"How to Listen to a Sermon" Nehemiah 8:1-12 Sunday Morning Worship Service

Let me read for us the word of God now, Nehemiah 8, verses 1 through 12.

Nehemiah 8:1–12

This is the word of the Lord.

And all the people gathered as one man into the square before the water gate.

And they told Azra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses that Yahweh had commanded Israel.

So Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly, both men and women, and all who could understand what they heard on the first day of the seventh month, and he read from it, facing the square before the water gate, from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand.

And the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law.

And Ezra the scribe stood on a wooden platform that they had made for the purpose, and beside him stood Madaniah and Shemon, and Naiah, Uriah, Hilkiah, Masaiah on his right hand, and Petiiah and Meshael, Melchaijah, Hashem, Hashabadana, Zechariah, and Meshalim on his left hand.

And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was above all the people, and he opened it, and all of the people stood.

And Ezra blessed Yahweh, the great God, and all the people answered, Amen, Amen, lifting up their hands.

And they bowed their heads and worshipped Yahweh with their faces to the ground.

Also Jeshua, Benai, Shereh, Jamon, Akub, Shabbatiah, Hodiah, Messiah, Kelatiah, Azariah, Jazbad, Hanan, Peliah, and the Levites helped the people to understand the law, while the people remained in their places.

They read from the book of the law of God clearly.

They gave it sense, so the people understood the reading.

Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and the scribe, and the Levites who taught the people, said to all the people, This day is holy to Yahweh your God.

Do not mourn or weep.

For all the people wept as they heard the words of the law.

Then he said to them, Go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine, and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready, for this day is holy to our Lord, and do not be grieved, for the joy of Yahweh is your strength.

So Levites calmed all the people, saying, Be quiet, for this day is holy, do not be grieved.

And all the people went their way to eat and drink and send portions and to make great rejoicing, because they had understood the words that were declared to them.

This is the word of God, and I pray that He would seal it in your hearts.

It was five hundred years ago to yesterday, April 17th, 1521, where Martin Luther's trial began in Worms.

He was summoned there by the Emperor and the Pope together.

It made for what was certainly the trial of the century.

This is a year or obviously a time period where there was no social media, no court network, no CNN, and yet all of Europe was captivated by this trial.

Luther, of course, had already nailed his 95 theses to the church door in Wittenberg, and this led to the Protestant Reformation.

He had declared that salvation came through faith alone and not through the sacraments of the church, that the scripture was the authority and not the rules and the edicts of the Catholic Church, and he had been branded a heretic.

He'd already had to defend this on numerous occasions.

Well, this trial was convened by Charles V.

He was the Belgic Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.

He had inherited the title King of Spain, and so in that sense he was a Spaniard, but ethnically he was from Belgium, and all of Europe did not necessarily accept his rule.

Much of Europe honored the Pope as opposed to Charles Pope Leo X, who was, of course, Italian.

And there was a complicated political dynamic going on where Europe was split between the emperor and the pope, and yet they had found a common enemy in Luther.

Luther was from Germany, or Saxony as it was called then, and his uh protector, the one who had leadership over him, was Frederick.

And again, Frederick was leading Germany, who was looking out for Germany's interests.

Charles was leading Europe, supposedly, and Leo was in charge of the church.

None of those three guys agreed on anything.

But this trial of Luther was a chance for them to put aside their differences and bring Luther to account for his teaching.

Luther traveled across Europe to Worms for the trial.

On his way there, he was met by parades of people that were cheering him on, and some praying him, some mocking him, some jeering at him, as I mentioned.

This captivated Europe's attention.

It was a very well-known event, despite the lack of newspapers or anything like that.

Everybody knew what was happening.

The trial began on April 17th, where Emperor Charles had piled up on a table many of the books Luther had written.

They made a massive exhibit.

He was a prolific author, and there were piles of books there.

And Luther was asked if, given the fact that Churchy condemned his books as heresy, what he thought about that, and if he would recant his writings, he didn't respond.

And so he was asked just directly, Are these books even yours, Luther?

And Luther agreed that he did indeed write them.

And so then the next question was asked, Do you recant?

And Luther surprisingly asked for more time.

This is the second question of the trial.

He traveled across Europe to get there.

The Pope was there.

Question number two, Luther asks, Can I have more time to pray about this?

And so they granted it.

Luther went back to his room that night and prayed and presented himself 500 years ago to this very day, April 18th, 1521, before the judge, uh, the inquisitor who was leading the trial on behalf of the Pope and the Emperor, who was asked, again, Luther, do you recant these works?

Luther's answer, which I had memorized, I have memorized, but I'll read it so I don't mess it up.

Luther said, Well, one third of these books are about Germany and the German people.

I can't possibly recant my own culture.

What a German thing to say, huh?

One-third of them contain teaching that the Catholic Church approves of.

It is the Catholic Church's teaching.

So to recant them would be to commit heresy.

A very shrewd answer indeed.

And then he said, But one third of them contain the truth of Scripture.

And I cannot recant that.

I will, only if you can show me where there are errors in logic or scripture.

The emperor was enraged and demanded an answer without horns, is what he said.

An answer that was straight.

A simple answer, Luther.

Do you recant these works?

Again, I will take over reading a translation.

Luther, of course, was not answering English, but I'll read a translation to English of what he said.

He said, Since we see your majesty and lordship seek a simple answer, I will give it to you in this manner, neither horns nor toothed.

You wanted it without horns, I'll give it to you out horns or teeth.

I just love that phrase.

Unless I am convinced by the testimony of Scripture or by clear reason, for I do not trust either the Pope or the counsels alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves.

I am bound by the scriptures I have quoted, and my conscience is captive to the Word of God.

I cannot and will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience.

May God help me.

Amen.

Luther, of course, was essentially kidnapped, hustled away from there where he lived out his life in pastoral ministry back in Germany.

The church and all of European culture had been profoundly changed by that event.

That may seem like an exaggeration, but the whole concept of the function of the church and society changed because of what Luther had said.

Even the architecture of a church building, let me give you just a basic example.

Before Luther answered that question, a church building was cramped, there were no pews, everybody would stand.

If there was a pulpit for the priest to speak from, it'd be off on the side, and the center was the altars, perpetually there, the altar where mass was offered, and the bread was offered and the wine was presented.

And that's what took place at the center of the church.

Everybody look at that.

They stood around it.

That was there was a center aisle, so the priest could walk down to the mass.

That was the focal point of the church.

When Luther gets back to Wittenberg, he changes all that.

He has pews put in so you can sit down and listen to preaching.

You can hear the word of God preached.

He removed the table from the center and replaced it with a pulpit from which he would preach.

Now you look at Protestant churches today and we maintain that same architecture.

You're all sitting in pews.

We don't make you stands for the sermon because we are driving home the point that you are sitting under the authority of the Word of God.

Even something that every evangelical church does, although many probably don't know why, we have a portable communion table.

There's spiritual truth in that.

It's not fixed right here in the front.

It's not the focus of the worship service.

We're not celebrating communion, it's moved out.

When we celebrate it tonight, it'll be moved back in.

And it's placed underneath the pulpit from which the word is preached.

Even the sight lines of this place, the doors and the pillars and the everything is funneled towards the middle where the preaching takes place.

Buildings are designed that way.

Culture has changed, Christian culture has changed to highlight the importance of preaching over the sacraments.

Now, I said there's this is almost unrivaled how Luther's answer changed European culture.

But I want to take you to Nehemiah 8 today because you see a similar change in Nehemiah chapter 8.

Nehemiah 8 · chapter mention

We just read this verse as I read the 12 verses.

Perhaps you're thinking, you know, there's lots of names in here, and maybe even zoned out a bit.

But what you were seeing here, I want to just make it clear, what we just read is the total transformation of religious worship in the Jewish world because of what took place here in Nehemiah chapter 8.

Nehemiah 8 · chapter mention

Before Nehemiah chapter 8, when people got together to worship, what they did is that there were often sacrifices.

Nehemiah 8 · chapter mention

The synagogues back then, if they had seats at all, would have been along the side.

There was no focus in the center, there was no focus on preaching or teaching.

Maybe a scroll would be read, maybe not, but certainly there would have been some sort of presentation, some sort of sacrifice most common at the temple, anyway.

That's the way Jewish worship functions.

What happens here changes that.

What happens here is that they call the priest, they call Ezra the scribe, and Ezra comes forward, and rather than presenting a sacrifice, even in the temple, did you notice this does not take place in the temple?

It's out by the water gate, away from the temple, in the corner of the city, where there's a massive field, and the whole city gathers there.

They don't gather in the temple, they gather in a field, the largest open place they can find, where there is a pulpit built, and the word of God can be preached from the pulpit to the gathered congregation.

This transforms religious worship in Israel after this event.

Now synagogues would be built with benches, built with places for people to sit and hear the scripture read and taught.

When you get to Jesus' lifetime, it was normal for a rabbi to stand up and read a portion of scripture or even give a commentary or a teaching on it.

That's coming out of Nehemiah chapter 8.

Nehemiah 8 · chapter mention

This is a very unusual scene in the Bible.

To my knowledge, there's only four times in the Old Testament outside of this where the Word of God is taken and read to people for their instruction.

Moses, when he received the Word of God, read it to the Israelites gathered together.

Joshua, when they crossed in the promised land, had everybody gathered together in Joshua 8 and read the Word of God to them.

Baruch, who is Jeremiah's associate, stood at the city gate and read from the scroll as people came in and out.

They're hardly a gathered congregation.

He was more like a street preacher, really.

And of course, you remember what happened to his scroll.

The king grabbed it and burned it.

Josiah in 2 Kings 23, when he discovered the law of God hidden in the temple, discovered the scroll.

It had never been read before in Josiah's lifetime.

This is late in the Kings.

This is 2 Kings 23.

Towards the end of the monarchy, they couldn't remember the Bible being read out loud to the people before.

This didn't happen.

Josiah grabbed it, read it, and revival took place.

Nevertheless, the Israelites were exiled, banished for decades from the promised land because of their failure to keep God's law.

Now they're back in the land.

They've built their temple.

Their temple is consecrated.

Now they need to protect the city.

The temple's gonna have gold and things that are worth wild, worth money hidden inside of it.

It needs to be protected with the wall.

The temple's gonna need priests, and people are gonna have to repopulate Jerusalem in order to sustain temple worship, which is important because the temple is going to lead to the Messiah.

Jesus, when he comes, will be presented in the temple like he is at his birth.

After that, he's gonna come to the temple again when he starts his ministry and cleanse it.

He's gonna declare that the temple is his father's house in John chapter 2.

John 2 · chapter mention

And in Matthew 12, he's gonna declare that he is the Lord of the temple.

So this is a huge deal.

This temple worship had to exist to present the Messiah to the world.

The wall had to exist to present temple worship.

And so when the ball is done, when the temple is done, the Israelites are turning their attention to God's word, and they demand not for more sacrifices in the temple.

That's not what they clamor for.

They want to hear from the word of God, and so they fetch Ezra.

They tell the scribe, bring out the book and you teach us.

As I mentioned, this is a colossally a new event in the Old Testament.

Nothing like this had happened before.

Let me give you an outline today as we go through this: how to listen to a sermon.

I want to take this event from Nehemiah chapter 8, and I want to apply it to you today for how you can listen to a sermon.

Nehemiah 8 · chapter mention

You encounter God's word here in Nehemiah 8, and I want to talk to you about how you can listen to God's word like the Israelites did back then.

First way you listen to a sermon is eagerly, eagerly.

You see this in verse 1, all the people gathered as one man.

In uh Nehemiah 7, we get a list of about 40,000 people that are there, but now it's broken down to just this massive amount of people.

It's as if there was only one.

They were in the square by the water gate.

This is a vast and open area, and they told Ezra the scribe to bring the book.

Ezra and Nehemiah, of course, are partners in this.

They were working together.

Nehemiah was the political leader.

Ezra was the spiritual leader.

So far, Nehemiah had been a political war.

It had been political opponents.

They were opposing the building of the wall, and so the focus was on Nehemiah.

But now the wall is done, and we're returning to the spiritual principle behind this, and so they summon Ezra.

Ezra was known as a religious leader.

He was known as someone who studied the word of God and applied it, and so they wanted him to bring the book.

Their eyes are no longer on Nehemiah.

They summon Ezra and they demand it.

They told, it's translated told here, but it's this notion of they demanded it.

They called Ezra and they wanted the word of God.

They wanted the book of the law of Moses that Yahweh had commanded Israel.

They knew God had commanded his word to be read, and it had not been read, and they're demanding it.

They summon the priest and say, Bring us the word.

Bring us the word.

Some more educated people might sneer at this.

They might sneer at a group of thousands of people gathered together with a very old book in hand or a very old scroll in Ezra's case in hand and say, What are you doing?

I mean, I want you to appreciate before we go on this morning how unusual it is what you are doing here this morning.

You know, the world is going on out there.

Kids are at soccer and people are in stores and they're cutting their grass and they're doing things productive right now.

And you have said no to that.

You've said no to that this morning.

You're not at soccer, you're not mowing the grass right now.

You're probably daydreaming about it this afternoon, perhaps.

But you're here with an open book in front of you, a book that was written thousands of years ago, in this case, 2,400 years ago, this book of Nehemiah, written by Ezra, to hear me explain something that was written so long ago that you've carved out this time and you've put yourself before the word.

And there's an eager expectation for that.

They're clamoring, bring the books that you can study it.

So just picture how unusual that is, that people who aren't here think that you're out of your minds.

Do you understand that?

Yeah, I hear that.

Do you believe it?

You're out of your minds, and you're here around the word of God.

Acts 17, verse 11, Paul says, these Jews speaking of the Breans were more noble than all those in Thessalonica.

Acts 17:11

They received the word with all eagerness, examining the scriptures.

Notice that Paul says that these Jews are more noble, is the word he uses, because they're eager to hear the word of God.

So when Paul is talking about the nobility of people, and in his mind he's not talking about royalty, he's talking about the quality of a person.

I want that to resonate in your heart for a second.

When Paul talks about the quality of a person, he's talking about their desire to hear the word of God.

The health of a church, listen to me, the health of a church is not seen in the numbers of the church.

It is not seen in the power or the beauty of the music of the church, although certainly that's important.

The health of a church is seen in this area.

How eager are the people to hear the word of God?

That's it.

Are you hungry for the word of God?

Do you desire to hear it?

Do you have an eager anticipation to hear the word of God?

You can ask yourself this very personally.

In your own heart, as the week goes through, are you eager to hear the word of God on Sunday?

That is a mark of a mature believer.

You know, let me give this as an opposite example.

For me, listen, Sunday comes every week for me.

You ask me how I'm doing?

Sunday's coming.

You know, a captivated.

I had a college student once ask me what I did all week.

I loved that question.

What do you do all week?

Okay, college student, imagine that you have a 30-page churn paper due at the end of the semester that you will present for 45 minutes in front of your class.

You're going to be working on that all semester long and you're gonna be nervous about it, and you're gonna be gauging your whole semester going to that point.

I have two of those every week.

So, yeah, Sunday dictates my week.

Flip that around from the congregation's perspective.

Are you drawn towards Sundays?

Are you eager to gather in a place where you can hear the Word of God taught so that your heart can be strengthened?

Are you eager to hear the Word of God?

That's the mark of a mature believer that they're eager to hear from the Word of God.

So the very first, the very most basic step of listening to a sermon is to want to listen to a sermon.

Some of you may be here somewhat reluctantly.

Perhaps your parents dragged you, screaming and kicking, which is not okay if you're 18 years old.

You gotta be more compliant.

Some of you are here perhaps because your husband or your wife made you came, or your parents are visiting from out of town, and so you're putting on a presentation, like, oh hey, we come to church every Sunday, yeah.

As you put it into your GPS.

Kind of weird.

They're not buying it, you know.

But then there's an eagerness to have the word of God laid upon your ears.

And that's certainly what the Israelites had in Nehemiah chapter 8, verse 1.

Nehemiah 8:1

First, eagerly, second way to listen to his sermon is patiently, verse 2.

As were the priests who brought the law before the assembly, both the men and the women, and all who could understand what they heard.

That phrase, understand, it's the most common phrase in this chapter.

We'll talk about it later on when we get down to verse 8.

But just notice it's all throughout the chapter.

This is about understanding the word of God.

This happened on the first day of the seventh month, and he read from it, facing the square before the water gate, from early morning until the middle of the day.

This is a long time spent reading the Word of God.

Hours go by in this.

It's from the morning all the way to the middle of the day.

Depending on how you carve that up.

Some commentators say three hours, some say six hours, somewhere between three and six hours.

What a far cry from the sermonettes for Christianets that mark so many of our churches today.

For some of you, the sermon is something you endure until you can move on.

It's something it's just, you know, perhaps you like going to church because you get to see other people and you get to, you know, have somebody pray for you, and maybe you're lonely during the week and there's people who know you and love you at church, and it gives you kind of weak structure, and others of you perhaps are just coming because you come every week and that's what is expected of you.

Who knows?

Let me tell you where this gets divided.

When the sermon is preached, are you patient and listening to it?

Do you let it set in your heart?

Are you gonna sit there and listen until you are convicted by the word of God, until the word of God strengthens you?

Or are you already on to something else, or you're already hoping, and you're already like, this is going on too long.

It's 1137.

Seriously?

The Methodists are gonna beat us to lunch.

There's gotta be a patience to hearing the word of God.

Come and have the sermon work on your hearts that you recognize that it's not about the length of the sermon, but about the effect that it has on your heart, and that you'll sit here in church and let the sermon work on you.

Now, believe me when I say long sermons are not necessarily better than short sermons.

I've heard some long sermons that have been horrible, and I've heard some short sermons that have been great.

In fact, the worst sermon I ever heard was from somebody in California and in our college ministry, and it was going really, really bad, and it was basically gibberish, and then he just ended 10 minutes into it.

He's like, Let's close in prayer.

Like he realized it was going bad, close in prayer, and everybody went on.

I don't think I'm probably one of the only people that remember that sermon.

Nobody remembered it because it was.

Short and everybody got to go and they were happy about that.

So I understand that lesson.

Sometimes if the sermon is bad, at least make it short.

I get that.

But you'll have to grant me this the longer the sermon is, at least the more chance the preacher has to get something right.

Or to say it from the congregation's perspective.

The longer the sermon, the more likely you are to be convicted and encouraged and strengthened by it.

Acts 20, you think this is three to six hours in the Old Testament.

What about the New Testament?

Acts 20, on the first day of the week, gathered together to break bread.

Paul came intending to depart the next day and began preaching.

So Paul comes to a dinner with the congregation in Acts chapter 20.

Acts 20 · chapter mention

Comes to a dinner.

After dinner, he starts a little sermon, a little devotional time, and he keeps going.

And he keeps going until, says in verse 8 of Acts chapter 20, they begin to gather lamps in the upper room.

Acts 20 · chapter mention

It's gotten dark, and he keeps preaching.

And a young man named Eudychus, sitting at the window, sank into a deep sleep as Paul talked until midnight.

This is a dinner.

And he starts preaching.

And they get lamps.

And now it's midnight.

And Eudychus falls into a deep sleep, it says, Acts 20, verse 9, and falls off of the balcony and dies.

Acts 20:9

Oof, hits the ground.

And being overtaken by sleep, he's dead.

And Paul gets up and goes over and raises him from the dead so that he can keep preaching.

Eutychus becomes the patron saint of church kids everywhere.

So the two examples of scripture where we get time stamped on sermons, you get six hours in Nehemiah and five hours until midnight in the book of Acts, and so you can be okay with 45 minutes.

Some people say, oh, today's generation is a TikTok generation.

They don't have the patience, they don't have the ability to focus on a 45-minute sermon, an hour-long sermon, you know, because they got 280 characters, you know, they got two minutes, that's all they can handle.

I don't believe it for a second.

Those same people just binge-watched, you know, nine hours of Lord of the Rings last week.

They went to the tailgate party, the football game, that went to overtime, and then to the after game party, and now they're like, oh, that's 47 minutes of a sermon.

I can't handle that.

That's just too much sitting.

Three hours.

You gotta be joking me.

The issue is not about the content.

Um, the issue is not about your focus or your attention span.

The issue is about your perception of the content.

So again, ask yourself this basic question.

Do you eagerly anticipate hearing God's word?

Firstly, secondly, are you patient when you hear it?

Wanting it to work on your heart, wanting it to work on you.

Thirdly, you listen to a sermon attentively, and you see this in the second part of verse 3.

All the people were trying to understand it.

It says, the men and the women and those who could understand, and the ears of all the people were, and here's the word attentive to the book of the law.

That word attentive means tuned in.

Perhaps you've seen a cat who hears a sound somewhere across the room, and you see the cat ear actually turn.

That's what this word means.

That the people are locked in.

They heard the sound and their ears turned to the preaching of God's word.

They're focused on it, they're honed in.

Radar has locked onto the preaching of God's word.

Ezra may have had the only scroll in the whole city.

People didn't have pocket Torahs.

This is it.

And Ezra's got it.

And he's standing up and he's reading it, and everybody is tuned in.

They recognize that they were just exiled for decades because of their sin, and now somebody is reading them the word of God and they want to hear it.

They know that their life depends upon this.

So they're examining it closely.

The better something is, the more closely you want to examine it, the more intensely you want to experience it.

And that's certainly the truth of the word of God.

It's more precious beyond jewels, sweeter than honey.

And so the people want to taste it, they want to experience it, they're listening to it.

This comes from Deuteronomy chapter 31, by the way.

Deuteronomy 31 · chapter mention

So if Ezra was reading the law, he's reading the first five books of the Bible we call it, or the Torah, that ends with the book of Deuteronomy.

So as he's wrapping up this reading around lunchtime, he's getting to Deuteronomy 31, and Deuteronomy 31 ends with this command: assemble the people to read the law before them, Deuteronomy 31, verse 11.

Deuteronomy 31:11

Assemble the people so the word of the law is read to them.

Assemble the women and the little ones and the sojourner within your towns, so they hear and they learn to fear Yahweh, and tell them to be careful to do all the words of this book.

So Zezur is finishing his reading.

That'd be one of the last things they hear.

Get everyone together and tell them, be careful to do this.

The point is that the preaching is supposed to lead to understanding, which leads to the doing.

The instructions matter.

This is the most important instruction guide in the whole world.

It matters.

This week I, or last week, I bought a power washer at Home Depot and I bought one of the ones that was like already assembled.

It was like a return and it had already been built and gave you a discount on like great.

I would pay more for the already assembled one, honestly.

The only drawback is no instruction manual.

But you can download it.

And the guy's like, if you need it, it's self-explanatory.

I'm like, yeah, I'll need it.

Is there an on button?

No?

Okay, I'm out.

This is the most important instruction manually for your life.

And it's not self-explanatory.

And the person who leads their life as if this world is self-explanatory will be a person who becomes narcissistic, focused on themselves, sinful, shallow, and sad.

That's the way that story goes.

And it requires a remarkable amount of humility for a person to break themselves and say, listen, I don't know how I'm supposed to lead my life.

I don't know the truth about God, and I need to learn it.

Well, this is the book that helps you learn it.

And so tune in.

The instructions matter.

Here's a very practical way to tune in.

For some of you, you don't need this.

For some of you, you should take notes during sermons.

This is this is this advice is free right here.

Take notes.

And for little kids, you know, you write down the points on the screen.

It's easy for little kids to track in.

There's seven of them, by the way, if you're keeping track.

We'll get to all seven of them by lunchtime.

Don't worry.

Little kids can just write down the notes.

But as you get older, maybe start writing down cross-references or other passages of the Bible to talk about this.

Or maybe, you could go crazy here.

You could write down things you're learning from this.

Or you could write down things you need to change in your own life, or things you're gonna do this week as a result of this.

You could write those down.

Not everybody needs to.

Some people can learn without that.

I'm not one of those people.

If I don't take notes and I'm listening to a sermon, it is in one ear, it is out the other.

You'll ask me afterwards, what uh well, how is church or the pastor preached on the Bible?

But when I write notes, it's like committed now to memory, and I understand it.

I know where to find it in my notebooks.

I have notebooks in my office in order to find different sermons, and that's how I remember it.

Try that.

But pay attention to what's said so that you know how to live.

Fourthly, you listen to a sermon submissively.

Submissively.

Verse 4, Ezra the scribe stood on a wooden platform they had made for this purpose.

That phrase platform, by the way, is the only other place this is used in the Bible is back in uh Genesis 11 for the Tower of Babel.

And it's translated platform here, but the idea is this is a structure that reaches up towards the sky for Ezra to climb on.

And perhaps it was made from the scaffolding that'd be along the wall that was just completed, who knows?

But they manufactured this thing somewhat rapidly so that Ezra could ascend on it, overlooking the people in the field.

The water gate there, it goes down to a creek and then up a hill on the far side.

So you can fit a massive amount of people in this field there, and they would be staggered.

They'd be see, you know, they're standing, but they're standing up a hill, looking across the creek to somebody standing on a huge platform overlooking everybody.

Sound would obviously carry, I mean, upwards of 40,000 people could have been there.

His sound carries, he's elevated above everyone.

It says in verse 4, they made the platform for that purpose.

For that purpose.

Beside him on this platform are all these Levites, six on one side, seven on the other.

The thirteen Levites gathered around him in like a phalanx here, spread out behind him.

You've seen some of those churches have the benches on stage, and the elders sit up on stage.

I kind of like that idea.

I think it's kind of cool.

That's what they did.

All the elders sat on stage here.

These Levites sat up on stage behind the sermon, demonstrating that they are supporting what's happening and it's going out to the congregation.

Everybody is submitted to it, though.

The Levites sitting, the congregation standing, Ezra elevated.

It's demonstrating that the Word of God has authority.

Even the Tower of Babel, by the way, was built from earth up to the heavens.

It was to demonstrate how people were trying to get to God on their own strength, and God judged it and tore it down.

Here you have a similar tower, but for the opposite purpose.

It's not people trying to get to God on their own strength.

Here it's Ezra bringing God down to people through God's word.

The tower has a similar function, though, to bring God to man, and that's what it demonstrates that this book is divine, it has authority over us.

The people then stand at attention here.

Verse 5, Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he's above all the people, and as he opened it, the people stood up.

A congregation might stand when a bride walks into the room, officers would stand when a general walks into the room, or politicians would stand when the president walks into the room.

Here, the believers stand when God's word enters the room.

They're showing it reverence.

They're showing that they are submissive to it.

They're under its authority.

Believe me when I tell you, the world is not your spiritual authority.

The government of the world is not your spiritual authority.

The governments of the world do not have authority over your spiritual life.

The only authority that exists in this world over your spiritual life is the Word of God.

Elders might have some limited authority in your life only when they're confined to what the scripture teaches.

The second an elder goes a tippy toe outside of the authority of the Bible, their authority ceases.

The authority in the world, the only supreme, ultimate, infallible authority in the world is the word of God.

And it is demonstrated by the scene over you.

Over you.

The idea of it being over you is that you are submissive.

You're under it, meaning you're submissive to it.

When God's word speaks, his children obey.

So again, you're asking yourself, am I eager to hear God's word?

Do I listen to it patiently so that I can learn attentively from it while I'm being submissive to it?

You're recognizing the word has authority.

If you don't grant the Bible has authority over your life, you're not going to get anything from a sermon, of course.

So, submissively, number five, you listen to a sermon reverently.

Reverently.

And you see this in verse six.

More of the Levites who are standing there, I practiced their names all week.

I nailed it one time this morning.

I'm not going to do it again.

They're all gathering around him.

They've bowed their heads now.

They've lifted up their hands in verse six as the people are worshiping and praying.

They bowed their heads, worshiped Yahweh.

Their faces are on the ground now.

The Levites gathered around them in verse 7.

They're helping everybody understand the word of the law.

Do you understand that this is all about worship?

They're bowing their faces, they're raising their hands, they're worshiping.

This is not a sporting event where they're cheering.

It's a worship event where they are giving praise and honor and glory to God.

They recognize the authority of what was said, and they're responding to the authority of God's word by being submissive, being under it.

Now they're responding to that by lifting up praises to God, by being reverent.

This is why churches should have their focus on the preaching of God's word, not on strategic plans or not on visions cast by different, you know, pastor of vision and leadership or whatever, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

That kind of stuff carries no weight in a church.

I hope that if I got up here and told story time, you know, told stories or lessons or thoughts that were on my heart, that you would drive me out of this place.

You'd go to the elders and say, hey, bring us a preacher who preaches God's word, not story time with Uncle Jesse.

You want the word of the Lord so that you recognize its authority comes from God.

This is not a carnal gathering of people who want to quibble about this doctrine or that doctrine.

This is a solemn assembly of people who want to hear from God's word.

1 Thessalonians 2, verse 13 says, Paul says, We thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, you received it from us, and you received it not as the word of men, but as what it early is, the word of God.

1 Thessalonians 2:13

I love that.

Paul says to Thessalonians, I grant you this.

I love that because if you remember to the Bereans, Paul says, I love you because you search out the word of God, not like the Thessalonians who only received it.

So this is not the terminus here.

It's good the Thessalonians received it as God's word, but that's not where it ends.

You receive it as God's word so that you can dive into it.

But it doesn't make sense to dive into it if it's not God's word.

I heard somebody told me this week that about a PhD where somebody got a PhD in watching seven seasons of House and writing about the TV show House.

Seven seasons of that, and they got a PhD in that.

Could you imagine?

I think that would make you dumber, but that's what PhDs do, supposedly.

This book is from God.

It's not from man, it's not contrived from human culture for entertainment.

It's God's voice to us.

And I'm sure most of you understand the Bible is God's word.

If it's God's word, that means it's infallible.

It doesn't have anything wrong with it.

If it's infallible, that means it's inerrant.

There's no errors in it.

Every word is true because it comes from God, who is truth.

I think most of you would agree with that.

But let me ask you this question.

It's one thing to acknowledge that the Bible is God's word, but it's another thing to live like it.

Some of you might defend the Bible as God's word, but the question is, do you treat it like it's God's word?

How do you treat it like it's God's word?

You do what it says, recognizing that God is the speaker.

So you listen to his sermon eagerly, patiently, attentively, submissively, reverently, then knowingly, number six, knowingly.

You see this in verses seven and eight.

The Levites fan out now into the crowd.

So he's finished after several hours.

He's read the first five books of the Torah.

Several hours later, the Levites have fanned out to help people understand the law.

Now, Ezra was not merely reading, because as I mentioned, the most common phrase in the Nehemiah 8 is understand the law.

So Ezra is reading and giving people commentary on it.

He's helping them understand.

But now that he's done, he's got this army of teachers that have fanned out into the congregation, and they are also helping people understand.

That's verse 7.

They helped the people understand the law while the people remained in their places.

This is ABF time now.

The sermon is over.

Everybody's breaking into small groups, going to their ABFs.

And the Levites come and visit your ABF, and they're helping the people understand what Ezra had said, what Moses had said, ultimately what Yahweh had said.

So now the Levites, it switches from third person singular, Ezra reading, to third person plural.

All the Levites reading in verse 8, they read from the book, from the law of God, clearly.

They gave it sense so the people understood the reading.

This is the best definition you're going to find in the Bible of expositional preaching right here.

The kind of preaching that takes verse by verse, line by line, and tells you what it means.

And that's what we're doing.

I didn't choose this passage out of a hat.

I've been preaching through Nehemiah, one chapter after another, explaining what every verse means.

That's what the Levites are doing.

They're going into the congregation, helping people understand what every verse means, because if you don't understand it, you can't practice it.

And that's the point of this.

The point is not knowledge, the point is practice.

The point is godliness in your life.

When I was a high school kid, before I was a Christian, I was at a big soccer tournament in Denver, and there was a team from Mexico that was there, and one of their players actually died in the swimming pool at the hotel.

Drowned in the swimming pool during the soccer tournament at the hotel.

I think it might have even been a lightning strike kind of thing.

And so they stopped the whole tournament and they did a funeral for this guy at the stadium that was at where the soccer tournament was.

And all the teams, I mean, I'm talking hundreds of teams, this was a massive tournament, all came and filled the stadium.

And for this funeral, this kid from Mexico died because the family couldn't afford to send the body back to Mexico.

So it happened there.

And there was a Catholic priest who led the funeral, and he led the entirety of it in Latin.

I spoke Spanish and it was not Spanish.

He led the whole thing in Latin.

I don't think anybody in that stadium knew Latin.

I don't think the American priest knew Latin.

But this this priest had come from Mexico and did the whole thing in Latin.

It was astonishing.

And I'm wondering, as a non-Christian, I'm sitting there wondering why?

What is the point of all of the Latin?

What is the point of all that's happening?

It's not for our, I didn't have this word yet in my vocabulary, but I had the concept.

It's not for our edification.

It's not helping us.

Maybe it's just ceremony or whatever.

And that's an extreme example, but I think there are many people who treat the Bible like that.

That just as long as it's read or as long as it's taught, it's almost got a power to it, like magic words.

It's not a magic book that you can read and cast a spell.

This Bible only works, it's only effective on your heart when you understand it.

You have to understand with your ears and with your head what is said.

You have to believe it with your heart.

Listen, if you understand with your head, but you don't have faith, it's not gonna, it's not gonna help.

It's not gonna do anything to you.

You have to have faith in your heart, understanding in your mind, which merges with faith.

The Holy Spirit applies it to your life, and that produces practice.

That's how the Bible is effective in your life.

You have to know what it means.

If you don't know what it means, you can't understand it.

Jesus tells the parable of the sower and the seed.

The man throws seed everywhere, and some seed lands on rocky ground and you know dies, and some seed lands on hard soil and it grows and can't get roots, and it dies, and some seed lands in fertile soil and grows and produces fruit.

And Jesus says the difference is that the one that produced the massive harvest represents people who knew the word and understood it.

That's the key mark.

Do you understand the Bible?

Do you come to a sermon expecting to learn and then have it explained so that you understand it?

Acts 18.

Paul says, verse 27, that Paul arrived in a city and he helped greatly helped those who were there who believed through grace, because he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, showing them from the scriptures that Jesus was the Savior.

This word here, giving the sense, it says in verse 8 of my my translation.

Some of your translations might say transl translated, but translated is not the right word.

The Hebrew word means to divide.

It's the word for a sword, cutting things in half.

That's what the word means.

The Levites fanned out and gave this text the meaning by dividing it, by rightly dividing it, obviously not ripping the pages, but giving you concepts to, you know, giving you thoughts to hang your, giving you hooks to hang your thoughts on, telling you this means this and not that.

This means God is a father, God is also a son, God is also a spirit, yet there's only one God, making distinctions in the Word of God, helping you teach, you know, teaching you that righteousness and justification, those concepts are not taught from every passage, letting you go to the right passages.

That's what this word divide means.

That they're dividing up the word of God so that you understand it.

You can't eat a whole turkey whole, you know, a head to gobble it or whatever.

You divide it up and you eat it in pieces, and these are good and these are bad, and eat in this order kind of thing.

That's how the word of God is approached.

It is divided so that you can consume it.

2 Timothy 2.15.

Paul tells Timothy, do your best to present yourself as a worker approved before God, who has no need to be ashamed, who rightly divides the word of truth.

Paul tells the Hebrews that the Word of God is sharper than a two-edged sword.

It can divide soul from spirit, bone from marrow.

The point there is the word of God doesn't have a dull side to it.

It's a two-edged sword.

It's not a sword that only cuts on one side, like a like a stake knife, you know, one side you can run your finger up and down.

When you clean it, the other side you would cut yourself.

The word of God has no dull sides.

It will cut you wherever you touch it.

And so you understand the word of God when you let it cut your heart and when it gives you the theological constructs by which you can understand what Scripture is saying.

Crawford Laritz, who is preached here at Emmanuel before, he writes in his book about preaching.

He says, I'm thoroughly can quote I'm thoroughly convinced that the greatest need for the church today is the kind of preaching that raises the bar for low jumpers.

I love that line.

Raises the bar for low jumpers.

He goes on to say that the way you raise the bar for low jumpers is you teach people concepts by which they grow in their understanding of God's word.

Listen, don't ever come to a church with a Bible in your hand and not expect it to change your heart.

Come to church with your Bible, eager to submit to it, and then to let it change your life.

And then finally, number seven, you hear a sermon happily.

Happily, verses nine through twelve.

Nehemiah, who is the governor, remember the previous governor had been fired by Nehemiah through the emperor for a post.

Losing the wall building, so now Nehemiah is the governor.

I just love that the book reminds you of that.

Nehemiah won.

He won the he's gonna win the spiritual battle, but he's also won the political battle, too.

He's the governor.

Ezra was the priest and the scribe, and the Levites who taught the people, they said, This day is holy to Yahweh your God.

Don't mourn and weep, because the people were weeping while they heard the law.

So as the day goes on, everybody, the whole congregation is gripped with weeping about their sin.

So much so that the Levites are telling people, hey, don't cry anymore.

Have you ever been a church service like that?

Imagine how powerful that would be where after the sermon, the pastor has to go out and say, Hey, stop repenting of all your sin.

You've repented enough.

Come back next week.

You can have more sin to repent of next week.

But go ahead and rejoice today.

But that's what's having to happen here.

The Levites are saying, you need to stop repenting, stop the weeping.

This is supposed to be a time for rejoicing.

So they said to him, Go your way, eat the fat, drink the sweet wine, send portions to anyone.

So the fat in this culture is the easiest part to chew of the meat.

So it's the it's the best part of the meat to eat.

It's the delicacy.

The sweet wine.

They would add honey to wine to make it like a dessert kind of wine.

It was something you only did for celebration.

They'd mix their honey with it, and that's what the priests are telling everybody.

Go get the best part of the goats, go get the best part of the sheep.

Slaughter them up.

Get the wine and mix honey into it and make this a happy celebration.

Why are they upset that people are repenting?

Well, the people are repenting, of course, because they're hearing the word of God for the first time now and they're seeing all their sin.

They're broken by it, which is good.

You need to be broken by sin.

You cannot become a true follower of Christ unless you've been broken by your sin.

You have to realize, listen, if you want to understand what saving faith is, it begins with you recognizing that you're a sinner.

You have to start.

This is the entrance, this is the door here, the door here to Christianity.

I'm a sinner, I've sinned against God, and I deserve God's judgment.

If you can't utter that in your minds, then the rest of this is gibberish.

So you have to begin with, I'm a sinner and I need help.

Namely, I need forgiveness.

Now God shows you you can have forgiveness through Jesus Christ.

So Christ died on the cross, bearing the wrath for your sin.

So that God will not judge you in hell for your sin like you deserve, but God will give that judgment to Christ, who died on the cross and resurrected on the third day to atone for your sin.

Now you can have your sins forgiven by placing your faith in Christ.

But first, you have to recognize that you are a sinner and be convicted, like feel guilty about your sin because you are guilty.

And it should break you.

It should make your eyes well up with tears.

You should be confronted with your sin and it should hurt you inside knowing how wicked you are.

And you should be broken.

And then, through faith, you appeal to Christ.

And you say, Jesus, you have to forgive me for my sins.

And when Christ forgives you for your sins, now you can stop weeping and start smiling.

Now you can rejoice because your sins have been forgiven.

Let me say it still another way.

Weeping when your sins are forgiven, or mourning when your sins are forgiven is out of place.

In the same way that rejoicing when your sins are unconfessed would also be out of place.

If you have unconfessed sins, then you ought not rejoice.

If you have unconfessed sins in your life, you ought not be happy.

But if you've confessed your sins, you know that Jesus is your advocate before the Father, that He is in heaven appealing to you, praying for you.

And when you confess your sins to him, he's faithful and just and forgives your sins so that you can rejoice.

That's what's happening here.

Everybody is broken and grieving and weeping about their sins.

And the Levites go out and they say, Jesus is forgiving you.

God, Yahweh is forgiving you.

So your sins are taken away.

Rejoice.

Rejoice.

Let me say it still one more way.

I love this passage.

Let me say it one more way.

Mourning, God gives us mourning over our sin to lead us to rejoicing.

Rejoicing is the end.

Rejoicing is what we're going to.

The chief end of man, the main point of human existence is to glorify God by enjoying Him, rejoicing in Him.

So the point of mourning and brokenness is to bring you to rejoicing.

The point of rejoicing is not to bring you to mourning.

The point of mourning is to, it's a one-way street.

Mourning, your broken over sin, brings you to rejoicing.

And you delight in God.

Now, of course, through the Christian life, you'll become exposed to more and more sins in your life.

The more mature you are, the new sins you'll see, and you'll mourn over those sins, you'll be broken over those sins, and God, and you'll confess those sins, and God will forgive those sins and you return to rejoicing again.

That's the trajectory.

The end of all this, the chief end, the chief reason God made the world is so that you could enjoy him and rejoice in him, not so you can mourn and be broken by him.

That's the difference.

Mourning is the means to the end.

It's not the end.

The end is rejoicing.

God wants you to say, the joy of the Lord is my strength.

When I was a youth pastor, I had a verse written on the wall in my office.

Or not a word, a quote written on the wall in my office.

Most high school kids didn't understand it, but it was a great conversation starter.

It's Augustine from his confessions.

And said, written in red stencil on my wall, how sweet it was all at once for me to be rid of those fruitless joys, those joys that I once so feared to lose.

And you drove them from me and took their place.

You who are the sweet, the true, the sovereign joy.

Do you understand that from Augustine?

You once were terrified of losing the things that brought you joy in this life.

You wanted to hold on to the things you thought would bring you happiness so hard.

And again, if you live your life like that, you will be broken and narcissistic and miserable.

But how sweet it is when God drives those joys out of there.

He shows them away.

And he shoes them away by his own presence.

He becomes your joy.

He takes the place of those things that you once so feared to lose, and the joy of the Lord will be your strength.

And so the Levites calmed the people, saying, Be quiet, verse 11.

This day is holy, don't be grieved.

And the people went their way to eat and drink and to send portions and to make rejoicing because they understood the words that were declared to them.

Everybody is happy.

They're giving away their joy.

They're giving away the fat of the food.

They're giving away the sweet wine and they're giving it to their friends, and they're all rejoicing because of what the Lord had done in their life.

This is, when we're gathered together at church on Sunday, understand this is the war.

It is a joy war.

It is a war for your joy.

Are you going to have joy in the world or are you going to have joy through God and his word?

For you to have joy through God and His Word, you have to come to church eager to hear from the Word of God.

You have to come to church patiently listening to it.

You have to come to church paying attention to it, submitting yourself to it, worshiping God because of what he says, trying to understand it so that it can produce the happiness of the Lord in your life.

You fight back the temptations to worldliness.

You drive out the joys, the so-called joys the world offers, and you cling to the cross of Christ.

Lord, we're grateful for your word in our life and that you can bring joy out of mourning.

You can bring repentance out of sin.

And you can bring rejoicing through forgiveness.

Lord, we're thankful that Christ died for our sins so that we can indeed rejoice.

I pray for anyone here today who is gripped by sin.

I pray that today they would confess their sin to you.

They would look into you, Jesus, and see an advocate, see a savior who is merciful, who bids them to come and place their faith in Christ.

I pray that your Holy Spirit would do that in people's hearts today, that people would trust you and they would find the joy that comes through your word.

We ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thanks for joining us today.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to meet you personally at Emmanuel Bible Church.

Our service times and other church information is on our website at ibc.church.

If you want information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to tms.edu.

I hope this resource has been an encouragement to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel of Jesus Christ with boldness.

May the Lord bless you.