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Episode 10 | Nehemiah: Building Your Life Upon the Word of God Message
September 3, 2026 · 43 min
Series Nehemiah September 3, 2026 · 43 min · Nehemiah
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Nehemiah's Story Recap 0:00 God is just working in this place and in and through you. And I'm I believe he's gonna work today through his word. Really excited about this. We've been going through a series and we're continuing to go through the0:10 series based off a guy's named Nehemiah in the bible. He wrote kind of in journal format and documented for us, how he led through a really, really difficult season. Believe it or0:22 not, much more difficult than 20 20, if you can imagine that. And he led through it successfully. And so we've just been going through this journal, just page by page, and extracting wisdom, from how he led and applying0:34 it to our lives as we lead through this crazy, crazy year. And it's been such a blessing to us. So let me catch you up in case you're new. Every week, we have new people here and online. Nehemiah was an interesting guy.0:45 He was a leader. He was the cup bearer to the king of Persia. What that means was he would taste his wine and taste his food to make sure that there was no poison in it because in those days, that's how they would0:56 assassinate kings. They didn't have snipers, like hanging off of buildings. They would just put poison in your food. And so he's the most trusted guy. And 1 day, he's in the palace and he finds out by way of some of,1:08 his Jewish brothers that come in that his hometown is no longer how he had been told it was growing up. His hometown is in ruins. The walls that secured the town are now, fallen down1:20 and there's a big heap of rubble and, the gates are burned with fire and there's no officers there to protect and man everything. And it's just a royal mess. The people are in debt and they can't pay their bills and1:32 there's a famine in the land. And it says the people were in great distress. And this broke Nehemiah's heart when he heard it. All of the things that he had heard about this great city and all the memories that his1:43 fathers and grandfathers have told him are now going through his mind and his heart is broken. And he begins to seek God in prayer for 4 months, and God will lay on his heart for him to do something about it. Now1:54 Nehemiah is not a construction worker. He's not a priest. He's not a prophet. He's not a miracle worker. He's never done this before, but God will tell him, I want you to go rebuild the walls. And then he would go to the2:04 king and he would begin to muster up the courage to ask the king, but really he's in between a rock and a hard place if you think about it because this is king Artaxerxes in the book of Ezra. It tells us that he wrote2:16 the law that it cannot be rebuilt, the walls of Jerusalem, until he says so. Now if a king writes a law, he's not gonna reverse it. Okay? And so he's in between this rock and a hard place because God told him what to do,2:27 but he can't because his boss wouldn't allow it. But then he begins to pray and pray and pray. And 1 day at the perfect time, he asked for permission. And the king grants him permission to leave his job and go rebuild2:38 the walls of Jerusalem. Not only that, he gives him a blank paycheck to go and get all the cedar that he needs from the forest and all the materials that he needs. And the Bible says that he granted him this2:50 because the good hand of God was upon him. I believe that God began to turn and soften the heart of this king so much that he now has the permission, he's got the pay to go do it. And now he sets off and3:02 he rallies all these people there that were distressed and in debt, and they were hurting. And he says, this is not how life should be. And he cast this grander vision of what could be. And he says, I need you to get3:14 all in, And let's all rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. Well, of course, they get all in to begin with. Right? I mean, who wouldn't want a better life? And they get into this thing and they get about halfway. And then they3:25 start receiving criticism. They start getting opposition. They start getting threats from other people, but they continue to build. And they get to the spot where we saw 2 weeks ago where they finish and complete3:37 the wall. And you would think that's where the period would be in this journal. You would think that's where we would close it up and say, great story, and they'd all lived happily ever after. I mean, after all,3:49 isn't that the story that you heard growing up in Sunday school about Nehemiah? That he was just some guy that built a wall in 52 days. But as we've been studying, there's more to the story than4:01 just that. This is a story not just about building a wall. It was about God building a leader in Nehemiah who would then build a group of people, who would rebuild a culture, who would follow God in a4:12 world that didn't. And as we've been talking about, this is our call, I believe. The church, Jesus followers all across the world, I believe this is our moment and this is our calling in this season4:24 for us to allow God to build us into a leader that would build our family, our office environment, the people that we influence, and that would rebuild a culture that would follow God in a world that4:36 clearly, well, doesn't. In such a way that other people on the outside would begin to look in and say, I want what they have. I I want I wanna know what is it that makes them operate off a different4:48 system. And I believe that's what God's calling us to do. And last week, we looked at chapter 7, and now he's up to his his greatest feet. I mean, he's rebuilt the walls, but now he's gonna be building the people inside5:00 of the walls. And we saw what he did. He brought in gatekeepers to guard the wall to make sure that the wrong people didn't get inside and corrupt what he's trying to build. Then he brought in singers to lead them in5:09 worship. Then he brought in the Levites, the preacher boys. And now he's starting to set some standards in which they should live by. And we find ourselves in chapter 8 today of Nehemiah's journal. And we're about to5:20 discover the catalyst for change in our lives and in their lives. Quite frankly, this is the tipping point, the high point of the entire book of Nehemiah.The Power of God's Word 5:32 This is the spot where we see lasting change in the people. And I believe this wholeheartedly. What you will learn today will be a defining moment in your story,5:44 just as it was in their story. And I believe this, that the person that God wants you to become is determined by what you do with what Nehemiah teaches today. It's a lot of pressure. Right? A lot of pressure, but but it5:56 is, and you will you'll find out why in just a moment. See, we go throughout life looking for change, don't we? Change to make things better. We go throughout life looking for change to make things better in our in our6:06 health, change to make things better in our wealth, change to make things better in our relationship. We go through all our lives looking for how do we change things and make it better. And I wanna tell you what6:17 Nehemiah's journal is gonna teach us today is the greatest change agent in our lives. And what Nehemiah is now about to teach the people and us is what it looks like to live and build their lives off6:29 the word of God. And when they do, we're gonna immediately begin to see change. Now some of you have been looking for change in the wrong places. And I wanna tell you that the change that you're looking for,6:41 the lasting change that we can have in our life is found when we build our lives upon the word of God. Some Some of you have been looking for the will of God. How do I find the will of God? How do I find it? It's in the6:51 word of God. Some of you have been going through a season where you face depression and anxiety, and you say, I just I want peace. It's found in the word of God. Some of you are are looking for what's God's plan for my7:02 life that's found in the word of God. Some of you are weary. You're tired. You fought battles after battle after battle, and you need renewed strength. It's found in the word of God. Some of you have been through so many7:14 trials that you begin to pray, and you begin to start your prayer life. And I wanna tell you that's fantastic, but that's only 0.5 of the equation. See, when we pray, we're talking to God. When we open his word, he7:25 speaks to us. That that that's a relationship. Where you're gonna find that relationship is through the word of God. And so now we begin to see something that he's about to build their lives upon the word of God. And all7:36 of us, by the way, are building our lives off something. We're building off culture. We're building it off our values. We're building perhaps off our parents values. Some of us are building our life of psychology or7:46 science. All these things are earthly principles. What Nehemiah is gonna teach us is we must build our lives off the eternal word of God. Remember Jesus said over Matthew's gospel, man does not live by7:58 bread, yum yum yum, alone. He lives by every word that flows forth from the mouth of God. See, we are a body. We we sometimes think we are a body that has a soul. No. We are a8:10 soul that has a body. Our soul lives on forever. And how we feed it and how we build it is off the word of God. Now I wanna give, credit where credits due to the late great Adrian Rogers. Rogers. As I8:21 was studying chapter 8, he had the richest content I've ever seen on chapter 8. And I know he's looking down from heaven today, so a little bit of pressure on me. 1 of the greatest preachers of all time. But here we go.8:32 Let's jump in. It says this in verse 1, all the people assemble with a unified purpose. They were 1. At the square just inside the Watergate. Now let me do a pop quiz. We talked about the8:44 10 gates the other week. What does the Watergate stand for? Come on, somebody. Please tell me I didn't waste a sermon. What just 1 person. What does the Watergate stand for? I'll ask my wife. What did the8:56 Watergate stand for? The word of God. Okay. We'll do that sermon over next week since we didn't get it. The the Watergate stands for the word of God. Alright? And now here we go. All the people are here and here's here's9:06 the word of God. And it says they're standing outside and then they asked Ezra, the scribe, he's the preacher, to bring out the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had given to Israel to9:18 to obey. What a moment. Let me paint the picture for a moment. 30 to 50000 people gathered. Huge worship service. No social9:30 distancing. And they're all here and they're chanting bring out the book. Bring out the word of God. They were number 1, if we're gonna build our lives off the word of God. They were9:42 hungry for the word of God. They had a hunger for the word of God. They're chanting 50000 of them. Bring out the book. Bring out the book. Bring out the word of God. We want lasting change.9:55 Bring out the word of God. Think about it for Ezra. Those of you that studied the book of Ezra before, remember Ezra prayed that the people might have a hunger for the word of God? Remember he he wept, he fasted for10:06 weeks and months and prayed for those people to turn around and turn back to God? He repented on behalf of those people. Think about for Ezra. Here's Ezra 14 years later10:19 standing up there with 50000 people that he had wept and prayed over. And they're now saying, Ezra, bring out the book. Bring out the book. We hunger for the word of God. Can you imagine what it10:31 felt like for for Ezra? Can you imagine what it felt like for the people of God? You remember earlier they were in a famine. They were physically hungry. And now we see them spiritually hungry. Hungry for the word of10:42 God. I listened, to an article, or listened to a podcast the other day. And it took the top 100 most successful business leaders in the world. Some of these were10:55 billionaires. And it said there must be a common denominator between the top 100. So this guy went around and he interviewed the top 100 business executives in the world and found out that the common denominator between11:06 all of them was that they had a hunger to be the best in their field. A hunger to be the and that's what drove them to be the best. I wanna tell you, in your life spiritually, you'll never be your best until you have a11:17 great hunger for the word of God. Do you have a hunger just like these people here today? The Bible teaches us that David said over in Psalms that the word of God is like finding treasure. You ever when as a child, you11:29 know, went on these pretend treasure hunts, David said it's better than treasure. Job said he desired the word of God more than food for his body. And you know what? I know what kind of sissy you are. Just go 1 day11:39 without food. Just 3 meals. It it'll it'll make a coward of you real quick 1. Go 3 days without a and see what happens. We we have to have it. What if we what if we desired and hungered the word of God like we11:51 hunger for food? What if we what if we couldn't go without it? That's what Job was saying here. I understand that. I I love food. Someone once told me, they said, I don't think you've ever preached a sermon that you12:01 didn't use a food illustration. They had to think about it. I'm like, that's actually true. It's because I love food. I love food because I grew up a preacher's kid. I couldn't do jack squat. I wasn't allowed to do12:12 nothing, you know, like, because all eyes on me. It was like a Tupac song. All eyes on me. None of y'all okay. Good. Y'all are holy people. Should've seen the other services. They knew that more than they knew the12:21 Watergate, which is sad to me. Anyways, I love love food because I couldn't go out and and drink with my friends or go out and and do this because the whole world was always watching me. But when me and12:33 that steak got alone, I could do whatever I wanted. I could do whatever I wanted. I could do whatever I wanted. I said, so I have a I have a a love for food, but I wanna tell you something. As much as I love food, less12:44 much as I love fine dining, there's nothing more sweet than God's words speaking to me personally. We've all we've all had that moments hopefully in the Christian life where you where you've had a moment where God just12:56 he just speaks to you. Ironically, had that it's not every day. Had it this morning where God just spoke to me through through through his word, and there's nothing more sweet than that. And that's what Job13:08 is saying here, saying nothing as sweet as that. The application is this, do you have a hunger for the word of God? Do you have a real hunger for the word of God? If not, pray for 1. Now the 2nd13:19 thing that we ought to do if we're gonna build our life upon the word of God is we must know this, There was a hearing of the word of God. A hearing of the word of God. Look at this. It says, so on October, Ezra the13:30 priest brought the book of the law before the assembly, which included men and women and all the children old enough to understand. And he faced the square just inside the Watergate. Guys, what what was the Watergate13:41 representing? Okay. That's much better. That's what I was hoping the 1st time, but we'll try again next week. It's good. It's good. We're all slow learners. He said, early morning until noon, he he read out loud to13:52 everybody who all could understand. And all the people listen closely to the book of the law. It says that here they all gathered. They came for 1 purpose, to hear the word of God. And14:04 now they're teaching it in such a way that they can understand it. 40 to 50000 people, 30 to 50000 people here with 1 purpose, not to be entertained. They didn't have lighting. They didn't have cameras zooming around.14:14 They didn't have seats. They stood for 6 hours as they preach the word of God For 6 hours. Now here, if I go 1 minute past 12, it's it's it's it's a14:26 race to the parking lot. It's a race to chilies. Right? Sometimes sometimes we we rush the word of God and we rush when God wants to speak and hear. He's he's he's speaking and there's a14:38 hearing. They're understanding the word of God. Adrian Rogers said this. So this statement changed his his life and he said, not that we shouldn't be timely and orderly. We shouldn't go on forever, but we ought not to14:50 rush the Holy Spirit. He said, the clock chimes 12 and the church gave up her dead. The clock chimes 12 and the church gave up her dead. You know what he's saying? He's saying we're so rushed to to15:02 do our agenda that when souls are being saved and lives are being changed and people are getting baptized, when it times 12 though, we're back to our agenda. Lord, we no longer care about about your agenda. Yeah. I know15:13 that souls are being saved, but I gotta get to my car 1st. I've gotta get to the restaurant. Isn't that true and yet yet sad? We ought to be we ought to be hungry for the word of God. When he's speaking,15:25 we ought to be listening to the word of God. God is always speaking. Are you listening? Question. I always enter church or my quiet time, and I it just have a simple saying that I say. I say,15:37 God, show me what you want me to see, hear, know, or do. Just show me what you want me to see, hear, know, or do. And and I'm I'm listening for God to speak to me. I I never forget that, this guy15:48 that that I really respected. He was kind of he was a pastor that had multiple mega churches, and he led conferences that 800000 people would attend. And he would teach leadership, pastoral leadership.16:00 And he was kind of the the the guru, you know, of leadership in in those days. And he said that on Sundays, no matter where he was in the world, he would go to church. So he was on his sabbatical, and he was over in16:10 Hawaii, and he goes to the small little church. And he had gotten to the spot in his spiritual life where he felt like he was, like, the spiritual judge or critic of how churches could be better and how God could speak16:21 to them better. And he's sitting back in this little country church, and he's writing down the the guy that did the announcements could have done better here. They need to change the light bulbs. They need to, ramp up16:30 this music here, do the key here. But he said he got through the whole worship service. He's got a whole list of notes, and he didn't hear nothing that God said. And he began to be deeply convicted that I just sat16:40 through an entire worship service as as as if I'm the spiritual judge of how God can speak. And he began to really quench the Holy Spirit, and he began to repent and say, God, I'm so sorry. Here I am. I should have been16:52 hearing what you had to say, but I'm over here writing a whole notes of how they can do things better. I'm sorry. Would you speak to me? I I've blown it. And they took up the offering and they sung an old hymn, and in17:03 the hymn was the exact words that he needed to hear. And tears flowed down his face as he began to think, here God is who's always speaking. Are we listening? God's always speaking. Are we17:14 listening? That's the question that we ought ought to have. Now, if you notice the 3rd thing that we see when we talk about building on the word of God is there's an honor given to the word of God. There's an honor given17:26 to the word of God. Look at what happens next. Ezra stood up on the platform in full view of the people. And when they saw him open the book, they all rose to their feet. Here he is. He opens the book. They17:38 rise to their feet. There's an honor for the word of God. Then Ezra praised the Lord, the great God, and all the people chanted, amen. Amen. Now you know what amen means. It means let it be so or we agree. WeHonor and Explain the Word 17:50 do that sometimes in church. And then it says they lifted their hands and they bowed down. They worship the Lord with their faces to the ground. They showed an honor for the word of God. Our biggest danger is18:02 not that we become Jesus fanatics next week. Our biggest danger is that we become lukewarm, cold believers who no longer get excited about the word of God. These are God's words to us18:14 and we ought to that ought to excite us. There ought to be an honor for the word of God. We are it ought to be okay to say amen, in church. Now I'm not talking about bringing attention to yourself. I'm not talking about18:25 tipping your own cup over. But if your cup is overflowing, let it overflow. And we ought to say amen. We ought to say I I agree with that. They showed an honor. It says they stood they18:37 they stood when he opened the book. And it made me think of how the word of God always has a a way of standing, doesn't it? I mean, we go throughout culture, and we try to push prayer out of, schools, but somehow God's18:48 word just continues to rise and stand. And I began to look at Isaiah chapter 40 verse 8 that says this, the grass withered and the flower faded, but the word of God shall stand forever. Friend, if you want to19:00 build your life on something, build it upon the word of God. The word of God has a way of standing no matter how much we push it down. And I began to think of, some people throughout history that tried to push down the19:10 word of God, but it continued to rise. And I began to think of Diocletian, the old, Roman emperor that, hated Christ, and he hated the word of God. And he outlawed the Bible, and he beat down the Bible. Christians19:22 died up under the regime of Diocletian. And he even said that he was gonna completely do away with Christianity. He got to the point that he built a monument, and in in Latin, it said this. It said that the name of19:34 Christian is now extinct. Now what Diocletian tried to push down couldn't. It rose back up because remember the the the emperor that followed him in 3 12 was Constantine, and he19:46 was a Christian. The Bible rose back up. And I began to think of people like Thomas Paine in the early history of the United States of America. They remember he wrote a book called The Age of Reason. And in the book, he19:57 tried to blacken, the character of the Bible. And on his death bed, he began to cry, God help me. Jesus help me. And someone came in and said, do you would you like to make Christ your savior? And he said this, he said,20:09 I have no wish but to believe on that subject. Thomas Paine got it wrong. And when he died, what happened? The the Bible continued to rise back up, didn't it? And I begin to think of Voltaire, the, the brilliant French20:20 skeptic and and atheist. They said, with my single hand, I'll I'll destroy what the 12 apostles put together. But when he died, the Bible continued to rise up. You ought to build your life upon the word of20:32 God that's eternal. That's the only lasting thing that we can build our lives upon. Because it's no matter what culture tries to do, no matter what the world tries to do to push it down, it's the word of God. It will20:44 always rise back up. And these people stood and they had an honor for the word of God. In my house, we don't we don't put anything on the Bible. I I don't put my sunglasses, a piece of I don't put people have died20:56 for the word of God. The people that that documented the life of Jesus were beheaded, they were crucified, they were beaten with clubs, they were thrown off temples. I got an honor for for the word of God more than to21:06 put some sunglasses on top of the word of God. And it says they stood and they said, amen. They truly worshiped out of honor, didn't they? Sometimes in America, here's what we do. We come to church and,21:18 we think that Brent and Clint and the worship team that, they're the performers and you're the audience. And we watch and we, that's great. They're performing great. Lights look good. Hazer21:30 machine looks good. Good performance. We applaud your performance. That's not worship. That's not well, you know what worship is? Participators, and21:42 God is the audience. And we worship to him. We have an audience of 1. All of us are participating. And we've21:54 got 1 focus. Our audience is of 1, and it's of Jesus. That that is true authentic worship. And now the people are just engulfed in worship because they had an honor for the word of God.22:06 Now the 4th thing that we see, we're gonna build our life upon the word of God is they had a proper handling of the word of God. And there was a proper handling of the word of God. It says the Levites and Jeshua and a22:16 bunch of other people, they then instructed the people in the law while everyone remained in their places. They read from the book of the law of God and clearly explained the meaning. See the proper handling of what was22:27 being read and helping the people to understand each passage. That's what we do here in our Cascade U classes. We have Cascade U that we're trying to revamp and make even better, where we study22:39 books of the Bible. Do you know that much of this material that we've been preaching on in Nehemiah came from our cascade cascade u, courses, came from that material. And you can study in-depth that we have people22:51 that will help you, do that. They could you know, our life groups, we do that. We have people help us understand the word of God. That's what was happening here. How else could he teach 50000 people? He had no23:02 microphone. He had no megaphone. They would break up into groups and these Levites would help them understand the word of God in these small groups, life groups, Sunday school groups, whatever you23:14 wanna call it. They would help them and knows a proper handling of the word of God. You know what drives me crazy? Sometimes I see these preachers that are my age and and they come up here and some of them come up with23:25 no Bible. What we what we do with no Bible? I don't trust my iPad that much. I'm just saying. Or they'll come up and they'll read 1 passage and they'll close the Bible and they'll teach 30 minutes on their23:36 opinion on that. And I'm like, look, God don't bless our opinions. God blesses his word. And so we ought to open the the Bible, teach his word. That's what or you have23:48 these pastors that you ever been you ever listen to somebody and they're so smart that you leave and go, that's okay. That's okay. That's smart. I don't know what he said. That he's smart. Just because the24:00 water is muddy don't mean it's deep. You wanna be able to understand the Bible. When Jesus spoke, it says the common people heard him. The common people understood him. We ought to take it24:12 and and preach it in such a way where we can understand it. I believe there is a famine in the land of bible preachers, of just biblical preachers that just teach the bible. And24:24 so now we see them break off into sections, into small groups, and they're breaking it down. It reminds me of, the illustration I heard about John Dillinger. You know who that is, right? For the younger people, he was24:35 like a notorious outlaw gangster during the Great Depression. He robbed over 20 banks and police stations. Did you know the story of John Dillinger is this, though? Someone24:46 once invited him to Sunday school as a child, about 11, 12 years old. His life was kind of going off course already. And they said, you know, I believe if John Dillard got into to Sunday school, little Johnny could maybe24:56 turn his life around. And so they put Johnny in a small group. They put Johnny in Sunday school. And after the 1st week, all the parents, of the children who were in this Sunday school came to the church leaders, and25:08 they said, little Johnny is not allowed on our Sunday school. Little Johnny is too much he's not like us. He's too much of a troublemaker. We don't want little Johnny Dillinger in our Sunday school class anymore. They25:19 have become a club. They have forgotten the reason that we do this is to reach out, open our arms to people not like us. And little Johnny Dillinger went on to be a notorious gangster and and a guy that did a lot of bad25:31 stuff. And I I wonder when I was reading this message and and and writing this message, I wonder what would have happened to little Johnny Dillinger if he would just stayed in Sunday school and that teacher would explain25:43 the word of God and would have changed his heart. Would we even know who Johnny Dillinger is? Would he be this notorious gangster type guy that turned out this way if he would have gotten the word of God? I don't believe25:54 so. I believe the word of God could have changed even little Johnny Dillinger. And so that's why it's so important we get in the right small group and get up under the right teaching because there's a proper handling of26:04 the word of God. Now the 5th thing is this, if we're gonna build our life upon the word of God, there's a heating of the word of God. There there's a heating of the word of God. Look what happens. Then Nehemiah theHeed, Rejoice, Obey 26:15 governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and Levites who were interpreting for the people said to them, don't mourn or weep on such a day as this, for today is sacred a sacred day before the Lord. For the people had all26:26 been weeping as they listened to the words of the law. And Nehemiah continued and says, go celebrate with with a feast of rich foods and rich drinks and share the gifts of God with people who have26:38 nothing prepared. This is a sacred day before the Lord. Don't be dejected and sad, for the joy of the Lord is your strength. You see what was happening here, there was a heating of the word of God and 3 things26:50 happen when when we heed the word of God. 1st, we get sad, we mourn over our sins. When we read the word of God and we live out the word of God, we heed the word of God, we begin to be brokenhearted over27:02 our sins that were against the word of God. That's what was happening here. They were mourning. They were saying, Oh, God, we didn't know this, and we've done it all wrong, and we're sorry, and we're weeping. If we're27:13 building our lives upon the word of God, there are to be sadness over our sin. There are to be sadness over our sin. Nehemiah and Ezra and the Levites saw this, and they said, okay, enough weeping. Enough weeping. Enough27:25 mourning. Some of you have lived with a guilt that you can't seem to get over and the devil continues to remind you of a sin that God's already forgiven you, for, and you're living up under condemnation27:37 for that. The devil condemns you to help you to continue to keep you down. The Holy Spirit convicts you in order to bring you back up. And so if God has already forgiven you, forgive27:49 yourself. The Bible says, therefore, there is no, not 1 condemnation of those who are in Christ Jesus. Stop living with that guilt if God has already forgiven you and you've already repented. Now we see28:01 the people come and Nehemiah and the Ezra and the the Levites says, stop mourning. This is a celebration. So when there's a heating of the word of God, we see sadness of our sins. But the 2nd thing we see is we see joy.28:11 We see joy. It says here that, the the joy of the Lord is a strength. 1st Peter 1 8, it says joy unspeakable and full of glory. The Christmas story. Remember the angels? Says, I28:23 bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. That is a mark of a believer. Love and we ought to be full of joy.28:35 Person who, you know, professes to be a Christ follower is really even a Christian if they don't have joy. I mean, we ought to just be leaking joy. I mean, think about it. Here we28:47 are dead in our sins. Here we are deserving of hell in the sight of a holy God, but he comes down and forgives us and lives for us and dies for us, gives us forgiveness28:59 of sins, allows us to have a relationship with him, gives us eternal home in heaven, gives us grace. We ought to be the most joyful people in all the29:11 world. I don't understand for the life of me people that have no joy. It reminds me of the Pharisees of those days. You remember the Pharisees saw John the Baptist. They said it can't be of God. It don't look like29:23 us. Don't act like us. It can't be of God. And they come to beat them over the head with the Bible. And then they see and they want to beat the word with the word.29:35 He's the word in flesh. Remember John 1? 1 they said the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And they want to tell the word that he's not following the word. Bible, and29:47 this and this and this rules, and you're not doing this. You hang out with people that drink wine, and you hang out with tax collectors, and you hang out with sinners. You're not of God, you're not of God, you're not of29:56 God. Meanwhile, they misjesus. Those people that you see, they claim to have Jesus, but got no joy. I30:07 think they misjesus. I think they misjesus because I got joy, unspeakable joy, because of what Jesus has done for me. I've got so much joy that there's a30:19 chaotic world going on out there that we don't know. It it looks like it's out of control. God's in control, of course. We don't I mean, it's it is messed up, jacked up, but I got joy because I know how the30:31 story ends. Right? And so we as believers, we must have joy. It says there's a mourning, but then there's joy. Now the next thing that we see here30:43 hate the word of God, there's a sadness of our sins. There's a joy. And then there's obedience. There's obedience. By the way, if you ever anytime I'm witnessing to unbelievers, I notice the same They30:55 1st get mad. If you ever put your finger on someone's sin, you'll notice they get mad. They get mad at you. And then they get sad when they see that, wow, I'm wrong. I am a31:07 sinner. I've stepped in. And then they get glad. They get mad. They get sad. They get glad. It's kind of a pattern. And we see that they when we heed the word of God, we have a sadness, a joy, and then we have obedience.31:17 Look at this. On October, the family leaders of all the people together and the priests and Levites, they met what Ezra described to go over the law in greater detail. Wow. They're coming back saying teach me more. And31:29 they studied the law and they discovered that the law of the Lord had commanded through Moses that the Israelites should live in shelters, little tents, during the festival to be held that month. And he had said that, a31:40 proclamation should be made throughout their towns and Jerusalem telling all the people in the hills to go get branches of olive and wild olive and myrtle palm and leafy trees. And they were to use these branches to make31:52 little little tents, shelters, in which they would live during this festival as prescribed to the law. They were to go out and get a bunch of sticks and make these little tents and it was symbolic of them living in the32:03 wilderness and so that they didn't forget where God has had taken them. And can you imagine this? And in the beginning of that, by the way, it says the family leaders, they all came back and wanted to know, hey, hey,32:13 teach us more about it. That represents the men, the head of the household. You do know that families change when men follow God's word and obey it. Nations change when men I'm talking about real32:25 men follow God's word. That's a man, by the way. A man may be depicted, you know, in in in culture, in Hollywood as somebody who, you know, he's built in this and that. Now32:37 I've seen more sissies in this day and age, especially during everything we're going through. People that I thought were men, I go, you are a sissy. And I've seen 155 pound people that are some men32:49 because they're living off the word of God. The the word of God changes people's lives. And now it says that the man of the household says teach us more. We want to obey. And and and think about this.33:01 They say we want to obey everything the Lord has commanded. And so they, can you picture? 50000 people walking out of the the Watergate and 50000 people breaking33:13 branches and and making all the trees naked. I mean, there's twigs snapping and breaking all of them. And can you imagine the outsiders going, what in the world they doing? Just stripping all33:25 the trees, breaking all kind of branches and they're dragging branches. Can you imagine Tobiah and Sam Ballard? Remember the the haters sipping all that haterade? And and they were like, you ain't gonna do this, and you33:35 got bad motives and the wall will never stand. Can you imagine them going, hey. Hey. What y'all doing, man? And and the Israelites said, we we gather sticks.33:47 What for? I don't know. God told us to. Can you imagine if we were a people that said to the in the outside world, we're gonna say, well, what are you doing? Why do you do that? Why do you why do you tithe?33:59 Why do you treat your wife that way? Why do you conduct your business that way? It looks strange to me. It looks like you're picking up sticks. We're just obeying God. I I wanna be a people that when God comes back, he34:11 finds me obeying his word. It reminds me of an illustration that I heard, Adrian Rogers say when he was, when he was explained this passage. It said there was a a dad who had a 10 year old girl and he had34:23 a a 8 year old little boy. And the 8 year old boy couldn't swim, but the 10 year old girl couldn't. They went out on a boat ride and never thought, what would happen, happened. The boat went down. And, now he's stuck in34:35 a predicament to where who does he save? His daughter or his son? Because he can't swim, but just with 1 of them. And so he decides to try to save his son and he tells his daughter before he leaves her in the ocean in34:46 the Atlantic. He says, daddy is gonna take your brother back to shore. You can tread water and you can float on your back all day long. You can do it. You can tread water when you get tired and then34:58 float on your back. All day you can do it. Baby, you can do it. I'm gonna take your brother back and daddy will be back. You can float all day and daddy will be back. And he left for the shore and he35:10 slammed to the shore. It took him quite a while to get to the shore And he got his son safely to the shore, but the problem was this, the tide began to pull the little girl out. And after an hour, they couldn't find the35:20 girl. And so they sent the coastguards and all the volunteers in the local area began to take every boat they had to go look for the little girl and nothing was found. Hour and 0.5 later, nothing. 2 hours, nothing. 2.535:31 hours, nothing. 3 hours, nothing. 4 hours, someone comes across the little girl floating on her back. And they come across this little girl and she's floating on her back and they pull her up in the boat and they wipe35:42 her down and the girl is just as cool as a cucumber and and they're blown away by it and they said, little girl, weren't you scared? We've been looking for you for 4 hours. She said, no. My daddy said that I could float35:53 all day long and that he would be back for me. And I'm just doing what he told me to do until he came. What if us as believers said it may look strange, but my daddy said he's36:05 coming back for me, and I'm just doing what he told me to do until he comes. You know that song we sing, Clint, that says when when trumpet sound, may in him I be found. You know, when the trumpet36:17 sound, I wanna be found following God's word, building my life upon God's word. Charles Stanley says it this way, love this. This is this is just bottom line. Obey God and36:29 leave the consequences to him. Tie it. I can't I don't, yeah, I don't wanna, you know, I don't wanna treat my wife this way. You don't know how much you're getting on my nerves. I don't wanna make this a36:41 business decision. I don't know how it's gonna work out. Doctor. Stanley says, just obey God and and leave the consequences to him. I love it. What about you? You have a choice to build your36:52 life on something. Nehemiah is now teaching them to build their life upon the word of God. Your choice today can be to go on doing things the way you've done it or you can say, today I'm gonna make the decision from this37:04 moment on. I don't care what culture says. It's in, what's not. I don't care what they tolerate, you know. I don't care if they say, oh, this is bigotry. Christianity is the37:17 only thing I care about, only thing I care about is taking his word and living by his word and building my life upon his word. I want to tell you friends, that is what we like today. And37:28 that is the person that God will choose to use greatly when we build our life upon the word of God. That is where we find lasting change. Now if you're here today checking things out for the 1st37:40 time, thank you for hanging on. I know we jumped into this and you're saying, Brent, I appreciate the word of God, but, I don't even know the God of the word. And I don't even know how do I go to a class.Show more In this video 0:00 Nehemiah's Story Recap5:21 The Power of God's Word17:39 Honor and Explain the Word26:09 Heed, Rejoice, Obey37:48 Salvation Invitation
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