Scripture...
Pastor Matt Bell
Sermon Summary
This sermon, based on Nehemiah 8, explores the foundational role of Scripture in the life of a believer and the church. Contextualizing the passage within Israel's return from exile and the rebuilding of Jerusalem, the speaker outlines seven key principles about the written Word of God: it is God's actual word, it must be central to our lives, it must be read, it must be honored, it must be taught, it brings holy conviction of sin, and ultimately, it produces spiritual strength and joy. Emphasizing that believers should actively read and obey the Bible rather than treating it as a mere artifact, the message concludes by encouraging the congregation to find victory over sin by rejoicing in the finished work of Christ.
Sermon Transcript
Introduction and Context
So if you would open with me in your Bibles to the book of Nehemiah, Nehemiah chapter 8 this morning.
We're in a series this year where we're working our way through the whole Bible together. And this week, we were in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. You can read along with us. This week, we're starting a new book of the Bible, the book of Esther. And then later this week, we'll start the book of Job. In your handout, there are the chapters that we are reading as a church together.
Ezra and Nehemiah tell the story of God's people, the children of Israel, coming back into the land. You see, God had made a promise to Abraham to put his people in this land, but because they had disobeyed God and pursued idolatry, God had taken them out of the land. And the land had been destroyed. Their homes, their cities, the temple, everything had been destroyed because of their idolatry.
And the Old Testament really is the story of the work that God did through humanity to bring Jesus into the world, who would be the savior of the whole world. In that story of God bringing Jesus into the world, it teaches about his dealing with mankind. And so while they were in exile for 70 years, the land was desolate. It was overrun, it was destroyed. But after 70 years, God allowed his people to return to the land, to rebuild it, to be replanted, to be the people through which God would bring the Messiah, Jesus, into the world.
They had come back into the land of Israel, to the city of Jerusalem. The first thing that they did when they returned was they rebuilt the temple to reestablish the worship of God and to make that central to their life as a people. And then later on, they had performed in the book of Nehemiah a construction project to rebuild the walls surrounding Jerusalem.
And so where we are in chapter 8 is the temple has been rebuilt, the walls have been rebuilt, and now here is this service of dedication. They've been back in the land nearly a hundred years at this point. And there's this time of dedicating the city again to the Lord and themselves to the Lord. To affirm that they will be faithful to God and faithful to his word and faithful to his covenant.
The Reading of God's Word
In chapter 8, we read this story of this dedication ceremony, and I invite you to stand with me as we read this passage of scripture. We're looking at 12 verses here. And I want to let you know, in these 12 verses, twice there are lists of names that I am not even going to try to pronounce. I tried this week to learn these names, and failed. You can ask my children how it went as I tried to read it to them. Something about Hebrew names just triggers my dyslexia. I cannot read these names. I have tried. So when I get to the names, we're just going to move on past them this morning. But starting here in verse one:
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 the 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 wooden platform that they had made for the purpose. And beside him stood [a bunch of wonderful people, I'm sure they were the best people, but you see their names there]. 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 worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground.
Also [here's another wonderful group of people that were there, it tells us that they were Levites, they were priests], they 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 sense, 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 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.
Father, we do thank you for your word. It is precious to us. Lord, speak to us as we endeavor to hear from you this morning. Open our hearts to your word, in Jesus' name. Amen.
You may be seated this morning.
Here in Ezra and Nehemiah, they're rebuilding a nation. They're rebuilding a city. They're rebuilding a people. They're rebuilding a culture. And one of the main thrusts of these two books is that it's not just the physical structures that need to be rebuilt. It's not just the temple, it's not just the walls. It's the hearts of the people that need to be renovated as well.
And so to do this, as the temple's been rebuilt, the walls have been rebuilt, they have this time of reading scripture and teaching scripture to the people. From this passage today, we see several things about scripture that I want to draw your attention to this morning. Scripture is the word of God that is written. Several things about this written word that I want to highlight for you this morning. I figured on Mother's Day, you wanted a very long sermon, so I brought for you today seven things to highlight for you. It won't be as long as Ezra's sermon. I can tell you that. But how long it will be only the Lord knows. We're going to move through these quickly here this morning. As I was looking at my notes again this morning, more points started to come to my head than the seven I already had, but I said, I'm just going to keep it to these seven. But I might throw in a few bonus ones here and there.
1. Scripture is God's Word
The first one is from verse one. And as I said, I'm going to move through these quickly. The first one we see is that scripture is the word of God. Scripture is God's word.
Here we see it says that Ezra the scribe, he read the book of the law of Moses, that the Lord had commanded Israel. Did you see that? Do you notice that? It wasn't just Moses' words. It was the words that God had given to Moses, but they were not Moses' commandments. These were the commandments that the Lord had given. I want you right here at the beginning not to miss this, that scripture, the written pages that we call here the Holy Bible—these aren't just the words of men. These are the words of God. Yes, God used Moses to write them. But the words that Moses wrote were not his words, they were God's word.
In 2 Timothy chapter 3, I don't have this scripture here on the screen, but if you want to flip over there with me quickly, you can. It tells us this about scripture. It's the Apostle Paul writing, and he says that all scripture is breathed out by God, and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. All scripture, the written word is breathed out by God. It's the very words of God, the very breath of God, and it is profitable to us. It's profitable to teach us, to reprove us. That's to bring us under conviction, to correct us, and to train us to be righteous.
One of the reasons that we believe that the scripture is the Word of God, we see it here. It says that it is. But the Lord Jesus taught us this as well. In Matthew chapter 22, again, I don't have this verse here on the screen, but if you flip over with me a couple pages to Matthew 22. Jesus here is in a debate, a discussion with the religious leaders of his day, and he's correcting them. And in verse 31, Jesus says this: "Have you not read what was said to you by God?" And then he quotes from the book of Exodus. He says, have you not read the written word? Have you not read what was said to you, not by Moses, but by God.
And so if we believe in the Lord Jesus, we believe he died and he rose again. We believe he's the Son of God, come from heaven to earth. Because we believe in him, we believe his words are true. And Jesus taught clearly that scripture is the word of God. We see that here in Nehemiah chapter 8: the words of the law of Moses, that the Lord had commanded Israel.
2. God's Word Must Be Central
The second point that we see here—I told you I was going quick, you didn't believe me, but I'm moving—is that God's word, scripture, must be central. It must be at the center of our lives.
We see that the first thing that they did after they rebuilt the temple and they rebuilt the walls, and they gather for this festival on the seventh month. It was a month of celebration, a time of celebrating the Feast of Trumpets, a time of celebrating the work of God and his goodness in their lives. They gather, and at the center of their gathering, we read that they brought the word of God to the center of their life as a nation. In verse 2, it says, so Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could understand what they heard. The word of God was central to their lives, and the word of God must be central to our lives as well.
Another way to say it must be central is the word of God must be the foundation. It must be foundational. When they rebuilt the temple, the first thing they had to do was they had to lay the foundation. And as we endeavor to have God be the author of our life and the author of our story, His word must be the foundation upon which our life is built. This is, of course, what Jesus himself taught as well in Matthew chapter 7. If you flip over there with me, I don't have it on the screen this morning, but Jesus said this:
"Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them"—not just to hear them, but to do them, put them into practice, to endeavor to live them out—"will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the wind blew, and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on the rock."
What is the foundation of your life? What are you building your life on, or what have you built your life on? There's all sorts of things that people trust in to build their life on. Economic security, their charisma, their charm, their gifts, their ability to go out and get things done. Their relationships, the people that they know, the family they came from—people build their lives on all kinds of things.
But Jesus here says there's only one true foundation for our lives, and it is scripture. It is the word of God. Jesus says, if you will build your life on the word of God, not just hearing it, but doing it, you will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And when the storms come, the storms of life, which come for all of us—none of us will go through life without experiencing hardship, difficulty, unexpected loss, things coming out of the blue, tragedy, catastrophe. Listen, all of us experience those things in life. The question is, when the storms come, will our house stand? When the storms come, will our life come crumbling down around us? Jesus says, if we build our life on his word, our life will stand.
He goes on to describe the foolish man. He says:
"Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it."
What have you built your life around? Is God's word central in your life? They're rebuilding their nation. They're rebuilding their culture, and they say, we have to bring the word of God. We have to gather around his word, around his law. We have to read it. We have to make it central. We have to know it, we have to understand it, and we have to obey it, is what Jesus says. What have you built your life upon? The shifting sand of anything else? This world that we live in is so topsy-turvy. You put your faith in one thing, and you think it's solid, you think it's secure, and then something happens, and it's not what you thought it was. We only have one rock to build our life on, and it is scripture.
3. Scripture Must Be Read
The third thing that we learn from this passage is that scripture must be read.
So what does Nehemiah do in verse 3? It says that he opened the book and read from it, facing the square before the Water Gate, from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women, and those who could understand. And the ears of all the people were attentive to the law. It must be read.
Ezra here preaches, I don't know, a five-hour sermon. I don't know what early morning is for you. I would say early morning you could say is sunrise, right? Could we all just agree, say sunrise? So the sun comes up around 6:30, 7 o'clock. And till midday? If you want to say noon, that's five hours. That's five hours of Ezra standing up and reading the Word of God and the people saying amen and falling on their face and being convicted. That's a five-hour sermon. I love this passage. Because anytime somebody says, "You preach too long," I just say, hold on a second. Have you heard of a man named Nehemiah? Have you heard of the scribe Ezra? Let me tell you about this man's sermon. Five plus hours.
He's reading and explaining to them the law of God. Most likely the passage of scripture he's reading from is the book of Deuteronomy, the fifth book of the Old Testament, the law of God that is restated to the children of Israel as they go into the promised land. This book is the Word of God. Because it's God's word, it has power. Words in themselves have power. The Bible says life and death is in the power of the tongue. With our words, we can build up somebody, with our words, we can tear down somebody. With our words, we can speak life, with our words, we can speak death. We can destroy or we can bring life with words. Words have power. Words shape culture. Words direct the course of a nation. And that's just human words. How much more powerful are the words of God?
But let me tell you something, dear friends. These words have no power as long as they sit on a shelf with the book closed. These words have no power when the book is just collecting dust. For these words to have power, the book must be opened, and the words must be read. And so that's what Ezra does. He opens the word of God.
When I was a child, it was popular for families to have a family Bible. I would go over to both sets of my grandparents, had a family Bible, and it was this Bible that was like two feet thick. It was so huge and so massive, and so ornate, and had gold gilding and frilly stuff. And it was the family Bible, and it sat there on the coffee table. And I don't ever remember that book being opened, that particular Bible. I noticed too, as I went to other families' houses and friends' houses, there was often this very expensive, very ornate family Bible that just sat there closed. It was almost like some people treated it almost like a good luck charm. "We have the word of God in our living room. It's right there." Friends, if you don't open it and you don't read from it, it's not going to do anybody any good sitting there. The power is in the word. The power is in the scripture. It must be opened. It must be read from.
I'm thankful that both of my grandparents, both of my sides of the family, were people that opened the book and read from the book on a daily basis. To have the word be central in our lives means much more than just having a Bible in our house. It doesn't do anybody any good when it is closed shut. For it to be foundational and central, it must be obeyed like Jesus said. To obey God's word, you have to know God's word. To know God's word, you have to read God's word. To read God's word, you have to open the book. The psalmist says, "I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you." The only way to hide God's word in your heart is to read it, to get in it. To study it. So the word of God must be read.
4. Scripture Must Be Honored
Number four, the word of God must be honored. Scripture must be honored.
We see the way that they honored the word of God in verses 4 through 6. Let's look at them here together. It says, Ezra the scribe stood on a wooden platform that they had made for the purpose, this very special platform that they built for that day to elevate the Word of God, to lift it up so that he could stand up and declare it, and that they could see him and hear him clearly. In the King James Bible, on this verse, it actually says a wooden pulpit. And so in our church, we have a wooden pulpit, and this is not here just for decoration. This is here to elevate the word of God and to in a very physical way and a very visible way, say that we honor God's word above any other word. And so they had built this, especially for this occasion.
And then in verse 5, it says, Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people. So he opened it and they could see that he was opening it because he was above the people as he stood on this platform. And then it says as he opened it, all the people stood. Why do we stand when we read the word of God together? To honor God's word. To show that God's word is being honored. And as he read as a way of showing verbal honor to it, the people answered, "Amen, amen." What does that mean? Amen means let it be. Amen means I agree. So when you hear somebody shouting an amen in church, they're saying, "I agree with that. Yes, let that be. Let that come to pass. Let it be so." But then they also bowed their faces to the ground, and they worshiped the Lord.
The word of God must be honored. It should have an honored place in our heart. Now, these are just external actions that they did. They built the stage. They built the pulpit out of wood so that the Word of God could be seen. They stood when it was open, when it was read, they bowed their faces to the ground. All of that's external. And that's good, but more important than external posture, more important than external actions, is the posture of your heart. Because I can say, let's stand and read the word of God, and you can stand with your legs and still be seated in your heart. You can stand as I read the word of God, and you can be thinking about, where are we going to lunch today? Will we get out in time to beat the crowds? Will the Spurs win today? Et cetera, et cetera.
Where is your heart? I'm glad that you stand. I'm glad that we're a church that stands when we read the Word of God. I think that's good. I think that's proper. But that's external. What's the internal state of your heart? Hopefully, these external things also reveal and are in accordance with what's happening in our heart, the condition of our heart. Now, the condition of our heart is hidden to our fellow man. I can't look at you and see your heart. I can't look at you and see what's happening in your soul. But while it's hidden to your fellow man and it's hidden from my eyes, you know who sees your heart? God sees your heart. God sees all of our hearts. Which is why we never have to pretend before God. We never have to put our show on in the presence of God because he sees our hearts.
We should ask that God would put a reverence in our heart for scripture. That God would put in our hearts an honor for his word, a true honor. That we would honor it in such a way that not just when it's read, but that we would continue to honor it an hour later when we leave this place. That we wouldn't be getting into fights in the parking lot with our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. And we wouldn't leave and go and bring reproach upon the name of Christ by the way that we live our lives. Oh, that we would honor his word truly and deeply by putting it into practice in our lives. Listen, if you find in your heart that you don't honor scripture, you don't feel like you honor the word of God. That's something to confess before the Lord. That's something to bring before the Lord and confess that and ask for his help. Ask and plead with him to put that in your heart.
5. Scripture Must Be Taught
Number five, the word of God's scripture, it must be taught.
We see this here in verse 7 and 8. These wonderful people here, they helped the people understand the law. They didn't just read it on that day, but they explained it to them. While the people were there and they heard Ezra reading from the law, these priests went out among the people, and they were explaining it to them. It says in verse 8 that they read from the book, from the law of God clearly. They made it clear to them what it meant. And they gave the sense of it, the meaning of it so that the people understood what was being read.
Ezra, he was a scribe and a priest, and the scribe's job was to meticulously make copies of the word of God, to make sure that it was copied properly. They didn't have copy and paste. They didn't have Xerox back then for there to be copies of scripture. They had to sit down and meticulously, word by word, letter by letter, go through, and make sure that they were making accurate copies, and they were trained in this work. But the scribes would not only copy God's law, they would study scripture with an equal attention to detail so that the word of God could be preserved for future generations, and so that the word of God could be taught to God's people so that they could live it and obey it.
In Ezra's day, the people didn't have their own copies of the scripture. It wasn't like our day where if you want a Bible, you can have a Bible. It's pretty easy to do. And if you don't have a Bible, we'll give you a Bible. We've got lots of Bibles here. We'd love to give you your own copy of the Bible. But you can also just download the Bible app and you can have the Bible with you wherever you go. It wasn't like that in their day. They didn't have access to God's word like we do today, which is to say, we are so blessed. We are so blessed, supremely blessed. And so the scribe's job was to preserve the scripture and to teach the scripture.
And in the New Testament, likewise, the apostles, they themselves say, "We will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the Word." And so even within the New Testament, there's this idea that the Word of God not only needs to be read, it needs to be taught. It needs to be explained. It needs to be broken down. It needs to be applied. How does this book and these words impact my life today and how do I live it out?
This is a great application for you mothers on Mother's Day. Not only do your children need the care and the love that you give them, the physical care of making sure they've got some clean socks to wear and some food in their bellies, and the emotional care of the love that you show them and the support that you give them, but they also need the spiritual care. I can remember very clearly both my grandmothers and my mom explaining to me the Bible, applying to me scripture when my way would be wayward. Which, let me just say, I gave my mom ample opportunities to explain the scripture to me, and to show me how my life was not in accordance with the word of God. And my mom was always so faithful to bring God's Word and explain God's Word and to apply God's Word to my heart and to my life. This is something that's, yes, I believe fathers have a central role and responsibility in doing this, but it's not just only fathers, but mothers as well.
We read later in the New Testament, a young man, a godly man named Timothy, who became Paul's assistant, and then a pastor in the city of Ephesus, that his father was not a believer. But his grandmother and his mother were. And they handed their faith, this godly grandmother and mother handed their faith, taught the scriptures to this young man, Timothy, who became Paul's right-hand man and carried the mission of the gospel forward after Paul had gone off the scene. His father wasn't a godly man, but his mother poured the scripture into him. So the word of God, not only must it be read and honored and central, it must be taught. It must be explained.
6. Scripture Brings Conviction
And number six, we see here at the end that the word of God brings conviction.
In verse 9, it says, as they read, they had to tell the people, do not mourn or weep. For all the people wept as they heard the words of the law. The people wept because as the law was read, as the words were explained, they recognized we have broken God's law. God who has been so good, so faithful, has blessed us with so much, has singled us out, has forgiven our sins. He has been so good to us. And we have been so unfaithful to his covenant, to his word. They wept. It broke their hearts. The word brings, the scripture brings conviction of sin in our lives.
And likewise it is for us. When we open God's Word and we're reading God's Word, His word is that lamp. It shines into the dark places of our heart. It's a mirror the Bible says, it exposes who we really are. You know, when we live our lives in the world, then we just compare ourselves to one another. Sometimes, especially if you're very prideful and tend towards pride, you could feel by looking at people around you, "You know what? I'm doing pretty good. At least I'm not like so and so." But when you open the book, and you read God's word, and you read God's standard, and you read about how Christ lived, and you read the words that Christ taught, and how he taught us how to live, you hold that mirror up to your face, and it produces in your heart a conviction of sin. It shows you who you really are, if you're being honest with yourself.
If you're honoring the word, if you're making it foundational, if you're reading it, if it's being explained and applied to you, that word is bringing conviction of sin. I pray you know this conviction of sin in your life. Not to live under the condemnation of the devil. There's a difference between these two, by the way. The devil wants to condemn us. And what condemnation does, when we sin and we feel that condemnation from the devil, that condemnation drives us away from God. That's what condemnation does. It makes us want to run from God. But what conviction does is it places on us this holy desire to get rid of the sin in our life and to run to God, not to run from God, but to run to God, confessing our sins, looking to him, looking to Christ, who paid the price for our sin, confessing it, asking the Lord for forgiveness.
You see, conviction draws us to Christ. Conviction is Christ drawing us to himself. Condemnation is Satan, the enemy, driving us away from the Lord. Condemnation is things like, "God could never love you because of the things that you've done." Condemnation says God is angry with you, "You go to God, you come to church, he's going to squash you like a bug." I remember in college, I had some friends that I was inviting to church, and they said, "Man, if I walk into church, God's gonna strike me dead." I said, "No, he's not. If he wanted to do that, he could have done that already. If you come into church, you get in a relationship with him, he's not going to strike you dead. He's gonna make you alive, brother." And so conviction is a brokenness over sin, but it's one that says, "Come to me. Bring your sin to me. I'm the one that paid the price for your sin." And it leads us to want to live a life that is holy as unto the Lord.
7. Scripture Produces Joy
And so finally, number seven, the seventh thing that scripture does is scripture produces joy.
First came the mourning, the conviction, the brokenness, but the leader said, "No, no, no, you can't weep. Today's not a day of weeping. Today's a day of celebration." You see, God had given them these feasts to celebrate the goodness of God, the faithfulness of God, to remind them that their sins were forgiven. And all of these feasts, these days of celebrations, they were pointing towards the work of Christ. They weren't in and of themselves effectual in forgiving sins. They pointed to the work of Christ that would eventually be the means by which all sin is forgiven.
And so they're saying, "No, no, no, today's not a day to weep. Today's a day to celebrate." And so they tell them, go and celebrate, go and eat the fat portions. That's like the best wagyu beef that you could ever find. Go and, it says, drink the sweet wine. Go and celebrate. Throw this festival and share with those who didn't bring anything.
And then this beautiful passage, this beautiful truth here that Nehemiah tells them in verse 10, he says, do this because the joy of the Lord is your strength. The joy of the Lord is your strength. Now what kind of strength is he talking about here? He's not talking about physical strength. He was talking about spiritual strength. The strength to do what? The strength to live a holy and godly life. Yes, they were broken because of their sin. They felt the conviction of their sin, but he's saying, if you want to live a life of victory over it, it comes from rejoicing in the Lord. Rejoicing in the Lord, rejoicing in what he has done and accomplished for us.
And likewise it is for us. If we want to live a life of victory over sin, we need to have the word of God central in our life. Let it produce joy that tells us of the gospel, the great glories of what Christ has done for us. And let us rejoice in what Christ has done. Let us celebrate that our sins are forgiven. Let us celebrate that as far as the east is from the west, he has removed our sins from us. The Bible says that he casts our sin into a sea of forgetfulness to remember them no more. That is good news.
And even as Satan would come and try and bring us back under condemnation, would try and come and remind us of our sins, Scripture says, "Satan, God has forgotten my sins. So I'm not going to live under condemnation for something God has already forgotten." And he has forgotten our sins because of his son Jesus. Because Jesus came and lived that life without sin. And he went to the cross and shed his blood for our sins. He paid the price. And for us, this must be our source of strength.
If you find that you are spiritually weak, if you find that temptation has a grip on your heart, let me ask you, are you rejoicing in the Lord? Are you rejoicing daily in the work of Christ? Are you making scripture central in your life? Not just reading it and going on, but meditating, applying, rejoicing in what Christ has done for you. When you do that, you will find that you are filled with a strength to live for God, wherever it is that he has you. Amen.