God at the Centre: Gathered in the Gospel - Nov 3, 2024 (Myles Holmes)

Hello and welcome to the Redemption Church Podcast.

We're a church in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada that exists to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission and the spirit of the Great Commandment.

Thanks for joining us today.

If you don't have a Bible, the ushers are going to be making their way down to the front, and you can just slip your hand in the air.

They'd love to get one into your hands.

You can keep this as our gift to you.

We love God's word here.

We love to get into God's word.

And this morning we find ourselves in Nehemiah chapter 8.

Nehemiah 8 · chapter mention

Let me read this for us, and let me encourage you to follow along with me as we read.

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

And they told Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses that the Lord 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 who were attentive, sorry, sorry, and all and the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law.

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

And beside him stood Matatiah, Shema, Ananiah, Uriah, Hilkiah, Maaseah on his right hand.

And Padiah, Meshael, Malkaiah, Hashim, Hashbadanah, Zechariah, and Meshalim on his left hand.

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

And as he opened it, all the people stood.

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

And they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground.

Also Jeshua, Bani, Shereh, Jammon, Akub, Shabbatai, Hodiah, Maasiah, Kalitah, Azariah, Josabad, Hannah, Hanan, Peliah, and the Levites helped the people to understand the law, while the people remained in their places.

They read from the book, from the law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.

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

Do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.

So the 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 to send portions, and to make great rejoicing, because they had understood the words that were declared to them.

On the second day the heads of the fathers' houses of all the people, with the priests and the Levites, came together to Ezra the scribe in order to study the words of the law.

And they found in it written in the law that the Lord had commanded by Moses that the people of Israel should dwell in booths during the feast of the seventh month, and that they should proclaim it and publish it in all their towns and in Jerusalem, go out to the hills and bring branches of olive, wild olive, myrtle, palm, and other leafy trees to make booths, as it is written.

So the people went out and brought them and made booths for themselves, each one on his roof, and in their courts, and in the courts of the house of God, and in the square of the water gate, and in the square of the gate of Ephraim.

And all the assembly of those who had returned from cap the captivity made booths, and lived in the booths, for from the days of Jeshua, the son of Nun, to that day, the people of Israel had not done so, and there was very great rejoicing.

And day by day, from the first day to the last day, he read from the book of the law.

They kept the feast seven days.

And on the eighth day, there was a solemn assembly according to the rule.

But that statement is this that revival starts and only starts.

In other words, it's never begun without this.

Revival starts with the preaching of God's word and the proper response to it.

It's a pretty bold statement.

What I'm saying is that God has never done a significant renewing work in the lives of his people apart from the preaching of his word and then the obedient and proper response to it.

Think about it for a moment.

Think about the Old Testament.

I mean, the Old Testament is really a book about a nation, Israel, that things go well for when they listen to God's preachers, but they go horribly for once those people stop listening to the word of God.

You come to the New Testament and you read Acts and you see that the explosive growth of the New Testament church, the fastest growing movement in all of the history of humanity, comes at the very helm of the preaching of God's word.

It is when God's people preach his word that God then grows his church.

You look throughout history, whether it's the Reformation and Calvin and Luther or the Great Awakening and Edwards and Whitfield, what you find is that every time that God has done a significant work in the lives of his people, a reviving work, it has come through powerful preaching that is then properly responded to by God's people.

We believe that we need this.

And we find it incredibly saddening.

I'm sure that even on your way into church this morning, you drove by many churches whose parking lots were completely empty.

And the reason for that is they have closed the book.

They've closed the book.

They have thought of the instrument of preaching as something that maybe is archaic, maybe something that needs to be moved on from.

And because of that, they've lost the very power of God.

And so they've drifted.

Preaching of the gospel is at the center of everything that the church needs to do.

This is what we do.

Him we proclaim.

Him we proclaim, Paul says, warning and teaching everyone.

This is what the church is to do, to declare the gospel.

Through its preaching, through its pulpit, through its ministries, through the practice of the one another, everything centers around the preaching.

Well, you ask, why is that?

And the answer is really because of what is being preached.

Because it is the gospel that is preached.

The gospel, the most amazing news that we could ever encounter, that there is a possibility of forgiveness of sins, that there is a redeemer who wants to save us, who came to this world and died so that we could have life.

It's the substance of the news that makes this proclamation so great, that makes it so important that we gather ourselves around it.

It makes this gathering more valuable than any other.

Because of what we're doing, we're centering ourselves this morning on the gospel.

It's more important than any other thing we could ever do.

I want you to see that the value of what we do when we preach the gospel is greater than the value of any other thing.

This is what we gather for.

As soon as we forsake that, we have forsaken everything.

And there's so there should be this sort of excitement in us as Christians and as members of this church.

There's this sort of excitement as we gather together because we're gathering around the gospel.

You remember in 2019 when the Raptors were winning?

Wasn't that such a great time?

I can see smiles coming to some of your faces as we even think about it.

I mean, to have a team in Toronto that was just doing well was just something we're not used to, is it?

And I don't care anything about basketball.

But when the Raptors started doing well, I was like the most avid basketball fan ever for like a span of a few weeks there.

I was if you had talked to me in that time, I would have known more than the head coach about basketball, about offensive rebounds, about other basketball things.

I knew everything.

I was so excited because finally Toronto had something of value.

They had a team I could stand behind, and really what we're doing this morning is we're getting behind the gospel, and as we gather together on these mornings, we're saying this there is nothing more valuable than the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It's a gospel that gathers us, it's the gospel we preach.

That's why we try as hard as we can to stay away from making this gathering just sort of a tradition.

I mean, if you want tradition, there there are religions and churches left, right, and center, that just kind of gather out of tradition.

Like we just kind of do this because this is what we do.

Maybe for you this morning, that's why you're here, but I want you to know that there's something so much more than that.

That's why we do everything that we can to make sure that we're not gathering just to be entertained.

Again, there are many forms of entertainment in our culture, many churches that seek to entertain, but that's not what we're after.

We're not after entertainment.

We are after this, an encounter in which we have a deeper and more significant understanding of the gospel.

And so I have great concern anytime I hear of a church or so-called church abandoning the gospel.

I just heard of one recently that instead of preaching, they're doing sort of this panel discussion.

And I just have this concern over that because I think as soon as you abandon the preaching of God's word, you have abandoned the very heart of what God has said he will use to build his church.

But I have an even more greater concern, and it's a personal concern.

And it's this concern that if you want to experience the work that God wants to do in your life, preaching is at the heart of it.

The renewal that God wants you to experience, the renewal that many of us long to experience in the gospel, it must happen through preaching and the proper response to it.

How we listen matters, doesn't it?

It matters how we listen.

In fact, if I were to try to convince you that my favorite band is the best band of all time, I would not bring you into Redemption Kids right now and put a headset on your ears.

There's no way you could listen to music in the chaos that's likely happening in Redemption Kids right now.

The way you listen matters.

How much more so is that true when it comes to the gospel, when it comes to our time together this morning?

The way that we gather around the gospel on a Sunday morning as the church of Jesus Christ, it is incredibly important.

And Nehemiah chapter 8 is showing us four postures that are required of us as we gather around God's word on these mornings.

Nehemiah 8 · chapter mention

Let's see that from Nehemiah 8.

But before we do that, let's turn to the Lord in prayer.

Father, we bow before you.

And God, we ask for your help in this moment.

Lord, we believe that you have made it your purpose to use the preaching of the gospel to advance your kingdom on earth.

God is so significant that when Jesus' ministry began, it began with preaching.

And God is so significant that you made your son a preacher of the kingdom.

He said the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

And God, as we continue to carry on the desire that you have given to your church to be a pillar of the truth in a society and a country where truth is ever degrading.

God, it's our desire that we preach your word your way.

And so, God, we make every effort to preach nothing but your word.

That's why, God, our the Bible's open on this pulpit, that's why in our laps your word is open.

Because, God, it expresses this desire we have to hear from you.

And this recognition, Lord, that we have nowhere else to go.

Lord, you hold the words of eternal life.

And so we bow before you.

God, we pray that the supernatural act of what's happening right now as you speak to us through your word would have a profound impact on us.

And God, we pray that you would help us as we think through Nehemiah 8 of the posture that we must take before your word.

Lord, help us to have that posture work in us by your Holy Spirit, we pray.

I pray this in the name of your son.

Amen.

Four postures we need as we gather together.

First is this we we gather expectantly.

When we're gathered in the gospel, we gather expectantly.

Notice in verse 1 of chapter 8 that we're told all the people gathered as one man into the square before the water gate.

Now, if you reverse a little bit, you'll know that this is over 50,000 people that had just finished the walls around Jerusalem.

The temple had been done in Ezra's day, and now that we are told they are gathered as one group of people.

And we understand something significant is going to happen, and surely something significant does happen.

They are standing there before Ezra, and look what they say.

They tell Ezra, bring the book.

Bring the book.

50,000 people united in heart to say this to Ezra, the man of God.

Bring out the book.

What is the book?

Well, we're told here, Nehemiah tells us exactly what this book is that you and I hold in our hands.

Look what Nehemiah says about it.

Bring the book of the law of Moses that the Lord had commanded Israel.

Some of your translations there will even say that the Lord had given Israel.

And here's what we understand about this book that the Israelites were calling for.

And this book that we actually hold in our hands is no different, that it was written by Moses, but given by God.

You and I hold the very same book in our hands, and the very chapter we're reading was written by Nehemiah, but it is given by God.

It is inspired by God, so that as we look at this book, the thing that we understand about it is that this is God's book.

God wrote a book.

And as these 50,000 people gather and they all eyes are on Nehemiah, and with one gathered voice, one collective voice, they say to Nehemiah, Bring the book.

Our response is, what else would they want Nehemiah to or Ezra to bring?

If Ezra has the book that contains the very words of God, then to bring anything else would be to bring something that is of lesser value.

And so they declare, bring the book.

Because Ezra has the book that contains the very words of God.

Ezra has the book that is written by God Himself.

And as we consider this reality of expectant gathering around the book that God wrote, my question for you this morning is this how do you, how did you come in this morning?

How much awe did you have in your heart as we opened up God's word?

As I asked you to open up Nehemiah, what reverence was there that you gave to these scriptures to understand this, that this just isn't another book.

These aren't just some words.

This is the very word of God.

Is it possible that you and I have lost the supernatural wonder of what this book is?

That it is a living word.

That it is the same word that when God gave these words to Israel and Moses, it came in thunder and clouds of lightning.

And the people of Israel were shook to the core.

They were filled with fear.

They could not even face God.

God was so holy.

They asked Moses to intercede on their behalf.

This is the very word of God.

So are we expectant this morning?

I mean, think for a moment about the theology of what is happening right now.

Think about the theology of what is happening.

Think about the book that we are preaching from.

This is God's book.

This is God's word.

And if we could hear from anyone in the whole universe right now, can we not all agree?

I mean, Christian or not here, whatever your worldview is, couldn't we all agree that like God is the one we want to hear from?

That's the one I want to interview on 60 Minutes with.

Like God, the one who was there at the very foundation of the world.

He spoke the world into existence.

That's who I want to hear from.

But not only is it God's word that we're hearing from as we preach from his word, it's also God's Spirit that is with us.

And you recognize that right now, that the Holy Spirit is active with us.

And if you are a believer in Christ, the Holy Spirit is not just present here, he is in you, and he is eager to use these words to transform you.

This is all part of the plan.

And the Spirit is overjoyed to be here so that he can use his word to chisel away at you so that you can become more and more like Jesus Christ.

We preach the word of God in the presence of the Holy Spirit, and so, of course, then we say, Bring the book.

Bring the book.

May that always be true of Redemption Church.

Then in every one of our Sunday services, our expectation is bring the book.

May it be so that if this book is ever closed in this pulpit, the people of God here depart.

Bring the book, we say.

May it be so in each of our ministries, we come with the book, saying this, you have given me nothing if you do not bring the book.

We need the book.

And yet, left, right, and center, this book is being abandoned because it contains the message that if we are honest with ourselves, we just don't want to hear.

And many times it's easier to preach another gospel than to preach the gospel that is contained in God's word.

It would be easier in so many ways.

It would tickle ears in so many ways.

Reminded of John MacArthur, who I once heard say that the best way that you could plant a church is to go around that neighborhood and ask people what they want to hear and then preach the opposite of it.

And that's how God words confront us so often.

So that there is a great pressure often put on so-called leaders in the church to close the book and to preach something else entirely.

And yet may it never be so, for this is the word of God, and it is the very book that the Spirit of God uses to do his work in our midst.

And so here's the application for us.

I mean, here's a real simple application.

This is grace filled, this is not about condemnation, but the application is this do you have The book?

Do you have I mean you cannot in this day and age where this book is printed left, right, and center, and there's 15 copies out there, and we just had ushers with a handful of books piled down the aisles.

Do you have the book?

Did you bring the book?

Let me make another application here and let me just apologize.

As a pastor, I shouldn't say this, but this is a little extra biblical.

You ready?

I want you to notice that it doesn't say bring the phone that contains the book.

Okay?

Now, some of you guys are exegetes and you're saying, listen, there's some cultural issues there.

Nehemiah didn't have phones, so he didn't have to deal with that in his day, to which I say, praise God.

Let's go back to Nehemiah's day.

And yet, let me let me just say this is not law.

This is not, you know, sin.

But I think that there is an incredible amount of wisdom in a paper copy of God's word.

I mean, it brings me so much joy to come across a section of scripture that I have marked up because I have heard a sermon on it.

It is almost like a little hall of fame of the work that God has done in me.

And you know, I love this Bible with, I mean, the problem is it's massive and it's got coffee spaints all over it and it's starting to fall apart, but I just cannot get rid of it because I have listened to so many sermons and marked it up, and sermons I've preached myself, and it becomes this little hall of fame, and it's so helpful to have.

You know, I don't need to mention how distracting phones are.

Aren't they often more distracting than they are helpful?

But I think also that by having a physical copy of God's word, we are actually saying something to God.

I think it gives us this unique opportunity to say something to God, to communicate by our actions.

God, I am here this morning with this book because I want to hear from you.

This is commitment we make, this sort of personal commitment with God.

God, speak to me through your book.

I want to hear from you.

And so I've brought this.

I mean, it's kind of inconvenient, isn't it?

I mean, after the service, I realize how inconvenient it is to have this massive Bible in your hands.

You got a coffee in another hand, someone wants to shake your hand, and you're trying to hold the coffee and you're spilling coffee all over the place, is incredibly inconvenient in many ways.

I know I make it more convenient to bring a physical copy of God's word because I keep preaching from these places in the Bible that are impossible to find.

And so I apologize for that.

And yet, let us push through the inconvenience of a paper copy for the convenience of all that it conveys.

And if for nothing else than what it does for us personally, let us consider for a moment what that conveys visually to the watching world.

I mean, I'm I'm reminded of a testimony I heard where a person was sitting in the parking lot of a church and was in awe because they had gone to church their whole life, but everyone streaming into this church was carrying a Bible and they couldn't understand that.

Why do these people need the Bible?

To which we should shake our heads.

At the many so-called preachers who even preach without a Bible.

People of the Word.

And we say, bring the book.

Well, I want you to notice this about expectant gathering, though.

Notice that these people are gathering with this great expectancy around what God will do.

And I want you to maybe practically take this away about expectant gathering.

I want you to notice that it's timely.

Look at verse 2 with me, and notice that Nehemiah says there, 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.

This was an incredibly relevant time period for the people of God, because in the seventh, the seventh month was filled with festivals and rituals that they were commanded to do by God, whether it was the Day of Atonement or, as we'll read in a few verses, the feast of booths.

And so as they've completed the walls, they found themselves, interestingly, just like Ezra when he completed the temple, they found themselves on the seventh month, and there are ways that they need to be obedient to God's word.

And so there's this great eagerness to hear from God's word, but this great, also this understanding that God has a relevant word for them about a practice that must be put into place.

And let me suggest that the same is true for us every Sunday morning.

Do you come?

Have you come this morning with this expectancy that the Holy Spirit has a biblical truth that he wants to plant deeply into your heart?

Maybe you're an unbeliever here this morning, and I want you to understand this, that I believe that you are here for a reason.

I don't believe that this is by accident.

I don't believe that it's just for the sake of seeing your cute niece or nephew or whatever it is be bat be uh dedicated.

I almost switched denominations there.

The elders were ready to stand up there.

I believe that there's more to it.

I believe that God has sovereignly planned for you to be here and that he has a word for you, and it's the most important word that you'll ever hear in your life.

It's a timely word.

God has a word for us this morning.

His word is, we're told in Hebrews, living and active, which means every time we open it, he wants to speak to us.

And so the question then is, are we listening?

You know what I love?

I've been accused of many, many times of reading people's emails throughout the week.

And the reason for that is because people just feel that the preaching at times is too relevant for them.

Like it's exact maybe exactly what they were thinking about that morning.

I've had people, you know, text me that day and say, like, okay, I don't know what's going on here.

You were reading my thoughts or something, and I just want to let you know I do.

I do, no, I'm just kidding, I don't do that at all.

But what that is, is the work of the Holy Spirit.

It's not me.

I mean, I have one message to preach, and and yet what I do is I entrust it to the Spirit, and He delivers it in so many ways.

So that you know what happens so often is that people come up to me and they say, Hey, what you know, when you said, and then they say something that I never actually said, it really changed my life.

And you know, I praise the Lord because that is the Holy Spirit working in you as long as it's true and good, speaking to you.

I love one time I had a conversation with someone, about half a year later, they accused me of preaching about that conversation every week for the following like half of a year.

And I said, I'm relentless, but I'm not that relentless.

I will not beat a nail that long.

And yet, here is what it is.

I believe the Holy Spirit pressing in this area that they need to hear.

There's a timely word for us here.

I want you to notice also, though, that expectant gathering is eager.

It's eager.

So that in verse 3, when the people gather, we're told that they they gather before the word from early morning until midday.

And what I want to draw out from this is a principle for the length of sermons.

Long sermons are biblical.

I'm noticing I'm not getting a lot of amens here.

I'm not, I'm noticing I'm not, I'm getting a lot of like awkward kind of laughter.

And I am kidding.

And yet I want you just to recognize here that there is this great eagerness, we're told at the end of verse 3, that all the people were attentive to the book of the law.

They wanted to hear it.

They wanted to be there.

And listen, can can I just keep pressing this application home?

I mean, really, this sermon is just gonna be me reading Nehemiah and saying, Do you?

Do you?

Is that you?

Is that you?

Because that's what the Spirit needed to do in me this week.

Was there an eagerness as you came to gather with God's people?

As you recognized this morning that the word of God would be open?

Is there attentiveness right now?

Is your back up straight?

Are you in listening mode?

Are you following along the text where we are?

Are you focused in on what God is saying to you this morning?

Is there an eagerness?

The reality is that if we are in Christ, we should be like the psalmist who in Psalm 122 says, I was filled with joy when they said, Let us go to the house of the Lord.

What emotion do you feel?

When the time comes around on Sunday morning, and it is time to go to the house of the Lord.

You know, I get it.

When my kids don't want to come to my come to church or, you know, youth, they don't want to come to church, I get it because so many of our kids are not Christians.

And they're not, I mean, they haven't been trans, they don't have a faith of their own yet.

And so in many ways, I mean I totally get it.

Of course, then.

Of course, there's no eagerness to go and hear the gospel when there is no faith of their own there.

And you know, my kids love church, but it is certainly not for my teaching or anything like that.

In fact, when I first came, they loved this church and they couldn't wait to come back, and you know, I was all excited.

I'm the best parent in the whole entire world.

My kids love church, and uh a little bit of digging in, and I realized they were excited to come back because the first Sunday I was here, they had ice cream trucks, and that had set a precedent for them.

Every week there's gonna be ice cream trucks, and so I was they were sorely disappointed for the following two and a half years after that.

And so I understand then why it would be challenging for kids, but listen, if if the Holy Spirit is in you, if your confession is Christ, there should be a great gladness and eagerness when you come into his house.

And there should be a repentance when your heart is not there.

You know, I also helped this past Friday at the worship and prayer night.

I was talking to a brother from uh Redemption Durham, and he's been so profoundly impactful on me.

And and you know, I was on like a real high after a Friday night.

It was an awesome night of worship, and I said, Man, wasn't that awesome?

And he was like, eh, yeah, I don't know.

And I was like, oh, what's going on?

And he's like, Oh, I just he's he said, I just wish that I had 10 minutes.

I wish I had like 10 minutes before we started to really like you know get my heart in the right place.

And I said, Oh, well, you got there, right?

And he's like, No, no, I just never did.

And it was this reminder of like, man, how many times have I missed out on the Lord on something the Lord has to say to me because I have not done the work of repentance when my heart is not eager and dependence to get my heart in the right place.

Expectant gathering is eager gathering.

I want you to notice also that expectant gathering is worshipful gathering.

We're told here that the people, when Ezra read, he read alongside a whole bunch of people who are clearly by their names Hebrews.

And all the people stood in verse 5, we're told.

There is a reverence given to God's word, and this this reverence is something that's worshipful.

I want you to recognize here that it's something that we have to give.

We come on a Sunday morning, and this is not just a show, this is not just something that we attend.

In fact, just this week I was reflecting on this, and you know, we we call people who attend this church attendees, and I think that's a horrible name for it.

We're gonna change it.

Because we're not just attending, this isn't just something that you attend, this is a worship service, and this morning you have come with something to give.

Something to give through worship.

Now, the issue is that you and I live in a consumerist society, and we've talked about this before, but these are the waters that we swim in, and so it's so helpful for us to remind ourselves over and over and over again that we live in an age of consumerism.

If you want to go to a gym, there are 400 different options for what kind of gym you want to go to, whether they do this program or they don't do that program, or they will let you come in at this time and not at that time.

If you want to watch a show, there's millions of different shows you can watch to sort of scratch your appetite and to be what you want.

If you want mayo, I mean buying mayo is a hard decision now, isn't it?

There's burger mayo and aioli mayo and spicy mayo and there's just too many mayos in the world.

Remember a simpler time when there was only one mayo?

I'm about to get derailed here.

This whole sermon is gonna be about mayo, and so we'll reel it in now.

We live in an age of consumerism, and the sad thing is that has bled into the church so that now there are many churches for me, and the question is what's in it for me?

What's best for me?

What serves me the most?

And let me suggest that if that's your question as you come into the church, what's in it for me, then you have come to worship the wrong person.

We come on these mornings with this, we are here this morning because God deserves glory.

Is your heart there?

I mean, I gotta confess, my heart is not always there.

That's the very reason we are here because God deserves worship.

The question is not what is in it for me, it's what opportunity do I have to give God the worship that He is worth.

I want you to notice also here, the second point, that when we gather, we we gather expectantly, but that we also gather responsively.

Notice here in verse 6, it says, Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, Amen, amen, lifting up their hands.

And they bowed their heads and worship the Lord with faces to the ground.

Verse 6, the the people respond to the word of God.

Let me suggest a principle from God's word here, and that is worship requires response.

Worship requires response.

And the worship of God, you cannot give worship to God as a passive attendant of a worship service, but you must be an active participant.

In other words, we're asking this question right now: who's the audience this morning?

You know, we have a stage, and so you would initially think that the audience is the people who aren't on the stage.

And you know, let me suggest that in our worship services that the audience is of one, the audience is God, that we're all on a stage, that we are here to give God the worship that he is due to respond properly to him.

And so we have this idea sometimes, you know, a lot of us serve in this church, and we think, okay, well, this Sunday I'm serving and this Sunday I'm not.

And maybe we need to change that.

You know, this Sunday I'm formally serving, but every Sunday I'm here, I am serving in a sense of I am here for God.

I'm here to respond to Him.

Now I want to then look at verse six and maybe parse it out a little bit here.

Notice that Ezra blesses the Lord, the great God, and all the people answer, and that their answer is both physical and spiritual.

Their answer is spiritual in the sense that they worshiped the Lord, we're told in verse six.

This worship is a spiritual reality, it's a response of the soul.

Worship happens in your heart when you're in your inner being you are giving value and ascribing worth to God.

It's a soul reality.

And yet their worship was also physical.

They said with their mouths, Amen, amen.

They lifted up their hands and they bowed their head with their faces to the ground.

There was a spiritual aspect of it, but equally as important for Nehemiah is that there was a physical outflow of that spiritual reality.

Now let's seek to understand this.

I want you to understand that as a human being, you are dualistic.

You are a soul inside of a body.

This is what the Christian worldview says: that you are embodied, you are a soul, you are living inside of a body, you have a spiritual nature, you have a physical nature.

And both of those things are united with each other.

So that the body does not act without the soul, and the soul does not act without the body.

They're united.

So let me just really practically show you what I'm talking about, okay?

I have a snack that I love to eat.

This is an illustration here of our how our body and our soul work together.

I got a snack that I like to eat.

I like to cut up carrots into like little tiny sticks.

You get a giant tub of mustard.

And I love to dip that carrot into the mustard and eat it.

I'm being dead serious.

I love it.

It's great.

It's crunchy, it's tangy.

And I would just ask that you try it before you shake your head like some of you are shaking right now.

Now I've lost a lot of respect.

I probably should have picked a different illustration, but here I am with this carrot mustard illustration.

But it has done something profound in this room, and I got to see it a lot better than you got to see it.

But there were three responses.

I could tell on your faces that there were three soul responses.

We're talking about something really deep with an illustration that's really silly.

I get that, but it's helpful.

There's three soul responses.

Some of you were disgusted by that, and you couldn't help but to be like, ugh.

I even heard, I think Joel was it, which shows you what kind of like employee-employer relationship we have.

He was like, Ugh.

I saw, you know, some people over here shaking their heads, and other people were like leaning over, like this guy's really weird.

You're disgusted by that.

Some of you guys just like you're like, all right, verdict's out.

You know, you were neutral.

I don't, I don't even know.

That sounds okay to me.

Others were like, yeah, rock on, man.

Carrot mustard gang.

They have mustard stain on their shirt.

Like, yeah, let's go.

Love mustard.

Now notice that there are three different physical responses that are the product of three different uh reactions to whether you think that's gross, you're neutral to it, or you like it.

But no matter what, everyone had a physical response.

See, when something happens in the soul, it almost always has a physical outlet.

Proverbs 15, 13 says, a glad heart makes a cheerful face, and we say, Yes.

That makes sense.

I mean, you don't walk up to your spouse, you know, they're they're angry, they're pouting, they're frowning, and you say, hey, what's wrong?

Like, no, I'm super happy right now.

I'm really happy.

I mean, it just doesn't work like that.

And you ever tried to like not smile when actually like you're you think something's funny or or you're actually happy?

Ever try to like restrain a smile?

I mean, there is no sillier face than you could make than when you're trying to do that.

You cannot help.

And the pr the writer of Proverbs understood this.

A glad heart makes a cheerful face when there's a response in the heart, then there is a physical response in worship.

And so notice here that worship requires a physical response so that there are these outlets that we are given as human beings that are just helpful.

It is great to say amen.

I love that.

We got to do that more in this church, amen.

Yeah, we do it all right.

It is great in worship to be able to raise our hands and express what is happening in our heart of God.

You are so worthy of worship.

God, I'm pledging this to you.

God, I'm giving this to you.

Nice.

I love it.

So worthy to be able to bow our heads in times of mourning and repentance and be able to give this physical outlet of what is happening in our heart.

This is a right thing for us to do.

And so my question here is maybe twofold, why don't we do it?

Now there's multiple reasons, isn't there?

Like if we're honest, there are multiple reasons why we are a little hesitant to maybe raise our hands in worship or to say amen at a particular point that requires it.

Maybe for some of us it's denominational.

We just grew up in a denomination where it's like you did not do that.

I don't know what denomination you grow up if you do lift your hands, if it's like first church of the lifted hands or something like that, and you grew up in first church of the sit on your hands denomination.

Some of us it was just like maybe at a young age or we like watched a YouTube video or something, it was just like made fun of.

People made fun of other people who raised their hands in worship.

Yeah, look at that guy, it looks like he's holding the TV.

And now you just have the sort of like perspective of it that's like, well, that's a foolish thing to do.

For others of us, it's a battle.

You know, I don't want to draw attention to myself, I don't want to make this seem like something that it's not.

Can I suggest though that maybe at the heart of it is pride?

Maybe there's this pride that you're just thinking about yourself too much.

That you're just thinking about your upbringing too much, you're just thinking about what other people think about you too much, and you're Thinking enough about the worship that God deserves.

You know, when my wife comes home this weekend from the women's retreat, I am gonna lift my arms up and I'm gonna embrace her.

And I will not care about what anyone thinks about that.

When my kids come and they lift up their arms, I would not care about what anybody thinks about me picking them up.

There is something so beautiful about that physical response.

So it is with our worship.

What a great out.

See, this again, this is not condemnation.

This is grace.

God has given us hands and arms to lift to Him and praise.

God has given us a voice to say amen and to sing his praises.

This is all about grace.

More scary then is if the reality of why we don't do this is actually because we don't really have anything to respond to.

And that may be a reality for you.

Maybe the reality is, you know, the reason why you don't say amen in a sermon is because you just you have nothing to say amen about.

That in your soul, you you are even now, you are not delighting in God.

You just do not care about God's word.

And so there's nothing to say amen.

When we sing, you know, you just you do not care about God's worship.

About God's worship.

As we're blessed, the Lord, the great God.

The people answered, Amen.

Amen, lifting up their hands.

And they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground.

I want you to recognize they were reading from the law of Moses.

We're gonna get into this more next week, but as they were reading, they were reading of the Feast of Booths.

It's not the most devotional reading that you could ever imagine, is it?

And yet the content of what they were reading about was incredibly, incredibly important for them.

And it's incredibly important for us.

See, the feast of booths was a feast that was given to the people of God after they had been delivered from captivity in Egypt.

And what they were do were to do was in the desert, outside of Egypt, in front of Mount Sinai, they were to set up these temporary homes.

Like the more shabby these homes looked, it was almost like the better.

Because it was this reminder to them of we are on our way to the promised land.

And around the feast of Booth, these tents were set up around the tabernacle to remind them that we're in temporary homes, and the presence of God is in our midst, and we are not yet home.

Reminded that when John begins his gospel, he says something very significant.

He says the word became flesh in John 1.14.

The word became flesh and dwelt among us.

And in that word, dwell in the original language, the meaning there is really tabernacled.

And the feast of Booze, it pointed to something amazing.

It pointed to this reality that one day Jesus Christ would come.

And he, just like the Israelites were about to, we'll see this next week, but just as they were about to dwell in tents, Jesus tented among us.

Jesus tabernacled among us.

Jesus was in our presence.

Israelites read about the Feast of Booze and they celebrated and understood the meaning that this is not their final home.

God has a destination for them.

And that destination we find when we come to the New Testament is Jesus.

This morning, you and I, we gather around the same hope.

This hope that this is not our home.

That the places that we'll go to after this, our homes, they're just tense.

It's temporary.

We are on a journey.

God is bringing us to him, and he is doing it through Jesus Christ.

What greater news is there to gather around than the news of what Jesus Christ has done for us?

And so we turn to him now and worship.

Let's pray.

Father, we bow before you.

And God, we give you all the praise.

God, thank you for what you have done in your Son.

Lord, thank you that you have sent him to us so that we gather this morning and we have something great to sing about.

Lord, hope.

We have something great to sing about, and it is the joy that we can find in Jesus Christ.

God, I pray that in every way that would mold our gathering.

I'm going to pray in every way that would shape our gathering, even as we respond to you now in song.

God, I pray that that would shape our song.

God, that we would sing this with a great eagerness, with a great expectancy, with a great understanding, Lord, that this is our opportunity to respond to you and say, God, thank you.

Thank you for the work that you have done.

Thank you for who you are.

So, God, we turn to you now and we give you the praise that you deserve.

We pray this in the name of your son.

Amen.

Could you stand and sing with me?