Equipping the Church & Household

Hello, good morning. let me have you guys turn in your Bibles, this morning to Nehemiah chapter 8. Nehemiah chapter 8. And if you're wondering, that's in the Old Testament.

This, this will help you find Ezra. And then the book after that is Nehemiah. Nehemiah chapter 8. This is where we're going to be spending, most all of our time this morning.

This is, formally speaking, the, the last sermon, the last message in our December slash part of January seminar, on, we've been calling it house to house, and what we have been doing. over the length of this seminar in the sermon time as well as in the Sunday school hour, is we have been exploring the strategic role of the household in the body life of the, the local church. And, our intent has not been to legislate or to deliver decrees, but more to think out loud in front of you guys and to make a contribution to what we hope will be, a vibrant and, ongoing community conversation on this topic as we, try to allow our church to take the shape that God wants it to take in terms of how we do ministry.

I went overtime in the first service, hence you have less time to greet one another in this service.

I apologize for that. But, I'm going to try to go a little faster through the front part of this, than I did in the first service. But I want to maybe share with you very quickly just some of the thoughts that will have, that lie underneath this, this series over the last few weeks. And let me try to do this quickly.

our, our dream is that everyone in the Cornerstone family would see Cornerstone as a multi-church facility, or I'm sorry, a multi-facility church. A multi-facility church, and you may say, well, we are a multi-facility church. We have an auditorium, a fellowship hall, the Alvin Davis Memorial modular building, And Sunday school rooms and we are in, in that sense, but I'm talking about where we are viewing every home as a church facility as an extension of the Cornerstone campus, and then to where everybody, regardless of their status of married, unmarried, having children, not having children, that everyone looks at their home, their apartment, their condominium, the home they're renting, the home that they, they're paying a mortgage on or own outright or their dorm room.

Everyone's viewing their dwelling place as a place of worship, a place of ministry, instruction, and outreach to where, wherever you dwell, it's like, what, I'm going to deem God to be worthy to be worshiped here in this spot.

every day, this will also be a place of ministry, a place of instruction, and a place of outreach. And then another thing that is developing in our thinking, as, as a staff and as elders, as we're just trying to interact with the text of the Bible, is that our church should have a ministry structure which embraces the household head as an official leadership position in the church. And not that all ministry obviously is run through the household head, but that we set up ministry in a way that gives due recognition to the head of the household and embraces that position and that we feel as burdened to support, provide resources.

It is for mostly men that would be in that position, but in some cases we have a single mom or what have you to support such parents in this position with the same dedication that we feel burdened to support Sunday school teachers and leaders with material and encouragement and what have you.

backing up and saying this a slightly different way as we look over the landscape of Cornerstone, we see a sea of individuals. This church is composed of saved individuals and every person regardless of their state. regardless of their age, their ethnicity, every person that's a part of this church body is a vital part of this local church who has a significant gifting from the Lord and a contribution to make to the rest of the body. But as we look at all of these individuals in our church body, we notice that some of these individuals are household heads, and as such, we believe they best serve the church by leading their households well.

We've that demonstrated in 1 Timothy chapter 3, and elsewhere. And as we look at all the individuals in the Cornerstone family, we also note that some of those individuals, or many of these individuals happen to be in households. And such individuals are best served by a church investing itself in helping the heads of these households to disciple them well. How do we as elders best serve the children and the youth of this church?

Well, there's a variety of things, and we may have ministries where we try to minister to them. directly, but we best serve them, we believe, by investing in their mom and their dad and equipping them, encouraging them and their discipleship role that the discipleship ministry of youth and children is predominantly something that we believe is best accomplished through the parents. And so we want to invest in them and that's how we, primarily would serve the youth and the children of this church.

So we've tried to cover a number of topics as we have, over, over the last 5 weeks as we've tried to touch on some of these themes.

We've talked to men, we've talked to women. And about men's and women's ministry in the church and youth ministry in and through one's household. We've talked about home economics, marriage, singleness, hospitality, family worship during the, the Sunday school hour. I know there's probably a lot of other topics we could have covered, but we've just wanted to try to cover these and to think out loud in front of you and hope that we can have a healthy exchange in the weeks ahead as our church continues to mature.

so having said that, setting the, the framework for what we have covered up to this point, my job today is to try to bring closure to, this series. And so let's give it the title of Equipping the Church and the household. Equipping the church and the household. And the way that we're going to frame this this morning is, I want to give to you guys 6 things that we need to do.

To ensure that our church is composed of properly equipped believers and households. and we're gonna go through the narrative of Nehemiah chapter 8. We'll enjoy the narrative. I love this story, and we'll try to draw some, maybe examples from this narrative as it unfolds in Nehemiah chapter 8.

And my goal is not to say, hey, this is what they do in Nehemiah 8, therefore we legislate that this is what we need to do here at Cornerstone. This is a different era. This is the people of Israel, a different dispensation. but it just so happens that 6 of the things that I would have wanted to say to you anyway today happen to be exemplified here in the people of Israel and the way that they act in these verses of Nehemiah 8.

So we're going to look at them through the lens of history and And try to collect together 6 ways that they set a great example for us, 6 things that they do that I believe that we need to do to ensure that our church is composed of properly equipped individuals and properly equipped households, OK? And the first of those is this, and that is that we If we're gonna become what God wants us to become as a church, if the individuals in this church body and the households represented in this church body are to become what God wants all of us to become, we need to assemble and we not just need to assemble, but we need to assemble with a transcendent unity of heart and purpose.

When I say transcendent, what is a unity that transcends the distinctions between us, and there are distinctions. There's ethnic diversity in this church body.

There's age diversity in this church body. There's diversity when it comes to station in life, and some are married, some are unmarried, some are married and have children. We've got single moms that have children that. They're laboring to bring up in the nurture and discipline of the Lord.

There's an incredible demographic variety. And over the course of the last 5 weeks, we've had to break things down and speak specifically to different demographics. And what I want to do today is bring us all back together, OK? And if we are going to be what God wants us to be as As a church in our households and as individual believers, we need to be committed to what unites us.

We need to assemble together with a unity of heart and purpose that transcends the distinctions that may exist between us. This is beautifully illustrated in Nehemiah chapter 8 verse 1. Real quick, 20, 22nd review, OK. Don't time me on this, but it'll be real close.

The events of Nehemiah 8 take place around 443 BC in the autumn of the year, and the people of Israel have come back from the Babylonian captivity, being chastised, chastised because of their disobedience to the Lord. And as they're returning in Nehemiah 1 through 7, there is the rebuilding of the walls of the city of Jerusalem. They've accomplished that. And now the events of Nehemiah 8:1 take place on the 1st day of the 7th month of the year.

And look what it says in verse 1. And all the people gathered as one man at the square, which was in front of the Watergate. and by the way, if you want a visual of this, commentators suggest that given the population at this time of Jerusalem and the surrounding area as the Jews are returning, this gathering is somewhere between 30,000 and 50,000 people. OK, this is a massive gathering.

Of people occurring on this morning, very early in the morning of the 1st day of the 7th month of the year. And they didn't just gather, but look at this, they gathered as one man. In other words, there would have been a palpable unity that you would have observed in this entire gathering of 300,000 to 50,000 people, and what's significant about this unity is it's not just men, for example, that are gathering, but we learn in verse 3 that this is an assembly of men and of women and all those who could listen with understanding.

So there's every age group, no doubt represent.

here I don't know, 4 and above, 5 and above, whatever anyone that had the capacity to understand what was being said and what was being read as we're going to see in just a moment, and men and women and no doubt many were married, many were single, and some were young, some were older, some had children in the home, no doubt many had children out of the home, but all of them with all these demographics, they are assembling together as one man. With a unity of heart and of purpose.

Nowadays, like in a lot of churches, there's the youth culture, and there's the college age culture and, and all these segments tend to hang out with each other. And then there's the married culture and what have you and, but in this particular gathering, all of them are convening together as one entity, as one man.

They're brought together more by what unites them than by whatever the distinctions, even legitimate distinctions may have been. We actually happen to have seen exactly This spirit modeled for us a few weeks ago in Acts chapter 2. The early Christians in Jerusalem, look at what we learned that they did, and day by day apply literally in the Greek text, applying strength toward one mindedness in the temple and breaking bread from house to house. They were gathering with one mind and we saw that this The one mind is the Greek word for same and then the word for passion, meaning they weren't just united intellectually or mentally in what they believe, but they were also united in their passions.

They were united in their priorities. They were united in the things that they were passionate about and united in the things that they were not passionate about. And they not only experienced this unity, but they actually met and applied strength towards this one-mindedness. This one passion spirit, and they worked at this and cultivated this and gathered together from house to house, and in the temple in order to celebrate this unity, cherish this unity, and to further deepen and cultivate this unity.

If we're going to get where God wants us to get in our households as individuals, and as a church, we're going to have to go together, guys, and be unified. And there may be ways that, in this conversation that ensues that maybe we don't exactly think the same way, and that's why we converse and we listen to each other and our thinking gets molded and shaped as we dialogue with one another and our unity is something that we don't just wake up with in the morning and observe we're all unified.

No, it's something we work at. We work at by listening to God and also by looking to one another and And processing things together and hearing the voice of God even in one another as we Process these things together.

So let's continue to maintain our unity, and cultivate this unity and let's assemble together and not just assemble, but assemble together, cherishing this transcendent unity of heart and a purpose. OK? a second thing that we need to do if we as a church are going to, be equipped as individuals, as households, and as a church to be what God wants us to be, is we need to be most desirous of and most attentive to God's word. We need to be most desirous of and most attentive to God's word.

Good night. if we all woke up in the morning and just operated based on what our own thoughts were, and we gathered together, it's like, well, what do you think? Well, I think this, and, and there's no unity in terms of an authority that we all look to. We would never experience true unity.

So our unity is based upon this, but we need to, when we gather and in our lives from day to day regarding any topic that we want to learn about, we need to be most desirous of hearing from God through His word. Look at what happens on this occasion. Go back to verse one. And all the people gathered as one man at the square, which was in front of the Watergate, and they asked Ezra, the scribe, to bring the Book of the Law of Moses which the Lord had given to Israel.

Isn't that amazing? 30,000 to 50,000 people gathering at the break of dawn very early in the morning. And what did they ask for? they ask Ezra to bring the book, bring the book, bring out the scroll, and read to us the words of God, 30,000 to 50,000 people as one man desiring to hear from God.

guys, we, we have a lot of voices that are vying for our attention, right? Our culture is speaking to us, and telling us how to do church and telling us how to do household, how to do family, how to do singleness. Here's how to live as a single person. Our own thoughts speak to us.

the way we've always done things is talking to us and saying, no, you got to stick with what you've always done. The way that the church has always done things, that's speaking, to us. maybe other churches around that are large enough to have seminars and conferences and Having mega churches, and they're, they're speaking to us saying, hey, come to us and we would like to show you how to do church. And I'm not saying all of these things are bad.

But I'm saying that above all, what we need to care most about is God, what do you say in the book? We want to hear from God regarding any topic. I want to know how to be a good husband. Bring the book.

I want to know how to be a good wife. Bring the book. That's what we need to say. I want to, I want to know how to bring up my children in the nurture and discipline of the Lord.

Bring me the book. I want to know how to live as a single person conducting myself in the household of God, the church of the living God. I want to walk in the fullness of Christ as a single individual and be making a profound difference in the lives of other people. I want to know how to do this and live in this way.

Bring me the book. That should be the cry of our hearts. There's some pastors when they go to plan a church, they conduct surveys in the community and they'll ask people, Why don't you go to church and what would you like to see in a church and they'll they'll compile a list of the things that they hear in the community of what people want in a church and sometimes even to the point of compromising they'll try to give the community what they want. Well, Ezra conducts a survey with these 300,000 to 50,000 people and says, What do you want?

And they say, bring us the book. Give us the word. Wow. And we know in the book of Ezra, that Ezra had given his life to studying the law of the Lord, to understand it, and to practice it himself and to teach it to the people of Israel.

And now early in this morning, 30,000 to 50,000 people show up and say, hey, Ezra, can you teach us? Can you read this to us? Can you bring out the book? And can you give us God's word?

And what an example for us. And so look what Ezra does in verse 3. It says he read from it before the square, which was in front of the Watergate from early morning until midday. Early morning would mean about 1 hour before the sun actually appears, and all the way till approximately 120.

So, so basically he got up there and read the Bible for about 6 hours. How would you like that? Just reading the Bible for 5 to 6 hours in the presence of men and women and those who could understand. There were children who were old enough to understand, who were in rapt attention.

In fact, look at this, and all the people, men, women, and children, all of the people without exception were attentive to the Book of the Law. Everyone was paying attention as one man. Even though there's a bunch of demographics here, you would have noticed that man, this 12 year old is in rapt attention to the reading of God's word, just as much as this 60-year-old woman is attentive to the reading of God's word. Listening, all of them as one person.

With a unity of heart and mind and purpose listening to God's word. Ezra, or Nehemiah then backs up the narrative a little bit, and he retells it, beginning in the next verse, verse 4, and he shares more details that make this scene more vivid to us. Look what he says in verse 4. And Ezra, the scribe stood at a wooden podium.

Which they had made for the purpose. Now we know this wasn't a random request. Hey, bring out the book and read to us. They had in the days prior, built a podium for Ezra to stand on so that he could do this, and they wanted him high enough to where they could all see him and to where the acoustics would be such that all of them, $30,000 to 50,000 people would be able to hear him.

And so look at this verse 5. Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was standing above all the people. So he gets up, they ask for it, and he begins to open the scroll, and as he opens the scroll, all the people stood up. 30, 50,000 strong, all the people stood up.

Ezra just looks at the sea of humanity and devotion to God's word, standing and, and look what it says in verse six. Then Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God. God, Ezra's like moved by what he sees. They want the book, they want God's word.

They want to listen to what God has to say through his word. And they stand as I open the book. And so he blesses God and praises God, and the people hear what he says. And it says, and all the people again, there's the unity.

All the people answered, Amen. Amen, as Ezra blessed the Lord. They're worshiping God to say amen twice. Means more than just so be it.

Amen. That's a great thought there, Ezra. No, they're pumped, they're excited about this. Amen.

Amen, Ezra, we agree with you in blessing God. Look at this, while lifting up their hands, this is their posture, they're standing, they're lifting up their hands, and then they don't remain that way. Then they bowed low and worship the Lord with their faces to the ground. Imagine being there at the scene and seeing these tens of thousands of people.

Exclaiming in this way with their hands raised, and then falling on their faces in unison as one man and worshiping God in humility before him. In Nehemiah chapter 8 verse 7, the narrative continues. It says, in the Levites, as Ezra's reading to them over this 6 hour period, the Levites explained the law to the people while the people remained in their place, and they read from the book, from the law of God, translating to give the sense so that they, the people, understood the reading.

Keep in mind that people are coming from the Babylonian captivity where Aramaic was the language.

That was spoken, and yet Ezra is reading from the Hebrew text. Aramaic is a sister language. It's, it's a related language to Hebrew. There's a lot of similar, vocabulary, but there's also a lot of different vocabulary, and the grammar's pretty different, and so they would have been able to understand some things that were being said as the Hebrew text of the Bible was being read, but they needed help.

They needed someone to translate for them and to give the sense and to exposit the meaning of what was being read. This is their devotion to God's word. A 6 hour Bible study. Imagine that.

If, today it's being advertised, hey, Thursday night from from 4 in the evening to 10, we're having a Bible study, 6 hour Bible study. The scripture is just going to be read and explained. We're going to talk about it together. That, that's basically what's happening on this marvelous day.

As they all gather together, and they asked for this, they asked for this. Give us the book, read to us the word. If we're going to get where God wants us in our households, and as a church and as individuals, we have to be students of the book. And above all, we care about the voice of God.

And he's the one that we want to hear from. If we do that as a church, and the way that we go about doing body life, then we will be equipped. To be everything God wants us to be. I know this because that's what the scripture says about itself.

Paul says in 2 Timothy 3, all Scripture is God-breathed, and it's profitable for teaching. It's profitable for reproof. In other words, it can point out what's wrong with you. You, it's profitable for correction, which means it can fix what it just told you is wrong with you.

It's profitable for instruction and righteousness in order that the man of God might be literally in the Greek text equipped, totally equipped. For every good work. I want us to be an equipped church. I want moms and dads to be equipped in the homes.

I want our single people to be equipped to live a life in the fullness of Jesus Christ, either preparing themselves for marriage or living a vibrant life like the apostle Paul did. of singleness and service to the Lord and to His kingdom purposes, and it's God's word. It's the scripture that totally equips us for whatever good work it is that God has called us to. So we need to assemble with a transcendent unity of purpose.

We need to desire above all else to hear from God's word. Number 3, we see this exemplified here. We need to Let ourselves weep over where we have sinned and fallen short. We need to let ourselves weep over where we have sinned and fallen short.

it's, I don't know if it's our culture, maybe, maybe every culture is like this, but we like to feel good, don't we? And, and we're all about, feelings, and I want to feel good. And if something makes me feel bad, we avoid that. And if we're reading the Bible and something makes us feel bad, it's like, well, I'll just go somewhere else for my devotions and I'll find an encouraging thought.

Oh, there's one. Thank you, Lord. And we turn a deaf ear. things that he says that make us uncomfortable.

And we try to live a Christian life, a tearless, a tearless Christian life, a tearless sanctification, where we just avoid and sidestep and turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to things that might make us feel bad. Listen, if you're going to be sanctified, progressively day by day, you're going to have to allow yourself to feel uncomfortable. You're going to have to allow scripture sometimes to be your worst nightmare. You're going to have to allow God to say things to you that will shatter you, that will be a rebuke to you, that will disagree with you.

some people, they just, they don't like it when God disagrees with them, and they'll go find something where God does disagree. You need to let God disagree with you and speak to you. And when God says something to you, and it's something you haven't been doing, and it's an area where you've been disobedient, you, you need to allow yourself to receive that and let yourself feel bad about that. Feeling bad and convicted over areas of disobedience.

That's a sign of life. If you over this past month, have felt guilty, if you have felt convicted over sin in your life, embrace that, that is a sign of life. A scary scenario would be that you can listen to God's word, throughout, let's say the last 5 weeks and not feel bad at all. You would have great cause to be concerned about whether or not true life is in you.

But the people of Of Israel. They're, they're for 6 hours, they're listening to God's word being read and explained, and they're hearing stuff that is painful to them, and they weep. Look at this in Nehemiah chapter 8, verse 9, the Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, there's all again, all of them as one man, are responding to God's word. with conviction of sin.

And they say to all the people, this day is holy to the Lord your God. Do not mourn or weep. They're sad. They're hurting as they hear God's word.

They're feeling convicted, and, and they're having to be told, stop mourning, stop weeping. Why do they say this? Because all the people, there's all again, all the people were weeping when they heard the words of the law. This is a weeping of mourning.

That is taking place. When was the last time you mourned? You wept. Is it OK for Christians to mourn?

Is that a good thing? Well, Paul busted up the Corinthians for sin that was in their midst and wrote them a very hard letter, and it brought them sorrow. And Paul says to them in 2 Corinthians 7, I now rejoice that you were made sorrowful. Thank you, Paul.

I now rejoice that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance, for you were made sorrowful according to the will of God. And he says, I know it was a godly sorrow because it produced the fruit of righteousness in your life. Jesus commends those who mourn and gives a special promise to those who mourn over their sin and poverty of spirit. And Matthew 5:4, he says, Blessed are those who mourn, for they, and they alone shall be comforted.

And so they're hearing God's word and they're realizing, what, the stuff we're hearing, I haven't been doing this. I've been breaking God's law or our forefathers have been breaking God's law. That's why the 70 years of captivity in the land of Babylon, and they're just, they're just grieving over their failure to live up to what this good and gracious God has spoken to them. They're also grieving over the neglect.

And their lives, their neglect of God's word, it's like how could we have put this by the wayside and stopped listening to these beautiful words from a God whose heart is full of goodness and love for us. And we like them. In our journey as a church and as individuals and as households, we, we need to, we need to let ourselves weep when that's appropriate. We need to weep and mourn over sin.

But that leads to a 4th thing, and please don't stop on number 3. We need to, if we're going to get where God wants us to go as individuals, as a household, in our households and as a church, we need to rejoice in the comfort that God speaks to us. Do not weep over sin and stop there. Your weeping over sin is merely the door through which you pass into a deeper joy that's in the Lord.

You only experience that comfort in the context of mourning in a deeper way. Nehemiah 8, look what it says. Then he said to them, go. Here's the counsel to these weeping individuals, go.

He's already said, stop mourning and weeping, and then he says, go and eat of the fat, drink. Of the sweet and send portions to him who has nothing prepared for this day is holy to our Lord. Do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength. what's being said to them?

we, we know from God's word that a broken and a contrite spirit, God will not despise, right? And Isaiah, the prophet says, God says to the prophet, here's the man I look upon with favor, the one who is humble, who is broken of spirit, and who trembles at my word. OK. When God looks upon someone mourning over their sin, he smiles at their brokenness.

He delights in their brokenness. And a broken person, God, someone comes to a broken person like that and says, Hey, hey, look up. And look into the face of your God. He's smiling at you in your brokenness.

Let his joy in your brokenness, let his joy over you at this moment, become your strength. Does that make sense? It is the face of God, the countenance of God, the joy of God in His people and even in the brokenness of his people. That we in our brokenness and sorrow over sin find comfort.

And what, these are the words of comfort that are spoken to these people in this context, but what words of comfort are spoken to us? The words of comfort are God loves you so much that He sent His Son into the world to live a perfect life and to die on the cross, a brutal, bloody death, shedding His blood so that you might have atonement for all of your sins. He was buried in the tomb. He was raised from the dead.

He was ascended to God's right hand from that position of absolute lordship. Jesus Christ can now do as he pleases. And from that position, he's giving out righteousness and forgiveness to everyone who acknowledges their bankruptcy and poverty of spirit, and who puts their trust in him to be their Lord and their Savior. And he gives forgiveness.

And righteousness as a free gift. Amazing words of comfort that we are given in the New Testament that far surpassed what was spoken to them. So we need to be willing to allow ourselves to grieve over failure and over sins against God and against other people, but we then in the context of that grieving, need to hear God invite us into His joy and into rejoicing and celebration. It, it's odd, the, how joy and sorrow can be blended together in sweet harmony.

Listen to what Charles Spurgeon said a number of years ago. Listen carefully. He says, I do not know when I am more perfectly happy. I do not know when I am more perfectly happy than when I am weeping for sin at the foot of the cross.

Notice how both of those things are together, weeping for sin, but weeping at the foot of the cross, which is the location where there's comfort. And he says, I, I don't know where I'm more perfectly happy than in that setting, weeping for sin at the foot of the cross. Joy and sorrow are mixed together and it's through our mourning that we enter more deeply into the joy. Of the Lord.

I remember 2 or 3 years ago, going to a worship God conference in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and one of the workshops I attended was a workshop by Donald Whitney, the guy who wrote the book Family Worship, and It was about a 70, 75 minute seminar and from about 15 minutes in to the concluding prayer, I just wept. I just with conviction over sin. And I realized there have been more days that have gone by that I have not had family worship than days that I have led my family in the worship of God.

And so I was weeping over conviction of sin, but I was also at the same time experiencing this rebirth of hope.

I was like, oh God, you're, you're causing me to feel this way. This tells me you're not done with me. And you're the one accomplishing this in me. This is a sign of your love.

And I was so filled with hope and joy at the same time. I could not wait to get on the plane and fly back home and to gather my family together and to lead them in this beautiful thing called the worship of God. Joy and sorrow commingled together in beautiful harmony. Listen to this, it's interesting, some of the contrasts you see in scripture to these weeping people, God says, stop weeping, stop grieving.

But like in the book of James, Chapter 4, verse 9. How's this for a command of scripture? Be miserable. Be miserable.

You say, Pastor Milton, I obey that every day. but no, he's talking, you look at the verses preceding that it's people that were double-minded and in sin, and they are being commanded by God, be miserable, and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning, and let your joy be turned literally into depression. They're being commanded to be depressed.

And to mourn and grieve, and be miserable over their sin. Paul rebukes the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 5:2, tolerating immorality in their midst. He says, you've become arrogant and have not mourned. Instead, you should be mourning and you're not.

How do we put that together in this passage, be miserable and mourn in Nehemiah 8, stop mourning. Here's how we put it together. To those in Scripture who are not grieving over their sin, God says, grieve. To those who are grieving their sin, God says, grieve no more.

Let my joy. Be your strength. He speaks differently to different people, to arrogant, ungrieving people, calloused and cavalier about their sin. God says grieve.

To those that are grieving, he speaks wonderful comfort as he does here. Blessed are those who mourn. They will be comforted, and we see them being comforted here. Look at the narrative continues and the people accept this invitation.

They don't say, No, woe is me, I've sinned, and I don't deserve to celebrate. No, they received the words, the gospel words of comfort, as it were. Look at verse 11. So the Levites calmed all the people saying, be still, for the day is holy.

Do not be grieved. And all the people, there it is again, all as one man, and all the people went away to eat and to drink and to send portions and to celebrate a great festival, because they understood, they apprehended, they received the words which had been made known. To them. I love that.

See, a Christian who weeps over his sin and refuses. To accept God's invitation to enter into the Lord's joy and to celebrate God's grace, that person's sinning. Against God. But to those of us when we weep over our sin and God says weep no more and enter into my joy, celebrate, eat and drink and celebrate, we need to say, OK, and go into that celebration of God's grace and the glories of the gospel, and they with a lesser gospel in terms of their understanding, they're like, Well, God tells us to stop crying, so we're gonna stop crying.

He tells us to eat. Of the fat, and to drink the sweet. That sounds great. So we're gonna do that, and we're gonna celebrate and rejoice as God has commanded us to.

We need to accept that invitation and be a people who weeps over our sin, but also a people that are rejoicing and exulting in the salvation and the grace and mercy God has given to us. There's a 5th thing that we need. From this congregation that I think is modeled very well for us in Nehemiah 8, if we as a church and as households and as individuals are going to get where God wants us to get, and that is we need our household heads to show initiative in seeking to understand God's word.

We need The heads of our households.

To show initiative and seeking to understand God's word. Now, this is, this is where it gets really crazy. On the first day of the 7th month, they have a 6 hour Bible study, scripture being read. imagine showing up for Sunday, and we just take 6 hours and you're just getting all the word and, and it's being explained and exposited, translated for you and everything.

You'd probably go home and say, I think that's probably going to get me through this week, right? But that's not what they were thinking, especially the heads of the households, because look at what happens after the 6 hours in the word, verse 13, then on the second day, the heads of fathers' households of all of the people along with the priests and the Levites were gathered to Ezra the scribe, that they might gain insight into the words of the law. When he says the heads of the fathers' households, literally in the Hebrew text, it's just the heads of fathers, the heads of fathers, and it could speak of men who were chiefs among the fathers, and then they, the fathers under them were answerable to them and they provided direction for the fathers who then provided direction for their households.

That's possible, but other commentators suggest That it could be rendered fatherly heads or the heads who were the fathers.

In other words, the men that are gathering on the second day are the men who are the dads who are the heads of their representative households, and they're showing up on the 2nd day saying, Ezra, we, we, we want to gain more insight into God's word. Yesterday was great, thank you, but we're here again because we want to gain more insight. Into the word of God. We want to have a Bible study.

Now just think real quick. These men leave their homes the next day and they're content leaving their wives and their children and just going themselves. Obviously they're OK with that because they know they're going to bring home whatever they glean and bless their wives and children with it, and the wives and children seem OK letting their dads go, right? And any godly woman, if her husband's like, I want to go to a Bible study, it's like, Honey, you go, and they're excited about that, but the wife is totally fine letting her husband go on the second day.

The children are totally fine letting the head of their household go because they know that he's going to bring home what he has gleaned, and he's going to share that with them and provide direction for them. So you go as our representative and bring home what it is that you glean from God's word. I, I would love for our men that are heads of households to have that perspective that, in our various venues where, whether you're listening to a sermon or studying the word on your own and then also gathering with your brothers in the Lord in the venue of care groups and Thursday night Bible study.

the Tuesday morning, men's forum that's occurring at least right now, that in all of these venues that you, that you show up as a head of a household, it's like, I got some responsibility.

I got a wife that I got to love and lead, and I got children I got to bring up and the nurture and instruction of the Lord. I'm not adequate for this, and that you come to these things, not just as a guy to hang out and receive a little bit of encouragement, but no, you got a ministry that you need to get equipped for. And I'm going to show up and I'm going to gain everything I can. And as I'm learning, I'm thinking about my wife and my kids like, oh, they're going to love this.

As you're reading a book, it's like, oh, I got to share this with my wife and my kids. Everything you do, you do as you're learning as a representative of your household, and you're just out there scarfing up as much as you can to bring that home to bless your family. We need our men. To show initiative in seeking to understand God's word, to study it and understand it.

In most churches nowadays, which gender tends to show the greatest initiative in wanting To study God's word. The women. You say, is that a bad thing that women want to do that? No, I think that's phenomenal.

The problem is just simply where are the men. Where is the initiative on the part of the men? But I love the ethic, the sensibility we see here in Nehemiah 8, and it happens to fit the picture we see in the New Testament. Paul in 2 Timothy is wanting the man of God to be equipped and, in 2 Timothy chapter 2, Paul says, here's what I want in the church, and the very first group he speaks to is the men.

In 1 Timothy 2:8, he says, I want the men. He speaks to other demographics, but he starts with the men. God is calling men, and in whatever form or shape it takes, God, I believe, wants the heads of the households of this church to show initiative in seeking to study and know God's word so that they can bless their families with what it is that they glean. And that leads us to a 6th and a final thing that we need to see happen here at Cornerstone if we as individuals, as households, and as a church are going to get where God wants us to get, and that is we need our household heads to lead the way in implementing the practice of God's word, not just showing up at a Bible study and you come home and the wife's like, how did it go?

good. Good. That's how most guys, or when I know I can come home from a men's retreat, and my wife's like, how did it go? And I'm like, Good.

What happened? I, I can't, I don't, I don't know what to say. I'll get off the phone after being on the phone with my parents for an hour and my wife's like, so what's going on? And I don't, I have no conscious ability to recall what we talked about.

So she has to, she has to ask questions to draw it out of me and I'm like, oh, that's right, and, and I'll answer her questions, but she's got to like disciple me along and getting that information out. But That we, we don't just come home and say, I, I feel a little lifted up by that study. No, we come home and we lead our families with the stuff that we gleaned. And that's exactly what happens here.

You see, a funny thing happened in this Bible study on the 2nd day, they found a quaint section of the law. Where there is a practice that is advocated that they've never done in their entire lives. They've never done it individually, they've never done it in their households throughout the entirety of their own lives, and they find a practice advocated that the people of Israel as a nation on an annual basis, that they haven't practiced it for over 900 years since the days of Joshua, the son of Nun.

But they're studying the word and they come across something that the people of Israel are told to do and they've got to deal with that.

Look at this verse 14. They found written in the law how the Lord had commanded through Moses that the sons of Israel should live in booths or shelters, temporary dwelling places during the feast of the 7th month. Now this is the 2nd day of the month. This is the The Feast of Booze would start on the 15th, so they've got two weeks to get ready for this verse 15.

So these men encountering this, they proclaimed and circulated a proclamation in all their cities and in Jerusalem saying go out to the hills and bring olive branches and wild olive branches. Myrtle branches, palm branches, and branches of other leafy trees and make temporary shelters as it is written. So they're studying the word and they come across this that is taught and they start thinking about it. They're like, Well I've never done this before.

This is not the way I've ever done anything during the 7th month and we're being told here to live in temporary shelters for 1 week of the year and to do so in commemoration of the children of Israel living in temporary shelters as they wandered through the wilderness for 4. 40 or so years. God's word says do this, but I've never done it. Our household's never done it, and they're like, Hey Ezra, has the people of Israel done this at all?

And he'd say, Well, when Solomon dedicated the temple, the people of Israel did it on one occasion, but on an annual basis and on a nationwide scale, actually, no one's really done this on that scale for over 900 years. And so these men Examine this 900 plus year, this tradition of non-practice. They examine their own personal history of non-practice. They then look at God's word and say it's written here and so they disregard this centuries old tradition of non-practice and their own personal history of non-practice and say we're going to follow God's word instead.

And they go home. And they lead their families. Look what happens verse 16. In verse 16, it says, so the people went out and brought them and made booze for themselves, each on his roof and in their courts, and in the courts of the house of God, and in the square at the Watergate and in the square at the gate of Ephraim, the entire assembly of those who had returned from the captivity made booze and lived in them.

The sons of Israel had not indeed. Done so from the days of Joshua, the son of Nun to that day, and there was great rejoicing. Honestly, for men who are just getting started in spiritual leadership, this is a doozy of a passage to come across in your first Bible study, your first men's Bible study, right? Imagine some of these men going home.

And they're thinking, I've got to tell my wife. And my kids that in 2 weeks we have to build a temporary shelter and live in that for a whole week. And I'm sure some of the men were like, how is my wife going to respond? To that, how's my teenage daughter going to respond?

To that, and they're probably going to say, we've never done it this way before. They're probably going to say this hadn't been done for hundreds of years. What are you talking about? And they may have been anticipating objections or whatever, but I'll tell you, this is a great way to learn spiritual leadership, to start with some doozy like this.

These men go home and they lead their families, their wives and children, and everyone to a man. And a woman, they abide by the teaching of God's word as it is written, and all of them universally practiced this, and at the end of verse 17 there was great rejoicing. why? Because men stepped up to the plate, they studied God's word, they understood God's word.

They then went home and they led their households. That's how Ezra was accomplishing leadership and discipleship on this occasion, was through the heads of the households, and it was successful. And there's so much more that I think we can glean from this hopefully in your care groups tonight and in some of our other venues, we can learn more processing this, together. As a community, men, women, and children, I want us to be talking about these things, learning from one another as men.

I just want to deliver a call to the men. I want us to put our heads together and to think and pray and to look at scripture and to search the face of God and to figure out ways that God wants to use us to provide leadership, discipleship for this church body and our households and all of the forums where our men gather together, the Thursday night study, the care group venue, some of the men's groups that you guys have going on, and also on Tuesday mornings at least over the next few weeks, I'm here with other men from 6 to 7.

And if you're available, come show up. All we're doing is looking at God's word and just trying to figure things out.

Come and learn, be blessed, but also come and help us to understand God's word, together. I don't know fully where we're heading as a church, but I'm, I'm pretty excited about it because I know who's leading us there. And I love the adventure of just going to God's word, studying it verse by verse, letting Him awaken us to things maybe we didn't see before, and mold and shape the way that we do church, the way that we do family, the way that we do singleness in a way that is patterned after God's vision for us.

So let's learn together and ask God to help us to do that in the days.

I had, Let's pray together. We're going to take up an offering in just a moment. We would encourage you to give as the Lord leads you to, to give. Let's pray.

Father, we thank you so much for your word and for the help, the encouragement that it is to us. You are a good God. We say to you today that we trust you and we love you and we thank you for your love for us. Help us as a church, Lord, to crave your word, to want to hear you above all.

May we cherish and cultivate and nurture, protect the unity that exists amongst us. May, may we weep where weeping is called for. May we rejoice as you beckon us to rejoice in the midst of our weeping over our failures. And Lord, may the men Of cornerstone that are even presently the heads of households, may they become mighty men of God who who are leaders in their households, servant leaders, Lord, help us as a church to invest in them and to care for them along with their wives and thereby to bless their children through that means.

And in all the ways that we need wisdom, Lord, give us your wisdom. In ways that you've already given us wisdom, give us the grace to abide by the wisdom you've given to us. And to conform to it. We also ask, Lord, that you would receive this offering that we give to you.

Do much with it for the glory of Jesus. We ask this in the name of Jesus, and all God's people said, Amen