“Weeping with Joy” – FBC Morning Light (10/9/2024)

Faith Baptist Church

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Good Wednesday morning to you. Today we're continuing our reading in the book of Nehemiah with chapters 7 and 8, and remember all this week, at least

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Monday through Friday, we're doing the reading in Nehemiah, which is the last book in the

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Old Testament for us in our chronological Bible reading plan. Well, what I want to focus on is chapter 8, and at the beginning of chapter 8,

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Nehemiah has called Ezra, the priest, to really preach the

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Word, and he gets up before the people, he's raised up on a platform, he opens the book, and he preaches the

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Word, and we're given a good example here of expository preaching.

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This is the method of preaching I like to use in our church services, where you take a passage of Scripture, explain what it means, show how it applies.

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Very simple procedure, straightforward. This is what Ezra does, and you see this at the end of verse 8 of chapter 8, where it says, they read distinctly from the book and the law of God, and they gave the sense, that is what it means, and helped them to understand the reading.

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Here's what it means, here's how you apply it, and it gave the sense, the understanding of how to apply it.

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So, what happens when you are confronted with God's Word?

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Especially when it confronts you for your sin, for your failure to live up to what

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God says that you are to do or to be. Well, you see at the end of chapter 9 how the people responded, because they recognized that they had failed so miserably in obedience to God's law.

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It says, all the people wept when they heard the words of the law. Now, they weren't weeping for joy, they were weeping in grief and in sorrow for just how far astray they had wandered from the standards that dictates the expectations of God.

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But Nehemiah comes to this situation, and listen to what he says. Nehemiah verse 9, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest, and the scribe, and the

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Levites, who taught the people, said to all the people, this day is holy to the

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Lord your God. And they might say, yeah, we know, and we've heard what he said, and we're so far from being holy.

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But then listen to what they said next. Do not mourn nor weep.

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And Nehemiah goes on to say to the people in verse 10, go your way, eat the fat, drink the sweet, send portions to those for whom nothing is prepared, for this day is holy to our

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God, to our Lord. Do not sorrow, for the joy of the

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Lord is your strength. So why would he be telling them, don't weep, don't mourn, don't be filled with sorrow?

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Because, yes, they have been convicted by the Word, and there is a reasonable sense of solemnity and sobriety that comes with that awareness and that confrontation.

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But here's the point of joy. We have the privilege of hearing from God.

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He has not abandoned us. He has spoken to us today in his

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Word, and it is a reason to rejoice when

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God is so gracious to you and to me that he convicts us of our sin.

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And while our initial response would appropriately be sorrow and grief over our sin, there is a joy that can be ours in the blessing of being so confronted that we might be rid of that sin and we might turn from that sin and turn to a life of obedience.

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And that's exactly what happened in the following verses, in verses 9 -12.

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How do people, or verses 13 -18, how do people who have gone from mourning over their sin to joy over the hearing of God's Word, how do they respond?

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What comes next? I would suggest that enthusiastic obedience to God is what comes next.

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You see this in verse 13 and following. It says, now in the second day the heads of the fathers' houses of all the people, with the priests and Levites, were gathered to Ezra the scribe in order to understand the words of the law.

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How does this apply to us? And they found written in the law, which the Lord had commanded by Moses, that the children of Israel should dwell in booths during the feast of the seventh month.

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And they realized, we haven't done that. And so what do they do?

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Verse 16, the people went out and they brought them and they made themselves booths, each one on the roof of his house, or in the courtyards, or in the courts of the house of God, and in the open square of the water, and the gate in the open square of the gate of Ephraim.

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So the whole assembly of those who had returned from the captivity made booths and sat under the booths.

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Why? Because God's Word said to. And they heard that God's Word said to do this, and they realized we haven't been doing this, and so we need to obey.

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This is the natural response of those who eagerly and joyfully receive the

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Word. They will enthusiastically obey what God calls upon them to do.

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I trust that's your response. I trust that you have a ready eagerness when you're confronted with God's Word to say, okay,

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I haven't been doing that. Sorry, Father. Forgive me. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna go.

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I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna be like this. May God help us. Our Father and our

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God, we do thank you for this challenge from, again, from Nehemiah, and I pray that we would be a people who respond appropriately to the preaching and teaching of your

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Word, and we act out in obedience to it. We pray in Jesus' name.