I've titled our sermon this morning.
Worship God with Gratitude. What happens to us in life as we
go through life is not as important as how we respond to
what happens to us. There are a lot of things in
life that happened to us. They're not pleasant.
Some are just inconvenient. Some are uncomfortable, some are
simply just bad, some are even wrong.
But in some way we cannot control that.
But there's one thing we can control.
We can't control how we respond to what happens to us.
Put it this way, you may have had a bad day and somebody does
something to you or with you, puts you in a bad mood and then
they do something nice for you. Do you say a heartfelt, honest,
heartfelt gratitude, thank you or thank you?
How does it come out? We are always responsible for
how we respond. We're called to worship God,
meaning we give him worth and what what we say and how we
live. And we have to be mindful of the
fact that are we doing, Are we worshiping God out of
obligation? Are we praising him out of
obligation? Or is it because our hearts are
so full and we really want to? And I get it.
And the times of emotional turmoil like we find ourselves
in, it's not always easy. And it reveals something about
us where we stand and where we need to grow.
And when we worship God, it's not because, oh, God needs to be
worshipped. Yes, it's another, it's time,
another chore. No, it's not like that at all.
It's an opportunity for us, and it's not that God needs to be
worshipped and as if he's now less God if we don't.
But we need to worship God because if we don't, we make
room for Satan to get a foothold.
The truth is, God does want us. He created us.
He wants us. We're his, his image.
He wants us to worship not because he's more God if we do,
but because we become more like Him.
We align more with Him and our relationship to God should
always be a relationship of worship.
God's a God of glory and honour and holiness and majesty.
It's important that we worship God with that mind frame, that
mindset, and we do it as human beings.
We're people, flesh and blood people.
We have purpose. We have meaning and value for
that purpose. We have many stories of how God
was worshipped in the Old Testament times.
Worshipping God was always a huge deal in the Old Testament.
Still is. It should be.
When we read of the Old Testament laws in particular, a
lot of very intricate detail went into how God was to be
worshipped. We read of how God instructed
His people through Moses, how to build the Tabernacle, the tent
of worship in the wilderness. Very detailed list of things,
what to do and how to do it, and you can read it.
It's very complicated. Later on when the nation of
Israel was established and they had the temple, that form of
worship continued. Corporate worship was a huge
deal. They celebrated and worshipped.
Lots of activity went into, it had to be done just in the right
way, in the right form and nothing was left to chance at
all. But then under the new covenant,
the New Testament that Jesus brought in, there's, there's no
longer the old format under the law.
Today we're under grace and we worship God in spirit and truth.
As Jesus told the Samaritan woman, he said God is spirit and
those who worship him must worship him in spirit and truth.
Well, this morning we're continuing our sermon series in
Nehemiah, and today we're in chapter 12.
The books of Ezra and Nehemiah both tell much of the story of
what happened to the Jews after they had been in captivity for
70 years. The Jews had been given freedom
to return from Babylon. Some of the Jews had returned to
the homeland. A lot of clean up to do, a lot
of rebuilding to do. Things needed to be done to
bring community back to the area.
And it happened slowly over a long period of time, and it
happened in several waves. The 1st wave of people that
returned from Babylon to Judea was, was that there was a leader
named Zerubbabel under the rule of King Cyrus.
He authorized the permission, the freedom of the Jews to go
back home. Years later, it was a priest
named Ezra. He LED a second wave of people
back to Judea. And finally after that, some
time went by and Nehemiah LED a third wave back to the homeland.
And in this book of Nehemiah, that's where we find ourselves.
One of the timelines that I looked at online and to indicate
to find a kind of what was this like?
The suggestion is that it was over a 90 year time frame from
the 1st wave that came back to the SEC to the last one that we
read in Nehemiah. That's a long time.
That's not counting the 70 years that they were in captivity with
no returns. But back in Judea, the work of
restoration had begun in some measure when the first group
came back and that started work on the temple to rebuild it.
But then opposition came and letters were written and
complaints were lodged, and the kings had stopped the work and
wasn't very good. And finally Nehemiah comes and
the temple already had been rebuilt under Ezra, was finished
on Nehemiah comes back and under his ministry, his leadership,
the wall gets rebuilt, had been completed in record time.
Actually, the restoration had happened as a culture, as a
people. Things were coming together.
It was really a success story. Now it came time to celebrate
what had happened, to dedicate the wall.
It was time to celebrate what God had done and to reflect on
his goodness and this became a national event.
Well, actually was a national event for the people had been a
long time in coming. In coming.
Nehemiah organized and again, a lot of detail went into this
project. You see, we as people need that.
Think about what we do with weddings.
We put a lot of time, a lot of energy and resources, and it has
to be done just so and it's fine.
It's good because it should be a special day.
It should be. We need to do those things, make
it special, because then we remember it.
That's one reason why weddings are the way they are.
It's a once in a lifetime event that a couple organizes.
The celebration. Nehemiah chapter 12 in Jerusalem
was a one-of-a-kind, unique one time celebration in that it was
the dedication of the wall. They had celebrations all
throughout the year, Passover and a lot of celebrations they
had. But this was a unique, specific,
one-of-a-kind celebration. The wall had been completed in
record time. It was a good wall, a great
project they organized. Let's get together, celebrate.
I want us to look into Nehemiah chapter 12, beginning verse one.
Now these are the priests and the Levites who came up with the
rubber bowl, the son of Sheel Teal and Joshua, Zeriah,
Jeremiah and Ezra, Ezra, Nehemiah goes on and gives a
list of names of the priests and Levites and who all came earlier
on in Nehemiah. We read of names, a list of
names of people who helped rebuild the wall.
Now here's giving a list of names who are going to be part
of this project, this this, this event.
It's amazing how important names are in Scripture.
God named the 1st man Adam. Then Adam named his wife Eve.
Names are a big deal in the Bible and they're even a big
deal to us. Maybe not as big of a deal, but
they should be. Perhaps you see names become
associated and connected with meaning.
If someone mentions the word Einstein, OK, we'll think of
smartness and and intellect and IQ and all those things, and
there's some not so famous names.
When we hear those names, then OK, we think of evil and and
brutality and so on. People are remembered by their
names for one way or another. And in those times when this was
written down, there was value to these names.
Nehemiah mentions a list of names of people who have served
the community of Israel with their talents, their gifts,
their resources. And now again we have a list of
names. Maybe to us these names do not
mean that much, but what it does tell us, names have
significance. And when the readers of that
time would have read the stories, Oh yeah, they would
have, They would have remembered that.
There's a commentator by the name of David Guzik, who's a
commentary I love to read sometimes.
And he points out how these priests by name were mentioned.
And there are three different phases.
We see in chapter 12, verse 1 to 11 a list of names of the
Levites who returned. Then we have a list of names
from 12 to 21. Nehemiah mentions those names of
the priests who came at a later time, a different time, and
again a list in verse 22 to 26 and in verse 26 he says these
lived in the days of Joy Akim the son of Joshua the son of
Josodach, in the days of Nehemiah the governor.
This Nehemiah wrote the book and of Ezra the priest describes.
Nehemiah writes in a very detailed way, mentioning
specific times and dates. And as I said before, it carried
huge significance. Think for a moment in our time.
Let's say you go to a thrift shop, which sometimes I do, or
to a yard sale, and you happen to pick up a magazine, an old
book or magazine, let's say, and you see your great grandfather's
picture there and a write up I'm sure you would want to read.
What did they write about him? You would want to know your
history. Oh, that's my great granddad.
Yeah. Yeah.
I want to see what happened. You would be who wrote the
magazine? When was it written?
Where was it written? And if maybe there's some
resources I can follow up on, at least I would feel that way.
I would want to know. And I think for the readers of
the book of Nehemiah and that time, this was maybe similar.
The wall had been rebuilt and it was a historic event.
It was a big deal. God had done it.
Record time. And he writes exactly what
happened. A lot of good had happened.
The city had been restored in some at some measure not
completed, but was restored. The reproach was lifted was a
time for celebration and so they had a dedication ceremony.
Verse 27, it says now at the dedication of the wall of the of
Jerusalem, they sought out the Levites and all their places to
bring them to Jerusalem, to celebrate the dedication with
gladness, both with thanksgivings and singing with
cymbals and string instruments and harps.
And the sons of the singers gathered together from the
countryside around Jerusalem, from the villages of the
Neetophathites, from the House of Gilgal, from the fields of
Gibbon Asmavath, for the singers had built themselves villages
all around Jerusalem. This was a huge deal and a big
deal, a spiritual event as well. The Levites from the tribe of
Levi were doing their work. The priestly men were doing
their work. They're all called together.
Let's do this. They were pointed to their
tasks, they were given assignments to do the ministry,
celebrate and sing and rejoice. That was a job.
Their job description instruments are mentioned
symbols, loud instruments, string instruments.
We don't know what all they did, but one of the things that stood
out to me as I was going through this, this dedication
celebration included the use of music.
And we sing, we do. And I paused a little bit to
just think about that. Music is so powerful.
Sometimes when I'm very excited, I'm very joyful, very glad.
I like to listen to music that that resonates with that.
And there's times when I just turn on music that's different
that that it's comforting, but also healing because of
emotional pain. And we go through that as well.
Music for me carries the soul. It engages the heart and the
mind all in one. And when we do that in as
corporate and group is together, it's a powerful thing that we
enjoy and participate in with fully.
And they did it back then and we do it now too.
One thing I love doing is watching little toddlers listen
to music because when you play a lively tune, they get involved,
they start moving. What we as older folk, we kind
of know we're too refined for that.
We don't. And some cultures they still do.
And if you go to Africa, for instance, they sing not with
just their voice, they sing with their body.
And it's amazing to watch how they enjoy worshipping.
We as a men in a community have some have gotten away from that.
And I don't know if it's right or wrong, but it's just that
way. But as I said, I just love
watching little people, our grandchildren, especially when
you play a tune or strum on your heart.
And the little ones, they just go at it.
They're all in. Music brings them together in
every aspect. Music was part of the dedication
and again, this was a celebration.
What God had done. The era of we are nothing, it
means nothing, we are history, That era was coming to a close,
the wall had been built, now it's time to celebrate.
We are a people Again, it was time to celebrate, to move
forward. Turning a new page is what it
was. And they prepared for the big
event. Notice how they prepared for
that. Verse 30 it says then the
priests and the Levites purified themselves and purified the
people, the gates and the wall. They got ready.
They prepared themselves. It was not something Oh yeah, we
forgot. We could quickly got to do that
yet. No, this was a preparation time,
not a physical, physical cleansing as in, oh, I, I worked
in the garage, I'm dirty now I have a bath.
Not that kind of preparation. It was a mental, emotional,
spiritual preparation, a preparation time for this big
event that was going to go down. Setting themselves apart for
this event, focusing on what's going to what's going to happen,
how they would lead. They brought themselves and the
people into alignment with God. There's a principle for us here
to learn. You see, when Jesus had a visit
with a Samaritan woman at the well of Shikhar, the woman asked
Jesus, well, where is the right place to worship you?
Jews say in Jerusalem, We Samaritans say here on this on
that mountain mount charism, that's where we should worship.
Where should we worship? And Jesus simply says to her in
in Saint John chapter 4, he says the time is coming.
Believe me, the time is coming when the true worshippers will
worship God not there nor here, but in spirit and in truth in
you. That means we can do it anywhere
we are. The outward form is good and
it's significant. It has meaning.
It has purpose and value, but that's not the most important.
The most important is the heart. We can stand and sing songs.
Our mind is 1,000,000 miles away.
Let's engage our heart, our mind, our soul and God with God.
When we worship, we can't fool him, He knows it.
John 424 God is spirit and those who worship Him must worship Him
in spirit and truth, and I trust we do that.
Another verse in Psalm chapter 24 verse three to four says who
may ascend into the hill of the Lord?
Who may stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a
pure heart, who has not lifted up a soul to an idol, nor sworn
deceitfully a person who's honest, a person of integrity.
So these people purified themselves, then they purified
the people, and then the gates and the wall.
For us today, purification is not an outward ritual, as it was
for the people in Nehemiah's day.
But for us, it's an inner surrender, a humbling of
ourselves and dedicating ourselves to Jesus Christ.
Do we in our time also dedicate things to God?
Better believe it, we do. I remember very clearly to this
day, 1995, in November, when we dedicated this building.
Anna and I were here from the get go.
We helped build it and it was one big GLAAD event.
We had a it was packed, people were here, we sang, we
worshipped and people gave greetings and whatnot.
And we celebrated the opening of LEMC in November of 1995.
You see, it's not just churches that are dedicated.
The Jews head of the Temple, it was dedicated.
They dedicated this wall that they had.
We must dedicate ourselves and then also the things that God
has entrusted to us. I'm not saying for every little
thing we need a ceremony to dedicate it, but it's important
to remember, to pause and reflect.
What has God done? Why has He done it?
What's His purpose? Are we recognizing that all we
have, all we art, all comes from Him?
It's important to give Him glory and honor and praise and thank
Him. Sometimes people, Christian
families, when they buy a house, they have a prayer of dedication
for the house. They want to live there for
God's glory. It's for them a reminder.
God has blessed them with a house, glorify God.
In our church, we have parent child dedication services.
We recognize it's important for our parents to remind themselves
us as a church, we'll stand with this couple, with these parents.
Does they dedicate their little one for God's glory.
Here in this story of Nehemiah, the Levites dedicated
themselves, the wall, the people and everything.
Nehemiah 311231 he continues. He says, So I brought the
leaders of Judah up on the wall. Now they go on the wall and
appointed 2 large Thanksgiving choirs.
One went to the right on the wall toward the refuse gate.
Later on one went to the other side.
But just a side note, this is that very same wall where the
sandblatten, all the other guys. They said if a fox goes on,
it'll fall down. This was a good strong wall.
Crowds of people were walking on it.
And EMI again mentions the names of the leaders who were part of
this process or part of this part of this project.
Some of the priests were mentioned.
They were in the choir as well. He describes it in detail what
they did actually, verse 37, he says by the fountain gate in
front of them. They went up the stairs of the
City of David on the stairway of the wall beyond the House of
David as far as the Watergate eastward.
Now to us this may not mean much at all unless you're very
familiar with the geography and the architecture of the old city
and all that stuff, which I'm not.
But this was this was important. This was how they did it.
The two different choirs represent were separate.
They went different routes along the wall on the opposite sides.
It says in verse 2038, the other Thanksgiving choir went the
opposite way and I was behind them with half of the people on
the wall going past the tower of the Ovens as far as the broad
wall. And above the gate of Ephraim,
above the old gate, above the fish gate, the tower of
Hannanal, the tower of the 100, as far as the sheep gate.
And they stopped by the gate of the prison.
So they went around, started here, and went opposite ways
around. We can imagine the two choirs on
the wall of Jerusalem, one walking one way, the other
walking one way, and then coming around together.
And the second choir was the one where Nehemiah was in.
There were Thanksgiving choirs. That's what this was about.
Thanksgiving. All the glory and praise was
focused on God, what he had done.
I sometimes think that festive occasions when something good
has happened, we say we're thankful, and I do believe we
are. But do we take it seriously
enough? Do our deeds show that we
actually do treasure what we have?
How we say thank you is an indicator of how thankful we are
when we dedicate ourselves, our time, our resources to thank
you, to say thank you must come from the heart.
Continuing on here, the way the passage reads, the two choirs
came together and it says here in verse 40.
So the two Thanksgiving choirs stood in the House of God.
Likewise I and half of the rulers of me with me.
And it says in verse 42 also that day they offered great
sacrifices and rejoiced, for God had made them rejoice with great
joy. The women and children also
rejoice, so that the joy of Jerusalem was heard far off.
It was not some almost silent, quiet choir.
The day was great. It was a glad, joyful, great and
glorious day. It was exciting.
It was loud. There was a high point in the
nation that day. All the celebration, the
dedication, all things happened. Well, they were giving and being
generous, bringing offerings. And as we continue reading verse
44, it says, and at the same time, while this is going on,
some were appointed over the rooms of the storehouses for the
offerings. So much was coming together, so
much was being brought to Jerusalem.
They they appointed people over the storehouses the first
fruits, and the Thais to gather them into them from the fields
of the cities, the portions specified by the law for the
priests and Levites. For Judah rejoiced over the
priests and Levites who ministered.
Verse 45. Both the singers and the
gatekeepers kept the charge of their God and the charge of the
purification, according to the command of David and Solomon.
For in the days of David and Asaph of old, there were chiefs
of the singers and songs of praise and Thanksgiving to God.
In the days of the rubber ball, in the days of Nehemiah, all
Israel gave the portions for the singers and gatekeepers a
portion for each day. They also consecrated holy
things for the Levites, and the Levites consecrated them for the
children of Aaron. This is a healthy faith
community, rejoicing and dedicating themselves in the
wall to God. You see in a healthy faith
community, where as much as possible everybody participates
and where as much as possible, everybody contributes and as a
result, everyone is blessed. That was what was happening here
on this day, a joyful event. The leaders of the people, the
leaders of the nation, the religious leaders, together with
the citizens, they all came together as one.
There was a togetherness there. There was a unity there and they
all celebrated together and the resources they had, they gave of
those. They ministered well, It was
structured, was organized, a well functioning system.
They worshipped God with gratitude for what He had done
for them. This had been a long time in
coming, had been a very long time, a long journey over many
decades. The difficult and challenging
history that their ancestors had lived through was because of
what had happened before them, rebelling against God,
worshipping idols. God had worn them to the
prophets. They had not listened.
God had disciplined them through the foreign kings who took them
captive and destroyed their land. 70 years of exile and now
they were at the point where they could again feel good about
themselves as a nation. The reproach had been lifted.
They work together. The rejoice of God had done for
them. They didn't have independence as
a nation yet at this time that would.
There was a small time and that happened under the Maccabees.
The point in history won't go into, but here at this point
they were free to worship God as they saw fit under Babylon's
rule. But they were together again.
I wonder a little bit about us. Do we worship God that way?
Yesterday one of our ladies in the church sent a poem she had
written and she read, she had read Nehemiah in advance of
today's sermon in her Bible reading.
And she had written a poem on the experience of the people had
when they celebrated the dedication of the wall.
And she sent it to me and I asked her can I read it in the
sermon this morning? She said yes.
So here, here it is, all the beautiful names written in God's
Word, all the choirs and songs that were heard, beautiful songs
of Thanksgiving, celebrating the joy of life and living.
They prepared everything as instructed to dedicate and bless
the wall they had constructed. The Lord had blessed them and
shown them favors, so they wanted to thank the Lord and
Savior. The leaders of Jude on top of
the wall. 2 choirs singing their thanks for it.
All great sacrifices were made on that day.
The sound of the rejoicing could be heard from far away.
The Lord had given them great joy and they sang loud.
All the men and women and children made-up the crowd.
Must have been amazing to have been there.
What awesome, what an awesome story.
Now they had to share. We get to read all about it even
today, and we can share how they must have celebrated that day by
Tina Friesen. This poem encapsulates the story
well. As good as it was that they got
to dedicate them all, celebrate it all together, as good as it
was, there's one thing that had happened and I'm sure it was
there. But this was also a healing
journey. A healing journey.
We can't always predict and control these.
I know many in our community need comfort these days.
God is in the business of healing.
But the Thanksgiving must begin before that already.
There's so much to be thankful for all the time.
God wants us to dedicate ourselves to His 'cause God
wants us to dedicate our time, our talents and skills to His
purposes. Sometimes the mindset is OK.
As soon as this pain is over, I will be thankful again.
No, no, no, no, no, I will be thankful now.
Now, if we're going to wait to worship with gratitude till
things change, we may never. Worshipping God with gratitude
is something that's not connected to our circumstances.
We are to be grateful to worship God, and as glorious and great
as this event was, they worship gladly and so should we.
And so we will. But there are times when we
still do it, when it's not as good.
I want to close with the story of the Martin Ring cart.
It was a man who was born in April 23, 1586, and a talent for
a city called Eilenberg and Saxony.
Luther Lutheran state in Germany at the time, was still under the
Holy Roman Empire. This man, this young kid, after
learning, after learning Latin in his hometown as a young boy
in 16 O 1, he became what was called a foundation scholar and
he sang in the choir in the Saint Thomas School in Leipzig.
He received a scholarship and enabled him to begin his studies
of theology at the University of Leipzig.
The following year he became a teacher and eventually a Deacon.
In 1613, he became a pastor and he ended up serving in his
hometown called Eilenberg. Five years later, in 1618,
Rinkhart, now in his 30's, the 30 Years War in Europe began.
If you love history, you'll be interested in this.
It's a very destructive war, both religious and political, on
both sides. It started primarily over
religious struggles between Lutherans and Catholics, and it
dragged on for 30 long years, much destruction and death.
Eilenberg was a city where Rinkhart was a pastor was a
walled city, and so a lot of refuges came there fleeing the
war. But also troops would come
through and he would have to house them and they would have
to take that, take up the homes in the city, plunder them at
times. Food was often scarce.
Then in 1637, almost 20 years into the war, the plague arrived
in the overcrowded city. There was 4 pastors.
The one pastor fled to died of the disease and Rinkhart was
left alone to tend the sick and bury the dead.
He performed and presided over up to 50 funerals.
In one day. Over 8000 died, including his
wife. That was not the end of it.
After the plague came famine. Surviving accounts say the food
was so scarce 30 or 40 people would fight in the streets over
a dead cat or a crow. Rinkart gave so much to charity
to feed the hungry he was forced to mortgage several years of his
income so just to feed his own children.
Surprisingly, given the difficulties of his life, the
hymns that Rinkart Pent wrote in those days were full of praise
and trust in God, even when they spoke of troubles afflicting his
country. The best known one is he wrote
that around 1636, in the middle of the war, it's called now,
Thank we all our God. Well, the war dragged on for
another nine years. His services did not earn him
the town's praise or gratitude. They harassed him constantly,
but financial issues caused by his efforts to feed the
starving. When peace finally came in 1648,
Rinkart was exhausted. He had prematurely aged, and he
died the following year around age 62.
He was a hymn writer, wrote many hymns, but they were not based
on the hardships of his life but on his relationship with God.
That's important. I want to read that hymn that I
just spoke about. It's a German song, actually
somebody translated into English.
I'll read it. He says now thank we all, our
God with hearts and hands and voices, who wonders things has
done, and whom his world rejoices, who from her mother's
arms has blessed us on our way with countless gifts of love and
still is ours today. Oh, may this bounteous God
through all our life be near us with ever joyful hearts and
blessed peace to cheer us, to keep us in this grace and guide
us when perplexed, and free us from all ills of this world in
the next. All praise and thanks to God the
Father now be given, the Son and Spirit blessed, who reigned in
highest heaven, the one eternal God whom heaven and earth adore.
For thus it was and is now and shall be forevermore.
Think about the context, the horrendously devastation,
devastating experience of war and plague and famine and death.
And he could write that. Do we have time to dedicate
ourselves to thank God in whatever circumstance we find
ourselves in? I think we do.
All the hearts of Israel had experienced the years of
suffering and outcomes this celebration.
Sure, it was at the end of it, but we don't wait that long.
We don't wait that long. We praise God, dedicate
ourselves to God, and worship and gratitude in spite of what
happens. You see, so often I will.
When this is done, once this changes, when once this is
finished, once that's over, if that's the goal, we may never.
Let's dedicate ourselves to God now, today in our time when we
can. God created you and me to be
holy, to be dedicated to Him, and we're created for worship,
to adore Him as we do. We'll find that no matter what
life throws at us, we can still have joy and peace in the
darkest pain. God has provided His gift of
eternal life for us to receive for all who repent of their sins
and turn to Him. And that's the greatest joy we
can have. You know, whatever else life
throws at us, it's not easy, it's hard, it's difficult.
We get that, but we still thank God.
So let's dedicate ourselves to God.
Let's commit ourselves to him. Let's surrender ourselves to Him
and let Him use us to glorify and worship Him with
Thanksgiving, with gratitude, regardless of what lies in our
path in front of us and what may, what we, we find ourselves
to be in. It doesn't matter, no matter how
difficult, how good it is, we're still the Lords.
He'll take care of us. He'll see us through and in the
end, the sun will shine again. Pause with me for prayer.
Lord Jesus, thank you. You do not leave us nor forsake
us. You want us to worship you.
You want us to serve you. You want us to rejoice in you.
Thank you for the gift of your Son Jesus, for a sacrifice in
the cross for our sins. And we pray, Lord, that we will
be receptive. Allow your Spirit to change our
hearts. Guide us in our walk and help
us, Lord, to be thankful, faithfully grateful in all
things as we walk in your footsteps.
Your name we pray. Amen.