So I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time on there.
But if you've just kind of slipped in, maybe you're a guest in here today, just to kind of give you a little bit of an update on where we are in our, our study. But Nehemiah, great book, and many of us, we know it because of the building of the walls around around Jerusalem. But the book of Nehemiah in chapter number one kicks off with Nehemiah working for the king, King Artaxerxes, and he's working in the king's palace. And he is the king of Nehemiah.
King's cupbearer. In other words, what that means is anything that wants to go to the king has to go through Nehemiah first. So if you if you hated the king, you want to poison the king or something like that. It would have to go through Nehemiah before it even got to the king. So Nehemiah be the one that you would attack in that case.
And so he had worked himself up. He was super high up there in Persia, and his brother came and visited him along with some of their friends and companions. And and he begins to give Nehemiah and chapter number one, kind of an update on how the people of God are doing there back in in Jerusalem, was brother tells him that the people are in great affliction and, and reproach. And Nehemiah, the reason why is because the city was still completely in ruins. And there's rubble all around and nothing had been rebuilt back the way that it wants was now in history, I want you to know that the city of Jerusalem, was the capital city of Judah, and and the city of Jerusalem was very, very important to the people in their relationship with God. And the reason is Solomon's temple, which is where the presence of God met, that was actually in Jerusalem. And so when Babylon is about 100 years before Nehemiah, when Babylon came in, and they invaded Judah, they destroyed the city of Jerusalem, they burnt down the walls around the city, and they burned down Solomon's temple. And so in chapter number one of Nehemiah, Nehemiah's brothers telling him that, hey, we're in great affliction and reproach, because the city has not been built back since the Babylonians had invaded it. In other words, it is still in complete ruins 100 years later. So think every time that they went outside, they would see just the debris and the rubble and the ash from the fire.
And the city was completely just devastated and in pain as a result of that. So Nehemiah heard this terrible, terrible news. And so he begins to pray, he begins to fast. And God eventually leads him to go to the king, his boss, and ask for some time off while he goes back and rebuilds the city of Jerusalem. So he goes back, the king of Persia sends him on his way, he comes back to Jerusalem, he begins to get everybody kind of aligned and assign different positions.
What they're going to be doing building the wall and things like that. And we know that he faced opposition from outside the church through guys like that, you've learned about Sam ballot to buy a guess on those guys, the enemy was trying to rise them up to try to get him to stop, because the enemy knew that if he built the city of Jerusalem, that God would dwell there once again. And when God is in the midst of anything, none of the enemies and the surrounding armies had a chance. So they were trying to just get Nehemiah to stop what God was leading him to do all of this time. We saw all this different opposition come up, but eventually, the walls were rebuilt in 52 days.
Isn't that amazing? 52 days God had led Nehemiah to do this incredible, incredible thing. But the wall, here's what I want you to know, the wall was an important step on the journey of rebuilding the city of Jerusalem. In Nehemiah chapter eight, here's what you have to understand is that the book of Nehemiah is much more about rebuilding the people of God than it is the walls around the city. So the walls around the city were just a step in the direction of rebuilding the people of God. And so as we read this, we know the book of Nehemiah is all about rebuilding the walls.
I mean, in fact, we've named our series Brick by Brick. If you do a quick Google search of Nehemiah and Bible studies, you're probably going to receive names of studies similar to something like this because the way that we know the book, it's all about the walls around Jerusalem and rebuilding it. But as you really dissect the book, it's more about rebuilding the people and leading the people, Nehemiah leading the people back into a relationship with God. And so for us, this is so practical, because as God is leading us to a project, what God is leading us to build, it is important that we realize just like Nehemiah, it's not just about a wall. It's not just about the walls around the city. It's about building up people within the building within the walls that would occupy the building that God's leading us to build. And that's that's the goal. So I want to go ahead and give you the big idea before we jump in here today is this.
Nehemiah chapter eight, here's what it is. Rebuilding your life, or in this case, the Jewish people, rebuilding your life can only happen through a commitment to the Word of God. Let me say that again. Rebuilding your life can only happen through a commitment to the Word of God. In fact, let's do this.
Let's say this together out loud here today. Rebuilding your life can only happen through a commitment to the Word of God. In other words, here's what you're going to see here in Nehemiah chapter number eight.
Your spiritual growth will go as far as your commitment to this book goes. Think about it like sports. I'm a sports guy. I love sports. And so many of you probably like sports as well.
Think about it. If I want to be a great basketball player, right? If I want and that's what I'm achieving, I'm like, man, that's a goal of mine. I want to become a great basketball player. It would be crazy for me to try to become a great basketball player without ever touching a basketball, right?
You guys with me? A basketball is a great basketball player. It is needed. It is a tool that you have to pick up. You have to use in order to become a great basketball player. Well, here what we find is that in order to grow closer to God, if that's the goal, in order to grow in your faith, you have to have the Word of God as a daily dose in your life if you are going to achieve what you are wanting to achieve in your spiritual life. You see, the Word is so important to spiritual growth. And before we dive into our text, I'm going to show you why it's important for you. First is in James chapter number one.
You don't have to turn there. But in James chapter one, James the brother of Jesus, he tells us why the Word is important for all of us to kind of every single day take it into your life and let it live inside of you because of this. He calls the Word three different things in chapter one of James. He calls at first the Word of truth. Here's what I want you to know as we look at the Word here today from Nehemiah eight. James chapter number one says that the Word is the Word of truth. Here's why it's important for you to have a daily dose of the Word is because this is where absolute truth is found. This is where absolute truth is found. And here's what I'm going to tell you because it's happened to me is is that when you look at the book and you see what God has to say and when you see that what God has to say doesn't align with maybe where culture is or how I feel or whatever. Here's what I'm going to tell you.
The book must win out. You got to realize that what you're going to believe is is true if you believe scripture. Now, if I had a nickel where everybody by the way is searching for truth, are they not? Everybody's searching for what's true. And here's how you know it. Because when you watch the news about a nickel for every time I've heard over the last 10 years, the phrase fact check.
Right? Everything's being fact checked. Everywhere you look, it's like, is this true? You know, you go onto social media, and you immediately see fact check and, and things like that. We see that phrase fact check everywhere you say why is that? It's because everyone is searching for where ultimate truth is at.
Everyone's looking for it. Now, here's what I'm going to tell you. Truth is not found on Facebook. It's always on what the media says to you, right?
Here's what I want you to know. When you're searching for truth, here's where ultimate truth is found. It's found in God's word.
And what James is saying is it's a reminder if we're searching for truth, and so I want you to see this before we get into Nehemiah 8. He calls it the word of truth, but then he calls it the engrafted word. He calls it the engrafted word. The word engrafted means implanted. In other words, what James is saying in the New Testament is this, is that the word is like seed that once it's placed into your life, it grows.
It grows, just like a seed that you plant in a garden. And so the point is, as we look at the word of God here today, it's this, I want you to know that once you place the word inside of you, it grows. If the seeds not planted, in other words, you're not spending time with God's word every day. You don't attend church as much as you should. You're not around God's word. You don't tend to attend Bible studies and extra things where that you can get the word.
Here's what I'm going to say. If the seed is not inside of you and the seed is not being watered inside of you, eventually it's not going to grow to what you're looking for. So the word is the word of truth, engrafted word, but then James calls it the perfect law of liberty. This is why it's important for us to understand that the word is essential to growth because in the word you find what is perfect, infallible, and does not obligate you to a life of bondage. So with that said, I want to jump into Nehemiah chapter number eight and see what happens now that the walls were built around the city of Jerusalem. I want you to see their commitment to the word of God. Look at verse number one, Nehemiah chapter number eight. And all the people, everybody say all the people, gathered themselves together as one man into the street that was before the Watergate. They spake unto Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded to Israel. And Ezra, the priest, brought the law before the congregation, both of men and women, and all that could hear with understanding upon the first day of the seventh month.
So just a little bit of the setting here. The walls have been rebuilt. Nehemiah's work done?
No. Remember, it's not just about the walls. If it wasn't built, if it was just about the walls, he'd have been headed back to Persia by that point, right? But he's still there.
Why? Because he is trying to not just rebuild the walls, he's trying to lead the Jewish people back into a relationship with God. He's trying to lead them back to God. And what you see here is as he's leading them, here's what happens. As they begin to grow, and as they begin to get closer to God like the children of Israel once had been, you see that all the people, and by the way, all the people meant women, men, and it says all that could understand.
In other words, you had to assume that there was probably some young people that had reached a point where they could understand the word to some degree. And so all of them came and here's what they did. They went to Ezra. Now I'd encourage you to read the book of Ezra at some point. Ezra runs parallel with the book of Nehemiah. So Ezra is kind of on the scene at the same time. We see that here in chapter eight. So if you read the book of Ezra, it's about rebuilding the temple.
Remember Solomon's temple had been destroyed. The book of Ezra is all about that. But what they do is they go to Ezra, all the people remember men, women, and everybody that could understand, and they go and you know what they beg him to do? They beg him to read the law to us. In other words, they kind of come to him, and you get the urgency.
It's almost like an urgent like, hey, Ezra, stop what you're doing. We want more of this. We want more of this, not less.
We want more of this. Read to us, Ezra. We want to hear what God has to say to us. So verse number three.
I know some of you are dying to hear my pronunciations of this names. We're not going to do that. Okay, so drop down to verse number five. You see, what you see here is that as Nehemiah is leading the people back to God, here's what you find. Is that in order to be led back to God, you have to have a commitment to the word of God. Let me say this for you.
Take building out, take all that stuff out. For you to get close to God, and for you to grow in your relationship with God, let me tell you this. It's not going to happen without a daily dose of God's word in your heart. It's not going to happen without you committing your time to the word of God, and allowing the word of God to get so close.
So deep into you, to plant itself so deep into your heart. That is when spiritual growth happens. And that's what you see here from the Jewish people.
So first, I want you to see this. The priority of the word of God in our lives. The priority of the word of God. In other words, what you see here is they have a priority to spend time in the Bible. Now number one, here's what you find is they hungered for the word. You see the Jewish people hungered for the word.
In chapter number one, here's what they said. They came unto Ezra, and they said to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded Israel. In other words, they come to him. All the people, young people, men, women, they're all together, and they're coming to Ezra. And the picture you get here is they are hungry to hear the word of God preached. And by the way, here's what's interesting. Here's what's interesting to me as a preacher.
I don't know how Ezra delivered this, by the way. He begins to read the law of Moses. That's the first five books of the Old Testament. We call that the Torah. And here's what I'll tell you is that for the Jewish boys, they had to memorize the entire Torah by the age of 12 years old. And so here they are, all these people are coming, and they're asking Ezra, Ezra, please read us the law.
Please read us the law. We want to hear it. We want to hear it. We want to hear it.
We want to hear it. I don't know if he elaborated. I don't know if he preached through it. We don't have a record of exactly how he delivered it.
We don't know if he just opened it up and started reading it right in the Hebrew original language and didn't add anything to it, but just slowly worked through it and just read it to everybody. We don't know that, but here's what you get is you get a sense of hunger for the word. Now, what's the application here?
It's this. Think about it for us. Let's put it this way. Let's put it in modern day church, okay? We add a lot of things to our services on the weekend, right? And sometimes we feel, I know I feel this as a pastor, that we almost have to gimmick people to get them to church sometimes, right? Like, we have to just, everything has to go right for us all to gather on the weekend sometimes. And so what churches do, and our church is no different than this, we try to do things to get people.
People in the door. So we add things, and I think these are great things. We add things like the parking lot.
Aren't you thankful? We got helpers in the parking lot. We offer greeters.
So when you walk in, you don't feel lonely that you feel welcomed and things like that. I'm grateful for that, right? We have music playing before the service. I'm thankful for that. We have singers that are good. We have a choir that is great, and we do all of these things.
We have musicians who know what they're doing. I'm grateful for all of that. I'm so thankful for that. Aren't you thankful for this? Leaders in our kids' ministry watching our kids right now. Can I get an amen for that?
Okay. We love that. And I'm thankful that we have people that do that, and we have all these different things. We have guys running sound, and we put slides up here on the screen to help us, to kind of keep us engaged best we can. We come into places like this where we try to engage you, and we try to put preachers and speakers up here that will engage everybody in the audience and keep your attention best they can.
We're all advocating that we get rid of all those things. But here's my point, is that for the children of Israel, as they are being led back to God, here's what I'll tell you. All they wanted was the Word of God.
In other words, the picture that you get here is that this book was central and most important to them. They didn't need demics. They didn't need all these extra things. You know what they wanted? They wanted to hear this read to them.
Perhaps, what if we did this at Union Grove Baptist Church sometime, maybe next week, we'll try this, whatever. We had nothing. We had nobody in the parking lot. We had no greeters at the door. We had no music playing. We had no sound guys. We had no musicians.
We had no music. Just right when you came in, 11 o'clock, I'm going to get up, and what I'm going to do is I'm going to start just reading the Bible. I'm not even going to preach to you. I'm not going to try to add any cool illustrations. I'm not just going to try to engage you or get you to repeat things.
Just kind of keep your attention. All I'm going to do is I'm going to start with Genesis chapter number one, and I'm going to read. I wonder if you would be back next week. I'm glad Daniel would be here. Daniel's ready.
He's like, give me that all day. I wonder, perhaps, if we did that. Now, if we did it and we caught you off guard, you'd probably come here and be like, oh my goodness, what is happening at Union Grove Baptist Church? I'd be back for week number two if we said that's what we're going to do the next week. You see, for some of us, we come to church for all these other things, and by the way, they're good things, and I'm grateful for them. I'm not at all advocating that we don't do all these things.
I'm so thankful that in our church, we have gifted people that is gifted by the Holy Spirit of God that are doing these things and using their gifts to edify the body of Christ. But here's what I'll tell you is this. We have missed it if this is not the central thing that we gather for every single week. We have missed the point if this is not the reason why you're here. If the reason why you're here is, man, I got friends here. That's a good reason, but let me tell you this. That's not the ultimate reason. If the reason you're here is, man, the music's great. It's not the ultimate reason. I grew up here. Hey, that's great. We're grateful that you've stayed with us.
It's not the ultimate reason. Look at what it says. It says that they listened from morning until midday. Do you want to know how long that is?
Five hours. I didn't tell you this ahead of time, but I just, I believe in literal application. I'm preaching for five hours today, right now, okay? That's a joke. Some of you are awkwardly laughing like, is he serious?
Really? Mom, you didn't tell me that. This, whatever. Listen, I wouldn't do that, but here's what I want you to know is here, they literally gathered everyone, men, women, and those that could understand, and they listened, and they took time for the word. Now, I love to study church leadership and church experts and stuff like that, and here's what I'll tell you. In all my reading, here's what people will tell you about churches is that normally you lose people around, you know, you can keep their attention for about 60 maybe 70, you know, minutes or so, and then you kind of lose them, right?
And so what we have to do is for that 60 minutes that we get, we kind of have to engage people best we can. Isn't that wild that that's kind of the cultural norm here in today's church? Whereas when you see the children of Israel, they desired it so much to the point where they just wanted to be there longer. They were willing to sit for hours listening to the word of God preach.
It was the most important thing to them. You know, for us, we try to shoot for 60 to 70 minutes of a service. That's kind of where we shoot. In fact, you might not know this, but there's a clock behind me that is literally counting me down right now for the amount of time. Now, here's what I'm going to tell you. I'm just gonna be honest with you. I don't ever look at that clock hardly. So if you think that clock is going to box me in today, it's just not going to happen.
Okay. And so, but here's what I'm going to tell you. We count it down so that we know like, hey, his time is is about is about up. But the reason why we do that is because a lot of times we got 60 minutes to engage you.
We sometimes don't like to take the time for what is most important. And here you got this sense that man they hungered for it. Give us the word. We'll sit here for hours or stand here for hours as the word of God is proclaimed. Also, you see that they were attentive. Verse number three, it says that they were attentive unto the book of law.
Listen, we live in a distracted society here. Here's what they did. You know what kept their attention. The word of God that was preached. It was the main thing. Like we live in such a distracted society that a lot of you we can't sit in a service like this without looking at our phone.
We can't right. Some of you that might be looking at your phone. But here's my point is, aren't you? I'm the same way.
When I sit on that side, like after a few minutes, here's what I find is that I'm just like, man, I'm distracted. So I'm going to see what Facebook's saying right now. Right. I'm going to see what here. Here's all I'm trying to get you to understand is that here they were attentive that when this book was read, they listen to it. They wanted something from it. Nothing's going to distract me.
We're not going to look at anything else. We are going to focus in on the reason why we live in a distracted society. Why we are here. You know what would change some of your church experience week to week is if you eliminated distractions in your life. Perhaps what would it look like if you came into this place and said, you know what, I'm turning my phone completely off today. You see what I'm saying?
It's like or perhaps you're going to say, you know what, I am coming and I'm not going to sit with the person that distracts me or that kind of, you know, gets me off off my subject or my reason to be here. What you find here is that they were attentive. They were listening. They were focused. They hungered for it.
They took time for it. They were attentive. But then what we find in verses five and six is they exalted the word versus five and six.
Here's what it says. It says they stood for the reading of God's word. And then when the word of God was proclaimed to them, you know what they did?
They shouted. Amen. Amen.
But here's the picture that we get here. When the word of God was proclaimed, they stood for the reading and then they shouted. Amen. Amen.
They lifted up their hands and then they fell to their faces. Before God. I'm never going to tell you how to respond to God's word, but here's what I'll tell you. You never see something in scripture that when the word of God is proclaimed that there is no response.
So here's what I want to challenge you to do. When the word of God is proclaimed, respond. Respond. That might mean an amen, right? That might mean falling on your face this morning. That might mean hitting an altar and getting on your face before God today, asking him to convict you and to change you.
I don't know where you're at here today. And listen, I'm never going to tell you how to respond. But what I'll tell you is that every time the word of God is proclaimed in scripture, there is a response of some sort in your life. That's the priority of the word of God in our lives. That's the priority. Listen, are you prioritizing the word? Like, are you hungry for it? Are you attentive when it's preached to you?
Do you take time for it? Or right away when the service started, you're already looking at your clock like, oh, you know, where are we going? Or what are we doing?
Whatever. Listen, this is the century. This is the literal reason why we are here. Take time for it. Be hungry for it.
Be attentive and exalted. The second thing we see here is this. The priority of the word of God, or the second thing is the joy the word of God brings in our lives. Look at verse number eight. They said unto all the people, this day is holy unto the Lord your God. More not nor weep for all the people wept when they heard the words of the law. Then he said unto them, go your way, eat the fat, drink the sweet, send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared for this day is holy unto our Lord.
Neither be you sorry for the joy of the Lord is your strength. After hearing the word, this is so interesting to me. After hearing the word, the people were weeping. They were weeping.
You say, why? I mean, why would we weep when the words proclaimed or read to us? Perhaps they were weeping because what they were reading, or in this case, what they were listening to as Ezra read it, was so different than the way that they lived. In other words, perhaps the reason why they were weeping was there was a gap. There was a gap between what they heard and who they were.
And you know something, sometimes that gap can be true of us, can't it? That when you hear the word preached and you hear about forgiveness, and you hear about a critical spirit, and you hear about being disrespectful to maybe your parents or whatever, and you hear about those things, and when you hear it, you see, okay, there's a gap between what I hear and the way that I live. I remind ourselves that we are broken and that we are sinful, and yes, we should weep because we are in need of healing from him.
But here's what's amazing to me. Ezra, he said, don't weep. Literally, in verse number nine, he says, more not nor weep. Why would he tell them, have you ever been with somebody that's crying and all the other person says is, stop it. Right? That's not the best thing to do. You got somebody crying, you know, it's a lot harder than just knock it off, right? Don't say that. You try to listen to them, try to understand them and stuff like that. And he tells them, hey, stop. Stop your weeping. You say, why is that?
Here's what I want you to see. It's all about timing. Scripture, nothing's in Scripture without accident. If you see in verse number two, it's the seventh month. You say, what's significant about that? On the Jewish calendar, this is the month Tishri.
And you say, what does that mean? In the month Tishri, there were three different Jewish feasts that they would have observed. And in fact, the feast that they're observing right there together, you'll read about it at the end of this chapter, was what they called the Feast of Booths or the Feast of Tabernacles.
And you're going to see that here in a moment. But this feast that they're celebrating happens five days after the previous feast, the feast that just happened. And it's the Day of Atonement.
And here's what perhaps I think is happening is this. The Day of Atonement was a Jewish feast. I'm going to spend a whole lot of time on it. But it was a Jewish feast where one day a year on the Day of Atonement, the high priest, he would go into, in this case, the temple, and he would sacrifice for the sins of all of Israel. And he would sacrifice for the sins of all of Israel. So everything that they had done wrong, every sin that they had committed, he would go, the high priest would kill a lamb, he'd go and he'd sprinkle the blood of the lamb, the spotless, the spotless lamb, he'd sprinkle the blood of the lamb on the Ark of the Covenant and on the Mercy. And what that did was that blood atoned, or better yet, it paid for all of the sins of the nation of Israel. So everything that they're reading from the Torah, and they're weeping because who they are is much different than what they're reading, right?
How they live is much different than what they see in Scripture. I can only imagine them just weeping and wailing and crying and mourning. And he's saying, stop, stop, stop. And they're saying, I can't stop. I can't stop.
I can't stop crying. You don't understand what I've done. You don't understand the sins that I've committed. You don't understand the things that I've done that nobody else knows about.
And when I read the law and I read God's standard, it's much different than who I am. So that's why I'm weeping. And I imagine Ezra is saying this, when you get off, stop weeping.
Don't you remember what just happened? The Day of Atonement. The sins that you are crying for have been forgiven. The sins that you are mourning for, they've been paid for.
All the results been paid for. There's no more judgment, only acceptance because of the atoning work of what has been done for you. Let me tell you this, is that for us, when you read Scripture and you see that what Scripture says is much different than the way that we live, and you see the gap, yeah, you can mourn, but don't continue to mourn.
Why? Because our sin has been forgiven. Your sin has been paid for.
There is no penalty. There is no judgment. All of that was taken on the person of Jesus when he went and hung on a cross for your sin. You see, he loved us so much.
So stop the weeping and start being joyful. Number three, what you see is the result the Word of God brings in our life. The result that the Word of God brings into our life. Look at verse number 17 and we'll be done. It says this, together, very great gladness.
Let's say those three words together. Very great gladness. Listen, what they were observing is what we call the feast of tabernacles or the feast of booths. And this feast was an eight-day celebration. And it was literally eight days started with the Sabbath day. In other words, they didn't work.
And then at the end, they didn't work either on the eighth day. And the first day of this feast was five days after the Day of Atonement. So the Day of Atonement had just happened where all their sins had been forgiven, all the wrongs had been made right. And now they come and they're observing the final Jewish feast on the Jewish calendar. And this was one of those feasts that everybody kind of traveled to Jerusalem to be a part of. There were seven Jewish feasts and three of them was a requirement for all Jewish boys to head to Jerusalem and celebrate it together.
This was one of them. Everybody has gathered to Jerusalem. They're all there. And what they do at this feast is they take all these different sticks.
You can read about it in verses 14 through 16 of this chapter, or you can read about it in more detail with Leviticus chapter 23. And they take all these sticks from all these different light, all these branches from all these different trees, and they put them all together and they build these temporary tents, if you would. So it's like a temporary dwelling place. And so they put them there and they live in these temporary stick-made homes for the entire duration of this. So they're all over Jerusalem. Now, I'm not good with my hands and I'm not an outdoorsy kind of guy, so I would have probably had a lot of people helping me build mine.
I would have struggled every year. This would have been something I would dread, all right? So they kind of put this thing together. They put all these sticks up, you know, and they live in these things for eight days.
You say, what's the significance? Well, the reason why they do this is it was a reminder for the Jewish people of the time that they spent in temporary living spaces in the wilderness. So this was a commandment by God, hey, once a year, the Feast of Tabernacles, we want you to do this and live in these, you know, tent-like, you know, temporary dwelling places to remind you that God provided for you in the wilderness, that God protected you in the wilderness, that God delivered you in the wilderness. And everything you needed, if it was food, he delivered.
If it was, you know, drink, he delivered. And for them, everybody had gathered in to be a part of this. So there were stories of this all over town, you know, hey, do you remember when, you know, our grandfathers and our ancestors, how they were there and they were thirsty, and then water came out of a rock, and when they were hungry, you know, manna, or I think of it like Cheez-Its were falling from the sky, I don't know.
And so all this kind of stuff, and it was just this incredible, incredible memory for them, and this feast was a time for them to remember it. You say, what's the application for us today? Are we supposed to go do this?
You know, hey, try that with your family. We're gonna go grab some sticks and we're gonna build a temporary dwelling place, remember. No, but here's what I want you to see, because this is what's important for you. This feast, you see it in the New Testament, and this is where it gets real practical for you. In John chapter seven, what you find in John chapter seven is Jesus is on the scene, okay? And Jesus is on the scene, and for him, he actually slips into Jerusalem, and you find in John chapter seven, this is the feast that they're observing.
The dwelling place is made of sticks and branches. They're all over town, and people are living in these, and so Jesus comes. John chapter seven, you should read this, is it actually says he secretly comes to this. In other words, he doesn't tell people he's coming, he just shows up, and he kind of comes incognito a little bit. He's in secret. So he shows up, and here's what happens, is at this feast, everybody's there, and they begin debating on who he is, who the Messiah is.
Some are saying, man, he's a really good person, and all this kind of stuff. Remember, this is what the story of Scripture is about, and the story of Scripture from cover to cover is all about the coming Messiah, who's come to take away the sins of the world to restore you and I back into a relationship with him. And here's what's amazing, the Jewish people, they looked for him, they talked about him, they dreamed about him, but when he actually came, you know what? They did not recognize him.
And by the way, some of us don't either. You might have been putting him off for so long, and you come in here every week, week after week, and you just are saying, nah, it's too good to be true, he's not who he says he is, and you put up all these walls, and listen, you're no different than the Jewish people that when Jesus is standing right in front of you, you don't recognize him. Well, his Jewish people received him not. So Jesus comes to this, they're all gathered there, and they're debating who he is, and things like that. And on the final day of the feast, the eighth day, he gets up, and he begins to teach and say this, and look at what he says, verse number 37. He says this, John chapter 7, verse number 37, he says, in the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, if any man thirst, let him come into me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. You say, what's the significance here as we kind of land the plane this morning?
It's this. Jesus fulfilled this feast entirely. In other words, back then, what they remembered is how God provided in the wilderness, how God led them in the wilderness, how God guided them in the wilderness, how God protected them in the wilderness, all those different things. Well, let me tell you this, everything that you are looking for, provision, deliverance, all those things, protection, everything that they found in God the Father in the wilderness, Jesus is for us today. It's that Jesus fulfills this.
In other words, and so in Nehemiah chapter 8, what was the result? When they remembered, wow, God provides for us. God's sufficient for us. God delivered us.
God's protected us. What was the result of that when you realize that? Very great gladness. Very great gladness, right? And so when we realize that everything that we need is found in the person of Jesus, the only result is very great gladness for you.
The only result is joy when you realize that Jesus is everything. If you're weary in here today, find rest in him. If you're weak in here today, find strength in him. If you're powerless in here, find power in him.
If you're discouraged in here, find encouragement in him. If you lack joy today, find joy in him. Everything that you need is fulfilled in the person of Jesus and the result is gladness. The only result is very great gladness. Listen, that's the point, but listen, here's what I'm going to tell you.
It all started with the first six verses of them getting around hungry for the word. I don't know about you. I want that type of gladness. I don't want just gladness. I want very great gladness. I want that to be true of my life. I want joy to be true of my life. And here's what I'm going to tell you. If you grow in your faith, the only way to do it is through this book.
The only way to do it is being committed to the word of God because without committing to the word of God, what you're desiring for spiritual growth, it can't happen because your spiritual growth will only go as far as your commitment to this book actually goes. Would you bow your heads with me? Nobody looking around. As Becky comes, she'll start playing here in a moment. This is our chance to respond.
And listen, I don't want you to respond just because Nehemiah did, but let me tell you this. Every single one of us should respond in some way today. For some of you, you might just kneel right where you are and praise him or ask him to convict you. For others, this altar is going to be open and maybe you need to come and get on your faces before him. But here's the thing is if you're lacking joy, it's found in Jesus. Everything you're searching for is found in Jesus. If you're here today and you say, Pastor, I don't know if I'm a Christian. I don't know if I know him the way that you're talking about here today and I have questions about my faith. If that's you here today, would you be honest before myself and before God by slipping up your hand and say that's where I'm at here today? Perhaps you're looking for sufficiency in other places.
You're looking for strength in other places. If that's you, be honest before God. Say that's where I'm at here today. Would you be honest and lift up your hand this morning. Well, listen, what we're going to do is we're going to stand everybody everywhere. You can stand right now.
Nobody looking around. I'm going to pray. And if God speaks to you, you need to respond to God's word here today.
This is your opportunity. Father, we love you. God, we thank you for your word.
We pray, God, that you would help us to respond. Give us a commitment to it. Give us a hunger for it. Give us the time for it. Because we're nothing without it. And it's the most important thing that's going to determine how far we go in our relationship with you. Bless in this invitation response time. For it's in your name we pray. Amen.
