus today, confess your sins to Him and ask Him to live in your heart.  This is the first step to understanding.

So where does this get us when you have the endurance and enthusiasm to praise God?  These people who celebrated with Ezra and Nehemiah were a beaten people.  This was their first breath of fresh air in over 70 years.  This is not a story of rebuilding the city of Jerusalem but rather it is the rebuilding of the people.  They do all these things and then they feel good enough about themselves to finish the rebuilding project.

It is the same way with us.  You are to come here on your time table and worship the very maker of everything you own, you possess.  I have told you this before that I don’t want you to come here to get something out of the service, but to put something into it.  When you put yourself into the worship without any expectations as to what you will get out of it, then you will get a lot out of it.  You will have invested yourself into the worship.  You will have taken ownership of the worship.  God loves this when you do it.

When this happens, then you will have the courage, stamina, esteem to get through the week the way God wants you to live the week.  You will feel good about yourself and all that you do if you first feel good about Jesus.  That is the absolute beauty of worship.  When you put yourself into it, then you will be walking on cloud nine coming out of it or at least feeling better.

Several years ago, at a Houston church, there was a young girl who came forward, confessed and came to know Jesus at an evening service.  This opened the floodgates and people started to come forward to pray and accept Jesus as their Savior.  They were still doing this 2 ½ hours later.  Normally this was an hour service but God was still working.  Jesus was not done yet.  During this time there was a couple working in the nursery who got someone to cover for them as they went out to the altar and prayed for their son who had left in a huff because he wanted to live his way.  While the church was praying for him, he was partying at a Mardi Gras festival in Galveston.  Suddenly, in his revelry, he felt an irresistible urge to go home.  He jumped in his car and drove 90 minutes home to find the house empty.  He couldn’t believe his folks were still at church but he went there anyway.  An usher recognized him and directed him to his parents who were still kneeling at the front of the church.  He embraced them and committed his life to Jesus Christ.  All of this and more happened because a young girl came forward to confess her sins hours before.  God is so good!

God just wants you to come to Him with a passion.  He wants you near for the long run with all the enthusiasm you can muster.  When you do, He will send you forth like you have never been sent forth before.  You will come to love worship more than anything.  Who knows?  You may start a chain reaction like the young girl in Houston.  Your actions may help many people who you know and don’t know.  Come to Jesus and live!  And thank you, Jesus, for first loving us.  Let’s pray.