In the sermon titled 'A People Prepared by God To Rightly Worship Him,' Jim Tsantles explores Nehemiah 9, where the Israelites assemble with fasting, sackcloth, and confession of sins to worship God. This act is a response to understanding their history and the causes leading to their current state. Tsantles emphasizes the importance of humility and repentance as prerequisites for genuine worship, drawing parallels to 2 Chronicles 7:14. He critiques superficial fasting, as seen in Isaiah 58 and highlights the necessity of a heart fully devoted to God. The sermon underscores the concept of cause and effect in spiritual life, where understanding the 'cause'—God's holiness and righteousness—leads to the 'effect' of genuine worship and transformation. Through the example of Nehemiah and the Israelites, Tsantles encourages believers to examine their lives, empty themselves of pride and sin, and fill their hearts with the worship of God. The sermon concludes with an appeal for personal reflection, repentance, and a deeper commitment to living a life that glorifies God.

The sermon will be from 5b through 8, but I'm going to jump back to verse 1 just for some context. Nehemiah chapter 9 verse 1, hear the word of the Lord. Now on the 24th day of this month, the children of Israel, they were assembled with fasting and sack cloth and with dust on their heads. And then those of Israelite lineage separated themselves from all foreigners, and they stood and they confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers. And they stood up in their place and they read from the book of the law of the Lord their God for one-fourth of the day, and for another-fourth they confessed and they worshiped the Lord their God.

And then Jeshua, Bani, Kadmiel, Shebeniah, Bunai, Sharabiah, Bani, and Shanaani stood on the stairs of the Levites, and they cried out with a loud voice to the Lord their God. And the Levites, Jeshua, Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabaniah, Sherebiah, Hodijah, Shebiniah, and Pethiahiah said, stand up and bless the Lord your God forever and ever. Blessed be your glorious name which is exalted above all, blessing and praise. You alone are the Lord. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their hosts, the earth and everything on it, the seas and all that is in them.

And you preserve them all, the host of heaven worships you. You are the Lord God who chose Abram and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans and gave him the name Abraham. You found his heart faithful before you and made a covenant with him to give the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, and the Girgashites to give it to his descendants. You have performed your words for you are righteous." Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I pray that you will penetrate our hard hearts Lord some of us have hard hearts some of us Some of us have have stony hearts that need to be removed and a heart of flesh be put in.

And Father, I cry out to you that you will give, Jim, the power of your Holy Spirit to rightly divide this word, to lay us bare, and that we, as we read here, would be cut to the quick, would mourn, and then we would exalt Your name, that our repentance would overflow into heartfelt, passionate worship. So Lord, I pray that you will come now and help our brother to bring your word to us in Christ's name. There's a pond in my backyard, and there are times in the past that I've watched the kids out playing by the side of the pond. And for giggles I'll find a big rock. And they have no idea, but me standing back behind them takes this big rock and fires it over their head.

And they have no idea all they hear is, whoo, and they look out and they see this ripple. And kids, as curious as they are, and me as curious as I am, I want to know what in the world was that? Dad, that must have been a seven pounder." And they turn around as I'm giggling, and yeah, it was probably eight or nine pounds of rock I just threw over your head into the pond. In wrestling with this text of Scripture over this past week and a half or two weeks, we know that our sermon text is the memory scripture that we've been going through, Nehemiah chapter 9, right? Verses 5b through 8.

But in wrestling with this and seeing what's there, there's so much more that led up to what we're going to see in this text. It's what you spoke, brother, as you prayed. It's what Taylor spoke in the opening. As he led us in Psalm 46, it was what Barry was praying outside. There was a cause.

We live in a cause and effect world. There is a cause. And what we're going to experience in Nehemiah 9, verses 5b-8, is an effect. But we have to understand the cause. So in order to understand what's happening in our text today, We've got to go back a little bit to understand what the cause is, of what is causing them to do what they're doing.

Tim, I think, read last week, and as Tim read, he took, in fact, let me open it, Nehemiah 9. This is how it went last week. It was this awkward break. You read it last week, right? So Tim took this, when you go to Nehemiah chapter 9, and he gets to the first part of 9.5 and he says, And the Levites, Jeshua, Kadmeo, Baniah, Hashbaniah, Sherebiah, Hodijah, Shabaniah, and Pethahiah said, and that's where we stopped it.

Do you remember that? It was that awkward break. And that's how Jason started us off. That's kind of an awkward break. So that's what They said.

But today our text is about what they said. But if we don't understand the theme of what's happening, if we don't understand the cause, and we're simply looking at the ripple today from this text, we're going to miss something that I think is grand. I think it's grand. And I pray the Lord reveals it to us. And I think this is the foundation.

It's woven here in our text. And it's woven throughout Scripture. Here's the cause in my estimation. See if you agree with me as we walk through this. 2 Chronicles 7-14.

If my people who are called by my name would humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and heal their land." Do you see the progression? Did you hear the progression? It is this. That you humble yourself. That you pray.

That you seek His face. That you turn from your wicked ways. And what are the promises that He gives? What's the end of the verse? If that's true, if 1-4 are true, I will hear from heaven, and I will heal your land." This is a promise of God given to those who with broken and contrite spirit approach Him.

So what does this mean? What does this mean for us to examine ourselves? What does that entail? What does it mean to seek His face? I think that's what's before us here in our text.

So I want to start with the beginning of what we saw in the model of Nehemiah's life. Turn with me first to Nehemiah chapter 1. Because I want to build this theme. If we miss this theme, we miss too much. Turn to Nehemiah chapter 1, starting in verse 4.

Are you there? Nehemiah chapter 1. I want you to see this. I'll wait for you to get there. Let your eyes see that.

If you don't have a Bible with you, look beside you. Nehemiah 1, verse 4. So it was When I heard these words that I sat down and wept and mourned for many days, I was fasting and praying before God of heaven and I said, hold it there, you see the parallel in our text? I want you to see what's happening. Nehemiah is fasting, weeping, praying.

How long? What does it say right there? Come on. What does He say? How long has He been doing this?

For many days He's doing this. He's coming to the end of Himself. And in verse 5 He says, then I said, but the I said comes after many days of this fasting and praying and preparing his heart. And now look at the fruit that's being produced. What is Nehemiah doing?

If we miss this, we miss it all. Nehemiah is willing to forego his physical wants, his physical needs, to lay himself bare, to leave the physical and become dependent on the spiritual. Do you see that? He's willing to lay down the physical to become dependent on the spiritual. He is going places spiritually that I'm afraid we rarely go.

Nehemiah is taking himself through a period of bringing himself low. I don't think we see this as we should. Nehemiah seeking, pleading for the holy eyes of heaven to illuminate His soul, to look upon the glorious Gospel, the laws of God, the attributes of His holiness, His might, His power, His creation, to reflect upon that for many days and then have that shine, the light, upon His own heart and His own soul for many days. Why? To reflect on the holiness of God and God's laws so it would produce its intended effect that now Nehemiah could look upon himself and what does he see?

He sees all the sin. Because He's so busy looking in the perfect mirror of the righteousness of God that it leaves Him undone. And there's no way He's going to go before a holy God until He's completely undone of Him. Do you follow this? If my people who are called by my name would humble themselves, and they would pray and they would seek My face.

So now I want you to see the result. Back to the text. Nehemiah 1 still. Look at the result. I want you to count.

In the next seven verses, starting in verse 5, The attributes that Nehemiah now says toward God is you, capital Y, your capital Y, yourself. You, your, yourself. Alright, stop. I'll tell you. Save you the time.

You want to know how many times? In seven verses? Your commandments, your righteousness, your power, your might. Seven verses. Twenty-five times the acknowledgement of God and who he is.

Do you see what happened to Nehemiah? He's pouring forth. The cause, the great rock that hit his pond of faith in the moment is the might and power of God, the law of God that has now caused this ripple effect of Nehemiah pouring out. 25. You, your, your, your righteousness, your might in only seven verses.

You see, Nehemiah's fast is taking him exactly where God intends the fast to go. Look at the contrast of this. Turn with me to Zechariah 7. I want you to see the contrast. We have to lay this foundation well.

Zechariah 7. It would probably help if I join you there too. Look at what goes on in Zechariah chapter 7. Let your eyes look at these verses. I want you to see what's happening.

Zechariah chapter 7, verse 4. Then the word of the Lord of hosts came to me saying, say to all the people of the land and to the priests, when you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months during those seventy years, did you really fast for me? And he repeats it. For me? Did you really fast for me?

He goes on. When you eat and drink, when you eat and when you drink, do you not eat and drink for yourselves? Let me ask you, who's the focus of the fast? Who's the focus of the fast? Turn now to the left.

To Isaiah. I brought this in the extended teaching. Look at Isaiah 58. Turn to Isaiah 58. Your eyes have to see this.

You've got to have the foundation laid rightly or we'll never understand Nehemiah 9 v. 5b. Through 8. He says this. This is Isaiah 58 v.

3-8. They start off in themselves. Listen to what they say. They start off with themselves. Why have we fasted?

They say. And you have not seen. Why have we afflicted our souls and you take no notice? In fact, in the day of your fast, guess who the focus is? You find your pleasure and exploit all your laborers.

You're not only full of yourself, you sin against everyone else. Indeed, you fast for strife and debate and to strike with the fist of wickedness. You will not fast as you do this day to make your voice heard on high. To make your voice heard on high. Is this the fast that I have chosen?

A day for a man to afflict his soul And to bow down his head like a bull rush, a bull rush is like a cat tail. The image there is like a wind blowing over. They've got these heads that are bowed down and they're in a state of, oh, woe is me and woe is me and I'm bowed low. And to spread out sackcloth and ashes? Verse 8.

Would you call this a fast and an acceptable day to the Lord? Listen to God's corrective. You've got to understand this. Is this not the fast that I've chosen? Here's God's fast.

To lose the bonds of wickedness. To undo your heavy burdens. To let the oppressed go free. And that you break every yoke. Don't you see the Gospel?

Don't you see what's happening in our text? Don't you see what's happening to Nehemiah? Listen, brothers and sisters, or those of you who are not, Sin is blinding. Sin is as shackles to shackle you. Sin is the heavy burden upon which you think you can show up before a holy God and He would say, depart from Me.

You worker of iniquity, You're covered, you're laden with this burden of iniquity. Nehemiah has taken to right fasting and preparation, and he's been set free. So often we're distracted, come into church, and we've got a million things going on, our crazy schedules. We're so self-centered, the truth is we're a narcissistic people. That's a fact.

That's true of all of us. I'm the first in line. Every week we come in here to a God. We're going to worship a God who's holy. And it's a battle not to get distracted by the next person walking in or whatever else is happening in your life.

Yet this God is a holy God. We're coming to worship. There's something wrong with us. Not with Him. Shouldn't we stop and consider our sin more often than we do?

Shouldn't we look at the light of His holiness? Look deep within it? Do business with our sin before we come before a holy God? I want you to Join me in this. Kelly Kapick wrote the introduction to Jonathan Owen's Sin and Over.

If you've not read this, I haven't read the whole thing. I've read enough that it tears me to pieces. Listen to this. This is the introduction. Kelly Kapick says this, Sin moves by drawing the mind away from God, enticing the affections and twisting desires, and paralyzing the will, thus stunting any real Christian growth.

One of the most frightening truths that Owen wants the believer to recognize is this. Listen. Are you here? Listen to this. Your enemy is not only upon you, but it is also in you.

Part of understanding the battle against sin is seeing that the enemy, so to speak, not only is external, but what? Internal. Which is why Christians often have conflicting desires within them. Most Christians seem unaware or apathetic about the sin that remains in them. But whether they recognize it or not, there's a living coal continually in their houses.

A living coal continually in their houses. Which, if not properly attended to, will catch their entire house on fire." He goes on, The goal of the Christian life is not external conformity or mindless action, but a passionate love for God, informed by the mind and embraced by the will. So the path forward is not to decrease one's affections, get this, it's not to decrease your affections, but rather to enlarge them and fill them with heavenly things. Here one is not trying to escape the painful realities of this life, but rather endeavoring to reframe one's perspective of life around a much larger canvas that encompasses all of reality. To respond to the distorting nature of sin, you must set your affections on the beauty and glory of God.

The loveliness of Christ and the wonder of the Gospel. Were our affections filled, taken up, and possessed with these things, what access could sin with its painted pleasures and with its sugared poisons, with its envenomed bates, have unto our souls? Resisting sin, according to this Puritan Divine, comes not by deadening your affections, but by awakening them to God Himself. Do not seek to empty your cup as a way to avoid sin, but rather seek to fill it up with the Spirit of life so that there's no longer any room for sin. Do you see what's happening?

So, did you see the end? It's empty your cup. What does Nehemiah do in chapter 1? He empties himself. You see, there is no room left in your heart for sin and self-worship when it's been poured out and full of His worship.

If my people who are called by My name would humble themselves and pray, I will hear and I will heal. How often do we come in and worship our Lord yet bound and shackled by sin? Hey, the private stuff that nobody knows about. You're bound and you're shackled. You're only lying to yourself.

Jesus came to set captives free. The fast that brings somebody before God ready to worship Him is one that's been set free after looking at His holiness. They've poured themselves out and they're rightly prepared to now worship their God. That's the title of our text that we're getting to. It's a people prepared by God to rightly worship Him.

Again, it's a people prepared by God to rightly worship Him. Oh, let us empty ourselves. Let us empty ourselves now. Let's pray before we enter into this text that God would help us be emptied of you and of me. Let's pray.

Oh God, You are the great cause of all that is good, of all that is glorious. And we are the cause of all that is unlovely and all that is sinful and all that is impure. Oh God, help us to look now in this text. Oh God, help us to see what You have here. How You brought Nehemiah to this point in chapter 1 and how You're bringing Your people to this point now.

That leaves him to say these things God thank you for your holy words and your righteousness in Jesus name. Amen. So the people here's where we are If you're visiting us or if you're hanging out at Hope, we're in the book of Nehemiah. We're in chapter 9 where we see the history of what's happening in Nehemiah. God sparked a national revival.

It is God ordained. He's done this. We know that's proof by what the text tells us in that He moves even a pagan king to issue a decree for all the captives to be set free and come back now and begin to worship God aright. So now we're under the headship of Nehemiah as they've completed the building of the wall. And in this text, leading right up to 5, we have the people being led by Nehemiah, Ezra, and the Levites.

And the sequence of events as was read by Michael is they're pouring their hearts out. They're being broken by the law of God. They're seeing His righteousness and His holiness, just as Nehemiah did in chapter 1. And now I want you to see what happens. They come before the law of God.

They see in Leviticus 23 and elsewhere that we're a people, they're reading the law of God, and they're seeing the law of God. Wait a minute. We're supposed to celebrate these feasts. God has prescribed these things. In fact, what did they just come out of after seven days of being inside of?

It starts with a B, ends with an H. They were hanging out in booths. Why? Because they went back and they saw in Leviticus 23, God appointed as a remembrance unto Him that we should stay in booths. So they were building booths outside of their house and out by the place of worship.

They're building booths and living in them. God, it's interesting when I look at Leviticus 23, You have all these laid out. I would recommend you review these. These feasts. God prescribes a pattern.

When you go to a doctor, what does he do typically if you have a problem that can be fixed with his solution? He writes you a thank you. He writes you a prescription. God calls this in the Scripture a prescribed pattern. He prescribes this.

Why? Because He's a great physician. And He knows what's best for you. And His promise, if my people would humble themselves and pray and seek My face, that's what the feast would do. They would focus on the holiness of God, leave them empty of themselves, hopefully, prayerfully, and leave them full of the worship of God.

And He knows exactly what to prescribe. So, He knows for us, the big dose of healing balm is to be rid of you. To be rid of you and full of Him. The healing balm of God's medicine is wonderful. So, I'll give you an example in Exodus 12.

I'll just show you one other fruit of this because God knows best. Listen to this. This is in the first month. This is actually Passover. He says this.

He says, it will come to pass when you come to the land which the Lord will give you, just as He promised, that you shall keep this service. And it shall be when your children say to you, Dad, what do you mean by this service? Mom, what do you mean by this service? That you shall say it is the Passover sacrifice of the Lord who passed over the houses of the children of Israel's son. God passed this over, son.

This is why we're doing this, daughter. It's a remembrance of the holiness of God. God knew we needed that prescription. He knew we needed our calendars full of these feasts and festivals that kept His presence constantly and a reminder of His grace and His goodness in our lives. So He sets up this calendar.

Now here in our text, they're in the seventh month. They have celebrated the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, and now the Feast of Tabernacle. Let me ask you this question. How many days were those days? Do you know how many days?

That feast, those series of feasts, were all in the seventh month. Come on now. You've been with us the last, most of you have been with us the last, how many days were incorporated in that feast? They were to be ended on what day? Let me help you.

They were to be ended on the 22nd day. Did you know that? They were to be done on the 22nd day. Wait a minute. Wait just a minute.

Hold on. Go back to your text. Look at Nehemiah 9. What does verse 1 say? Look at Nehemiah 9.

Look at it. What does verse 1 say? What day is it? It's the 24th. What are they doing?

Three weeks of their life. A week now in a booth. Dad, can we go home? Come on. Enough of the God stuff.

Dad, we've got to go home. It smells in here. They're living in booths. But it's the 24th day. What in the world are they doing?

So, I can't prove this from the text, but here's what I believe is happening. I believe that the study, the steady diet and study of the holiness of God and His laws left them so empty of themselves, so ready, so completely full, now having wept and mourned and fasted again, on the 24th day, they're all still there. We can't get enough. Give us more of this Holy God. Give us more of this cleansing.

Give us more of the shackles being broken free. Let's continue to worship this God. And perhaps in recognition, the leaders see this happening in the people, and they coordinate another fast. Let's afflict our souls more. Let's dive deeper into this holy Word of God.

Let's be done with more of ourselves. It's the 24th day. Who cares? We live in a watch-tapping society now in our churches. Boy, that preaching.

That guy just really... The day we live in is nothing compared to this. We miss out on this joy of the holy focus of God. And I think that's exactly what happened to these people. So full of worship, they can't get enough.

Just like in Nehemiah chapter 1. And just like in Nehemiah 1, what does it produce? Like rivers of water coming out of them. What are they doing? Like rivers of water, it's worship and praise to a holy God.

You want more proof? I'm not going to ask you to count them. You want to guess here how many did I say was in Nehemiah chapter 1? How many you's, your, yourself? How many?

Come on now. Come on kids, you're with me. How many? 25. Thank you.

I've got a few of you with me. 25. You, your. How many do you think are pretty? Don't start counting.

I see you all starting to count. Let me save you because there's a ton of them. My count was 82. 82 now. We are in a section of Scripture that now the people, as Taylor said when he came up earlier, he said now they're going to pour forth.

This is a section of Scripture. We're only covering the introduction here. And it's a section whereby they give a declaration of all these amazing attributes of God. His power, His faithfulness, His might. And it produces, now being emptied of themselves, it's not me, my, my situation, it's you, your.

32 times in only 33 verses, of which we get the first five. Let's examine these five. Verse 5b. The leaders, the Levites are standing around the stairs, and I don't know how they coordinated this. Ezra and the leaders must have either pre-written some of these things, maybe in recognition of what was happening.

They write out this holy decree. By the way, this holy decree that they're now articulating and praising will end up being 70 or 80 of the leaders of the Levites will seal it. They'll stamp it with their seal, and they'll declare an oath of covenant to God at the end of this section, verse 38. You'll see as they get through. And then the next section of Scripture is all the names of those of the leaders who stamped and sealed their commitment that we are going to walk in the law of God and I'm going to seal it and stamp it with my name.

God is a covenant-keeping God. We should be a covenant-oriented people as we are. So, verse 5b. He says, the Levites say, perhaps Ezra first, stand up and bless the Lord your God forever and ever. Blessed be your glorious name which is exalted above all, blessing and praise.

Here's the Levites commending them to get on their feet in prayer to God. Perhaps after being prostrate for so long and emptied of themselves, they're ready to stand up and just honor God. Their hearts now are turned to a genuine outburst of prayer and praise to God. They are free to do this. They have gone through the self-affliction and the necessary things to free themselves of their sin, and they can proclaim this way.

Do you understand now? I don't want to move forward until you tell me I get what's happening. I don't know how to make all of you get it. Only the Lord can do that. But you see the sequence of events?

They're humbled. They're broken. And now they can rightly praise God. That's where we are in 5b. So they jump to their feet.

Genuine praise and outburst. It's the freedom that is produced when your sin is cleansed. Do you know that feeling? You're free of guilt. No charges against you.

It's been laid on Jesus Christ and you're free. You can stand up and just praise the Lord uninhibited. Because you've been set free. This is in stark contrast to what the hypocrite was doing in Matthew chapter 6. What was the hypocrite doing?

O thou most Holy God, let me stand and give you honor and praise. It's the hypocrite who would stand out in the street corner and give audible, just like what's happening here. They're doing this audibly out loud. So the hypocrite, what's his focus? What's the hypocrite's focus?

Let me show them how eloquent I can be." And he gets audible in front of everybody for one purpose, to fill his selfish heart with his self-desires. So we know based on Jesus' words, what did He say would happen to that man? What will He get out of that? What did Jesus say He'll get out of that? Zero!

He has nothing! It's complete emptiness. He's got His fill right there. Whatever round of clapping He made from those who like pious activity, it's mindless. Maybe there's a few that stand around and clap as he's done with his audible prayer.

Let me tell you this right now. It's emptiness. It's emptiness. It's emptiness. And you need to stop.

You. Here's what I mean. Here's what I mean by you. You don't even recognize how much is in you that seeks the praise and worship and affection of men. You don't even recognize it.

I didn't. I think I spent the first ten years of my Christian life seeking more. Seeking to be known by the men and feel important and feel something inside of me. That's just the truth. I'm being honest with you.

And I'm telling you, you know what it produced? It produced hurt in my family. And it produced nothing. It's emptiness. If there is something in you that's seeking glory from men in your pious whatever, your religious zeal, you're leading in the nursing homes, or you're doing this or you're doing that.

If you are seeking the approval of men, you better stop it now. God will destroy that idol. And that idol is yourself. I know because I've lived it. Be free.

They think they receive the reward, those filled with selfishness, but here, God promises the genuine reward from heaven for those who genuinely pour their heart out. I will heal your land. Yes, and I think that's what's happening in our text. God is giving them a full reward. He's filling them with rivers of living water that now comes forth in our text as we're hearing it breathed out.

They say again audibly, bless the Lord your God forever and ever. Do you know ever and ever is how long? So bless the Lord. They're saying it as of what time? When they say it, bless the Lord.

Now! Stand up! Bless the Lord! I'm not telling you to. I'm talking about our text.

Stand up and bless the Lord! Forever and ever, starting now! It's an eternity that God gives us to bless Him. So your homework for tonight, we don't have time to read it now, is to read through Psalm 103 and Psalm 105. Let me just give you a taste of this.

Let's hear Psalm 105. Listen to this. You get a taste of what this is to bless the Lord your God. Taylor's Psalm was Psalm 146. 146 was beautiful.

So listen to the first four verses of Psalm 105. Oh, give thanks to the Lord. Call upon His name. Make known His deeds among the peoples. Sing to Him.

Sing psalms to Him. Talk of all of His wondrous works. Glory in His holy name. Let the hearts of those rejoice who seek the Lord. Seek the Lord in His strength.

Seek His face forevermore. You see, when we seek the Lord and His face forevermore, and we're emptied of ourselves, we can't help but do what Psalm 105 does. We can't help but do what Nehemiah was doing in Nehemiah 1. We can't help but to join in the chorus of all those who are singing praises to God as they say, stand up and bless His name forever and ever. Did you sense that?

As we were going through that Gospel doxology? The deliverance of God. I had to include this. Your perfect law exposes me. I feel my sin and my desperate need?

My best good works are powerless to satisfy your righteousness? Oh, but there is one. There is one who lived for me. His life, my only Victory. How can you not?

There's a deadness of your soul. There's something really wrong with you if you can't join in the heavenly chorus and our chorus as these words are going and flowing through your heart and your soul. Then perhaps you've never done the business of doing the work of repenting before a holy God. Something's wrong. So, they're saying audibly.

Again, my homework for you is Psalm 103 and 105. If you commit to read it, we'll move on to the next point of the exegesis. Yeah? Psalm 103 and 105. They say, blessed be your glorious name, which is exalted.

It's exalted above all praise and blessing. So that Hebrew word, Jorge keeps trying to convince me, as well as my Spanish brethren in the churches, that the heavenly language is español. Right? They try to convince me, Jim, you've got to learn Spanish. That's the heavenly language.

Well, I'm leaning a little closer in that direction now, because that word exalt has a little Spanish trill to it. I'm going to give it to you. Ready? It's reum. You like that?

It's reum. It's got a trill to it. So I actually think the Spaniards took it from the Hebrews. They took it from the original text. But it is a word that describes to be put high above all things.

It's the chief thing. Nothing else above that. Reum is a high exaltation. It's to put him at the place where there's no competition. Zero competition is this word, exalted above all blessing and praise.

We are a people who are to be making His name great. We're to have His name on our lips. We're to have His glory filling our heart and our soul. This is what a godly people are to be doing. In verse 6, they say this, You alone are the Lord.

You alone are the Lord. You have made heaven. The heaven of heavens with all of their hosts, the earth and everything on it, the seas and all that is in them. And you preserve them all. The host of heaven worships you." So we'll run through these.

I think there's five elements that are broken out here. And they start with, you alone are the Lord. This word, the Lord that's here, is the word we all know, which is Jehovah. It is meaning the pre-existent One. He has always been.

He always is and always will be. He is the pre-existing One. And also, this points to the Trinity. Yes, this points to the Trinity. Why?

Because it says, you alone. You alone are the Lord. We understand that God's triune. Here it says in our text that God made what? He made the heaven of heavens.

He made the earth. And He made the seas. But what does the Gospel of John tell us? What does the Gospel of John say? Chapter 1.

What does it say? In the beginning was the... Come on, you can join me. In the beginning was the... Alright, don't be shy about this.

And the word was with... And the word was... He was in the beginning with... All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. We understand this to be Jesus Christ.

Pre-eternal with God the Father. So wait a minute, our text in Nehemiah says, you alone are the Lord. But John 1 says, Jesus is the Lord. How could that be true? Because He's Jehovah God.

And he's expressed himself as a trinity. The Jehovah's can't understand this! All they can do is argue with reason. Wait a minute, you're the dad, he's the son, you guys aren't the same. That's their logic, right?

As we stood before them a couple years ago. Their logic is humanistic. God has described Himself eternally as triune. That you alone are God. And that's how they begin this praise.

You alone are God. And we know based on the Gospel of John that it incorporates the Trinity because Jesus Christ made all things. So where is Jesus in our text? He's right here. You alone are God.

Jesus Christ is there. Part of the Trinity. I love what Psalm 86 says. Among the gods there are none like you, O Lord, nor are there any works like your works. All nations whom you've made shall come and worship before you.

O Lord, and shall glorify your name, for you are great and do wondrous things. You alone are God! You alone are God. In Psalm 104, we get to the next section that incorporates this. The next section they say, you have made the heaven of heavens.

You committed to Psalm 103 and 105. Can I park 104 in there? Make a little time for 104. Here's some of it. In verse 2, as He makes the heaven of heavens, it says He stretches out the heavens like this.

You know what this is? He stretches out the heavens like a curtain. You ever think of God this way? Like the heavens are like a curtain that he just stretches out. There's often times in my own mind, as you pray, you're trying to get the ideas that are from your flesh and the things you've heard or maybe read elsewhere or listened to something somewhere, versus what's actually in the Scripture and is true about God.

And I get this image all the time of God sitting on what? On His throne. And that's in Scripture too. But I almost limit, like, okay, God the Father's, and then God the Son is there, sitting beside Him at His right hand, and the Spirit is... No, but That's not what the Scripture teaches.

No, it teaches that God is everywhere. Listen to this. It says this is when Solomon, you'll recognize this, when Solomon was building the physical temple in 1 Kings, listen to what he says. Yeah, you got this, right? So here's what he says.

In 1 Kings chapter 8, when considering that God would then take to take inhabit this physical temple, God's presence would actually come into this physical temple. Solomon, inspired by the Holy Spirit, says this. But will you dwell on earth? 1 Kings 8.28, if you're writing this. Behold, heaven, and the heaven of heavens cannot contain you.

Do you get that? The Holy Spirit allows him to communicate. Heavens can't contain this God. He's the one who made them. He's not captive on His throne inside of something He made.

He's beyond that. He's everywhere. He's omnipresent. We can't run from His presence. He's, yes, on His throne, but He's also here in our midst.

He's active. And He's working. Take God off of a throne, removed from your personal life, and like he's just there in heaven waiting for you to pray for him. He is here. He is with us.

So he has made the heaven of heavens and he stretches them out. So God is doing this creative work as they're acknowledging this. And in Psalm 104, it goes on to speak of the earth and everything. So it starts with the creation of heavens in Psalm 104. Then it moves to the earth and everything on it.

And I love what it says. Listen to this. It says in verse 5 of Psalm 104, how God lays the foundations of the earth. It says in verse 6, how He covered the deep. In verse 7 through 10, listen to some of these things.

How He covered the mountains. How He sends springs through the mountains, in the valleys, to feed every, to give drink to every beast of the field. This God that we serve and that we worship is all these things. He is Creator. He is Provider.

And He is Sustainer. And That's where they finish this in this verse. You preserve them all, the host of heaven worships you. Again, you preserve them all. Listen to what Colossians 1 says.

I'm going to turn there if you want. This is Colossians 1.15. Listen to this verse. Another image of our Trinity. Another image of The Trinity is Colossians 1.

Listen to this. This is verse 15. He, Jesus Christ, is the image of the invisible God. The firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on the earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created through him and for him.

And He is before all things." Now listen to the conclusion of this. Colossians 1.15. And in Him, who's Him? Who's Him? Who are we talking about here?

Jesus Christ. In Him, All things consist. You get that? All things consist. All things have their being.

The word consist is everything has its shape and its form and it's sustained by Jesus Christ Himself. They're upheld by Him. We know this is true of Jesus Christ by all the examples. Can you think of examples of His power and His might that was displayed over all things? Jesus.

Examples. Can you think of some? Let me give you a few. What's His first miracle? He takes the substance and chemical makeup of H2O and converts it into, I don't know what the chemical composition of wine is, but it's wine.

He has control over the molecular makeup of H2O and can simply say, you are now wine and it's wine. He has control and power over molecules to make them reform, to give something delightful at the wedding. He walks by a fig tree, And his disciples are with him. And he says, you bear no fruit, you die. And what does it do?

It completely withers. And the disciples are dumbfounded. They're in the boat, right? And the storm is so fierce, it says they're afraid for their lives. But what Jesus is about to do in front of them is actually going to cause them greater fear.

Because Jesus, being asleep, awakens and rebukes all of nature. Be still! And it's completely still. And they say, oh, what kind of God is this that by the power of His words tells them everything to be still. And they have greater fear of them dying in the presence of something they've never seen.

We just don't think as we should. Or how about when Jesus walks onto a scene and he sees the weeping and the crying and he walks into the scene and he knows what he's going to do. He purposefully delayed in coming. You know the scene, don't you? And they're saying, wait a minute, don't open the please because it's been four days.

Don't do it. Jesus had to get a laugh out of this. Okay, the wind wasn't enough. The fig tree wasn't enough. I don't know if I've got my sequence right there.

Lazarus, come forth! Come out! There will be no stench on this man because he's risen. He's been brought back to life. I have control over every molecule.

So yes, as they proclaimed, standing in the presence of the Levites, yes, Jesus Christ preserves them all. His power upholds all things. Nothing happens outside of His will. Yes, even us humans. Do you remember what Jesus said to Pilate?

Come on, y'all. Do you remember what He said? Jesus said, you got it, Jorge. Jesus says to Pilate, Pilate says to him first, Don't you know I have the power to put you to death and have you crucified? What does Jesus say?

He looks right back at him and says, you have no power save what was granted to you from heaven. You have no power, Pilate. Isis has no power. No enemy stands against God's ultimate plan. He preserves them all.

Now, five. He worships. This is the fifth part of this exegeting, this verse. The host of heaven worships you. In Scripture, we see two hosts of heaven.

It's referred to sometimes as the stars and the created host of heavens. Here, it's regarding angelic hosts. The great angelic host. This is the same angelic host that Luke speaks of. Listen to this from Luke 2.

This is Luke 2 verse 8. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you. You will find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger. And suddenly, there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

The heavenly host that Luke is speaking of is exactly, I believe, the heavenly host that God has made here to glorify, to worship Him, to give Him the praise and the honor that is due. And one day, one day, Lord willing, you, you and I will join that heavenly host and sing praise to our Lord and God. The last two verses, verses 7 and 8. You are the Lord God, who chose Abram and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans and gave him the name Abraham. You found his heart faithful before you and made a covenant with him to give him the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, and the Girgashites, to give it to their descendants.

You have performed your words, for you are righteous." There's three things. In verse 7, I want you to see. We don't have time to really get into the doctrine of God's election, but it's here as bold as it could be. Look at verse 7 again. You are the Lord God who chose Abram.

God here in verse 7 is doing three things. Can you see him? He's choosing Abraham. Then what is he doing? Look at it.

He's choosing them, then what is he doing? He's bringing him out. He's choosing, he's bringing him out. And then what does he do? What's the third thing he does?

He gives him a new name. See the three things that are happening? So in verse 7, they're acknowledging God's choosing, God's ordained power to have power over the clay. This is a potter who has power over the clay. He does with it as He wills and pleases.

And then He delivers. And then He gives a new name. You have to understand, join me here for a second. You have to see the Gospel here. If you miss the Gospel here, you miss it Way too much.

He's doing this today. You know that? God still does this today. He chooses. He redeems.

He brings you out. He changes the direction of your life. Not only this life, but the one to come. He gives you a new name. He gives you a new identity.

From now on, you'll be called brother. You'll be called my son. I have given you healing. You were born of a nature opposed to me. I've given you a new nature.

God is doing the same thing today. He's choosing, He's delivering, and He's changing our names. We have to understand this in verse 7. So now in verse 8, He turns to Abram specifically. His heart was found faithful before you.

So you go back, this caused me to go back and read through the history of Abraham which is such a blessing to me. And what do we see there? We do see sin, right? I mean an abysmal decision to follow his wife's counsel in the situation with Hagar, right? But what we see is what is proclaimed by the people here.

We see a man whose life is dedicated to faithfulness. You want proof? You want to read it all with me, we can go back and read the whole thing. We celebrate like they did. Three hours of reading the law of God.

Three hours of... Alright. I'll save you that. Chapter 12. Listen to what happens.

This is in Genesis chapter 12. Now the Lord God said to Abraham, Get out of your country from your family and your father's house to a land which I will show you, and I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great. And you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." So what does Abraham do?

Verse four. What does he do? Verse one. The Lord says, get out! Get out of your country!

What does he do in verse four? So Abraham departed as the Lord had spoken to him, and Lot went with him. And he ends up in Bethel. Now you turn the page to chapter 13. Here's what's happening in 13.

Arise, he says, the Lord says to Abram. Arise and walk in the land, and I want you to observe its length and its width and all the attributes of it, for I'm giving it to you, my paraphrase. And what does Abraham do in verse 18? Chapter 13. He takes his tent.

Come on, kids, pack it up. Here we go. God's moving us again. Let's go. And in faithfulness, he moves his tent, and he went, and he dwelt by the Terebinth tree in Mamre, which is in Hebron.

And there he builds an altar to the Lord. Look at this faithfulness. So chapter 14 now, He's unwilling. I'm not going to give you everything Abraham did. Chapter 14.

He's unwilling to receive. King Sodom essentially is trying to buy him off with treasures and goodies and all these things. In chapter 14, he's unwilling to receive anything from the king of Sodom because he made a covenant with his God that he would take nothing defiled and receive anything defiled. In chapter 15, even at his old age, it was accounted to him as righteousness. Why?

Because what did he do? He believed in God. Regarding the future offspring, that very offspring by chapter 22, He's willing to do the unthinkable in an act of faith. God says take this son of yours, pack up stuff, put the wood on him, take him to the altar, and be willing to lay him down in the ultimate foreshadowing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. A father who would take a son, lay him on an altar, and be willing to give up his son.

You see, God had proven Himself so much to Abraham. Abraham wasn't about to question God's purpose and faithfulness to Him. And that's what He does. God says, go. God says, do it.

And Abraham goes, and He does it. Abraham was found. So you see why our text says he was found faithful. You better believe he was found faithful. Not perfect.

You will never be found perfect if you've been redeemed. But what does the story of your life say? What will the story of your life say as they go back and do inventory of your life? I rested in Jesus Christ. And the defining element of my life is that by His grace I was found to be faithful.

Not perfect sins, Yes, but I repented. And the history of my life is that of an Abraham, of faithfulness. And then carrying on in our text, he made a covenant. And he kept his words because he is righteous. God keeps His words.

He kept His word to Abraham. The people blow it, and there God kept His word again by letting them fall into the hands of the enemy to be scattered and tormented because of their own sin. The reason God keeps His Word is because He is not like us. He is holy. He is righteous.

When He gives a word, He's speaking to the integrity of who He is and His character. He's unchangeable. He will not speak a word and contradict His own Word. His Word is sure. That's why we can put our faith and hope and confidence in His Word.

He is not like us. He is righteous, incapable of going against His own Word. He made another covenant. He made another covenant after the Abrahamic covenant. That Jesus Christ, born of a virgin, would come.

That He would take hearts of stone and make them hearts of flesh. And if we leave these texts of Scripture without understanding the rock and the pond that caused the effect, that caused the people to be broken and repentant to do this work on their own souls and then come to worship a holy God. If we don't see Jesus Christ and the offer of His Gospel to your soul in The second covenant that's been given for us to receive, we miss out on what God says is the promise in Isaiah. If you fast right, what was His promise? Do you remember it?

My glory will be your rearguard. I come to loose the bonds of wickedness, to set the captives free, to loose heavy burdens. And just as the people of Israel needed to be emptied of themselves before worshiping God, you and I must be cleansed of our sins before we worship a holy God. Our text is replete with those that are offering praise and worship to God because you see, they've been brought to the end of themselves. The holy rock has hit their life and their pond, so to speak.

And now, the reverberation, the spillover effect, is that they're standing up and offering praise and worship because they've looked in the perfect law of liberty. And the law used lawfully is to do that to our souls. When we look at the perfect law of liberty, it's to set us before a holy God to see how unholy and unrighteous we are. That we may be done with ourselves, and so being done with ourselves after many days of fasting, if that's what it takes. I'm going to move to applications in a second.

Let me close this way. I think the effect that I want you to leave with, at least that I've been left with, is again the verse in 2 Chronicles. If my people who are called by my name and would humble themselves and pray and seek my face, that I'll hear from heaven. That I'll heal them and their land." That's my paraphrase. Our doxology said it great, as I mentioned before.

I don't know about you, perhaps the perfect law of liberty has never set you free. My great prayer in his word reaching us today is that Jesus Christ would set you free. You would see his gospel being offered to you. So what are some applications? Alright.

What is he asking us to do? Why does he have the text here? What did it mean to them historically? And then what does it mean to us? Here's the applications I pulled.

Number one, he has us here confronting us with a calendar of events. A calendar that He prescribed the pattern of the people to follow. The result of which in our text is that people are broken by following the prescriptive pattern of God, right? Because they have these feasts. Doesn't mean everybody is right before God when they do this.

But I think the point that at least I've received of this is, what about your schedule? What about your schedule? Is God asking us to alter our schedule? So what I mean by that is, Do we ever purpose to make a time like they did in the text that we're seeing do we really do that think about this Do you really set a time like this? I?

I've fasted before and let me be honest with you in my fast. I don't think I fasted like Isaiah 58 recommends fasting There's still too much of me and my fast, I think. I'm just being honest with you. That's not what we see in Isaiah. That's not God's intended fast.

But how often do you afflict your soul? How often do you say, I'm going to deny the physical so that God would impart into my soul the spiritual. We miss out on this. When's the last time you took time to reflect on His holiness? You looked into His law, allowed it to be a mirror unto your soul.

You really took that time to let it reflect upon you and your sin? This is all under one. I just got it as an A, B, and C. C, I wrote, to purpose to make time to express your gratitude. I spent 28 years of my life in the flesh and it was a misery.

The flesh is devastating and debilitating. When God set me free and saved my soul, shortly after my salvation, there were many times that I would just I drive I drive down the road and I just pull over by the water by the mountains by wherever I was and I would just pour my heart of gratitude out to the Lord because of what I had been delivered from. And He's showing me His grace and His mercy. Do you remember those days? The sweetness of the Gospel that's poured forth in your soul that has set you free?

Do we take time to remember this? Do we stop and reflect? Do we park every once in a while to walk out and say, behold, the glory of God! You've set me free! I just want to praise you alone or with the people corporately as they're doing in the text.

I think the busyness of our lives, our techno world, I just think we're carrying burdens. We're walking in not prepared to worship God the way they were here. So does your calendar, this is number two in applications, does your calendar need to be altered to glorify God? Does your calendar, first one was does your schedule need to be altered? Second, Does your calendar need to be altered to glorify God?

Here's what I mean. I'm not talking about observing the Old Testament feast the way they did in any way, shape, or form. I'm talking about the day that's righteous unto you is a day, I think it's Romans 14, that talks about a day that you appoint to set aside the glory and worship of God. That can look however you want it to look in your home, fathers. Are you leading your families this way?

I've not done a great job here. I'm so thankful that even though our holidays have been so paganized in our land. The schedule. You see the effect of it though? The effect is the schedule of the calendar forces me to go back in and say, I'm behind the eight ball a little bit.

Kids, let's gather around. And I read to them the story of Simeon as he picks up the expected one, the Messiah. And God tells him he won't see death until he sees the Holy One. I love that story. And you see the schedule, the calendar, even though it's been paganized by our culture, forces my hand.

And I'm not saying God needs to force our hand, but I'm saying He's a prescribing God, and He does prescribe what's good. Setting time aside and putting things on your calendar to point you and your family to the glory of God in remembrance. I think we ought to consider it, whatever that looks like for you. Three. The text doesn't say what's happening inside of every heart.

Pause for purpose. There's a purpose in why I'm pausing. Because I want you to think about what I just said. The text doesn't tell us what's going on in every heart. You have children.

You have families that have gathered. You have fathers that are making booths. And you have kids that are coming. You have them worshipping and praising God. And this event in our text is this audible outbreak of God doing this on their heart.

But It doesn't say every single heart was turned this way. What about you? As we sang the doxology, your perfect law exposes me. I feel my sin in desperate need. Where's your heart at?

This is business the Lord wants to do with you. What's the condition of your heart? So my exhortation to you is this. Look at the perfect law that God has given. See your wretchedness and your sinfulness in the sight of a God who is holy.

And if this is you in application number three, if this is you who's just going through the spiritual emotions, check. You're here with mom and dad. Check. Okay. Are we done yet?

When's lunch? Are we done preaching? Is that you? I beg you to repent. I beg you to repent.

I beg you in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, in the power of His Gospel, to repent right now where you are. Because if you Stand before God in that state you're in right now. And the perfection of His holiness is before you. You will be blown away. See Jesus Christ in this text.

Be given a new name. Be released from the heavy burden of your sin. Cut loose the shackles so you can stand like the people did and praise God because the effect of the great rock of the gospel of Jesus Christ is hit. The heart, your heart, is a rock that hit the pond that causes a ripple effect for the fruit of the gospel to be known and to be seen. Repent.

Repent in the name of Jesus Christ. Lest that rock that should cause a ripple of blessing for your soul becomes the rock at which He'll destroy you and your sin. Let's pray. Oh God, I thank You for Your holiness. I thank You for Your power and Your might and all the things we see in the text that You've given us.

Lord, You've brought us here. You've given us good things. Oh Lord, the lines have fallen to us in pleasant places. Oh, I pray for souls, Lord in this room, who have never been crushed by the rock, seen their sin and turned. Oh, God, would you help us now.

In Jesus' name, Amen.