The Village Church
Cat Grace - Audio
Amen. If you have your Bibles, open them to Nehemiah chapter nine. We're going to be beginning in verse 32. Here's God's word. Now, therefore our God, the great, the mighty, the awesome God who keeps covening and steadfast love. Let not all the hardships seem little to you that has come upon us, upon our kings, our princes, our priests, our prophets, our fathers, and all your people, since the time of the kings of Assyria to this day. Yet you have been righteous in all that has come upon us, for you have dealt faithfully, and we have acted wickedly. Our kings, our princes, our priests, our fathers have not kept your law of pay attention to your commandments and your warnings that you gave them, even in their own kingdom. And join your great goodness. They did that you gave them in a large and rich land that you set before them. They did not serve you. On turn from their wicked works. Behold, we are slaves this day in the land that you gave our fathers to enjoy its fruits and its good gifts. Behold, we are slaves. And this rich year goes to the kings whom you have set over us because of our sins. They rule over our bodies, over our livestock as they please. We are in great distress. Because of all this, we make a firm covenant in writing on the sealed document of the names of our princes and our Levites and our priests. I'm not going to read all those names there. So we're jumping down to chapter 10, beginning in verse 28. The rest of the people, the priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers, the temple servants and all we have separated themselves from the peoples of the land to the law of God, their wives, their sons, their daughters, all who have had knowledge and understanding, join with their brothers, their nobles, and entered into a curse and an oath to walk in God's law that was given by Moses, the servant of God, to observe and to walk, to do all his commandments of the Lord, our God, and his rules and his statutes. We would not give our daughters to the peoples of the land or take their daughters for our sons. And if the peoples of the land bringing goods and grain on the Sabbath day to sail, we would buy from them on the Sabbath or on any holy day. We would forego the crop to the seventh year in the charging of interest. Verse 32. We also take on ourselves to obligation to give yearly a third part of our shilkel for the service of the house of our God, for the showbread, the grain offering, the regular bread offering, the savats, the new moons, the appointed feasts, the holy things, the sin offerings to make a torment for Israel, and for all the works of the house of God. We, the priests, the Levites, and the people have likewise cast lots for the wood offering to bring into the house of our God according to our Father's house. At times appointed year by year to burn on the altar of the Lord of our God as it is written in the law. We all begate ourselves to bring the first fruits of our ground, the first fruits of all fruit of every tree year by year to the house of the Lord. Also to bring to the house of our God to the priests who ministers in the house of our God, this first born of our sons and of our cattle as it is written in the law, and the first born of our herds and our flocks, and to bring the first of our dough and the contributions, the fruit of every tree, the wine and the oil to the priest, to the chambers of the house of our God, to bring to the Levites the tile of our ground for there's the Levites who collects the tile in all towns where we labor, and the priests and the son of Aaron who would be the Levites, who would be with the Levites when the Levites received the tithes. And the Levites would bring the tithes, the tile of the house of our God, to the chambers of the storehouse, for the people of Israel, the sons of Levi shall bring the contribution of grain wine and oil to the chambers, for the velsals of the sanctuary are, as well as the priests who minister and the gatekeepers and the singers, we will not neglect the house of our God. There's this God's holy word. Please pray with me. Your word is truth, Father. It's holy, it's righteous, and we need it. All your sons and daughters around the world needs your truth, and we pray that your spirit will come and take what is said from this pulpit and apply it to my heart and apply it to all of our hearts. Lord, pray that our hearts will be humbled before your word, that we will let your word be over our lives, that it would be what give us the discernment and wisdom spirit. You have to come. I can't change hearts. I can't even change my own heart. I pray that what it said would meet the needs of God's people this morning, wherever they are, or whatever they're dealing with. I pray that it would even encourage me to crash in my brain, amen. One day I was talking with my four-year-old daughter Madison, you know, about being obedient to Mami and Daddy, and she asked me a question. She said, "Daddy, am I a bad girl?" "Am I a bad girl, Daddy?" I said, "No, baby. You're not a bad girl." On several occasions, whenever my kid and I had caught Madison doing something that she shouldn't do, she would say, "I'm a bad girl. I'm a bad girl, and each time we will say you're not a bad girl, Madison." Why do you think we corrected her on that? Why do you think that we did that? That we took time to say, "Baby, you're not a bad girl." You see, parenting is much more than correcting your child's behavior. That's what I'm learning as a dad. It's also about shepherding your child's heart. Those moments there with Madison, those moments of correcting her verbiage about herself, I believe, was heart-shaping moments for my four-year-old daughter. Why? Because it let her know that her disobedience does not change her standing as our daughter. Her disobedience does not change her standing. Her status is our daughter. She's not our bad daughter. She's our little princess who has the same heart condition as her mom and dad, and that heart condition is sinned. And we both, all four of the shipments, I was simple, simple heart, and we desperately need a merciful savior. Does God the Father ever say to his sons and daughters, "Bad girl, bad boy," when you're disobedient, does he? But can you punch a scripture that shows that? Bad boy, bad girl. No. He is mindful that we are but dust. That's what his word says. He knows that even though we are covered in the blood of the lamb, we still fall. Romans 3, 23, for all have fallen short to glory God, even those who are saved by grace and Christ, still fall short of that glory. He still hates our sin, but his view of us in Christ, how he sees us in Christ, never changes. Instead, he continues to share with the hearts of his people more toward him. That's what he does. And when our hearts turn more toward him, something overflows in our life. Something overflows in our life from that. You see, behavior and performance does not change our hearts. It doesn't. Doing all the right things, saying all the right things, does not change a person's heart. But a heart been shaped by God. A heart that's been shaped by the Father, changes the way you live when he's shaping it. It makes us more sensitive, more passionate, to the things of God. And I believe this is what was taking place right here near my chapter 9 and also chapter 10. You see, we saw the last two weeks that the people of Israel's joy and the Lord was being renewed because the Lord used worship. He used his word. He even used repentance to bend the people's hearts more God. More God. And this is what we see right here near my chapter 9 and 10, that what was actually over-formed from the people's hearts. Something was over-formed from their hearts because they realized that hearts have been shaped by the Father and something came out of it. The first thing that overflowed from their hearts and the mouth and our hearts that's been shaped by God, is that we continue to grow in faith. When God is shaping your heart, we continue to grow in faith. Verse 32 says, begins with now therefore, and what does that mean? It connects verses 32 and 37 with everything we talked about last week. Don't forget last week's sermon. We talked about the people of Israel and the Lord God had his up-and-down relationship, a relational cycle that went up and down, up and down. His faithfulness, their rebellion, his forgiveness, their repentance. You see that? All through the Old Testament and this statement also brings things back into the present, the present tense, to the Jews in near my lifetime, who are now living with the consequences of their Father's sin and the consequences of their sin. They pray to the Lord God, now therefore our God, let not all the hardships seem little to you that has come upon us since the time of the kings of Assyria to this day. These particular Jews, these particular Israelites are known as post-exile Jews because old Jerusalem was destroyed in exile when they went to Babylon and went to Assyria. There was old Jerusalem, the beautifulness, the temple, the city, all was gone. This is not Jerusalem in its heyday. Everything's broken. Temple is not what it used to be. The wall, even those restored, is not what the wall used to be. It's a shadow of what it used to be. So the people are crying out because it's suffering. Suffering. Suffering that came from the exiles and even the suffering that they are enduring after the exiles. And what are some of those sufferings? Verses 37, verse 37 says, "Behold, we are slaves this day in the land that you gave our fathers. Behold, we are slaves." They're in slavery. That's the suffering that they're talking about. Twice they said it, "Behold, we are slaves." And it is not like Egypt when they're forefathers with slavery. They are slavery in their own land. There are slaves in their own land. Slaves in Jerusalem. Slaves in the land that the Lord God has given to their fathers to enjoy. The good gifts of the land. But now they're not enjoying any of it because the good gifts, the fruit of the land, all goes to a pagan king back in Persia. All this witchy hill, it's livestock. Even their own bodies are ruled by this king, the pagan king. And the people did not have a safe anything to concern them. They were in great distress because it is. And so they cried out with the Lord God, "Let not all the hardships seem little to you that has come upon us." Here I cry. I also noticed here that the people, they didn't blame the Lord God for this. They said, "Lord, you've been righteous and all that has happened to us." They didn't blame him, nor did they blame their forefathers, but they considered themselves part of the problem that they send to. Verse 37 says, "It's rich yield goes to the kings whom you have set over us because of our sins." Well, we really know that happened because of their forefathers sin. But they say, "Our sin." We have sinned too. It wasn't just their fault. We all have done it. And what are those sins? Verse 24 of chapter 9. I'm sorry, 34. "Our kings, our princes, our priests, and our fathers have not kept your law or paid attention to your commandments and your writings that you gave them. Even in their own kingdom, Jerusalem, that you gave them, and joinest great goodness that you gave them in a large in which land that you set before them, they did not serve you or turn from their wicked verse." That's what they did. That's why they went into exile. This cry here for mercy, they're crying out from undeserved mercy because they know they don't deserve it, but they want him to be merciful. And God's mercy to his people, to me to you is undeserved mercy if you really want to be honest about it because we don't deserve it. Now, not all suffering and hardships are a result of personal sin. It's not. Some hardships and suffering are just a result of living in a fallen and broken world. So you can't say, you know, all the things that people go through is just because of personal sin. Some things are just a result of the fall, Genesis 3, a broken world. So suffering and hardships, whether it's from personal sin or just living in the fallen world, when we have those hard times and hardships, they reveal something about us. They reveal where our faith is, what our faith is actually in. What do you do when life gets hard? What do you do when hardships come? Where do you run? Where do you take it? You know, this, the past two weeks, this is what the Lord's been dealing with me. I have a tendency when things get hard and the first way I run to try to perform more, but I got to fix it. I got to make this right. A fear man starts creeping up. And my faith is not really actually in him. I turn more inward on what I need to do, how I can fix it instead of running more toward him. And I think we all do that. We all do that. Where about you? You see, the overflow of person's heart that has been shaped by God, it trusts him more. If you're growing in your faith, you're going to grow and trust in me, believing what he says in his word. You're going to trust him with your life. Not just when life is easy, but when life gets difficult and hard, you're going to trust him there too. You're going to grow in that. Why is that? Because a person with this heart knows, rests, believes, and embraces his mercy. That's what, when you're every morning. It's not just mercy for one day. It's mercy for eternity. For the rest of your life. And every day his word says, "This is new every morning." The steadfast love of the Lord never would. Seizes. Do you believe that? Do you ever meditate on that verse? Well, life is hard. If you don't, you need to. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is your faith in us. Even when you fail, even when you mess up, even when you sin, his mercies to you never cease. That's the people of God. This is what the Israelites here were trusting in. At this moment, that mercy, that steadfast love. Because as they were prayed in the early forces of chapter 9, they saw that the Lord God was faithful to their forefathers, even when their forefathers messed up. He still remained faithful to them. And so that's the faithfulness they're hoping is still in place in their time, in their distress, in their suffering. Be that faithful God to them, that you are to them, be that to us now. Verse 32 says, "Our God, the great, the mighty, the awesome God. Why is he great, mighty and awesome? Because he keeps covenant and steadfast love forever." He keeps covenant and steadfast love forever. And they're saying, "Now, Lord, hear our cry, hear our plea for mercy. Do you rest in that mercy as a parent, as a student, as a father, as a mother, as a son or a daughter, and all the different roles you wear are hacks you wear every day. Are you resting? Are you resting in that mercy that's new every morning? Do you know and believe he hears you when you cry? Or do you feel like he doesn't hear me today? He's not there today. I'm telling you he's there. He's there, even if you don't sense it, even if you don't feel it, he's there. You got to go to the Word. Not just listen to your feelings. Go to Lamentation 3, 23. His mercy never ceases. You got to preach truth to yourself every day. You see, you like to rise another sun each day so it's God's mercy to his people. Every day is new. Every day it shines bright in your life, and you got to embrace that mercy. Now I know cloudiness of our circumstances blinds us from that son of mercy, but you got to know that mercy is still there even if you can't see it. That's why you go to other brothers and sisters and let them preach truth to you. When you can't see the mercy, it's there. There are two ways in which Christians approach God's mercy and grace. Two ways. One way leads to rest, one way leads to performance. One way is God focused and one way is man focused. First approach is the first approach is that you can see God's mercy as cat mercy and grace. C-A-T, cat mercy and grace. You see, a baby kitten when it needs to be carried is carried by the mother cat in the mother cat's mouth. She picks it up by her mouth and she carries the kitten where it needs to go. That's cat mercy and grace. Someone will see God's grace that way. The other kind of view is monkey, mercy and grace. If you know anything about the baby monkey and the mother monkey, the baby monkey holds on to the mother's back to her neck for their life as the mother walks and goes. And those of us who have this view of God's grace think it's us doing the holding on the God, but it's actually cat grace. He carries us everywhere we need to go. And those of us who have this view of monkey grace, you think you're the one doing all the holding. And if you let go, then God's going to leave you behind and keep going forward. And that's why you have no peace. That's why you have no rest. That's why you have no joy because you think it's all you. He holds on to you, to me. Even when we fail, he's holding. You got to go back to that. You got to rest in that. You got to preach that to yourself every day. He holds on to you, not just at salvation, but for the rest of your Christian life until you cross over to glory. He's carrying you through the ups and downs of life. He's the one that's doing it for you. And as the father shapes your heart more, you begin to embrace that cat mercy and grace more. And so that means is he shaping your heart. Or other things, your world, pride, self-righteousness, whatever it is, who's shaping your heart today? It has to be the father who holds on to us for all eternity. And so because he's faithful, growth and faith, that's what we see. I believe that's happening in these last parts of chapter 9, that the people, Israel, were being renewed in their belief that God is faithful and that he's still holding on to them. They remind themselves of that. They remind themselves of that. Secondly, what would else flows from a heart that's been shaped by God? I believe the second thing that overflows from from a heart that's been shaped by God is growth and faithfulness. Verse 38 says, "Because of all this, we make a firm covenant in writing on the sealed document, all right, are the names of our princes, our Levites, and our priests." Because what was said in verse 32, "The people made a firm covenant in writing." This mangan of a firm covenant, it was not that people are attempting to create a new covenant similar to the one God had with Abraham. They don't need to do that. That covenant was already in place. What firm covenant means here is that the people were actually making an agreement to be faithful for the covenant relationship, to be faithful to the covenant relationship that they have with them and their forefathers, that we're going to be faithful to the relationship that we have with you they are way. The people had a renewed desire to be faithful. This is what we see here. To see their lifestyles reform more toward his will. As one Christian says, the victorious Christian life is a series of new beginnings. New beginnings, every morning, you can start anew. Why? Because his mercies are every morning, new every morning. So you can start anew. The people here were refreshed to be faithful, and this long desire is seen. In fact, they made a faithful agreement. They actually wrote it down. They had people sign it, not just the political leaders, but the rest of the community joined in too. It says in chapter 10, 28, the rest of the people, the priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers, the temple servants, and all who had separated themselves from the people through the land to the law of God, their wives, their sons, their daughters, all who had knowledge and understanding joined with their brothers, their nobles, and entered into a curse and oath. It's, I believe it's a good thing to have a desire to be faithful to God. Do you believe that? It's a good thing to have that desire. But something gets us into trouble. There's one thing that gets us into trouble. And it's when we believe our obedience and our faithfulness is the fish hook that attaches us to God. When you start believing that, you're on the monkey grace again. When we start to use our obedience as the thing that attaches us to God, that's what gets us into trouble. And this is the mistake I believe that people again to make here, in some of the language that is used here. One historian says about history, he says men do not learn very much from the lessons of history. It's the most important of all lessons that history has to teach. We don't learn from it. And one of the things these present Israelites should have learned from their own history is the fact that it could not be perfectly obedient to the law. That's one thing that should learn from their forefathers. They could not be perfectly obedient to the law. And yet they put the nature of their agreement to be faithful in a language that communicated that they could be. Verse 29A says, "They enter into a curse and an oath with the Lord God." The idea here is covenant curses. We're going to come upon them. Judgment and consequences for not being obedient. And then if they were obedient, they would have all these blessings. You see, we know there are consequences for our sin. That's true. When you look at your life and you know it, some of you know that. The word even teaches that. But there's also forgiveness. An usual major problem was that they would live in sin for long periods of time and have no sense of conviction about it. They wouldn't repent. It took the Lord bringing judgments on them to get them to a place where they could see their sin. Historically, that was one of their biggest problems. They would go years of worshiping idols and not fill any remorse or conviction about it. They wouldn't repent of their sins. They wouldn't. And once again, and when they did repent, they went to the other end of the other extreme and said, "This time Lord, we're going to faithfully and prayerfully obey the covenant. We're going to do all these things right." They go for one extreme to the next. If you read through the Old Testament, you see them doing that. As soon as the Lord delivered them from some, some, some hardship, they'll remake these covenant affirmations. This time, we're going to be faithful. We're going to do all these things right. And they go for a while and they do good. Then what happens? They follow. They do good. Then they follow. You see them? I don't lost my place. And like their forefathers, these Jews made the same thing. They made an oath of faithfulness to the Lord of God. And the way that it's written is if they're going to be able to do it perfectly. What were some of those oaths? Obedience to God's Word was one to walk in God's law about observing and doing all his commandments, his rules, and statutes. The second oath worth was not to live like pagans. Verse 28 says, "They separate themselves from the people of the lands to the law of God." And thirdly, they, and also, they were not going to give their sons and daughters into marriage to people of the nations. They were not going to live in the influence of worldly values and desires. That's the commitment they were making. Thirdly, it was obedience to the Sabbath in the Sabbath year. They were not going to do any business on Sabbath if people came to the temple. The fourth one, that took oath to take care of the house of God. In their own words, they said, "We were not going to let the house of God." And the part on the house is pretty much what most of chapter 10 is about, the people making the commitment to really support the temple. And in verse 32 and 39, they're striving how they were going to take care of it. They were going to, they were going to also, I'm all over the place, they made an obligation to give financial support to the temple. And that wasn't even commanded in the Mosaic Law to give a shell call of this money to the temple for its service. This, that added extra stuff to do. And so we're going to sacrifice, Lord. We're going to give sacrificially to your work here. The second way, they want to take care of God's house. They're going to provide the wood for the wood often. They cast lots to see who would go in the rotation to provide wood year by year. Thirdly, they made a commitment to give the regular ties of first fruits to the Lord. They were going to give the grain, the fruit, the harvest. All they had, they will give the Lord their first fruits, which I think acknowledges that, acknowledge the fact that God was over everything. And so God's word, not living like pagans, worship on the Sabbath, honoring the Sabbath, and taking care of God's house through provision financially and providing food. These were the things they were commanding to do. They said, if we fail to do those things, may a curse come upon us. Or anything bad about those things. Or in those things they said bad. No. All believers, all Christians should have a desire to read and walk in God's word. Shouldn't we? It should be a desire for that. We should also have a desire not to be worthy, not to be unequally yoked. Well, that means believers don't marry nonbelievers. That's what that means. You see that that should be a desire. It should be a desire not to live on the influences of the world, of things that pull our attention away from the Father. We all should seek to make use of the Sabbath, to rest. We all should make use of that. We all should also tithe and offer gifts to God's church. All those desires should be in all of us. And they're good things. But what happens to us is we begin to make those things to grounds for our relationship with Christ. If I do these things well, they mean Jesus are good. That's the problem. We begin to worship these things, our performance. On paper to these things, then God loves me more. And that's the thing you have to watch out for. Of course, we all struggle with that. Yes, read the word. Yes, support the kingdom with time and resources. Yes, honor the Sabbath. Yes, try to not to be influenced by the word, but don't worship the stuff. Don't let your performance in those things be your own God. Our faithfulness is a response to His faithfulness. You got to get that in order. Your faithfulness to God is a response to what He has done for you. And you respond back to Him. Our faithfulness is not a power source. Now I can just plug into that outlet over there. That's going to trigger God's faithfulness. The more I'm faithful, then that generates more of His faithfulness. And we all live that way sometimes. If I just do this, if I just make this decision, if I can just be perfect in this role, and all of a sudden, God's going to be more faithful to me. We've got to realize you have all of His faithfulness through Christ. You can't get anymore. You just got to believe you already got it. You're working and fighting for something you already have instead of resting and embracing in it. In fact, you don't believe you have it because you're not growing in the faith that believes that. If you're growing in your faith and you know you have it all, all His love, all His affection, all of that, He has already given to you. We have to grow in understanding and embracing that, not trying to work for it. Working for it burns you out. No joy in your Christmas journey, always beating yourself up. Father never beats you up. He knows you are but does. For some reason, you don't. He knows but we don't. We always think we're better than what we are. We want itself in fact that we're needy people who are in need from grace. You see, we have an advantage over these believers here, over these Israelites. You know why? We got the New Testament. They didn't have the New Testament and yet we still struggle like them. We have Jesus. We know how it ends. And so if you're going to grow in your faith, growing faithfulness, you can't do it apart from a relationship with Christ. You can't. You see, because He is the one who actually bends our heart towards the Father and it starts at salvation. When He went to the cross and died from my sin, your sins, to everybody's sin. And when you accept Him in saving faith, that is what, that is what turns your heart to the Father. That decision, that moment. And for the rest of your life, He is shepherdess to your heart more toward Him, more toward Him. But if we don't know Him, you're not going to be growing in faith. You're not going to be growing in faith. And so where are you this morning? In your walk with Christ. Do you know Him? Have you received? Are you living in communion with Him? Because He wants to be in communion with you. And I've said this before, you won't be faithful to a God you don't know. Think about that. You won't be faithful to God. You don't know. And so if you're not growing in knowing Him, you're not going to surrender your life to Him because you don't trust Him. And so you've always got to get back to the basic thing. And that is, do I believe God at His Word? Do I believe Him at His Word? I struggle because as I told Mark this week, my faith is in circumstances. When circumstances are good, men Jesus is good. When they get bad, men Jesus win good. I got to learn to have faith here and here. Here I need humility. Here I need to be reminded that He is there in spite of the hardship. And it's the battle people. It's an up and down battle. And but He's dead nonetheless. What can separate us with a love of God as in Christ Jesus? Nothing in all eternity can separate us from your love that is in Christ. Nothing can pull it apart Father. Nothing can. Nothing can Lord. Help us to rest this week in knowing that Lord we have your favor. We have your faithfulness. We have all of it. But give us the hearts to believe that. Give us the hearts to believe that Father God. And what overflows from that? Give us a desire to live faithfully, but don't worship our attempts at it. But knowing we do all things if we're in the cross of grace. We have grace to fail because we're going to fail. We just don't think we are. Help us to be mindful that we are but this. Help us to know what you already know is true about us. And give us the peace to itself and craft them up. Thank you.