OK, well, I'm going to clap. That was loud.
Welcome to Be on Sunday, a podcast based on the preaching
ministry of Leamington EMC. I am Jonah Chitty, one of the
pastors here, Pastor of Discipleship and Family.
I don't know how my title is kind of confusing.
I'm here with Pastor Joe Penner. As always.
We are in episode 2, not episode 2.
Sorry, Season 2 episode 1, Is that just because we're in a
different year? No, Well, I thought about that,
but I think it's because we're starting a new book, so we'll do
our seasons based on whatever book of the Bible we're
preaching through. So this one could be like 17,000
episodes like Corinthians was or probably around 14 so.
Probably closer to that one. Yeah, so Season 2 Episode 1,
Nehemiah is what we studied. Is that right?
Joe, how are you doing today? I'm doing well, thank you.
My throat. 'S feeling a little bit better.
Good. Sure, people who heard the
sermon on Sunday could could tell.
You know, that's why we waited so long to to record.
It's because we wanted your voice to properly heal and get
every It wasn't because we were so busy doing other things.
It definitely wasn't that. So I'm glad you're feeling
better. You sound like you're feeling
better. And I hopefully, yeah, hopefully
we can get through another 30-40 minutes of talking about
Nehemiah chapter 1. So you preach the sermon on
Nehemiah chapter 1. I didn't.
Oh, when all hope is lost, turn to God.
Is that your time? When?
Hope seems lost. Turn to God.
Yeah. OK.
So yeah, you want to give us kind of a recap of what you what
your sermon was about. Yeah.
So just sort of I, I started out with an illustration of Twin
Towers and, you know, everybody sort of remembers, you know, if,
if you were older than maybe one or two or three, you probably
remember where you were when you, when you heard that the
Trade Towers had been hit. Where were you?
I was at school in grade 8. Grade eight I was a I.
Was with public school. Sophomore in college, just a.
Shows a bit of our. Age, a little bit of the age
difference, yeah. So yeah, okay, Yeah, yeah,
everybody knows, right? Yeah, you were there.
In sort of this like pivotal moment in, you know, world
history, more more pointedly U.S.
History. But like, really, the whole
world sort of was shocked by that.
Yeah, I remember the comparison at the time for my family was
like, it was like, you're going to remember this day just like
we remember the day that Kennedy was shot.
So it's like my parents knew and like remembered the day they
remember where they were. And like that was the but you're
going to remember this day just like those people.
So it's like a like a pivotal historical moment that people
that were there remember. Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. And, you know, I, I was drawing
on, you know, like the, the hopelessness of the situation,
right? Like where, where people turned
in the midst of that situation. I mean, it was, there was so
much devastating loss. People lost family members and,
and, you know, just the horrific stories that came up, you know,
through the whole thing and and it's just a devastating thing.
And where do people turn when all hope seems lost?
And, you know, some people turn to church, some people turned to
the bottle, some people turn to, you know, getting together and
helping people in need. And, and sort of that's sort of
how to sort of, that's how I sort of drew into this story of
Nehemiah and to just sort of like get a bit of a feeling for
like this is probably the most pivotal moment of Nehemiah's
life, right? Israel, I, I gave some context
for where we were in the, the timeline of history.
And, and Israel had been back in the land.
They had been sent in into exile by God because of their sin.
But now it's been about 100 years since that happened.
And so, or actually so 100 years since Israel had started going
back. OK, so about 170 years since God
sent them into exile. So now they've been back in the
land for about 100 years. And Nehemiah may have been
expecting that they were a little bit further along than
they were right after having been there for 100 years.
You know, especially given the fact that, you know, we know
from the book of Nehemiah that he's going to go and rebuild the
walls in like 52 days, right? So they've been back for 100
years and they're like, not really that far ahead.
Not only that, it's like it's a devastating situation.
You know, the people are in shame, they're in trouble.
They're experiencing lots of hardship.
The walls are destroyed, they're broken down.
The gates are destroyed by fire. Like there's no protection.
And it's like, this was devastating for Nehemiah.
And so he weeps for days. And and the bulk of the chapter
1 is Nehemiah's prayer. Right.
There's not a lot of there's not a lot of narrative.
No, no, it's his prayer. And I sort of get the feeling
that this is a prayer that that he's, he's sort of shaped and
molded over these few months that he's been praying.
And this is like maybe something that he's been praying regularly
and repetitiously. And he's sort of formulated this
prayer over the course of these few months.
Like here's what I've been praying over the last like,
well, since I've been dealing with this.
Right. I mean, I can't know that that
is what it is, but it, it seems to me that way because it, it
pours right into chapter 2 as he's about to go to the, as he's
about to go to the King. And so it, it seems to make
sense that he's recording this prayer that he's now sort of
been praying over the last few months.
But in my sermon, I, I brought out, you know, three main points
from his prayer that we should turn to God who keeps his
covenant. So that was sort of my whole
point of the sermon. It's like man, when, when
Nehemiah felt like all hope was lost, he turned to God.
And so I drew up principles from that.
You know, Nehemiah draws out that God is a God who keeps his
covenant because he's the God of heaven.
He's almighty, he's all powerful.
And because he loves us, he loves his people, he loves those
who love him. The second point was turned to
God in humble confession. You know, Nehemiah then shifts
to humility. And before God, recognizing that
they as a nation had sinned, that that he and his family had
sinned. And so I drew out that, you
know, we ought to be confessing other people's sins, but also
confessing our own sins. And the Third Point was turned
to God who is committed. And sort of towards the end of
the prayer, Nehemiah expresses that, that, that even though God
is committed to discipline, he's, he says, if you are
unfaithful, then I'll scatter you.
But if you return to me, if you keep my commands, if you obey
them, then I will bring you back.
And it doesn't matter how far you're scattered.
God is committed also to restoration.
He's committed to his people. And so I just and, and you know,
the a line at the very end of the, the prayer that really
struck out stood out to me was, you know, Lord, hear the prayer
of your servant and the prayer of your servants who delight to
fear your name. And you know, like what a
statement that they delight to fear God because fearing God
keeps us in his word, keeps us in his truth.
And to know God is to know the truth.
It's to know light, it's to know goodness, right.
And so when we fear God, we're actually, it keeps us on the
path of righteousness, which is good for us.
And God's law is a blessing to us.
And you know, the other things that we fear are not things that
we a delight to fear. You know, those are things that
we're scared of. But when we fear God, it keeps
us in the path of righteousness. And so he he says that, you
know, we, we love you and we we delight to fear you and we want
to worship you. And so, hey, you said that if we
pursue you, if we turn back to you, if we want to keep your
word, then you're going to bring us back to the land.
And me hear the prayer of your servant.
But also maybe there was a growing number of people that
their hearts were beginning to go back to God.
And he says also the prayer of your servants hear us because we
love you and we fear your name, and so hear our prayer because
of that. And so then he's asking for
success as he goes, as he's about to go, who I think he's
talking about to the king. But yeah, that was sort of the
bulk of it. Just in the midst of this
hopeless situation, Nehemiah turns to God.
You know, that we might expect a whole host of things or
whatever, but like he turns to God that the first thing he
does. And I had a quote in there from,
from a commentary that we're using during this study from TJ
Betts and, and he talks about, you know, Nehemiah, it's not his
second option, right? A lot of times that's, that's
the way it is for us, right. Oh, I guess the.
That was so impactful. Yeah, like all we can do is pray
now, you know, we've done everything we can do and now we
just got to pray. And it's like it's prayer is not
a last option. It's not a last resort.
It's Nehemiah's first option. That was so like that, that
quote. And then you know, when,
whenever you, you talked about it, because I think you brought
that out in your first point. It was early on because I
remember like the self examination question, where do I
go whenever like it hits the fan, right when when things go
go wrong or there's trouble, where do I go?
And I was like, and then you hit, they hit me with that line.
It's like, no, prayer should be our first option.
Like going to the Lord is the first option.
It's not like man and like doing everything I can do 1st and then
well, now let's pray about it. How often do we do that even in
ministry? It's like, Yep, tag on a prayer
at the end and now we've done it.
So it's like it's very convicting to think about.
Yeah, and I had, I'm just sort of, I at the very end of his
quote, it's, you know, when prayer becomes the first option
for a person, it's an indication that he or she is truly walking
with and depending on God in all things.
And I just had sort of like my own little application from
that, that where you turn reveals what you trust.
And and I, I think that's that's it's really convicting.
It's really hard to think about because we have to be honest
about ourselves with ourselves, and that's hard, but it really
is true. It's like if my first reaction
is to go to a friend or Google or.
ChatGPT chat. Whatever it is, right?
Like. How do I deal with this or that?
Because because we do that like like you said, even in a good
way as Christians. I'm, I'm not saying it's bad to
pursue knowledge and wisdom and define the answers.
I just think prayer ought to be the first thing because at the
end of the day, sometimes I'm tempted to go, there's got to be
a book about that somewhere, right?
And I just like start searching And it's like, but maybe my, my,
my first reaction should be to pray, to ask God for wisdom, to
ask God for insight. Yeah, that's, it was really, it
really is good, but it is exposing like when you, when
you, if you're honest with yourself, anything.
Well, yeah, of course I'm a Christian, of course I'll pray
about this. But no, like if it's not like
the first thing you think about, then the indication is that your
relationship with the Lord is not quite as close as he thought
it was. So yeah, it was just a really
convicting thing. Yeah, and I that that honestly
even applies to like praying for other people, right?
Because again, we're we're tempted to be like, oh, I know
this person's in a, a painful situation, what can I do?
Right. And we think prayer is, is the
least we can do because it's, it seems like it doesn't do
anything. Yeah.
And you know, if, if we're being honest, that just looking at
what we do, we think that it's more fruitful to bring a meal or
to do something kind than it is to pray.
And that shows what we believe about prayer.
I'm guilty of that, too. I'm not, I'm not standing in
judge anybody. I think that's easy for us to
feel like the physical things that we can do are more
effective than prayer. So I don't know if I don't know
who I was talking to. Maybe it was you, maybe somebody
else. But it's like it's the hardest
thing for us to do is to pray because of those things.
It's like it seems like it should be the easiest thing for
us to do. It's like to like, OK, Lord, you
know, we don't know. We don't have any kind of
insight into this situation, but, you know, help us to have
wisdom. That seems like it should be the
easiest thing. But so often it's the hardest
thing for us to do because I think we have to admit to
ourselves and confess to ourselves.
You know what? I don't know what to do here and
that's humbling or it really hurts your pride that you don't.
I don't have the answer. And so I think why is it the
hardest thing for Christians to pray?
Shouldn't be right. So yeah, no, it was really good.
I wrote down where was it? Oh, your your Lego illustration
was really fun. I came up at young adults as
like, I was like I asked the young adults on Sunday night as
like, does everybody in here like Lego and only one person.
But I think they were being like, you know, a young adult
and just how they they typically can be frustrating and annoying
on purpose. They said everybody said, yes,
they love Lego. But what your point with that
was like, it was pretty incredible to think about.
Yeah. And I think it came out of the
last verses we delight in like, you're fearing you, right?
You're thinking these people love the instructions of the
Lord right Later in Psalms we see we see some different
things. I delight in your law Psalm 1.
But yeah, I just thought, man, what a good illustration to
think about the the instructions are great because I'm dude,
you're not like alone. I'm pretty sure like 97% of all
Lego builders are no good at it without the instructions.
And so, yeah, I just thought it was really good illustration to
think about. Yeah, we need the instructions.
And not that the Bible is like a an instruction manual for life,
right? We can't just go to it and say,
OK, it's on step 73, do this, that or the other thing.
But it's just a good helpful illustration to think about.
Were you were you doing Legos over the holidays?
Is that what brought it to mind or?
No, we did get, yeah, we did get the kids some Lego over the
Christmas. And so it was sort of fresh on
my mind. I don't dabble as much in Lego
as I did as a kid, but but it is, it's incredible.
You know, like you would never think like these massive Lego
sets or even the smaller ones, honestly, like the to think that
you could get all the pieces right without instructions is,
is definitely not right. And so the instructions are a
blessing. But in that same way, it's like
delight, we delight to fear your name.
And so it's like, you know, we have this Holy Spirit conviction
in our hearts when we feel like we're sinning or we're doing
something wrong. And so we try to find out if
from God's word, well, what does God's word say?
What does his word say about this?
And how do I pursue righteousness?
And I think that desire to please God, it, it should result
in a fear, but a fear that we delight to fear.
And I think, you know, that's probably like, I don't know, you
just you don't want to go down the other Rd. where it's like,
I'm sure people understand what it is to fear God in the sense
that like, I'm terrified. I don't think that's what
Scripture is talking about. But this, it sort of opened my
eyes to, to, to be thinking about that all week about
delighting to fear God. It's, it's a good fear because I
think we're also tempted to think that fear is a bad
emotion. And we have to understand that
fear from God is a good emotion which protects us because it's
like if I'm, if I'm driving 180 miles an hour down the road and
there's a sharp turn coming or whatever is going on, right?
It's like, and now all of a sudden fear kicks in.
That fear is a good thing because it says, hey, you need
to slow down change. What you're doing, you're.
Going to kill yourself, you know, and it it stops you from
jumping off a building, whatever, right?
All these things is like fear is a good thing, right, that God
has given to us in and fearing the Lord is a good thing because
we recognize that he is God. He's created the world and he is
the judge and he is going to judge us.
And that fear leads us to toward Him, to be obeying Him so that
we can be walking in a way that's right, so that we're
saved. It's so good.
Yeah. Like fear of the Lord, I mean, I
don't know, is it is it that's sort of a whole different topic
you could talk about for a long time.
Like what does it mean to fear the Lord?
Like I is it just reference? I don't know, because it seems
to be what you're talking about. Like what?
Do you mean What do you mean reference?
Reverence, Oh, reverence. Am I?
Yeah, yeah. Is it just that or is it I
think, but I think like we don't want to discredit like this,
like this real the the reality that like there is like a like a
terrifying nature part of it. Right.
Because he's big and I'm not right?
Like, so like at some point I was just thinking about we were
reading in through the flood narrative in the reading plan
and like the people who like eventually figured out that Noah
wasn't a liar, that God was really going to do.
There was some fear, right? That would have been like
terrifying. And think about Noah and his
family. That would be terrifying.
Like Noah says, hey, guys, you're going with me.
Whatever. You know, maybe they didn't.
Does it say they're righteous? I don't remember.
It says Noah is a righteous man. He would think that that it
would transfer down to his sons and his their families.
But you don't know. So like the the rain starts to
come and never rained before. That would be terrifying.
And so that's like another way of like being really terrified,
like physically afraid. So I think there's an aspect of
that too. I don't know what you think
about that. Yeah.
Oh, absolutely. I I think it's sort of it, it
entails all of it, right? Fear, reverence, respect, like
worship, like all of those things.
But I, I think the fear, the fear should drive us to God.
And then what we find out is that God is a loving, gracious
God. Yeah, for sure.
Who in the Old Testament, even though like, yeah, the the
judgment is harsh that did we deserve death because of our
sin. But even in the Old Testament,
like like you said, we're going through Genesis in our church
Bible reading plan and it's like even in Adam and Eve's sin, like
the very first sin, What does he what does God do?
God clothes them. He offers the first sacrifice
and gives them an enclosed them with an animal skin.
And so he's gracious and and you know, moving forward into like
Israelite history where he he put institute's this sacrificial
system as a way for them to be made right.
Yeah, before him. It's like God is gracious.
That's interesting. And it makes me think about you
said TJ Betts was the commentary that we're using for a guide
for, like, the breaking up the book.
Yeah. And his classes, he would always
ask, I don't know, did he do this?
Did you have him for class? I did.
OK. He asked like he taught Old
Testament surveys and he taught intensives as well, but he would
ask when, When you think about the New Testament and God in the
New Testament, what do you think?
You think what? The New Testament.
Yeah. Oh, love, grace and mercy and
kindness. And then you think, Old
Testament God, what do you? Think wrath and fury and
judgement and anger. And he's like, guys, they're the
same God. It's the same God.
It's the same person. And and what you're describing
is like God is gracious. He could have struck down Adam
and Eve dead on the spot. He had every right to.
Instead, what did he do? He clothed them.
He gave them a life that they didn't really deserve.
He just kicked him out of the garden and they eventually died.
So he made good on his promise, but still, like he's still he's,
he's the same God. And I think that's hard for us
to think about. So like when we're thinking
about like this book in any Old Testament book, we have to
remember that God is not like just like the overarching like
person in the background that just wants to strike lightning
down on people because they do something wrong.
No, it's the same God that we see in the New Testament.
Yeah. Anyway, that's just maybe an
aside, but I was just thinking about that.
Like when we're talking about fear, Jesus came to judge.
He says I'm coming. You know, he came to judge to
pass judgment. He did.
He passed judgment. He sends though the Holy Spirit
judges those, right? It's like like it's the same God
is the same yesterday, today, tomorrow, throughout all
Scripture. It doesn't change.
It's one of those big theological words.
He's immutable, right? He doesn't change.
So. Well, the interesting thing
about that is it it's, I don't know why it is this way, but
when we read the Old Testament, it's easy to to focus on, and
I'm saying this intentionally, it's easy to focus on the
judgement and the wrath. And why I say focus is because.
The mercy and the grace are there.
Yep. Just for some reason we don't
notice them because exactly what you said in, in Doctor Betz's
class after he said that, then you know, as as we're being
required to read the Bible through the class.
It's like now you read the prophetic books, which I used to
always just, I used to always just focus on the judgement
aspect, right? And then you read those books
and you're like, man, there is a ton of mercy and grace.
Long-suffering man. And hope in here.
Exactly. And you're like, why have I
never seen this before? That Why you know, and, and
it's, it's amazing when your eyes are open to it that you're
like, you know what God is. He's the same God exactly like
you said. It's he's gracious and merciful
and kind and slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love all
through the Old Testament. It's not something that just
starts in the New Testament. And, and we've gone through a
book here a number of years ago with a number of classes called
Gentle and Lowly by Dane Ortland.
And it emphasizes that truth that, you know, and sort of our
our church history as like a Mennonite background of a
church. A lot of people come from the
Old Colony traditional Mennonite background where it is very fear
driven and, and, you know, relearning that God is a God of
grace and mercy and compassion is something that we need to
understand. You know, we have to be careful
of the ditch on the other side, which the contemporary
Christianity, it seems to be falling into at some points that
we emphasize the grace and mercy and love too much and, and don't
acknowledge the judgement and the wrath that is there.
Because, you know, revelation, you know, the end of the age is
coming, Judgement day is coming and God is going to, you know,
he's going to deliver his wrath on sinful mankind.
That's right. And so, but we just need to have
a healthy view of both of those things.
I think I've, I think I've heard somebody say it helpfully that
it's not like God's like if we took all his attributes and go,
well, there's 50 attributes. So it's like 2% of God is each
of these attributes. No, it's, it's God is 100%
wrath. God is 100% love.
He's 100% mercy. Like these characteristics
embody, like all of who God is perfectly.
Right, That's so, that's so interesting to think about.
Like the attributes of God and that you are right.
We do try to sometimes compartmentalize.
Oh, this is just his nature in this way.
No, he's always that all the time, right?
Like how can someone be 100% wrath and 100% love and grace at
the same time, Right. Or we can't be, which is why
it's important for us to remember like God is God and we
are not. So.
Yeah. Oh, man, so good.
Oh, I had one question for you. So how often do you confess my
sins? That's a good question.
Man, That was an odd. I don't know about odd, but
it's, it was unexpected in the sermon.
Right. So I'm like, oh, wait.
Well, I sort of sat back a little bit and had to think.
So what? Yeah.
What was up with that? Well, yeah, it just, it just
struck me that, that he was praying for the sins of the
nation. And, and I just sort of made the
application to confess other sins.
I, I didn't, I didn't go into like the, you know, the biblical
warrant for that. But one that comes to mind is
Job. You know, in, in the book of
Job, we're told that his sons and daughters would get together
and have parties in each other's homes.
Oh, yeah. And then the next day he would
offer sacrifices and he would pray for them.
Yeah. That that God would forgive them
in case they sinned. Right.
And I think that that's a principle that, you know, we
ought to be doing. We ought to be forgiving sin,
but confessing other people's sin and you think of Jesus on
the cross, right, Father, forgive them for they don't know
what they're doing. Steven prays that same prayer
and and it is we, we need to be confessing each other's sin.
I confess that I died. I don't confess other people's
sins often enough. Honestly.
Because I'm selfish? Yeah.
Because I'm looking at myself going like if someone sinned
against me. What's my focus?
My focus is how I've been. Vindication.
Right. And it's like, you know what?
That's that's too narrow of a view.
I, I need to have AI, need to have a broader view of my
confession and forgiveness That, and I mean that changes my focus
too, right? That I begin to think about that
person more compassionately. Yeah, my, as I was considering
that and thinking about it as like my, my default setting is
just to like imprecatory prayers is like just pray down wrath of
God on whoever's again, like whoever.
'S the sons of Thunder like James and.
John like, you know, very, very like passionate and just like
just just wipe them out, Lord my enemies.
But but I think that it's important like the Jesus didn't
do that, right? He he prayed, like you said,
from the cross was praying for people because like they don't
really know what they're doing. Yeah, they're carrying out my
will is what they're doing, which is another crazy thing to
think about. But yeah, so no, I was just
thought it was really good, a good point that you made about
praying. And I right there, he says it
right there. He's praying like, and maybe
you're right, maybe he was at the beginning of this.
You said that maybe this is just Nehemiah's prayers over several
weeks, maybe three months is what we've kind of come done
some math and figured out. And he's like saying, OK, I'm
corporately praying for like for the for the whole nation and
confessing. Because right there in verse 6,
I think is where it comes out. You know, I now pray to you day
and night for your servants, the Israelites.
I confess the sins we have committed against you.
Yeah, so, and it's important because, because again, like I
mentioned in the sermon, like God's promises were not to an
individual and there they were to a nation, right?
And so he's, he's confessing the sins of his people.
And I think that's consistent with other Old Testament
narratives as well. But I've, I've heard this often
times with the Lord's Prayer in the New Testament, right?
When Jesus teaches his disciples to pray, that is not a personal
prayer. You know, it's not me praying to
God, it's our Father in heaven, right, You know, hallowed be
your name, your Kingdom come, your will be done in others in
heaven. Give us Our Daily Bread.
You know, forgive us our sins lead us not.
It's all plural, right. It's like this is a corporate
prayer and so we we can't just look at like our western
Christianity has become very personalized, right.
It's like, you know, we go into worship, you turn the lights
down so that it's just you and God, you know, and it's that's,
that's not what it's meant to be.
We are a community. We are a body.
We change it with our language too.
Have you accepted Christ as your personal Lord and Savior?
Right. We say that you know that's
that's the way I grew up hearing it, right?
Have you made Jesus Lord of your life?
You know, those are the types of things, the over personalization
of of of the gospel. And there's an element of
personal, sure, the personal relationship of it, right?
You know, individuals do have to do it, but you're not saved to
yourself. Not saved for yourself.
For yourself exactly. You're saved to a body, right?
Yeah. And that's why it's like, that's
why the church is so important. You know, you don't get saved
and then you spend the rest of your life alone in your house
and doing stuff. It's like, no, you actually now
if, if you love the Lord, you now have to live out your love
for the Lord with a body. And guess what, it's hard
because you're going to, there are people are going to sin
against you and you're going to sin against other people.
But now, you know, John says, if, if you say you love God, but
don't love your brother or sister, you're a liar.
And it's like, that's that's where the rubber hits the road.
It's like if you say you love God, then that means that you're
going to forgive someone for whom Christ died and, you know,
work through stuff. And it's hard to live in
community, man. But that's exactly that's what
God calls us to that we're about the body of Christ and, and we
have to live together and display our love for God in the
community of believers. And Jesus said that's how
they'll know. The world will know that you're
my disciples. That's good thinking about that.
Think about the church being the new people of God, right?
All the Old Testament, we're talking about Israel being the
people of God, and then the church is the new people of God.
Yeah. It's really, it's really
incredible. It's made-up of all nations,
tribes and tongues. Yeah.
And I love the way you said it. You like you.
You know, when you become a Christian, you're not Christian.
Safe to yourself. You're saved to a body.
So live in one, right? Like love, love each other.
And it is hard. Oh, man, it's hard.
Hard. Yeah.
Joe, I thought this was one of your, your better sermons.
I don't know why, other than maybe it was the right word for
me at the time. You know, just thinking through,
I just thought it was just you're going to get out so much
more in the book of Nehemiah talking about all sorts of
different narrative and thing that happens and how God's hand
is through it all. Yeah, I'll just go ahead and say
I don't think Nehemiah is AI don't think it's a leadership
book. I think it's got leadership
principles that we can draw out. But I think more of more of it's
a story of how God is being faithful to his word, restoring
something that he told him he would do, and he's using someone
like Nehemiah as an instrument to carry out his work.
I think it's just really important for us to remember
that any book in the Bible is a book about God, right,
ultimately. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
You know, the Bible is is is is an overarching story.
I really like teaching that class this this last fall.
God's big. Big picture, like it's called
biblical theology where we look at the all of Scripture as one
overarching story of God's plan of redemption.
You know, you have creation in the fall and then you have, you
know, God trying to redeem his, his relationship with humanity.
And at the end he does it, he's brings in new Jerusalem and a
new and a new city, new earth and this relationship that this
perfect Eden is restored. And so, you know, that's we have
to every time we pick up the Bible, every time we read a
different book, we have to figure out, well, where am I in
the story of God's plan of redemption, right.
And here we're picking up in a part of the story where these
people are suffering and. They're not.
Where am I putting myself into the story?
Right, Right. Where?
Where are we when I'm reading this?
Where is this fall into overarching redemption history?
Yeah, I got. You right and then and then you
know what we're trying to do in preaching is well, if this is
where we are in the storyline of Scripture, well, what does that
mean now to us as being in the new covenant right.
How does this point to Christ, right?
Because Jesus taught his disciples, you know, on the road
to Emmaus, Luke chapter 24, he says all of scripture points to
me, you know, and then he showed them how all the law, all the
prophets, everything pointed to him and found it's fulfillment
in him. And so anytime we're reading the
Scripture, we need to be thinking, how does this, how
does this point to Christ, right?
And what he's doing? And so that's what we need to do
at every point. That's really good.
What? Like, if you had to like, boil
down one point of application for the sermon, what would it
be? Just turn to God, you know,
don't even don't even think about it.
You know, the, the moment. And and that's I and maybe that
is sort of training yourself in those moments to like when a
thought comes in your mind, whether it's temptation or to be
in despair or discouraged, when, when you hear bad news, when
you're frustrated, whatever the situation is in your life, at
every stage of your life breathing, it's maybe it's
rejoicing or excitement or whatever.
Pray, turn to God, give him praise, give him thanks, call
out to him, ask him for help, say, how long will Lord, how
long am I going to have to endure this?
Whatever it is, right? Pray biblical prayers and turn
to God because he's faithful. He hears those prayers and He
loves us and wants to answer them.
Yeah, I think of the when you're saying just immediately turn to
God, right? That's the that's the goal.
Maybe you think of George Mueller.
We talked about him before on this podcast, but the like,
there was one story where they were out of bread for the
orphanage that he was running. Like they just came to him.
He he had no clue. Like he wasn't thinking about
anything like that. Like it was just caught up in
administrative stuff for the orphanage or whatever.
People from the kitchens come and say, hey, there's no bread
to feed the kids. And it wasn't like, hey, let's
make a call to this business guy or let's make a call down the
road. It was like, OK, well, let's
pray. And then like as soon as they
finished praying, someone dropped off bread for the
orphanage. Same thing.
Like we need money to pay for whatever.
Like you never asked anybody for a dime.
It's just like, we're just going to pray.
Let's pray. And then the money would show up
in the mailbox. Just incredible stories of God's
faithfulness. But his default setting wasn't,
oh, let me go try to figure this out on my own, right?
It was pray whenever God would, when God would grant that, that
he would pray. It was like, I think it's such a
good picture of that. It is, and God was always
faithful to provide, right And then so, so pray specifically so
that you can see, yeah, the Lord answering your prayers.
He may not always do what you're asking, but when He does, if
you're praying specifically, you will see it.
That was one thing I've learned over the last year too, is like
pray specific prayers. I think Doctor Cook said
something like that in a sermon that I listened to last year.
Pray specific prayers. These general prayers, Lord,
help me today. OK, how you going to be able to
like understand if God actually did help you today is based on
your feelings. No Pray specific prayers, pray
like Lord, I pray for the salvation of my daughter
Adeline, pray for, pray for specific prayers and then watch,
watch what happens because he's faithful, absolutely is
faithful. So.
Well, and I want to share. I want to share something that
someone shared with me. It was a little podcast because
I think, you know, when, when hard things come, like this is a
hard thing that Nehemiah is talking about.
And you know, I was drawing on that in the sermon too, that
there are things that happen in life that we have no control
over. And they're hard and they're
heavy things. And we can feel like life is
hopeless and in despair and we don't know what to do.
And it's easy for us to feel like God is against us.
It's easy to feel like maybe God doesn't really know what he's
doing or, you know, why is he allowing this thing into my
life? We can feel like it's unjust.
And this was just a real encouragement to me.
We maybe we can share this. I think sometimes you give notes
in the podcast, right? It's a, it was a podcast episode
about God's omniscience that that God knows everything.
He knows everything perfectly. And it says, Speaking of prayer,
it is a glorious and comforting thought that when we pray, God
answers that prayer not in line with the way that we see things,
but in line with the perfect way that he sees things.
For believers, that means that as our loving Father, God gives
us precisely what we would give to ourselves if we knew
everything that he knows. And he also withholds from us
what we would withhold from ourselves if we knew what he
knows. That kind of blew my mind.
Like I'd never really thought of that before, but that's, that
really was helpful to me because, and I, I hope that's
helpful to other people too, to be thinking that like when it
feels like injustice, when it feels like God's way doesn't
make sense. Just know that his perfect
knowledge means that it was the right thing.
And if you had known everything that he knew and you had the
power to decide, you would have done exactly what he did, which
is so hard to understand, right? Especially with you think about
any number of things that happened.
Your parents die, right? You know your your child gets
cancer. It's all these things that you
would never choose right, but with all perfect knowledge and
insight you would have done the same.
Oh, it's so hard to think about, but comforting.
It is it was super comforting to me to think that like that
helped me to to see God's omniscience, his all knowing
power as a good thing as opposed to me like questioning it
because we were started talking, you know, before the podcast
about God's omniscience and and everything that he knows and his
sovereignty over all creation. And it's like where we were
formed from the dust. And, you know, after Adam and
Eve sinned, God said, you know, they were formed from dust, and
to dust they will return. And I think we just have to
remember that. That's like, who are we to say
anything? Yeah.
To God, you know He's God, and we're not.
Yeah, that's, that's been the theme for me this week too.
Yeah, well, good, good. Any other words on Nehemiah
chapter 1 today? Yeah.
Well, I guess I'll just address. I know.
Oh yeah, one question. One question, we, I touched on
it already a little bit, but I'll maybe give a little bit
more if someone asked the question at the very end of the
chapter. You know, Nehemiah is asking for
success. Give success to your servant
today and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.
So who is this man? Who?
Who is Nehemiah referring to that he's wanting mercy before
is? He talking about himself.
I, I, I think he's talking about king Arctic circuses because in
chapter 2 he, he's about to now he's about to go in his, in his
narrative to like, OK, and then I was before the king right now.
The reason I, I didn't really touch a lot on it because I
didn't get enough time to, to study that this week.
So I didn't really touch on it. But the reason it was
questionable to me is because at the beginning of chapter 1,
Nehemiah says well, in the month of Kiss Love, which the Jewish
calendar was about like November, December.
And then at the beginning of Chapter 2, as he's about to go
before the king, it says in the month of Nissan, which is like
March, April. Yeah.
Yeah, March, April. So it's about, it's about four
months between those between those times.
And so I was like, well, is he asking for mercy in the sight of
this man four months ahead of time?
But that's where again, it sort of made sense to me to be
thinking about, well, this is a prayer maybe that Neobiim is has
been praying over the last few months and now he records it and
is about to go into the presence of the king.
And so that's what I think he's saying because he does now say
immediately after that now I was cut bearer to the king.
And so he's leading into like that next thing.
And so that makes sense to me. I can't say authoritatively that
I know for sure that's what he's saying.
No, I think what it draws on a principle right for for Bible
reading. We were talking about this too a
little bit before. Is like most often the plain
reading is the correct reading. So you don't want to try to like
read too much into things and try to figure out too much who's
he talking to. Just most often the plain
reading is the the correct interpretation.
So right, And if there is a simple explanation, that would
be it. Right.
It is. It is the thing that makes the
most sense cause again, remembering that Scripture
didn't have chapters and verses and all that stuff like it was
just it was a straight shot. Just went straight into that
talking about that so. And it makes the most sense
given the context and everything.
But again, we can't know that for sure.
I but yeah, I'm, I'm fairly confident of that.
Yeah. And a lot of times we're given
dates to to be prove out that all this is true, right.
So sometimes it's like we give date, we give dates like about
Nissan and Kislev, all that stuff is for us to understand
that this really happened. And it can be.
It can be like found in other documents and like this story
actually is true. Yeah, I actually had listened to
a sermon from a preacher who who he said, you know, the beginning
says the words of Nehemiah, the son of Hakaliah.
Now it happened in the month of Kislev, you know, in the 20th
year. He all the details.
He's like, he's like, yeah, this was a real story.
It wasn't like Once Upon a time. Exactly.
It's not. It's not.
Far, far away, you know this. Isn't a Disney story you?
Know it's like it starts with like details and facts like like
if anybody like when he's writing this, it's essentially
saying if anybody wants to challenge anything that I'm
writing, it's like here's all of the information that you can go
back and check. Community notes, fact checkers,
Right. Have your way.
Yeah, let's go. Yeah, that's good.
I think that's right, though. I think.
To answer the question, I think
I would agree, I think that it is talking about the king
because he's going, he's about to go in whether or not, I mean,
the king talks to him about like he says, hey, notices
something's off, right. And but whether or not the king
notices or Nehemiah is going to address it straight on, He's he
knows he's about to have to do some action.
So he's praying for favor. So yeah, that's, that's I think
that's the key there. Absolutely.
No, it's really good. I'm excited about the rest of
the book. Me too.
We got a lot, even genealogies to go through.
I don't know. I don't know how we're going to
break that up yet. We'll see.
Be fun figuring out. But again, I think genealogies
are helpful. Yeah.
These are real people. This really happened.
Absolutely. Track it down.
Right. Figure this stuff out.
So, yeah. Any other words, Nehemiah?
OK, next week Pastor Jake takes takes us up into chapter 2.
Does he do all of chapter 2? I don't remember.
I think he goes to verse 11. OK.
SO21 to 11 or one to 10 probably.
One to 10. That's right.
And then, yeah, and then we'll go from there.
But yeah, we look forward to hearing that.
And yeah, LEMC, we're praying for you, Joe.
Why don't you pray for us as we close out this episode?
Lord, we come before you, the great God, the God of covenant,
the God of love, and we come confidently to you to pray
because we know that you will be faithful to hear us.
You will be faithful to your covenant and we thank you that
we can come to you in Jesus name and all the promises that we
have in Christ. And Lord, we come to you in
Jesus name recognizing that that we are sinners, that we have
fallen short of your standard, that that we have failed and,
and disobeyed your word and disobeyed your perfect order and
your perfect rule. But Christ faithfully fulfilled
it. He perfectly lived according to
your law and, and was the sacrifice for us.
And so we come to you in his name, knowing that through faith
in him we can be forgiven, be given the promise of new life,
and that your Spirit is walking with us, guiding us and leading
us. And so we pray, Lord, that that
you would make your name great in us as a church, that you
would draw us together, that you would unite our hearts.
That you would help us to strive together as disciples and
followers of Christ, to become more like him.
To read your word, to pray your word, to grow together as
disciples. That we are discipling one
another and faithfully fulfilling your Commission To go
into all the world and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy
Spirit, being confident that you are with us to the end of the
age. Lord, we thank you for these
wonderful promises and help us to to go in your power and to
fulfill that Commission. In that mandate, would you
strengthen us as a church and as a body of believers, and would
you provide all that we need to do that we ask this in Jesus
name, Amen. Amen.
Well, LAMC, we'll see you next time.
Have a great day.