Are you ready to make a commitment that transforms your life? What does it mean to truly follow God and prioritize His house? Join us as we explore Nehemiah 10 and discover the power of our promises to God. Let's dive in together!
Prayer Prompts
Use these prompts to guide your prayer time as we prepare our hearts for Sunday.
We come together in gratitude, praising You, Lord, because You are the ultimate authority in our lives, greater than any other influence we may encounter. Help us to recognize Your sovereignty and holiness as we commit ourselves to following Your ways, just as the people of Israel did in Nehemiah's time.
As we reflect on our own commitments, we declare together that we will prioritize our relationship with You, Lord. We will dedicate our resources, time, and energy to serve our community and nurture our church family, ensuring that we do not neglect the house of our God.
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Hey, Gross Church. Welcome to the Sunday
setup. [music] is our time each week
that we gather digitally together
Thursdays at two o'clock [music]
to dive into God's word to prepare our
hearts for what we will be studying what
we'll be praising through preaching
through praying through so we can
practice next week and today we're going
to be in Nehemiah chap 10 as we continue
our series through this book in Nehemiah
chapter 10 we're actually going to pick
up in verse 38 of chapter 9 it's where
we left off last week after they
confessed their sins. They have just
this time of uh rehearsing how God has
been faithful. But in verse 38, it it
says in view of all this, it says this
is what they decide to do. They we are
making a binding agreement [music] and
writing on a sealed document containing
the names of our leaders, Levites and
priests. Those who are on the document
were the governor of Nehemiah. And then
it goes through and lists these leaders
that God is entrusting in Israel that
said, "We are going to commit to
following God." Skip down to verse 28.
It says, "The rest of the people, the
priests, Levites, gatekeepers, singers,
and temple servants along with their
wives, sons and daughters, who is
everyone who is able to understand and
who has separated themselves from the
surrounding people to obey the law of
God. They join with their noble brothers
and they commit themselves
with a sworn oath to follow the law of
God given through God's servant Moses
and to obey carefully all the commands,
ordinances and statutes of the Lord our
God. And then it goes into the details
of this is what is the commitment? What
is the vow? What is the covenant they
are making to their God? And they pick
up in verse 30. We will not give our
daughters in marriage to the surrounding
peoples and will not take their
daughters as wives for our sons. When
the surrounding peoples bring
merchandise or any kind of grain to sell
[music] on the Sabbath day, we will not
buy from them on the Sabbath or a holy
day. We'll also leave the land
uncultivated in the seventh year and
will cancel every debt. We'll impose the
following commands on ourselves to give
an eighth of an ounce of silver yearly
for the service on the house of the
Lord. The bread displayed before the
Lord. the grain offering, the regular
burnt offering, the Sabbath and new moon
of offerings, the appointed festivals,
the holy things, the sin offerings to
atone for Israel and for the work of the
house of our God. We have cast lots
among the priests, Levites, and people
for the donation of wood by our
ancestral families at the appointed
times each year. They are to bring the
wood to our God's house to burn on the
altar of our Lord our God as is written
the law. We will bring the first fruits
of our land and every fruit tree to the
Lord's house year by year. We'll also
bring the firstborn of our sons and our
livestock as prescribed by the law. And
we'll bring the firstborn, our herds and
flocks to the house of our God, to the
priests who will serve in our God's
house. We'll bring a loaf from our first
batch of dough to the priests at the
store rooms of the house of our God. We
also bring the first fruits of our grain
offerings of every fruit tree of the new
wine and fresh soil. A tenth of our
land's produce belongs to Levites. For
the Levites are to collect the onetenth
offering in all our [music] agricultural
towns. Verse 38. A priest from Aaron's
descendants is to accompany the Levites
when they collect the tenth. And the
Levites are to take a tenth of this
offering to the storooms of the treasury
in the house of [music] our God. For the
Israelites and the Levites are to bring
the contributions of grain, new wine,
and fresh oil to the storooms, where the
articles of the sanctuary are kept, and
where the priests who minister are along
with the gatekeepers and singers. We
will not neglect the house of our God.
And this whole passage has just these
undertones of how do we commit to God?
How do we truly follow what God has for
our lives? And in it, there was just
this spirit of what are they sacrificing
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in order to truly be committed to truly
be allin to giving their lives over to
God. And as we begin to process this, I
I want us to start kind of praying
through this and thinking of who it is
that we are committing to, who it is we
are following. In this first prayer
prompt, I want us [music] to just start
with a prayer, a a prompt of praise. In
verse 29 when it says they had this
sworn oath, they said to follow the law
of God and they say it's this is God's
servant Moses who gave them but it's the
statues of the Lord our Lord and and
that's just an interesting language
there Lord of our Lord. It's just
establishing like those who they
followed in Moses like this is the
ultimate Lord. And and I just when we
think of God as being the Lord of our
life, let that be our prayer that God we
serve you as Lord because God we serve
you as Lord because why is he the Lord
of lords? greater than everything is
God. We serve you as Lord because think
through why our God is so much greater
than any other authority in our world.
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>> God, we serve you our Lord because you
are holy. fully because you are all
powerful because you are the creator of
the universe because you are sovereign
and in control. God, there are so many
things that [music] sometimes we
fall under the leadership, fall under
the influence of other people in our
world, but we know that you are above
all of them. God, [music] you are the
Lord, our Lord. Uh the Lord who gives us
these holy scriptures, our Lord who
saves us, who [music] changes us, who
provides us a different path. Then God,
we serve you because you are worthy to
be served and obeyed. But we continue on
this and we not just serve you because
of how great you are, but it gives us
details on how we are to serve. And I
just see throughout this passage in
verse 35 and 36 and 37, there's this
repetitive language. We will, we will,
we will bring, we will do this, we will
not neglect the house of the Lord. We
will, we will, we will. And you think
about because our God is so holy,
because he has saved us, because we obey
him, there are things that we should be
doing. In the second prayer prompt, as
we look inward, because our God is
worthy to be served, worthy to be
obeyed. God, we will that's our that's
our prompt right there. God, we will
love our community. God, we will
prioritize church.
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>> God, we will raise our family in a
church family. God, we will pray those
prayers to our [music] God.
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>> God, because you are so holy, we will
follow you, God. We'll devote our lives
to you, God. We'll give you our best,
our first fruits, Lord. Out of our
resources, we'll give them to you. Out
of our time, we'll give it to you. out
of our energy, we'll give it to you,
God. We'll prioritize being a part of a
church family, God. We will prioritize
having a quiet time to read and pray to
you. God, because you are so holy, Lord,
we will commit to truly following you,
God. We thank you for our cross church
family. We thank you that you have put
in a burden in our hearts to respond in
confession this past week on how we
fail. But Lord, to do that in a way that
allows us to release the junk of our
lives [music] so that we can truly serve
you how you have called us to do. God,
prepare our hearts for this weekend as
we gather together. Prepare our hearts
to be able to live out and practice
[music] um your word that you place in
our lives. And God, just be with us as
we continue daily to walk in your light
that we will make you known in a great
way that impacts the world around us.
God, thank you for this time and we lift
all this up in Jesus' name. Amen. Hey,
thank you guys for joining us today.
We'll see you this Sunday. [music]
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