Beyond Sunday "Priorities for Godly Living"

Welcome to Beyond Sunday. That's.

Good. Welcome back, Joe.

Well, I, I just told you that I didn't listen to the whole

podcast last week, but you guys were making fun of me the way I

introduced. We did make fun of you a little.

Bit that's all right. Welcome to Beyond Sunday.

Which is. An extension of the preaching

ministry here at LEMC and I am joined.

I am Joseph Penner, the Associate Pastor here at LEMC,

and I'm joined, as always, by Jonah Chitty.

Jonah, we can't say pastors anymore.

We're not pastors. We're just people.

We're just people. But you preached this last

Sunday. We were not here.

We we were away. But I did listen to the sermon

and, you know, you guys got to share in the Lord's Supper this

last weekend. How?

How was church this last weekend?

It was good. Church was really good as

always. You know, you nor Jake were here

and so I was a bit whatever frazzled, but we have a good

team here. Like the Deacon team did an

awesome job setting everything up.

I didn't ever really think about communion much.

Mr. Phil Ham took care of the the Scripture reading and

getting us in our hearts ready for that part.

So that was, that was easy, easier than I was expecting.

I was a little worried when I woke up was like, oh, I haven't

heard from anybody. But then why don't I even care?

I mean, they, I knew they would already have it done.

So. But yeah, the church was, I

thought, I thought things went really well.

Good. We have a good worship team that

you've trained up that knows what's that, what they're doing.

And, yeah, everybody knew what they were doing.

And yeah, it's good to know that.

Honestly, it is good to know that you're not really needed.

Like the, the. That's a weird thing to say, but

it is good that the church is built.

It's full of people, and we all have the abilities to help and

do things. And so, yeah, it went out.

It went, it went like normal. Yeah.

Yeah, that's good to hear. No, it we are so blessed to have

so many people who are willing to serve and to give of

themselves and to help the body. It it is such a blessing to know

that, you know, there's times where we're we're not going to

be able to be here. We're going to be away.

Those are few and far between, actually.

But it is a blessing to know that people are there to to

serve and to take ownership of this thing.

So we're very blessed in that way.

Yeah. All right.

Well, you preach a sermon. We're here to talk about your

sermon. And then making a little bit

further application, you know, the rubber hitting the road.

Did you get my title? I I didn't.

I worked so hard on my title, Joe.

No, it was priorities for godly living.

Priorities for godly living? Well, why don't you give us a

quick overview of your sermon? So it came from Nehemiah Chapter

Nehemiah 7 · chapter mention

7, picking up on really the priorities that Nehemiah had as

he was setting up the city that they just finished building the

walls in record time, 52 days of just just under two months as

it's done complete something that over 100 years hadn't been

done. He comes in with a plan.

He's got priorities there too, but but it's finished.

And so now they've got to figure out all right now what like, I

think I use the example of like a house is dried in, but now

they're the hard work comes in, right?

Like you've got, you've got baseboards and walls to put up

and you've got carpet and flooring to put in.

You got to figure out who's going to pay the bills and take

out the trash and all those different things.

And so that's that's where Nehemiah comes in.

He starts to like figure out and put people in place to really

set the city up for what it's meant for.

And so Nehemiah, he prioritized the my points.

My points were Nehemiah prioritized the, the praise of

God, the pursuit of godliness, the people of God and the

purpose of God. And the implication is that if

Nehemiah's priority was the were these things, then we should

have these priorities as well in our, in our Christian walk.

And so, yeah, the city is built and made for worship.

Like we will know that like I, I didn't go into this when I was

preaching, but like, you know, in Revelation, whenever God is

or Jesus is giving John the revelation, he's talking about

how like the dimensions of the city and it's like, it's a new

Jerusalem, you know, And so like Jerusalem is a purpose.

The purpose of that city was worship.

And so like Nehemiah is setting the tone for that.

And I think I saw I said something about like our hearts

are meant for or we're designed for worship.

And so like the city's also designed for worship.

My second point was that Nehemiah prioritized the pursuit

of godliness by the people he chose.

So he chose his brother Hannah and I who brought in the news,

but he also chose this guy named Hananiah.

So it's pretty convenient that they're that close in name.

You can just start like if you're calling them for for

something you say Han and both of them respond.

That's like us all pastors having.

This Jane and Jane Joe. Jonah, Jane.

So, yeah, so but to talk about Hananiah's, his character being

one of a man who was like really godly.

And so that was his, that was his biggest qualification.

Even though he's really qualified for the job, His

biggest qualification was that he was more God fearing man than

many. The Third Point was prioritizing

the people of God. That's just there in the text,

like really throughout the whole chapter.

I mean, like Nehemiah, he knew that he had to figure out who's

going to like populate the city. And so he went to the census and

looked at the census and said, OK, this is the list of people

who we have. So he prioritized the people of

God and who he put it in there in the city.

And then my final point was prioritizing the purpose of God

linking the, the story in the grand, the grand narrative.

Like there's a rubable connection to the, like he's in

the genealogy of Jesus. He's in here, but he's also in

the genealogy. So he's, Zerubbel is, is part of

the people who came out of the Babylonian captivity.

He's part of that original group that came to Jerusalem.

And then he's also a part of like this new this, this new

people of God, which is ushered in through Christ and through

the genealogy of Jesus. So God is doing way more than we

can ever imagine, even though like, even though they're doing

a lot here, like they have no idea what God's doing.

He's like Doctor Betts in his commentary said is like this

weaving this like beautiful tapestry that we, we can't see

because it's, we're looking at it really close.

But God is standing back and looking at this whole picture,

and he's doing so many amazing things.

So yeah, prioritize. We should prioritize what

Nehemiah prioritized. That's kind of the basic the

basic point of the sermon. Good.

Yeah, no, it was really good. I, I really enjoyed listening to

it. I thought it was really good.

I, I know at the beginning you sort of addressed like, man,

there's a lot of names in this chapter.

Yeah, I really started reading it to Valerie, she says.

Jonah, you can't read that. It's too boring.

And I'm like, it's not boring. You know, everything is

profitable for us and so. Well, and I just thought like,

like somewhere in your sermon, you did say, you know, that

numbers matter to God and and because people matter to God,

they should matter to us. You said something to that.

Warren Wearsby, I think, is the one that said he's he's like,

it's not so much that the people were counted, but that the

people count, right. So like that they these these

people matter. Yeah.

Like, and there was another one somebody else like texted me and

said that the Joshua connection is like the high priest Joshua.

And he comes up later and too and, and and and so it's like,

yeah, these all these names and these people, they're just not

arbitrary names. They're, they are people and

families like that that were part of like this.

Literally, they put their lives on the line to leave Babylonian

captivity and to to go back and to start like this city and

like, yeah, they these are the real heroes.

Nehemiah comes in and like, and you think, oh, in 52 days he did

the wall and it is amazing, right?

But these people left without really any kind of idea that

anything would be successful. Like these 42,000 people said,

we're OK, we're going to go. We've been able to go and

Nebuchadnezzar said we can. So we're going to go.

And then they just didn't have the direction that they needed.

So Nehemiah comes in 100 years later and gives them direction

and, and there we are. So I don't know.

Yeah, and I thought, I thought that was a really interesting

point that you brought out. Like these people risked, like

you said, they sort of risked their lives to go out because it

was like, yeah, OK, we're going to let you guys go back.

It, it wasn't like, you know, it wasn't like looking for the

promised land in the sense of like, oh, we're looking for

this. Great, it's not going back to

ruins. Exactly, it was a skin it you're

you still, the enemies are still all there.

They don't like you. They don't want you to rebuild

that. That's clear.

That's been clear from the book of Nehemiah as as we come back.

And so the thought that like they really were taking a big

risk and going back. I thought that was really

interesting, the way you drew that out.

Yeah, it was a, it was a a dangerous endeavour and and the

fact that they did it is, is amazing.

Yeah. What I thought I, I, as I was

reading through the text again this morning, I, I sort of

thought about, you know, there's this one verse in verse 33 where

it says the men of the other Nebo 52 And I just I, as I

thought about that, I thought about like, what if you did this

in our church? We got a lot of people, we got a

lot of people with similar last names, right?

So you go like you know the of the family of the Friesens, you

know the other Friesens. One of the things if I had, if I

had more time, I might have gone down this road.

But like in the early stages of like when I was looking at the

text and trying to figure it out, I was like, all right, we

could. We could literally do this.

Talking about church membership and the importance of the

importance of being known in your church is what I was

thinking. Yeah, these people are known as

inhabitants of Jerusalem, right? These are, these are like the

people who came back. So like it is important for for

the people you like are in church with, it's important that

you know them and they know you. And so because people matter,

right. And so like my, one of my first

ideas was like to just to like read off these names.

A portion of them. I probably wouldn't have read

all 73 verses, but then, but then like to like break in there

and like read in like Penner, the men of Penner, you know, 18

the, the fairs, you know, 39 the other fairs, 52 whatever, you

know, but sort of sort of like that to, to sort of like just

bring home the point that, you know what it does matter that

you're counted. And so like for that church

membership in my mind is it's so important like for us to know

who is like, who is, who are the people who have, who have come

together and said, for lack of a better word, there is no better

word. I don't think covenant together

where we come together and we we we commit to one another that

this is our family, this is our this is our family around the

word and around around the Lord and what he's doing in this

community. And I just think it's it means

so much. And like that's why these

censuses are that I think that's what they point.

That's one thing they point to anyway.

Maybe that's the most. Important.

No, I think that's exactly right.

I think that point exactly that that is a very powerful

illustration and reminder because you read these names and

we have no connection or relation to these names

whatsoever. So you just read them very like,

you know, your brain sort of switches off as you go through

them. But like you said, if you sort

of think about the people in our church, and it's like, well,

it's easy for us to look at all these names and numbers and go,

how does it really matter? And it's like, well, exactly

like what you said. Do the Friesians matter?

Right. You know, that guy who's married

to that, does he matter? Does his wife matter?

Do his kids matter? Do his grandchildren matter?

Yeah, they do. They matter a lot because, like

you said, they matter to God. And so we have to remember when

we're reading these names that these were families and

households of people that were connected.

Like, yeah, like, like verse 30, just just for fun, the men of

Raima and Giba 621, the 621 isn't an arbitrary number.

That's 621 men in that in that group, not counting their wives

and children or their servants. And so like those are people.

And that's why I think whenever we like we made the comment, I

think in our last big meeting is like numbers matter because they

represent people, Like they represent individuals who are

coming here, learning the word are, are coming here and, and

being participants and like teaching the word.

Numbers matter because they're people, not because they're

numbers, like not because we want to just count numbers or be

like, no, oh, we got 750 people on a Sunday.

No, there are 750 people here and they, they have 700 people

who have been exposed to God's word.

And that's that's an important thing to to count.

Absolutely. Because they count, right?

Yeah, Anyway. Well, and we see this consistent

all through Scripture too, right?

Like God, God keeps records. He he has numbers.

You know, even in we think of the early church, you know, we

know that 3000 were added to their number.

How do we know that it was 3000? Because somebody was counting.

Somebody counted it right? And so it they, it matters,

numbers matter very much to God. And so like you said, I think

there's, there is a pitfall there where we have to be

careful of like, you know, that's the only thing that

matters. It's no, it's not.

It's about, like you said, those are people being exposed to

God's word. Those are people that can build

relationship and connection. It can be in community together

and be in. That's right.

And the more people that come to faith is that's the whole goal

of what we're doing as a church and.

Committing to each other is, is equally important, right?

Like I think that's why I think membership is important, yeah.

Like we're going to commit and covenant with each other.

We're going to know. I know that, oh, you're in it

100%. I'm in it 100%.

We can hold each other accountable to that.

But also like, if like we know who like, for lack of a better

phrase as well, is like, we know who that we're in charge of or

not in charge of is the wrong word.

We know who we're supposed to be shepherding, right would be the

right word using biblical language.

Yeah. Like the flock at LEMC is all

the membership at LEMC and we have a lot of people who aren't

members but are, you know, are here.

They would probably consider it their home church.

They might even consider themselves members, but haven't

like done the official thing, right?

It just makes it harder, like, and I don't know, you know,

anyway, we could go down that rabbit trail if we want to, but

that was my whole point there. I would have done that in the

sermon had we had time to talk about that.

Yeah, you were. You were limited.

Because of, because of communion, Yeah.

But do you think that? Do you think that's a, would you

draw out that application further when it comes to when it

comes to the people who came and they couldn't prove their

father's houses and they couldn't prove where they that

they belong to Israel, Do you think that that that translates

and applies to the church as well?

I don't know. That's a good question.

Like people who can't prove that they're Christians or what?

Yeah, I guess. I guess that's.

What I'm sort of thinking of like.

No, I think that's true. I think it's important like one

of the ways, like one of the things about membership, like

when we take up membership, is that like there's an interview,

right? Like there, there is at least

some kind of questioning about your, your faith.

It's not, it's not in depth, right?

It is, but it's not right. We're just, we basically just

want to know, do you understand the gospel and have you have

you, do you profess faith in Christ?

That's essentially what it is. And so like, I think so like

our, our, that in that way you're tracing your lineage back

to if you're adopted into the Kingdom or not.

The important thing to hear to note is that they didn't turn

them away, right. He didn't say you're not allowed

to stay in the like you can't, you can't live here.

You can't even consider yourself Israelite.

It just means you can't serve in like the priestly places.

Like you may not be one of the 10th percent, like the 10% that

live in Jerusalem, but you can still, you can still be here.

You're still welcome in. I mean, the, that was one of the

other points too, is like the in the, in the big grand picture of

what God is doing throughout the history of the world.

He's, he's always been drawing people from outside of Israel

into his chosen people. He's always done it even like

even in the exodus, we were reading the exodus in our

reading plan. You'll read like the the rabble

or the others that that came along with them.

Those aren't Israelites. Those are Egyptians or people

from other areas that were enslaved that came along with

them in the Exodus that came along.

You know, So he's always been about bringing people to

himself. And then like even Rahab, all,

you know, all of those stories that we see of outsiders, Ruth

coming in from the outside and he's he's God.

God loves us all. He welcomes us all.

We just have to believe in him and believe in the promise,

right. In the Old Testament, they

believed promise. The Messiah is coming anyway.

I'm getting off on a rabbit trail, but yeah, I think so,

Joe. I don't, I think there's

something to think there. I don't know.

I haven't given it a ton of thought.

No, I just. I just, so I figure I'd draw on

that, 'cause I think, I think the, the, something that's

important is making a distinction, you know, 'cause,

you know, in our church boundary plan, it's like we're, we're

going through Exodus and, and God makes a distinction between

his people and not his people, right?

Then when he starts sending the plagues, at some point, I think

it's the, the 4th plague, he, he starts to make a distinction

between, all right, you know, your, your animals are gonna

die, all the Egyptians, but not one animal of all of the

Israelites will die. And so I think when we think

about the church, I think it's important for us to think, you

know, we do have membership and we do have, you know, those,

those sorts of things so that we can determine, like you said,

who, who is a part of our church, who is a part of our

flock and who is not right. And that's where we have things

like church discipline. Because if you know, someone

might come in and like you said, on the one sense, you know, we,

we do have an interview process where we're trying to determine

if people understand what the gospel is like.

Are you truly a follower of Christ?

And so in a sense, there's, there's like a, there's a step

that you have to take. It's not necessarily a hard

step, but at the same time, we we we're affirming whether the

truthfulness of that profession of faith over the next coming

months and years, right? And so if we see someone living

in sin, we are supposed to call them out in their sin.

And if they refuse to obey and eventually even to the church,

then we're supposed to remove that person from membership

because their profession of faith is not valid because

they're refusing to be corrected by by God's people.

And so there there are things that we're supposed to do so

that we're truly discerning who who is a Christian and who is

not a Christian, who is in the family of faith and who is not.

Yeah, there are ways to do it and they in their biblical ways,

right. That's the thing too.

It's not arbitrary. It's not man made.

This is something that that Jesus said to do.

Exactly. Yeah, I think, I think

membership matters that that if that's the point that I'm

driving at, there is like it's it is important to to covenant

with your church. Yeah, it is an important step,

absolutely. And and that's it's people are,

people are. That's the, that's the beautiful

thing. You know, we, the more we talk

about things like that, the more we show the importance that's in

scripture, people respond. And I'm grateful for it for

sure. Yeah.

Yeah, well in your in your point about prioritizing the praise of

God, I, I really appreciated that you talked about you've

already mentioned alluded to it. We were created for worship and

Nehemiah sort of sets up worship that you have already said, like

Jerusalem was a city, it was created for the worship of God

and we was sort of made for worship.

And then you sort of ask this applicational question, do we

prioritize the praise of God in our lives?

And so I, I just wanted to maybe have you like expand on that a

little bit and then maybe even ask the question about like, how

can we like, what ways can we be prioritizing the praise of God

in our lives? So praise would be like

something that you immediately think of what when you hear the

word. Singing, Yeah.

It's not necessarily that it can be right.

So, but it isn't it is what most people think of the immediate

thing. I I just link it to what what do

you worship? And like that's even a foreign

concept to a lot of people like the the word worship.

What do you what do you make the most important thing in your

life? Like is it, is it we would marry

people might say their spouse or their kids.

That's idols. That's, that's, that's an idol.

If you make that the most important thing in your life,

that's an idol. You, you might worship that and

you might praise that like, Oh, I'm praising my son for his

great hockey skills, you know, at the hockey match last week.

So dude, I, I think it's going to sound like a, like a dead

horse that were beaten right? The same thing over and over

again. But like the way that you can

prioritize the praise of God is by, by making your life centered

around his word. I I.

I don't know any I don't know any other way to do it, right.

Yeah, it it can include singing, which that's the most it is a

response, right? The doxology and like like

singing, like our, our, our theology, though, like the word

needs to be what informs what we worship and what we like, what

like outward expression of our worship is like.

So I think like a heavy diet of the word like is so important

for you to get to get it to like to make God the center of your

life. Yeah, I just want to, I want to

explain a little bit. So like you, you said theology

and we use the word theology and we talk about theology.

And I think a lot of times when people hear that word, they sort

of they get scared and they sort of disassociate themselves and

they immediately put that in a class of something that they are

not, Yeah. And that they don't think of.

But everybody's a theologian. Everybody is a theologian.

What is? Made that famous, yeah.

So theology is what Theos is gone.

Yeah. And then ology we we know that

it means the study of by all the different subjects you study in

school, like biology and sociology and psychology.

It's just the study of something.

So yeah, theology is just the study of God.

Yeah, it's, it's exactly, it's the study of God.

And so when we read the Bible, we are being informed of who God

is, right. And so when you read the Bible,

you're studying God. You, you're being a theologian.

And so. And you're interpreting it.

You're, you're reading it, you're trying to make

connections and you're trying to figure out what does it mean?

Yeah, like what is it saying about God?

What is it saying about me? What is it saying about the

world I live in? You're developing a theology.

Yeah. Study of what God has done,

whether you know it or think you are or not.

Exactly. Everybody's a theologian.

Yeah. And so when you see someone

living a certain way and you go, that's a sin, you just said

something about theology, right? You just said something about

who God is or who God isn't, right.

And so your beliefs, how you think that you should live or or

that we should live as Christians, what you believe

about God and what you believe about the Bible, what you

believe about being a Christian, that is theology, right?

And so I'm just, I just wanted. To.

So yeah, that's good. Clarify that just so that like

people don't separate themselves, right?

Everything that we do to understand who God is and and

how we how he is to be worshipped is is theology.

Yeah. So here's a challenge for you.

For anybody else that that's listening is just like, OK, so

figure out where does this idea like you use the example of

like, OK, that's sin. You pointed sin out in someone

else's life. OK, where does that idea that

that's a sin come from? Does it come from my experience

in my family? Is it come from just like

cultural things that's handed down to me or does it come from

me seeing it in God's word? Right, right.

So that's the distinction. So like you need to figure out,

is my belief system, is it, is it driven by God's word or is it

driven by culture and family, tradition, background, whatever.

And then then maybe they're right.

You know what I mean? They probably are right.

And a lot of the times we get it right.

Absolutely, we do get it right sometimes and maybe they're

reading their Bible. That's great.

But you want to test everything. You want to make sure that it's

all like that's centered and driven around the word.

So, so like I think that like our our worship or the praise of

God, prioritizing the praise of God in my life means that I'm

I'm seeking him out. I'm trying to know him right.

So that's that's the goal. I think that and I and for, for

Nehemiah, what they were doing is they were, they were setting

Jerusalem back up as this, as this image or this model of, of

worship and praise. So basically Jerusalem was

supposed to be this beacon of light in the world showing like

these people worship Yahweh and like you should too, right?

So that's what that's what it is.

So setting your life up to be that way would be OK.

I'm making the word a priority in my life and and I'm making it

such a priority in my life that I can't help but someone else

see me and say, oh, there's something different about that

person. You know, it's like that guy who

told us about meeting someone in the store and he's like, he was

telling us about that guy loves Jesus.

You know what I mean? It's like that's like something

wears on his sleeve. It's not a T-shirt, it's just

who he is. Yeah, you know.

Anyway. It just sort of naturally comes

out in your conversation and the things that you say or do.

Yeah. Yeah, I think that would be,

that would be where I would draw it.

I don't know, maybe that's not what you're going.

For no, that's great. But yeah, you're right,

theology, we need to we can't be scared of the word, right?

Don't shut down when you hear it.

And when there's a Wednesday night class offered about it,

don't don't shut down and say, oh, theology one O 1.

That's no, we're just going to study God.

We're just going to figure out who God is.

And so, hey, don't be scared of the words.

Well, and it's like you said, like we, we have to center it

on, on God's word. And, and that's going to be the

focus of my sermon next week in Nehemiah chapter 8.

Nehemiah 8 · chapter mention

If you want to read ahead, you'll you'll see that that it's

it is about. Let's put God's word back at the

center right of everything that we do.

I think, by the way, before we move on from like setting up the

city, like that's what Nehemiah is doing.

So Ezra's going to come and read, right?

I named my kid Ezra because he's a helper.

Ezra means help helper in Hebrew anyway, so Ezra's going to come

and read the word to the city as the priest.

But Nehemiah has done all the hard work to get this, the city,

secure so that they can all just stand there without worrying,

right? And listen to God's word.

That's what the city's intended for.

Yeah. So that's what he's doing.

So yeah, he prioritized praise. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, that's really helpful. I think that's really good.

Yep. And then you sort of talked

about, I kind of wanted to hone in on your second point, which I

don't have written down correctly prioritize.

The pursuit of holiness. Pursuit of holiness.

And in there you started to mention this Hananiah and

Hananiah. And Hananiah is is chosen

specifically because he's he is, as the text says, yes, more

faithful and God fearing man than many.

And so he doesn't note his like skill, his ability or anything

like that, but his character. Yeah.

So why don't you touch on that a little bit?

Yeah, I mean, so often we look at we look at people who it

says, I was just reading there. It says he, he Oh no, he gave

him the governor of the castle. So yeah.

So no, no, sorry, I'm I'm pausing there because I'm

reading it. So he get I gave my brother

Hananiah and Hananiah the governor of the castle.

So that's the parenthetical the governor of the castle charge

over Jerusalem. So I gave these two guys charge

over Jerusalem. But Hananiah specifically, he

had skills, right? So I don't want to overlook the

fact that he did have skills, but what the most important

thing for him was, and Nehemiah like picked up on is like this

is a God fearing man. He's more God fearing than many.

He may not have been the most qualified person there.

And that's the thing to think about.

Like he may not have been the most qualified physically or

with his leadership capabilities or whatever, but he was known as

a God fearing man. And I think that that's like,

like in our lives, we, we need to make that our like a

priority. We need to make the pursuit of

godliness like a priority in our life.

And that goes back to like all the things, the disciplines that

we talk about. We talk about Bible intake, we

talk about prayer, we talk about like silence and solitude and

meditation and fasting and all these things.

Those are the outward signs that show people that you're a God

fearing person, right? And then the way you treat other

people also shows that you're a God fearing person.

But like we, the world tells us to prioritize everything else.

Like literally you need to do whatever it is, build every

skill you can in order to, to get ahead in your job.

The way you're going to get a job and to get a get promoted is

you're going to do a good job. You're going to like, you're

going to do more than you're expected to.

You're going to, you know, whatever you maybe, maybe you do

something unethical to get ahead and you and to, to get

accolades. So doing the like the best job

or the person who seems like they do the best may not be the

best person out there. What's most important is to be

known as a godly man or a godly woman.

That is such a good encouragement because you're

exactly right. Our, our temptation is always

to, to feel like spending time praying, reading the Bible,

going to the Bible study, going to church, like those things are

a quote, UN quote waste of time. And like you said, that's always

the temptation in our mind. You know, that we don't want to

like slow down and stop to spend time with God, but that is the

most important thing that we can do.

And we have to avoid that temptation so that we can make

sure that we are being faithful. To exactly Yeah.

And another temptation is like to feel like you're going to

miss out on something. I may miss out on something if I

spend 30 minutes in God's word now, I may miss out on whatever

the the next thing. And that's both social media

feed is right. Who cares?

Like you literally are going to be like sitting with the, the,

the person who created the universe.

And that's just like, like, why would you?

Why would you think that? Honestly, I think it's because

we are just so weak. We don't see it.

Yeah. And so it's really hard for us

to to understand it. So.

Yeah. We're very short sighted.

Yeah, we are. Absolutely.

We can only like, yeah, that that's our faith is weak.

Mine is for sure. Well, it is so weak.

You know, I, we were talking about, you know, our Bible

reading Exodus chapter 16 and 17, where, you know, the people

Exodus 16 · chapter mention

of Israel begin to set out. They start to grumble, they

start to complain. And then God says he's going to

provide, he's going to provide food for them and he's going to

provide mana. And he does this to test them.

And so he first says, OK, you know, go out, take, you know, an

Omer for each person in your house for the day and like don't

leave any over till the next day, though.

And then, you know, there were some, some people who were like,

wow, I ain't eating this all today.

You know, I'm not, I'm not sure there's going to be any

tomorrow, right. So they save a little bit and

then it breeds worms, which. Is an Omer.

It's actually a 10th of 22 liters, that's what that's what

my footnote said. 2.2. Liters. 2.2 liters per person.

I don't know how you measure bread in liters.

Sorry, sorry for that guys. But yeah, it's interesting.

And then the next and then on the 6th day.

Spoils in your house, smells bad and everything, yeah.

And then on the 6th day, it's like gather, gather enough for

two days and don't come out the next day.

What do the people do the next day?

They come out, right? And the Lord, like, just why are

they not listening? I have given you the Sabbath to

enjoy. And it's like, why won't you

just listen and heed my word? Yeah.

And it's just, you're right. We're so short sighted.

And I find so often that it's like, you know, the same thing,

right? It's easy for us to look at them

and go, man, you guys are just so dumb.

You know, it's like their fingers pointed right back at me

too. And it's like, why are you?

Why do you have such little faith?

That's right. Why don't we trust God and his

promises and his commands more and trust that he is going to

bless us if we're faithful to him instead of always feeling

like. And, and the thing that I

thought was really interesting about this season of Israel's

life is they're just starting a journey in the wilderness that's

going to last 40 years. And then in that entire 40

years, they don't do a single thing to make food for

themselves for 40 years. You wake up, you pick it up off

the ground. Yeah.

They don't, they don't plant a garden, they're not farming.

They're they're doing nothing. And God is literally providing

for them for 40 years and he's wanting them to learn to trust

him. It's like I am going to take

care of your needs. I'm going to take care of you.

Your responsibility is to listen to my word, to follow my

instructions, to hear me. And the other interesting thing

is we talk about, well, well, God's people following God's

revealed word at any given point in time, right?

They don't have the 10 commandments yet.

They don't have all the laws. Here's God's word for you today.

Go take an Omer of manna for each person in your house.

That's God's revealed word for them at this point.

And it's like, just obey that. And for us, it's like, you know,

we are in the New Testament. It's like we, so we have all

this, all the scripture from the Old Testament that leads us to

the New Testament. And we have all of Jesus

commands which are summed up and love the Lord you God with all

your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor

as yourself. But it's like, do we trust God

enough, like you said to not take the shortcut of like, how

am I going to get ahead in business?

It's like, do I trust God enough to go?

No, my integrity and honesty is more important than another

dollar. Yeah, it's and it's work, It is.

It's not like you're not going to get godliness.

You're not going to be I think this was one of the points I

made in the sermon is like you're not become known as a God

fearing man unless you put in the work and do the things that

that that are required to be 1 Like you can't just be known as

a God fearing man, right? Like a God fearing man fears the

Lord, which means he like reveres him.

He prays, he reads his word, he he, he prays with his family.

He demonstrates how to properly love a spouse by loving his wife

and praying for her. Like in the presence of the

kids. Like you don't.

You don't get there without working.

That's actually a really helpful way of thinking about this.

OK, well, how do you know who's like a God fearing man in the

church? Probably a good way to to answer

that question would be, well, if if you wanted help or advice or

assistance or, you know, from some godly man in the church,

like who comes to your mind. Yeah, and that those would be

people that you would instinctively think of like, OK,

those are people that that are godly people, right?

Like you, you know them for for that the fact that they love the

Lord and and their desire is to live their lives to be faithful

to him. Right, and that shouldn't be

like our we should look for leadership for people who are

qualified to do the do the actual tasks.

But like if there's two people or three people that are

qualified to do the task, look for the most God fearing person.

That's that is that. To me, that's the application.

If you're looking for leaders, yeah, that is the application.

That actually, hey, you know what?

We never talk about single people on the podcast.

It's true. We don't I'll draw in something

here. It's.

Harder though. All right.

So yeah, in we're married. We're not single anymore.

It is harder to like. Anyway, sorry, I'm.

I'm now making excuses. No, that's OK.

I, I, I've heard people say this before and I, I do think it's

something we need to address more often, but something you

just said, maybe think about something that I've heard a

pastor say about, you know, like people single who are single.

A lot of times we, you know, people get to a point maybe

where they're, they're thinking too much about like trying to

find this perfect person, this perfect soul mate.

And, and he sort of says I know. Where you're going with this?

He sort of says, you know what, what you ought to do instead of

trying to find like this soul mate that's out there somewhere,

which you know, I don't believe in either.

You ought to find the most godly person you can find and just

marry them. That's obviously like that's

obviously stretchy, right? Like we are, we're not talking

about like go pick a person and go marry them tomorrow.

That's not what we're saying, but the the point stands strong.

It's like if you're looking for any characteristic in a person,

the one that should matter the most is their godliness.

That is, that's the thing that God is the most concerned about

their heart. And that's the thing that you

ought to be the most concerned about.

Find the most godly person of the opposite sex that you can

find, it's so true, and begin to pursue them.

And you'll have what what you'll have from that is like that

person will point you to Christ every day, right?

Like you, if you're especially if you're, if you're pursuing

godliness yourself, you're going to sharpen each other and your

marriage. They're going to point you to

Christ. They're going to encourage you

when you're down. You're going to be there for

them. And yeah, exactly.

It's so it's such good advice. Yeah.

So that that that goes beyond just leadership, Right, Right.

And all your relationships to even your friend groups, like

picking friends, but yeah, specifically spouses.

That's important. That is a good advice.

Yeah. Yeah.

What else did you want to talk about?

Priorities for godly living. Man, I just, I thought there was

so much good stuff in your sermon, like. 30 minutes too,

Joe. Yeah, you can't do it, No.

As a low blow, that was I'll, I'll accept it.

But yeah, even your your point and prioritize the people of God

and point #3 you shared this anecdote from Doctor Cook.

If you don't love people, you have no business being in

ministry. But you sort of began to apply

that to to every Christian, everybody, every Christian.

It's if you don't love people, then you don't really have any

business with you. Now I'm even thinking of like

your business, you know, like if you own a lawn care business or

if you work, no matter what you do, like you should do it out of

a love to serve people, right? If if your priority is making

money, it's like that's the wrong priority to have as a

Christian that that shouldn't be your priority.

It should be to love people, to serve people.

Those are opportunities for you to be a blessing and to use your

business as an opportunity. Because you said in a previous

point that you know, Israel, the whole point of Israel was to

show the world what God is like, who God is.

And that's our goal as Christians.

The way that we live shows who God is and what he's like.

And so every way that you live in your business, in your home,

in your marriage, and as parenting, when you go to work,

when you go to school, when you go around you, your life should

show who God is. I think it's one of the the best

apologetics. OK, so apologetics, another big

word. Sorry.

It just means defense of the faith.

So the so one of the best ways that we can prove to the world

that Jesus is real and that like, like salvation and like

what he does, life change is real through Christ is how we

treat each other. Yeah.

I think I said that in the sermon in some way, in some form

like that. But like, that's your best, your

best, like defense, that proving to the world that that what what

you claim is real. Yeah.

Is by how you treat other people, especially those who are

closest to you. Yeah.

Like your family, things like that.

Yeah. Yeah, people matter, yeah.

And if you if you don't love people, if you don't have a

heart for people, pray for one, pray that the Lord will give you

like that's that's one thing too.

Like I, I, I, and I think I even like did some confession in

this, in this point where I, I am a very like I could be a

recluse if I wanted to be and not talk to anybody and not like

engage in any kind of relationships.

I to an extent I need, I need like one or two to be like, OK,

but like you just have to ask the Lord for help.

Like if you, if you need, like if you, you need to really

truly, if you don't love people, I mean, that's the I have to ask

the Lord for help all the time, like help me to love my family

like, because right now I'm pretty angry, you know what I

mean? Or whatever, Pretty like pretty

like just whatever. I could just go be by myself for

if I, if you ever hear me say I need to go get in the woods

somewhere, I just need to go be alone for like 2 days.

But but yeah, I mean, I need to pray and ask the Lord to help me

with that. And so that's that's the thing.

If you don't love people, you can.

You can. You just need to ask for the

Lord's help. Well, and and you and you should

right, like, like if you don't love people.

I mean, John talks exact specifically about this in in

First John. First, John, Yeah.

It's like if you don't love your brother.

You can't say you're from me, right?

Then you can't say you love God. Yep.

And so that is a prerequisite to, to loving God.

You can't, you can't love God if you don't love people because

God loves people. And so we actually have to.

Yeah, we are absolutely right. We have to be prioritizing that.

And I think sort of to a further point, if people feel like they

genuinely could live without other people, like I, I

definitely don't need people. I, I guess just thinking off the

top of my head, my, my initial thought to that is you haven't

had a real friendship, right? You haven't really truly

experienced any good friendship that really edified you.

Because I, I get those feelings at times too.

I think everybody has them where you're like, you know what,

sometimes I just need, I need to be able in my house and just be

able to. I think that's healthy.

Yeah. I think it is healthy to like,

just like to, to be pursue some silence and solitude.

We talk about that as a as a personal spiritual discipline.

It is a healthy thing to do. Pursue it, but don't like live

there, right? Right.

But when you have, when you have a true, like true, genuine

relationships in your life with people that you can have godly

conversation, conversations with the Bible and you can really

feel like when you leave feeling like really encouraged and

blessed for having had that conversation.

I, I don't, I don't see how you could ever say you could live

without people. And I, I just think those people

just haven't truly experienced it.

We got to write that book on friendship.

That's good. Yeah, for sure.

Well, then your last point was prioritizing the purpose of God.

So just reminding us that like, you know, we're zoning in on a

specific time in history, but as you sort of zone out, like zoom

out and look at the whole scope of things, it's like God is

doing something bigger than just what's going on here in the book

of Nehemiah. Yeah.

And the, the application there is like in your own life too,

you're very, very focused on the, the 24 hours than that day

that you have, or you're very focused on like the, the, the 50

square feet that you live in the most, like wherever you are,

whatever is around you. But like God is doing so much

more. I think we've shared that quote

so many times from John Piper is like he's doing whatever,

however many millions of things at once.

And you're, you know, you have like the knowledge of like two

of them. And so just keeping that in mind

is like God is doing so much and we see like a, a picture of it

with Zuru. Dr. Betts.

His commentary was so good that to point that out.

And so I didn't, I can't claim credit for that, but like he, he

pointed out that connection and I was like, this is, this is how

you connect this to Jesus. Because that was one of the,

that's one of the things we always try to do in our sermons

is we try to point to the gospel in some way.

And this is like the most obvious thing, like what what

Nehemiah is doing, what God is doing in this time with Nehemiah

is part of something way, way bigger and way more beautiful.

Because Jerusalem's not going to be around, right?

It's going to fall. It's, it's it's temporary.

Like I think you said that in one of your sermons, too.

They're doing all this work for something that isn't going to

last. Yeah, and, and, but, but what

God is doing in the underneath of it all is like he's he is

doing something that will last forever.

And he's drawing people to himself throughout it all.

It's an incredible story. It is.

And that's such an encouraging thing to think about, right?

Because there's a sense in which everything that we're doing in

this life, like from an earthly temporal perspective, is going

to, like, fade away. Yeah.

No matter what I do to my house, no matter what business I build,

it's, it's all like, it's all going to be torn down, right?

Like we've talked about this church, right?

In 100 years, it's like it might not be here.

It probably won't be here. You know, it will be replaced by

something else or whatever, right.

And if we focus on those things, it can feel sort of depressing.

But that's where we're focusing on the eternal things that last

forever, right? And whether people's souls,

that's really the thing that matters.

Right. And and then also like, like you

just made me think maybe this doesn't even really connect, but

the building won't be here. And maybe and the people won't

be either. The same people won't be here,

right. But our ancestors will

potentially like the people who are the like the legacy of faith

if unless Jesus comes back and it's all done, right, Yeah, the

legacy of faith will be present in some form in this area, in

this community. That's what we're building.

We're not building like programs or anything like that, where the

reason that we want you to focus on the praise of God and

prioritize on that is because you're building a legacy of

faith in your own heart. But also as you, as you give it

to your kids, other people's children, if you're, if you're

teaching Sunday school to other people's children, you're,

you're adding to that legacy of faith.

And so that's important for us to remember like God is doing

something through us that's going to outlast us and, and

into eternity. Yeah, it's incredible.

That's really encouraging. So he's doing a big thing.

Absolutely. Yep.

All right, well, do you have any last words on Nehemiah Chapter

Nehemiah 7 · chapter mention

7? No, I think, I think we hit it.

I, I think like the priorities matter.

And I really like the, the point that hit me the hardest in the

sermon was the people part. Like people matter to God and so

they have to matter to us. Yeah, they have to.

And so like if I made this connection and, and I cuz I, I

struggle with it too. There's there's if you have

someone in your family that's like that, you have a like a

strained relationship with, go for it.

Go, go like send it. You know what I mean?

Go to those person to go to that person, those people.

If it's your parents, if it's your sister or brother, go to

them. And then be humble.

Like don't be proud. Don't don't go into the place

that got you there. Forgive, like forgive everything

and seek forgiveness for your own sin and work to re establish

those relationships because you only have so much time here and,

and you want, you want them to see that, that you're

prioritizing God in your life. And what did God do for you?

He reconciled you to himself. And so that's the thing that we

have to, we have to seek reconciliation.

We have to seek unity. Yeah.

And so people matter to God, so they have to matter to us.

Yeah. So.

I'm going to launch into from there, into things that we like.

Sometimes we do this. Thing about things, you got

something you like. Well, because I felt like this

tied in really well with a book that I read.

Well, while we were away on vacation, I, I read a book.

I read a book. It was recommended to me by

Brother in the Church, The Devil in Pew #7 Ouch.

It was. It's a true story of this

couple. It gets married.

I would highly recommend it to anybody.

It's a it's a crazy story. This couple goes and plants a

church in Sellers Town, North Carolina.

And there's this man in the church who isn't even a member

of the church but has authority and power because of his

position in the community. And that sort of gets taken away

from him with this pastor who comes in and sort of gives the

authority back to the church and sort of pushes this guy out.

And he doesn't like it. And so he spends like five years

trying to get them out. And we're talking like, cut the

phone lines, shoot the lights out, slash the tires, detonating

bombs in their backyard, hiring snipers to shoot in their home.

Like they lived in constant fear from this man and people that he

would hire to try like getting them to leave.

And it is insane. And the entire time the pastor,

his wife, and like it's written from the from the daughter,

she's writing this story like with hindsight, she's like a

young girl at the time. And she talks about like her

parents constantly. Their attitude through this

whole thing is forgiveness. Like the whole time it's going

on, it's we need to love like Jesus.

They're praying for this man's salvation and forgiving him over

and over and over and over again.

And it's just a like you said, you're talking about people

matter because and just to think that, you know, this husband and

wife could continually forgive someone who was so attacking

against them. It's just a phenomenal story

about forgiveness and grace and and just loving people that are

unlovable. And it's just, it's just a crazy

story. I'd, yeah, I would recommend it

to anybody. The Devil in Pew #7 by Rebecca

Nichols. Crazy.

You were almost there in North Carolina.

You should have just visited the town.

That's where that sniper shot came through.

Things were like, I don't have anything ready today.

I mentioned in my sermon I've been playing with chat with AI

for. A while, that's the thing I was

going to ask. I was going to say the thing.

Maybe you'd want to mention your your app that you mentioned your

sermon. I'm building an app, an

application also known as an app.

I just got bored and I was pulled up the the AI that's

linked to Twitter. It's called Xai Grok.

And I said, what like can you help me build an app that would

help me journal my Bible journal using the here method?

And it said, sure, I can help you build an app.

And then it helped me build 1 for my computer.

And I was like, huh, can you, can you help me build it for the

phone? I said, sure, I can help you

build it for your phone. Then he had me download he, it

had me download some things from my computer and then it wrote

the code for me. And you type it in and then then

you just spend time just asking it to make refinements to the

code if any errors pop up. It was a lot of fun.

One thing I did the danger at the I made the comment in the

sermon it on like in the moment. It wasn't in my notes to talk

about it. Is that it I can get fixated on

things like that. My personality is one that can

fixate on things and stay there for a long time and like make it

an idol, like making creating something, not the not the AI an

idol, but just making like the fact that I'm I'm making

something. I'm I'm, I'm using this or doing

this, using this tool to do whatever takes up all my time

and I ignore family or whatever. That was my point in the sermon.

But it is really fun. So I'm I'm trying to play with

it some more. Maybe maybe one day you'll see

an app from, from, from Jonah. I don't know, maybe, maybe not.

No, it was fun. It is a lot of fun.

It's something to honestly, I've been going through some like

some discouragement in my life and not, not necessarily related

to anything that's like I could point at right.

But but it helped me distract myself for a little bit.

This is if I'm, if I am alone and I don't have anything to do

for a while, I'll, I'll find myself spiraling out and this is

just fixating on the negative things.

So I found something like I was just trying to find something

positive to, to fixate on for a little while and it did distract

me. My and even Valerie was like,

yeah, that's, that's really cool.

I'm glad you were able to do that because you know, you're

not really fun when you're fixated on negative things.

So anyway, yeah, it's true we're not, but yeah.

That sounds cool though. You know, having a tool that you

can sort of like categorize and keep a list of all your here

journals. And stuff.

Yeah. So it'll, yeah, it's, I'm trying

to get it where it'll save to the cloud and all that stuff.

Yeah, yeah, that's cool. My mom says she wants it.

But then, you know, moms always want what you do.

It's like here, here's my, here's my ashtray you know that

I made in crafts today. I know you don't smoke, mom, but

here's an ashtray I made with clay.

It's cool. And then you know, it's like

here, here's an app for your phone.

I know you barely know how to use it, but anyway, Mom, I know

you know how to use the phone. It's fine.

You're good at that stuff anyway.

That's good. Yeah, it was fun.

Yeah, well, thank you for sharing.

Yeah. Welcome back, Joe.

Yeah, Well, thank you back. I know that Kyle and Ryan are

glad they don't have to be on the podcast today.

So yeah, it's been good. So you got you got Chapter 8

coming up. Yes.

Looking forward to it. Yeah, me too.

I'm very excited for it. Yeah, you get, I was thinking I

got assigned Chapter 7 because, well, it was, it was out of

necessity. You were on vacation, right?

Jake had an emergency. But then you get Chapter 8 with

Chapter 8 looks easy so. I felt that way a number of

times throughout Corinthians. I'm like, I'm getting all hard

chapters. I'm getting all the hard

chapters and everyone. But we're looking forward to it.

Yeah, to Sunday. So hey, would you want to pray

to close this out? Yeah, great.

Cool. Well, we're so grateful for your

word and every single part of it is inspired.

Every single part of it is authoritative and useful to us

in some way. And we're just so thankful for

Jonah and, and, and the way that you worked through him by the

power of your spirit to give us things that we could glean out

of this passage of Scripture. Some of them take a little bit

more work than others, but we trust, Lord, that your spirit

has given us exactly the word that you want us to have so that

we can learn from it and grow, grow in it, Lord.

And we pray that that we could be a people of your word, a

people that put your word at the center of all that we do and

that your spirit would faithfully transform us through

it. And so I want to pray

specifically for our church and in their Bible reading.

I know there's many people who've joined us in in the Bible

reading plan and and maybe others are doing different Bible

reading plans or we're just so grateful to have your word, word

and pray that your spirit would continue to be at work in and

through us as we spend time in your word, as we grow in it.

Lord, that you would grow us and shape and mold us into the image

of Christ and Lord that you would grow us together as your

people as we seek to build your Kingdom and make your name

great. We ask this in Jesus name, Amen.

Amen. Well, thanks for joining us.

We will look forward to seeing you again next week.

Have a great day.