A Dedication Worth Celebrating, Part 1

God never honors the thing until the people related to the thing are right. Dr. Tony Evans says we can't ignore God's ways and still expect His help.

That's why we can't fix our culture. People want to be wrong, but they want God's blessing. This is the alternative broadcast featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr. Tony Evans. The wall was finished.

The city was safe. The people were finally reunited. But in Nehemiah 12, the celebration didn't start until something deeper took place. Today, Dr. Evans shows us that before God dedicates the work of our hands, He first looks to dedicate our hearts.

Let's join him for this powerful message on worship, holiness, and the kind of praise God is pleased to receive. Nehemiah has been used of God to do what was humanly impossible. As you recall, the walls of Jerusalem were torn down. No stability, no community, no safety. The community had become one of disarray and confusion. And yet, by a sovereign, supernatural act of God, that was all different now.

And we have spent our time explaining why. We come now, however, to chapter 12, beginning with verse 27, to the dedication of the wall. This is actually a celebration event where they're celebrating the accomplishment of God through them in rebuilding their society. They celebrate as an act of worship.

And if I were to give you a brief definition of worship, worship is simply the celebration of God. A lot of celebrating goes on in heaven. God celebrates. And when these people looked around, they saw a wall that had not been there. They saw a society that had been torn down. They saw families reunited, and they said, we got to celebrate. And so they gathered together and called for a celebration. There are a number of observations I want to make from this passage. First of all, I want to look at the prerequisite for celebration.

The participants of celebration, the purification in celebration, the procession of the celebration, the proclamation of the celebration, and the provisions of the celebration. Verse 27 says, now at the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem. The rebuilding took place back in chapter 6, but they don't get around until the dedication to the beginning of chapter 12. Because when God dedicates things, he must always first be able to dedicate people. See, the walls were right, but the folk were wrong. They still had sin that they had gone unaddressed. They still had injustice in society that had gone unaddressed.

They still had unrighteous leaders that had gone unaddressed. You cannot dedicate a thing, as we'll see further in a moment, until you first dedicate the people who are running the thing. As a preacher and a pastor, I'm regularly asked to dedicate things. For example, I'm asked to dedicate houses. Families moving through the home, they say, pastor, will you come dedicate a house?

Now there's a problem there. Because the house will not be any better than the people living in it. You can't dedicate a good house if you've got messed up occupants. So in order to have a dedicated house, you've got to have dedicated people. Businesspersons ask me to come dedicate their businesses.

There's a problem, though. You can't have a holy business unless you've got a holy owner, unless the person running the business is dedicated under God, and now you can talk about fixing the brick and the machines and the cash register. Things are only dedicated to God when the people who are running the thing have first been dedicated to God. We're asked to dedicate babies, and that's something I love doing. I love holding a newborn life in my hand and dedicating it to the Lord, but there's a problem.

What kind of parents is this kid being born to? Because the dedication has always to do with people. The reason why the walls were built in chapter 6, but the dedication doesn't occur in chapter 12, is that people needed fixing. And unless you fix folk, God will never fix things that the folk are related to. You notice in our culture, they pray strategically. Congress, the sessions of Congress, for example, are opened in prayer. Our city council meetings are opened in prayer. Various school activities are opened in prayer. Now, have you ever wondered why it doesn't seem like God ever answers any of those prayers? Have you ever wondered why when they pray before a council meeting, the council meeting gets worse? Or why our government is not able to come up with real answers even after they've asked God to help? Or why in your own life you prayed about things that have gone just the opposite? Well, here it is.

God never honors the thing until the people related to the thing are right. And if you're not right, it doesn't make any difference that you now have walls. Some of you know what I'm talking about. You and your husband bought a new home. This baby's got three garages. I mean, we're talking about your dream house. Only one problem.

The old marriage is moving into the new house. And unless the people are dedicated, unless people get right, then the brick and the mortar is as cursed as ever. They don't dedicate the walls until God has gotten the people straight.

That's why we can't fix our culture. People want to be wrong, but they want God's blessing. God doesn't do that. So save your time, get off your knees, because you're not going anywhere.

You just uttered a rubber ball, it hit the ceiling, and bounced back. God does not dedicate things until he first has dedicated people. So that was the prerequisite. Now, part and parcel of this celebration was the praise aspect, second half of verse 27. So they might celebrate and dedicate with gladness, with the hymns of thanksgiving, with the songs, with the accompaniment of cymbals and harps and lyres.

This was going to be a big event. When God has been active in your personal life, family life, church life, or societal life, he deserves to be praised. Now, unfortunately, some of us are too cute to praise God. We're too sophisticated to praise God.

We're too stuffed shirt to praise God. Something is wrong with the fan who can still sit in his seat after the home team has scored the winning basket with one second left to go. If they're still seated, they're crazy. Something is wrong with the fan who can sit in their seat when the last play of the game, a 50-yard touchdown bomb is thrown, and it's caught in the end zone with a bunch of other players around.

You can't sit down when you get something like that happen. How can then we play with praising God? How can we mess around with giving him glory? How can the redeemed of the Lord be quiet when you know God has done something? That is, unless you believe God didn't really do it, you did it yourself. And fundamentally, that is what happens today. Men give themselves credit for that which God alone deserves praying. And they understood that they were not where they are until, or where they are in terms of rebuilding the wall, except God had intervened. A lot of us have forgotten that we're where we are by the grace of God. See, some of us still shouldn't even be in those homes we're living in.

Some of us shouldn't be driving those cars we're driving, making the money we're making, or wearing the clothes we're wearing. But God was good. And you've got to say, wow, at the end of the game. When you understand who God is and what God has done, he deserves to be praised. And so the people are now preparing to praise him. A lady one time came to her pastor. The pastor really preached hard that day, and she came and said, pastor, that was a tremendous message. The pastor said, well, boy, don't thank me, thank the Lord.

She said, well, I thought about that, but it wasn't that good. We've got to give credit to whom credit's due. And if God has been working in your life, he deserves credit.

If he's been working in your home, he deserves credit. Men want God on their terms. Men want God to bless their agenda. They do not want to conform their agenda to his agenda.

And God doesn't work under those terms. Look at the participants. It says in verse 27 that they sought out the Levites from all their places. They got the clergy together and brought religion back at the center of the life of the people. In fact, you're going to see in a moment there were two great choirs. One was led by Ezra, the spiritual leader.

The other one was led by Nehemiah, the political leader. The Levites are in the center, and what church and state do is converge to the temple to establish the fact that the reason we're in this mess in the first place is that God had been left out of our society. I don't care what mess you in. God was left out for you to get in that mess.

At some point in your life or your experience, in your personal life or family life, God was left outside, you started doing things on your own, and a mess ensued. Same thing with a society. A society that has no moral frame of reference, no divine standard, no final court of appeal is then left to the whims of individuals who vote by the mood. And that's why God never allows majority opinion on his commands.

He never puts his will up for votes. You never vote on the will of God. God is to be obeyed if you want to be rebuilt. If you want your world to be rebuilt, God must be obeyed. And so once they center God at the hub of the culture, you see the church and state, separate institutions, but yet singularly moving in a direction, because while you may separate institutions, you can never separate ideology.

And the ideology that governs the society, or as we put it in philosophical terms, a society's worldview, its posture, its mental belief about itself, and that relationship to God will determine a society's ability to function. So the participants centralized the religious world as the hub of political, social, and economic transformation. Dr. Evans will return in just a moment to show how that spiritual, social, and even political alignment led to a deep cleansing and renewal for the people of Nehemiah's day. Well, this message today is part of Tony's powerful teaching series that's taking us on a journey through the book of Nehemiah, a rich 15-lesson study on how God brings restoration and renewal through faithful leadership and spiritual courage. We'd like to offer you all the full-length messages in this two-volume audio collection, along with our thanks, when you make a generous contribution to help us keep Tony's teaching on this station. In addition to the complete Nehemiah audio series, we're excited to include an added bonus, Dr. Evans' compelling book, One Nation Under God. It's a timely, practical resource that shows how we as believers can influence our culture for good, not through politics, but through a kingdom-first approach that starts with each of us. To take advantage of this special limited-time offer, visit us today at TonyEvans.org, or call us at 1-800-800-3222.

Again, visit us online at TonyEvans.org, or by phone at 1-800-800-3222. Right now, let's get back to Dr. Evans with more of today's message from Nehemiah chapter 12. Now, let's look at the Purification, verse 30. And the priests and the Levites purified themselves. They also purified the people, then they purified the gates and the wall. The Hebrew word purify means to clean up or cleanse.

In this case, they would wash their clothes, take a bath, wash their bodies, and then take the blood of the sacrifices and sprinkle them for an offering for their sins. In other words, they were getting clean before a holy God. When we talk about the word holy, you've got the Holy Land. You've got the Holy Bible. Jerusalem is the holy city. Christians are called holy ones. You're called saints, holy ones. That word means to be set apart. It means to belong to God.

Now, let me tell you a secret. You don't belong to you if you're a Christian. If you name the name of Jesus Christ, you don't belong to you anymore. The Bible says you have been bought with a price, and the price was the precious blood of Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ, the New Testament word for purify, sanctified you.

He set you apart for his private use. The Bible says that the leaders first and then the people sanctified themselves. In other words, they made themselves clean before God. Now, one of the great doctrines that many people don't understand is the holiness of God. God is absolutely holy.

He doesn't tolerate any sin. A little sin on earth is open scandal in heaven. God is holy. That's why when we come before the presence of God, we've got to clean up our act. We can't be unholy and then jump in front of the presence of God. You can't go with unconfessed sins and expect God to accept your worship. God is holy.

He has a divine standard that he does not compromise. And so the first thing that they did was they what? They purified themselves.

They got themselves clean. Getting ourselves clean today means to confess our sins before holy God and walk in righteousness. And when we fail to do so, confess the lack of walking in righteousness that we are clean before holy God. You hear people today talk about God understands. No, he doesn't. God does not excuse sin. He makes provision for it, but he never excuses it.

God is holy. It says, and then they purified the gates and wall. Now, this goes back to what I was saying earlier, but let me reiterate it. How do you purify a gate? A gate is a gate. How do you purify a wall? A wall is a wall.

I'll tell you what they did. They sprinkled blood on the gates and sprinkled blood on the walls. In other words, what they were saying is that this wall represents the protection of our community. And this gate represents the security of our community.

And because we have now purified ourselves before you, we want you to purify the thing that you have given us. That piano over there is neutral. At another location, it could become a sinful piano because it could be playing songs that have sinful lyrics. So now it's a sinful piano. Those drums are neutral, but in another place they could become sinful drums because they could become drums backing up music that is against God.

That chair is neutral, but in another place it could be a sinful chair because it could be in a place that is operating against the demands of God. In other words, it's neutral until you do something with it. In other words, once a person touches it, it either becomes sanctified or cursed.

Even though it's a thing, it stops being only a thing by who touches it. Things are sanctified by the touch. When godly people touch neutral things, they become sanctified. Right now, this room is sanctified. It's holy because God's people have gathered to meet God for God's purposes. That makes it holy.

To become holy means to set something apart for God. You see, you can't come to my house and curse, for example. If you were to come to my house and use profanity, I would ask you to leave. The reason I would ask you to leave is that's not my house. See, I dedicated it. When I dedicated it, it meant that I would not use certain language in my house because it's against God. Now, if I live there paying the bills and own the place and can't talk that way, guess what, visitor?

You can't do that either. There is a standard, so when you walk on this ground, you remember what God told Moses? He told Moses, take off your shoes.

This is not the same ground anymore. Because once something has been dedicated to God, it must be purified for God. And so even things can be made pure, gates, buildings, businesses, but only if the people in them are pure. There must be a call for righteousness. No, not everybody is going to do it, but we must still call for it.

There must be a standard of right and wrong. And so the people purify themselves, and the people purify the wall that they are a part of. You must be clean to worship God. That leads us to the procession. Verse 31. I have the leaders of Judah come up on top of the wall. I appointed two great choirs.

The first proceeding to the right, verse 38. The second choir proceeded to the left. So you've got one choir going counterclockwise, another choir going clockwise, and they're having a big celebration on the wall.

Now, that may not seem like much to you, but what this means is that this is a big wall. I mean, you've got whole choirs, and the nation is following, walking on a wall. What are they doing?

Well, I'll tell you what they're doing. They are demonstrating visually a panoramic view of what God had done. They said, let's climb on top of God's blessing.

Let's get up here where God's blessing is. Secondly, they reflected their unity. They all operated in the same flow. Thirdly, they all converged on the temple. They all came to the temple, verse 40, and then the two choirs took their stand in the house of God, and so did I and half of the officials with me. In other words, the celebration wound up at the central place, and the central place was the temple, and the temple represented the presence of God. God is to be at the center of everything in a person's life, a family's life, or a culture's life, if it is ever going to see God work in its context. It must be at the center. God never wants to be second.

Never. And so they celebrate in such a way that they proceed and make it publicly known. They give a visual demonstration of the blessing of God.

Now don't forget today's lesson is part of Tony's rich, thought-provoking series on the book of Nehemiah, and as I mentioned earlier, you can get the full-length version of all 15 messages in this two-volume audio collection when you make a donation to help support our mission of sharing God's truth and hope. Plus, as a special bonus, you'll also receive Dr. Evans' insightful, practical book, One Nation Under God. Give us a call today to make the arrangements at 1-800-800-3222. Our resource center is open 24-7, so you can reach out any time of the day or night. That's 1-800-800-3222, or visit us online at TonyEvans.org.

You'll find all the details right on the home page. Again, that's TonyEvans.org. Well, just a quick reminder, a brand-new episode of Stories from the Storyteller drops tomorrow. In Best Dressed, the Evans family gets a lesson in dressing for the occasion, and Bedtime brings a story about the king's banquet and being ready for God's invitation. Learn more about this animated series for kids at TonyEvansTV.com. That's TonyEvansTV.com. It's easy to let fear or fatigue keep us quiet about our faith, but tomorrow Dr. Evans shows why real joy isn't rooted in feelings or circumstances, but in faithfulness. Be sure to join us for that. .