We're going to turn this morning in our Bibles to Nehemiah chapter 8, and just to give you some direction for where we're going to be headed in the few weeks and in the months to come. Next week's the Lord's Supper, Sunday night, so we'll have a few more sermons that are just sort of here and there, and then we'll get into a few series, okay? So the series will start in a few weeks. I wanted to look at Nehemiah chapter 8 with you this morning. Many of you have asked me in this whole process, well, how are you doing in the transition? And how has that been? And, you know, the typical answer always when someone asks how you're doing, the answer is great, but it's not always true. And the honest answer is it's been hard. It's been extremely difficult. I never knew what it would be like to be uprooted from a home and to move a lot of miles away and to leave a church family you get to know and minister to over the course of eight years and then come to a new one, which you all have received so warmly, so I'm excited to minister to you too. But it has been really hard and you work hard to get somewhere. We accepted the call. You work hard to get somewhere. You don't have time to think. It's probably similar to when you lose a loved one and that initial time period, you don't have time to think. And you're working and you're going and you're going and you're going and then you stop. The books are all put away. The nice house you have us in is set up and you feel a little bit like you're floating. You feel a little bit like I had my routine in Linden. What now? I know what I need to do. But the point is is that you struggle and what we all need is renewal. What I need is renewal. And I asked that this morning. You ever feel like you're drifting or you're floating and you're working and you're working hard towards things and all of a sudden that all ends and then what? What do you need? What is your greatest need at times like this? What does the Lord desire to do for us and His people? I want you to know I need this sermon just as much as you. Renewal is something the Lord desires to give His people and we all need it. Let's hear His word this morning with those things in mind. Nehemiah 8, we'll read the first 12 verses. And all the people gathered as one man into the square before the water gate. And they told Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses that the Lord had commanded Israel. 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 seventh month. And he read from it facing the square before the water gate from early morning until midday in the presence of the men and women and those who could understand. And the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law. And Ezra the scribe stood on a platform, a wooden platform that they had made for the purpose. And beside him stood Mattathiah, Shema, Aniah, Uriah, Hilkiah, Maseah on his right hand, and Pediah, Mishael, Malchijah, Hashem, Hashbidana, Zechariah, and Meshulam on his left hand. And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, 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 worshipped the Lord with their faces to the ground. Also, Jeshua, Benai, Sherebiah, Jamin, Akub, Shabbathai, Hodiah, Meseah, Kalaita, Azariah, Josabod, Hanan, Paliah, and the Levites helped 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 scents so that the people understood the reading. 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. Then he said to them, Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet wine, and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready, for this day is holy to our Lord. And do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength. So the Levites calmed all the people, saying, Be quiet, for this day is holy. Do not be grieved. And all the people went their way to eat and drink, and to send portions, and to make great rejoicing, because they had understood the words that were declared to them. May the Lord bless the hearing of His Word. There is no doubt that we all want a vibrant, spiritual Christian life, don't we? We desire something real. We desire something powerful. We desire something that fulfills. And we want to see that. We want to see that in us and we want to see that in our children. That is a great burden for parents here today. We want to see it in our church. We want to see it in the church that we attend. We want this and everyone knows today that we want this and we desire this so much because oftentimes when it comes to our lives or it comes to church life, it just doesn't feel very powerful. It doesn't feel like maybe a lot is going on. You've experienced this. You know this. Shouldn't there be more to this? Shouldn't we desire more? Shouldn't our experiences be a little bit different than they are? And is there something out there that maybe we've missed? I mean, that's the great question. Is there something we've missed? We've been doing things like this for a long time. I've been part of that. Because everyone desires this. You feel this. You know that we as Christians ebb and flow. And you know that churches ebb and flow. And you know that some churches, you look out there and they seem like they're going gangbusters and everything's going well and everything's growing. And maybe we struggle. Where are we? How are we doing? What do we do? Is there something that needs to be done? We have these questions. We think about these things. And is that desire all bad? Is it bad to think through these kind of things? Is it bad to reflect upon these kind of things? We want life. We want excitement. We want response. We want change. We want energy. We want all these things. I know that. I want that. The question is not whether there should be spiritual renewal. The question is where we find it, isn't it? It's not weather. It's where we find it. I remember when I was a child and these commercials for Oldsmobile were always coming up. They were going through just this awful sort of crisis. No one was buying their cars anymore and they didn't really know what to do. And so the pitch was clear. We've got to be a little more cutting edge with our Oldsmobiles. And so they did. They bumped it up and they went out with the best of them and started producing the sport coupes and everything. And I remember who was buying them. I remember my grandma came home with one. It was teal. It was an exciting car for her. Ironically, the younger generation didn't want it. Strange thing that happened. The gray hairs were buying the new Coupes, but the younger generation didn't connect. And what ended up happening, of course, is that Oldsmobile ended up dying, and so goes the story. It's a whole study in marketing of failure. That's the world of consumerism, always trying to stay on top with what we sell to make it exciting. And sadly, we confess that we face this pressure. We face this pressure in the church. And many have wanted to do something radical to fix what they perceive is spiritual deadness. What do we do? I've lived this. I've faced this. I know all about this. There's a lot of pressure today. What do we do? Do we take the name off the sign? Do we make it more general so that people don't know really who we are? Do we need more programs? How do we recover? You know, this is a pressure. These are the questions everyone's asking, not just us. Every single church is asking. Well, I'm not sure there's any passage better than Nehemiah chapter 8 that really will help us to stay united, which is the thing we put on the church sign, united in how we go forward. And to think about what is the single great reason, the single great thing that God has put in place for renewal that we are often searching for so, so diligently in anything and in everything else. What is it? It's very simple. It's very simple. It's always been one thing. It has never changed in the history of the church. It's always been one thing. That one thing is a confidence in the Word of God as the centerpiece of a church. And I emphasize that. I emphasize confidence. Confidence. Are we confident as parents? Are we confident, even as young people, in the Word of God? When that changes, so goes the church, I assure you. This is why the writers of Scripture were constantly telling us to just hold on to what we have. That's our great battle today. That's our great challenge today. Remember, Paul said that to Timothy. He wrote, and he said, continue, just stay there in the things that you've learned and been assured of. Don't go. Don't leave it. Hold on to it, Timothy. It's going to be a lot of pressure to go elsewhere. Our heritage faced this years ago when the things that they were reforming and going after, they had to deal with a lot of pressure because the system of thought, the things that were going on, it was a beautiful aesthetic religion. You had ceremonies and you had beautiful buildings and you had great music and you had all these things that our whole heritage said, wait a minute. Many of those things are not in accord with God's word. And so they reformed. The Reformation was about breaking away from this and it was returning to simple, Christ-edifying, God-glorifying worship. What built such a conviction? What built it? I want this morning to go back with you to Nehemiah 8 and I want you to remember this sermon by a simple summary that I'm giving you now. Spirituality diminishes when interest in the Bible diminishes. It's very simple. Spirituality diminishes when interest in the Bible diminishes. Let there be a love for the Word of God. That place, that church, will flourish for years to come. Let's look at our text this morning. At this point in Nehemiah, all the building has come to an end. It's a remarkable time here of what has happened. Remember, Judah had been hauled off to Babylon. They had been hauled off. Remember what had happened. The temple had been torn down. Everything had been in ruin. And remember the cause for all of this. The cause for all of this was for years, God had raised up prophets and God had sent them out early and they spoke the Word of God and the people didn't hear. They wanted something new. They wanted something smooth. They wanted the good stories. They wanted to hear peace, peace. They wanted everything that we see happening today. And God came. And God warned. Listen, there's a famine coming. There's going to be a famine in the land. Sayeth the Lord, I will send a famine not of bread nor of a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord. That is a remarkable statement. I remember when I preached this one time and a dear mentor of mine, Dr. John Rainbow, came up to me and said, you know, is it so different today? Can you have the Word of God in your hands? Can you have the bread and still have a famine? Can you have the famine with the bread in the hands? Who's reading it? Who knows it? And this is exactly what happened in Israel. And the Lord kept saying, come to Me. Return to Me. And they kept saying, well, the temple, the temple, the temple. We're the covenant people. We're the covenant people. We are secure. God would never do this to His people. God would never send them out to Babylon. And you had all these conflicts between the false prophets and the true prophets. And what a message for today. What a thing to learn for today. God carried them all off. It was an awful time, wasn't it? The northern empire, the northern part of the nation, Israel, was wiped out. The southern now has been completely purged. And here's what's happened. In Nehemiah, we've come to the time of their return. They're all back. The remnant. And they're looking around. I want you to imagine this. I mean, it's hard to put ourselves a little bit in these shoes, but think about it. If we had all been, our houses burned, our church burned, and all hauled off to China, when you came back and you looked at this building in rubble, and you looked at your homes in rubble, you think you'd start to ask the question, what happened? We didn't listen. Here they are. Their heart and their longing is for Jerusalem. All of it had been ripped away. Their heart was for coming home. We all love home. They had been so busy at this point doing the work. They had been rebuilding. They had rebuilt the temple wall. This was the wall of the outer wall. It was an amazing accomplishment. The wall was now completed. And I believe, as I read this, I think I'm starting to get what they must have been experiencing at this point. It must have been the greatest letdown you could ever experience at this point. The work's done. Chapter 7 ends with that. The wall's completed. What a moment. Now what? Sometimes we're working so hard for things. Sometimes we're trying to get somewhere and go somewhere and complete something. And upon that moment of completion, you have a sense of being without direction. And you see, something was still lacking. The building's up. Buildings are getting there. It's a glorious moment. And what we find in chapter 8 is that it wasn't the building projects. It wasn't the building projects that were ultimately what they needed to complete. The greatest thing that needed to happen was renewal. Spiritual renewal. Renewal in the hearts and the lives of God's people. And chapter 8 is all about renewing the covenant community. It's a glorious moment. It's a beautiful moment in Israel's history. They were in need of major spiritual renewal. They had been in a lull for 70 years. What a moment. Where do you begin with, by the way? What's your plan? Church leaders, what do we do at this point? How do we get the people to get energetic about what they're doing? How do we get them excited? What do we need? How do we inspire the next generation to love what we're doing and who we are? What do we do? So these chapters present that to us. Many of their loved ones have been killed. Their houses are all in ash heaps. Now they've come back up. The remnant is back in the land. And I want you to look at verse 1. Now, when the seventh month came, the children of Israel were in their cities. Now, all the people gathered together as one man in the open square that was in front of the water gate. And they told Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded Israel. Now, I can't read that without being deeply touched by what they're asking for. Who's asking? It's not the leader standing up just trying to get the people interested in the Word, are they? It's the people coming and saying, Ezra, we want the book. We haven't had it. We need it. Would you bring the book out and would you set it before us and would you again instruct us in it? I'm moved by that because in the previous chapter, we read that 42,360 people gathered in the open square. That is quite a wow worship service, isn't it? 42,000 people. They didn't have microphones. Here they are. They want the Word. What is in front of us this morning is something beautiful. The whole nation of Israel had been under famine. Famine of hearing. We often talk about preaching, and we talk about the importance of preaching, but what we don't give equal time to is the importance of what Jesus talked a whole lot about, about hearing. Giving ourselves to hear the Word, To listen to the Word. To really give our hearts and minds to it. It doesn't come easy. It's something you learn. They had been under famine. The prophets, of course, had given them the smooth things. The false prophets had given them the smooth things. They had given them the messages that were easy. They had given them the message that were brainless. Peace, peace. God loves you. He'll never do this. Live how you want. And all of a sudden, the remnant's back and everything's been ripped away. And what are we seeing that's birthed in them? What are we seeing that the desire of the heart that is coming out in these people freshly, having experienced the judgment of God, freshly as His remnant, the remnant that God loved, the remnant that God preserved, the remnant that God cared for very much, what do we see burning within them? And finally, they wanted the Word. Isn't that what we read? Ezra, bring the Word. Martin Luther King, everyone knows his great speech. I have a dream. You know, Chris Gordon has a dream. I have a dream. Can I have a dream? My dream is that in Escondido, this whole town would crowd to get into this church because the Word is being heralded and they've never heard it. And finally they're saying, what is that? I can have a dream. I have that much confidence in God's Word that it could do that. Give me the book. It's sweet. Sweet as honey. It'll be bitter at times, but it's sweet. And that's exactly what happens in verse 2. So Ezra, the priest, brought the law before the assembly of men and women and all who could hear with understanding the first day of the seventh month. Trumpets would be blown on that day. It was a day of heralding. A new day had come. And you know what happened? They took the book and it says Ezra read from it from morning until midday. He stood and he read the book. The very thing that's in your hand. What a moment. I love to think about this. 42,000 people gather strong in the open square and their hearts and their minds are so attentive to hear. Finally, it had come. Finally, the moment had come to listen to the Word of God. And they're not reading the easy stuff. What I think makes me amazed about this is they're reading Leviticus and they're reading Numbers and they're reading the stuff that we skip right over, aren't they? And they're listening. They're listening. And such care was given to listen to the Word of God. And notice verse 5. And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people. He opened the book and he was standing above all the people. And when he opened it, they stood up. Now this may not seem like much to us. But what you're seeing is such reverence and desire and an understanding of who was speaking. What a scene. I want you to notice how the text emphasizes them. They were all one. That's a striking thing to say in our day when the church is so fragmented and everyone has their own idea and everyone has their own idea of what it should be and who should be doing what and what the church should look like and everyone's pushing that. Everyone's got their own idea. Did you notice what united them? Did you notice what happened? Who's there, by the way? The men, the women, And Deuteronomy 31 tells us who also would have been there. Gather the people together, men and women and the little ones and the stranger who is within your gates that they may hear and that they may learn to fear the Lord your God and carefully observe all the words of this law and that their children who have known it may hear and learn to fear the Lord your God as long as you live in the land which you crossed the Jordan to possess. Bring your children back. I want them to hear. I love them. They can understand it. I've always been really moved by that. That here the congregation is. Men, women, and children. And from morning to midday, hours upon hours, they're listening to the Word of God. And they weren't separated out according to age groups. They weren't so worried about the time. Up in the north, when you don't have a minister, You have reading sermons. Any of you had a reading sermon from this pulpit? I doubt that's happened. But up north, that happens all the time. Reading sermons are tough. Trust me. And they'll sit and they'll read and they'll read and people have to listen carefully. Now I believe our Heidelberg's right when it says we need the lively preaching of the Word. Think of the blessing of that. If we were all getting reading sermons, it would be tough. But the Lord wants the lively preaching. And here they are. This is what's beginning to happen. The Spirit of God is moving among them. And it had not been so. There had been something lacking for years in the hearts and lives of the people. And what a scene. The respect was there. The hunger was there. And they're trembling. God was speaking to them and they knew it. They believed it. They had confidence in that. You know, it's still customary in the Scottish churches today that when the service begins, a man called the Beatle, Beatle, I don't know if I'm saying it, it's not Beatle, Beatle will enter and he'll carry the Bible and he'll position it on the pulpit and the symbolism's really clear and then he'll help the minister and he'll position him behind the pulpit which is designed to teach the congregation, it's designed to teach the little ones, to teach them that the minister is on assignment. He's on assignment from God and he's delivering a message from God and that the centerpiece is this. It's not anything other than this. And that the minister is to decrease and Christ is to increase through this. And so that was the symbolism that many of the Reformation churches understood by this passage. The pulpit signifying the whole thing. And notice how that's emphasized here in verse 4. That Ezra stood on a platform of wood which they had made for the purpose. And notice verse 5. And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was standing above all the people. This platform of wood was a pulpit. It wasn't a stage for showmanship. It was a pulpit. And they understood something. They built the pulpit and Ezra was standing above them. And notice the response, that they're worshiping and their faces are to the ground. And the point here is that they understand They're not on equal ground. They're gathering before God Himself. And there's the overwhelming sense again in worship that they're meeting with God. He's with them. He hasn't left them. This isn't just Chris Gordon up here giving ideas. That God put this in place. And that He's here. And that He's speaking to you. And that He loves you. In the days of the Reformation, a pulpit was raised. and many of you know when you go on these tours over there, these pulpits are high above the people. I always said in the church I was in before that they were talking about building a sanctuary and I said, well, let's put it way up there. That somebody has to walk up into it and plant his feet. You know what a thing we would signify today by doing that? It can't be focused on him. It's not focused on the man. I remember preaching not so long ago in a church in Southern California and I was noticing that their pulpit, you had to walk into it. It was a beautiful little pulpit. And so I just commented to the elder. I said, I really love your pulpit. He said, do you want it? And I said, what? I would gladly take it. I don't think my wife would like it in the house. But he said, yeah, young people just don't relate to that thing anymore. And I thought, so goes the church. So goes the church. Verse 8. So they read distinctively from the book of the law and they gave the sense. Get that? That's preaching. That's opening up the Word of God to help people to understand it. And it should be, as we heard last week from Dr. Godfrey, it should be clear, it should be exciting, it should not be boring. It was expositional. It was explaining the text. It was applying the text. And if you were ever to go throughout church history and to listen to and think about through the reading when we see real moments of spiritual renewal in the lives of God's people. It was never by one sort of grand crusade event or witnessed by a one kind of sermon phenomenon that may have really blessed people. But what we see is the ordinary working of the Holy Spirit was as the minister trenched through the Word of God, as he mined the Word of God, as he plowed through the Word of God given to us in books, the Spirit would begin to change the hearts and lives of the people. And a hunger would be birthed. And as I look at this, I think to myself, you know, everything we would think that makes for vibrant worship in our day isn't here. What we think makes for highly effective, vibrant, worship isn't here. You know why? They tried it. They tried it. And they ended up in Babylon. In every major working of the Spirit in history, when there was wide response to the Lord so as to really change people, when we really see that in genuineness and sincerity, the centerpiece was the Word of God. Always. And the people stopped up the mouths with their ideas and they were silent and they became united in one thing that was the most important and it was a hunger. There was an excitement. We get to go up to the house of the Lord and hear the Word of God today. I always believe that when, and we dealt with this, I've seen this all throughout my life, when churches are all over the map on what the ministry should be, I always say, and people are, I always say it's really indicative that the centerpiece is out of place. Look at the response. All the people said, Amen, Amen. And they lifted up their hands. They weren't Pentecostals. You can do that, by the way. I'm okay with that. Just do it to the Word. I know it's sincere. Amen. God has spoken. This is exciting. This is vibrant worship. The Spirit was working in the hearts of the people. And did you notice the connection? That the exposition, the explaining of Scripture, the opening up of Scripture to the hearts and minds of the people as they listened was worship. That's where the disconnect is today. We think worship is our actions of offering something up to God. But notice where the emphasis is here. The greatest act of worship, if you will, It was worship when they gave themselves to hear reverently and with joy. Amen. Amen. How many times have you felt that? That the Spirit has directly taken the Word and through the minister, He's applied it right to you and you feel like He's preaching at me today. And I always say, yeah, I am. And to every single one who's sitting here, the Lord is doing that. And the Lord cares to give you that word. And notice what happens to you here. It penetrates into the conscience and you have a fresh sense of that powerful word that Jeremiah would describe as it breaks like a hammer right into the heart. And I love verse 9. Verse 9 is so beautiful. And Nehemiah, who was the governor, 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 nor weep For all the people wept when they heard the words of the law. The holiness of God had again been set before them. And when the holiness of God is set before us as it should be, it causes this. It causes weeping. As the Word searches us and tries us and exposes what's going on in the heart, it's going to cause some kind of response and it's going to be a response of what have I been doing? How could I have missed this? Why was I not listening? Lord, forgive me. Forgive me. And you see, now the purpose of it all comes out. And this just shows you how good your Lord is. How much He loves you. In verse 10, Nehemiah says something that you should highlight. Go your way. Eat the fat. Drink the sweet. Send the portions to those for whom nothing is prepared. For this day is holy to the Lord, to our Lord. Do not sorrow, for the joy of the Lord is your strength. I used to sing that as a kid. And I never knew it came from here. This new year for them was a holiday of sorts. Right around the corner was the day of atonement. And God would declare something very soon that all the sins would be put on that scapegoat and that goat would run and those sins would never come back. And God wanted them in the moment of their deepest failure to know how He had dealt with their sins. Doesn't that overwhelm you about Him? In the moment of their deepest failure, He wanted them to know that He loved them and that as they turned to Him and looked to Him and repented, that He forgave them and He wanted them to have joy. You know, I've seen a lot in the Reformed world of different churches. And it was really good for me to go up north. I've seen a lot of different things. And one thing that has troubled me is the lack of joy I see across the board. Lack of real joy and understanding forgiveness and how that translates to the excitement to come to worship. The joy of the Lord is your strength. He gave them the fat they ate. This was a moment. He didn't just do that. He gave them the best. And he fed them. And he was heralding to them the cross of Christ. All of this pointed to that. Colossians 2, having made us alive together, having forgiven you all your trespasses. I find it amazing that they still were to have this kind of joy. Verse 12, and all the people went, how'd they leave? How'd they leave the worship service? They went away rejoicing because they understood the words that were declared to them. I think that is just the most amazing applicational verse we could get to, isn't it? They got it for the first time. They understood it. They're overwhelmed. They're thinking, we finally understand it as we should. The light went on. and there was a fresh outpouring of the Spirit. Joy. What excitement. A burning desire to hear the Word is what produced it. Not a radical formula, is it? I've always thought, when everyone's doing a certain model of ministry, doesn't that become what's traditional? Who's doing the rare thing on the block? Think about it. I know the pressures we face today. Maybe some are on the fringes. I've been there. Maybe you think about your children and saying, are they really getting what they could be getting? Couldn't we offer them something better? And I respond, I know those pressures. I've lived those pressures. I have them. I think of my own children right now. Are we confident in the Word of God? I believe that the Escondido United Reformed Church has a whole lot to offer this whole community. You understand why the Apostle said, fast to what you have. It's always, please God, through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. Always. That's never changed. That never will change as long as we're under the sun. Tragically, this is a new thing today. What we're doing. A rare thing. But it's always been the old way. It's always been God's ordinary way of saving people. So remember this. We put on the sign out there and I close with this. The Escondido united. that we as one, regardless of background or difference, will work together under the most important cause of Christ and his gospel, ministering that and ensuring that we love that. The Escondido United Reformed. Take it off or keep it? I say keep it. Because that means that the word is the centerpiece of this church. That's what Reformed ultimately means. Escondido United Reformed Church, a gathering of God's people in this place who come together as one, who rejoice together when we should rejoice. And we weep with those who weep, remaining confident and steadfast, knowing from where we've come from, knowing where we're going, and giving ourselves to hear this living and powerful word of God that is able to save our souls. I promise you, be confident in that and you're just going to have to stand still. Stand still and see what the Lord does in this place. Amen. O Lord our God, we pray that you would fill us with that kind of love. I needed this, Lord. I needed it. I needed the renewal too. To draw to you and to hear you and to see. Forgetting those things which are behind and pressing towards those things which are ahead. And I pray for this whole body that as we grow together in grace and in truth, that that kind of confidence and love and fear of You would so permeate the hearts and lives of all of us that Your Word would dwell richly within us and that everyone around us would see how important that word is in the Escondido United Reformed Church. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.