Worship God with Gratitude (Jake Enns)

I've titled our sermon this morning.

Worship God with Gratitude. What happens to us in life as we

go through life is not as important as how we respond to

what happens to us. There are a lot of things in

life that happened to us. They're not pleasant.

Some are just inconvenient. Some are uncomfortable, some are

simply just bad, some are even wrong.

But in some way we cannot control that.

But there's one thing we can control.

We can't control how we respond to what happens to us.

Put it this way, you may have had a bad day and somebody does

something to you or with you, puts you in a bad mood and then

they do something nice for you. Do you say a heartfelt, honest,

heartfelt gratitude, thank you or thank you?

How does it come out? We are always responsible for

how we respond. We're called to worship God,

meaning we give him worth and what what we say and how we

live. And we have to be mindful of the

fact that are we doing, Are we worshiping God out of

obligation? Are we praising him out of

obligation? Or is it because our hearts are

so full and we really want to? And I get it.

And the times of emotional turmoil like we find ourselves

in, it's not always easy. And it reveals something about

us where we stand and where we need to grow.

And when we worship God, it's not because, oh, God needs to be

worshipped. Yes, it's another, it's time,

another chore. No, it's not like that at all.

It's an opportunity for us, and it's not that God needs to be

worshipped and as if he's now less God if we don't.

But we need to worship God because if we don't, we make

room for Satan to get a foothold.

The truth is, God does want us. He created us.

He wants us. We're his, his image.

He wants us to worship not because he's more God if we do,

but because we become more like Him.

We align more with Him and our relationship to God should

always be a relationship of worship.

God's a God of glory and honour and holiness and majesty.

It's important that we worship God with that mind frame, that

mindset, and we do it as human beings.

We're people, flesh and blood people.

We have purpose. We have meaning and value for

that purpose. We have many stories of how God

was worshipped in the Old Testament times.

Worshipping God was always a huge deal in the Old Testament.

Still is. It should be.

When we read of the Old Testament laws in particular, a

lot of very intricate detail went into how God was to be

worshipped. We read of how God instructed

His people through Moses, how to build the Tabernacle, the tent

of worship in the wilderness. Very detailed list of things,

what to do and how to do it, and you can read it.

It's very complicated. Later on when the nation of

Israel was established and they had the temple, that form of

worship continued. Corporate worship was a huge

deal. They celebrated and worshipped.

Lots of activity went into, it had to be done just in the right

way, in the right form and nothing was left to chance at

all. But then under the new covenant,

the New Testament that Jesus brought in, there's, there's no

longer the old format under the law.

Today we're under grace and we worship God in spirit and truth.

As Jesus told the Samaritan woman, he said God is spirit and

those who worship him must worship him in spirit and truth.

Well, this morning we're continuing our sermon series in

Nehemiah, and today we're in chapter 12.

The books of Ezra and Nehemiah both tell much of the story of

what happened to the Jews after they had been in captivity for

70 years. The Jews had been given freedom

to return from Babylon. Some of the Jews had returned to

the homeland. A lot of clean up to do, a lot

of rebuilding to do. Things needed to be done to

bring community back to the area.

And it happened slowly over a long period of time, and it

happened in several waves. The 1st wave of people that

returned from Babylon to Judea was, was that there was a leader

named Zerubbabel under the rule of King Cyrus.

He authorized the permission, the freedom of the Jews to go

back home. Years later, it was a priest

named Ezra. He LED a second wave of people

back to Judea. And finally after that, some

time went by and Nehemiah LED a third wave back to the homeland.

And in this book of Nehemiah, that's where we find ourselves.

One of the timelines that I looked at online and to indicate

to find a kind of what was this like?

The suggestion is that it was over a 90 year time frame from

the 1st wave that came back to the SEC to the last one that we

read in Nehemiah. That's a long time.

That's not counting the 70 years that they were in captivity with

no returns. But back in Judea, the work of

restoration had begun in some measure when the first group

came back and that started work on the temple to rebuild it.

But then opposition came and letters were written and

complaints were lodged, and the kings had stopped the work and

wasn't very good. And finally Nehemiah comes and

the temple already had been rebuilt under Ezra, was finished

on Nehemiah comes back and under his ministry, his leadership,

the wall gets rebuilt, had been completed in record time.

Actually, the restoration had happened as a culture, as a

people. Things were coming together.

It was really a success story. Now it came time to celebrate

what had happened, to dedicate the wall.

It was time to celebrate what God had done and to reflect on

his goodness and this became a national event.

Well, actually was a national event for the people had been a

long time in coming. In coming.

Nehemiah organized and again, a lot of detail went into this

project. You see, we as people need that.

Think about what we do with weddings.

We put a lot of time, a lot of energy and resources, and it has

to be done just so and it's fine.

It's good because it should be a special day.

It should be. We need to do those things, make

it special, because then we remember it.

That's one reason why weddings are the way they are.

It's a once in a lifetime event that a couple organizes.

The celebration. Nehemiah chapter 12 in Jerusalem

Nehemiah 12 · chapter mention

was a one-of-a-kind, unique one time celebration in that it was

the dedication of the wall. They had celebrations all

throughout the year, Passover and a lot of celebrations they

had. But this was a unique, specific,

one-of-a-kind celebration. The wall had been completed in

record time. It was a good wall, a great

project they organized. Let's get together, celebrate.

I want us to look into Nehemiah chapter 12, beginning verse one.

Nehemiah 12 · chapter mention

Now these are the priests and the Levites who came up with the

rubber bowl, the son of Sheel Teal and Joshua, Zeriah,

Jeremiah and Ezra, Ezra, Nehemiah goes on and gives a

list of names of the priests and Levites and who all came earlier

on in Nehemiah. We read of names, a list of

names of people who helped rebuild the wall.

Now here's giving a list of names who are going to be part

of this project, this this, this event.

It's amazing how important names are in Scripture.

God named the 1st man Adam. Then Adam named his wife Eve.

Names are a big deal in the Bible and they're even a big

deal to us. Maybe not as big of a deal, but

they should be. Perhaps you see names become

associated and connected with meaning.

If someone mentions the word Einstein, OK, we'll think of

smartness and and intellect and IQ and all those things, and

there's some not so famous names.

When we hear those names, then OK, we think of evil and and

brutality and so on. People are remembered by their

names for one way or another. And in those times when this was

written down, there was value to these names.

Nehemiah mentions a list of names of people who have served

the community of Israel with their talents, their gifts,

their resources. And now again we have a list of

names. Maybe to us these names do not

mean that much, but what it does tell us, names have

significance. And when the readers of that

time would have read the stories, Oh yeah, they would

have, They would have remembered that.

There's a commentator by the name of David Guzik, who's a

commentary I love to read sometimes.

And he points out how these priests by name were mentioned.

And there are three different phases.

We see in chapter 12, verse 1 to 11 a list of names of the

Levites who returned. Then we have a list of names

from 12 to 21. Nehemiah mentions those names of

the priests who came at a later time, a different time, and

again a list in verse 22 to 26 and in verse 26 he says these

lived in the days of Joy Akim the son of Joshua the son of

Josodach, in the days of Nehemiah the governor.

This Nehemiah wrote the book and of Ezra the priest describes.

Nehemiah writes in a very detailed way, mentioning

specific times and dates. And as I said before, it carried

huge significance. Think for a moment in our time.

Let's say you go to a thrift shop, which sometimes I do, or

to a yard sale, and you happen to pick up a magazine, an old

book or magazine, let's say, and you see your great grandfather's

picture there and a write up I'm sure you would want to read.

What did they write about him? You would want to know your

history. Oh, that's my great granddad.

Yeah. Yeah.

I want to see what happened. You would be who wrote the

magazine? When was it written?

Where was it written? And if maybe there's some

resources I can follow up on, at least I would feel that way.

I would want to know. And I think for the readers of

the book of Nehemiah and that time, this was maybe similar.

The wall had been rebuilt and it was a historic event.

It was a big deal. God had done it.

Record time. And he writes exactly what

happened. A lot of good had happened.

The city had been restored in some at some measure not

completed, but was restored. The reproach was lifted was a

time for celebration and so they had a dedication ceremony.

Verse 27, it says now at the dedication of the wall of the of

Jerusalem, they sought out the Levites and all their places to

bring them to Jerusalem, to celebrate the dedication with

gladness, both with thanksgivings and singing with

cymbals and string instruments and harps.

And the sons of the singers gathered together from the

countryside around Jerusalem, from the villages of the

Neetophathites, from the House of Gilgal, from the fields of

Gibbon Asmavath, for the singers had built themselves villages

all around Jerusalem. This was a huge deal and a big

deal, a spiritual event as well. The Levites from the tribe of

Levi were doing their work. The priestly men were doing

their work. They're all called together.

Let's do this. They were pointed to their

tasks, they were given assignments to do the ministry,

celebrate and sing and rejoice. That was a job.

Their job description instruments are mentioned

symbols, loud instruments, string instruments.

We don't know what all they did, but one of the things that stood

out to me as I was going through this, this dedication

celebration included the use of music.

And we sing, we do. And I paused a little bit to

just think about that. Music is so powerful.

Sometimes when I'm very excited, I'm very joyful, very glad.

I like to listen to music that that resonates with that.

And there's times when I just turn on music that's different

that that it's comforting, but also healing because of

emotional pain. And we go through that as well.

Music for me carries the soul. It engages the heart and the

mind all in one. And when we do that in as

corporate and group is together, it's a powerful thing that we

enjoy and participate in with fully.

And they did it back then and we do it now too.

One thing I love doing is watching little toddlers listen

to music because when you play a lively tune, they get involved,

they start moving. What we as older folk, we kind

of know we're too refined for that.

We don't. And some cultures they still do.

And if you go to Africa, for instance, they sing not with

just their voice, they sing with their body.

And it's amazing to watch how they enjoy worshipping.

We as a men in a community have some have gotten away from that.

And I don't know if it's right or wrong, but it's just that

way. But as I said, I just love

watching little people, our grandchildren, especially when

you play a tune or strum on your heart.

And the little ones, they just go at it.

They're all in. Music brings them together in

every aspect. Music was part of the dedication

and again, this was a celebration.

What God had done. The era of we are nothing, it

means nothing, we are history, That era was coming to a close,

the wall had been built, now it's time to celebrate.

We are a people Again, it was time to celebrate, to move

forward. Turning a new page is what it

was. And they prepared for the big

event. Notice how they prepared for

that. Verse 30 it says then the

priests and the Levites purified themselves and purified the

people, the gates and the wall. They got ready.

They prepared themselves. It was not something Oh yeah, we

forgot. We could quickly got to do that

yet. No, this was a preparation time,

not a physical, physical cleansing as in, oh, I, I worked

in the garage, I'm dirty now I have a bath.

Not that kind of preparation. It was a mental, emotional,

spiritual preparation, a preparation time for this big

event that was going to go down. Setting themselves apart for

this event, focusing on what's going to what's going to happen,

how they would lead. They brought themselves and the

people into alignment with God. There's a principle for us here

to learn. You see, when Jesus had a visit

with a Samaritan woman at the well of Shikhar, the woman asked

Jesus, well, where is the right place to worship you?

Jews say in Jerusalem, We Samaritans say here on this on

that mountain mount charism, that's where we should worship.

Where should we worship? And Jesus simply says to her in

in Saint John chapter 4, he says the time is coming.

John 4 · chapter mention

Believe me, the time is coming when the true worshippers will

worship God not there nor here, but in spirit and in truth in

you. That means we can do it anywhere

we are. The outward form is good and

it's significant. It has meaning.

It has purpose and value, but that's not the most important.

The most important is the heart. We can stand and sing songs.

Our mind is 1,000,000 miles away.

Let's engage our heart, our mind, our soul and God with God.

When we worship, we can't fool him, He knows it.

John 424 God is spirit and those who worship Him must worship Him

in spirit and truth, and I trust we do that.

Another verse in Psalm chapter 24 verse three to four says who

Psalms 24 · chapter mention

may ascend into the hill of the Lord?

Who may stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a

pure heart, who has not lifted up a soul to an idol, nor sworn

deceitfully a person who's honest, a person of integrity.

So these people purified themselves, then they purified

the people, and then the gates and the wall.

For us today, purification is not an outward ritual, as it was

for the people in Nehemiah's day.

But for us, it's an inner surrender, a humbling of

ourselves and dedicating ourselves to Jesus Christ.

Do we in our time also dedicate things to God?

Better believe it, we do. I remember very clearly to this

day, 1995, in November, when we dedicated this building.

Anna and I were here from the get go.

We helped build it and it was one big GLAAD event.

We had a it was packed, people were here, we sang, we

worshipped and people gave greetings and whatnot.

And we celebrated the opening of LEMC in November of 1995.

You see, it's not just churches that are dedicated.

The Jews head of the Temple, it was dedicated.

They dedicated this wall that they had.

We must dedicate ourselves and then also the things that God

has entrusted to us. I'm not saying for every little

thing we need a ceremony to dedicate it, but it's important

to remember, to pause and reflect.

What has God done? Why has He done it?

What's His purpose? Are we recognizing that all we

have, all we art, all comes from Him?

It's important to give Him glory and honor and praise and thank

Him. Sometimes people, Christian

families, when they buy a house, they have a prayer of dedication

for the house. They want to live there for

God's glory. It's for them a reminder.

God has blessed them with a house, glorify God.

In our church, we have parent child dedication services.

We recognize it's important for our parents to remind themselves

us as a church, we'll stand with this couple, with these parents.

Does they dedicate their little one for God's glory.

Here in this story of Nehemiah, the Levites dedicated

themselves, the wall, the people and everything.

Nehemiah 311231 he continues. He says, So I brought the

leaders of Judah up on the wall. Now they go on the wall and

appointed 2 large Thanksgiving choirs.

One went to the right on the wall toward the refuse gate.

Later on one went to the other side.

But just a side note, this is that very same wall where the

sandblatten, all the other guys. They said if a fox goes on,

it'll fall down. This was a good strong wall.

Crowds of people were walking on it.

And EMI again mentions the names of the leaders who were part of

this process or part of this part of this project.

Some of the priests were mentioned.

They were in the choir as well. He describes it in detail what

they did actually, verse 37, he says by the fountain gate in

front of them. They went up the stairs of the

City of David on the stairway of the wall beyond the House of

David as far as the Watergate eastward.

Now to us this may not mean much at all unless you're very

familiar with the geography and the architecture of the old city

and all that stuff, which I'm not.

But this was this was important. This was how they did it.

The two different choirs represent were separate.

They went different routes along the wall on the opposite sides.

It says in verse 2038, the other Thanksgiving choir went the

opposite way and I was behind them with half of the people on

the wall going past the tower of the Ovens as far as the broad

wall. And above the gate of Ephraim,

above the old gate, above the fish gate, the tower of

Hannanal, the tower of the 100, as far as the sheep gate.

And they stopped by the gate of the prison.

So they went around, started here, and went opposite ways

around. We can imagine the two choirs on

the wall of Jerusalem, one walking one way, the other

walking one way, and then coming around together.

And the second choir was the one where Nehemiah was in.

There were Thanksgiving choirs. That's what this was about.

Thanksgiving. All the glory and praise was

focused on God, what he had done.

I sometimes think that festive occasions when something good

has happened, we say we're thankful, and I do believe we

are. But do we take it seriously

enough? Do our deeds show that we

actually do treasure what we have?

How we say thank you is an indicator of how thankful we are

when we dedicate ourselves, our time, our resources to thank

you, to say thank you must come from the heart.

Continuing on here, the way the passage reads, the two choirs

came together and it says here in verse 40.

So the two Thanksgiving choirs stood in the House of God.

Likewise I and half of the rulers of me with me.

And it says in verse 42 also that day they offered great

sacrifices and rejoiced, for God had made them rejoice with great

joy. The women and children also

rejoice, so that the joy of Jerusalem was heard far off.

It was not some almost silent, quiet choir.

The day was great. It was a glad, joyful, great and

glorious day. It was exciting.

It was loud. There was a high point in the

nation that day. All the celebration, the

dedication, all things happened. Well, they were giving and being

generous, bringing offerings. And as we continue reading verse

44, it says, and at the same time, while this is going on,

some were appointed over the rooms of the storehouses for the

offerings. So much was coming together, so

much was being brought to Jerusalem.

They they appointed people over the storehouses the first

fruits, and the Thais to gather them into them from the fields

of the cities, the portions specified by the law for the

priests and Levites. For Judah rejoiced over the

priests and Levites who ministered.

Verse 45. Both the singers and the

gatekeepers kept the charge of their God and the charge of the

purification, according to the command of David and Solomon.

For in the days of David and Asaph of old, there were chiefs

of the singers and songs of praise and Thanksgiving to God.

In the days of the rubber ball, in the days of Nehemiah, all

Israel gave the portions for the singers and gatekeepers a

portion for each day. They also consecrated holy

things for the Levites, and the Levites consecrated them for the

children of Aaron. This is a healthy faith

community, rejoicing and dedicating themselves in the

wall to God. You see in a healthy faith

community, where as much as possible everybody participates

and where as much as possible, everybody contributes and as a

result, everyone is blessed. That was what was happening here

on this day, a joyful event. The leaders of the people, the

leaders of the nation, the religious leaders, together with

the citizens, they all came together as one.

There was a togetherness there. There was a unity there and they

all celebrated together and the resources they had, they gave of

those. They ministered well, It was

structured, was organized, a well functioning system.

They worshipped God with gratitude for what He had done

for them. This had been a long time in

coming, had been a very long time, a long journey over many

decades. The difficult and challenging

history that their ancestors had lived through was because of

what had happened before them, rebelling against God,

worshipping idols. God had worn them to the

prophets. They had not listened.

God had disciplined them through the foreign kings who took them

captive and destroyed their land. 70 years of exile and now

they were at the point where they could again feel good about

themselves as a nation. The reproach had been lifted.

They work together. The rejoice of God had done for

them. They didn't have independence as

a nation yet at this time that would.

There was a small time and that happened under the Maccabees.

The point in history won't go into, but here at this point

they were free to worship God as they saw fit under Babylon's

rule. But they were together again.

I wonder a little bit about us. Do we worship God that way?

Yesterday one of our ladies in the church sent a poem she had

written and she read, she had read Nehemiah in advance of

today's sermon in her Bible reading.

And she had written a poem on the experience of the people had

when they celebrated the dedication of the wall.

And she sent it to me and I asked her can I read it in the

sermon this morning? She said yes.

So here, here it is, all the beautiful names written in God's

Word, all the choirs and songs that were heard, beautiful songs

of Thanksgiving, celebrating the joy of life and living.

They prepared everything as instructed to dedicate and bless

the wall they had constructed. The Lord had blessed them and

shown them favors, so they wanted to thank the Lord and

Savior. The leaders of Jude on top of

the wall. 2 choirs singing their thanks for it.

All great sacrifices were made on that day.

The sound of the rejoicing could be heard from far away.

The Lord had given them great joy and they sang loud.

All the men and women and children made-up the crowd.

Must have been amazing to have been there.

What awesome, what an awesome story.

Now they had to share. We get to read all about it even

today, and we can share how they must have celebrated that day by

Tina Friesen. This poem encapsulates the story

well. As good as it was that they got

to dedicate them all, celebrate it all together, as good as it

was, there's one thing that had happened and I'm sure it was

there. But this was also a healing

journey. A healing journey.

We can't always predict and control these.

I know many in our community need comfort these days.

God is in the business of healing.

But the Thanksgiving must begin before that already.

There's so much to be thankful for all the time.

God wants us to dedicate ourselves to His 'cause God

wants us to dedicate our time, our talents and skills to His

purposes. Sometimes the mindset is OK.

As soon as this pain is over, I will be thankful again.

No, no, no, no, no, I will be thankful now.

Now, if we're going to wait to worship with gratitude till

things change, we may never. Worshipping God with gratitude

is something that's not connected to our circumstances.

We are to be grateful to worship God, and as glorious and great

as this event was, they worship gladly and so should we.

And so we will. But there are times when we

still do it, when it's not as good.

I want to close with the story of the Martin Ring cart.

It was a man who was born in April 23, 1586, and a talent for

a city called Eilenberg and Saxony.

Luther Lutheran state in Germany at the time, was still under the

Holy Roman Empire. This man, this young kid, after

learning, after learning Latin in his hometown as a young boy

in 16 O 1, he became what was called a foundation scholar and

he sang in the choir in the Saint Thomas School in Leipzig.

He received a scholarship and enabled him to begin his studies

of theology at the University of Leipzig.

The following year he became a teacher and eventually a Deacon.

In 1613, he became a pastor and he ended up serving in his

hometown called Eilenberg. Five years later, in 1618,

Rinkhart, now in his 30's, the 30 Years War in Europe began.

If you love history, you'll be interested in this.

It's a very destructive war, both religious and political, on

both sides. It started primarily over

religious struggles between Lutherans and Catholics, and it

dragged on for 30 long years, much destruction and death.

Eilenberg was a city where Rinkhart was a pastor was a

walled city, and so a lot of refuges came there fleeing the

war. But also troops would come

through and he would have to house them and they would have

to take that, take up the homes in the city, plunder them at

times. Food was often scarce.

Then in 1637, almost 20 years into the war, the plague arrived

in the overcrowded city. There was 4 pastors.

The one pastor fled to died of the disease and Rinkhart was

left alone to tend the sick and bury the dead.

He performed and presided over up to 50 funerals.

In one day. Over 8000 died, including his

wife. That was not the end of it.

After the plague came famine. Surviving accounts say the food

was so scarce 30 or 40 people would fight in the streets over

a dead cat or a crow. Rinkart gave so much to charity

to feed the hungry he was forced to mortgage several years of his

income so just to feed his own children.

Surprisingly, given the difficulties of his life, the

hymns that Rinkart Pent wrote in those days were full of praise

and trust in God, even when they spoke of troubles afflicting his

country. The best known one is he wrote

that around 1636, in the middle of the war, it's called now,

Thank we all our God. Well, the war dragged on for

another nine years. His services did not earn him

the town's praise or gratitude. They harassed him constantly,

but financial issues caused by his efforts to feed the

starving. When peace finally came in 1648,

Rinkart was exhausted. He had prematurely aged, and he

died the following year around age 62.

He was a hymn writer, wrote many hymns, but they were not based

on the hardships of his life but on his relationship with God.

That's important. I want to read that hymn that I

just spoke about. It's a German song, actually

somebody translated into English.

I'll read it. He says now thank we all, our

God with hearts and hands and voices, who wonders things has

done, and whom his world rejoices, who from her mother's

arms has blessed us on our way with countless gifts of love and

still is ours today. Oh, may this bounteous God

through all our life be near us with ever joyful hearts and

blessed peace to cheer us, to keep us in this grace and guide

us when perplexed, and free us from all ills of this world in

the next. All praise and thanks to God the

Father now be given, the Son and Spirit blessed, who reigned in

highest heaven, the one eternal God whom heaven and earth adore.

For thus it was and is now and shall be forevermore.

Think about the context, the horrendously devastation,

devastating experience of war and plague and famine and death.

And he could write that. Do we have time to dedicate

ourselves to thank God in whatever circumstance we find

ourselves in? I think we do.

All the hearts of Israel had experienced the years of

suffering and outcomes this celebration.

Sure, it was at the end of it, but we don't wait that long.

We don't wait that long. We praise God, dedicate

ourselves to God, and worship and gratitude in spite of what

happens. You see, so often I will.

When this is done, once this changes, when once this is

finished, once that's over, if that's the goal, we may never.

Let's dedicate ourselves to God now, today in our time when we

can. God created you and me to be

holy, to be dedicated to Him, and we're created for worship,

to adore Him as we do. We'll find that no matter what

life throws at us, we can still have joy and peace in the

darkest pain. God has provided His gift of

eternal life for us to receive for all who repent of their sins

and turn to Him. And that's the greatest joy we

can have. You know, whatever else life

throws at us, it's not easy, it's hard, it's difficult.

We get that, but we still thank God.

So let's dedicate ourselves to God.

Let's commit ourselves to him. Let's surrender ourselves to Him

and let Him use us to glorify and worship Him with

Thanksgiving, with gratitude, regardless of what lies in our

path in front of us and what may, what we, we find ourselves

to be in. It doesn't matter, no matter how

difficult, how good it is, we're still the Lords.

He'll take care of us. He'll see us through and in the

end, the sun will shine again. Pause with me for prayer.

Lord Jesus, thank you. You do not leave us nor forsake

us. You want us to worship you.

You want us to serve you. You want us to rejoice in you.

Thank you for the gift of your Son Jesus, for a sacrifice in

the cross for our sins. And we pray, Lord, that we will

be receptive. Allow your Spirit to change our

hearts. Guide us in our walk and help

us, Lord, to be thankful, faithfully grateful in all

things as we walk in your footsteps.

Your name we pray. Amen.