Every praise. And so what a joy it is to celebrate this morning. We are finishing the 12th chapter of the book of Nehemiah. And as you're turning there, there's a story told of an older man, an older gentleman who was anticipating his death. And as he's in his last few days, he decided he was going to pen a letter to one of his close friends. And in that letter, he wrote this.
It's a bad world, an incredibly bad world. But I have discovered in the midst of it a quiet and holy people who have learned a great secret. They have found a joy which is a thousand times better than any pleasure of our sinful life. They are despised and persecuted, but they care not. They are masters of their souls. They have overcome the world. These people are the Christians, and I am one of them.
He found a joy in the midst of a a hard life and a hard world. And what we're going to see coming off the pages of Nehemiah chapter 12 is a people who celebrate with joy and thanksgiving. This is going to be the last kind of good news that we actually read about in Nehemiah 12 because in chapter 13 Nehemiah has some words for the people for they abandoned yet again.
But here the end of chapter 12 is going to be some great news and the the completion of God's word is is going to be met with proper joy, thanksgiving, and worship of God. So if you have your Bibles, join me. Nehemiah 12, I'm going to read verses 27- 47 this morning. Here's what the word of the Lord says.
And at the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem, they sought the Levites in all their places to bring them to Jerusalem to celebrate the dedication with gladness, with thanksgiving, and with singing, with symbols, harps, and leers. And the sons of the singers gathered together from the districts surrounding Jerusalem, and from the villages of the Netaphathites, also from Beth Gilgal, and from the region of Gea and Azmapath. From the singers they had built for themselves villages around Jerusalem.
And the priests and the Levites purified themselves, and they purified the people and the gates and the wall. Then I brought up the leaders of Judah up onto the wall and appointed two great choirs that gave thanks. One went to the south on the wall to the dung gate. And after them went Hosiah and half of the elders of Judah and Aza and Azeriah, Ezra, Mishulum, Judah, Benjamin, Shemiah, and Jeremiah. And certain of the priests sons with trumpets.
Zechariah the son of Jonathan son of Shemiah son of Mataniah son of Micaiah son of Zakur son of Asaf and his relatives Shemiah, Azerel, Malali, Galali, Mai, Nathaniel, Judah, and Hani with the musical instruments of David the man of God. And Ezra the scribe went before them. At the fountain gate they went up straight before them by the stairs of the city of David and the ascent of the wall above the house of David to the Watergate on the east.
The other choir of those who gave thanks went to the north. And I followed them with half of the people on the wall, above the tower of the ovens, to the broad wall, and above the gate of Ephereim, and by the gate of Yesha, and by the fish gate, and the tower of Hanel, and the tower of the hund, to the sheep gate. And they came to a halt at the gate of the guard. So both choirs of those who gave thanks stood in the house of God.
And I and half of the officials with me and the priests Eliakim, Masai, Minimemen, Micaiah, Eleano, Zechariah, and Hananiah with trumpets and Messiah, Shemiah, Eleazar, Uzi, Johannan, Mekijah, Elam, and Ezar. And the singers sang with Jezariah as their leader. And they offered great sacrifices that day and rejoiced, for God had made them rejoice with great joy.
The women and the children also rejoiced, and the joy of Jerusalem was heard far away. And on that day, men were appointed over the storooms, the contributions, the first fruits, and the tithes to gather them, gather into them the portions required by the law. For the priests and for the Levites according to the fields of the towns. For Judah rejoiced over the priests and the Levites who ministered.
And they performed the services of their God and the service of purification as did the singers and the gatekeepers according to the command of David and his son Solomon. For long ago in the days of David and Asaf, there were directors of the singers, and there were songs of praise and thanksgiving to God. And all Israel in the days of Gerubbabel, and in the days of Nehemiah gave the daily portions for the singers and the gatekeepers, and they set apart that which was for the Levites.
And the Levites set apart that which is for the sons of Aaron. That was a lot. A lot of names. Once again, it's like Nehemiah seems to have this obsession with like long lists of names. And once again, just piggybacking, those are not there for no reason. But our God is a God of order. And he is a very detailed God. He's not halfhazard. He is not he's not just whatever.
He is focused on no we want to be order and we want to know who's who and what is going on. That's going to actually come into play a little bit later. But the first thing that I want to draw our attention to here, they're at the dedication of the wall and they've got gladness and thanksgiving and singing and symbols and harps and the people are gathered there at the wall and they're about to dedicate this wall in an act of worship. What we're going to see later on is there's sacrifices that are made and there's singing and there's praise and we're going to get into that.
But this is an act of worship to the Lord for all that he has done. And notice the first thing that they do in verse 30. And the priests and the Levites purified themselves and they purified the people and the gates and the wall. This is a a significant act. We're not sure all of the ways in which they went about the actual purification.
There's washing. There's cleansing. This is what's happening here. But they are this is a symbolic act of holiness going on. Before they can enter into the worship of God, they are going to make sure that they themselves are purified and holy. If you go back to chapter nine, we're we see a whole chapter dedicated to them confessing their sin. Recognizing their sin, confessing their sin before the Lord.
And in chapter 10 verse 28, we read the rest of the people, the priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers, the temple servants, and all who have separated themselves from the peoples of the lands to the law of God. Their wives, their sons, their daughters, all who have knowledge and understanding. The people not only confess their sin, they're also separating themselves from the world and the nations that are around them.
This is an act of of holiness. And we are not like the world. We belong to the Lord. And then chapter 11, we see them moving into the holy city. This people are being dedicated to holiness. And so we see this the priests, the Levites, they purify themselves, they purify the people and they purify the wall before entering into worship.
They are cleansing themselves. And I would argue that which gets in the way of our worship is sin. If there's a a a block in the worship of God, it's sin and it's impurity. There's many times where we come and we say, "There's this disconnect between me and the Lord.
I I'm I'm not I'm reading the word and there's there's nothing there. I feel like it's just words on a page at times. There's a disconnect in my in my prayer life. When I gather with the people, it feels off. I'm not right. And I'm I would venture to guess that that's because there's there's sin going on in your heart and in your life that you got to work through because the number one thing that keeps us from right worship of God. The barricade is sin and it needs to be dealt with.
For both non-believers and believers to come into right relationship with the Lord means we must be cleansed from our sin. And I want to draw our attention this morning to Hebrews chapter 10. Hebrews chapter 10.
I want to pick it up in verse 19. After the writer of Hebrews has talked about that Christ has offered sacrifice for sin one time for all time, he then draws our attention to verse 19 where he says, "Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the cur curtain, that is through his flesh.
And since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. See here he's he's telling us you and I have confidence to enter into the holy place. We have confidence to enter into worship. We have confidence to enter into the presence of a good holy God.
Why? Why can we have confidence to enter into this place? It's not by our works. It's not by our doing, but he tells us by the new and living way, by the blood of Jesus, through the finished work of Christ on the cross, we have access to the father with pure and holy worship. Because our sin has been dealt with. Take a look what he says here in verse 22. Let us draw near.
Like think about that for just a moment. Often times I think we have some of us who maybe grown up in this this home or this belief that the Lord is always looking to to snuff you out to to destroy you, to get rid of you. He's just looking, oh, wait till that person screws up and then we can he can crush you. Now we need to understand the holiness of God and his righteous wrath and discipline. Absolutely. But the text says, listen, enter into his presence with confidence.
Not only that, he says, "Let us draw near." That's that's an invitation to draw near to the goodness to the close intimate fellowship and relationship with the father. He invites you, draw near, come close. Why? Why can he do that? He answers us. Because our hearts have been sprinkled clean from an evil conscience.
And our bodies have been washed with pure water. That is the living water of Christ. His blood cleanses and purifies and washes that we can enter into a close intimate relationship with the father because of the finished work of Christ on the cross. Without that you and I cannot enter right, pure relationship with Christ.
We cannot enter into a right holy worship without the finished work of Christ. There's always going to be this disconnect. And that's that's to come into a new relationship. Then as we grow and as we as believers, as we grow and as we up and down and we maybe struggle with sin, we can know that we've never been cast off from Christ. But as there's times where we feel that maybe there's this disconnect, my prayers are struggling, my my relationship with the Lord is struggling, the the reading the word, take stock, be like, is there sin in my life that is causing this?
That there's this impurity that I need to repent and turn back to the lordship of Christ. Not that we've been cast off, but that this is the ongoing act of sanctification and getting rid of sin in our lives that we can now continue to come into glorious true worship of our God, the follower of Christ. Once alienated from worshiping the Lord, unable, we were to rightly worship the Lord because of our sin.
I love how the text lays out that at the right time Christ came and he died for the ungodly. What a beautiful truth that Christ died for the ungodly, cleansing us from our sin, covering us in righteousness that we may enter into right worship of a good and holy God. What beautiful truth. And so the people back in Nehemiah, they before they enter into this, they purify the people.
They purify themselves, the gates, the walls. This is a symbolic act of holiness as we enter into worship of God. And this is reason, my friends, to celebrate. This is reason to celebrate. I did a quick Google search. I said, 'What do people celebrate? This is just the broadest term I could find on Google. And there was an endless list. People are celebrating wild things from monkeys to things we don't even want to talk about.
But I zeroed in on one because this is to me the most wild celebration. Every year in Glchester, England, I might have butchered that and I apologize, 25 people, okay? Gather together to celebrate kind of the the spring and the coming of summer. And do you want to know what they do?
They stand at the top of a 200 yard hill, 25 people. And then this hill has a slope of about 26 to 30°. And then when they say one, two, three, go, and they roll a 9PB cheese wheel down this hill. And 25 people hurl themselves down this hill for the winner receives the cheese.
All in an act of celebration of summer. Injuries are wild. Up to now they've been doing this since like the mid 1800s. This is not a new thing. Now, there have been no reported deaths, however, backs broken, massive concussions, severe injuries that have caused people to be in wheelchairs for the rest of their lives.
All for a nine pound block of cheese s celebrating the coming of summer. My friends, if they're willing to do that, I think we as people who have been redeemed from our sin can be a people who long to celebrate with joy and thanksgiving the work of the Lord. I want to draw our attention here.
Look at I want to key on three verses coming out of our text. 31 38 and 43. Here's what they say. I'm going to read them again. Then I brought the leaders of Judah up onto the wall and appointed two great choirs that gave thanks. Verse 38, the other choir of those who gave thanks went to the north. And then verse 43, and they offered great sacrifices that day and rejoiced, for God had made them rejoice with great joy.
The women and children also rejoiced, and the joy of Jerusalem was heard far away. I love how Nehemiah gathers the people and they gather up onto the wall. This is the picture that's going on. They gather up onto the wall. And what he's going to do is he's going to send one group with Levites to the south and one group to the north. I know I just went east west, but ignore that for a second.
One to the south and he and he sent one to the north. Now, this is a side crest, but do you remember when they were like Sam Ballot was like, "Oh, when they build the wall, a fox will run up on it and it'll crumble down to the ground." Well, you have two massive groups of people on top of the wall going in opposite directions. And what are they doing? They're singing. They're celebrating. They are specifically giving thanks with joy. Why?
Because the work that the Lord has done. That's what they're doing. They are worshiping the greatness of God. This is very similar if you go back with me to Ezra chapter 6. Ezra 6 verse 16 and 17 say this. And when all our enemies heard of it, all the nations around us were afraid and fell greatly in their own esteem, for they perceived that this work had been accomplished with the Oh, I'm reading Nehemiah, FYI.
I meant Ezra. There we go. I was like, this is not what I was trying to read. Anyways, great text. Ezra 6 verse 16 and 17. This is the the temple has been finished. The temple is now being dedicated. And it says this, "And the people of Israel, the priests and the Levites and the rest of the returned exiles celebrated the dedication of this house of God with joy. They offered at the dedication of the house of God 100 bulls, 200 rams, 400 lambs, and as a sin offering for all Israel, 12 male goats according to the number of the tribes of Israel.
Celebration of the work of the Lord in worship is key to our lives. I want to zero in here on verse 43. There's some interesting wording here. So they offered great sacrifices that day and rejoiced for why why are they rejoicing? Why are they offering sacrifices? Here's what Nehemiah says. For God had made them rejoice with great joy.
This is the work of God in their hearts to cause them to rejoice with great joy for his work. The women and children also rejoiced and the joy of Jerusalem was heard. Can you imagine this scene, this picture? They're dedicating the city to the Lord and they're so loud in their rejoicing that people can hear them from far away. And to steal what Ken Davis says.
He says,"Wh are we as Christians walking around like we constantly ate something bad? Why in our lives do we seem to have this sad, sour look on our face? We have been redeemed from our sin. We are not under condemnation. We've been given life. We've been given hope. We've been given satisfaction. We've been given identity.
We've been given purpose. Why are we looking so sad all the time? The Lord stepped into our lives. He redeemed us from the pit. We should constantly be a people of joy and thanksgiving. Come what may, regardless of our circumstances. You have been redeemed from hell. We should be the most joyful people on planet Earth.
Forget about what's going on in the political realm and causing downcastness. Forget about what's going on. Not to turn a blind eye, but we should not allow those things to be able to affect our mood that we are always sad and angry and downcast. We should be joyful, my friends. Consider what was read for us in the Psalms. Go back there with me. We're going to start in Psalm 16. Psalm 16.
I'm going to read just verse 11. You, Lord, make known to me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forever more. Psalm 92 verse 4. For you, oh Lord, have made me glad by your work and at the work of your hands I sing for joy.
The Christian should be the most joyful, thankful person because of the work of our good and holy savior. So you ask yourself this question. I have to ask myself, is this true of me? Do I have a demeanor of joy when people see me, my interactions, my my life? Would they see joy?
Would they see thankfulness? Even in the hardest moments of the soul, is there an undercurrent of joy in my life? If not, I want to just pose this question because we're all going to go through this. But if not, why? Why has our understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ perhaps gone cold? Perhaps we take that truth for granted and it's time to to spend time maybe marinating in the Psalms again, reminding ourselves of the beauty that is the gospel, casting maybe our our fears, our worries, our anxieties onto him as first Peter says. Why?
Because he cares for us. Maybe we need to turn again to somebody who we know who's been walking with the Lord and and reach out and say, "Hey, I'm having a hard time. It's I'm cold. It it feels hard. My my joy is waning." You have a body of Christ who's around you to come alongside and strengthen and encourage and send a text message of psalms and and praying that we would build one another up again. My friends, let us have a mind that is oriented towards the goodness of Christ in the gospel of Jesus Christ that would return our joy and thanksgiving.
Thirdly, because the Lord has made us glad, we ought to worship him as he set out. The verses 44 to 47, look at verse 44. On that day, men were appointed over the storooms, the contributions, the first fruits, and the tithes to gather into them the portions required by the law for the priests and for the Levites according to the fields of the towns.
For Judah rejoiced over the priests and the Levites who ministered, verses 45 and 46. And they performed the services of their God. At the end of verse 45, he says to the command of David and his son Solomon, there were directors. Verse 47, they were generous. This is an an act of of orderly worship. Pastor Matt walked through this last week of the the orderliness to why they're doing what they're doing.
See, the the term liturgy has somewhat of a a negative connotation. Or maybe when you think of liturgy, you think of cold and just like read from a book and there's no nothing joyful there. Every church, I'm going to spoil it for you. Every church has a liturgy. We have a liturgy. We basically have an order in which we do things ultimately. That's what a liturgy is. See, God commands orderliness to worship to when the people gather, he says, "This is how I these are the things I want you to do in order to worship me."
Here the people are like, "God commanded this by law, thus we did this. He commanded this by his son David, thus we did this. Here's what God commands. Here's what we're going to do." So, I want to if you are visiting with us, maybe you are you know, you're new to the area and you're you're looking at, well, which church should maybe I be a part of?
I I'm going to say this just upfront. As elders, our desire for you first and foremost is to belong and be connected to a solid Bible teaching church that that uplifts God, his holiness, and his word. We pray that you would find that here. But if you don't, we're not sitting here being like, "Well, our numbers need to be higher than their numbers." Our desire is that you would know and grow in godliness and holiness and be led well by your elders. That's our desire.
But sometimes what I would say is this. The question comes why do we do what we do right? Why do we start this way and we go to this thing and we go to this thing and we go to this thing? Why do we sing? Why do we pray? Why do we do those things? Because this is the order in which God has called us to worship. Not our gateway Bible church specific order that we have to you know offering then we have to do two songs then we have to do this then we have to do this.
No but in a worship service where you gather with the saints. These things should be present. So I want to draw our attention to a few things. If you want a good overview of what the church is called to do, you could find that in Acts chapter 2 42-47. That is a great overview of how the church ought to function. But I want to get into some specifics. Ephesians chapter 5. We're going to be in the New Testament.
These are in no particular order, but I do want to I want to just show from the word why we do what we do here at Gateway. Why is it that we sing? Ephesians chapter 5, picking it up in verse 18, says, 'd do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
He's writing this to the church. She says, "I want you to address. There should be singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. There should be a wider I love the fact that this morning we sang a very old song, right? And then we also sang a song that has been released this year. There is a wide variety of good doctrally sound that we desire to sing." Why do we sing? Because God commanded it. Go to first Timothy. Paul writes to Timothy in the church.
He says, "First of all then," verses one, this is chapter 2, verse one, "I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way." Why are we a church that prays? Because God tells us to. On top of that, we know that when Jesus cleansed the temple, he said, "My house is a house of prayer."
We long to be a church who is known that that church sings and that church prays. Why? Because God has called us to. Second Timothy, just the next book, chapter 4, I charge you, this is verse one, in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing in his kingdom, preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season.
Reprove, rebuke, and exhort with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but have itching ears that they will accumulate for themselves teachers who suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to truth and wander off into silly myths. Why is the preaching on Sunday morning so critical? Because God tells us it is. That the sitting under the authority of God's word and not just God's word.
There are many who would stand in pulpits across this nation and who will take a verse out of this and twist it to make it sound good and give people that which they want. Tickling ears or itching ears to satisfy their own longings. No, no, no. We must be people who preach rightfully what is in the Bible. Genesis through Revelation, Paul in Acts chapter 20, he talks about the truth that he didn't shrink back from.
Even though it's hard, even though there's things in the Bible that we're going to preach on that are hard, that are going to rub up against what we think it should say, we make no apologies for when the word of God, when the spirit of God uses the word of God to to rub up against that which we think is true and it's uncomfortable and it's hard. This is the word of God that we that we sit under. And that is why we will hold fast to the truth of God's word.
Why do we preach? Because God told us to. So we do. 1 Corinthians 11. Why do we celebrate communion? Because God told us to. Why do we celebrate baptisms? Because God told us to. It's very simple. God said, "Do this." Therefore, here at Gateway, we long to walk in obedience to that truth. The nation of Israel has completed their build. The temple is up. The walls are up.
The city's inhabited. They celebrate this. They pursue holiness and they are cleansed from their sin and they are set free. So they are rejoicing rejoicing at the work of a good God and they follow his command in worship. This ought to be the same way that we approach our lives. Do we celebrate with joy and thanksgiving?
Come what may what the Lord has done. Do we gather to walk in obedience and worship with the saints how God has set out? That is our desire. Would we be people who are found joyful and thankful? Because as we're about to see next week, chapter 13 comes around and it it's a struggle for the nation. But let us be people who hold fast to God's word.
Find our joy, our yes and amen in the finished work of Christ alone. Let us pray. Father, you alone are worthy of adoration and worship. Lord, we come before you and we would ask that you would forgive us. God, we recognize that we are not always joyful and thankful as we ought to be. Would you forgive us for getting caught up in our hardships and difficulties and forgetting and maybe growing cold to the gospel?
Would you light that fire again? Would you inflame that truth in us that we would return to what we ought to? And would we worship you not how we think you should be worshiped, but how you have set out to be worshiped. That we would be in obedience to you. It's in Jesus name we pray. Amen.
Transcribed automatically from YouTube captions, so names and words may be misheard.
