The sermon, 'Committing to God-Centered Lives' by Jason Dohm, discusses Nehemiah 10:30-39, where the Israelites make a covenant to adhere to God's law. It emphasizes the importance of love as the fulfillment of the law, highlighting that obeying God's commandments should stem from love for God and neighbor. The Israelites' covenant addresses persistent areas of unfaithfulness, such as intermarriage with non-believers and Sabbath violations, as historical pitfalls. The sermon underscores the necessity of God-centered marriages, where believers marry within the faith to ensure godly offspring and uphold the gospel's representation. God-centered calendars are also emphasized, particularly in observing the Sabbath and the Sabbath year, as these practices were neglected in the past, leading to exile. The sermon explains the covenant's provisions for worship, including activities and personnel, as critical to maintaining a God-centered life. The Israelites impose a yearly tax to support temple activities and ensure the continual presence of priests and Levites. Overall, the sermon calls for a corporate commitment to God-centered living, reflecting on mercy received and presenting oneself as a living sacrifice to God.

So our sermon text today is Nehemiah 10 verses 30 through 39, but I'm going to be reading starting at verse 28. The priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers, the nethanym, and all those who had separated themselves from the peoples of the lands to the law of God, their wives, their sons, and their daughters, everyone who had knowledge and understanding. These joined with their brethren, their nobles, and entered into a curse and an oath to walk in God's law, which was given by Moses the servant of God, and to observe and do all the commandments of the Lord our Lord and his ordinances and his statutes. We would not give our daughters as wives to the peoples of the land nor take their daughters for our sons. If the peoples of the land brought wares or any grain to sell on the Sabbath day, we would not buy it from them on the Sabbath or on any holy day.

And we would forego the seventh year's produce in the exacting of every debt. Also, we made ordinances for ourselves to exact from ourselves yearly one-third of a shekel for the service of the house of our God, for showbread, for the regular grain offering, and for the regular burnt offering of the Sabbaths, the new moons, and the set feasts, for the holy things, for the sin offerings, to make atonement for Israel, and all the work of the house of our God. We cast lots among the priests, the Levites, and the people for bringing the wood offering into the house of our God, according to our Father's houses at the appointed times year by year, to burn on the altar of the Lord our God as it is written in the law and we made ordinances to bring the first fruits of our ground the first fruits of all fruit of all trees year by year to the house of the Lord to bring the firstborn of our sons and our cattle, as it is written in the law, and the firstborn of our herds and our flocks, to the house of our God, to the priests who minister in the house of our God, to bring the first fruits of our dough, our offerings, the fruit from all kinds of trees, the new wine and oil, to the priests, to the store rooms of the house of our God and to bring the tithes of our land to the Levites for the Levites should receive the tithes in all our farming communities and the priests the descendants of Aaron shall be with the Levites when the Levites receive tithes and the Levites shall bring up a tenth of the tithes to the house of our God to the store to the rooms of this door house for The children of Israel and the children of Levi shall bring the offering of the grain, of the new wine, and the oil to the store rooms where the articles of the sanctuary are, where the priests who minister and the gatekeepers and the singers are.

And we will not neglect the house of our God." Our title for the sermon this morning is, Committing to God-Centered Lives. I think that really is a description about what's happening in the text that God has brought us to this morning. Committing to God-centered lives. You have the people doing this in a very official, structured, formalized way in entering into this covenant. In chapter 9, we had the prayer of the Levites.

There were these group of Levites that were in a unified way praying to God. The prayer begins by hallowing the name of God or speaking of the greatness and the goodness of God. Then the rest of the prayer, which is a long prayer, is about two things. It's about God's dealing with His people in faithfulness. And it's about His people's dealings with God in their unfaithfulness.

And how even that didn't change the disposition of God towards His people. He did discipline them, but He did not cast them off for sure. He continued to be faithful with them. And then at the very end of chapter 9, we have the perfect set up verse for chapter 10, which is this. This is Nehemiah chapter 9 verse 38.

And because of all this, because of all the things that were just prayed, we make a sure covenant and write it. Our leaders, our Levites, and our priests seal it. So That final verse of chapter 9 launches us into chapter 10. And you immediately have the names of the people who sealed this covenant. So the last verse says we make a sure covenant and write it.

Not a spoken covenant, but a written covenant. It is sealed by Nehemiah and 83 other names. Some priests, some Levites, and some leaders of the people, probably heads of families, seal it. When they seal it, they are acting in a representative role and doing it on behalf of everyone. So it's not just these 84 people who are entering into the covenant.

No, these 84 people are standing and representing the others, and the people together are entering into the covenant. And then in chapter 10 verse 29, we see what is a summary for our text today. They enter into a curse and an oath, they enter into this covenant, to walk in God's law. So that serves as an umbrella for everything that we're talking about today. It's under the umbrella of firmly committing, entering into a covenant, to walk in God's law.

And One of the things I said last week, probably the most important thing that I said last week, was you can't let yourself off the hook by saying this is an oath to keep the rules. They are entering into an oath to walk according to God's rules, according to God's law. But if you just stop there, you miss the heart of the whole Bible, which is that? Which is what Paul says in Romans Chapter 13 verse 10, that love is the fulfillment of the law. Keeping the rules isn't an end unto itself.

Keeping the rules is intended to be something that's done out of the overflow of the heart as an expression of love, either to God or to your neighbor or to both. Usually both. Usually when we really keep a law, we're demonstrating love for God and for our neighbor at the same time. Because those things are very tightly connected, as you know. And so, really this covenant is a commitment to love God by obeying Him.

I want to frame this covenant that way. Here's what we're agreeing to corporately. We're the Lord's people. We're a redeemed people. A people who God has poured His mercy out on.

And because of that, because of the mercies of God, we're presenting our bodies as living sacrifices. To put it in terms of our recitation section. We are committing ourselves to love God by obeying Him. So that is the umbrella. To walk in God's law.

To love Him by obeying Him. And now, in this week's text, they go from this very broad commitment. Can you imagine a commitment more broad than a commitment to walk in God's law? There is so much to God's law. It touches on every part of life.

How would you get broader than something that touches on every part of life? And so now they are going from this broad commitment to getting very specific. They are calling out a very few things that all are under the umbrella of God's law. Meaning they are parts of God's law. They don't call out every one of God's individual laws, but they call out a few and I think there is a very specific reason for that.

They are calling out areas of persistent unfaithfulness and sin. They can look back like they did in chapter 9 with this great prayer and see there has been 1700 years with certain patterns that have developed. Certain things that have recurred and recurred and recurred and recurred again. Certain areas of persistent sin and rebellion and unfaithfulness. And now they put their finger on a very few of them to say we're going to walk in God's law and especially this one is on our mind.

And especially this one is on our mind. And especially this one is on our mind because when we look back across that 1700 years we see this continuing to be a problem and so this is on our radar As we go to the text Let's go to the text in prayer. Oh God, I pray that you would help us to be a people who are fully committed to walking in your ways, not for their own sake, but because we love you, because we've received your mercies, and now here we are presenting our bodies to you as living sacrifices, holy, acceptable. It's our reasonable service to do it. God, I pray that you would help us to do it in Jesus' name, amen.

So We have a pretty straightforward division of the text, at least as I'm handling it this morning. I'm going to look at verse 30, that's one division. I'm going to look at verse 31, that's the second division. Then I'm going to look at all the rest of it. That's our third division.

But I think it will end up being a reasonable division of the tax. So let's look at verse 30. Here we get into the specifics of the covenant. We would not give our daughters as wives to the peoples of the land, nor take their daughters for our sons. Straight forward.

We won't give our daughters, we won't take their daughters, the peoples of the land. This is about God-centered marriages. Marrying outside of the people of God has been an area of persistent unfaithfulness and sin across that 1700 years of Israel's history. My mind immediately goes to Balaam and Balak. Do you remember this account is in Numbers chapter 22?

The people aren't even in the promised land yet, but they're starting to make noise and the kings in the area are starting to be nervous about this multitude that doesn't have a home. And they can sort of see the writing on the wall that this people is going to be looking to displace existing nations. So Balak, this Moabite king, hires whatever Balaam is. I wanted to call him a prophet, but he's sort of half prophet, half sorcerer. He's trying to get Balaam to curse the Israelites.

Of course, God won't let him. Three times the king tries to pay him to curse the Israelites, and three times he says, I can only say what God has said, and he actually pronounces the opposite. He pronounces a blessing. But then he ends up telling the king, the way to get to these people is to send in the women. And Balak does that, this Moabite king sends in the women to entice the Israelites and to bring them into intermarriage and compromise and adjoining together the faith of Israel with pagan faiths.

And it ends in disaster among the Lord's people. So you have that before the people even are brought into the promised land all the way to Ezra chapter 9 and 10, which had happened something like just 13 years before. They've then had to deal with this very same problem. So it's across all of Israel's history is the point. Intermarriage has continually been a snare and a problem and an area of persistent unfaithfulness and sin for the Lord's people.

In this topic, the Bible teaches one thing from Genesis to Revelation. Don't do it, don't do it, don't do it. Only marry within the people of God. The Lord's people marry from among the Lord's people. Period.

Amen. Never to be changed. It has never been any different and it never will be any different. This is what God expects from His sons and daughters. You encounter explicitly the disaster that happens when intermarriages happen in Genesis 6.

In Genesis chapter 6, it's the flood chapter by the way, so you can tell this is not going to end well. But It begins with the sons of God marrying the daughters of men. So there are a number of interpretations. I think the most plain meaning that doesn't have all the baggage and problems of the other interpretations is just this. The people of God are marrying worldly people.

They are marrying outside of the people of God. It's the sons of God. They are marrying the daughters of men. The text is clear that they are marrying from beauty, and It says, of any whom they desired. So in other words, it's indiscriminate marriage based on attraction.

That's what you have in Genesis 6. It leads to The explosion of wickedness and rebellion in the world that concludes with God saying, I'm sorry I'm sending the floods. Genesis 6 to me is the ultimate example of what happens when the sons of God marry the daughters of men indiscriminately out of attraction. Or when the daughters of God marry the sons of men indiscriminately just out of attraction. It ends in an explosion of rebellion and wickedness, and it ends in the judgment of God.

This isn't just in Genesis 6, it's everywhere in the Old Testament. We see why so clearly in Malachi chapter 2, when God says what He is after from marriage, what is He after? Godly offspring. God is after godly offspring. God is after an increase of worshippers in the world from marriage.

When a son of God marries a daughter of men, then you greatly inhibit your ability to give God what he said he desires, godly offspring. Imagine what it would be like to join together with someone who doesn't share the most foundational things in life and then say, we're together going to bring up our children in the training and admonition of the Lord. How are you going to do that? So the obstacles are obvious. Then when we get to the New Testament, it's so explicit.

Paul, the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter 7 verse 39, he's talking about widows. And he's exhorting widows. And in 1 Corinthians chapter 7 verse 39, Paul says that a widow is free to remarry. In fact, he is encouraging them to remarry. But then he says this, to whom she wishes, she is free to marry, to whom she wishes, only in the Lord.

So Paul clearly defines the pool of potential spouses for widows. Any whom she wishes, she has a freedom to choose only in the Lord. So it is a restricted freedom. No one should be imposed upon a widow. My understanding is the same is true of unmarried daughters.

No one should be imposed on an unmarried daughter. She is free to marry whom she wishes only in the Lord. It is a restricted freedom. The absolute restriction is that spouses must be in the Lord. They must be of the Lord's people.

Then in 2 Corinthians chapter 6 verse 14, and the verses before and after it, but 2 Corinthians chapter 6 verse 14 is the verse that says, Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. And This has a broader application for marriage, but can you imagine a more important application? Paul is saying, don't be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. Can you think of any application in business, or in government, or in any other part of life, that would be more important, that would have a greater impact than marriage. It's unthinkable that if we're not to be unequally yoked, unequally joined together with unbelievers that you wouldn't apply this first and foremost to marriage.

And then ultimately, we see in Ephesians 5 that Paul says so explicitly that marriage is about Christ and the church. You cannot bring an unbeliever and then play out that gospel drama in front of the world. It's unthinkable. It's impossible that you would join together with an unbeliever and then say, Our mission is to present a picture of the gospel to the world. And your spouse says, what?

I don't even embrace the Gospel. Children, take this to heart at the individual level. I'm saying children, I don't mean the youngest, I mean unmarried people in the room. Take this to heart at an individual level. Meaning, own it!

This is what God requires of his sons and daughters. You own it. Your parents believe it. But I really want you to own it. You have to own it.

Do you understand that God says this? And do you understand why God says this? In other words, there is only one message from Genesis to Revelation, and it is repeated and repeated and repeated and repeated. Potential spouses are only among the people of God. Do you understand why God says it?

It is because marriage is supposed to be a picture of the gospel, and you'll never be able to do that. God desires godly offspring. You'll never be able to do that. Bring up your children in the training and admonition of the Lord as you ought, unless your spouse is also in the faith. So Unmarried people in the room, take this to heart.

Own it. But the text isn't to you. The covenant isn't unmarried children in the community saying that they won't do it. Now they shouldn't do it, they should own it, but it's actually parents. Don't Give your daughters and don't take for your sons.

This is an important point. This means that God's expectation is that We have a community view of this. This extends to the family and to the larger people of God that among us, among us and among us, among the domes, The domes don't do this. And if a dome wants to do this, they're going to be met with over our dead bodies. That's going to be mom and dad's take over our dead bodies.

And our church, if a dome wants to marry outside the faith, our church should rise up and say, over our dead bodies. We should be a united front to those whom we love but have nothing in common with the world, you can't have our daughters. We don't want your sons. And that's more than just unmarried people. That in our text, the parents are taking a covenant.

You can't have our daughters. We don't want your sons. You can separate yourself from the filth of the nations to the law of God. You can come across the line. We'd love to have you here be part of the people of God, but while you're on that side of the line, we're off limits for marriage.

Of course, moms and dads can't wait until their children are saying, Mom, Dad, we're getting married! Guess what? We're getting married! Of course, we start decades before that. So that everybody has the same expectation.

So that it would be unthinkable to your children to come to the moment where they come to you with an unbeliever saying, guess what mom and dad, we're getting married. This has to be a way of life for us. This has to be a part of our family cultures and our church culture. In our text is the classic way that this happens. What happens?

That mixed marriages happen. That intermarriages with unbelievers happen. That's the classic way. There's somebody who's not even pretending, and you marry against all the counsel of Scripture. That's the classic way.

But there's another way. Marrying a false professor. It's much more subtle, but the results aren't any different. Marrying somebody who says they are a Christian, but aren't really a Christian. Now can we guarantee that that's never going to happen?

No. Because sometimes false professors are really good at their false professions. They appear to have fruit in their lives. I'm not trying to make the case that that could never happen. What I am saying is that we have to insist that there is evidence of a heart turned towards the Lord.

It cannot be enough among us that somebody talks the talk. They also have to walk the walk. When I say walk the walk, I mean so much more than just they are free from scandalous sin. Many people in the world are free from scandalous sin. They are very respectable citizens.

But they have no heart towards God. And many people in the church fit the same profile. They're free from scandalous sin. You can't go and say, they're a fornicator, they're a drunkard. And yet, there's such a coolness in their lives about the things of God.

They never really seem to have an appetite for God and the things that pertain to Him. Their hearts are always cool. Their hearts never seem to be burning for the Lord. Let me tell you, if years go by and you just say, I never have any sense of burning for the Lord. Worry.

Worry. Do whatever you can. If there's a spark there to blow on, blow on it and try to fan it into flame. But our hearts should burn. God is real and good.

He's not abandoning his people. His people have his spirit indwelling them and stirring them up. If you have no sense that God ever is stirring you up to be hot, then something is wrong. Something is desperately wrong. And we should think that about those who want to marry our sons and daughters.

There must be evidence that their heart is turned towards the Lord. They can't just talk the talk. They have to walk the walk. And that means demonstrating an appetite, an appetite, a hunger for the things of God. Here's the summary of this first verse.

God has laid claim to the marriages of His people. God has reserved the right to tell you who you can and can't marry. He's laid claim. Malachi chapter 2 actually says, God through the prophet Malachi says, my holy institution which I love. So if you don't think God has laid claim to marriage, you don't need any other verse in Scripture.

He calls it his holy institution that he loves. This is how we should think about marriage. God has laid claim to the marriages of his people. Now let's look at verse 31. The covenant continues.

Verse 31. If the peoples of the land brought wares or any grain to sell on the Sabbath day, we would not buy it from them on the Sabbath or on a holy day. And we would forgo the seventh year's produce and the exacting of every debt. So the first verse was about marrying those from the lands. And the second verse is about buying from them on the Sabbath day.

If you're taking notes on the handout, it's God-centered calendars. And The specific law in view was Sabbath law. When we come to this verse, we have to think of the Sabbath as a category and not just a day. In the Old Testament, the Sabbath is a category that is broad, that includes the day, but the day is not all of it. And so there is also a Sabbath year.

When you look at Sabbath law, you find that there is a Sabbath year. Like the week has a weekly cycle. Six days of work and then a day of rest. And then six more days of work and then a day of rest. And then six more days of work and then a day of rest.

A cycle of life. Six in one. Six in one. Six in one. So God had designed for his people under the Mosaic Covenant to have a cycle like that of years.

Where The land would work, figuratively speaking, for six years, and then the land would get a year off. So you wouldn't cultivate the land. You wouldn't plant crops. You wouldn't harvest from your trees and your vineyards in that seventh year. Part of the reason was, it gave the poor of the land an extra opportunity for sustenance from the things that would grow automatically.

Part of it was so that the land actually could rest. Farmers have actually found this to be really good practice to not sow the land all the time. But in any event, God wanted there to be a Sabbath year as well as a Sabbath day. In addition to not planting and harvesting in that year, it was called a year of release. So that the debts would be released in the seventh year.

So you could land, but there was an end point to it. And the debt would be over. Even if it hadn't been completely repaid. The debt would be over when you got to the seventh year. It's called the year of release.

This is firmly established in the law that God gave to Moses. This Sabbath year, specifically ignoring the Sabbath year, was a key reason that the people went into exile to start with. So Ezra and Nehemiah, these books we've been studying, have been about people coming out of captivity and then trying to build a God-centered life. That's what we've been saying all along. Well, why did they go into captivity?

One of the key reasons they went into captivity is they wouldn't do this. They wouldn't give the land its year of rest, and they wouldn't release from debts. They were ignoring the Sabbath year. They ignored it for 490 years. And then God had said in Leviticus chapter 26 verses 33 through 35.

And if you go, I'm not going to read it, but if you go to Leviticus chapter 26 verses 33 through 35, you get a warning from God so early on before the people have ever been brought into the land, because God is giving His law, you get a warning, If you won't do this, if you won't let the land rest and release people of their debts in the Sabbath year, then I'll bring your enemies with the sword, and I'll have them take you captive out of the land, and then when you're out of the land, the land will rest. So God is warning them in advance. The land is going to get its rest one way or the other. You give it, or I'll have enemies come and take you captive, and then the land will just sit there and get the rest that you wouldn't give to it. So that warning is given in Leviticus chapter 23, and then in 2 Chronicles chapter 36.

That's the final chapter of 2 Chronicles. 2 Chronicles 36 verse 21 makes it clear that the Babylonian captivity was God's fulfillment of His promise to do that. So when you go to 2 Chronicles 36 verse 21, you'll see God delivering that message. This is what the 70 years of captivity was about. And so, it's right that they would be including this law, particularly, about the Sabbath day and about the Sabbath year, which is mentioned in this verse, and about the release of debts, which is mentioned in this verse, that this would be explicitly included in a covenant.

This has been a trip cord, a pitfall, a snare to the people of God for a long time. So they are giving particular attention to it. Why not just repeat the fourth commandment? Observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Period.

Why not just repeat that? It's sort of stated in an odd way. When the people of the lands come to buy and sell on the Sabbath, we're not going to do that. So, why even involve them? Why not just repeat?

Restate the fourth commandment. Observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Well, let's go look at it. I think in the fourth commandment itself we're going to find why that probably is in this text. So turn to Deuteronomy chapter 5.

I want to look at the fourth commandment together. The first thing you notice when you get to the ten commandment texts, There's two of them. The first one is in Exodus 20. The second one is in Deuteronomy chapter 5. So let's go to Deuteronomy chapter 5.

When you just look at it visually on the page, there are these ten commandments. What you find is that the fourth commandment, the commandment about the Sabbath day, is far and away the longest. There's a lot about the fourth commandment. Some of them are very short. You shall not murder.

You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. Some of them are three and four words. But not so of the fourth commandment. The only one that even comes a little bit close to it is the second commandment about making images.

So let's look at this fourth commandment beginning in verse 12, reading through 15. Deuteronomy chapter 5 verse 12. Observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy as the Lord your God has commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work, you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your ox, nor your donkey, nor any of your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you.

And remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out of there, out from there by a mighty hand, by an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath. So here we have the commandment that we are to observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy. We are told it is a remembrance that we used to be slaves, but now we are not slaves anymore. So it is a wonderful day.

It is a gift to remember the goodness of God in freeing us from bondage. But most of the text is given to all the people who are supposed to enjoy the day of rest with you. There are a bunch of people who are. And so, a big part of this commandment is securing the rest for others. So you are to have rest, you are to spend the day worshipping and resting, but not just you.

The world of the fourth commandment is bigger than just you. It's your sons and your daughters and your male servants and your female servants and all your animals. I suppose your Jewish animals. Your Jewish ox and your Jewish donkey, and your Jewish cattle. There aren't any such things, of course.

The point is that everybody gets arrest. When you encourage the people of the nations to come and sell, buy your willingness to buy, it's not right. You're doing something wrong by encouraging them to work on that day. Now, can you stop the people of the nations? If we all decide we're not buying anymore, will that stop the commerce?

That's not the point. The point is, for the part that you have to play, you're not going to encourage it through being willing to engage in commerce. And so it looks to me by what is stated in this covenant that A justification has crept in. Not me working. They're working.

I'm just buying what they bring. They're not inside the faith anyway. Who cares if the pagans don't get their rest? The truth is, God cares if the cattle don't get their rest. God cares if the donkeys don't get their rest.

God cares if you're unbelieving male servants and female servants. Of course, within the people of God, there were male servants and female servants who were outside the people of God. The law actually makes provisions for this and regulates what you do with your non-Hebrew, non-Israelite male servants and female servants. They're supposed to get their rest as well as you. So the answer is, who cares if the pagans don't get their rest.

The answer to that question is God cares. A couple of applications for us. Do we use that same reasoning? You can apply this both outside the faith and even inside the faith. Because now only one in a hundred Christians or something like that even believes that Sunday is the Christian Sabbath.

Most don't believe that. I'm talking about real Christians, faithful Christians, Bible-loving Christians. Most Christians don't accept that anymore. Some of us do. You don't have to join the church.

You can hold a different view. This is the doctrine of the church. Sunday is to be a day of rest, and we should cease from economic activity. Do you Apply the same reasoning as a way to engage in economic activity on this day. If you do, you should think that God wants the donkeys to have a day of rest.

God wants male servants and female servants to have a day of rest too. You should consider whether your willingness to engage is actually depriving others of a day of rest. That would be a blessing and a help to them. Secondly, are you securing the rest for others? Especially fathers and mothers.

Especially fathers. Do you still expect to be served on the Sabbath day? Are you securing the rest? The fourth commandment could not be more clear. It is the duty of fathers and mothers to secure rest for everyone in the household.

So dads, You should take this role upon yourself to make sure that your wife gets to rest on Sunday. You should secure her rest. Shame on you If you expect to be served by your wife in the ways that she often serves you to play her role in the home the rest of the week, we should not expect that. We should be working to secure their rest, a pun not intended. We should secure their rest.

Here's the summary of this verse. God has laid claim to the calendars of His people, and in a special way to our Sundays. I do believe that, by the way. I do believe the doctrinal position of our church, that Sunday is the Christian Sabbath. The Sabbath has continued.

And I know most people don't believe it. And I know there's a mixture in here. And I know real Christians can have another view of this, but I'm more convinced all the time that It is good to make sure we are securing a rest and making sure that we have a full day to worship the Lord. I think we will be only helped by that and not harmed. God has laid claim to the calendars of His people.

That means All of your calendar, of course, but especially Sundays. This is part of presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice to God. It's to acknowledge His Lordship over January, February, March, December. I skipped a bunch of months in there. You get the picture.

Every month. Every week of every month. And especially Sundays where God has told us particularly what he wants in that time. Now, the rest. Obviously I went slower on the first part, I think we're okay on time.

The rest, verses 32 through 39, let's read them again. Also, we made ordinances for ourselves to exact from ourselves yearly one-third of a shekel for the service of the house of our God. For the showbread, for the regular grain offering, for the regular burnt offering of the Sabbath, the new moons, and the set feasts. For the holy things, for the sin offerings to make atonement for Israel, and all the work of the house of our God. We cast lots among the priests, the Levites, and the people for bringing the wood offering into the house of our God, according to our Father's houses, at the appointed times year by year, to burn on the altar of the Lord our God, as it is written in the law." And we made ordinances to bring the first fruits of our ground, and the first fruits of all the fruit of all trees, year by year, to the house of the Lord.

To bring the firstborn of our sons and our cattle as it is written in the law, and the firstborn of our herds and our flocks to the house of our God, to the priests who minister in the house of our God. To bring the first fruits of our dough, our offerings, the first from all kinds of trees, the new wine and oil, to the priests, to the store rooms of the house of our God. And to bring the tithes of our land to the Levites, for the Levites should receive the tithes in all our farming communities. And the priest, the descendant of Aaron, shall be with the Levites when the Levites receive tithes. And the Levites shall bring up a tenth of the tithes to the house of our God, to the rooms of the storehouse.

Where the children of Israel and the children of Levi shall bring the offering of the grain, the new wine, and the oil to the store rooms where the articles of the sanctuary are, where the priests who minister and the gatekeepers and the singers are. And we will not neglect the house of our God. This whole section is about God-centered worship. If you're filling in blanks, it's worship. God-centered worship.

God has prescribed worship. Meaning that the object of worship, God, that's who we're worshiping, right? Has prescribed how he desires to be worshiped. So you can't just go with the flow. If you learn anything from reading the book of Leviticus, for instance, or anywhere in the law, you know that God cares how that He is worshiped.

He has prescribed it so very specifically that you must know that He cares, and you must know that He'll never be worshipped rightly if we just do what seems right to us. If you go with the flow, know this, you'll never worship God rightly. We need to go to His Word, see how the object of worship, God Himself, desires to be worshiped and then we should obey. So going with the flow simply will not do in the category of worship. Now, there's lots of detail about various things in verses 32-39.

Here's my exhortation to you. Don't get caught in the weeds. Don't get caught staring at any one of the details. Come up above the weeds and then look down and see what this is really all about. This is really all about making provision in our lives for worshipping God as He desires to be worshipped.

Making provision, ok, to worship God. In other words, he has prescribed how he wants to be worshiped and it is going to require some things to obey and to worship him in the ways that he said, worship me like this. So making provision in our lives for worshiping God as He desires to be worshiped. And the summary of this is the very last phrase of the chapter. I think it just wraps it all up.

We will not neglect the house of our God. If you make provision in your life for how God has said He wants to be worshiped, then you are not neglecting. If you don't make provision, then you are neglecting the house of God. By the way, in every verse in this section, you get some variation of the house of God, the house of God, the house of God. One verse has two, so you've got eight verses and it appears nine times.

So the thrust of this is about what happens in the house of God. This absolutely has to do with worship and specifically corporate worship. This is like Jesus. In John chapter 2, Jesus causes a scene in the temple. He turns over the tables of the money changers, right there in front of everybody.

Throwing stuff, sending change, skittering across the floor of the temple. And his disciples remember this verse, zeal for your house has eaten me up. Zeal for the house of God is eating Jesus up. So he's not going to stand there while all this buying and selling is happening in the temple courts. He just throws the table over and sends change across the floor of the temple.

Zeal for his house. So we are seeing in Nehemiah chapter 10, like what Jesus was like. His heart burned for the house of God and for God to be worshiped as he desired to be worshiped, and he was willing to cause a stir over it. So the people of God are sort of like that in Nehemiah chapter 10. They are zealous for the house of God.

There are two things in view here. As we think about how we make provision, how they made provision in their lives for worshiping God as He desired to be worshipped, there are two things in view. The first is provision for the activities of worship. There are activities that God desires in His worship. Provision for the activities of worship.

Secondly, provision for the personnel of worship. Let's talk about each of those. That really summarizes everything in these 8 verses, 32-39. Provision for the activities of worship. In verse 32, they impose on themselves a a yearly one-third of a shekel offering.

So they did it themselves. They imposed this on themselves that yearly each of them would bring a third of a shekel. And it was to provide the resources that were going to be necessary for this list of things that were supposed to happen in the temple, starting with the showbread. But It encompasses all of the ceremonial law. It's the showbread, and it's the various offerings, and it's the sin offering, and then it ends with this catch-all and all the work of the house of our God.

So there are some specific things that are listed out, and then there's a catch-all that catches anything else that might have been missed and all the work of the house of our God. And it's resources for the ceremonial law. Here's the question. What's the ceremonial law? It's the things that point to Christ.

It's the things that point to Jesus. Among the law of God, how important was the ceremonial law for the people of God? Many laws, moral laws, the Ten Commandments, nothing ceremonial about that. Civil laws say how the government should Run among the people of God in the civil realm and ceremonial laws. How important are the ceremonial laws?

Here's the answer to the question. It depends on how important you think Jesus is. The ceremonial law is the part of the law that points to Jesus. So the other law can function to crush you and make you aware of your sin. But there was only one part of the law that talked about a way out.

Once you were a law breaker, and everybody is a law breaker, it was the ceremonial law that made clear that the shedding of blood could cause an innocent to be a substitute for the guilty. The showbread is about Jesus. All the sacrifices are about Jesus. All the ceremonial law points to Jesus. It's a beautiful study to look at the elements of the ceremonial law and see how they foreshadow our Lord Jesus Christ.

So how important is it? Well, it depends. Do you want law with no Jesus? That's what you get if you strip the ceremonial law out of the old covenant, out of the Mosaic covenant. You get all the rules without any atonement, without any Jesus.

So the people here are saying, we want the ceremonial law preserved, and we're going to provide for it. Here's what's happening. All the mercy in the law is being preserved. The atonement, the shedding of blood for forgiveness, pointing forward to Christ, is being preserved as the people allocate a third of a shekel per person yearly to provide for these activities of worship. There is precedent for this if you go to Exodus 30 along with the census, God commanded that every male 20 years and above would bring a half shekel.

So that was tied to the census in Exodus chapter 30. It's verses 11 through 16 if you want to go back and look at it later. Then in 2 Chronicles chapter 24 verses 6 through 9, King Joash instructs Jehoiada, the chief priest, to collect for The activities of the temple just what we're seeing here So that was second Chronicles chapter 24 verses 6 through 9 and then Looking forward all the way to Jesus' day in Matthew 17, verses 24, there is still the temple tax being collected. And it's a two drachma tax, which is the equivalent of a half shekel. So even in Jesus' day there is still a half shekel tax.

And that's about two days' wages. So not a crushing amount. In our text in Nehemiah, it's a third of a shekel. In Jesus' day it was a half shekel in value, which was about two days' worth of work. So in Nehemiah chapter 10, it's less than two days of work annually would go there.

That brings up a point that we should take from this text. When Everyone gives, no one is overburdened. Everyone brings less than two days wages, a third of a shekel, and then no one is overburdened. And I'll say, we're seeing that here. We're seeing at Sovereign Redeemer Community Church very broad-based giving.

And it gets broader every week as more of our younger people are earning money in different ways. Both young men and young women earning money and giving very broadly. I think we have extremely broad-based giving. And it means that the burden doesn't fall to any one family or another. And it just keeps getting broader and broader and I love it.

It's beautiful and it's going to allow us to do things that we wouldn't have been able to do otherwise. We see the same principle with wood in verse 34. When you look through the law you see so very little about wood but here's what you do see. Listen to Leviticus chapter 6 verse 13. Leviticus chapter 6 verse 13 says A fire shall always be burning on the altar.

It shall never go out. How much wood does that take? A lot of wood. So here you have the same principle as with the third of the shekel, everyone giving so no one is overburdened. They make it so that lots are cast so that priests and Levites and families in their turn bring their wood at an appointed time of the year so that the fire never goes out in the altar.

They systematize provision even for the wood, meaning that the activities of the temple are requiring something. All day, every day, every night. The fire is never supposed to go out. And so they create a system to provide what the activities of the worship of God require. Josephus, the Jewish historian who chronicled the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, in his writings, speaks of the festival of wood offering.

He said it was on the fourteenth day of the fifth month. The Jewish people would have a festival to bring wood. That's how they were handling them. If you go to the Mishnah, where the rabbis say how the law applies to this, that, or the other, there's a tremendous paragraph about exactly what kind of wood you should be using. It's way over prescribed.

Like the Mishnah typically is. But anyway, the Jews recognized that if the fire was never going to go out on the altar, somebody had to bring wood. So they created a system to provide for this. So that's the first thing, a provision for the activities of worship. Now the second, provision for the personnel of worship.

Meaning that The activities require workers. God had said, I want priests and Levites and Nephilim and temple servants doing this. And here we get the provision for the priests and the Levites. There are two things mentioned that provide for the personnel, the people who are going to do the work. The first is this, firstfruits and firstborn.

The second is this, tithes. What we see in this text is a really good reflection of Old Testament law. Here's what we see in verse 35 through the first part of 37. You see first fruits and first born. A repetition of those two things.

Firstfruits and firstborn. And you see it tied to the priests. That's because in the law of God, in the Mosaic Law, the firstfruits and the firstborn was to provide for the priests. So it was an offering, it was to the Lord, but it provided for the priests. You find this in Numbers chapter 18.

You find it in a number of places, but in each instance I'm going to tie it to Numbers 18 because it's consolidated in Numbers 18 verses 12 and 13. That's what you'll find. First fruits and firstborn going to priests and their families as provision for the priests and their families. Then in verse 37, the second half of it, in this covenant they begin to speak of tithes and it's tied to the Levites. That's because in the Mosaic Law, the tithe is actually known as a Levitical tithe in the Mosaic Law, and it is to be provision for the people.

You see this in Numbers 18 verse 21. And then in verse 38, it says that the Levites also tithe. And in Numbers chapter 18 verse 26 that is also said that Part of the provision for the priests is the Levites get a tithe from the other 11 tribes and then they tithe as a provision to the priests as well. I want you to see something very important about the firstfruits and the firstborn and the tithe from Deuteronomy chapter 26. Let's go to Deuteronomy chapter 26.

A lot could be said that will not be said because of time today about Malachi. Malachi was ministering around this time. There's some debate about when Malachi was actually prophesying, but it's within a 20 year period of Nehemiah chapter 10. And it might be right at this time, depends on who you listen to about this. In Malachi chapter 3, Malachi asks, will a man rob God?

And then he says, you're robbing God by not bringing your tithes and offerings. And then God, through the prophet, says, test me in this. See if I won't open up heaven and pour out on you more than you can even receive. Deuteronomy chapter 26, I want to read the first 11 verses. And it shall be when you come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, and you possess it and dwell in it, that you shall take some of the first of all the produce of the ground which you shall bring from your land that the Lord your God is giving you.

And put it in a basket and go to the place where the Lord your God chooses to make His name abide. And you shall go to the one who is priest in those days and say to him, I declare today to the Lord your God that I have come to the country which the Lord swore to our fathers to give us. Then the priest shall take the basket out of your hand and set it down before the altar of the Lord your God. And you shall answer and say before the Lord your God, My father was Assyrian, about to perish and he went down to Egypt and dwelt there, few in number, and there he became a nation, great, mighty, and populous. But the Egyptians mistreated us, afflicted us, and laid hard bondage on us.

Then we cried out to the Lord God of our fathers, and the Lord heard our voice and looked on our affliction and our labor and our oppression. So the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm, with great terror and with signs and wonders. He has brought us to this place and has given us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. And now behold, I have brought the first fruits of the land which you, O Lord, have given me. Then you shall set it before the Lord your God and worship before the Lord your God.

So you shall rejoice in every good thing which the Lord your God has given you and your house, you and the Levite and the stranger who is among you." Isn't this beautiful? When you bring the first fruits of the land, you're supposed to come. It is an opportunity to worship. It's an opportunity to look back and say, God, our forefather was a Syrian, and then he became a slave in Egypt, but you brought all of us out of that bondage, and you gave us a land that's flowing with all these good things, and here's a portion back to you." And the text actually says in verse 10, then you shall set it before the Lord your God, and worship before the Lord your God. The bringing of the firstfruits was to be a time of worship.

God had given you a land that was flowing with milk and honey that you could grow things like this. And then you plop a basket full of the good things that you were able to grow in the land that God had given you. Numbers 18 says that the firstfruits is a provision for the priests. You are providing for the personnel that God has prescribed in the way that He wants to be worshipped. But Deuteronomy 26 says, it is an opportunity to worship.

This is not just bringing some resources and plopping it down out of duty. It is an opportunity to worship. Here's the point of Deuteronomy 26. The provision itself is part of the worship. It's not just provision for the worship, it is part of the worship.

That you bring the first fruits, or the first born. Of course if it's a first born child, you redeem it with something else. And the law prescribes what else could be. Here's the law of the first fruits. You bring the first, in other words, the first that's ripe, the first that's ready, you bring of it, and you bring the best.

Listen to Numbers 18. Numbers 18 is the chapter. You want to go back and look more into first-fruits, first-born tithes, and how it relates to provision for priests and Levites. Go to Numbers 18. Listen to Numbers 18 verse 12.

All of the best of the oil, all of the best of the new wine and the grain, Their first fruits which they offer to the Lord I have given them to you." That's to the priests. It's the first and it's the best. That is what is to be brought for the provision for worship. Here's a summary of this section. God has laid claim to the worship of His people.

He has laid claim to it. He says, I am worthy of it. I claim your worship. I won't share your worship with anything or one else. It's mine.

And this must begin in the heart, but it also includes activities And it includes people that have to be provided for. It always has. Worship is a matter of the heart. That's true. But these matters of the heart, when God describes how He desires to be worshipped, it includes certain activities and certain people that must be provided for.

Two applications. Wow, I thought this was going to be a short sermon. I'm sorry. Two applications. Become a better student of historic and personal pitfalls.

Become a better student of historic and personal pitfalls. Become a better student of historic and personal pitfalls. In other words, do like the people who are making this covenant do. They look back across the 1700 years and they say there are certain things that have been persistent problems for our forefathers. We're not smarter than our forefathers.

And so we're liable to the same pitfalls. Study them. I think the devil has found that he doesn't need to be creative, that the same old tricks work. We are prone to the same old traps. So we should be good students of the historic pitfalls and personal ones.

There are personal areas, categories, things that are snares to you. Maybe not to me, but maybe particularly to you. Or maybe particularly to me, and maybe not to you. Things that are personal. And you know, if I go there, If I listen to that, if I watch that, if I'm around that kind of person, here's where it ends up more often than not.

We should become a student of these things so that we're growing in holiness. Because our growth in holiness has certain snares. In every category of life, 80% of the problems come from just a couple of things. Just pick a category of your life. 80% of the problems are going to come from one or two or three things.

Figure out what the one or two or three things are and then give attention to that. That's what we see in Nehemiah chapter 10. They've said we're going to walk in the law of God and then they have walked in on these areas that they know have been a problem and are going to be a problem and need special attention. When we are coming out of captivity and we are building a God-centered life, like we see the people in Ezra and Nehemiah, we have to wage war on very specific particular points of weakness, faithlessness, sin. Number two, we should accept the challenge to corporately order our lives around God.

The gauntlet is thrown down in Nehemiah chapter 10. They say in chapter 9 verse 38, we make a sure covenant and They write it. It's firm commitment. They've thrown the gauntlet down. Will we firmly commit to order our lives around God?

Will we commit our marriages to God? Will we commit our calendars to God? Will we commit to not neglect the temple, the house of God? It has a different expression, but every bit is an important category in the New Testament, as it was in the Old Testament. Wow, there's a lot more to say on that, but I'm over as it is.

I'm going to give the last word to James Hamilton James Hamilton is still alive Which is not like most of the commentators I read most of the commentators I read are dead James Hamilton is alive and well, and he's a Southern Baptist who has written a very helpful commentary. I'm reading four full length commentaries and then I have my study Bibles, so that's what I'm reading every week. And James Hamilton is one of them, and I'm finding something that's really helpful and that I wouldn't have found in the others when I read this commentary. Here's what he says, I think it just encapsulates all of it and puts a bow on it. What you live for is what gives meaning to everything else in your life.

These old covenant Israelites are saying, we live for the Lord. That dictates who they marry. That dictates what their calendar looks like. That dictates that they care for the most sacred place in their society. We live for the Lord.

God, I thank you that you have laid claim to our marriages and future marriages. I thank you that you have laid claim to our calendars. And I thank you that you have laid claim to our calendars, and I thank you that you have laid claim to our worship, and that you are a jealous God, and that you will not share your glory with another. You will not share the worship of your people with another. Now God, help us to work this out in our lives and to grow in holiness.

May we be a people who have understood how much mercy you have poured out on us and who are presenting Our bodies back to you as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable, knowing that this is just our reasonable service. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.