Who Are You Hitched To?

Do you have childhood memories that you will never forget?

I'm sure you do. Even as you get later in your

years, you still have those things that you look back to and

you remember from your childhood.

And I have some stories like that too, which which I've told

you before. My wife always makes fun of me

because I remember the dumbest things but forget the most

important things, which is pretty typical of my memory.

And one of the things that I remember as a child is, is here

living in Leamington, out in, in the county, is we would hitch

our, our wagon, our trailer to the back of the lawn tractor and

we would drive it around. I don't know, has anybody else

ever done that before? That's a, that's a good time.

But we only had 1/2 of an acre. And so when we would get bored,

we would venture beyond the borders.

And I remember that there was a field next to our house and, and

as one day we, we were looking for somewhere else to drive the

tractor and the trailer and, and I looked out into the field and

I saw what looked to like a really dumb 13 year old Joe, a

field of weeds. And I thought, here is my

racetrack. And so with, with siblings in

the back, we raced out into the field, making circles and U

turns and then going all over the place.

And, and we had a great time. And, and I remember it was a few

days later, I'm sitting on the couch and I hear a knock at the

door. And it's the, the next door

farmer. He wanted to talk with my mom

and, and, and they talked for a few minutes and then he gave her

an earful of, of what stupid young kid drove over all his

winter wheat. But it was fun.

We had a blast. It was a good time.

But my family learned a very valuable lesson that day.

And it's don't hitch your trailer to Joe's tractor or else

you're in for some big trouble. Now, my sermon title this

morning is who are you hitched to?

Who or what have you hitched yourself to?

Who or what are you hitching your wagon to in hopes that you

will have success or fame or fortune?

Who or what are you hitching to? Hoping that it will satisfy you.

You'd better be careful who you hit your wagon to, or else

you'll end up, you know, in the problem that we were You'll end

up with a farmer who's very angry at you.

But but the truth is that it can be far worse than that.

You can hit your wagon to a desire for wealth, a desire for

fame, a desire for fortune, and come to the end of your life and

find out it was meaningless. That's exactly where the

Israelites had found themselves. And if you've been with us, with

us, we've started the book of Nehemiah back in the beginning

of the year. And as we begin, we found them

suffering the consequences of hitching their wagon to the

nations and the people around them.

They had hitched their wagon to the wrong thing, and now they

were suffering the consequences of God's judgement for their

disobedience. They were following their own

sinful fleshly desires and that is why they were suffering.

Thankfully, through the work of God's Spirit through Nehemiah,

they turned back to God and rebuilt the wall of Jerusalem,

reinstated their worship, and put God's word back at the

center. And as Jake talked to us last

week, he talked about lead this, leading the people of Israel to

confessing their sins as a nation before God.

This morning we're going to see them intentionally hitch

themselves back to God and how God blesses them for it.

But before we do that, let's pray.

Lord, we thank You for Your Word to us.

Your Word teaches us who You are and how we are to live and how

we are to be glorifying to You with all that we are.

And Lord, we pray that you would help us as we think about

hitching ourselves and, and how, what, what sorts of things in

life we find joy and pleasure and satisfaction.

And we pray that much like the Israelites, as we're going to

see today, that we would hitch ourselves to you, knowing that

when we follow your word, when we follow your ways, you will

bless us and bring glory and honor to yourself.

So Lord, would you help us to commit to you and your word.

We thank you in Jesus name, Amen.

The first thing we learn as the Israelites are are are hitching

their trailer back onto God. The first thing we learn is that

is that you should look for leaders who are hitched to God

and what is the most important quality that you should look for

in a leader? That they have a heart and a

devotion to love the Lord. They have their wagon hitched to

God. Their desire is to be faithful

to God and obedient to Him, to love Him and follow His Word.

And as we begin our passage this morning, that's exactly what

we're going to see. We're going to see these

Israelite leaders stepping forward and setting the

precedent for hitching themselves to God in His Word.

They've recognized and confessed their sin at this point, and now

they are putting their names on a covenant, a sealed, signed

covenant promising to be faithful to God in His Word.

Would you open up your Bibles with me this morning to Nehemiah

Nehemiah 10 · chapter mention

chapter 10? Nehemiah chapter 10, And I'm

Nehemiah 10 · chapter mention

going to begin at the verse just before that, Nehemiah Chapter 9,

Nehemiah 9:38

verse 38. Again, Pastor Jake talked to us

last week about these people and repenting, confessing their sins

before God. And this leads to verse 38.

Because of all this, we make a firm covenant in writing.

On the sealed document are the names of our Princess, our

Levites, and our priests. Continuing in 10 chapter,

chapter 10, verse one, on the seals are the names of Nehemiah

the governor, the son of Hakalaya, Zedekiah, Soraya,

Azariah, Jeremiah, Pashur, Amaraya, Malkaja, Hatush,

Shabbinaya, Malik, Harem, Miramoth, Obadiah, Daniel,

Ginathan, Barrack, Mashulam, Abijah, Mijamin, Meiziah,

Bilgai, Shamaya. These are the priests and the

Levites, Joshua the son of Azanaya Binui, of the sons of

Hinad Kadmil and their brothers, Shabanaya Hodaya Kalita, Pelaya

Hainan Micah Rahab Hashabaya zakour Sharabaya Shabanaya

Hodaya beni beninu. The chiefs of the people perosh

pay hath Moab Elam zatu beni booni asghad babai adonija bigvi

Aden ater hezekiah azur hodaya Hashem bazai harif anathoth

nabai magpiash and mushulam hazar Michelle zabel zadak jadua

pelotaya Hainan anaya hoshaya hinanaya Hashem hallowhesh

pillha shobek rehem hashabna mehsaya aihaya Hainan ainan

malek harem bayana. That's a long list of names,

isn't it? You're probably wondering why on

earth would you read that long list of names so badly and do

such a bad job pronouncing all those names, Doesn't this?

I am so glad that all of these names are recorded because

doesn't this show you that God sees every individual?

Doesn't it show you that God knows your name?

And if we were to sign a covenant here today, wouldn't it

be so cool to go Jacob, which 40 of you would?

We'd have to put last names in there, right?

Because so many of the John and and Isaac and Margaret and

Sarah. And isn't that so cool that the

Lord is so intentional to put names in there?

I, I sort of got that joke from Joe and I sorry, I stole that

from him. But it was, it was a good point

that the Lord sees every one of us and that's such an important

factor. But these men, I'm so glad that

they were willing to let their names be printed.

Why? First they confess their sin.

How many of us are willing to put our name on a sealed signed

document that confesses our sin? And then in the same thing to to

write and sign and seal their names in a document saying we

promise to obey God's word. Those are the leaders of Israel.

That's who you hit your wagon to.

People, men like that who are willing to stand on the truth of

God's word. These are exactly the kinds of

leaders that we should be hitching ourselves to as people.

Leaders who love the Lord, leaders who love following His

Word, leaders who have the courage to do hard things that

God tells them to do. Now we think of God's Word.

God's Word constantly has things it written in it that are really

hard for us to do right. Love the love your enemies, Pray

for those who persecute you, Forgive those who sin against

you. Those are all really hard things

to do and you should hitch yourself to leaders who are

willing to do those hard things because of their love for the

Lord. Look for leaders who are hitched

to God and what do you do when you find a leader who is hitched

to God? You follow them.

Follow leaders hitched to God. And this is exactly what the

Israelites do as as these leaders stand up and sign this

covenant saying we will be faithful to God in His word, all

the people join in signing the covenant.

Look at verses 28 and 29 with me, the rest of the people, the

priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers, the

temple servants, and all who have separated themselves from

the peoples of the lands of the to the law of God.

Their wives, their sons, their daughters, all who have

knowledge and understanding, join with their brothers, their

nobles, and enter into a curse and an oath to walk in God's law

that was given by Moses the servant of God, and to observe

and do all the commandments of the Lord, our Lord and His rules

and His statutes. Here the people had found the

right leaders, leaders who had hitched themselves to God in His

Word. They were devoted to it.

And what was the people's response?

To join the leaders? We join with you in making this

covenant. We are going to hitch ourselves

to you because we see your love for the Lord.

We see the wisdom of what you are doing.

And so they joined in, in separating themselves from the

peoples of the land, right? We're no longer going to follow

the ways of the nations around us.

Now we're going to be devoted to God and His Word along with you

as the leaders. And they understood what that

meant. We've been going in our church

Bible reading plan through the Old Testament and in the

Leviticus, the Lord lays out the blessings for obedience and the

cursing for disobedience, doesn't He?

He says you will be blessed if you follow my word, but if you

don't, then I will discipline you.

And so the Israelites understood they were entering into a

covenant. It was very serious what they

were doing, and they understood that, but they were following

leaders who had hitched themselves to God.

And this is exactly what we must do as well.

We must find godly leaders who are devoted to the truth of

God's Word, to read it, to understand it, to obey it.

And we must follow them. We must hitch ourselves to them.

If you ever see a leader, or any Christian for that matter, who

is not willing to practice what they preach, you should run the

other way and maybe you should hang around and share the gospel

with them. But you understand what I'm

saying. You should not follow that

person. If someone is willing to say, Oh

yeah, I believe the truth of God's Word, but they don't live

it out, don't follow their example, don't hit yourself to

them. Instead, find godly people who

trust and believe in the power of God's Word, who are obeying

it and walking in it, and hit yourself to them.

Follow their example and find people like that that you are

following and learning from because they believe in the

power of God's Word working in US.

And so those are the men and women that you should follow,

those who love God, who love his Word and obey it.

And if you find leaders hitch to God's word and you follow them,

then what should you do? Worship the God that you're

hitched to. Ultimately, we must recognize

that that our decisions and choices that we make in life,

that we're ultimately choosing whether or not we're going to

hitch ourselves to God and that we must follow his way.

And what is the greatest display of worship?

As beautiful as it was for this team to lead us this morning,

that's not worship. That's not the greatest display

of worship. The greatest display of worship

is obedience is to trust and believe God's word and, and, and

singing is obedience. I'm not I'm not, I'm not

discounting that what a joy it was to sing with you all this

morning and to praise our Lord. We're commanded to do that.

Obedience is worship. When we read God's Word and we

follow it, that is worship. And that's exactly what the

Israelites here are committing themselves to do.

And as I read through this next passage of Scripture, I want you

to notice that it affects every area of their life.

It isn't just that Sunday morning over there.

When we come to the temple on Sunday morning, that's when I

get, that's what I give to God. No, God's word is going to

instruct their entire lives from their personal decisions to

their business decisions, then moving forward to how they

worship together as a people. So let's read together in verses

30 through 39, verse 30. We will not give our daughters

to the peoples of the land or take their daughters for our

sons. And if the peoples of the land

bring in goods or any grain on the Sabbath day to sell, we will

not buy from them on the Sabbath or on a holy day and we will

forego the crops of the 7th year and the exaction of every debt.

So first we've seen they're willing to to say we, we are not

going to intermarry with the peoples around us.

We're God's word. It said you are to to stay

within the people of Israel. We would see this in the New

Testament. We would say don't be unequally

yoked. You should only marry believers.

And so they are commanded in their personal lives to obey

God, and then that moves to their business life.

Well, the work that we do, we're not going to do work on the

Sabbath. If people come and want to trade

on the Sabbath, we're not going to do that because God's Word

says not to do that. The Sabbath is a day holy to the

Lord where we worship Him. Now let's continue.

And now we see where it transitions to how they're going

to provide for the temple and also provide for the temple

servants in their ministry. 32 We also take on ourselves the

obligation to give yearly a third part of a shekel for the

service of the House of our God, for the showbread, the regular

grain offering, the regular burnt offering, the Sabbaths,

the new moons, the appointed feasts, the holy things, and the

sin offerings to make atonement for Israel and for all the work

of the House of our God. We, the priests, the Levites,

and the people have likewise cast lots for the wood, offering

to bring it into the House of our God according to our

Father's houses, at times appointed year by year to burn

on the altar of the Lord our God, as it is written in the

law. We obligate ourselves to bring

the first fruits of our ground and the first fruits of all

fruit of every tree, year by year, to the House of the Lord.

Also to bring to the House of our God, to the priest, to

minister in the House of our God the first born of our sons and

of our cattle, as it is written in the law, and the first born

of our herds and of our flocks. And to bring the first of our

dough and our contributions, the fruit of every tree, the wine

and the oil, to the priests, to the chambers of the House of our

God. And to bring to the Levites the

tithes from our ground. For it is the Levites who

collect the tithes in all our towns where we labour.

And the priest, the son of Aaron, shall be with the Levites

when the Levites receive the tithes.

And the Levites shall bring up the tithe of the tithes to the

House of our God, to the chambers of the storehouse for

the people of Israel. And the sons of Levi shall bring

the contribution of grain, wine, and oil to the chambers where

the vessels of the sanctuary are, as well as the priests who

minister, and the gatekeepers and the singers.

We will not neglect the House of our God.

So here we see their commitment to worship God.

They are signing this sealed covenant to say we will be

faithful to obey God's word in everything that we do, our

personal lives, our business lives, and when we come and when

we worship God. So that again, as we talked

about, we've been talking about through the series, God dwelt

among his people, then through the Tabernacle.

And so long as the Israelites were faithful to follow God's

law in terms of the Tabernacle and the sacrifices and

everything, God would dwell in their midst and lead and guide

them. And now they needed to get back

to that. So God would lead and guide and

be with them again. And His Word affected every area

of their lives. And this is exactly what the

Lord wanted them to do, to be faithful to His Word, to obey

His Word, to walk in holiness, to walk in righteousness.

They were hitching themselves to the God of the universe who was

worthy of their worship and obedience in every area of their

life. And we need to understand that

for our lives as well, that if you want to be hitched to God,

if you want to follow Him, if you want to serve Him, that

means giving over every area of your life.

He doesn't just want a part of you, He wants to affect every

part of you. He wants, he wants to change

every aspect of your life, the way you spend your time, the way

you spend your money, the way that you give and spend your

gifts and your talents. The Lord wants control of all of

those things because He wants to transform your life.

He wants you to experience the joy of worshipping Him and

giving everything to Him through obedience to all of His Word.

But the truth is that as we all know, we could never fully live

in full obedience to every single one of God's commands.

We always fall short. And that's exactly why Jesus

said in Matthew Chapter 11 verses 28 through 30, Come to

Matthew 11:28–30

me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and

lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

The truth is, God doesn't want to weigh you down.

Do you ever feel like that? Do you ever read God's law and

go man, like all these laws, all these commands, how could you

keep them straight? They're like a, like a filling a

backpack with rocks and carrying it around all day.

It's this burden that I have to carry around and how, how could

I possibly obey every single command?

God doesn't want to burden you. He doesn't want to take all of

these these difficult, hard things and, and put them on your

back so that you feel way down. He wants to give you rest.

He wants to give you peace. He is giving you His Word so

that you'll find true life. God is not a harsh taskmaster

ready to punish you every single time you go astray and every

single time you disobey. That's not God's heart.

His heart is gentle and lowly. Those words should shock you.

Speaking of the God of the universe, His heart is gentle

and lowly. He wants you to find rest for

your soul, rest from all the work.

Aren't you so sick and tired of trying harder?

Aren't you so sick and tired of saying if I just had a better

job, if I just had a better wife?

Hopefully you're not saying that if I just had more money, if I

could just enjoy more experiences, then I would be

happy. Then I would be fulfilled.

Aren't you so sick and tired of that?

Because every time you do one of those things, you all know the

feeling. I do too.

It's emptiness. The Lord is is showing you His

heart so that you'll turn to Him and find life and rest and

peace. So you'll stop trying harder,

but you'll come to Christ and give over your burdens to Him

because He cares for you. He will take that burden and He

will put a yoke on you. But guess what?

It's not a yoke that weighs you down.

It's a light yoke. It's an easy yoke.

It's a yoke that truly helps me to understand the joy of

following God in His Word. The Lord is calling you today.

Come to Him. Take His yoke upon you, allow

Him to lift the burden off of you and give you rest and give

you peace. And when you come to God through

faith in Jesus Christ your Lord and Savior, He washes and

cleanses all the sin away. He fills you with His Holy

Spirit to give you strength and energy to live for Him, leading

and guiding you by your Word so that you'll find true life.

Come to Him, He will give you wrath.

Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your

word. We thank you for the example of

these Israelites and their commitment to your word, their

desire to be hitched to you. We thank you for the example of

the leaders or we just praise you for men and women who

through the generations, we're willing to confess their sin,

we're willing to acknowledge where they went astray, and

we're willing to come back to you, come back in faithfulness

to you. And that takes courage.

It takes courage to say I'm a Sinner and I am messed up and I

need help and I can't do this on my own.

Lord, would you give us the ability to come to you with our

burdens? I pray for anybody here this

morning who has not given their life to you.

Lord, I pray that you would open their hearts, that you would

open their eyes to their sin. Lord, and would you cause them

to turn to you? Would they realize that Jesus

Christ is the only Savior? Would they turn to you and find

that your yoke is easy, your burden is light?

Would they find rest for their souls?

Lord, for us as your children, I pray that you would strengthen

us again, not to not to carry our burdens on our own, but to

bring them to you because you love us, because you care for

us. And Lord, would we willingly do

that, knowing that you are faithful to ease our burden, to

give us a life and to give us hope and to lead and guide us by

your Spirit, working through our word so that we may be faithful

examples to you. This we ask and pray in Jesus

name, Amen.