“Committed to His House”
Nehemiah 10:39b
“...we will not neglect the house of our God.”
Time and time again God demonstrated His inexhaustible amazing grace to the nation of Israel. They are reminded by Ezra of God’s providential care for them. Out of gratitude for His tender mercies they make a covenant or commitment to honor God by not neglecting the House of the Lord. In the New Testament, Paul tells us in Second Corinthians 6:16 that “we (the church) are the temple of the living God” and Ephesians 2:19 that we (the church) are members of the Household of God. Like Israel, out of gratitude for His amazing grace toward us, we need to be committed to His house.
I. The House of the Lord
A. The church belongs to the Lord
1. Note it is “the house of our God”
2. Matthew 16:18 “And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.”
3. Paul wrote that Jesus “purchased the church with his own blood” (Acts 20:28).
4. The church does not belong to the pastor or the body of members. It belongs to God, who purchased it with the blood of Jesus.
B. He alone must build it.
1. Psalm 127:1 "Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it."
2. Matthew 15:13 “Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up.”
3. As members of His body we need to remind ourselves Christ is the head and we are His body. We have to remember that it's His Church and He said He would build it. We need to listen and do what He asks us to do.
4. He said as we read in Matthew 16:18 “…I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.”
5. Curtis Kelly, pastor of Taylorville Baptist Church in Tuscaloosa, Alabama said in a message entitled “I love my church: It shall succeed!”, there are four obvious reasons the church will succeed:
a. The church will succeed because it has been programmed to succeed!
1) As Head of the church He will give us life, direction, protection, encouragement.
b. The church will succeed because it has the Lord’s promise to succeed.
1) It would be unthinkable that HIS church could or would ever fail.
2) A promise based on process – “I will build my church. The verb tense shows continuation, a process always in process and not yet finished.
c. The church will succeed because the Lord gives it the power to succeed.
1) If it is his church, then he is responsible for providing the resources to assure ongoing success.
d. The church will succeed because we are part of God’s plan for it to succeed.
1) Some folks go through life just watching things happen. Some go through life and don’t know what’s happening; and some go through life making things happen! – taken from PreachingPoint.com
C. We are to be His instruments that He uses to build it.
1. The mighty Maker of the world who used no angels to beat out the great mass of nature and fashion it into a round globe, he who without hammer or anvil fashioned this glorious world, can if he pleases, speak, and it is done; command, and it shall stand fast. He needs not instruments, though he uses them. – Conversion, C.H. Spurgeon
2. In Romans 6:13 we are instructed to present ourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and our members as instruments of righteousness to God.
3. “What the Church needs to-day is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but people whom the Holy Ghost can use — people of prayer, people mighty in prayer. The Holy Ghost does not flow through methods, but through people. He does not come on machinery, but on people. He does not anoint plans, but people, people of prayer.”- copied
4. We need to let go and let God do the building. We need to be happy that God allows us to be used by Him to build the church. I don't care who you are, how much education you have, how knowledgeable of the Bible you are, how shy you are or how inadequate you feel- God can and will use you to build His church if you surrender and commit yourself to Him.
5. Isaiah 10:15 “Shall the ax boast itself against him who chops with it? Or shall the saw exalt itself against him who saws with it? As if a rod could wield itself against those who lift it up, Or as if a staff could lift up, as if it were not wood!
II. We should not neglect the House of the Lord
A. We should all be involved in the corporate worship of His House
1. As the people of God everyone was involved in the act of worship.
2. Nehemiah 10:29 “For the children of Israel and the children of Levi shall bring the offering of the corn, of the new wine, and the oil, unto the chambers, where are the vessels of the sanctuary, and the priests that minister, and the porters, and the singers: and we will not forsake the house of our God.”
3. Colossians 3:16-17 “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. 17 And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.
4. Hebrews 10:25 “"And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another....."
B. We should all be involved in the work of the ministry of His House
1. Nehemiah 10:34 “And we cast the lots among the priests, the Levites, and the people, for the wood offering, to bring it into the house of our God, after the houses of our fathers, at times appointed year by year, to burn upon the altar of the LORD our God, as it is written in the law:”
2. Ephesians 2:11-12 “He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, 12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.”
3. William Barclay gives us an excellent insight into the nature of the true church. He writes: “Suppose a great doctor discovers a cure for cancer. Once that cure is found, it is there. But before it can become available for everyone, it must be taken out to the world. Doctors and surgeons must know about it and be trained to use it. The cure is there, but one person cannot take it out to all the world; a corps of doctors must be the agents whereby it arrives at all the world’s sufferers. “That precisely is what the church is to Jesus Christ. It is in Jesus that all people and all nations can be reconciled to God. But before that can happen, they must know about Jesus Christ, and it is the task of the church to bring that about. Christ is the head; the church is the body. The head must have a body through which it can work. The church is quite literally hands to do Christ’s work, feet to run upon His errands, and a voice to speak His words.” Morning Glory, Sept.-Oct. 1997, p. 19
4. Ephesians 2:10 “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”
C. We should all contribute to the support and maintenance of His House
1. We need to obligate ourselves to the meet the needs of the church, maintain the physical plant, its financial obligations, to contribute not only our time and talent but also our time, skill, abilities and spiritual gifts in support of the facility, activities and outreach of the Body of Christ.
2. Nehemiah 10:32, 35(ESV) We also take on ourselves the obligation to give yearly a third part of a shekel for the service of the house of our God: for the showbread, the regular grain offering, the regular burnt offering, the Sabbaths, the new moons, the appointed feasts, the holy things, and the sin offerings to make atonement for Israel, and for all the work of the house of our God... We obligate ourselves to bring the firstfruits of our ground and the firstfruits of all fruit of every tree, year by year, to the house of the LORD
3. 1 Peter 4:10 “As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.
4. “The problem that we are facing in the church today is that we have so many Christians who have made a decision to believe in Jesus but not a commitment to follow Him. We have people who are planning to, meaning to, trying to, wanting to, going to, we just don't have people who are doing it.” ― Tyler Edwards, Zombie Church: Breathing Life Back into the Body of Christ
