Studies in Nehemiah

Studies in Nehemiah Presentation 08

An Eagerness To Grow Chapter 8v1-18 Presentation 08

Introduction From time to time you will overhear proud mums discussing the development of their children. How much they weigh, when they began to walk, talk, teethe, etc. It would be a strange mother who paid little interest in the development of her child. This universal interest in development has one appalling exception! I want to tell you of a mother who does not worry if her child runs a temperature, she is unconcerned if her child fails to increase its weight, height or its vocabulary. She smiles, when her ageing child refuses solids and insists on bottled milk. Presentation 08

Introduction Do you want to know the identity of this mother? She could be each one of us, if we have no real concern for our own spiritual welfare or for the growth of the church fellowship of which we are a part. Is it not strange that we can be so concerned about physical growth and development and yet unmoved by a lack spiritual growth in our own lives and in the lives of those known to us? This chapter challenges our attitudes to spiritual growth. Presentation 08

Wanting God’s Word The people of Jerusalem having raised the walls under Nehemiah's leadership, now make a very significant request. They ask to be instructed in God's word. Two motives can be suggested for this request. The first is that they were motivated by a spirit of thankfulness to God who had preserved them and equipped them to complete the building project. In gratitude to God they want to learn more of him and be the better equipped to follow him. Presentation 08

Wanting God’s Word The index of our gratitude to God is seen in our determination to both follow and obey him. Think of the healed demoniac who wanted to follow Jesus Lk.8v38, or blind Bartimaeus, who after receiving his left his old life behind to follow Jesus. Or think of Zacchaeus, who expressed his appreciation for what Jesus had done in his life by allowing God's word to order his life both in terms of making restitution to those he had robbed and in ministering to the needs of the poor whom he had hitherto callously ignored Lk.19v8. Presentation 08

Wanting God’s Word The second reason given for Israel's request is that they recognised that strong walls would not protect them. Their best defence against all the attacks of their enemies was to allow God's Word to shape their lives thus ensuring that their behaviour did not estrange the God of their salvation. In other words they recognised that by obeying God's word and walking in fellowship with him they would be kept safe. Now that is a tremendously important discovery to make! Presentation 08

Wanting God’s Word We can surely see the hand of God's providence at work in the inhabitants of Jerusalem, creating a hunger for himself. This is always the first step in spiritual growth. When men and women begin to hunger for God's word then spiritual growth and maturity will result. Recognising this Peter exhorts his readership to be “like new-born babies, [and] crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation. 1 Pet. 2v2 There is a very important connection been ‘craving’ and ‘growing’. We are to become addicted to God's word. Presentation 08

Wanting God’s Word The same instruction is put negatively by the writer to the Hebrews who warns of the danger of their deficient spiritual appetite. The were still learners when they ought to have been teachers. “We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature.” Heb. 5v11-14 Presentation 08

Wanting God’s Word Are we addicted or indifferent to God’s word. A new missionary was invited to preach in the village of WarispuraIn, Pakistan. Each weekday evening after a hard days work in the fields a large group of people made their way to church to be taught from God's word. The missionary preached with the help of an interpreter. His half hour sermon took an hour. After the service a senior elder asked why he had stopped so soon for many of the people had travelled some distance and were hungry for God's word! They were addicts. The people of Jerusalem listened attentively from daybreak until noon v3. What kept their attention? They too craved God's word. Presentation 08

Response To The Word Ezra the priest read God's word and then the meaning was made clear to the people by the Levites v7. This procedure whereby the Word was explained and applied points to the establishment of early 'nurture groups'. This process went beyond receiving information from scripture to being confronted by the God through scripture, as he spoke to their own situation. And the people would have begun to realise the significance of what they had asked! This is always a critical point. It is one thing to hear God's Word, it is quite another to submit oneself to its challenge and discipline! Presentation 08

Response To The Word How we need to recognise that the scriptures are the living Word of God. When they are understood by both mind and heart, they exercise a potent force for change. Denny comments on the simplicity of our Lord's ministry; “How little he had of all that churches are tempted to trust in now! How little there is in the gospels about methods and apparatus! The trust of the church in other things is really a distrust in the truth, an unwillingness to believe that its power lies in itself, a desire to have something more irresistible than truth to plead truth's cause, and these are all modes of atheism”. James Denny Presentation 08

Response To The Word When men and women have a clear understanding of this book, then we can trust in the power of the bare word of God to set men's hearts on fire. What resulted from a clear understanding of God's word? The people were convicted of sin v9. A minister once described a visit he paid to a divinity student whom he found in tears and crying out, “my sins, my sins”. Like these people his understanding of God's Word – undoubtedly aided by the Holy Spirit – had begun to overwhelm him with a sense of his own corruption. God's Word is a mirror that refuses to flatter us. It reveals our warts! No wonder the people wept. Presentation 08

Response To The Word It is a mistake to see God's Word only as a mirror that stirs up condemnation in our hearts. Indeed, its goal is to bring us joy and peace. It convicts in order to lead us to repentance and beyond that to the forgiveness and mercy of God. Healing and restoration are to be found with him! Hence the admonition in v9-10 'do not mourn or weep, do not grieve‘... That these people experienced the twofold effect of scripture is seen in v12... They celebrated with great joy because they had understood and responded to God's Word - a word which both wounded and healed. Presentation 08

Response To The Word You see it is not the convicting, exposing work of God's Word that liberates our spirits and heightens our worship, rather it is the realisation of the fact that, in this book we meet with a merciful God who forgives. When we grasp that condemnation has been dealt with, that our wounded spirits have been healed, that we are no longer enemies but possess the status and dignity of family members in God’s household, then praise is not something that can be held back! The hymn-writer asks, “ransomed healed restored forgiven who like we his praise should sing?” Presentation 08

Response To The Word The evidence of the operation of God's grace in a person's heart is not only seen in their worship but in their manner of life. One of the first things these people did was to take the fruit of their feast to those, 'for whom nothing was prepared' v10 . When we experience God's grace we want to share it with others. These people shared not just their food but the treasure of God's gracious forgiveness. When we taste it, we want to share it! The Samaritan woman, after her liberating encounter with Jesus, the supplier of living water, ran back to her village to share a message of hope. Jn. 4v39ff. Presentation 08

Response To The Word Before the day is over, certainly before the week is out, we will have brushed shoulders with people who have no knowledge of God's forgiveness, people who are suffering from spiritual thirst and malnutrition. You may be their only point of spiritual contact. Has God brought them across your path so that you might share the riches of his grace? Sharing is an evidence of growth. If we profess to be Christians but say, “We have nothing of God to share,” then we are admitting, “God is doing nothing in my life - I am not growing as a Christian”. Presentation 08

Response To The Word It is clear from v13 that this interest in studying God’s Word was not a passing fancy but a daily routine. They wanted to regularly think through the implications of God’s word for their daily life. This is quite different from wanting an encyclopaedic knowledge of the contents of scripture so we can confidently choose it as our ‘specialist subject’ on Mastermind. It is possible to know the truth without applying it. Christian development is not index linked to the number of times we have read through the Bible or our ability to answer questions about it but on how we have allowed it to shape and order our lives. Presentation 08

Response To The Word Growth is the outcome of obedience and so we should not be surprised that, as a result of allowing their lives to be shaped by scripture, great blessing followed. “From the days of Joshua son of Nun until that day, the Israelites had not celebrated it like this. And their joy was very great” v17. Obedience to the teaching of scripture was the source of this joy. They did what was expected of them v14-16. The construction of these booths was part of a neglected feast, the purpose of which was to remind Israel that she was both a redeemed and a pilgrim people. For the relationship between obedience to God’s Word and joy see Jn.15.11 and context. Presentation 08

Response To The Word People today are running on a treadmill looking for joy and getting nowhere fast. Joy does not stand by itself. It is not experienced in a vacuum. There is a moral component to joy - obedience to God’s revealed Word. It is indissolubly related to obedience. Conversely disobedience brings its own misery. It is a wasting disease cfPs.51.12. The person who is determined to discover and apply the truth of God's word will come to know the joy of the Lord. Paul makes it clear when writing to the Philippians that it is not circumstances nor material goods that produces joy. Rather it flows from the quality of our relationship with Jesus. Presentation 08

Conclusion Spiritually speaking, are we putting on weight? Are we stretching? Are we increasingly able to digest solid food? In other words, is there evidence of spiritual growth in our lives? There is no secret formula, there are no spiritual wonder drugs or special spiritual growth hormones on the market. But there is a Book, which requires our diligent study and obedient response. When we discover and apply its’ formula for growth then we will find increasingly that the joy of the Lord will be our strength. Presentation 08

Studies in Nehemiah