God’s Word: The Foundation of the Believing Community

1:02They feature box seats and concourses that would have made college and professional teams jealous just a few short years ago. But both of these stadiums experienced big, expensive setbacks. Both stadiums had significant foundation issues that led to cracking. McKinney's cracking was mainly cosmetic, but Allen's cracking was so severe that they had to close the stadium and do another $10 million worth of repairs. So I guess there's the $70 million now, too. Foundations matter. If you don't build on a firm foundation, whatever you put on top of that foundation is destined to crumble and crack.

1:50In the sixth month, the wall was completed, as we saw a couple of chapters ago, and Nehemiah set up both spiritual and civic leaders in Jerusalem. Infrastructure and leadership is now in place. However, the believing community needed more than just infrastructure and leadership to thrive. They needed a firm foundation on which to build their new life together. One that wouldn't fail if the walls failed or if the leaders failed. You see, we build our lives on some kind of foundation. All of us are building on some type of foundation. It might be a religious foundation.

2:31It might be a philosophical foundation. It might be a system that we have adopted in whole. Or it might be a system that we have cobbled together from different philosophies or different religious traditions and made our own system, something that appeals to us. But we will build our lives, and in fact, we are building our lives on some kind of foundation. The returned exiles. Understood that. Before the exile, they had experimented with different foundations. They had tried mixing Judaism with other religions from the nations around them.

3:12They had tried abandoning Judaism altogether and substituting another religious system for it. They tried idolatry. But those foundations couldn't bear the weights that the Israelites set upon them. That truth was forced upon them over and over again. They needed a firm foundation. The believing community needed a firm foundation on which to build their new life together, and so do we, friends. We need a firm foundation on which to set our lives, our hopes, our disappointments, and our suffering.

3:51What we're going to learn today through Nehemiah chapter 8 is that the believing community must be built on the firm foundation of God's word. So let's look now at chapter 8 together. If you look in verse 2, you'll see that it is now the seventh month, which is called Tishri in the Jewish calendar. It's roughly September or October in our calendar, and it marked the beginning of the new civic year in Jerusalem. So this is their new year together politically. And that's significant because they had just finished rebuilding the wall the previous month. So this is a fresh start for the Jewish people right at the beginning. Of the year. And so we see here in verse 1, they gather together, presumably, to celebrate the new year. This is what's called the feast of trumpets in the Jewish calendar. And what do they do?

4:41You see, right away, they told Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses and read it to them. They've even built this special platform just for this purpose. So this is so significant. It's a fresh start. It's a new day, the first day of the year. And what do they do? They ask Ezra the scribe to bring God's word and to read it to them. This isn't Ezra, the spiritual leader, forcing the people to do this. This is the people coming to Ezra, the spiritual leader, and saying to him, We want you to do this for us. I can only imagine how encouraged Ezra must have been.

5:24Here is a man who's been working for the past 13 years ever since he led the second wave of exiles back to Jerusalem. He's been working this entire time to rebuild the spiritual community in Jerusalem, and he has the people at this point asking for God's word. This is just a huge shift from the people's attitude toward the word of God before the exile. I want you to look on the screen at Jeremiah chapter 25. Now remember, Jeremiah was one of the last prophets prophesying before the exile. Look at what he says about the people.

5:57For 23 years, from The thirteenth year of Josiah, the son of Amon, the king of Judah, to this day, the word of the Lord has come to me, and I have spoken persistently to you, but you have not listened. You have neither listened nor inclined your ears to hear. Although the Lord has persistently sent to you all his servants, the prophets, saying, Turn now, every one of you, from his evil way and evil deeds, and dwell upon the land that the Lord has given to you and your fathers from of old and forever. Do not go after other gods to serve and worship them, or provoke me to anger with the work of your hands, then I will do you no harm.

6:37Yet you have not listened to me, declares the Lord, that you might provoke me to anger with the work of your hands to your own harm. You see, prior to the exile, the people refused to listen to God's word. They were so opposed to it, in fact, that they imprisoned or killed many of the prophets, including Jeremiah and Isaiah. And so, this is a huge shift from those times. You see, for the believing community to thrive, you have to have both leaders who are committed to the Word of God, and you have to have people who are committed to the Word of God. It's not enough for there to be just one or the other. Ezra was a gifted and faithful spiritual leader, as we saw all last semester as we studied the book of Ezra.

7:29But it would have matter how gifted or faithful he was if the people refused to hear the word of God. And if the people were faithful, but the leaders were unfaithful, we know time and again in God's word that that leads to disaster. So it's critical for both the leaders and the people to be committed to the word of God. And that's one of the reasons it's such a joy to pastor a church like New Life.

7:56Because we have leaders who are committed to God's Word and we have people who are eager. You are eager to hear the Word of God read and taught. You're eager to have conversations about it. You're eager to dive into it and wrestle with it and ask hard questions about it because you care about its interpretation and application. That is a huge blessing. Now you notice also in verse 2 that this assembly is made up of men and women. And look at what it says, and all who could understand what they heard. This is an important thing for us to notice, especially in our present day and the way that we do church in America.

8:38See, children were present. Men and women and all who could understand were present in this assembly. This was no isolated incident either. If you go to the New Testament and you read the letters that Paul writes, you think about Ephesians or Colossians, he addresses all kinds of people. He has addresses to men and women, husbands and wives. Employers and servants. And then he addresses children. He doesn't say, parents, after your kids get out of children's church, be sure to tell them.

9:11No, he says, children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. For this is the first commandment with a blessing. He goes to explain directly to the kids because the assumption is that everyone who can understand is present in the worship assembly. So that's why we don't have a children's church at New Life. That's why we don't have a youth service or a college service. It's because the foundational assumption of the scripture is that all the believers who can understand are there together, hearing and responding to God's Word, together as one people.

9:44And so we see that here in the Word of God. But we also see, you know, from Peter's writing, he actually admits some things in God's Word, he's referring to Paul's letters particularly, they're hard to understand. The Word of God is clear. You don't need an education. You don't need a degree to understand it, but some things in God's Word are harder to understand than others. Even the Apostle Peter admits that about Paul's writing. Isn't that fascinating?

10:11He says, some things in Paul's letters, they're hard to understand. And so it's important for us to have preachers and teachers who can explain God's Word to us and help to apply it for us. And that's what we see here in the text. I want you to look at verse 7. In verse 7, it lists all the Levites. It says that they helped the people to understand the law. Well, how did they do that? Look at verse 8. It says, they read from the book, from the law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense so that the people understood the reading.

10:49You won't find a better definition of expositional preaching and teaching in God's Word than that verse. Right there, we have this clear definition: what is our goal as preachers and teachers, or what should be our goal? To read the word, to clarify its meaning by helping our listeners understand the original context and what the author meant, so that people can understand and apply it to their lives. That's the whole goal of expositional preaching and teaching, to read God's Word, to clarify its meaning in the original context, so that we can understand and then apply it to our lives together. You see, preachers and teachers are not supposed to be novel or creative when it comes to the Word of God. God has spoken, and we are called to listen, to seek to understand it, and then to obey it.

11:45As a listener, your job is to ask the questions: what does God's Word say? What did the author mean to convey to the original audience? And then, how does that meaning apply to us? My life today. So, what does it say? What does it mean? And how does that apply to me today? Those are the questions that we are all seeking to answer when we hear the Word of God explained and taught. That's what they're doing here. That's what the Levites are helping them to do. And so, God's Word was given to instruct us, it was given to reveal Himself and His will to His people. So, our church has to be based on understanding and applying God's Word. And if we don't base our church on understanding and applying God's Word, we may have a social club, we may have a group of people who enjoy one another and love one another and enjoy being together, but we don't have a believing community that's built on a firm foundation. That's critical for us.

12:48Let's move on to verses 9 through 12. You see here in this next section that the people begin weeping as they hear the Word of God read. Why do they begin weeping? It's because they are convicted over their disobedience. As the Word of God is read, and remember, Ezra is reading the Pentateuch, the book of the Law of Moses. So, that's the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. He's reading these words, and the people are being reminded of all that God has revealed to them of Himself and His character. And they're being reminded of all that God has done for them, starting with Adam and Eve on to Noah, into Abraham and his family lineage, to the Exodus. They're being reminded of all of these things, and then they're being reminded of how they have failed to keep their word.

13:50That's one of the things that you come across in Exodus: God reveals his law, his perfect standard to the people, and the people ratify that covenant by saying, God, we will do everything that you command us. But of course, we know that again and again they did not keep their word. God always kept his word, but the people did not keep their word. They failed to keep the word again and again. They ignored it and they became idolaters.

14:16And so we see here that the word of God not only instructs us, as we see in the first eight verses, but it also convicts us of sin and failure. That's very uncomfortable, but it's also necessary. I want you to think of a medical professional. A medical professional is only doing his or her job if they're telling you the truth about the state of your health. They're not helping you if they're failing to reveal the truth about the state of your health, if in fact you're not healthy, if there's some kind of disease that is racking your body. And even though you look fine and you may even feel fine, they know that if they don't tell you the truth about this, that's going to have. Negative effects. It may even kill you one day. And so medical professionals understand this. They have to tell you the truth, even if it hurts. They're willing to upset you in order to heal you.

15:12And God, in the same way, is willing to upset us spiritually in order to heal us spiritually. That's what we find in God's Word. See, in the book of James, the Word of God is compared to a mirror, a mirror that shows us who we really are. If you've ever been to a carnival before, maybe the one that comes to Post Oak Mall a hundred times a year, they show up and I'm like, y'all just left. Why did you even leave?

15:44If you've ever been to one of those carnivals, they have those wavy carnival mirrors. And Paul Tripp talks about this in Dangerous Calling. He uses this illustration as well. But when you look into those mirrors, it makes certain things, parts of your body, look really big and other parts look really small, which may be a good thing. I don't know. But that's what they do. And so when we evaluate ourselves, it's like looking into a carnival mirror. We tend to exaggerate our own righteousness and we tend to minimize our sin and failure. It's not an accurate picture of who we really are.

16:19But in the book of James, the word of God is likened to a mirror that shows us accurately who we really are. It doesn't exaggerate our righteousness. It doesn't. Not minimize our sin and deficiencies. It gives us a realistic picture of who we really are, and that's why the people started weeping. And friends, this whole scene reminds us that God's word is timeless. It's timeless. It's relevant in every age. Remember, this is 445 B.C. When did Moses write the Pentateuch?

16:59Roughly 1,000 years earlier. Right around 1400, 1500 BC is when Moses is writing these books. 1,000 years ago, and yet when the people hear the word of God from 1,000 years ago being read to them, they are cut to the heart. God speaks just as clearly in every age through his word. And so that's a very important point, especially for those of us who preach and teach the word of God. Yes, maybe from a platform on Sunday morning, but maybe just in a Bible study with a handful of other people. We don't have to do anything to make God's word relevant. God's word is always relevant in every age. We just have to do what the Levites did in verse 8. Read the Word. Seek to understand its meaning and its original context. And then ask the question.

18:00How does that truth apply to us today? That's what they did, and that's what we're called to do as well. So the people are weeping, but you see in these verses in 9 through 12 that Nehemiah and Ezra and the Levites, the leaders, they comfort them. They tell them not to weep because this day is holy to the Lord. Well, why is this day holy to the Lord? Well, for one thing, as we talked about, it was the beginning of the new year, and so it's the Feast of Trumpets. It is literally a day of celebration and feasting.

18:32But beyond that, this is a day of rejoicing because it's a day of new beginnings. It's a day where God's word is once again becoming the foundation for the believing community. And they're able to rejoice because God has spoken to them. And He is speaking to them right now through the reading of the Word. That's a cause for rejoicing. You see, because it told the truth about their sin, it was hard to hear. But because the Word of God also revealed His mercy toward them, it was a cause for rejoicing. It was a great comfort. As we've been singing lately, their sins they were many, but his mercy is more.

19:13Look on the screen at Psalm 30. I love this verse. You have turned for me my mourning into dancing. You have loosed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness, that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent, O Lord my God. I will give thanks to you forever. And so the Levites instruct the people not to weep, not to mourn, but rather to celebrate, to eat good food and drink good wine, and to send portions to any of the poor people in the community who don't have anything with which to celebrate. To rejoice in the Lord because his joy, the joy of the Lord, is their strength.

20:01See, in the Sermon on the Mount, which our ladies have been studying this school year, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says that, Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. And I take that particularly to mean, blessed are those who mourn over their sin, for they will be comforted. You see, the good news of God's mercy and grace, it will only comfort us if we have first mourned over our sin. The good news cannot be good news to us unless we first understand the bad news, that we are all born sinful and rebellious against God, that we deserve his judgment, his righteous judgment against us. Only then can the good news of Jesus, his perfect life fulfilling God's law in our place, his death as our substitute, and his resurrection from the dead, only then can that be good news if we understand and agree with the bad news about our standing before. God.

21:02So we have to mourn over our sin, but we can't stay there. We can't remain in a place of mourning over our sin. And I think it's true for probably some of you, even in this room today, that you have remained in a state of mourning over your sin. That you've heard about it. You're convinced that you are a sinner. No one needs to convince you of that. But you're also convinced in your own mind that God cannot and will not accept you.

21:32But friends, Jesus Himself said, I did not come for the healthy. I came for the sick. He said, those who are healthy, in other words, those who already are, or at least think they are righteous, they don't need a doctor. They're not going to go to the doctor. But those who know that they're sick, they will go to the doctor. And Jesus is that great physician. And so I want to encourage you this morning, don't go on mourning forever over your sin as though the arm of the Lord was too short to save you. Instead, turn to the great physician, to Jesus, who gave up his life and took it back up again, so that you could be forgiven and reconciled to God.

22:20That also has implications for worship, doesn't it? This also has implications for how we worship. Because I think that there's Should be both a weeping and a rejoicing in our worship. So many worship services are kind of like pep rallies. There's no mention of sin, there's no mention of our rebellion against God and in our prior standing before Him. And I think that if a worship service is only characterized by rejoicing, we're missing something. But then there are other services that are on the other end of the spectrum. They're somber the entire time. There's no rejoicing, as though Jesus had not defeated sin and death with his life, death, and resurrection. And so these same principles should characterize our worship services, and that's why we structure them the way that we do, where there is both a mourning and a rejoicing, where there's both an awareness of our sin and an awareness of God's forgiveness of our sin in Christ. It's why we have both a confession as we take the bread in the Lord's Supper and an assurance of pardon as we take the wine.

23:35So those should characterize us. God's Word both comforts and convicts the worshiper. It exposes our sin and rebellion, but it also presents God's abundant grace and mercy so that we can say along with these people, the joy of the Lord is our strength. In the final section of the text, verses 13 through 18. You see in verse 13 that on the second day of the month, the men, along with the priests and Levites, come back to Ezra to continue studying God's word.

24:12That's very significant. They had just had this big celebration. Did you catch this? They listened to Ezra read the law from early morning until midday. You think our services are long? From early morning until midday, they were listening to Ezra read the law. And they come back the next day to study it even more. So this was no like summer camp high, where for one day everybody's really excited about God's Word and the things of God, but the next day they're kind of moving on with their life. The very next day they come back and they say, Ezra, we want to study God's Word even more with you.

24:50And during their study of the law, remember they're looking at the books of Moses. My guess is they come across Leviticus chapter 23. Look at Leviticus 23 on the screen. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the people of Israel, saying, On the 15th day of this seventh month, and for seven days is the feast of booths to the Lord. On the first day shall be a holy convocation. You shall not do any ordinary work. For seven days you shall present food offerings to the Lord. On the eighth day, you shall hold a holy convocation and present a food offering to the Lord. It is a solemn assembly. You shall not do any ordinary work. Work.

25:33Well, what is the Feast of Booths? It was supposed to be an annual celebration where the people go out and they cut down branches from palm trees and other leafy trees, and they make these little huts, these little kind of lean-to dwellings that they lived in, and they would live in those for a full week. And what it did, it was an annual reminder of God's provision and protection of the people of Israel during their exodus from Egypt. Because for 40 years, they had to live in those kinds of booths. You know, they didn't have any coalman tents. They had to build these things every day as they traveled. And so, this was a reminder that God had protected them and provided for them, and that he had kept his promise to bring them into the promised land.

26:22And so, kids, I just want you to think about how awesome that sounds. For a full week every year, you get to build a fort and live in it. Doesn't that sound great? And, parents, do you see the wisdom of God in this feast? The whole thing is supposed to produce thanksgiving to God. How thankful do you think you would be when the week of living in the fort with the kids concluded? And you could go back to your room with your bed and everything else. So, if you're feeling You know, if you're struggling with gratitude, I would just encourage you to reinstitute the Feast of Booths in your own family. I think that will help you.

27:10I want to think about this more broadly, though, because I think all of these things in the Law of Moses, as Jesus tells us, point forward to Christ. Look on the screen at Hebrews chapter 11. This is the writer thinking back on the Old Testament saints and what we learn from their lives. By faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out not knowing where he was going. By faith, he went to live in the land of promise as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.

27:55You see, the Feast of Booths was an annual reminder that God has kept his word and brought the people into the promised land. But the Feast of Booths was more than that. It was an annual reminder that even Jerusalem, even the promised land, was not their permanent home. The Israelites were always to be looking forward to that city that had foundations, whose designer and builder is God. Even Jerusalem with its reconstruction. Temple with its reconstructed walls, it was not their final destination. They were to look forward to the day when God would fulfill all of his promises, not just some of his promises, as he has to this point.

28:45So, when the people read God's command to keep the feast of booths, what do they do? According to verse 16, they do it right away. They obey it. For a thousand years, we're told, since the days of Jeshua, son of Nun, that's Joshua, for a thousand years, they have not obeyed this command to keep the feast every single year. But now they hear the word of God and immediately they obey. And so, is it any wonder that they turned aside to false gods when they were neglecting God's word, when they were neglecting the very things that he told them? If you do these things, you'll be reminded of all that I've done for you. If you neglect God's word, if you neglect the things that he has set up as reminders, it's no wonder that any of us turns away from following the Lord and turns aside to following something or someone else. See, friends, we were created to worship, and no matter what anyone tells you, everyone worships something.

29:50We were created to worship. That's Paul's point in Romans 1. You can worship God, or you can exchange the glory of God. For anything else under the sun, and you can worship that instead, but we will all worship something. So, if we forget God and his works, something else is going to rise up in our hearts and take his place. That's why God instituted these annual reminders, like the Feast of Booths. We all need reminders in our lives, and that's why we meet together weekly on the first day of the week. Why the first day of the week? Because that's when Jesus rose from the grave. And so, we gather together weekly to remind ourselves and each other that Jesus is alive.

30:41We gather each week, as Hebrews says in the chapter previous, in chapter 10, so that we can encourage one another and build one another up, and all the more as we see the day approaching. We all need these reminders. God's Word is the everlasting reminder of His character and His provision, His kept promises, and most of all, of the salvation that He secured for His people through the finished work of Jesus Christ. The Word of God is a firm foundation for the believing community.

31:18Church, the things that we read about here in Nehemiah chapter 8 occurred roughly 2,500 years ago. That's a long time ago. And yet, as we've seen, Today, these things are just as relevant for us now in the 21st century as they were in 445 B.C. So many professing Christians no longer believe that the Bible is the Word of God, or at least not that all of the Bible is the Word of God. But I want to ask a question: on what grounds are we deserting the belief that the Bible is the Word of God?

32:00On what grounds are we rejecting certain teachings of Moses or Jesus or Paul? Are we really rejecting those things today in the 21st century because there is compelling evidence that the Bible isn't true? That the historical accounts have been falsified? That the human authors of Scripture were in error? Or is it maybe because vocal opponents are telling us that if we go on believing the Bible, we're going to end up on the wrong side of history?

32:40You see, I don't think that many professing Christians have stopped believing that the Bible is the Word of God because they've found compelling evidence to the contrary. I think that many professing Christians are deserting the belief that the Bible is the Word of God because they're embarrassed by it. That there is some actor or musician or politician or random person on the internet that's going to say that we're ignorant or bigoted or backward because we believe that the Bible is the Word of God.

33:20But, friends, we should care more about what's true than what's trendy. And we should care more about what God thinks of us than what this world thinks of us. So, if the Bible is the Word of God, which is exactly how the authors present it, they do not present it in any other fashion, then we cannot be ashamed of it. We must hear it, we must believe it, and we must seek to conform our lives to it.

33:49Look at what Jesus says in Mark chapter 8: For whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. Friends, we're going to build this believing community on some kind of foundation. What will it be and why? The Word of God is the only firm foundation for the believing community. Let's pray.

34:31Father, when we look out at the landscape of our culture today, we see so many people who are rudderless, without direction, without an anchor, without a firm foundation upon which to stand. And it's not just those who do not claim to be Christians, it's many who also claim to be believers. We are all tempted to neglect, to ignore, to disobey your word. But we do so at our own peril because your word is how you have revealed yourself.

35:30It is how you have revealed your standards. It's how you've revealed your perfect Son, our Savior. And so I pray, God, far more than having a sound and solid theology of the Bible, that we would live out a sound and solid theology of the Bible. That we wouldn't just say that we believe these things and then live our lives in a way that is Completely against them, but that we would allow the word to be that mirror so that we can see ourselves accurately and then we can adjust our lives accordingly through repentance and faith so that we are conformed to what your word reveals.

36:22God, we thank you for the book of Nehemiah and what we have learned and seen in it. And we pray that we would experience that same kind of revival in passion and desire for your word that these people experienced in chapter 8. We love you, God, and we thank you for revealing yourself through your word to us. In Christ's name, amen. Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. For more information or to support our ministry, visit us online at newlifecs.net.