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Week 4 of “FOLLOWING Well before FINISHING Well” (Nehemiah 8) Welcome back to our last teaching devotional of this 1st month-long series. So far, we’ve been all about learning how to “follow” well before we can ever hope to “finish” well. And let me say “thank you for your patience” as we try a new way of encouraging folks by having 1 sermon point per week that spans the whole month. Hopefully the devotionals will establish (or expand) some “holy habits” in prioritizing God’s Word, develop further understanding, and discover more of how God can best use us in this season of our lives! And also here is one of my favorite songs that goes right along with us being able to follow the Lord wholeheartedly. It's by Rich Mullins and has a pretty cool hammered dulcimer part to support the theme of the song, "oh God, you are my God and I will ever praise You...And step-by-step You'll lead me and I will follow you all of my days." Click HERE for song! Last week, we saw the Jewish people “tear up emotionally” when Ezra read God’s Word after years of exile. They’d lost their “spiritual formation” efforts over the previous 70 years. Now that’s a long time without “home games,” and a “home crowd” to cheer & remind you what TEAM you‘re on! But now they’re together again, fully identifying with God and His people. They are deeply moved by the “saturation” of the presence of God and they experience repentant hearts, joyful spirits, and meaningful fellowship. So we pick up and close out *Nehemiah 8 starting with verse 13…..*take a moment and read that in your Bible or on your smartphone……ok, do you see what happened? It’s what happens when you stumble on to something you knew long ago but forgot. Something you realize you really need to bring this practice back! Let’s paraphrase & play-by-play this a little bit…..(from the NLT) * Verse 13….says, “on October the family leaders of all the people, together with the priests and Levites met with Ezra, the Scribe to go over the Law in greater detail” o Now that’s pretty cool. It’s always a great start when godly people with “shepherds’ hearts” dive back into the Word of God to see what they possibly have missed. This is more than the obligatory “evaluation of our event” kind of thing. * Verses 14-18*…they see in this verse, that God long ago commanded Moses* and the Israelites to “live in shelters” during a festival month on October. And a proclamation was to be made in the towns & Jerusalem encouraging the people to take branches from all sorts of trees and make shelters where they could live during a weeklong festival.” o So the people did it! They built shelters on the roofs of their homes, backyards, in the Temple courtyard and on the Town Square. And on each day of the festival, Ezra read from the Book of the Law. Then on Day 8, the final day, they held a solemn assembly because it was required by law. So let me introduce the final theme word of this month of devotional teaching. It’s the word, “INVESTIGATION”. You can see my predictable pattern, now, I’m sure. We began with the “elevation” of God’s Word by Ezra, then the “explanation” of I by the Levites & priests. Last week we saw Nehemiah segue folks into the “celebration” God wants for His people, and here we are after the party’s over when “people with enquiring minds want to know”! This is an “after hours” Bible study that only a few are invited to. They want to know “what else did God say that we’ve missed all this time”? And once again, Nehemiah leads along with Ezra in recovering the practice of what God said He want for His people so long ago. Now for a little personal & reflective commentary, through the years I’ve seen several “spiritual movements” and read about quite a few more. Over 500 years ago, Martin Luther, who was a monk in the Catholic Church, became distressed over the “works required for salvation” theology he saw taught by the Church. So as he read the book of Romans over and over, he became passionate and very argumentative in his articulation of the doctrine of “salvation by grace through faith alone”. And as he stood, wrote, taught and objected on many occasion, the REFORMATION Movement began. In the mid 1800’s, a father & son, Thomas & Alexander Campbell were not allowed to participate in the Lord’s Supper together in a church that had what was then called “closed communion”, not based on a doctrine as much as a “tribal exclusivity” that majored in the minors with the attitude of “that bunch of believers ain’t just like us”. And after that church service, the father & son sat down, as Bible scholars themselves and made the astute assessment that “this shouldn’t happen in the Body of Christ”. And they committed themselves to 2 things….one was recovering “Biblical Authority” in the church letting the Bible speak. The other prioritized value was “a Desire for Christian Unity with other Believers in Jesus”. They were joined by another preacher named Barton Stone and they and many who followed along lit up the Bible Belt with that message, which became the tribe that I’ve been part of all my life that is referred to by many as the RESTORATION Movement. The intent became to restore the values of the New Testament Church and seemed to focus on things like local church autonomy, frequency of the Lord’s Supper and baptism by immersion. All throughout history, God prompts people’s hearts to dig a little deeper and recover what we’ve missed in His Word. They have intensity for a season because movements tend to be “one generation” in nature, then they get organized and it ceases to be a movement, it many times turns into something else. It’s usually an awareness of a need not being met and/or a commandment being ignored and God prompts some hearts to do something about it. Like in England in the 1700’s, two fellows, William King and Robert Raikes established a Sunday School program for street kids and that movement began. In my life, I’ve seen the “Charismatic Movement” come into full swing, based on our neglect of the Holy Spirit having freedom to move in and among us. The “Seeker Movement” came about by some Baby Boomers wanting to reach their lost generation, not based on any major doctrinal difference, just the simple fact that “lost people matter to God” and at that p0oint, most church services “liturgical language” left folks far from God kind of still lost in translation. So they decided to bring in some “arts for the hearts” musically & dramatically and then “talk plain” about the love of God and importance of Jesus. We’ve seen God work incredibly through other movements of restoration, like Christian Counseling, Missions, Disciple-Making, Small Groups, Unreached People Groups, and one that affects us all, the Worship Movement, which is unifying churches world-wide. Is everything in each of these movements perfect? No. and it won’t be until Jesus returns. I believe very much in what a dear friend, Terry Ruff, said one time in a message he spoke at a church in Bloomington, IN where Sue Linn and I met him and his wife Amy. He said, “I believe the best song is yet to be sung, the best sermon is yet to be written and preached, and the best idea of ministry is yet to be conceived in reaching people for the Kingdom of God!” And I’ll be doggone…I still believe he’s right! God still want His people to stick around after church and figure out what we’ve overlooked & how we can do things better for His glory! That’s what Nehemiah and his folks did. They took time to “investigate” the Word of God a little closer. Maybe God’s putting something on your heart in this season that you know you’ve overlooked for awhile as well. For me, its “regaining my focus” on my wife, kids and grandkids. I love them so much but they get “covered up” so easily. Don’t us men, husbands, Dads and Grandpa’s know it! And I love to encourage Lead Pastors to do their best and weather the storms and “finish well” in their calling along with other guys in the same boat. And I love hanging with the 55+ crowd, hoping to bless and encourage as we “snap, crackle and pop” getting out of our chairs and try to remember where we parked! OK, it’s really not that bad, but I can see the day coming! That’s what it is for me, but what is it for you? What do you want to “spiritually recover” right now? I hope you can. And I hope we can help. Next week we start a new month of “teaching devotionals” and our whole focus is only 3 verses in the Book of Hebrews. It’s the “foundational teaching” of this Finishing Well ministry. I hope you keep tapping into the devotional & maybe even sending the link to a friend. May it be a blessed week for you and your family. May God use EACH of you & your families, in your churches, at your jobs, small groups & ministries… And let me throw out a little challenge there…. Try to memorize Hebrews 12:1-3 in any translation, since that’s our focus in the month of May! Just giving you a little “heads up” there! Love you guys, george
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