I know what the word of God says for me to do in my life, and I even agree with it. I'm just not gonna do it. How do we handle that? Coming up right now on the Theory Today Show. You're listening to Clearview Today with Dr.
Abadan Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Ryan Hill. I'm John Galantis. Welcome to the Clear View Today Show with our host, Dr. Abadan Shah, right here in our studio.
Dr. Shah, it's good to see you. It's good to see you again. You know, we are talking about leadership. We've been talking about leadership for some time, going through the book of Nehemiah, and we've got this chapter in Nehemiah, chapter 8, where all the people are gathered and they're responding to God's word.
But, you know, responding to God's word means something has to actually change in your life. Yes. Yes. I mean, responding is not just affirming or agreeing with it. Responding means you have to, by God's grace and by God's help, you have to make certain changes.
That's right. And the people did. But it all began with a spirit of submission. When it comes to the word of God, you can have one or two responses. Mm.
Either you can just be obstinate, Be very affirming, but be obstinate, or you can submit yourself. And Submitting yourself to God's word is the way of saying, I don't know the right thing to do. God, you have told me how to live. I'm going to do it your way. That is the proper response to the word of God: submission.
Objectively, look into that. You know, it's clear that one choice is better than the other. The right choice, you just said, is submission and not being obstinate. How often have you seen people go the path of resisting, go the path of being obstinate, only to be routed back around and realize, you know, I really should. Yeah, even people who are in church, like, have you ever been preaching and you see these people who you know they're looking at you and they're like, hey, preacher man, I think, oh, that's wonderful.
I'm just not. I'm just not going to do it. I'm just not going to change. Yeah. I mean, before I even talk about other people, I'm just going to talk about myself.
There have been times in my life where I have resisted being obedient and submissive to the Word of God. And it's not because I was like stubborn or hard-headed. It was just that I felt like I can do it God's way, but that's going to require this, this, and this, and I'm going to have to handle this, and I'm going to have to change that. I'm just going to write for now. Just do it my way.
Yeah. And then maybe down the road, I can submit to God's will. But right now, I'm just going to go ahead and just, just, just. For right now, I just do this one. And by God's grace, we sort of make it.
And see, that's where we deceive ourselves into thinking it worked out. Everything worked out fine. And what you don't realize is it worked out fine because of the grace of God, because of people praying for you, because of others around you. It was like When you are, when a country is under at war with another nation, I mean, we are right now, but. Let's say there is this one town or city where you have it it needs to be dealt with.
I mean, it needs to have some bombing. It needs to deal with some bad, bad elements. But if somebody tells gives them the intelligence that, hey, in in that same town, we have some of our people. Do not do any kind of air raids, no bombing, nothing, because in the process there will be some casualties of our own people.
So, what are we going to do? Like, okay, well, we can't. Because if we Do that, it's going to kill our own people.
So sometimes God Allows us to be okay, even though we don't choose to do things his way. And don't walk away thinking, I was right. Yeah. I was right. No.
You were right. You were not right. It's only that God in his divine plan chose not to deal with you. And that's because there were others around you, others were praying for you. God's master plan is at work, so He allowed you.
By his grace. To still be okay, even though you didn't follow his will. How do you discern the difference? Or are you talking about things where I know I purposely went against God's will? Therefore, because this worked out, it must have been a thing.
But if it's like, I don't know which way God's will is for me to go, I'm praying about it, I don't have a clear answer. I'm gonna pick one. And it kind of worked out. How do I know? Which one where it's like, okay, I should not have gone that way, but by God's will, he, he.
Protected me. I would say most of the time people know because God's word tells us, do this, not that. Don't do this, do this.
So most of the time, I think we know that there could be situations where it's like this job or that job kind of thing. Yeah. I understand. That's where it gets down to I just didn't know any better. I just did the best under the circumstances.
That's different. But we're talking about here where God says, hey, you know, in this situation, you really need to handle this this way, because this is what God wants, this is what the word says. This is what the Holy Spirit is convicting you to do. But you say, no, I'm going to go this way right now. Yeah, I think you're right.
I've certainly found that to be true in my life. We often lean on that as a crutch of saying, you know, I didn't know. I just made the best choice I could in the moment. But if we're being really honest with ourselves and being really honest before God, we do know. We know what the right choice is.
We just choose wrongly. I think there's definitely some clear indicators where God says not to do this thing. Like, don't, you know, don't commit adultery, right? Don't do that.
Well, I think about someone who maybe they do commit adultery. They step out on their spouse. They leave their spouse for someone else. And then they're like, you know what? Actually, these past 10 years since I've done that, my life has been really great.
And maybe now they think that was actually the thing to do, where really they don't realize, like you're saying, Dr. Shad, that God has his hand of mercy on you.
Someone somewhere is praying for you. That's right. Probably the example I was thinking about because that happens a lot. People do things in the moment and they just march forward. In fact, they.
Mm-hmm. You know, put their head down and they start running in that direction. And you go, don't do that, don't do that. That's not a good thing to do. And then.
Down the road, they go, you know what? I wouldn't change a thing. I would do the same thing again. And I'm like, oh, don't say that. Where do you think this aversion to submission comes from?
Is this a uniquely Western thing where people in America are like, you know what? I don't care if it's my boss. I don't care if it's my pastor. I don't care if it's the word of God itself. I make the decisions for my life.
Do you think that's a uniquely American thing, or is that just human nature? I think it's human nature, but I believe this time in history, it is very much manifested in the Western world. When I say Western world, I'm not talking about cowboys and ranchers and horses. I'm talking about West as in the European background people. All up in, we're talking about.
Germany and and France and Italy and go to the north, the Scandinavian countries and England, of course, and and the rest of uh Great Britain and Ireland coming over here, United States, Canada, the people who were coming from that European stock. Because of the confidence that comes from Christianity. You know, Christianity m not only s forgives us of our sins, By faith in Jesus Christ, but it also changes the way we do life, changes the way we see problems in life, changes the way we see possibilities. Previously we were afraid. The world, the laws of nature.
But now, There's a sense of confidence that comes in knowing that God is with us, God is with me, the Creator is with me.
So, even though people in the West may not acknowledge Jesus Christ or maybe atheists. But they are still operating from a mindset that the Creator is with me. You know, humanism. what we're talking about here. Uh it's not something new.
It's been around for thousands of years, but especially in the Western culture, it's it it is something new. I would say that it's it's a six, seven hundred year phenomenon. You know, Erasmus was a humanist. Means Trusting in the power of the human being. feeling like the human being is the center of the world.
Everything revolves around you. That kind of a way of thinking, that's kind of what we're talking about here, gives a sense of confidence that I can do. Anything. Yeah. Nothing is impossible for me.
And so When people are stubborn, it's it's a human Behavior? but especially in the West, because of Christianity? That even those who do not believe in God, do not believe in Jesus Christ, they're still operating from that mindset. But it's going to go away. If we get further and further away from Judeo-Christian values, the further we get away from the Bible.
The further we get away from Christianity, That confidence goes away. It's funny because the people that Espouse that, right? That you are the center. You are the. You are the center of the universe.
Don't let religion or don't let the Bible take that away from you. It's funny that you say that because they're. Their worldview, the further they get away from the Bible, it will actually reverse on itself. Yeah. You know?
Well, if we have that, that kind of built into us where you are the center, you are the one who is writing your own story, you're your own boss, you fill in whatever verbiage you want there. If we are kind of growing up in a culture that celebrates and inundates us with that, how do we as believers foster a spirit of? a healthy view of what submission looks like. recognize the source of our blessings. Mm.
The more we like uh There are times I will look in the mirror as I'm getting ready and say, God, I'll say something like, God, everything that I am. It's because of you. You know, there are moments you feel like, man, I'm good. I'm smart. I'm good.
I've made connections. I have. No. I have been wired together by God. My entire being Has been formed in God's laboratory.
So, How which part of it can I take credit for and say this is me? Yeah. God is God, and He's made everything, and me too, but this is me. There's nothing. Everything has been put together by God.
So where can I... Have a sense of pride and arrogance in his presence. I can. Right.
So I would encourage people to daily be grateful to God for everything from salvation to life to your circumstances to your current place in history where you are. Living in America in 2026 with all the benefits and all the blessing, man, it's because of God's grace. Can we take a look at Nehemiah and see how to submit ourselves to the word of God? Absolutely. I mean, it says right here in verse 5, and keep in mind that we are in Nehemiah chapter 8 and verse 5, it says, and Ezra.
Remember, there was Ezra, there was Nehemiah. Ezra was a scribe, Nehemiah was an administrator. Ezra came to prepare the people for Nehemiah. He got them to read the Bible. He got them to think about spiritual things.
He got them to pray. And that's when the word gets to Nehemiah. And Nehemiah, of course, as you know, the story of how he was in Persia and he. Comes, he hears the news. He comes with the king's blessings to come and rally the people.
And he does. In 52 days, the walls around Jerusalem are standing. That's so wild. That is crazy. In spite of the opposition from all sides.
Now In verse five. We see there is Ezra, there is Nehemiah, there is the scribe, and there is the governor. And the ultimate goal is not just to rebuild the walls around Jerusalem. The ultimate goal is to rebuild the lives of God's people around God's word. And so here we go.
In verse 5, it says, And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people. For he was standing above all the people, means he was standing on probably a platform or a pulpit. And when he opened it, All the people stood up. Why did this stand up? It's a mark of respect.
they were standing in honor of God's Word. Remember, there had been a dearth of God's word for. Generations. Because of the exile for 150-some years, they hadn't heard the word of God.
Now, Of course they may have heard it here and there through Ezra. Or maybe they remember some things. As a people, they had not. Was that a thing when you were growing up, your dad's church in India, where you stand for the reading of God's Word? Yeah, we used to do that here.
Yeah. One reason we don't do that is because it became almost a ritual.
So we sort of. put it to rest and say, okay, moving forward, we're going to do it this way. Sure. And plus standing up and sitting down. As much as it was a sign of respect for the word of God.
It also took up time and it was distracting.
So I would begin the introduction. Hey, so in today's message we're going to be talking about this, that, and the other. And it's coming from the book of Nehemiah chapter 8 and verse 6. Nehemiah chapter 8 and verse 6 in the Pew Bibles, it is such and such a page number. Let's all stand for the reading of God's Word.
And then you have this massive shuffling of feet and. Creaking of the the pews and everybody gets up. And then I would read four or five Ten verses. And I would pray. God, we pray today that you would bless our time together, that you would speak to us through your word.
Thank you for your word. Thank you for Jesus Christ. It's in his name we pray. Amen. Y'all be seated.
And there will be a massive shuffling again, and then people talking and laughing. It's like, all right, some catching up with each other. And then as I would come back. And begin the message. In the context of today's message, Nehemiah is.
You're having to start like the momentum all over again. Yeah. Yeah. And people are still distracted because they just sat down and they're like fixing their, their, their, their, their pants, or they're, you know, trying to find that Bible verse again, putting the Bible back into the pew holders, or they're like picking up the children. Yeah.
So I'm like. I've lost you all. And then maybe three minutes later, they're back on track. But now We don't do that way, and it's not because we dishonor the word, it's just that it. It it it Disrupts the flow.
Well, you also, go ahead. I was just going to say: if standing for the Word of God was a mark of respect, you lose that in the interim. You lose that in the chit-chat, in the sit-down, and the, oh, I knocked over my coffee. Oh, I dropped my notebook. Oh, my kid's crying.
You lose what it was originally intended to accomplish.
Well, Dr. Shah, I think you can maybe speak on this more, but the most skilled pastors, the most skilled leaders keep the principle without keeping the ritual of the thing itself.
So, like, what is the principle? We want to honor the word of God, and we want this congregation to show their participation.
Well, guess what? We do that for 15 to 20 minutes at a time every service at the top with worship. Right.
And our worship at Clearview is directly taken from the Word. Most of our songs are coming from the Psalms. It's songified scripture. It's doctrine. You know, we don't do Kay Love, his radio, top 40 songs.
We do songs that are deeply, deeply rooted in the Word.
So if that's the principle, Dr. Shah, I mean, you said it yourself. When you stand, To worship, you are still standing in reverence to God's worship and His Word and His Presence. I would rather people stand In the sense of Have a spirit of Reverence and awe for the preaching and teaching of the word than to just physically stand because it's tradition. Yes.
Because they can do that all day and still not obey the word of God, right? They can stand all you want to, but then when the moment they sit down, they're back into their own world. Whether they're messing with their phones, or they're falling asleep, or they are. talking to their neighbor You can make them stand. But unless in their hearts there is a deep sense of Awareness.
That God's voice is about to be spoken. If that's not there, Then physically standing is really not doing anything. Again, for those of you who are listening to me or watching, I'm not here to say don't stand. If that works for you, by all means, continue doing that. All I'm saying is, for us, it became just a ritual.
because in their own daily lives People were not. You know, any different. How do you handle, like, just moving away from standing for a bit, just to the preaching, just to the giving, the delivering of God's word? How do you handle the multitude of different attitudes that people are bringing into worship? You know what I mean?
Like, these, like, in Nehemiah's case, all of these people have this really, really, really heavy baggage where they are submissive because of everything they've gone through. But in your standard church, you've got maybe five, six hundred different people of all different backgrounds going through very, very different things. How do you think about that when you're bringing the word?
Well, I Do something which I began maybe ten, fifteen years ago. Maybe earlier. I have I have certain people in mind as I'm preparing my message. It's not like I have their pictures in front of me, but I just have them in my mind.
So when I am During my prep work, I'm thinking to myself and praying actually, Lord, how will this, God, how will this impact so-and-so? How will this Speak to so-and-so. How will this touch this person's life? And it's not just A sample of people. It's also people who are going through difficult times.
Financial problems, relationship problems. physical problems Emotional struggles. I'm just trying to see how is that going to be. And once I ha have that in my mind. And then when I Prepare the message.
I have those different groups of people in mind. I'm praying that somewhere, somehow, in that message, it will touch those different groups of people. Is it a perfect list? No. Is it a perfect sample?
No. But it. Helps me.
So having Elderly person. I have a teenager. I have a young couple. I have a single man.
So, I try to find this kind of a sample, and then I begin to think: how will this message, as great as it may be or as terrible as it may be, how is it going to touch him? How is it going to touch her?
So I have that kind of a A test. I hope that answers your question. Yeah, I don't know if that's what you were asking. Yeah, I'm just saying, like, we're for people who are maybe young pastors who are preparing their messages and they're saying, you know, I've got maybe 200 people, but they're all so radically different. How do I cover the widest amount of people possible?
This was one of the single greatest pieces of advice on preparing a message, preparing a teaching Bible study, whatever. You and I have talked about this in thinking about specific people who are going to be sitting out there. How will they receive this? How will they hear this message?
So, you know, thinking about a high school senior, thinking about a middle schooler, thinking about someone who's just going into ninth grade. That's been transformative in the way that I approach teaching and leading and structuring messages because I don't have as wide a sample as you do, but six through 12th is a that's a wide age range. And even when we're teaching in Blaze Kids, you've got pre-K all the way up through fifth grade.
So those are vastly different people.
So how do you speak and teach in such a way that's going to impact all age groups? Principle that you just shared. Think about who's going to be there and pick one from each sample of that audience. Yeah, it's huge. It's huge.
It's a perfect sample, but it's good enough for you to go. Yes. Uh whatever I shoot from this ball Is going to be somewhere in the bullseye. Most of the time, what pastors are doing and speakers are doing is that they shoot the arrow and then they take a marker. And put a circle around the arrow.
Say, we did it. You did it. Great job. I hit it. I'd rather have the target first.
That's right. Yes. And then decide whether or not you hit the target. That's right. But these people, they were just amazing because as Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, this is verse 6.
Then all the people answered, Amen, amen. while lifting up their hands And they bowed their heads and worship the Lord with their faces to the ground. Amen simply means so be it. Yeah, I know there's some pastors out there who are like, Yeah, that sounds about like a typical Sunday. And then there's some pastors who are like, Must be nice.
Yeah. I haven't had an amen. I haven't heard an amen unless I asked for it. Yeah. And even then, it's just like, amen.
Have you ever been, have you ever preached at other churches where they just won't stop amen? And then you go to others and they like, it's like, you can, it doesn't matter what you say, they are not going to give you an amen. Oh, yeah. I've done across the spectrum. I like our church.
There are times that they do amen, but most of the time they just look at you, yeah. But I mean, they're really listening. Yeah. I know they are because. I hear from them after the message, and they are giving me words of.
Affirmation or confirmation that man, they really got it. There's some times where, like, I think people have this idea where they go on YouTube or they go see all these different worship concerts and they see the young people and they're falling all out and they've got their hands and they're crying. And you think that's the typical standard worship worship service. And then people go and get in these churches and they don't see that and they get discouraged. I got discouraged.
And then it was crazy because you would see these faces that are just kind of looking at the screens, but then they would come up to you after and be like, that sermon has changed my marriage. Yeah. That sermon has changed my life. And I'm like, really, really? Are you sure?
Are you? Yeah, for real? Like, I mean, I believe you, I guess. Yeah. But these people, I mean, amen, amen, while lifting up their hands.
And that's pretty amazing because we often think this is just some Pentecostal thing coming to our church life in the 20th century. But this is. 500 years before the coming of Christ. And they had hands raised. People impacted, people moved by the word of God, not just emotion for performance.
It was genuine response to God's word. That's right. I think it definitely goes back to submission. Like you said, it's such a sign of submission, not just because I'm raising my hands, but because you're participating, you're active. Like, even if we were to say, like, hey, if we were to have a group of 20 people or 200 people and you were to say, let's everybody stand up to our feet, the people who remain sitting, it's an act of protest.
You know what I'm saying? The people who refuse to engage you. I mean, you've taught classes before. You know that the people who refuse to engage in conversation or the people who refuse to, it's an act of protest. I don't want any part of this.
And I'm expect to be who are physically unable to do that. Right, right. They're physically not. Capable, and that's totally understandable. But then there are people who will, by their body language, communicate to you that do not bug me, right?
Leave me alone. Yeah, leave me be. What is the bottom line for us, Dr. Shaw? What can we take away from this talk today about the people responding to Ezra, responding to the word of God?
How do we have that same response in our lives?
Well, the word amen. It simply means so be it or I agree. And my encouragement to you is that hopefully In every message, you are amening, not just because it is that kind of a church. or you are fired up in your church and you like to respond back and forth with the pastor or with the speaker. But I hope that you are amening in the sense that you are submitting your life To the word of God.
And I hope that's the message people will get. Let every message teach you something or help change something in your life. Dr. Shuff, for that person in the break room right now, for that person who's driving to work or washing the dishes, saying, What's one way today, right now in this moment, that I can submit? I agree with everything you said.
I agree with the Word of God, but I want to show God that I'm ready to submit right now. What can I do? I would say that one thing that you read in the Bible, this is assuming that you're reading the Bible. That's right. Or you say, well, I'm trying to just get back into it.
Okay, great. That one message that you just heard on Sunday morning. Mm-hmm. Oh, I'm not quite there yet. I need to get back in church.
Okay. Are you listening to anything? Are you listening to any word of God anywhere? Yes, I am on a podcast or I watch online.
Okay, great. What is the one thing that God spoke to you when you heard the word? Start obeying that. Start doing something about it. And here's what's going to happen.
That little step of obedience, of submission towards God, is going to begin a lifelong relationship with God's Word, where you will begin to submit more and more, and the Word will come alive. You know, sometimes people say, Oh, it's hard to understand the Bible, it's just so difficult. I don't know enough about it. I get it. The more you read something, the more you begin to grow in it.
That's right. And with the word of God, the more you submit to what it's saying to you, the more it comes alive. Amen. Yeah. That's so good for us.
I hope that you take that to heart. I hope that you not only listen to the word of God, not only read the word of God, but you respond to the word of God. The word of God demands a response from us. And so I pray that you look for that response in your life. That's right.
And we want all of you to respond to the word of God in your own way. But you know, one of the best ways that you can respond to the word is through your giving and through your support of what we're doing here at Clearview Church. And if you're giving to your own church, that's fantastic. But the ministry that we're doing here at Clearview is a very unique ministry. God has given us opportunities.
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