Hey everybody, this is Pastor John Ewart from Englewood
Baptist Church in Rocky Mountain, North Carolina.
Thank you so much for tuning in to our podcast.
You're going to hear from God today as we share from his word
about important issues facing your life that can guide you
according to the Bible. Well, good morning Englewood.
Y'all turn to Nehemiah chapter 8.
I'll catch up to you in a minute.
That's in the Old Testament. Had to share that so you'd know.
Good to see everybody this morning.
Thank you so much for being here.
Listen, I'm excited to see what God's going to continue to do.
Had a wonderful conversation earlier this morning with a
couple who's going to join us and I look forward to that this
Wednesday night. By the way, in our core
training, just so you'll know, I'm going to talk about the
existence of God in our world today.
They often, we often have folks who don't even believe that.
So we need to know how we're going to apologetically describe
the existence of God and to point to him.
And so you come back, we're having a good crowd on Wednesday
night. It's one of our primary
doctrines. You know, because of my work at
the seminary for years, I, I, I would often speak at that
denominational type events at Baptist things, so state
conventions, associations, etcetera.
And a couple of few years ago, I was speaking at one of these
things in Charlotte and my wife Teresa went with me.
Now it's really important that you heard me say my wife Teresa.
So I shared and shared and, you know, I thought we had a really
good time and all these people started coming up to me wanting
to talk to me after the meeting. And I thought, man, man, this
was a really been good. I must have really impacted
somebody, you know, So it really, really got to them.
And these people came coming up to me and they kept wanting to
share with me about about my beautiful daughter that was
there with me. That's a true story.
Now I know where the we're beauty and the beast, but still
that's kind of hard to take true identity.
Who are we really and who was who must we become?
Someone once wrote. We, we're not what we are.
We're not even what we think we are.
We are what we think other people think we are.
So in our world today, that is so subjective.
It, it makes our, it makes an accurate identity of self and
self-awareness so fuzzy, so slippery and accurate spiritual
identity is, is crucial. It's, it's vitally important.
We need to know who we are in Christ and we need to know who
we should be. And all of us are on that
journey. We're, we're, we're going to
talk about here I am and here God is.
And there's always going to be a gap.
And we got to talk about that gap, but we're going to work on
that. And so we want to move forward.
And so Inglewood, we exist. Here's our identity.
We exist to join God's mission to bring glory to him and to and
for and to join him in redeeming the nation's.
Now, how are we going to do that right here, right now, with
these people, this place, our resources, what are we going to
do? We call that our vision.
And we're going to make disciples who love God, love
people, and join that mission. It's not not any harder than
that, and even the logo that we're using right now is going
to help us to not only understand that, but to help
others that understand our identity.
This is who Englewood Baptist Church really is.
We're right here constantly, constantly impacting the world
by making and sending disciples who love God.
Love people. Join God's mission by pointing
others to the cross. And last week, then I began a
new sermon series. And, and if you weren't here,
you really need to go back and in the lobby, you need to get
one of these bookmarks and one of these magnets.
And I'm not a gadget person or gizmo bumper car ish type
person, but I want you to put this someplace where you'll
remember these things and and focus upon these things because
over the next several weeks, we're going to be breaking these
things down as I begin this new sermon series called Come Live,
the Church's vision, the Seven Essentials of Discipleship.
If you weren't here last week, it would be very important to go
back and listen to that introduction because I shared an
introduction to guide us in defining what a real disciple
is. We talk about making disciples.
We talk about disciples. You love people, love God.
Well, what is one of those things?
What is a disciple? We need to know it, really
understand that. How do we make them?
How are I-1, as we would say back home?
So we need to understand and apply very specific essentials
of discipleship to help lead us to that deeper spiritual
maturity. So once again, very quickly, let
me just share these seven and we're going to break down the
first one. A disciple of Jesus engages the
Bible with a humble and teachable spirit.
A disciple of Jesus unites in fellowship through hospitality
and authenticity, abides in prayer with dependence and
anticipation, commits to service with generosity and compassion,
responds in worship with awe and surrender, lives out evangelism
with boldness and love, participates in missions with
urgency and sacrifice. These must define who we are.
Now each one of these, and you're going to see this today,
have several sub points and we're going to be talking about
those and introducing those to you.
But then we're also going to be teaching those things over over
months to come. We'll talk more about that, but
these need to define who we are. They also need to set the agenda
for our ministry planning. So I ask you in all seriousness
to please pray for your ministry leaders this Tuesday afternoon.
We're going to meet all Tuesday afternoon as we meet to adjust
and align all of our programs, all of our ministries, and all
of our events for 2026 to achieve these essentials.
And then also please pray for your missions, your personnel,
your finance lay teams, and your pastors as they meet to adjust
and align the 2026 budget that we're going to present to you to
also support these essentials and help us achieve things.
We must be, we must make true multiplying disciples and
everything needs to be connected.
So every true believer is equipped by the Holy Spirit.
If you if you don't get that, you need to go back to this
Wednesday night and listen to what I said online.
So I talked about the Holy Spirit and he equips us to grow
in these core essentials. We, we can do this.
And the word disciple, we know some of you know that Greek word
mattheist, you've heard that shared different parts of the
definition for that. But we need to understand this,
that the root word for just for mattheist, the root word for
disciple actually comes from a Greek word that means the mental
effort needed to think something through.
So in other words, a true disciple is, is working through
things, a true disciples working through problems.
A true disciple is, is learning, constantly learning.
They never stop learning. And so discipleship is this
never ending spiritual journey that we're all on together.
We all have room to grow. We all have room to learn.
Of all people, Ernest Hemingway, who I don't quote often, he once
wrote this. He said there's nothing noble
about being superior to your fellow man.
True nobility is being superior to 1's former self.
We want to help you and your family to grow.
We want you to understand and to value.
This is my next step in discipleship.
This is my child's next step in discipleship.
We want you to understand what that is.
We want you to understand how the church is going to help you
with that because none of us are perfect.
None of us have arrived. If you think you've arrived.
And the word humility, which is coming up in the message today,
is important for you because we're all on the journey.
We can all grow even more mature and our walk with God and with
one another. Former NFL football coach Vince
Lombardi once said perfection is not attainable, But if we pursue
perfection, we can catch excellence.
And So what we're looking for is let's submit to the Lord.
Let's submit to his mission and see if if he'll use us to make
excellent disciples and for us to create an excellent pathway
that's understood, that makes sense, that will help people
become more mature. And so that journey begins with
the understanding that there are certain spiritual disciplines,
certain spiritual activities that are true disciples going to
to engage in and also apply and develop in their lives.
And one of those is this that a true disciple is engaging the
Bible with a humble told you that word would show up and
teachable spirit. Now I want you to notice the
characteristics of being because every one of these essentials
has being parts, knowing parts and doing parts.
I want you to see the being part first that that idea of
humility, the idea of teachability.
And you're going to see these characteristics in the passage
today. We're going to talk a whole lot
more about all of this stuff down the road.
But a disciple must also know certain things that mental
effort that they're making to think things through.
They need to know how to engage the Bible.
So a disciple of Jesus engaging the Bible needs to know what the
Bible is, right? How we got the Bible, how the
Bible is inspired, the importance of context when
engaging the Bible. So these basic Bible study
methods or, and also Bible meditation methods and
memorization techniques, even in methods and then how do we apply
the Bible? It's not going to do us any good
if we don't know how to apply it.
But even if we're humble, even if we're teachable and know
these principles in practice, they're not going to do us any
good. They're not going to do anybody
else any good unless we put them into practical use.
So we, we can, we can learn the being and we can learn the
knowing, but we also need to apply the doing.
So a disciple does certain things and teaches others to
engage the Bible first of all, corporately.
We do this together by sitting under expository preaching, by
by being in a small group study together, by being in midweek
studies together. You know what percentage I want
in those things, right? What percentage?
100%, everybody. But we also need to do this
personally. This needs to translate.
You come to the headquarters of training, so to speak, so that
during the week personally, you're able to engage the Bible
by reading, studying, meditating, memorizing, and
applying. We'll have to break all these
things. We're going to be talking about
these things for a long time. So we need all three areas,
being, knowing, and doing to be a complete disciple.
It's why it's who, it's what, it's how, it's the discipline of
why that I've shown you before. I hope you begin to catch on
that everything ties together. Nehemiah chapter 8.
It's an interesting story. I, I, I love to preach through
the book of Nehemiah. It's a powerful Old Testament
book with a lot of incredible lessons for today's church.
Nehemiah chapter 8. The Hebrews have been in exile
in Babylon for 70 years. It's been a hard time, very
painful, very hurtful. They've lost a lot.
The Babylonians hauled them off and they've lost a lot along the
way. It's difficult, but it was time
now for their new future. Sometimes we go through seasons
of life that are difficult, painful, transitional.
But it was time for their new future.
And Inglewood, it's time for ours as well.
And so they were allowed to return to Jerusalem and they
came back in groups, 1st 50,000 or so, came back to rebuild the
temple, but there were enemies who had moved into the land and
they didn't want them rebuilding anything.
So these enemies were fighting the whole time and we're kind of
preventing them from getting the job done.
So years later, Ezra, who has a book named after him in the
Bible, Ezra, the priest and the scribe, he comes back with
another group to help him finish.
But the city walls were still in ruins.
They still weren't safe, They still weren't ready.
They weren't ready for everybody else to come back yet.
They had to get everything ready 1st.
And so they needed to, needed to be able to restore their ability
to move forward to, to worship Yahweh as they should and to
live as a people like they should.
And so God sends Nehemiah to help rebuild the walls, even an
uncertain, even perhaps chaotic times.
Revival was coming. And we're going to join them
less than a week after they'd finished the walls, Nehemiah
chapter 8, verse one, and all the people gathered as one man
into the square before the Watergate.
And they told Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of
Moses that the Lord had commanded Israel.
I'm going to share 4 important truths for us in our
discipleship and engaging the Bible this morning.
The first of all is the hunger for the word.
I want you to see these people. All the people came.
All of them came. Don't miss that.
I I sometimes wonder what's it going to take for all the people
to gather here, for every seat to be full, for standing room
only. I was talking to someone
yesterday who's done some work overseas in a place where I've
done a lot, and we were talking about some of the churches.
Now you there were standing room only.
People would be sitting in the aisles violating every fire code
you could imagine. What's it going to take?
They gathered on the east side of Jerusalem as one.
I want you to see that spirit of unity, working together on God's
mission and purpose will create that.
We're in this together. This isn't some long experience.
We're we're, we're in this together.
And they asked Ezra to read the law, the first five books of the
Old Testament, the Pentateuch. That's what he would have been
reading. They had been in exile so long,
and it had been too long since they've been able to gather like
this as one people to be taught and to hear a word from the
Lord. And they were starving for that.
They were hungry for that. I mean, what a special moment to
appreciate the freedom and the opportunity to gather again in
that kind of united spirit after all those years before revival.
They needed to hear from the Lord.
They needed His guidance. They needed His strength.
They needed His hope by engaging His word corporately and
personally. Look at verse 2.
So Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly, both
men and women and all who could understand what they heard on
the first day of the 7th month. And he read it from a read from
it facing the square before the Watergate, from early morning
until midday, in the presence of the men and the women and those
who could understand. And the ears of all the people
were attentive to the book of the law.
Now, whenever you see something repeated, a phrase repeated in
the Old Testament in Hebrew, that's there for emphasis.
So in other words, if you see something repeated more than
once, you're trying to drive home a point.
All the people are there, all the men are there, all the women
are there, all the older children are there.
Everybody who could understand is there and they're hanging on
every word. All the people are focused and
they're hanging on every word. They, they needed to be reminded
what God's word was to, to study it, to to read it, to meditate
upon it, to memorize it, and then to apply it.
And we'll see that in a moment. So all the men and the women and
those old enough to understand needed to engage it, to
recognize its inspiration, to recognize its power, to
recognize what it was. Every age, every member of the
family needed it. One reason that we have connect
groups, small groups here, one of the reasons we have family
ministries for all ages here is because we all need it.
They were hungry for His word. They were hungry for Him to show
them the future, no matter how long it took.
They were focused, hungry, starving for the word.
I mean, Ezra read for five to six hours and you think I go
long? You can tell they weren't
Baptist. Let's see if I can finish by 5.
I don't even wear a watch. That didn't no good.
Look at verse 5. And Ezra opened the book in the
side of all the people. All the people notice this, for
he was above all the people. And as he opened it, all the
people stood. And Ezra blessed the Lord, the
great God. And all the people answered
Amen, Amen, lifting up their hands.
And they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their
faces to the ground. When he opened the scroll, and
it would have been a big scroll to begin reading it.
The people stood and then bowed all the way to the ground in in
a great display of respect and love.
They, they knew what that scroll was.
They knew that that was not just a book, that was not just some
list of rules, that was not just a human created doctrine.
That was the inspired, infallible, inerrant word of
God. They recognize that.
And Ezra gives praise and thanks to the Lord, the great God, and
the people respond in reverence and worship.
Worship is a part of who we are. I want you to see that
characteristic of a disciple's being.
They were humble before the Lord.
We humbly approach the word of God because that's what it is.
It's the word of God and we need it.
We need to read it, we need to study it.
We need to meditate on it. We need to memorize it.
We need to apply it with a teachable spirit.
And and when we're prepared to acknowledge and hear from God,
our response better be humility. It better be worship.
I invite you to do what Skyler said and and get this collection
of songs from our our worship team that will help you worship.
If that's what you need. Do it to enjoy it.
I think you ought to buy 30 or 40, not 20, but that's another
story. But they were ready.
They were hungry. Are are you?
I mean, is this town? What do we got to do?
Are you hungry to become the disciple who truly engages the
Bible with humility and a teachable spirit?
Will you submit your life to this truth to the authority of
this inerrant, infallible, inspired word of God in in the
Bible? You know, so we, we don't have
the luxury of living by our own truth.
We, we don't have the luxury of basing our lives on on, on being
true to ourselves. I don't even know what that
means. You need to mature and grow up
in personal and corporate obedience and submission to the
objective standard of authority of God's Word as your guide.
Because we live in a world. We live in a culture that
rejects it, so we better be fully submitted to it or you're
not going to have an anchor. So know what the Bible is.
Know how it's perfectly inspired.
Go and listen to my midweek lesson Seriously on the
authority of Scripture from August the 6th, where I help you
understand some of those things. Everything ties together that
we're doing. So how will you engage the word
of the Lord of the universe? They're hungry, they're
starving, they're seeking, they're patient.
Look at verse 4. And Ezra, the scribes stood on a
wooden platform that they had made for the purpose.
And behind beside him stood a whole bunch of men with really
difficult Hebrew names to pronounce.
Verse 7. The Levites help the people to
understand the law while the people remained in their places.
They read from the book, from the law of God, clearly, and
they gave the sense so that the people understood the reading.
Don't miss what's going on here #2 don't miss the teaching of
the Word. They built a platform.
It'd been like a pulpit kind of idea, but a big platform so that
they could see him. But he also, this is a big
scroll. This wouldn't have been a little
Bible. This is a scroll.
He needed a place to set that thing and so the people could
see him. And these Levites, maybe they
were even priests were, would help the crowd to understand.
I'm going to come back to that because they needed help.
You got to understand they had been in captivity for so long.
Many of them would have been speaking Aramaic at that point,
not Hebrew. And although they would know
some Hebrews, some of them would have missed some of the old
Hebrew and they needed help understanding the old Hebrew,
Jesus's heart language, when even by that time, years later
would have been Aramaic primarily.
Now he obviously knew Hebrew and Greek.
But you can understand that some of these hopes we'd even they
just need basic translation help some of them.
And and and so never move past this.
Let me let me stop it because this is worth it.
You need, I hope, to celebrate the privilege you have of being
able to engage a personal copy of the Word of God in your heart
language, to be able to read this, to study this, to meditate
upon this, to memorize this and to apply it.
You just need to understand what a privilege this is.
And some of you might have many copies.
Some of them are probably getting dusty on a shelf.
I hope this is your guide because listen, in the world
today, there are about 7000 or so languages.
It expands to about 12,000 by the time you get to dialects.
And I just need you to understand the complete Bible
exists in less than 600 of those.
And so there are people everywhere, including that group
you saw on the screen earlier, who would not have a copy of the
complete word of God in their language to even read or to
understand. And I don't know how often you
show God appreciation for that, but I pray you do.
But the other thing these people needed, they needed expositional
explanation. The Bible's going to tell us
they're teaching them. And so one, one of the things
that they did is as a disciple of Jesus, we're going to seek to
sit under expositional teaching and preaching both in large
group and in small group, because what they were doing is,
is instructive teaching was going on section by section.
They'd spread out and there'd be a little group over here and one
of the Levites would be talking to them and there'd be a group
over here and a Levite would be talking to them and helping them
to understand here's what the Bible means.
Here's what, here's what he's reading.
This is what that means. And so they're engaging the
Bible both personally and corporately.
They were helping them. The people eagerly were
remaining there for hours to get this.
And so they, they were helping them.
We need to learn basic Bible study methods.
One of the things that we're going to be doing is I'm going
to don't, don't let these words flow you.
We're going to be talking about some basic hermeneutical and
basic homiletical skills. How do I study and interpret
Scripture? How do I present Scripture?
We're going to be giving some practical lessons.
Watch for a podcast. And then there's going to be a,
a host section of teaching that we'll do to help both your Bible
teachers as well as you. What do I do with this in my
personal quiet time? What's the best way for me to
engage this? What are some basic Bible study
methods, meditation methods, memorization techniques?
We're going to offer these things to, you know, how to
apply the Bible in your life. So we're also going to ask you
to participate in missions and ministry in that application.
Because a disciple is, is not only going to do this for
themselves, but a true disciple is also going to want to teach
other people about the Bible. How can I share this with
others? So as one, we must gather
eagerly corporately sitting under expository preaching and
then in our Connect group, small group ministry and in our
midweek study to study it even more.
Because certainly being taught and challenged by sermons is
important, but if you're not currently engaged in a small
group, you're missing out on on people helping you to engage and
study and apply the word. Now some new groups were
launched last week. They'll be more forming soon.
It's not too late. You can join any week.
In fact, the lady after the first service came up to me and
she says I want to go to a connect group.
Don't know where 1 is, where can I go?
So that can be you next week. And I want to say thank you to
everybody who's already engaged and thank you for reaching out
to love people and to pray for them.
I look forward to this Wednesday night praying through some of
those prayer requests before we have our lesson.
So the men, women, and all who could hear with understanding
gathered to hear and understood. I mean, that just sounds like us
every week. But listen.
In fact, listen to some of the final words for Moses to Joshua
in Deuteronomy 31, he says assemble the people, men, women
and little ones and the sojourners within your town.
So even the guests, even the outsiders, get them in here that
they may hear and learn to fear the Lord your God.
And be careful to do all the words of this law and that their
children who have not known it may hear and learn to fear the
Lord your God. As long as you live in the land
that you're going over the Jordan to possess here, learn to
fear and carefully observe. That's a pretty good formula for
us to observe. Sounds humble, sounds teachable
to me. So because we want to help
others, we want to help the next generation.
That's what it says. We get to help our preschoolers
and our children and our students to understand what the
word of God is. So we have groups for all ages
and all of our guests would be most welcome.
So all I can say is Inglewood, it's time for all of us to
assemble as one. So they stayed right in place
hour upon hour upon hour, wanting the word of God that
they had been missing. And they knew they needed it.
They knew they must have it. It reminds me of a church
planter friend of mine. So when I lived in the
Philippines, I taught in the School of Theology as part of
what I did there. And I had a student named Henry
Amarillo. He's a pastor in California now.
But then he was one of my students in Manila.
And we, we were planting churches all around Metro Manila
and around the islands. And we had started a brand new
church at the Fort Andres Bonifacio Army base.
And, you know, there's no separation over there.
You can start them anywhere. And so some, especially young
adults and students, were gathering for Bible study every
single week. So we sent Henry out there as
the church planter. He got a little apartment to
live in, about the size of the fishbowl that the drummer's in.
I don't know how he stands it in there, but we appreciate you.
I stare at him, but we appreciate you need bubbles or
something. But Henry had this little bitty
apartment and every morning before the students would go to
class or off to work, they would stop at his apartment and he
would read the Bible to them and give a little devotion.
Well, Henry tells me the story. He goes, Pastor you or he goes.
I woke up 1 morning, it was pouring down rain.
The monsoon season would come. And I don't in a tropical
environment like that at the monsoon.
I mean, it's a frog strangling rain.
I mean, it's raining, he says, so I nobody's going to come.
So I just laid back down a couple seconds later and he
opens the door and there's all these students, all these young
adults standing out there in his yard.
I mean, they don't have umbrellas, they don't have
raincoats. They're just getting wet,
getting drenched. And he says, what are you doing?
He goes, oh brother Henry, we couldn't begin our day without
hearing the word of God. So Henry says, with the greatest
amount of humility I could ever have, I stood in my doorway and
just read Scripture to them and prayed with them so they could
start their day. We need the whole counsel of God
too, not just part of it. Second Timothy 3 that Paul wrote
to his spiritual son says all Scripture is breathed out by God
and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for
training and righteousness that the man of God may be complete,
equipped for every good work, All Scripture.
You don't get to pick and choose.
You know, I, I don't like this part.
So that's not going to, we're not going to do that.
This one's OK. Maybe I'll do that tomorrow.
Kind of this one's sort of, you know, iffy.
We don't get to do that. We don't think we, we don't get
to pick the verses we need or we think we should have.
Do you want to be incomplete, or do you seek completeness and
thorough equipping in your life? Be a disciple who engages all of
God's Word, the whole counsel of God, humbly with a teachable
spirit ready to read, study, meditate, memorize and apply,
and then lead others to do the same because it'll correct,
it'll train, it'll complete you allow it to have its full impact
on your life. And that's what's getting ready
to happen to these people. They were hanging on every
single word, hanging on every word, listening Nehemiah chapter
8, verse 9, and Nehemiah who was the governor, and Ezra the
priest and scribe and the Levites who taught the people
said to all the people, this day is holy to the Lord your God.
Do not mourn or weep for all the people wept as they heard the
words of the law. Don't miss the impact of the
Word. The people were overcome.
They were frankly overwhelmed. They were overwhelmed by the
Word of God. It pierced their hearts.
It pierced their souls with truth.
They could not, they would not deny it.
They couldn't deny God anymore. They recognized that they had
not been keeping the law as they should while they were in exile,
and they mourned over that. They wept over their sin.
They wept over the things that they shouldn't have been doing
that they were doing, and they wept over the things that they
should have been doing that they were not doing or could not do
in the exile. It was breaking their hearts.
I don't know about you, but maybe you feel like you're in
exile this morning. Maybe you feel totally
disconnected, separated away from God.
Maybe you're struggling so much in your life that you're just
completely overwhelmed by it. Well, I, I just challenge you to
allow his truth to overwhelm you instead.
Honest recognition of sin is a part of our revival.
It it the Holy Spirit convicts us, all of us of our sin.
And and that's not pleasant. We we don't, we don't seek that
often. But but God doesn't promise to
give us everything we want. He he promises to give us what
we need in order to serve him. And that's exactly what we
needed. Henry Ford one time was talking
about the brand new invention called the automobile.
And he said this, he said if I'd asked the people what they
wanted, they would have just said a faster horse.
I'm I'm thankful that we serve a God who has inspired a perfect
word for us to tell us this is what you really need because
humanity doesn't often even know what it really needs if left to
themselves. So confession and repentance are
part of the revival experience. The Hebrew people were
confronted with the truth of God's perfect holiness and in
their humility and teachable spirit, they honestly saw
themselves. They saw their shortcomings.
They saw had that they had fallen short from obeying the
word. They saw their sin.
They're overwhelmed by it. When we're confronted by the
holiness of God's word and we humbly submit to us our sins
going to seem foolish. Look at verse 10.
Then he said to them, go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet
wine and send portions to anyone who has has nothing ready for
this day is holy to your our Lord and do not be grieved.
And here's a phrase that you would know, for the joy of the
Lord is your strength. So the Levites calm to all the
people saying be quiet for this day is holy.
Do not be grieved. The day was holy to the Lord.
It was separated for him and that should have resulted in
joy. True revival, true surrender
always brings great joy, for the joy of the Lord is our strength.
Now what does that mean? Does that mean that?
Does that mean that that my joy for the Lord brings me strength
or what brings God joy brings me strength?
Yes, both are important as I live out the essentials of true
discipleship that brings God joy.
And I'm also in my strongest possible position in life at
that point. When I'm in obedience, that's my
strongest possible position. So that will be the most
spiritually healthy place I can be, from which I can be the most
effective in dealing with life as well as serving God and I.
And as I bring him joy, his strength will surround God and
protect me, which brings me great joy becomes this cycle.
There's no stronger place to be that that does not mean I I will
still not experience trials. That doesn't mean I get to
escape the storms. In fact, God promised us to the
opposite. I'm going to go right through
the middle of them and and you need to go back a couple of
midweek services and listen to me talk about the problem of
evil and you'll see what the Bible says about that.
But I endure those times with perseverance to bring him joy
and to celebrate in his joy, which brings me joy so I don't
grieve. I can joy in God.
I can rejoice with what causes him to rejoice and that will
strengthen me and truly engaging his word brings him great glory
and joy growing in discipleship will bring him great glory and
joy and and so see you got to understand the Hebrews were were
not to continue grieving. Instead, they were to recognize
the opportunity that God was given him.
Here's a special new opportunity.
Listen, the restoration and guidance into a new future that
he had perfectly designed for them.
That's what they needed to celebrate.
I mean, that sounds wonderful. It sounds freeing.
And Englewood, he's saying the exact same thing to us this
morning. God wasn't done with them and
God's not done with us. They were being given another
opportunity, and so are we. So Are you ready for
discipleship? Are you ready for revival?
Are you ready for a full house? Are you ready for the
opportunity to join His mission and serve Him in a new future
that He is perfectly designed just for us?
Because this day is holy to the Lord your God, and we need to
respond to Him. We need to respond to His Word.
We need to be a holy people set apart from Him.
But the story isn't quite over. Not not just yet.
Almost because they needed to apply what they understood.
See, they, they, they were becoming something.
They were knowing things, but now they had to apply.
They had to do some things. They needed to apply this.
Look at verse 12. And all the people went their
way to eat and drink and to send portions.
In other words, they, they were making sure other people, they
were taking care of their neighbors and their friends,
loving on other people, making sure they had food, making sure
they had their portions and to make great rejoicing because
they had understood the words that were declared to them.
See, the last thing we've got to see is the obedience to the
word. The people rejoiced.
They met each other's needs and they worshipped they, they
understood the word of God. It changed them, it overwhelmed
them. It, it was it, they couldn't
refuse it and they acted upon it.
And as a disciple of Jesus Christ, they were teaching.
They we are, we need to be teachable and we need to know
how to apply the word in our lives.
There's a formula for a blessing here.
Study, understand, be changed, act and they apply even further.
Look at verse 13. On the second day, the heads of
the father's houses, all of the, of all the people with the
priests and the Levites came together to Ezra the scribe in
order to study the words of the law.
And they found it written in the law that the Lord commanded by
Moses that the people of Israel should dwell in booths during
the feast of the 7th month, and that they should proclaim it and
publish it in all their towns and in Jerusalem.
Go out to the hills and bring branches of olive and wild
olive, Myrtle, palm and other leafy trees to make booths as it
is written. So the leaders all met for, for
deeper study. Great leaders are going to do
that. They're going to be constantly
studying on behalf of their people.
They're going to engage in God's Word in a deep way so that they
can lead the people to apply it and to live it in their lives.
So they were likely studying Leviticus chapter 23 and
realized that they should, at that moment on the calendar,
they should have been keeping the Feast of the Booths or the
Feast of Tabernacles. We won't get into too much about
what that is, but but they, they had not been able to think about
it. They had been able to celebrate
the festivals, the feasts, well, while they were in exile.
They've been able to do this and they knew they should, they
needed, they needed to obey, they needed to apply, they
needed to act. And so for a week the people
were going to live in simple huts that they built out of
branches. Look at verse 16.
So the people went out and brought they did.
In other words, they applied. They went out and brought them
and made booths for themselves, each on his roof, and in their
courts, and in the courts of the the House of God, and in the
square at the Watergate, and in the square at the gate of
Ephraim. And all knows how many times
that word shows up, and all the assembly of those who had
returned from the captivity may boost and lived in the booths.
For from the days of Joshua, or Joshua the son of Nun to that
day, the people of Israel had not done so, and there was very
great rejoicing. So off they went in a meet
obedient practical application to do exactly what the word of
God told them to do. So truly engaging the Bible is
going to result in the people of God applying it and practically
living it out in obedience and action.
That's where we need this to end.
Discipleship is a life. It's an entire exciting life
that that he gives to us. So they gather branches, they
built booths and they camped out and they did this to remind them
of how God had brought them through the wilderness
wanderings, how they lived in temporary shelters.
But God had always provided for them.
And so it was a time to recognize, it was a time to
remember the blessings of God and the opportunities that that
were ahead of them. And so the eternal God was
working on the people's behalf, even in the middle of the
wilderness, how he brought them out and sustained them so that
they could serve. So this was an an act of humble
memorial to remind a humble teachable people who they were
and to whom they belonged. And the Bible says, I always
think this is kind of cute that it was the best feast of booths
since the days of Joshua almost 1000 years earlier.
And there was great joy. And all the while, don't miss
this. Ezra continued to read the word
to them and they continued to be taught.
Look at verse 18 and day by day from the first to the last day
he read from the book of the law of God.
They kept the feast 7 days and on the 8th day there was a
solemn assembly according to the rule.
See, these disciples love to sit under expository preaching and
teaching, and they continue to apply the Bible.
They understood their new direction.
And now Inglewood, it's time for us.
A true disciple of Jesus engages the Bible with a humble and
teachable spirit. So we're going to learn and
apply this essential introduction.
And we're going to help other people do the same.
And we're going to go back and we're going to review and we're
going to see all those sub points in various ways and how
we do that, We're going to be giving you multiple
opportunities to learn and to apply.
And we're going to do that together as one.
We're going to do that corporately.
We're going to do that in our personal lives.
And because we have a place for everyone to engage the word, be
hungry for it, connect to the real power, it's time to engage
that power source. Many of you know that Teresa and
I are moving into a new home and have been eternally unpacking.
And the other day, Teresa, bless her heart, who's just doing the
bulk of that work, Teresa was trying to add a floor lamp to a
plug in the wall behind an already full bookshelf.
And and rather than unpack the entire bookshelf, she was down
on the floor crawling on the floor, contorting to get a power
strip plugged into that wall socket back way back in there.
And of course, I was sitting in my recliner 2 feet away
instructing her on how to do that.
So thinking it was done, thinking it was done, she tried
to turn on the lamp and there was nothing, no light, no power.
So I told her it didn't work. So she climbed back down on the
floor and was crawling back in there again, contorting to try
to reach back, to flip that little switch on the power
strip. And she finally was able to
reach it and there was light and I declared it as good.
What's got to happen? Seriously, what's got to happen
in your life to engage, to make the connection, to recognize
your real need, the great need to understand what's missing
what, what's it going to take in your life?
Man, I, I had such a great conversation this morning with a
couple that that talked about what's going to, what's it going
to take to flip the switch to really connect you to real
power, transforming power. What's it going to take to get
that real power to flow into your life?
Well, let's ask godfather, what's it going to take?
Lord, I'm thankful, so thankful for the testimonies of baptism
today, my visit earlier with people who are eagerly seeking
to serve you both before the service and after the early
service. But I wonder about these people,
Lord. Father, I've tried to tell them
what you told me to tell them, and now, Father, I got to leave
it up to you. I pray, Father, that your Holy
Spirit will help them to understand that there is real
power, but they've got to be connected to it.
And that connecting point is the cross.
Initially, it's salvation for some.
They're never going to be connected.
They're never going to understand any of what I just
said. They're never going to
understand the power of Your Word until they're saved.
So Father, I pray your Holy Spirit will convict them.
Right now, you'll just run rampant through their hearts,
Father. You'll Pierce their mind and
soul, Lord, to where they'll recognize your reality.
And Father, I pray that they'll ask Jesus Christ to come into
their heart as their Lord and Savior, believing He's the only
one who can save them, the only one who's died on a cross to
forgive them. And then like in the early
service, Father, I know there are believers here who recognize
that this could be a day, a day that is holy unto you, a day of
recommitment, a day of revival to where they they flip that
switch that's just been off or a little dusty.
Father Dwar, they're committed to be a disciple who engages
your word with a humble and teachable spirit.
For some of that might mean baptism, like like they've seen
the testimonies today. Maybe it's church membership,
like someone talked to me after the first service.
Whatever it is, maybe for some, they just need to come and pray.
They just need to fill this front with prayer, praying for
the future of the church, praying for their own future,
praying for their relationship and walk with you.
Maybe they need to go to our next steps room and talk to
someone who privately, discreetly, lovingly is just
going to have a conversation with them and pray with them
about what you're saying to them.
So Father, I just pray you'll encourage us, You'll empower us
to take the steps of faith that we need in order to receive your
gift of grace. Thank you, Father, for the way
that you work in Your Word and the way your will is working in
US. This pray you'll bless us now in
Christ's name, Amen. Well, stand with me.
We're going to sing together. There'll be some pastors here.
We'd love to visit with you, but you don't have to visit with us.
There's a room right over there called the Next Steps Room, and
there are people in there who'd love to pray with you.
There's love on you. Encourage you.
You can go straight into that room and have any conversation
you need. You can come here and pray
whatever you need to do, you come as we sing.
Thank you so much for listening today, and I also hope that
you'll go to ourwebsite@englewoodbaptist.com
as well as our app and find many other resources that will bless
you and your families. Thank you once again.