08.27.06
The Normal Christian Life
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Good morning! … If you regularly attend church here, I’m sure you noticed that things are a bit different this week. My name is Jeff Doolittle and I’m the Director of Worship Ministries here at First Baptist Church. Usually I’m playing guitar with the band and leading worship, but this week Pastor Jim asked me to bring the message from the Word and to share my heart with you. This morning we’ll continue our study of the book of Nehemiah. I want to talk with you about The Normal Christian Life.
So often my desires are misplaced.
Sometimes I think I would be content if I got certain things. I saved for years to buy the guitar I wanted and it wasn’t long after I got it that I started dreaming about my next guitar.
Other times I have this thought: “life will be perfect when…” I couldn’t wait to graduate from high school, college, to get married, to have kids. Now I can’t wait until the kids are a bit older. Later in life I might start dreaming of getting the kids out of the house, or of retiring.
It’s like I’m running in a marathon and I see all the runners around me grabbing cups full of cool, refreshing water. My eyes are set, my desire is fixed upon those red plastic cups that promise some relief for my parched throat and aching muscles. My hands grasp around one of the cups and I lift it to my lips … and there’s nothing in the cup. No, worse, it’s full of salt-water, and no matter how much I drink, my thirst will only get worse with each swallow.
Or maybe I’m feeling hungry all the time. What if I have a craving and no matter what I eat, the craving doesn’t go away. I may be full, maybe even stuffed. I might not be hungry at all anymore, but I’m still not satisfied.
Have you ever wanted something so badly, maybe you fixated on it for weeks, months, years? And when you finally got it? … Empty.
I want my thirst quenched! I want my stomach to stop its cravings! I want to delight in something I know can satisfy me. Do you know what I’d really love? I’d love to always desire the right things. I don’t want to delight in things that bring emptiness and death. I want to find my joy in what will bring fullness and life.
Lord, this morning we want to learn together from your word. Show us what the source of our delight should be. Teach us to find our joy in things that will satisfy. In Jesus’ name we pray; Amen.
I would imagine that the LORD isn’t always the first desire of your heart either. How do we overcome our desire for the wrong things? Simple: by delighting in the right things! You overcome your desires for wrong things by replacing them with desire for the right things. But is it really that easy? I wish I could present you with “5 easy steps to delighting in the LORD,” but I can’t. The video we watched earlier reminds us that a bunch of rules for ourselves can’t keep us from sin or overcome our misplaced desires. I think we also know from our experience that you can’t just make yourself pursue the right things. If it were that simple, holiness wouldn’t be so difficult after all. Being Christ like would be a matter of sheer willpower.
You might be wondering, “Why should I want to delight in the Lord?” I thought of three possible motivations. Maybe one of them applies to you.
The first is that you will never be satisfied trying to quench your thirst with things that weren’t designed to quench it. You’ve tried what the world has to offer and you know that it won’t make you content.
Maybe your motivation to delight in the Lord is that you want to overcome the guilt and shame of sin. You’ve tasted many of the pleasures of this world, but you know there’s got to be something more.
Or possibly you’ve been walking with Christ for a long time and you know you should pursue him above all other things. You know that God is most glorified when you are most satisfied in him, but you want to continue growing in your desire for him.
So what does the “normal” Christian life look like? It is a life that delights in God above all else. I don’t mean normal like “average” or “what we’re used to.” I mean normal like a standard, something we can aspire to. Psalm 37:4 says “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.” What do you desire? I desire to have my thirst quenched by that which truly satisfies. But how do I find my delight in God? Nehemiah chapters 11 and 12 present a good model for us as we seek to make God our greatest delight. Let’s turn there together.
In our study of this book, we’ve had a chance to watch a community overcome great obstacles together. We’ve seen how God used the wise and humble leadership of Nehemiah to cast a vision, to address numerous internal and external challenges, and to bring glory to God in the process of rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem. This morning we’ve come to the pinnacle, the culmination of this great story where the people come together to celebrate God’s faithfulness in their community.
I Set Myself Apart (11:1-12:30)
Okay, so we’re looking for an answer to the question “How do I find my delight in God?” It starts when I set myself apart.
Now, if you’ve read through it, you know there are a lot of lists in the book of Nehemiah. Chapter 11:1 through 12:26 contains some long lists of names and titles. We might be tempted to skip over a section like this, but there are some interesting things we can pick up by digging into some of the details. So let’s look at the purpose of these lists. One purpose was that the people were organizing themselves politically, appointing chiefs over cities and leaders to fill particular roles.
The other purpose involved the spiritual organization of the community. Priests and temple leaders were appointed for spiritual guidance and special mention is made of those charged with singing. Look at chapter 11, verse 23. … “The singers were under the king’s orders, which regulated their daily activity.” Move over to chapter 12, verse 8 where we see that certain individuals were in charge specifically over “songs of thanksgiving.” Finally chapter 12, verse 24 describes two sections of singers commissioned to stand across from one another to “give praise and thanksgiving.” It doesn’t come clear in most English translations, but in the original Hebrew, verse 24 is describing how these particular leaders were commissioned to worship all day and all night.
So what’s the point? What does this have to do with finding my delight in God? The point is that in the midst of listing political and spiritual leaders, Nehemiah wants us to see how worship was built into the very fabric of the community. This isn’t to say that worship and singing are the same thing. Worship can and should be expressed in multiple ways, including singing. But isn’t it interesting to see how much emphasis Nehemiah places on music as an expression of worship? In fact, Nehemiah talks more about “singers” and “choirs” than any other biblical author. Nehemiah placed a high value on setting apart leaders for the purpose of glorifying God through song.
At this point, Nehemiah begins to describe how they prepared themselves for a great celebration: the dedication of the wall. The people have labored for months to complete the hard work of rebuilding. They have made many sacrifices and through it all God has been their strength. The completion of this great project clearly demonstrates God’s faithfulness in their lives. The leaders have been identified and set aside to perform their duties. Now we find the people being “set aside” in preparation for their great celebration. Let’s read chapter 12, verses 27 through 30…
“At the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem, the Levites were sought out from where they lived and were brought to Jerusalem to celebrate joyfully the dedication with songs of thanksgiving and with the music of cymbals, harps and lyres. The singers also were brought together from the region around Jerusalem—from the villages of the Netophathites, from Beth Gilgal, and from the area of Geba and Azmaveth, for the singers had built villages for themselves around Jerusalem. When the priests and Levites had purified themselves ceremonially, they purified the people, the gates and the wall.”
First, notice their anticipation of a joyful celebration. They “were brought to Jerusalem to celebrate joyfully.” The people looked forward to their opportunity to worship as a community. You know, even though I’m usually the worship leader, there are Sundays where it is hard for me to get myself out of bed to come to church. Anyone else? Am I the only one? Don’t you sometimes wonder what it would be like to just sleep in on a Sunday morning? But I love how the people of Jerusalem had such passionate anticipation for their opportunity to worship together. While we can worship as individuals, there is something unique about the experience of worshipping God together. These people joyfully anticipated their opportunity to come together to worship the Lord.
Now let’s look closer at how the Israelites prepared themselves for their time of worship together. Look again at chapter 12, verse 30. “When the priests and Levites had purified themselves ceremonially, they purified the people, the gates and the wall.” First, certain individuals were set apart, appointed as political and spiritual leaders. Then a great celebration was planned with much anticipation. Now all of the people are set apart by becoming purified for worship.
This process is called consecration. There’s a word we don’t use much anymore. So what does it mean? Think of the special silver or china your family uses only for special occasions. You want to keep it clean and safe. When you consecrate something, you’re setting it aside for a special purpose.
In ancient Israel, they followed certain customs and practices in order to consecrate themselves. Part of the purpose of these rituals was to express a person’s dependence on God. They also served to point people to their need to repent of their sins before God. By themselves, the sacrifices were not able to make a person clean. But the rituals together with a repentant heart made a person pure and prepared the people to worship together.
Sometimes we take our sin pretty lightly, don’t we? But sin is a killer. The great teacher and theologian John Owen said it well: “be killing sin or it will be killing you.” It was our sin—turning our backs on God’s loving leadership—that originally caused the fall of humanity. We can’t approach God to worship him if we don’t deal with our rejection of him—if we don’t deal with our sin. I John 1:9 gives us great hope. It says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Confessing our sins is a major component of repentance.
Ask yourself this question: “what am I setting myself aside for?” You could be setting yourself aside for the wrong things. Maybe you are fighting an ongoing battle in a particular area. Or maybe you’re just settling for things that seem “good enough” instead of striving for the best things which God has for you. I love how Paul frames this issue in Philippians 1:21:
For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.
Do you want to be content, fulfilled, satisfied? Are you tired of pursuing things that come up empty? It starts when we learn to set ourselves aside for God in repentance. There is great joy in knowing that when we repent, God is extending his open arms to us. Repentance produces the purity necessary for approaching God. It places our hearts and minds in a stance of humility before him. This is the appropriate posture of our worship. It is the first element of the normal Christian life, a life that seeks to find its greatest delight in God.
I Joyfully Worship God (12:31-12:43)
Another way that my delight for him grows is as I joyfully worship God. Joy and delight are closely related words. When you “enjoy” something, you are taking delight in it. Maybe we can learn something about joy by looking at some ways people have tried to achieve it.
Some have tried to find it by their great learning. There was this great French philosopher named Voltaire. His ideas about justice and government have been influential for centuries. But he was outspoken in his disdain for spiritual things. He thought that Christ and Christianity were the worst things ever to happen to the world. For all his efforts, he certainly did not live a life of joy. He summarized his life this way: “I wish I had never been born.”
Okay, maybe power and physical pleasure are the keys to having joy. King Solomon had 300 wives and 700 concubines. He oversaw great building projects and amassed great wealth. How did he summarize his life? “Meaningless! Meaningless! Everything is Meaningless!” He also said, “There is nothing new under the sun.”
What about fame and fortune? Here’s a name for you: Howard Hughes. The wealthy, famous aviator and business tycoon ended his days walking around a dark hotel room, refusing to touch anything. He wore Kleenex boxes on his feet, took huge amounts of drugs, and tried not to touch anything for fear of getting sick. Not that being rich is what caused him to act this way, but money certainly didn’t bring him joy or help him overcome his problems.
How about if you ruled the world? Maybe you could find joy if you just controlled everything. Guess what? Someone beat you to it already: Alexander the Great conquered the known world in his day. Do you know what he did once he reached the ends of the earth in his great military campaigns? He went into his tent and wept and said, “There are no more worlds to conquer.” And when he died his great empire splintered and crumbled to pieces.
I’m sure you can think of other ways people try to pursue joy in this world. And we all know that sooner or later every one of them comes up empty. So where do Christ followers find joy in life? If you are a Christian, say “I’m Forgiven!” … Do you believe it? Say, “I’m Forgiven!” What a great cause for joy! When we repent, we grieve for our sins against God. And since he forgives us (as he promised he would) it is natural for us to delight in him.
Another source of our joy is God’s faithfulness in fulfilling his promises. The whole reason for this great celebration in the book of Nehemiah was the fact that God had followed through on his promises. Even better, since we know God has been faithful to keep his promises in the past, we can trust him to fulfill his promises for the future. Jesus will come again soon! What a great source of joy that someday we will be like our Lord Jesus, and will live with God forever!
So God has forgiven us and made a way for us to have relationship with him. And he is a God who keeps his promises. But there is an even deeper source of joy for us. All of these other reasons point to the true root of joyful worship. Let’s read chapter 12, verse 43 together:
“And on that day they offered great sacrifices, rejoicing because God had given them great joy. The women and children also rejoiced. The sound of rejoicing could be heard far away.”
I like how another translation puts it:
“And they offered great sacrifices that day and rejoiced, for God had made them rejoice with great joy; the women and children also rejoiced. And the joy of Jerusalem was heard far away.”
Look at what the text says was “heard far away.” Certainly the people were singing, but I love how Nehemiah expresses that it was the joy that was heard far away. Joy has a music all its own and even people far from this celebration sensed the great delight these people had in God. One reason I prefer this translation is that it gets closer to the idea Nehemiah was trying to express in the original language of the book. You’re most likely reading from the New International Version that says “God had given them great joy”. Saying that he “made them rejoice” is closer, but still doesn’t capture exactly what Nehemiah is saying. It sounds strange to our English speaker’s ears, but a literal rendering of this phrase would sound something like this: “They rejoiced because God had ‘rejoiced’ them with great joy.” Nehemiah is telling us that the source of their joy was God himself.
So when God is the source of our joy, what does that look like? Many of you know Tony Redfern, my father-in-law and an elder in our church. He shared some great stories with me of his experiences with people rejoicing. He was in the Congo, which is a large country right in the middle of Africa. At every church he would visit, it was like they knew he was coming. The people would arrive early and sometimes they even put a person on watch to see just when Tony was about to arrive. As soon as he was within earshot of the church, they would break out in joyful praise to God. This is the kind of reception they gave to a man. How much more joyfully can we receive the God of the universe into our lives? Into our church? Psalm 22:3 says that “God inhabits the praises of his people.” God is everywhere present, but when we joyfully worship his presence is among us in a special way.
So let’s dig deeper into this idea of joyfully worshipping God. In a way, joy and worship are like two sides of the same coin. If you enjoy something, you will tend to worship it. As you worship something, you delight in it more and more. Ask yourself, “What is the source of my joy?” Whatever you delight in most in life is the thing that you are worshipping. At this great celebration, the focus of the people’s delight was God Himself, and they joyfully worshipped him because of it.
Do you think of yourself as a worshipper? All of us are. You were born to worship. A danger for us is that anything we delight in besides God can tend to become an object of worship for us. Even things like work, family, vacation and involvement at church can become idols when the Lord is not the first object of our delight. I hope you don’t think I’m saying you can’t enjoy anything else besides the Lord! But learning to enjoy everything through him will protect us from craving these things more than him.
So what is worship? If I had a month to preach on worship, I could barely scratch the surface of the subject. This is my one shot, so I’m going to sum it up the best I can: worship is the sacrificial pursuit of what I desire most. Worship is the sacrificial pursuit of what I desire most. If you are willing to sacrifice to seek out the object of your delight, then you are worshipping that thing. Remember that story Jesus told about a man who found treasure in a field? What did the man do? He went away and sold everything he had, just so he could buy that field. Everyone probably thought he was a fool to give up everything in his life just to buy some land.
How can we express our desire for God with this same kind of passion? By pursuing him with all that we are and all that we have. It isn’t foolish to give up everything you have to gain what can never be taken away.
This is how people act when they are worshipping. When you want something badly enough you’ll do almost anything to get it. You’ll search for it, you’ll hunt it down, and when you find it … yes! You wouldn’t be able to contain your joy, as if you would want to!
From the way things are set up here, we might get the false impression that the “performers” are up here on the stage, while the “audience” is out there in the seats. But the reality is that every one of us in this room is one of the “performers,” and God is our audience. Every believer here this morning has a part to play as we worship God together. In the worship team our goal is to become transparent so that we are not a distraction. We don’t want to draw attention to ourselves, but to direct it to the only audience that really matters. While we want others to see and experience the joy we have in God, ultimately he is the one we want to please.
I want to challenge you to let God stretch you in your expression of worshipping him, but I also want to be careful. I don’t want to give you the idea that it is somehow “more spiritual” or “more worshipful” to lift your hands or to kneel before God. But it’s also true that worship is not something that only happens inside of us. If you don’t feel comfortable with certain outward expressions of worship, that’s fine. But if that’s the only reason we hold back, then I think we’re missing out on something. When we find our delight in God, we won’t be able to keep ourselves from showing it. It’s going to look different for every person, because we are all unique, but it’s going to show.
The people of Jerusalem expressed their worship for all the people around them to see. There were so many singers who came to celebrate that they had to build villages around the city to hold them all. Two huge choirs marched around the city on top of the walls. One went clockwise, the other counter-clockwise and they met on the other side of the city, all the time singing their praise to God for his faithfulness. The broken down wall that had been the shame of their people now gave them a reason to have joy in God.
What are some reasons we have to joyfully worship God? How about for the things he has done? He is the creator of all things. When we turned our backs on him, he provided a way for us to come back to him. He has saved us from sin and death through Christ’s death on a cross. He has never given up on us.
We can worship him because of who he is. God is holy, set apart, worthy of our worship and praise. He is everywhere and holds all things together. He is all-powerful, all-knowing…there isn’t anything he can’t understand. Nothing is hard for him. And He knows everything about us, and yet he still loves us.
We can worship him for what he has promised he will do. He has promised us his Holy Spirit who guarantees that God will complete his work in us. He will not leave us unchanged, but as we cooperate with him, he makes us more like Jesus. Someday he will send his Son back to take us home and we will spend eternity together with him.
I love what the Apostle Paul says in Philippians 4:4: “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” Paul’s sitting there is this jail cell, this dungeon, and he’s rejoicing, he’s worshipping God and telling us to do the same. He had plenty of things to complain about. A modern prison is like a luxury hotel compared to a first century jail cell. But his reasons to delight in God far outweighed his reasons to complain, and Paul invites us to rejoice in the Lord always, together with him.
I Give Myself Away (12:44-47)
So far we’ve learned that the normal Christian life is a life of delighting in our God. It starts when I set myself aside, as I am consecrated through repentance. Then my repentance leads to an expression of joyful worship. My response to all of this is that I give myself away.
Chapter 12, verse 44 describes how the people brought their “contributions, first-fruits and tithes.” As an expression of their joyful delight in God, they were driven to give generously. Verse 45 describes how they served God and continued purifying themselves. And then in verse 47 we see the people giving again so that the singers, gatekeepers and priests would have food to eat every day. God had required these gifts to be given when he gave the law to Moses, but Israel often ignored his commands. What do you think happened when the people stopped bringing food to their protectors and those who led their worship? Well, it’s no wonder that Israel became a divided nation that was eventually carried off into captivity. But now as the people are experiencing this time of renewal, they also renew their commitments to care for one another and to obey God’s commands.
Most people live for themselves. Its part of my broken nature to seek out what is best for myself, even if it is at the expense of others. I’m sure you’ve heard someone say, “It’s my way…or the highway.” Left to ourselves and our worldly pleasures, this pretty much sums up the way most people live.
But as we learn to find our delight in God, we begin living for everyone else. Think about it this way. Who delights in the Father more than anyone else? Jesus Christ, his Son. And what kind of life did Jesus live? I’m not just talking about the cross. I’m thinking of his whole life. He didn’t just show up and die. Jesus gave his entire self for time and eternity. He lived, he breathed, he ate, he slept. He had friends and relationships. He limited himself from tapping into his divine power and humbled himself and became a man. He did all of this out of his delight for his Father and his love for people.
Romans 12:1 says “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” Jesus showed us how to live a life that puts others first. He showed us how to be living sacrifices. One way to tell that you are truly worshipping God is that you begin to look out for the needs of others, not just your own.
Now, think about this. If I spend most of my time trying to make sure my own needs and interests are satisfied, I have one person focused on meeting my needs. But what if I spend more, or even most of my time making sure the needs of others are being met? My human nature tells me to fear, because now there isn’t anyone left looking out for my needs and interests! But imagine what it would be like if we started living this way. What would your marriage look like? We say that a marriage isn’t 50/50 but that it requires 100% from each person. Here’s what I think we mean when we say that: If you dedicate yourself to meeting the needs of your wife, and she to yours then both of your needs will be met. That would be an amazing relationship. What would our friendships, our families, our church look like if we lived our lives this way? In John 15:12, Jesus says
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”
Jesus loved us by giving himself away for us. When we love one another we are delighting in the God who gives us the ability to love. In the same chapter, Jesus says this:
“I have spoken these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.”
The world keeps telling me that to find joy, I should be looking out for number one! But Jesus shows us the path to real joy.
The Apostle Paul echoes this concept in Philippians 2:3-5:
“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus…”
Dr. David Jeremiah is the Senior Pastor of a church in San Diego. He wrote a book called God in You. In that book, he shares his heart for why we need to learn to give ourselves away in commitment to one another. He says,
“I have bumped around the evangelical church almost all of my life, and I am ready to go on the record with this observation: Most of the difficulties we have in church…arise from the fact that people have not developed a real commitment to one another. Our commitment to each other is so shallow! We are much more committed to our own interests. As a result were ready to go to war over the most trivial things.” (Pg. 235)
How committed are we to one another? Are we seeking to develop deep relationships here in our church family? Are we glorifying God in the way we love and serve one another? I think we are! And I also think we can continue to find new ways to grow and develop in this area. As we continue learning to give ourselves away we will become the kind of people others are attracted to. If I give myself away and you do the same, we will find that our needs and interests are being met, and God will get the glory as we delight in him while serving one another.
I want my normal Christian life to be a life of delighting in God. Here in the book of Nehemiah, we’ve seen a great example for us of what it looks like to delight in God. It starts when I set myself apart in repentance. It continues as I joyfully worship God. And the result is that I give myself away in commitment to others and to God where I put the needs of others before my own.
What have you been pursuing in your life as you seek to be satisfied and content? What things are competing to be first in your life? Maybe this morning you want to take some time to tell God that you’ve been pursuing the wrong things to satisfy yourself and you want to repent. Maybe you want to grow in your joy of God in worship. Or God might be leading you to step out and begin finding ways to put others first. Whatever it is, God wants to quench your thirst and satisfy your hunger.
Imagine what our church will look like as we become a people who desire the Lord above all else?
That’s the church I think we’d all want to be a part of. Let’s allow God to continue his work in us to make us a people who delight in him through repentance, through worship, and through our commitment to him and to each other.
©2006 Jeff Doolittle
