Ever wondered how a community's collective promise can strengthen their faith? Join us on this episode of the Bible Breakdown Podcast as we explore Nehemiah 10, where the nation of Israel comes together to serve the Lord through powerful team commitments. By diving into the specific vows made—covering aspects like marriage, Sabbath observance, temple tax, and offerings—we draw parallels to teamwork in sports, illustrating how unified action can uplift an entire community.
But that's not all—we also tackle the importance of fostering a welcoming church environment. Discover practical steps to find and commit to a church community that feels like a spiritual family, offering support and accountability. We discuss how established members can play a crucial role in integrating newcomers, making everyone feel at home. And don't miss our reflection on Nehemiah 8:10, a heartwarming reminder that the joy of the Lord is our strength. Tune in for inspiration on building communal faith and joy, and get ready for our next exploration of Nehemiah chapter 11!
Ever wondered how a community's collective promise can strengthen their faith? Join us on this episode of the Bible Breakdown Podcast as we explore Nehemiah 10, where the nation of Israel comes together to serve the Lord through powerful team commitments. By diving into the specific vows made—covering aspects like marriage, Sabbath observance, temple tax, and offerings—we draw parallels to teamwork in sports, illustrating how unified action can uplift an entire community.
But that's not all—we also tackle the importance of fostering a welcoming church environment. Discover practical steps to find and commit to a church community that feels like a spiritual family, offering support and accountability. We discuss how established members can play a crucial role in integrating newcomers, making everyone feel at home. And don't miss our reflection on Nehemiah 8:10, a heartwarming reminder that the joy of the Lord is our strength. Tune in for inspiration on building communal faith and joy, and get ready for our next exploration of Nehemiah chapter 11!
Hello everybody, welcome back to the Bible Breakdown Podcast with your host, pastor Brandon. Today, nehemiah, chapter 10, and today's title is A Team Promise. A Team Promise, in other words, it wasn't a promise that an individual, a couple of individuals, made, but as one collective group, as a team, the nation of Israel made a promise that they were going to move forward and they were going to take care of the people of God. And I think there's something amazing when we partner with other people and say we together are going to serve the Lord. I think it does amazing things. We're getting into that in just a moment. But, as always, if you like what we're doing here, make sure you like and share and subscribe to YouTube channel and to the podcast. Make sure you're leaving comments on both, leaving five-star reviews on the podcast. It really does help us to be able to get the word out to everybody else. And then, of course, as always, we all gather together at the Bible Breakdown Discussion, where the more we dig the more we find, and we're just so thankful for the hard work that they do there every day and we love them so very much. If you have your Bibles, I want to open up with me to Nehemiah, chapter 10. I'll go ahead and warn you and say there's a lot of names up in this chapter and there's a lot of descriptions of what they're going to do, but I love this idea. It reminds me of when I was a young teenager. I played basketball on a team in middle school and one of the things that we would be constantly challenged to do is to not think of our sport as an individual sport but as a team sport, because that's what we were supposed to be. And if we were only focused on getting all of our points or getting all of this or getting all of that as an individual, as a team, we couldn't win. But if we did everything as a team, we were unstoppable. And we had a pretty good team and you could really watch it when we would come to practice and the goal was just to, you know, put in our time and go home and do whatever, man, it wasn't any good. But when we would come in as a team and learn the plays and all that kind of stuff, we get into the games, we think of it as a team. That team mindset gave us that ability to lean on one another to help one another, and I think that the people of God is so similar and we're going to see this today as all of these different ones, they come together and they make a vow together what they're going to do, and we're going to see how they do this and then, at the end, we're going to see how maybe God will help us to take a next step in this as well. Okay, you ready?
Speaker 1:
Nehemiah, chapter 10, verse 1, says this, and sealed with the following names Obadiah, daniel, gadiathon, baruch, malashem, abijah, meriam, mahazah, balgai and Shemaiah. These were the priests. The following were Levites Jeshua, son of Azariah, benuiah, kittiah, pelaiah, hananiah, makai, rehob, heshabiah, zekur, zeribah and Shebeah, hodiah, benaiah and Benuah. And the following were leaders Peros, halahiamob, pathai, moab. There we go. That's a crazy one. Some of these sound like toppings on a pizza, by the way. Lots of folks right there, and all of them hard to say. Verse 28.
Speaker 1:
Then the rest of the people, the priests, levites, gatekeepers, singers, temple servants and all who had separated themselves from the pagan people, from the land, in order to obey the law of God, together with their wives, sons, daughters and all who were old enough to understand, joined the leaders, bound themselves with an oath and they swore a curse on themselves if they failed to obey the law of God as issued by his servant Moses, and they solemnly promised to carefully follow all the commands, regulations and decrees of the Lord, our Lord. We promise this is what they said. We promise not to let our daughters marry the pagan people of the land and to not let our sons marry their daughters. We also promise that if the people of the land should bring any merchandise or grain to be sold on the Sabbath or on any other holy day, we will refuse to buy it. Every seventh year, we will let our land rest and we will cancel all debts owed to us. In addition, we promise to obey the command to pay the annual temple tax of one eighth of an ounce of silver for the care of the temple of our God. This will provide for the bread of the presence, for the regular grain offerings, for the burnt offerings and for the offerings on the Sabbath, the new moon celebrations, the annual festivals for the burnt offerings and for the offerings on the Sabbath, the new moon celebrations, the annual festivals for the holy offerings, for the sin offerings to make atonement for Israel. It will provide for everything necessary for the work of the temple of our God. We will cast sacred lots to determine when, at the regular time each year, the families of the priests, levites and the common people should bring wood to God's temple to be burned on the altar of the Lord, our God.
Speaker 1:
As is written in the law, we promise to bring the first part of every harvest to the Lord's temple, year after year, whether it be a crop from the soil or from our own fruit trees. We agree to give God our oldest sons and firstborn heads of our flocks, as prescribed in the law. We will present them to the priest who minister in the heads of our flocks, as prescribed in the law. We will present them to the priest who minister in the temple of our God and we will store the produce and the storerooms in the temple of our God. We will bring the best of all of our flour and other grain offerings and the best of our fruit and the best of our new wine and oil. And we promise to bring to the Levites the 10th of everything our land produces, for it is the Levites who collect the tithe of all our rural towns. By the way, they're not saying that they're sacrificing their children. They're bringing them so that they can become part of the temple, worship being part of that and kind of sacrifice for them. Okay, so no human sacrifice going around here.
Speaker 1:
Number 38, verse 38, a priest, a descendant of Aaron, will be the Levite as they received, will be with the Levites as they received these tithes, and a 10th of all that is collected as tithes will be delivered by the Levites to the temple of our God and placed in the storerooms. The people and the Levites must bring these offerings of grain, new wine and olive oil to the storerooms and place them in the sacred containers near the ministering priests, the gatekeepers and the singers, and I love this verse. We promise together not to neglect the temple of our God. Now a quick aside, and then we will do this. Do you notice how they said they would take care of the temple tax, which would take care of all the events and all the things, and they would bring a tithe 10% of all their produce and things for taking care of the people who serve in the temple. And so one of the things I think that's so important to realize is you know, in our current culture we struggle with people having generous hearts and wanting to give Back. In the Old Testament they gave a tithe plus other things, and so it's important to realize that most of that stuff went so that the house of God could be in operation and could facilitate the worship of the people of God. And so we have people who are like where's that at in the Bible, where it talks about giving of your tithe and also giving of offerings. This is one of those verses where it talks about that. Okay, so back to this other. I love this verse that says we promise together not to neglect the temple, or can I say it this way, the things of God.
Speaker 1:
One of the things that I love is, you know, we live in a culture right now where, unfortunately, a lot of going to church and things like that has become kind of a spectator sport and unfortunately, when we go to church, it seems like we're going to a weekly concert if we're not careful, we're going to a weekly TED Talk if we're not careful, and it's more of a consumeristic product. And it's an interesting tension that has to be managed because on one end, we have people who don't know Jesus or they're brand new to the things of God and they need to have a place where they can come in and just figure it out. And I always dreamed of pastoring a church and I feel like I do have the honor of pastoring a church where you can come and just figure it out. You know you can come and just be and look at things and figure out what the people of God are doing and what they're up to. You know. But on the other side of things, what I love is when you get to a place where, for somebody, the house of God, the people of God, that local church body, goes from being an event to attend to a family to belong, where they say we're a team, we're coming together as a local body of believers. I'm no longer on the outside looking in, but I want to be on the inside, and that looks different for different congregations. I don't know what that may look like in your context. I know there's people listening and watching this from all over the world at this point, so I don't have a clue in your current context what this looks like In our context.
Speaker 1:
We try to navigate this by Sunday morning just being kind of a very open environment where you can come without being a member of our church. There's free coffee for you, we're going to have worship. We're trying to be relevant in how our stage looks and use modern technology and just give you a space where you can watch what the church does. But at the same time, though, our church services are not geared for you as the unbeliever. Our church services are geared for the church to worship God, and so it's like a family meal. We're all invited together, but we expect guests to come Like. We want you to be there, we want you to feel welcome, and that's the goal is.
Speaker 1:
Once you figure out that this is what we do, this is who we are as a church, then you're invited to take a step. But then taking a step into that for us is when you start serving on a team, you start joining and getting involved in a life group and you get connected to that team, and that's what I love. It's because there's something about when, as a team, as a spiritual family, that we come together and we promise to one another and to the Lord we will not neglect our the things of God, but we're going to honor God with everything that we have. And so I want to ask you this question as we get ready to end our time together Do you have a spiritual family. Now, maybe you're somebody that you don't go to church. You think that listening to this podcast is good enough. Can I tell you it's not. I am so thankful that you're listening to this podcast and may you continue, and may you continue to grow into all the things that God has.
Speaker 1:
But you need a spiritual family, you need a place, and I know that can be very difficult because churches are not full of perfect people. Churches are full of people, and broken people will try to break people. I mean, they just they don't know. They act out of their brokenness and that's why pain and hurt happens is because we're a bunch of broken people that are slowly in process of being healed by Jesus, and you might have encountered one of those broken people who hurt you, and that's why it's so hard for some people. Or maybe it's not that, maybe it's just you've never understood why you go to church. Why do I need to when I've got you too right?
Speaker 1:
Well, the reason why you go to church is for that opportunity to worship as a church family. Well, the reason why you go to church is for that opportunity to worship as a church family, to learn God's word, as a church family, to serve somebody else and to be involved with others. It's important and it's what God has designed for all of us, and so, if you don't currently go to church at all, your next step is to get on YouTube or, excuse me, get on Google. If you live in the Bowling Green area, you're welcome to come to Real Life Church this Sunday. If you live somewhere else, get on Google and make a list of places that you would like to try and then go, find a place to attend and instead of asking yourself why should I come back, ask yourself why shouldn't I come back? So, in other words, don't look for reasons to not go back. Look for reasons to say could this be my church home? And then find a place and start attending regularly and slowly Start finding your tribe, find your spiritual community.
Speaker 1:
Maybe you're listening to this and that's not your deal. You have a church that you go to. You just don't go that often. Can I ask you why? Why is it that you don't want to gather with your church family? Maybe there's a legitimate reason and you need to figure that out in your heart, or maybe it's just you don't want to. Can I tell you that's wrong. You need to really think about that. If you don't want to go to church and you don't want to be around God's people, that might be a sign you're in an unhealthy church. Or that might be a sign you're not connected to that healthy church, a sign you're not connected to that healthy church and you need to take a step and get healthy. Or maybe you go to church actively and you are connected, but now it's your turn to turn around and to offer a hand to somebody else. One of the saddest things to me is when I see somebody who wants to get connected to a local church and become part of that team, but they don't have opportunities that a lot of us who are part of the same church for a while we just think that everything is common sense. Well, of course you go to the welcome center for this. Of course you go there. We're not no course, no of courses. Like we need to lower the bar for people to be able to become part of the spiritual community because there was a time when we needed it. So each one reach one and each one of us find at least one person and invite them into the spiritual community, because we all need each other and there's something powerful that happens when we make a team promise that we will not neglect the things of God and we're going to hold each other accountable together.
Speaker 1:
Let's pray God. Thank you so much for today. Thank you, God, that you lead us in so many ways. I pray God, you will continue to lead us and you'll help us to take every next step that you need us to take. In Jesus' name, we pray Amen. Amen. Well, god's word says in Nehemiah 8, verse 10, do not be dejected or sad. Excuse me, for the joy of the Lord is your strength. I love you. I'll see you tomorrow for Nehemiah, chapter 11.
