Nehemiah 10 (A Broken Covenant Renewed)

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Now get your Bibles ready and let's begin.

Good morning.

And please open up your Bibles to the book of Nehemiah.

We're trekking along. We're got, what, three more weeks this week?

Two, three, four more weeks, counting this week.

We're almost there.

And I have no clue what we're going to do after that, so you guys tell me.

But let's go ahead and open up our Bibles.

And I just want to welcome you. I hope you guys have had a great week.

If this is your first time here at Wayfamily, welcome.

We're excited to have you here. We're excited to worship with you.

We're excited to study God's Word.

I don't know about you guys, but the more I study God's Word, the more I just fall in love with it.

And I get excited every week.

Sometimes it's a dread because I'm like, wait a minute, now I know all this stuff and I have to go teach it.

But at the same time, I'm excited to be like, yes, it's God's Word.

Let's get into it and study it.

So this week, before we open up, we'll open up in prayer.

But as I promised, we'd be making our way through the 50 most persecuted churches.

And so this week, we're going to pray for Sudan.

So a few things about Sudan.

There's about 50.6 million people.

There are two million Christians.

Their leader is General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.

Sudan's civil war has created the world's largest humanitarian crisis.

The Christian community is hungry on the run and facing strong persecution at the same time.

Sudan's brief period of religious freedom has been rowed back and oppressive morality policies are back in force.

Christians can face physical punishment to convert to Islam with church leaders arrested.

Many church buildings have been closed, bombed, and taken over by militia groups.

New Christians face rejection from their families and violence from Islamic extremist groups.

In a lawless vacuum, they have no protection.

So they say, please pray for Sudan.

These are the things, if you pray throughout the week for them, these are some things you can pray for them on.

Pray for a peaceful resolution to Sudan's brutal civil war and for the future of the church.

Pray for protection for over-believers who fled their homes and those who've stayed.

And that the Sudanese Christians can show that Jesus' peace is a better way.

So let's go ahead and pray for Sudan and pray for our study.

Heavenly Father, we just thank you so much for all that you're doing.

We thank you for just that you are God and that you are in control.

And even though you allow just the wickedness of the world at times, it seems so overwhelming,

we recognize that you are still in control.

We thank you for the freedom that we have, that we can come together in a place like this

and gather among other believers and worship you freely.

We thank you so much for your provision, for your blessing.

And Lord, we don't want to forget those who are suffering,

who have to pay the ultimate price for their faith in you.

So we lift up our brothers and sisters around the world,

but we also pray for those who are in Sudan specifically right now, Lord,

that you just would be with them,

that you would bring a peaceful resolution to the brutal civil war that is going on.

We pray for the church that it would grow and that it would be founded on your word

and that it would be faithful even through these difficult times.

We pray for the protection of believers,

for those who have had to flee and leave everything behind, Lord God,

and for those who are staying put and that you've placed on their heart

or they can't leave, that they are just being a light to the people around them.

We pray that the Sudanese Christians,

that they will be able to show that your peace is the greatest peace

and that without you there will be no peace.

So we pray when we lift up our brothers and sisters and we pray for our study today,

we pray that you would meet us here,

that you would speak to us and speak to our hearts.

Lord God, correct us where we need the correction

and encourage us where we need encouragement.

But I pray that you would just fill us with your spirit right now,

that we could live for you.

We are excited about your word and Lord, we are here, we are your servants.

As Eli told the young Samuel, here we are, Lord, speak.

We're listening.

So Lord, your servants are listening now

and we pray that you will speak through me and that it be your words and not my own.

We praise your name, Jesus. Amen.

All right.

Nehemiah chapter 10.

Nehemiah 10 · chapter mention

So what we saw, where we kind of left off last week,

is we've kind of seen, we've talked about how Nehemiah is kind of split in two.

The first few chapters are about rebuilding the wall,

now we're talking about rebuilding the people.

We've seen that Nehemiah started, which I really like,

because what I saw there as I was studying and what kind of came to my mind,

is that Nehemiah recognized that there was a practical need

that the people of Israel needed first.

They needed the walls built up.

They needed to be able to restore the worship of the temple.

So he recognized that need and he met their physical and practical need first

in rebuilding the walls, but then now he's starting to reinstitute the word of God.

So in the last couple of chapters, what we saw was

they started just reading the word of God,

that Ezra and the Levites and the priests,

they got up there and read through it for countless hours throughout the day.

Half the day they spent there and half the day they worshiped.

Then they recognized, oh wait, the Feast of Booths is coming up.

So then they spent this time celebrating the Feast of Booths.

Then they come back and they're like, okay, Nehemiah, we want more.

So they started giving them more.

Last chapter we saw that they started to cry out

and recognize how they had failed God.

So now this is going to lead us in verse 38.

It says, because of all this, we make a sure covenant and write it.

Our leaders are Levites and our priests seal it.

So now they're asking for this covenant.

As the word of God has been speaking to them,

they're like, we want to serve God.

We recognize that our ancestors have missed the mark.

They start to follow God and they fall away.

But we as a people want to serve God.

So let's make a renewed covenant that we broke.

So that got me thinking.

Now, to be honest and truthful up here, I know nothing about the military.

So if I'm wrong on this, you can correct me,

and a lot of you do sometimes when I'm wrong on stuff.

It's okay. I am wrong at times.

But here's the thing.

From what I understand, that when you enroll in the military,

everyone has to take an oath of enrollment, correct?

Okay, I'm getting heads nodded yes.

Okay, so that is good.

My Google friends did not lie to me.

You can't trust anything on the Internet.

The AI, you know, all that stuff.

So I did look it up.

So the oath of enrollment is a solemn pledge

that is taken by all U.S. military personnel,

affirming their commitment to defend the Constitution of the United States

against all enemies, foreign and domestic,

while bearing true faith and allegiance to it.

It binds service members to obey orders from the president and superior officers.

Okay, so that's kind of, when you go into those people,

these military people, they must go and take this oath in order to enroll.

What happens if you don't take the oath?

You don't get in.

You don't.

And so I feel like, in the same way the children of Israel are like,

we want to be God's people.

Not that you have to take an oath to be God's people,

but they're like, we want to take that extra step

and make that commitment to be set apart, to be different.

So then I started looking.

Did you know that in the military they also have, like, creeds?

Each branch has, like, certain creeds that they live by and things like that.

And so I started looking up.

And so I was looking up special forces.

And I was going to, like, I was trying to, I was like,

where's the Marine special forces?

And then I remembered, oh, every Marine is a special force.

So I was like, my Marine friends, they were like, oh, we don't have them.

But what I landed on was the Navy's creed, their ethos.

So let me read this to you.

This is the Navy SEAL's ethos.

It says this.

Not a real SEAL, a Navy SEAL, military guy.

It says, in times of war or uncertainty,

there is a special breed of warrior ready to answer our nation's call.

A common man with uncommon desire to succeed.

Forged by adversity, he stands alongside America's finest special operation forces

to serve his country.

The American people and protect their way of life.

I am that warrior.

My trident is a symbol of honor and heritage.

Bestowed upon me by the heroes that have gone before.

It embodies the truest of those I have sworn to protect.

By wearing the trident, I accept the responsibility of my chosen profession

and way of life.

It is a privilege that I must earn every day.

My loyalty to country and team is beyond reproach.

I humbly serve as a guardian to my fellow Americans,

always ready to defend those who are unable to defend themselves.

I do not advertise the nature of my work or seek recognition for my actions.

I voluntarily accept the inherent hazards of my profession,

placing the welfare and security of others before my own.

I serve with honor on and off the battlefield.

The ability to control my emotions and my actions regardless of circumstance

sets me apart from other men.

Uncompromising integrity is my standard.

My character and honor are steadfast.

My word is my bond.

We expect to lead and to be led.

In the absence of others, I will take charge, lead my teammates,

and accomplish the mission.

I lead by example in all situations.

I will never quit.

I persevere and thrive on adversity.

My nation expects me to be physically harder and mentally stronger than my enemies.

If knocked down, I will get back up.

Every time, I will draw on every remaining ounce of strength

to protect my teammates and to accomplish our mission.

I am never out of the fight.

We demand discipline.

We expect innovation.

The lives of my teammates and the success of our mission depend on me.

My technical skill, tactical proficiency, and attention to details.

My training is never complete.

Man, those are the elite forces.

These are the guys that go where nobody else wants to go

to do those things, the unspoken things that we don't want to think about

so we can live our lives.

And they pledge themselves to protect us for no other reason

just because we're part of their country,

to protect our constitution, to obey orders.

And I was thinking, I was like,

man, what if us Christians lived that way to that oath?

And what's cool is I love the part where he says,

I'm just an ordinary man that accepted this.

And in Christianity, God is not looking for these special, specific people.

He's going to take an ordinary person.

He's going to take an ordinary human being, a flawed human being,

and turn them into something better.

And so the thing that got me thinking is like,

here these guys are, they're willing to protect country and nation and flag,

but don't we serve something so much better?

Don't we have so much better?

We should be more intense.

We should be more extreme than these guys.

Here these guys are, they're the extreme of the extreme.

But as Christians, we have so much more.

Why aren't we extreme?

And that's my thing is Christianity is extreme.

And so we're going to see here that as God's word started to permeate through God's people,

and the Holy Spirit started to meet God's people,

they start to say, I want to live extreme.

And honestly, I get oftentimes, like, that's one of the things,

this is why we make God's word such a priority here.

This is why we go verse by verse,

and we're going to have 84 names that I'm going to struggle through.

But we're going to read it because these names are important to God,

so they're important to us.

And we're going to read about places,

we're going to read about this stuff because God's word is what has the power to transform us.

And when God's spirit meets God's word in God's people,

now you have a revival.

And so what we're starting to see is a little mini revival,

and I wish it would last.

Unfortunately, it only lasts until chapter 13.

And then the people start to fall away.

But at the same time, we're going to see that there is a resolve here.

So let's go ahead and read how these leaders respond to what God is starting to do.

So in chapter 10, verse 1, it says,

Now those who placed their seal on the document were Nehemiah the governor,

the son of Hakaliah and Zedekiah,

and Saraiah, Azariah, Jeremiah, Paschur, Amariah, Melchizedek, Hattush,

Sabaniah, Melchizedek, Harim, Merimoth, Obadiah, Daniel, Genoth, Baruch,

Meshulam, Abijah, Midyamin, Maziah, Bilgaiah, Shemaiah.

These were the priests, the Levites, Yeshua, the son of Azaniah,

Beniyu, the son of Hanadad and Kamadil,

their brethren, Shebaniah, Hodaja, Kalita, Kalia, Hanan, Micah, Rehob,

Hashabiah, Zechor, Zerbaiah, Zerbaniah, Hodaja, Benai, and Benyu,

the leaders of the people, Parosh, Pahath, Moab, Elim, Zatu, Benai,

Bani, Asgad, Biabi, Adonijah, Bigvi, Adnan,

Adter, Hezekiah, Ezor, Hodaja, Hashun, Bezai, Harif, Anoth, Nebaniah,

Magphish, Meshulam, Hazir, Mishazabel, Zadok, Jehuda, Pelletiah,

Hananiah, Hoshea, Hananiah, Hashub, Hohesh, Thula, Shobek, Rahum,

Hashbanah, Masanna, Adijah, Hanan, Anan, Makolah, Harum, and Bannah.

There we go. Woo!

84 hard-to-pronounce names, except Daniel.

I'm like, why couldn't they all be like him?

I love the part where they give this one guy's name and then give his dad's name.

I'm like, how many kids were named this that you have to specifically mention his father's name?

I guess, I don't know.

But anyways, as we read through those names, what kind of stood out to me in this section,

yes, it's a list of names.

And we've talked about how before, when we go through a list of names,

it can be boring, we skip over them.

But what I started thinking about is every one of these people existed.

Every one of these people God knew.

Every one of these people God was working at and using them to help rebuild the walls,

to lead the people.

He put them in position.

So oftentimes I feel like my name is just a long list of names in a book.

But God knows exactly who you are and he records it.

And ultimately, for us as Christians, our names are all recorded where?

In the Lamb's Book of Life.

And so that's where I want my name to be.

If nowhere else, I want it to be in that book.

And so as I see this, God keeps a record of people.

What also got me thinking is who was the first name on the list?

Nehemiah.

Think about when we started back in chapter one, where was Nehemiah at?

Sitting there as a cupbearer.

Came in and in chapter one, we started off, he heard some bad news about his people,

about the land, and about of Israel.

And here he is, about a year, maybe about a year and a half later,

depending on which commentators you read, is the walls are up,

the people are no longer in distress, and what do we see here?

Unity.

We start to see that Nehemiah, one person made a difference.

Have you ever felt like, well, what could God do with me?

I'm only one person, I can't change my world.

God doesn't expect you to change the whole entire world.

Just change your sphere of influence.

Nehemiah had a bigger sphere of influence.

He wasn't even influential, but he prayed.

And the first thing he did was he prayed.

God put a burden on your heart so much,

that there's something that he's asking you to do or step out in.

Don't just go to the leaders and the elders and be like,

God put this on my heart and told me to do this,

and so pave a way and make a way for me.

Pray about it.

Pray about what God wants you to do, how he wants you to do that.

Spend time in prayer.

We saw Nehemiah spent three months in prayer before he took action.

Then God opened the door for him to speak to the king.

And so what we see here, in chapter 10, I was blown away,

because now I don't think God did more than what Nehemiah could even imagine.

Nehemiah wanted to rebuild the walls, the walls are now rebuilt,

and now you see the word of God going forth,

and now you see the people of God responding to the word of God.

And Nehemiah is just sitting back and like, wow, God.

Has that ever happened to you?

You're just like, God, I don't know what you want me to do,

but I'm just going to serve you.

I'm just going to follow you.

I'm just going to give you everything.

I think it was D.L. Moody, somebody had told him one time,

he said, the world has not seen what God can do with a man

who's completely and totally sold out for God.

And D.L. Moody said, I want to be that man.

And then he lived his life trying to be that man.

If all of us had that mentality, to be that man or woman of God,

completely and totally sold out, what could God do through us?

And so what we see here is that he took Nehemiah from thousands of miles away,

brought him to Israel, rebuilt the walls,

re-institutes the worship in the temple,

and now you have the people of God responding to that.

You're starting to see a revival and a reawakening.

So now the people decide they want to renew the covenant.

They get all their leaders together.

The leaders, they do this big signing and they seal it.

And so in that time when you seal it, you put your mark on there saying,

I am owning this.

But it's not just the leaders who are going to respond to this.

It's the people as well.

So let's read in verse 28.

It says, 28 and 29.

Now the rest of the people, the priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers,

and the singers, the Nethanim, and all those who had separated themselves

from the people of the lands to the law of God, their wives, their sons,

their daughters, everyone who had knowledge and understanding,

these joined with their brethren, their nobles,

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

which was given by Moses, the servant of God,

and to observe and do all the commandments of the Lord, our Lord,

and his ordinances and his statutes.

So now the people sit there and they say, you know what?

It's not just enough for our leaders to make a covenant.

We are now going to enter into this covenant and renew it.

And so I start to think, remember when we were reading Joshua

and how the people stood up and as Joshua was reading,

the people renewed the covenant.

Then we talked about how Moses had done that previously.

They're starting to see this pattern.

They're like, we broke this covenant, but we want to be included

in the covenant of God.

We recognize we failed. We made a mistake.

And so they joined their brethren.

Now, if you're one of those people that underline,

underline, some of you are like, don't write in your Bible.

It's okay. God will forgive you.

But underline this part. I like this part in verse 28.

It says, all those who had separated themselves from the people

of the lands of the law of God, their wives, their sons, their daughters,

everyone who had knowledge and understanding.

What you see here is they started to recognize we haven't separated.

We were supposed to be set apart for what God wanted us to do,

but we haven't separated ourselves from the people of the lands.

We've compromised with them. We've intermingled with them.

And we're going to see that as God's word is going forth

and they're going through the books of the law,

that God had commended them to come out and separate yourselves

from among the people.

And the children of Israel had failed to do that.

Now, it wasn't that God was against certain races of people and certain things,

but the reason he told them to be separate is because he says,

if you go and belong with these people, if you mix with them,

they're going to turn your heart away from me.

They're going to turn your heart to other gods,

and you're going to worship other gods, and you're going to follow their laws,

and you're no longer going to follow my laws,

and you're not going to have my blessing.

The other thing we saw is in Deuteronomy, Moses said,

I give you today a blessing and a curse.

A blessing if you obey, but a curse if you disobey.

So, the people are convicted by their past failures.

They see where they have fallen,

and there's going to be three specific areas that we're going to see in this chapter.

Now, here's the thing.

The names aren't the only things that are difficult in this chapter.

Some of the stuff that's going to be talked about is going to be difficult,

but it's God's word.

And God's word oftentimes deals with difficulties and hardships,

and deals with controversial things.

And so, what we have to do is we have to be like the children of Israel and say,

are we going to go along with what the world says,

or are we going to be submissive to what God says?

Are we going to obey God's word?

So, let's go ahead and read the first area that they recognize where they failed.

Verse 30, yeah, verse 30 it says,

We would not give our daughters as wives to the people of the land,

nor take their daughters as our sons.

So, the first thing we see here is they make a commitment to be set apart

in their relational relationships or their intimate relationships,

or you could even say their family relationships.

So, why is this important?

Well, I hit on it a little bit.

The thing is, God had warned them not to intermarry,

because God said that these foreign wives will come in

and they're going to turn your heart.

What's going to happen? You're going to marry them.

And then these ladies are going to say,

hey, let's go to the Acacia groves and go worship our gods.

And us guys, we're dumb.

You know, when we get married and our wives want something,

we're just like, or even when a pretty girl walks by,

we're like, okay, yeah, let's do it.

That sounds good to me.

But wait a minute, didn't God say no?

And so, what he's saying, look, if you go after these women,

and it's not so much ethnicity, but what he's talking about

is that these women that worship other gods.

Because what we see as we read through the Bible

is we have instances of women like Judah and Tamar, right?

She was from the land of Canaan, but they were still intermingled,

and she's in the lineage of Jesus.

We read about in the book of Joshua, we had Rahab and Solomon.

And Rahab is in the lineage of Jesus.

Then we have Boaz and Ruth.

She was a Moabite, not a Canaanite, but she's in there.

So it's not so much ethnicity, but what we see with those women

is that they all, in a way, they started to convert and to follow

the one true God.

And in a sense, God blessed that marriage and the interaction

through that, even so, the Messiah.

Judah and Tamar is a little bit weird, but we do see that

she ends up going with him to Egypt when he leaves.

We see that she's integrated into the Jewish customs later on.

So the idea here of not intermarrying is that God doesn't want

his people to be led astray.

But he also wants our family relationships to be set apart.

I think it was Pastor Brandon that told me, he's like,

your church is only as strong as the marriages inside of the church.

So if our marriages are not strong, he says, your church is going to be weak.

For God's people, if our marriages are falling apart,

if they're in disarray, then what representation are we going to be

to the rest of the world?

So for you single people who are not married, who are sitting here,

if you are getting involved with someone who is not aligned and unified

with you in that Christ is their Savior, how are you going to be unified?

How are you going to go and live your marriage?

How is it going to be blessed by God?

Warren Wisby, he says this,

as long as we love each other, it'll work out,

is the argument many pastors hear from Christians

who want to marry unsaved people.

But the question is not, will this marriage work out,

but will this marriage enjoy God's best blessing and fulfill God's will?

It's difficult to see how God can bless and use people

who deliberately disobey his word.

Remember Moses' warning?

A blessing and a curse.

A blessing if you obey, but a curse if you disobey.

Now marriage, it can be a blessing.

It's an awesome thing when we do it God's way.

Why? Because he designed it.

He invented it. It was his idea.

And some of you are like, okay, it's your fault, God.

But no, because the thing is, even in a Christian relationship,

marriage can be difficult, right?

It can be hard.

It can be straining.

It can be taxing.

But when you're unifying who Christ is,

you can always come together at that base point and reunify,

and you can live for him.

But when that person is not walking with God

or doesn't have God as their authority,

how are you going to submit to somebody

who hasn't submitted to the authority of God?

Or how are you going to love somebody

who doesn't know how to love the way that God loves them?

How are you going to be unified?

And so if you are single and you're thinking,

look out, we talked about things.

The thing is, God will not be mocked.

Can a man heat fire into his bosom and not be burned?

It is what it is, you guys.

It's not me. It's God's word.

And so what he wants here is,

the purpose of bringing a union

is we are supposed to reflect basically Christ and the church.

The picture of marriage isn't just being married for our happiness

or because this guy gives us the warm, fuzzy feelings

or this girl makes me feel like I can conquer the world.

Those aren't reasons to get married.

They're important, and you should have those things.

But the thing that we do is when we enter into a marriage covenant

is that we are reflecting the picture of Christ and his church.

So as our marriage is reflecting that image,

even in a Christian marriage, what the challenge is,

for men, am I reflecting the love that God has for his church

that I give to my wife?

And for wives, are you respecting your husbands

and submitting to them as unto the Lord

and reflecting your relationship with the Lord?

The sad part is, when you look around,

our marriages often reflect our relationship with God, don't they?

And that's why 50% of marriages in the world fell apart

and even in the church fall apart

because we're not reflecting who God wants us to be.

And then what happens is,

is the whole purpose of the marriage, is this union coming together?

Not the whole purpose, but one of the benefits of it is children.

And so how are you going to raise children if you guys aren't unified?

Like, you're like, oh, it's okay.

He's okay with me teaching the kids about God.

But yes, how do kids learn?

They learn from hearing and from seeing.

And when you have one parent that says,

do as your mom says, not as I do, your kids don't listen.

Sometimes they do, by the grace of God.

But oftentimes it doesn't, and it causes even more strife.

You want troubles and trials in marriage? Have kids.

They just come with it.

But they are such a blessing as well at the same time.

A blessing and a curse.

When you do things God's way, a blessing.

When you don't do God's way, a curse.

You laugh, but you know it's true.

I love my kids, but sometimes, sometimes,

that's enough because you know exactly what I'm talking about.

And then up here, as they get older, it just gets worse.

So I got that to look forward to.

Pray every day.

But that's why we train our children up in the way that they shall go.

Because when they are old, they will not depart from it.

It's not a promise that they're not ever going to walk away,

but it is a promise that they will learn as we train them up.

And so as we do things God's way, as we surrender to God,

and that's what Israel had failed to do.

Israel had failed to submit their families to God.

And if you think about it, they had every justification.

Think about where they're at right now.

They're coming back from Persia out of captivity.

Think about if you're a young Jewish woman.

There's probably not a lot of guys there.

And for the men, there's probably not a lot of Jewish women.

They're surrounded by pagan people.

Doesn't it sound like a Christian saying,

I hear that a lot from single people.

Well, there's just not a lot of Christian guys, so I have to settle.

I have to compromise.

They had the same problem.

They had the same problem in that area.

And God says, let me deal with that.

Let me worry about that.

You don't compromise.

You don't settle.

Follow me.

Serve me.

Now, maybe you're in a situation where you've married somebody

and you've already crossed that line.

Well, God tells us in his word that we still submit to them.

We still serve them.

God can still bless it as you did.

Or maybe you weren't Christians when you got married

and one of you, you became a Christian and the other one didn't.

God can still work through those things.

He's not done with you.

He still works in you.

And that's the awesome and the blessing of God that we see through here

is that even though we mess up and we make mistakes,

our God is still big enough to work through that.

But don't use that as an excuse to get involved with someone

that you shouldn't in the first place.

Start off.

Start your marriage off well.

And so the first thing that they see is their family lives

needs to be surrendered to God.

They dedicate their family and their relationships

to be under the authority of God.

And it kind of goes back.

Remember when I told you to underline that verse,

I said all those who separated themselves from the peoples and the lands,

the law of God to their wives, their sons, and their daughters.

You want to find someone, if you're looking to be married,

find someone who has separated themselves from the people of the lands

and they separated themselves from that,

but they also separated themselves to something,

to the law of the Lord of God.

Find someone who loves God as much as you do.

Because equally yoked doesn't just mean someone who's a Christian.

It means someone who is equally the same spiritual going

in the same direction as you at the same time.

So I want to encourage you.

Don't give up.

God knows the desire of your heart.

Pray.

Seek him.

Like he turned around and built city walls in 52 days.

He can find you a guy if that's what's really on your heart

or a woman on there.

He can do it because we serve a good God.

And if he doesn't, then you trust in him.

And then guess what?

At the marriage of the bride,

one day you'll be married to him in a sense.

And that is going to be ultimate fulfillment.

Because I tell you what,

no guy or girl is going to fulfill you the way that Jesus does.

Okay, so we'll go off that soapbox and let's go to the next one

because the next one is not any easier.

So the second topic that they have to rededicate,

verse 31.

It says,

If the peoples of the land bought wares or any grain to sell on the Sabbath day,

we would not buy it from them on the Sabbath or on a holy day.

We would forego the seventh year's produce and exacting of every debt.

So what we have here is the people would come in,

you had like the pagans, Gentile people would come in

and they would come to sell grain on the Sabbath day.

And so according to the law of Moses,

you weren't supposed to do any work.

You weren't supposed to buy or sell or trade or do those things on there.

The Sabbath day was a day of rest where you would just rest.

Now, so it was more than just resting,

but it was also trusting that God would provide.

If you guys remember, the Sabbath day,

Moses kind of proclaimed it to them,

but what they would do is when the manna would fall,

it would fall for six days.

On the sixth day, they were supposed to gather enough manna

and then that would last on the seventh.

The seventh day, they were not supposed to go out and gather the manna.

They were supposed to trust that God's provision on the sixth day

would carry them over through the seventh day.

And then on Monday, they could go back and do it again.

So it was more, it was the idea of resting,

but it was resting and trusting God,

but it's also trusting God's provision for them

that He would provide for them,

that they didn't need to go out and do the work.

What did the people do?

Saturday morning come, they're out there gathering manna.

And I love the fact because it says that they gathered manna

and the worm started to go into it and it stank

because they didn't trust the provision of God.

They didn't trust that God would provide for them.

So what I see here, it's more than just the Sabbath day

is what's happening here.

But God is, the idea here that He's talking is that

we trust Him in our business relationships

because it's when they come in and sell on the Sabbath.

Are you, like we talked about it before,

that they were in a famine.

So when people come selling grain,

if I don't act, I might not eat on Monday.

And so they have to trust God that they're not going to do that.

They're not going to go and buy grain.

The other thing is, is they're supposed to rest

and it's a time of spending time with God,

being refreshed in Him.

So there are those that will sit there and say,

oh, we have to keep the Sabbath.

We have to do this here.

I'm not against keeping the Sabbath.

If God puts it on your heart and says,

hey, you take the day of rest.

But the Bible also tells us that Jesus is our ultimate Sabbath rest.

That the idea of the Sabbath, it was pointing towards Him

that all the Sabbaths and the new moons and the feasts

were foreshadowing.

That's found in Colossians 2, 16 through 17.

Turn with me there.

Verse 16, it says this.

So let no one judge you in food or in drink,

or regarding a festival or a new moon or Sabbath,

which are shadows of things to come,

but the substance is of Christ.

And see, so Paul's telling the Colossians here,

he's saying, look, and I love the chapter.

It says not legalism, but Christ.

And the whole idea is, as Paul is kind of writing this book of Colossians,

he's saying, look, God has given us the law.

The law is good.

The Sabbath and the laws are important,

but ultimately all of them are fulfilled in Christ.

The law and the new moons, the Sabbath feasts,

they were all pointing to what Christ would do for us eventually.

And that's where I fall.

If you want to take a day and you take a specific day and rest on it,

and that's your time to spend with God,

I think that's awesome.

But the fault is when we start to put it on other people and say,

oh, you don't do it or follow the Sabbath the way I do it.

Or we start to make our own rules and our own regulations.

The other thing, too, is the Sabbath is more than just one day.

And he kind of talks about it here.

Our holy day, back in verse 31,

we would forego the seventh year produce exacting of every day.

So oftentimes there are people that are like, oh, I Sabbath, awesome.

But they're like, oh, you need to do this.

I'm like, well, do you keep the Sabbath here?

It's a whole year where you don't work.

Do you give that up?

Do you not work and just rely on God's provision for the whole entire year?

And so it's easy to kind of put things down.

What I say, my opinion of it is Romans 14.

Romans 14, yeah, 14, 1 through 10 says this.

It says, receive one who is weak in the faith,

but do not dispute over doubtful things.

For one believes he may eat all things,

but he who is weak eats only vegetables.

Let not him who eats despise him who does not eat,

and let not him who does not eat judge him who eats,

for God has received him.

Who are you to judge another servant?

To his own master he stands or falls.

Indeed, he will be made to stand, for God is able to make him stand.

One person's esteems one day above another.

Another esteems every day alike.

Let each be fully convinced in his own mind.

He who observes the day observes it to the Lord,

and he who does not observe the day to the Lord, he does not observe it.

He who eats, eats to the Lord, for he gives God thanks.

And he who does not eat to the Lord, he does not eat and gives God thanks.

None of us lives to himself. No one dies to himself.

For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord.

Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord's.

For to this end Christ died and rose and lived again,

that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.

But why do you judge your brother?

Or why do you show contempt for your brother?

For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.

So a few things here.

He says, one, do not dispute over doubtful things.

Like, we're so quick to have certain things in our own way,

but we're quick to argue and to fight.

But the Bible clearly says, don't dispute over it.

So, like, okay, if you want to do it, awesome, do it.

If somebody else doesn't, then give them that freedom.

And in my Bible, this chapter title is the law of liberty.

The other thing he says is in verse five, he says,

one person esteems one day above another, another esteems every day alike.

Let each be fully convinced in his own mind.

Are you convinced that God wants you to observe the Sabbath?

Awesome. If you're convinced in your own mind, do it.

But it doesn't say be convinced in my mind,

or that you have to convince my mind to follow what you want to do.

We have freedoms in Christ.

And he says, if one person observes one day, another esteems another day alike.

And he says, because the ultimate fulfillment was in Christ,

that Christ fulfilled all the law for us.

I can't, like, I don't murder, but I murder in my heart.

So I still need Jesus to do that.

So I fulfill the Sabbath in the same way that I fulfill that.

I don't lie, or I try not to lie. I just lie, my bad.

But, okay, God, forgive me. See, there it is.

But we lie. I, Jesus still has to, on there.

So it's all fulfillment of Jesus in that sense.

And that's what Colossians was talking about.

That these were foreshadowings of, but the substance is of Christ.

And ultimately that's where we rest.

The picture of the Sabbath rest is that we rest in Christ Jesus,

that I don't have to work for my salvation.

So I get to rest in him.

And that is the picture of the ultimate rest.

If you want to read about that, read Hebrews chapter 4.

Hebrews 4 · chapter mention

We can rest from our works.

We can rest from trying to put our salvation by putting our faith in Jesus

and resting in his completed work.

In the book of Romans chapter 14, he says that we are all going to stand

Romans 14 · chapter mention

and give an account before God.

So you can rest easy.

You're not going to have to give an account for how I broke the Sabbath.

You're not going to have to give an account for how other people live,

but you have to give an account for what God has put on your heart.

So if God has convicted you and he wants you to keep a specific day

or a specific thing, then do it, because God has put that on your heart.

And you do it freely.

I won't judge you, but don't judge me for things that I don't do or may not do.

That's the awesomeness of the God that we serve,

is that he gives us freedoms in him.

Last verse, 1 Peter chapter 1, verse 13, says this.

1 Peter 1:13

Therefore, gird up the loins of your mind, be sober,

and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you

at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

As obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lust as in your ignorance,

but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct,

because it is written, Be holy, for I am holy.

And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one's work,

conduct yourselves through the time of your stay here in fear,

knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things like silver or gold

from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers,

but with the precious blood of Christ as a lamb without blemish and without spot.

He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world,

but was manifested in these last times for you,

who through him believe in God, who raised him from the dead,

and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

Where is my faith and hope? It's not in keeping the law.

It's not in following rules and regulations. It's not in pleasing other people.

My faith and hope rest in God and God alone.

And so as I come to this,

the other thing here is we see is that they are to be set apart,

to be different from the rest of the nations,

to make a time where in a way that their lives and their business transactions reflect the glory of God.

And so we have the first one, which is giving and surrendering their family.

The second we have is their business relationships,

and also kind of their worship of God.

And then we're going to see in verse 32, through the rest here,

that they support to commit to the work of God.

So verse 32, it says,

We also made ordinances for ourselves,

to exact from ourselves yearly one-third a shekel for the service of the house of our God,

for the showbread, for the regular grain offerings,

for the regular burnt offerings, for the Sabbath, new moons, and the set feast,

for holy things, for the sin offerings to make atonement for Israel,

and for all the work of the house of our God.

We cast lots among the priests, the Levites, the people,

for bringing the wood offering into the house of our God,

according to our Father's house at the appointed times, year by year,

to burn on the altar of the Lord our God as it is written in the law.

And we made ordinances to bring the firstfruits of our ground

and the firstfruits of all our fruit of all trees year by year to the house of the Lord,

and to bring the firstborn of our sons and our cattle as it is written in the law,

and the firstborn of our herds and our flocks to the house of our God,

to the priests who minister in the house of our God,

to bring the firstfruits of our dough, our offering,

the fruit from all kinds of trees, the new wine and oil,

to the priests, to the storerooms of the house of our God,

and to bring the tithes of our land and to the Levites,

for the Levites should receive the tithes in all our farming communities.

And the priests, the descendants of Aaron,

shall be with the Levites when the Levites receive tithes,

and the Levites shall bring up a tenth of the tithes to the house of our God,

to the rooms of the storehouse.

For the children of Israel and the children of Levi

shall bring the offering of grain, of the new wine and the oil,

to the storerooms where the articles of the sanctuary are,

where the priests will minister, and the gatekeepers and the singers are.

And we will not neglect the house of our God.

So what we see here is that as they make a commitment of their family,

of their business relationships, of their worship,

they also make a commitment to support the work of God.

As we saw previously, we saw that part of the Sabbath

was to trust in God's provisions.

Well, when God provides for you, He wants you to give generously.

And that doesn't just mean to the church,

but it's just being generous with the finances that God has given you.

Because we see here that, one, it talks about the tithe,

the 10% of their income.

So oftentimes in our minds we think,

oh, this 10%, I'm giving that to God.

Okay, great, that's awesome.

It doesn't have to be 10%.

It's whatever God puts on your heart.

But they also gave what?

They gave of their, let's see here.

There's a bunch here.

Wood, offerings of wood.

The first born from their animals.

The first of their grain, their harvest, their dough.

That was interesting to me.

I'm like, they took their dough and actually gave part of that,

you know, for making bread.

That was cool.

The first fruit of harvest, their wine and their oil.

Everything that God blessed them with belonged to God.

Do you guys think about that?

That everything you have belongs to you?

Or is it, okay, this 10% belongs to God,

but the 90% belongs to me.

Everything else is mine.

My car, my house, my this here.

It all becomes me, me, mine, mine, mine, mine.

It all belongs to God.

And so God, he doesn't need your finances.

He doesn't need your money.

He doesn't need anything really from us.

But he wants our heart.

And so what happens is when we give from our heart,

it shows that when we give of the blessings that God has given us,

it shows our hearts belong to him.

That none of this stuff our heart holds onto.

Because it's crazy how it doesn't even have to be a large sum of money

that all of a sudden it can be, you hold onto it, right?

Like, have you ever had that moment where you have like five bucks left for lunch?

And you're sitting there, you're like, oh, yeah, you know, I'm going to get me,

well, I don't know if you can even buy lunch now for five bucks.

But anyways, five bucks, you have it there.

And the guy's like, you see that guy in the corner.

And God's like, give him that five bucks.

You're like, no, no, I'm hungry.

It doesn't have to be a lot of money to all of a sudden have our heart.

I was thinking, it's just like Satan has just such a way that even the little things

that are unimportant or things that you don't even know,

all of a sudden they can grip us and we're unwilling to,

we want to hold it just so tight.

I remember a story that I heard one time about, there was a butcher.

And the butcher, he had these pigs that he had killed.

And so these poor people came to him and asked him for help.

And so he's like, okay.

So he goes in there, he's looking, and all of a sudden God's like,

give him the best that you have in there.

He's like, I can't, I can't do it.

So he's looking to, you know, a little pork chop here, whatever he can get,

just the bare minimum.

And God's like, Satan's like, don't give him the best, don't give him the best.

And God's just putting it on his heart, give him the best, give him the best.

So finally the butcher says, look, Satan, you better shut up

or I'm giving him the whole smokehouse.

I think that's kind of where we have to be at times.

God, I'm going to give you the whole smokehouse.

It belongs to you.

If you want me to give it all, I will give it to you.

Why? Because you have my heart and nothing else has my heart.

The idea here is for the people to give to the work of God

because their hearts belong to God.

The work of the temple was declaring that God's people wanted God's presence.

So they dedicate themselves to give to the work of the temple,

not what they can get, but to get what God had given them, to bless them.

So in closing we see three areas there.

We see our families, our work, provision, our worship,

that God wants to rule over all the areas of our life.

We live for something greater than our military friends.

We get to see people's lives transformed.

We get to see the greatest miracle of all.

We have the greatest message of all, the greatest news of all,

that sinners can be reconciled to God by faith in Christ

because he has satisfied the wrath of God.

He has paid the penalty for sin, and all those who trust in him are right with God.

When we submit all these areas of our lives,

we are proclaiming that this message is true.

So when we surrender our heart, we surrender our families,

we surrender our finances, we surrender our worship,

we surrender everything to God, what you're saying is,

I believe God is true, that his provisions are true.

So my question is, we believe it.

We've made the oath, but what is our creed?

What is our ethos that we live by?

You look at the life of the Navy SEAL and the Special Forces,

and they have that ethos, their life creed that they live by in a sense.

And maybe not all of them live up to it,

but what creed are we living by in our own lives with the truth that we have?

So let's go ahead and close in prayer.

Lord God, we thank you so much that your word is true.

We thank you that you are a God who writes our names and knows our names,

and that you are a God who wants to be involved.

To the point that you give us rules and regulations,

not to just have a legalistic relationship with you,

but to have a covenant, loving relationship with you,

that even when we fail, that you are still faithful and true.

We ask for your help, Lord God,

that at times we recognize areas in our life where maybe we were weak.

So we pray that you would strengthen up those areas,

that you would help us in areas that we have fallen like the Israelites,

that we've compromised with the enemy, that we have not been set apart.

So we ask that you would help us,

that you would fulfill what you want through us and through our families,

through our finances, through our worship of you.

Lord God, that you would accomplish all things.

We thank you for the opportunity that you are God who wants to co-labor with us,

that as we step out, you meet us and you provide.

We thank you that you are Jehovah Rapha, that you are our provider.

And so it's in your name, Lord God, that we trust,

not in the things of man, not in our bank accounts,

not in presidents, not in countries, Lord God, in nations,

but it is you, the sovereign God over heaven and earth.

And so it is you that we want. It is you that we worship.

So we ask for more of you, that you would just fill us.

And for those of us that are doing these things, Lord God, we praise you.

And we ask that you would encourage us and help us to endure and not to give up,

to not turn back.

For those of us that have weaknesses, Lord God, and that have fallen,

we just pray for your endurance and for your strength.

I pray that you'd come upon our church and help us to be who and what you want us to be.

And we praise you in your name and give you glory, Jesus. Amen.