Sunday Setup – Nehemiah 10

[music] [music] [music] [music] [music] 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 [music] 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. [music] [music] [music] Heat. Heat. [music] [music] [music] [music] >> [music] [music] [music] >> 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. >> [music] >> God, we will raise our family in a church family. God, we will pray those prayers to our [music] God. [music] [music] >> [music] >> Heat. Heat. [music] [music] >> [music] [music] [music] >> 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] Heat. [music] [music] Heat. >> [music]