Put God's Truth Into Practice

This morning, we're continuing our look at Nehemiah. Nehemiah 10, we're going to be looking at. Nehemiah chapter 10. I just want to tell you about a story of a man who had just finished concreting his driveway. He had just finished with the last few touches and he went inside on a very hot day to go and enjoy a nice cool refreshing glass of lemonade.

And to his horror, as he pulled this glass to his mouth, he saw his little neighbour boy playing in the fresh concrete. So immediately, he ran outside and yelled angrily at the boy. And the boy obviously ran away and so he went about and he fixed the concrete. And after fixing the concrete again, he came back inside and his wife asked him, why did you yell at him? Don't you love little kids?

And the man replied, I love kids in the abstract but I don't like them in the concrete. That's a good dad joke right there for you, Jason. The truth is many Christians are like this when it comes to spirituality. We love it in the abstract. We love the philosophy and the thoughts behind it, but not so much when it comes to the concrete.

When truth gets too specific, when it means that I have to actually start changing my life, my lifestyle, God forbid my bank account, that's when things start getting difficult. And every Christian is for spiritual renewal. We pray for it. We have it as part of our mission strategy as this church to be praying and working towards a spiritual awakening in our neighbourhood. We are for that.

It's a wonderful concept, but when it means I must actually change the way I think, the way I relate, the way I spend my time, the way I spend my money, well now the pastor has gone from preaching to meddling. That's when the cell group now just all of a sudden becomes far less appealing to me and I might skip a few nights. Or that's the moment where we come to our Bible and we think, okay, I'll just close it here tonight. In Nehemiah 8, remember two weeks ago, Nehemiah 8 and then last week Nehemiah 9 and now Nehemiah 10, we've had this episode of a huge spiritual awakening that's happened to the people of God. This is all part of the same episode here, Nehemiah 8 to 10.

And we've seen in this an epic spiritual renewal happening for the people of God. In chapter 8, we see people gathering around, listening to God's word being read from the break of day till noon. They read it. They absorb it. They are absolutely famished.

They just can't get enough of it. And they are moved. They are moved to tears. They are broken by the news that they have hurt God so much. And yet they're told to celebrate because God has done a wonderful thing for them.

He has forgiven them. He's brought them back, and they celebrate, they have festivals, and it's amazing. And then in chapter 9, we come and they make restitution, they repent, and they ask for forgiveness to God. They have this beautiful long prayer that's done on behalf of them by a priest. And now in chapter 10, we come to the point where they start putting wheels on this spiritual renewal.

They start landing the plane as a pastor used to say. This is where the rubber hits the road, and they make a corporate promise to God, a corporate covenant to God, to put God's truth into practice. And we see this in a number of specific areas this morning. And I'm going to read for us from verses 28 to the end of the chapter just for us to understand what's going on here. Just in context, there's a whole bunch of names listed from the start of chapter 10 down to verse 27.

I'll explain that a little bit, but I don't think we need to read all these verses out loud. And then chapter from verse 28 to the end of the chapter, this is the content of this promise that these people are making in response to this huge revelation and spiritual renewal that they've been going through. So Nehemiah chapter 10 verse 28. The rest of the people, the priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers, the temple servants, and all who separated themselves from the neighbouring peoples for the sake of the law of God. Together with their wives, and all their sons and daughters, and all who were able to understand, all these now join their brothers, the nobles, and bind themselves with a curse and an oath to follow the law of God given through Moses, the servant of God, and to obey carefully all the commands, regulations, and decrees of the Lord our Lord.

We promise not to give our daughters in marriage to the peoples around us or take their daughters for our sons. When the neighbouring peoples bring merchandise or grain to sell on the Sabbath, we will not buy from them on the Sabbath or on any holy day. Every seventh year, we will forgo working the land and will cancel all debts. We assume the responsibility for carrying out the commands to give a third of a shekel each year for the service of the house of our God. For the bread set out on the table, for the regular grain offerings and burnt offerings, for the offerings on the Sabbaths, the new moon festivals, and appointed feasts, for the holy offerings, for sin offerings to make atonement for Israel, and for all the duties of the house of our God.

We, the priests, the Levites and the people, have cast lots to determine when each of our families is to bring to the house of our God at set times, each year a contribution of wood to burn on the altar of the Lord our God, as it is written in the law. We also assume responsibility for bringing to the house of the Lord each year the first fruits of our crops and of every tree. As it is also written in the law, we will bring the firstborn of our sons and of our cattle, of our herds and of our flocks to the house of our God, to the priests ministering there. Moreover, we will bring to the storerooms of the house of our God, to the priests, the first of our ground meal and our grain offerings, of the fruit of all our trees and of our new wine and oil. And we will bring a tithe of our crops to the Levites, for it is the Levites who collect the tithes in all the towns where we work.

A priest descended from Aaron is to accompany the Levites when they receive the tithes, and the Levites are to bring a tenth of the tithes up to the house of our God, to the storerooms of the treasury. The people of Israel, including the Levites, are to bring their contributions of grain, new wine, and oil to the storerooms where the articles for the sanctuary are kept, and where the ministering priests, the gatekeepers, and the singers stay. We will not neglect the house of our God. So far our reading. So just to quickly give a brief overview again, we see that the start of chapter 10 starts by listing the names of leaders who are the ones who literally physically signed this promise.

This is the contract that they signed. They are leaders. They are the governing leaders. They are the Levites and the priests, so the leaders of the church of that time. And then they are the noblemen, the physical governing leaders.

So they sign this in verses from verses 1 to 27, that's the names. Then the general obligation we see of the covenant, of the promise, is in verses 28 to 29. Then the agreement not to give their children in marriage to outsiders in verse 30. Then the agreement to keep the Sabbath in verse 31. And then provision for ongoing maintenance of temple worship in verses 32 to 39.

Now that's the overview. This is the application though that I think we receive from this, is that when there is a spiritual renewal that God brings in His people, real change is expected. Personal application of God's truth must be the outcome of any spiritual renewal. In Nehemiah 10, we see that there had been lots of spiritual energy and work and excitement and joy. And mourning, real deep emotions, sacrifices were being made, festivals were being celebrated, but real tough lifestyle choices needed to be made, and it was made on this day.

Emotion is fine. It's good. It's right. But you cannot live a Christian life on an emotional high. Your Christianity will fluctuate with your emotions.

Your obedience to God will fluctuate on emotions. And God is worth so much more than that. And so we see them coming down off their mountaintop experience after the festivals for weeks and months have been going on and here they come and they say, in the daily grind of life, we are making these commitments. And so here they lay out a specific plan of putting the truth of God's word. Remember, they had been reading the law of God, Genesis through to Deuteronomy.

They've been reading the law maybe for the first time ever. And here they say we've recognised these things that we haven't been doing and we need to change. And there's five applications that we see here that I think has relevance for us. Now we have to remember first and foremostly that there is a difference between Old Testament law and the New Testament law. Old Testament law looked towards Christ.

New Testament law looks back at what Christ has done for us. So there is a difference and I'll highlight some of these things, but there are some key principles that I do believe are very relevant for our daily life. The first point is that personal application of God's truth must begin with leadership. We do talk a little bit about leadership in this church and we've asked again to pray for our leaders, that we need men to stand up, we need women to stand up in this church. But the thing we see here, the very first thing we see here is people putting their names down and committing themselves, leaders of God's people.

The list begins with Nehemiah. First and foremostly, Nehemiah and Zedekiah, who was probably his assistant. Next, 21 priests signed their names. We see in verses 2 to 8, the heads of priestly households put their names down here. Ezra's name, interestingly, is not specifically mentioned here, but it's probably because the head of his household is Seraiah in verse 2.

Then comes the name of 17 heads of Levitical households. Now the Levites were part of the priestly lineage. They weren't necessarily priests. All priests needed to be Levites, but not all Levites were priests. But Levites still had a special responsibility to look after the house of God.

They still were carers and caretakers. They still were involved in making sure that they were all facilitating the process of worship in God's house. Then we see 44 heads of leading families are listed in verses 14 to 27. Some of these names are again interestingly identical to those lists in Ezra chapter 2, and also Nehemiah 7 that we read a few weeks ago. The point, however, of these names is this, that those in leadership will be and are expected to be examples to the others.

They put their names down on the dotted line. And God sees that as important. This is not formalities. This is not a nice looking contract. People put their names down.

People stake their reputation on being examples, godly examples to God's flock. And it makes me think that in every sphere of our existence, of leadership, of different realms we operate in, mums, dads, parents, business leaders, employers, you name it. There's a responsibility here. There's an importance here that God places on leadership. Mum and dad, you will always be the main influence on the faith of your child.

Always. Always. Doesn't matter what the YouTube videos will say about the debate of evolution and Christianity, or creation rather, or what their friends will say in school, mum and dad, you are the leaders of your home. God has blessed you with children. God has placed these children, not by accident, not by coincidence, under your care.

You have a responsibility over them. And whether you are a parent even of grown up kids, those already out of home or young babies needing to have their nappies changed, you set an example. You lead by that example. Whatever promises you make to God, whatever lifestyles you want to see your kids live, you better realise that you have signed your name on the dotted line as well. And then I say this to our elders and our deacons as well this morning, we are examples to the flock.

The Bible says that. You are to lead by godliness. You are to lead by godliness. You can't say one thing and do the other. We can't say one thing and do the other.

We can't be positive about spiritual growth and spiritual commitment and yet fail to do it ourselves. We know some of the worst pain that people have gone through in church is seeing hypocritical leaders who say one thing and do the other. We cannot be that. Personal application of God's truth we see here begins with the leadership, begins with those who God calls to walk ahead. But that doesn't exclude any one of us.

Because the second point is that personal application of God's truth begins with a personal individual commitment that is based on understanding. We see their bulk. We see the core of the promise in verses 28 and 29. The rest of the people join their leaders in taking on themselves a curse and an oath to obey all the commandments that God had made known to them in His law. Now you may be confused about this, but in Deuteronomy 27 and 28, both those chapters list promises and curses if the people of God would live according to God's law, if they would love Him, if they would serve Him, God would bless them, bless them abundantly and we see times in Israel's history where they were the wealthiest nation in the world.

They were blessed beyond comprehension. But then there's also curses that God says, if you walk away from Me, if you forget Me, if you rebel against Me, if you become overwhelmed by these blessings that I've given you, you will be destroyed. You will be in pain. And the sad reality is the people have just come back from the reality of this curse. They have come back from being exiled in another country that's not their own.

They've finally been brought back to their home country and they realised how true God is to His word. But here they make another oath. They make a promise and they also say, God, if we do not do this, will punish us. The question we have to ask ourselves though is does God still do this with us? If we make a commitment to make certain changes in our life now, today?

Will God curse us if we don't succeed? If we don't live up to this? The answer is emphatically, no. Why is this different to it was back then? It is a no because of the simple truth.

The apostle Paul summed up so great, so well in Galatians 3:13, that Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law by having become a curse for us. If we have trusted in Christ as Saviour, we don't fear. We don't need to fear the judgment of God. Even if we were to sin again, it is done. It is done once and for all.

The curse, the worst of all, eternity away from God. That curse has been dealt with and punished on Jesus Christ. We believe that as Christians. So I wanted to emphatically state that is our reality. It's been done.

It's been dusted. But being under grace does not negate what Paul the Apostle also says in Galatians, the law of sowing and reaping. The law of sowing and reaping. Now you may understand that, but this is different to a curse. Hebrews 12 and 1 Corinthians 11 explains that God can discipline His kids still.

He still disciplines us by allowing certain things to happen in our life, and He may do this even severely to allow us to appreciate the effect of our choices and what that may mean. It means He will never ever leave us or allow us to be consumed by these consequences. Like a toddler who is playing too close to the stovetop, our dad may say, don't touch that, that's hot. That's going to burn your hand. And he may allow us to get very close to that stovetop.

He may allow us to feel the heat and the burning sensation and even the pain of that stovetop. But he will snatch us away from being consumed by that danger, by being destroyed by that danger. So this is the idea of God's law of allowing us to experience bad decisions. God allows that in our life. We may put our hands up to say, yep, I've experienced that in my life.

But the people of God make a decision for personal holiness on this day and the standard to which they commit themselves is in verse 29, to follow the law of God given through Moses, the servant of God, and to obey carefully all the commands, the regulations, and the decrees of the Lord our Lord. Notice this, and you may not have seen it on the first read through, but they refer to the law as God's law given through Moses. Now it may seem insignificant, but here they are expressing their faith in the full inspiration of God's word as being God's word. This is not Moses' law. This is not a great leader's idea of how a society should be structured or, you know, some nice moralistic best outcomes for how to live.

They believe that and they confess that this is God's law. This is God's word. And so therefore, they want to obey all of it. If we reject the fact that the Bible is inspired by God, then you can be comfortable in sitting in judgment on parts of it or all of it. You can say that certain portions are outdated ideas, and thus they don't apply to us today.

Other portions are nice to have. They sound good, so we can accept these ones. But if the Bible is God's word, and is God's word spoken to us through servants like Moses, then we cannot pick and choose to obey certain aspects of it. Granted, however, that the Bible must be studied and interpreted and applied holistically and intellectually and intelligently. And that's why we will always need pastors to go to Bible College.

And that's why I will always tell someone thinking about going into ministry to go to Bible College because they need to understand their theology. They must understand their Hebrew and their Greek. They must go through all the pain I had to go through. And that's why our Bible colleges need to be so academically challenging. It's hard.

But we want the best. We need the best. It's far more important for us to be safe than sorry in this regard. That's why we need people in church to also have great resources, good commentaries that they will read. If you are a small group leader and you're leading a study, you must make sure the stuff that you are providing to your people is good.

Because it's God's word. We hold it with authority. We obey all of it. Every single part of it. Personal application of God's truth begins with personal commitment based on understanding, understanding God's word.

The third thing we start seeing here as well is personal application of God's truth must extend to our home. We see in verse 30, the people agree not to allow their children. It says we don't allow our daughters, our sons to marry daughters and so on. It's talking about kids being married. Not to allow them to intermarry with non believing people.

This is not a racial thing. This is a believing non believing thing. God had warned Israel of this danger when they first entered the land of Canaan in Deuteronomy 7. They read it again. They're like, oh my goodness, we forgot this.

We forgot this. They had ignored it so many times and it came back to bite them just like God said. If you marry non believers, they are going to lead you astray. And that's what happened. But again, reading through this, I'm just so reminded of how relevant this is becoming for our churches and our Christians, our young people.

More and more, the idea of marrying non believers is becoming a real option, a real temptation. And although I know of instances where God has graciously saved a husband or a wife by a spouse who later in life became a Christian and prayed and worked and was able to explain the gospel in such a way, and God opened their hearts, and that has happened. It does not give an excuse. It does not give a justification to disobey God directly, when He says that we cannot be unequally yoked with unbelievers according to 2 Corinthians 6. Unequally yoked meaning that there's a Christian pulling towards God and a non Christian pulling away from God.

It just will not work. And the thing is, this was a real problem. It's not like it was, you know, just so and it's much harder now. This was a real problem. And Ezra 10, 10 years before, and he talked about this very thing.

Nehemiah writes it down here in Nehemiah 10, and then years later in Nehemiah 13, deals with it again. It is a real temptation. Boys want to get married to girls. Girls want to get married to boys. And the temptation for mixed marriages is a snare to God's people that Satan has used for centuries.

So if you're single here today, I cannot emphasise strongly enough that you should never enter into a marriage where that person is not committed to Christ. At the same time, beware of nominal believers, people who are Christian in name only, who claim to know Christ but they are not committed to live in obedience to Him. If you are considering marrying someone and you know and you suspect that they are not believers, if you know they are not devoted to following Christ, I have to tell you this morning really hardly, really directly, that you are entering into the law of reaping what you sow. There will be heartache. There will be pain.

There will be great difficulty and God will never reject you. That's true. God will never reject you. He has set His heart on you. But it will be very difficult.

In spite of what we may say, an unbeliever will not be an encouragement in pursuing God to you. They will not share your commitment to instil the knowledge of God in your children. They will not share your commitment to seek God's kingdom first and His righteousness. Rather, they will pursue personal pleasure through things that this world will offer them. Their values will be at odds with your values.

You will be torn in two directions and it will be destructive. And so we see how God's law touches us very deeply at the centre and the core of our even our family nuclear unit, a mum and dad, a husband and a wife. God says this affects you guys. Personal application of God's truth reaches into our homes. Fourth point, and there's five remember, so we're nearly getting there.

The fourth point is personal application of God's truth must extend to our work. Verse 31. We see here that they talk about the Sabbath day and buying and selling things from merchants on the day, and they talk about the seventh year that they will leave their land fallow so that it can regenerate and grow, that they won't use it and work it to produce crops, and that they will cancel debts of people on the seventh year. They've read God's word, they see that they haven't been doing this, now they're going to apply this. What we see here, and again, we have to be mindful that there are differences between then and now in terms of the Old Testament law being fulfilled and perfected in Christ.

There are differences today on how we experience or view the Sabbath. I mean, practically, we don't have our Sabbath on the seventh day anymore. We don't have it on the Saturday. We have it on the Sunday. And the early church started that tradition, because of Jesus Christ being raised on the Sunday.

And we call it the Lord's Day now because God raised Christ from the dead and with Him, a new era entered, a new law came. And so we celebrate that holy day, that special day on this Sunday. But the principle we find in God's word is still so applicable and relevant and true for us. And God designed us to have a day of rest. God designed us to have a day of worship.

This is what the Sabbath was. It was meant to give this. Sunday is not strictly the Sabbath, and yet the teaching from the Old Testament gives us this principle of a godly directive that we should remember. And so we are reminded to think very carefully about how we treat this day. We have to think very carefully about work options.

And the temptation that time and a half, or double time or whatever on a Sunday can really be far more destructive than what it should be or what it can be. God created us to live in this way. Sunday is, or yeah, this day is a good day to spend with other believers, spend time with the Lord that we cannot spend during the busy schedules of our work week. And so with this comes all sorts of other questions that I freely leave to families to make.

Whether we buy groceries on a Sunday. Whether we go and play sport on a Sunday. I don't think there's a directive that God will say yes or no to these things. But the question and the principle we have to ask ourselves is, is this influencing my rest? Is this detracting from the rest that I must have with God?

And then there will be things that you personally will have to weigh up and consider and talk through with your family. But for me, what I see clearly in this section is it talks about how our work choices are important to God. This idea with the land being fallow, that the land having a Sabbath, you know, every seventh year it has a Sabbath. That would have directly impacted your livelihood. You didn't have as much crops.

You didn't have as much income. You didn't have as much food because you decided to follow God and give the land a bit of a break. How amazing is God, just incidentally, that He cares for the land? You know, He cares for us, but He cares for His earth as well. He wants to give it a break.

And so but this impacts the people's livelihood. They have to make plans. They have to think very clearly about these sort of things. Our work and our business practices should reflect our Christian commitment even when it feels like it will be costly or inconvenient. And then lastly, personal application of God's truth must extend to our church commitments.

And that's from verses 32 to 39. This is a big chunk of what's happening here. The temple is talked about. Worship is talked about. Offerings, your tithes, these things are talked about.

In fact, the term the house of God occurs nine times in chapter 10. Specifically, the people agreed to pay for the upkeep and the maintenance of the temple and the temple ministry. So to keep the lights on, and to keep the car park looking nice, and to keep the priest or the pastor fed. That was the idea that they commit themselves to on this point. Specifically, the people agreed a few things.

They agreed to pay for the upkeep of the temple, one third of a shekel annually, so like a bit of a tax almost. They also agreed to provide for the burnt offerings and for a rotation system to bring wood to the altar for burning, and we don't realise how scarce wood actually was for the people in that time. They didn't have forests like we have forests, so this was a big deal providing firewood. They agreed to bring the first fruits of their produce to the Lord as well as to dedicate their firstborn children and animals to the Lord. Now this was simply a dedication.

This was simply, Lord, if You choose to use my firstborn in Your kingdom, You have first right. It wasn't, you know, that they gave them away or anything like this. This was a dedication that God may use them as He saw fit. And then finally, we see that they agreed to pay their tithes, their 10% to support the temple and specifically to support the priests who made a living working in the temple. Now again, we have to be careful how we apply this and I've heard pastors saying it's exactly how you have to do this.

10%, that still applies today. But the truth is there are some principles we apply here and the main principle that we apply is to be committed to the proper worship of God. To commit ourselves to the proper worship of God. Church buildings, however, I have to stress this morning, is not the house of God. This church is not the house of God.

This church is not the temple of God. The New Testament says very strongly that every Christian has become the temple of God. In the Old Testament, God's spirit physically dwelt in the temple in Jerusalem. And that's where He resided. He chose to reside.

But with the pouring out of the Holy Spirit in the wake of what Christ has done for us, The Bible says that we house God. But we are also called the family of God or the household of God. We are called to love the body of Christ, and so this will mean that we create a space for us to come together. We create a time to come together. The temples of God come together.

And so we have to create that moment. We have to create a space and an effective opportunity to promote that worship of God. So we employ a pastor to be working to promote that. We create an environment where it's safe and efficient to do that. We need amplifiers and all that sort of stuff to facilitate and promote this.

And so when Christians have to start thinking about this topic of sacrificing finances, and I hope I'm not making anyone uncomfortable, it shouldn't be uncomfortable. When we start talking about finances, this is the way that we have to think of. The principle here is this idea of giving my best, giving my first fruits to the Lord and to His work. It means we give Him the cream of the crop, not our leftovers, not the few bucks that we have at the end of the week. We should be planned and systematic and cheerful when it comes to how we use our finances for the work of God.

It should be a cream of the crop demonstration that God and the promotion of worship of Him, which is the key calling in our life, the promotion of worship of Him has first place in our hearts. And you can go and read 1 Corinthians 16 and 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 to understand this. And so when Christians talk about giving to the church, we have to be very careful not to talk about these sort of things in the Old Testament languages, or the Old Testament understandings of a tithe, of a tenth, even though that may sometimes slip into our vocabulary. The New Testament standard for giving is not 10%. It is not 10%.

But according to 1 Corinthians 16:2, it is to give as the Lord has prospered you, to recognise how much God has blessed you, and to give out of that. And I like saying this to people as well that you've actually been freed up to give more than 10%. And why is that? Because we realise in Christ that we have been given far more than we can ever repay. Because, in fact, He owns all of it in the first place.

And through His Son and through His life, Jesus' life, He has bought back everything that He has owned in the first place. He owns it doubly. But this is where it gets challenging because according to Jesus, Luke 16, how generous you are with your finances in light of God's purposes, He says, is actually a very reliable gauge of your commitment to Jesus Christ. This is where it does get painful. He says, that we ought to think carefully about our finances and our giving to His purposes, His work, because it shows that we are committed to it.

Give God what is first. Take out that part of your salary first and work with what you have left. Enjoy life. Celebrate life with what you have left. Okay.

In conclusion. There are some very practical tips here and this sermon is a very practical one. In conclusion, there was a lady, a grey haired old lady, who was a long time member of her church. You know some of those ladies. None of them are in this church though.

And she finished a beautiful service, great service, went out the door one Sunday and shook the pastor's hand and said, that was a wonderful sermon, just wonderful. Everything you said applies to someone I know. If we want to experience ongoing spiritual renewal, we need to get personal about how we apply God's word. It affects our work. It affects our home.

It affects our relationships, our marriages, and it affects us. So we have to be reminded of just two things I want to share. Firstly, to work on specific applications of scripture in our life. It is always easier to be general and vague. I'm so good at this.

I have to confess, I'm so good at when we listen to sermons, when we read good books, when you participate in good study, you're like, yes, that is so nice. That that just makes a lot of sense. You take something out of it, but you don't apply it. It doesn't stick. And so the challenge this morning is to take something and apply it to life, and then to make a plan.

And so to use the controversial topic because it is memorable, If you think this morning, I may need to be more faithful in giving to the Lord's work. That's a good revelation. That's great, but it's too general. You can make it more specific and say, need to work on a family budget and commit a specific amount to give each month. That's better.

But you can still improve. You will have to say something along the lines of, I need to sit down on Monday night, have a meeting with my wife, and decide how much we will commit. And then I will go to my bank or online and we'll set aside that amount for regular contribution. It's very specific and it's very touchy, I know, but when it gets into your daily schedule, it gets done. It shouldn't be a touchy subject because it is a fact of life.

Money and finances keep the lights on. It keeps a pastor fed. It keeps a space going for ministry to happen. And then secondly, write down your applications. Not just for the sermon, but for every sermon.

Every time you hear God's word being proclaimed. In Nehemiah, we see people writing it down. Their names are on the paper. They say, we commit ourselves to this. Everyone's going to see it.

We laminate it. We stick it up on the temple somewhere. This is what we commit ourselves to. So a good habit is to write down spiritual priorities and goals and the steps you need to take to reach those goals. Spend some time then to periodically go back and evaluate.

To see how you're doing, to modify those things you need. If you ever want to see an example of this, go and read the biography of Jonathan Edwards. Go and read his works. They are lists and lists and lists of his daily journals and some of them are just sentences per day, but I must or I commit myself to this. I commit myself to this.

I promise to do this. Excellent examples of and this man was so godly, like it started getting ridiculous in my mind, but just so specific about certain things. Write down priorities and goals. I just want to finish with this, that the key to spiritual renewal is not simply to apply God's truth to those we think should know it. It is not simply ending with a great spiritual high.

It is to apply personally and specifically the word of God, His requirements to us. Because God speaks to us first before He speaks to the person next to us. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your word. We thank You that You come and sometimes have to hit us with a sledgehammer, and we need to be reminded again, Lord, of the fact that You are a God who has say over how we live our lives.

Father, You simply haven't saved us and left us to our own devices. You simply haven't saved us from an eternity away from You. You have saved us into a kingdom. You have saved us into a new reality, into a new people. And so Lord, we commit ourselves this morning in our work, thinking about how we run our businesses, how we treat our fellow workers, how we use our finances, how we look for spouses, how we look for relationships.

Father, we commit these things to You and we ask, Lord, have Your way in us. Provide for us, Lord. Provide for our young people, women and men, husbands and wives. Provide for us finances when we find it tough to give generously. Father, give us commitment and wisdom how we deal with this day of rest.

Where is that limit? Father, give us plenty of wisdom in this and commitment, and Father, ultimately, by Your Spirit, remind us of these commitments as well. So we may glorify You, we may rejoice in You, and we may make You proud of us and say to us, well done, good and faithful servant. Thank You for Your love for us. Thank You that we will never be lost to You, that You will always love us, that You will always hold us and work on us and never forsake us.

Thank You for this truth because of Jesus. Amen.