It's Time to Celebrate!

In the Christian life, there's a time to work, there's a time to plow, there's a time to harvest, but then there's also a time to celebrate. It's time to discuss more coming up right now on the Clear Read 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 Clearview Today Show. We've got a great conversation coming from our host, Dr. Abadan Shah. Dr.

Shah, it's good to see you. It's good to see you guys as well. Absolutely. It's a great conversation today. Great conversation.

You know, I wanted to say thank you to everybody who has joined the mailing list. You know, ever since we started talking about the mailing list on the show, we've had at least. I don't know, a thousand people join. A thousand people. That's not true.

But we're like, man, welcome to the Clearview Today show, everybody. No, I'm joking. I'm joking. But we've had our mail chimp is completely maxed out. But we've got a ton of people that have started joining and are joining the family.

So, if today's your first time listening to the show, we want to welcome you and say, make sure you join the mailing list so you can find out and stay up to date with everything God is doing through our ministries here at Clearview Church. That's right. Dr. Shah, we're in the book of Nehemiah, and we've been in the book of Nehemiah for a while, but rightly so, because there's so much to unpack in this little book in the Old Testament. I knew a little bit about Nehemiah before we launched into this conversation, but man, it's quickly becoming one of my favorites in the Old Testament.

It really is. I mean, when you study this book, you see a need, you see God calling someone to come and reach the people and help the people. And then they overcome incredible odds to build the walls around the city of Jerusalem. And then they read the Bible. I mean, that's what it was all driving towards.

It was. not just about the walls, it was about the word of God. Following that, you would think, okay, it's time to fight again. No. It's time to celebrate.

This is the time to Enjoy and also give thanks to God for what He's done for them. In fact, that's what happens here in Nehemiah chapter 8, verse 14. It says And they found written in the law, which the LORD had commanded by Moses, that the children of Israel should dwell in boots during the feast of the seventh month. and that they should announce and proclaim in all their cities and in Jerusalem, saying, Go out to the mountain and bring olive branches, branches of oil trees, myrtle branches, palm branches, and branches of leafy trees to make booths as it is written. Then the people went out, and brought them and made themselves booths, each one on the roof of his house, or in their courtyards, or the courts of the house of God.

and in the open square of the water gate. And in the open square of the gate of Ephraim.

So the whole assembly of those who had returned from captivity made booths and sat under the booths. For since the days of Joshua the son of Noon, until that day, the children of Israel had not done so. And there was very great gladness. I can imagine how exhausted these people are. I mean, think about the task they just accomplished, right?

And typically, what we want to do, what we're drawn to do at the end of a long project, and Dr. Sean, maybe you can speak to this as well, is we want to go home. We want to rest. We did. Let me beat my feet up.

We did it. We built the wall. It was the last two months of our lives, but we're done.

Now it's time to take some time off. And God says, no, we're here to celebrate. And that's very important because if not Right after a very tiring adventure or or venture, you will be tempted to lose sight of the purpose. You you'll get disillusioned. Like, why did we do all that?

You will second guess, you will question. Especially the sacrifices you made. Was it worth it? Did I really need to do that? Was whatever we were working for, was it worth it?

And that's why you need to come together. You don't just scatter and get into your own huddles. I mean, there is a place to get away and be by yourself and sort of recuperate. Jesus did that. You know, many times he would sort of go away by himself and pray.

And he even asked the disciples to come and just kind of get away by themselves because so many people were coming and going that these people with Jesus, the disciples, did not even have time to rest, time to eat.

So there is a place for you to get away, but you get away together. What the people of Judah were doing was exactly what Jesus did. He didn't just say, guys. All of you, I'll just go home. Yeah.

Go home and Take about a week. We'll all come back together at the same place. He didn't do that. There was this intentional: we're going to go away together and we're going to celebrate. We're going to talk about the goodness of God and we're going to rejoice together because why?

What is the point of the together part of it? Right. Because if not, you will lose sight of the great work that God had done. That's right. You know, they went home, but not for long.

They had just enough time to get things in order because the very next month, the seventh month of Tishri. They came back to Jerusalem for the feast of the trumpets and the day of atonement.

Now the feast of the trumpets, it's known as Rosh Hashanah, is the New Year's Day, the first day of the seventh month. Nehemiah chapter eight, verse one tells us that on this day all the people gathered together as one man in the open square that was in front of the water gate, and they told Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law which the Lord had commanded Israel. And as I read the Bible, From morning until midday as we covered over the past couple of episodes. About six hours or so, they read the Bible. The people were so hungry for the word of God that nobody grumbled, nobody complained.

They all listened with rapt attention. And at the end the end of it I mean, it was amen and amen. They lifted up their hands, they bowed their heads, and they worshiped. The Lord with their faces to the ground. I mean, this was an entire act of worship.

Not only that, but as they listened to the word, they were so moved by the Holy Spirit, moved by their sins. And their failures, and they began to weep. I mean, this was a very, I would say, a draining time. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Nehemiah, Ezra, the Levites had to console the people and to remind them that the joy of the Lord is their strength.

So there is a place for you to feel contrition or sorrow or repentance, but don't stay there Perpetually. There's a place where you turn around and say, okay, it's time to move forward. That's very, very important. We may be tempted as leaders to have a big project at our church, or maybe at our job, or in our ministry, or our organization, or whatever. And then, after that big project, you see how drained everyone is, and you see how, like, we accomplished this thing, and you may want to give people that time.

it may seem counterintuitive to have a party. To have a celebration because you think, well, no one's going to want to come. I mean, we've been together this whole time. No, you've been together this whole time. But but intense pressure.

You were under intense pressure trying to build these walls in record time. You were under intense pressure from enemies from every side. You were under intense pressure as you heard the word of God and you recognized your sins and you repented and you prayed and you cried. There was a lot of pressure. the pressure has to blow.

You know, that has to happen. Yeah. One of the things that I look forward to the most after events here at Clearview is a chance for us as a team to just sort of sit together and talk. Yes. And talk about, you know, the event itself and what went well and what we could have done better and how we can do better in the future.

But also just to celebrate the wins together, to talk about, like, man, I talked to this person and they were really impacted, and this is what they said. And this, this young person came up to me and responded this way. And I saw this family having fun doing this. It's so special to be able to share that together after we have. Had a really intense, like, we're gonna pull this off and we're gonna eat this and make sure this is running and make sure these things are here together.

And yes, there's reward in seeing it across the finish line, but there's also just a sweet time of celebration and sitting and talking together. And you're very intentional about that with us, Dr. Shaw. That's kind of helped shape how we think about this idea of celebrating but with intention.

Well, not only among us, but I think among the ministries too. Like the very first thing that we do after, like our theater ministry, after the play is done, we'll do it on a Saturday night. We'll do it again on a Sunday night. And that Tuesday night, there's a cast party. You know, that cast party where everybody comes together and they watch it.

And they have food. And we've done that with other events too. Like when the album came out, we had a listen party where all of the. You know, worship team and the staff came together and we listened to the album and we just got to celebrate and enjoy it. I'm of the type, and this is something I have to combat, where after.

A long or really intense thing, I want to isolate. I want to go home and sleep. And eat and be by myself. The danger, I think, of that is: number one, we never get to really celebrate the win. Number two, at least I'm the type where I'm going to move on to the next thing, where that thing that we just did still has some life in it.

That thing is still saying something new to people, even a couple of weeks after the event. And I think my one of my weaknesses that I'm praying God would help me with is that. Don't let go of the things that God is still using just because the event is done. It's like a good novel, and I don't read that much fiction, but some really good ones are some that I read again and again. How does a good novel end?

It will, let's say it's a detective/slash romance or something like that. It will. lead to a resolution towards the end. And then There is a resolution. There it is.

There's the criminal, or there all things come to light, and voila, it's done. But then there's another chapter. Where The people Connect with each other, or so-and-so is reconciled with so-and-so, or now they move into their new house, or then there is this new revelation, or something, you know, that they didn't know before. There's that, it's not really an epilogue, but it's a falling action. Yeah, yeah, it is.

It's like going to a big blockbuster movie, like a Marvel superhero movie or something. You see the final battle, then the final battle's over, you get up and walk out of the theater before you see the last couple of scenes.

Well, it's like running a race and you cross the finish line. What if on the other side of the finish line was a wall? Yeah, that's a that's a sudden stop. You cross the finish line, but man, you came to a sudden stop. No, you need that time to like run and slow down a little bit as you're kind of crossing the finish line.

That's exactly what's happening here. Dr. Shaw, as leaders, how do we communicate with our people to say, listen, I know everyone's tired. I know we accomplished this really great thing, but we should celebrate this together. We need to come together.

Do not be too quick to run out of the venue. Don't be so quick to say, I got to get out and be by myself. Yes, I do too, you do too, we all do. Take some time to sorta allow People to chat, allow them to share because they may want to talk about something, some things that didn't go right, some things that went right. And if they bring up things that didn't go right, you can address them.

Don't brush them off and say, ah, that's not a big deal. What is really important is this and that happened.

Okay, so let's not bring that up. No, no, address it. But then turn it around And also focus on the good, or what you can learn from that mistake, or that poor planning. And how you can now do better the next time. Do that, it brings a good sense of closure.

Mm-hmm. It allows you to encourage people who may otherwise go beat themselves up over that one mistake they made or something that didn't work out, blah, blah, blah.

So this is very important. Yeah. What did God's people do? It says right here in Nehemiah chapter 8 and verse 13: Now, on the second day, the heads of the fathers' houses of all the people. Where the priests and Levites were gathered to Ezra the scribe in order to understand the words of the law, and they found written in the law.

Which the LORD had commanded by Moses, that the children of Israel should dwell in boots. during the feast of the seventh month. This booth's like at Denny's. By the way, them booths at Dennis are I don't know if they're all Denny's, but there's booths at Dennis that are like long parties. Fit like four people on them.

Well, until chapter 8 and verse 12, everything in the book of Nehemiah has made sense, but when we come to verse 13, It seems a little strange. What is so special about the festival of living in booths? This seems like a camping trip. Yeah, it seems like it. You see, this festival was a time of reflection on the faithfulness of God.

It was a time of reflection on the blessings of family and friends, a time of reflection on the promise of hope. in the future. Nehemiah knew that The people had been going for a while. And they had been under Intense stress for a long time, they needed a break. They needed to step back and enjoy the blessings of life and family and salvation.

They needed to reflect on the blessings of the Lord. If they did not take the time to come apart, they will come apart in time.

So they had to kind of separate from the work. But not Separate and become isolated, but separate and come together and celebrate. Because in the process, and we're going to talk about this festival of booths a little bit more. They will Reminiscence. They will And I would say Institute?

Some Some Festivals Or or some markers? For the years ahead. they will teach their children, their grandchildren, like look how God is faithful So There was a need for this. There was a great need to have this festival.

Now, what does a Jewish festival of living in booths made out of grass and leaves have to do with us? Should we go home and pull out our tents and live in them? No, that's not what it means. In the Christian life, in the church, there is a time to work and then there's a time to celebrate. That's right.

You know, the celebration that we have is not really celebrating, look at this great thing that we accomplished. And I think that's something that a lot of us is such a basic thing we need to remember: is that we're celebrating God, we're celebrating what God has done for us. Even with a lot of the things that we're doing here at Clearview Church, we always try to point people back to look what God did through this church. What we did was to make Christ visible.

So that leads into the question I was going to ask, Dr. Shah. How do you keep people from, and I'm thinking specifically for ministry leaders and pastors who are listening, how do you keep people from let's celebrate together and focus on God and what He's done and let's brag about this really cool thing that we accomplished. Yeah, and that's where Whatever you do in private, you will do in public.

So you have to be careful. This cannot be just a bragging session. You can brag on God and say, look at what God did for us. Look how amazing God is. But if that turns into look how good we are, or what a great team we have, or man, we can do anything we put our minds to.

Then you have the wrong focus. Yeah, that's right. That's right. A lot of times. You may think that you're bragging on God, right?

Because you know the, if you're raised in the church, you know the language, you know the nomenclature, you know how to form your sentences and what you have to say. But you know, you want people to know how much work really that you put into it behind the scenes. Yeah. I think one thing that really helps us here is that we pray about every event that we do multiple times before we actually do it. You know, we come together, we talk about it.

It's not like this is, I'm just going to make write this book and make this movie and we're going to show it. And the rest of the staff has no clue what's going on. Dr. Sha has no clue what's going on. We come together and we plan these things out.

And there's times where Dr. Shaw is like, you know, I think God is trying to say this. If you modify what you're saying here, okay, yeah, that actually does make more sense. There's input from godly men that I trust. Therefore, when it comes together, this is no longer my thing.

This is our thing that God has given to us. And that's always helped me. Prayer before, leading up to, through, and after whatever the event or project or Calendar thing is. Yeah, like if you're a worship pastor, right? If you're a worship leader and you start making an album for your church, it can very quickly turn into your project.

This is my thing. And so if people don't celebrate it the way I want them to, I'm going to get my feelings hurt. Whereas with us, this is something that Dr. Shah, myself, David sat down, started writing together. It was a group thing, and the church took ownership of it.

It became Clearview's album, and people celebrated it, and we celebrated it. That's right. You know, think about the Festival of Boots. What was it supposed to be? This was a seven-day feast starting on the 15th day to the 21st day of the seventh month.

In Leviticus 23, verses 42 to 45, it says, God told them, You shall dwell in boots for seven days. All who are native Israelites shall dwell in boots, That your generations may know that I made the children of Israel and dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God. You see, during this feast, the people would lie in simple tents. Made from leaves and branches.

It was a reminder of their time in the wilderness when they had to live in these makeshift booths. and how God protected them. He protected them from the constant threats from natural hazards. Wild animals? enemy tribes from every side.

And he brought them safely to the land that he had promised them. The festival was a constant reminder of God's faithfulness in their lives. Their very existence was a testimony of God's goodness to them. That line. You know?

Man.

So you are here. That tells you that God has been good to you. Coming together and living in those boots was like recreating that. You know, some of our staff retreats, we go hiking. And when we go hiking and we walk together, help each other, encourage each other, it's kind of like.

Almost recreating what we do on a regular basis here. Like we're walking through projects, we're walking through deadlines, we're walking through some big event. And we help each other. We encourage each other. We support one another.

All that, in some ways, we are recreating and saying to ourselves, see, God is bringing us through this hike. Just the way he brought us through that project, that season, that difficult situation, God was faithful. God is faithful now. You know, I remember when we were in Bryce Canyon, And we we came around this bend. And I realized, ooh, The path now narrows down to maybe about.

Ten feet? I would say 10 feet. And then there's a drop on both sides. Yeah. That's about it.

Yep. Am I right on that? Was it 10 or 15 feet? Maybe? It wasn't much more than that.

I mean, maybe, maybe 12. I'm six. Yeah, I'm six feet. I could lay down. Maybe one and a half times.

I don't think I could have. Like, if I laid down on my back, I don't think I could have scooted very far. Yeah. So I would say maybe. Between eight and twelve feet.

Yeah, some places it was kind of narrow, if you remember that. I definitely, I definitely do. Yeah, definitely. I came under that archway. This is Bryce Canyon, for those of you who've been there.

And, you know, I was like, oh, and we went down into what was the place? I forgot all the names of the one that goes straight vertically down. I can look it up real quick. I can't remember. I remember it.

I can't remember what it was called. But it was like, as you were going down into this canyon, I was like, oh my word. Navajo Loop. The Navajo Loop. Navajo Loop.

That was it. It was. It was. When we talk about vertical down, like this was a straight vertical path. Yeah.

Yeah. It was zigzaggy all the way down. Very much so. And then when we walked through the canyon, there was nobody else. I mean, there were a few people here and there would come across in your path.

Other than that, it's all you. That's it. And then what was that? What was we walked through another? There was a garden of the Queen's Garden.

Queen's Garden. Queen's Garden. And I was like, oh. Beautiful, I mean beautiful. I wish I could describe to you because the cameras and the videos don't do justice.

I was like, oh, it's amazing. Oh, I hope we know where we're going.

So I spend half my time looking at my GPS to make sure I'm not leading the people somewhere. Of course, and then it's like To get back on course will take us eight hours, which means it'll be two o'clock in the morning. Oh, there will be a rescue party out for us. I'm like, no, I do not want to do that. Yes, I do not want to do that.

So, anyways, we began to walk through this. We saw a fist. Yeah. You know, it's one of those. Yeah, the formation.

And we saw that from far off. I think David spotted that. I was like, oh, that's pretty cool. Walking, walking, walking, walking, walking. Guess what?

We walk right up to that fist. I was like, that's crazy. We saw it way far in the distance, and then rounded the corner. I was like, oh, I can walk up and touch it now. Yeah.

I mean, we were there. Yeah. And it was, you know, miles of walking. I mean all that we were doing there was in some sense what the people of Israel were doing when they were living in the boots for those seven days. They were recreating the past and thanking God for his faithfulness And also reminding themselves of his faithfulness to each other.

Absolutely. You know, I think as someone's listening to this, you know, they're thinking to themselves, you know, I've got big projects right now, I've got deadlines, I'm stressed, and I feel like everything right now is resting on my shoulders. And maybe you're trying, you guys at the Clearview Today show are trying to help me, but I'm not feeling it right now. All I feel is this ticking clock moving closer and closer and closer towards my own doom. Right.

I can't see any celebration in my future because all I can see is this deadline. How would you encourage that person? I mean, I would definitely remind them that: hey, God has greater things for you than just a deadline. And it's not about the deadline. It's not about that album or that event or that book or that documentary.

It's about. Doing things that will benefit the people of God. Right. Is doing things that Jesus would do. That's what we're doing.

We're being the hands and feet of Christ. That's right. So don't lose heart, don't give up. You know, go out there and do the best you can by God's grace. You know, so and that's what these people did.

They spend some time In the booths, it says right here in verse 15 that they should announce and proclaim in all their cities and in Jerusalem, saying, Go out to the mountain and bring olive branches, branches of oil trees, myrtle branches, palm branches, branches of leafy trees to make booths as it is written. And you can picture this. Fathers, sons, mothers, daughters. Friends going to the nearby mountain. I mean, just like we went on a retreat and getting all these things together.

Kind of like going a bunch of Christmas trees. Christmas trees. That's right. And then it says in verse 16 here. Then the people went out and brought them and made themselves boots, each one on the roof of his house.

Or in their courtyards, or in the courts of the house of God, and in the open square of the watergate, and in the open square of the gate of Ephraim. What is interesting is that each family was supposed to have a booth of their own. Kind of like the Passover night. Each one had to have a lamb.

Now, you can double up with somebody if you don't have enough money to buy a lamb. But each one should have their own, means you cannot. Hang on to the coattails of someone else. Right. That's right.

And in verse 17, so the whole assembly of those who had returned from the captivity made boots and sat under the boots for since the days of Joshua the son of Nun until that day, the children of Israel had not done so, and there was a very great gladness. Again, what is interesting is that the children of Israel has celebrated the feast of the boots since the day of Joshua. And so What is so special? Ezra tells us in chapter three, verse four. They also kept the Feast of Tabernacles as it is written, and offered the daily burnt offerings in the number required by ordinance for each day.

In other words, Although they had celebrated the Feast of Booths in the past, They had not offered the burnt offerings that they were supposed to.

So they're getting back to the heart of worship. Yes. This is the gospel. Burnt offerings. I mean, that's Christ.

Mm-hmm. How amazing it is. It was not just like, hey, celebrate, celebrate good times. Come on. No, no, no.

It's more than that. This is about a reminder: getting back to the heart of the gospel. There's someone coming who will be our sacrifice. And that was Jesus. That's right.

Amen. Such a good reminder for us to get back to the heart of what it is, why we do what we do. I mean, why we do what we do here on the Clearee Today show. That's right. The heart is the gospel, engaging hearts and minds for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Our goal is that you would know Jesus, that you would know him better, and that you would make him known.

Well, Dr. Shush said it himself: the goal is not to have a radio show. The goal is not to have an album. Anybody out there in the world can do that and has done that and has done it a lot better than we have. But here's what we're saying: their goal is not right.

Their goal is themselves. You know, our goal is never to do that. Our goal is to be able to proclaim the goodness of Jesus Christ and to give you the wisdom to do the same thing in your ministry. That's right. Guys, make sure you join us tomorrow.

We're going to continue the conversation about Nehemiah's life.

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