Revived by God
Built by God: The Book of Nehemiah • Sermon • Submitted
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Introduction & Review
Introduction & Review
Review definition of joy
“Joy of the Lord is your strength” - JOY - often when a BLESSING makes us forget about something else. When the BLESSING overpowers the fear, the sorrow, the pain. When God’s FAVOR overcomes something else.
Last week, said that chapters 1-6 were about rebuilding the city, chapters 7-13 about reviving the people.
Revival starts w/ God’s Word, leads to great joy. Every true revival, reformation starts w/ God’s Word, leads to great joy
Because JOY is serious business.
We saw that we’re called to REJOICE in the LORD when we recognize His holiness; to REJOICE in the LORD when our sins are forgiven; to REJOICE in the LORD through worship, in our gathered worship, in the Lord’s Supper, in feasting and fellowship with other believers, and in everything we do; to REJOICE in the LORD through community; and to REJOICE in the LORD when we have nothing else to rejoice in.
And the people did what Nehemiah, Ezra, and the priests and Levites said, because they understood. The blessing overpowered the weeping, and they rejoiced greatly.
The Feast of Booths
Q. Why should we return to the Bible, and how should we do it?
I. Study the Word and find REVIVAL (vv13-14)
I. Study the Word and find REVIVAL (vv13-14)
<<READ vv13-14>>
Everything we saw last week took place in one day - the first day of the 7th month. The next day, a smaller group comes together to study again, this time just the leaders of families. Once again, they look to Ezra as their spiritual leader, and for good reason. Nehemiah and Ezra each were on MISSION, sent by God for a specific purpose. God sent Nehemiah to rebuild and revive; God sent Ezra to proclaim and teach. Ezra 7 tells us that Ezra arrived in Jerusalem because God’s good hand was on him, and
10 For Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of the Lord, and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel.
He was the man God set apart to lead Israel back to the Word, and to lead them in the Word. So with the majority of folks headed back to their towns, the heads of families were there in Jerusalem, studying the Word with Ezra, ready to take what they learned back with them.
And what they found in the Law of God came as a shock.
What they found is the Feast of Booths.
Among all the feast days in the OT, 3 of them required every male Israelite to travel to Jerusalem to worship at the Temple - the Passover, the Feast of Weeks, and the Feast of Booths.
This is not a minor thing in the Law, either. Exodus 34:22 mentions it, Numbers 29 details all the sacrifices that were to be offered, Deuteronomy 16 tells us that it’s supposed to happen at the ingathering of the harvest, and makes it clear that families were supposed to make the trip together and even to bring servants, sojourners, and neighbors who are orphaned or widowed with them.
In other words, this is no obscure command hidden in a single verse. The Law of Moses is Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, and every book but Genesis includes the Feast of Booths.
Verse 14 says they found this in the Law of the LORD. And the details in verses 13-18 indicate that the part they’d missed was in Leviticus 23.
And instead of judging them for missing something in Scripture, what we should see here is that they found it.
Last week, I said that every true revival begins with a return to God’s Word, and results in joy. Here’s day two in God’s Word, and the heads of the fathers’ houses are finding out that God’s Word is more than they thought it was.
In fact, the Bible turns out to be like a great king’s treasury, full of masterpieces ready to be uncovered.
ILLUST: In Matthew 13, Jesus tells the disciples parable after parable. Sower // Weeds sown among the wheat // Mustard seed // Leaven //
44 “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. 45 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, 46 who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.
Parable of the Net
51 “Have you understood all these things?” They said to him, “Yes.” 52 And he said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.”
PARABLES: both conceal and reveal. You can come back to them year after year and find that you missed something beautiful.
It’s more than a king’s treasury. It’s a king’s treasury where the rubies and diamonds and beautiful works of art are always surprising, and the man who spends his life in the treasury never runs out of discoveries.
This is why the scribe trained for the Kingdom of heaven is like a man who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old. If you spend your life in the King’s treasury, you will be able to return to the same text again and again, and find that God repeatedly shows you some beautiful truth that was always there, and then you can bring it out for everyone else to see.
Because the simple truth is that the Scripture is not simply a collection of human words.
Every book, every chapter, every page, every verse, every word, every jot and tittle is God’s Word, through human authors. Paul says in 2 Tim 3:16 that all Scripture is God-breathed, it is the product of God’s Spirit.
7 then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.
Scripture is God-breathed, and that means it is alive.
12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
And this is why we find in Nehemiah 8:13-14 that studying the Word of God leads to revival.
The word “revival” means a restoration of life. The Jews are about to experience new religious fervor, new life, because of the Word of God.
APPLY:
And the first principle for us to apply here is that we STUDY the Word of God and find REVIVAL. New life.
Jesus Christ, the Word of God made flesh, said in
45 It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me— 46 not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father. 47 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life.
But when many of his hearers took offense at Jesus’ words, He responded to them,
61 But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at this? 62 Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? 63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.
God speaks creation into being. God breathes life into man. And everyone who hears and learns from the Father comes to Jesus, and lives.
Psalm 19:7 tells us that God’s Word revives the soul.
And this is why we STUDY the Word of God and find revival.
New life is found only here, in the God-breathed, living Word of God. The Spirit gives life here. Even in the parts you’ve read a thousand times. Because the Spirit who inspired these words is infinite, and you are finite. You can never exhaust the Word, because you can never plumb the depths of an infinite wisdom.
Practically speaking, this is what I mean: When I meet with a person twice my age to study the Scriptures, someone who has spent his or her life in the King’s treasury for 80 or more years, we find that the LORD teaches both of us in His Word. Because His Spirit works in you in ways that He hasn’t yet worked in me, so that we can bring out of the treasury things old and things new.
But notice that Ezra is a man who has spent his life in that treasury, AND he is studying the Word with others. The Christian who is content to know little of God’s Word should not be surprised when he experiences little in the way of spiritual life. He will be a man of small thinking, with little wisdom, godliness, or fruitfulness. In contrast, the one who seeks to know God’s Word personally and study it together with others will find that here, year by year, God meets with him.
And this leads us to the second portion of our text and our second point:
Life in Jesus Christ - the Gospel
“Heads of fathers’ houses”
II. Proclaim the Word and expect RENEWAL (vv15-16)
II. Proclaim the Word and expect RENEWAL (vv15-16)
<<READ vv15-16>>
The Feast of Booths was a harvest festival, but it was also a MEMORIAL feast. Leviticus 23 said that they should take fruit, branches, palms, and
42 You shall dwell in booths for seven days. All native Israelites shall dwell in booths, 43 that your generations may know that I made the people of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.”
So the folks studying the Scripture with Ezra learn two things about the Feast of Booths: First, that they’re supposed to actually live in booths for 7 days - every single one of them - and that they’re supposed to proclaim it in all their towns.
And v17 reveals to us that this is the first time that the Feast of Booths had been celebrated by every single Israelite since Joshua brought them into the Promised Land 700 years earlier.
Even just a few years earlier, in Ezra 3, we find out that they had held the Feast of Booths by doing all the right sacrifices, but it’s not until now that they take the BOOTH part of the Feast of Booths seriously.
What changes? They proclaim and publish the Word. The people actually hear God’s Word.
So from the 2nd day of the month until the Feast of Booths started on the 15th day of the month, these family leaders are making sure that everyone knows that this isn’t just for the men, not just for the healthy-bodied, not just for the adults, everybody has to participate. And they do. Here we have a renewed Israel worshiping the LORD.
Our second principle is this: Proclaim the Word and expect renewal.
The chief method by which God renews a people is the proclamation of the Word. It’s the same method by which He saves us to begin with.
As Paul says in Romans 10
13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” 14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” 16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” 17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
I expect it surprised Ezra to see a 100% participation rate in the Feast of Booths. It had literally never happened before, after all. But the Holy Spirit was at work in that Bible study, and then the same Holy Spirit was at work in the towns when those men went home.
They didn’t leave the Bible study in Ezra’s neighborhood, they took it back to their neighborhoods. It went up on the bulletin boards, and they talked about it at the dinner table, and they talked over the fence to their neighbor about it.
APPLY:
The chief method God uses to renew a people is the proclamation and publication of His Word.
Do you want to see renewal here in our church? The key is returning to the WORD and remembering what Christ has done for us, and proclaiming and publishing that truth wherever we turn.
Do you want to see a spiritual renewal in Greeley? Take your Bible study with you into your neighborhood.
Invite people back to God’s Word, and back to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Back to the central truth:
That God is the Creator, that He is holy and good // that every one of us has wandered from Him, like sheep we’ve gone astray, and chosen darkness and the way that leads to death instead of life // but God so loved us that He became like us - a perfect, Passover Lamb in the place of wandering sheep - in the person of Jesus Christ // that He lived a perfect life, died a sin-bearing death in our place, was buried, and the third day He rose again just as He had promised in the Scriptures // and everyone who believes in Him will be saved.
What about renewal in your family? Take what you learn in the Bible home and study the Word as a family
One of the reasons this renewal happened was because the heads of families went home and did what Deuteronomy 6 told them to do - they told their children what they learned from the Word.
And this brings us to our third point:
III. Apply the Word and experience REJOICING (vv17-18)
III. Apply the Word and experience REJOICING (vv17-18)
<<READ vv17-18>>
After the Word was studied and proclaimed, the people responded by doing what it said, and the result was very great rejoicing.
How regularly do you think of applying the Bible to your own life as a source of very great rejoicing?
Maybe there are times when applying the Bible seems like a recipe for boredom, or even worse, despair. Especially if you think of Bible application sort of like self-evaluations at work. You know what I mean?
Like, “How well have you met these measures?” Except you know that the result of this kind of self-evaluation is going to be pretty bad.
ILLUST: College accountability group. Week after week, meet and go around in a circle with 10 other guys, “Did you do that sin this week? Did you do that thing you’re not supposed to do?” and it was like the whole thing was just a weekly reminder that we were all pretty bad at doing God’s will on our own.
But they didn’t respond to the utter and total failure of every Israelite since Joshua with more weeping and sorrow. They responded by keeping the feast and very great rejoicing.
The application of the Word is an invitation to experience joy - God’s blessing overturning sorrow. Not because you’re so good at keeping His Word, but because His Word is so good at keeping you.
I quoted from Romans 10 before. Earlier in that chapter, Paul says this:
4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
Remember that Jesus said He came not to abolish, but to fulfill the Law and the prophets. The end of the Law, the fulfillment, the purpose, and the completion of the Law is Christ.
The central purpose of the Old Testament Law is to point us to salvation by grace alone in Jesus Christ. The Law convicts every one of us, and funnels us to the only answer that can ever be given for sin: The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
This clarifies our need for the Holy Spirit’s work in us, and our need for His Word.
Rejoicing FIRST in the fact that Jesus has finished the Law (x-ref Rom 10:4), and given us the Spirit, who gives the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5)
Without the Spirit, every command of the Law is impossible. Why did the people find REJOICING in obeying the Law? Not because they thought they kept it by their booths, or did they?
Rejoicing for the Christian comes in the fact that you are FREED from the Law’s demands, and now have been set free to be a slave to righteousness, by the Spirit
APPLY the Word and experience REJOICING
The Good News of Jesus Christ is that He has done all that is required for your salvation. There is no work that you can add to it to improve it, no sin that you can do to remove it. His forgiveness is complete. Perhaps you remember our Easter series back in March and April, when we looked at Christ’s words from the Cross, beginning with “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” and ending with “It is finished.”
The application of God’s Word must be in harmony with those two proclamations from the Cross. When you study the Word, you are bound to find things that you’ve missed every time in the past. But this is not a call to despair, but to revival.
Growth in Christ is always accompanied by a greater awareness that He is much more holy, and you are much less holy, than you thought. This is no recipe for fear, it’s His Spirit’s design for renewal.
7 The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple;
Because the Law reminds us that our only hope is Christ on our behalf.
The harvest is a gift. The fragrant branches of their booths reminded them of that truth. And
5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.