The joy of the Lord is your strength

Read Nehemiah 8:1-10

About 5 centuries before the birth of Christ, the Jewish people came home from Babylon. You might think that this would be a time of rejoicing, but any joy the people had upon departing for their homes was quickly soured when they arrived.

Jerusalem lay in ruins.

Imagine living on the northeast coast of the United States with Sandy on its way. If you lived in Florida, Georgia, or the Carolinas, you were a bit more familiar with these tropical storms and hurricanes than those farther to the north. But Sandy stayed the course and many were forced to evacuate the northeastern seaboard. They left their homes behind.

Put yourself in their shoes. You had to stay away from your home for several days and then became homesick. Then the day came when you could come home and you felt even worse. Home was now just a bunch of rubble. The possessions that littered your front yard may not have even been your own. What a mess!

Back to Jerusalem.

Considering the magnitude of what lay ahead could have been overwhelming. The city was in ruins. The walls of the city were in ruins. The temple was in ruins. Misery had plenty of company, but the Jewish people did a wonderful thing.

They began rebuilding the temple. They didn’t start with the walls. They didn’t start with their homes. They began with the temple. There were a few detours along the way when the people decided to use the materials gathered for the temple for their own homes, but eventually they did get back on track and rebuilt the temple.

Then Nehemiah came on the scene. Here was serving initially as a sort of governor. He conducted a night reconnaissance of the walls, assessed the situation of hostiles that did not want to see the walls of Jerusalem rebuilt, and then devised a plan to rebuild the wall all at once, each household building the part nearest them while also keeping watch for any hostile incursion.

The walls were rebuilt in 52 days.

The people once again had a temple, some were in their homes but there was still a housing shortage, and the wall around the city stood once again. Along the way, Nehemiah took no special governor’s provision for himself and challenged those with authority to treat everyone fairly and with generosity. Things were looking up. Those who had returned were registered with their lineage.

And so the people had accomplished much and it seemed that there was a sense of normalcy making its presence known. And only a few days after the wall was completed and its gates hung, all the people were gathered in an open space near the water gate. But this was not a huge mob. Though there were many people, the scripture says that the people gathered as one, some translations say, “as one man.”

A platform had been constructed for this gathering and Ezra the Scribe stood upon the platform and read from the Book of the Law. We don’t know exactly which book or books; surely it was part of the Torah, those first five books of the Bible that we know today. He read for six hours.

When he opened the Book of the Law, the people stood. Those who could understand were very attentive. Others listened to the explanations of the Levites that circulated among the people. Some translations and commentaries suggest that the method used was to read a paragraph or pericope and then let the priests explain the passage to the people.

Having heard God’s word, the people were sad and mourned.

Why?

Maybe because it had been so long since God’s word was read aloud in this manner.

Perhaps the words of the law brought conviction up the hearts of the people. Many of these people had put their own interests ahead of the building of the temple. Some of these did not support Nehemiah in his reconstruction efforts. Perhaps the magnitude and consequence of disobeying God, the deportation, and the return and restoration of God’s people finally sunk in.

We can only postulate.

But Nehemiah joined Ezra and jointly addressed the people, telling them not to mourn or to weep for this day is holy to the Lord.

This day was not about all the sins of the past, though these transgressions had surely come to mind when the law was read.

The day was not about how long it had been since God’s people had gathered in such a fashion and had been of one accord as they heard God’s word spoken.

The day was not about what had been lost, but what had been restored.

And the day was made holy to the Lord.

Then Nehemiah told his people to enjoy a feast and to share with those who had nothing to prepare. You don’t mourn at a feast, so he went on to say, “Do not sorrow, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

The joy of the Lord is your strength.

God’s people had been put through the ringer because of their apostasy. Their disobedience had resulted in almost 70 years of captivity in a land not their own. Not everyone came home. God’s people had suffered loss because they turned their backs on him and his prophets.

Now they had returned to their homeland, rebuilt their temple and their city, and they had heard the words of the Lord read aloud once again. Their hearts began to mourn, but they were admonished to put their hope and joy and trust in the Lord.

What was behind them could not be undone. They would begin their journey living for the Lord with a feast—the Feast of Booths or Feast of Tabernacles. This feast had not been celebrated since Joshua’s time.

Confessing their sins would come soon enough, but the wise leadership of God’s people began this restoration with a celebration.

Christians celebrate sometimes. We have Christmas and Easter, but we should celebrate daily. Every day should be holy to us. We set aside one day each week as special to worship and to rest, but every day is holy for we are no longer captive to sin and death. The grave has no power over us. Our sins are forgiven.

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

1 John 1:8-9

We spend far too much time hanging our heads ashamed of what we have done. We spend too much time reliving the mistakes of our past. We spend too much time second guessing our decisions.

We must confess our sins. We are wise to learn from our mistakes, but we must not live in the past or relive our past. We live from this point forward. We confess our sins on a regular basis and we can live in celebration as God’s children.

We are a forgiven people. Our joy does not come from going 3 months without a sin. Our joy comes from the Lord. The joy of the Lord is our strength.

Our joy does not come from a scorecard. Our strength does not come from our worldly accolades. The joy of the Lord is our strength.

Sometimes we don’t connect the dots between joy and strength.

The psalmist asks, where does his strength come from? It comes from the Lord.

One of David’s psalms calls the Lord his rock, his strength, his hope, and his defense. Another of David’s psalms tells us that his trust, strength, and joy are in the Lord.

Are we people of joy?

Are we people of strength?

How much more should we be joyful and strong now that we have a direct relationship with our Lord? How much more rejoicing should we do now that God’s own Spirit walks by our side? How much stronger should we be with Jesus at the right hand of the Father interceding for us?

Paul found the Lord’s strength in his own weakness. The grace of the Lord was sufficient for any trial.

This same apostle reminded us to rejoice always, not in the way the day went, but to rejoice in the Lord. Paul wrote this reminder from prison.

God’s Chosen People were humbled when they heard God’s word. Their hearts and minds were consumed with how far they had strayed from the way of the Lord and their entire countenance was overwhelmed that they had been restored.

We have the same experience in the cross. All of our transgressions were paid in full on the cross when Jesus hanged painfully. We repented of the way of life that we knew before we acknowledged Jesus as our Lord and Savior and Master. We confess our sins with assurance of forgiveness and pardon.

And that leaves us with only one way to live—in celebration of being God’s children.

We worship in celebration.

We make our offerings in celebration.

We serve the Lord with our gifts and talents in celebration.

We pray in celebration knowing that we may have troubles in this world but the victory is won.

We hear God’s word read and we celebrate. We may not always understand every part of his holy scriptures, but we celebrate that it is read in our sanctuary, in our Sunday school classrooms, in our homes, and even in public places. Some of the words of our holy scriptures are sometimes hard to swallow. Some are very direct and cut to our core.

For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

Hebrews 4:12

God’s holy word will judge our thoughts and attitudes, even those that may be withheld from others.

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

2 Timothy 3:16-17

God’s word will rebuke and correct us not so that we may feel ashamed but so we may be ready for what God has in store for us in his service.

Consider this message from Hebrews.

In this all-out match against sin, others have suffered far worse than you, to say nothing of what Jesus went through—all that bloodshed! So don’t feel sorry for yourselves. Or have you forgotten how good parents treat children, and that God regards you as his children?

My dear child, don’t shrug off God’s discipline,
but don’t be crushed by it either.
It’s the child he loves that he disciplines;
the child he embraces, he also corrects.

Hebrews 12:4-6 (The Message)

And when we experience the Lord’s discipline—when he intervenes in our lives to show us that we have left his path—we too must celebrate for God only disciplines those that he loves.

God sent Jesus to us so we could live as he intended, not in sadness but in joy.

Ezra read the word of the Lord and the people became sad and began to mourn but Nehemiah told them not to mourn and not to feel sad for the people had finally come home. The word of God was once again being read to the assembly of his people. These living words that divide soul and spirit, that rebuke and correct and set his people upon a course of righteousness were being proclaimed within the gates of this holy city to a chosen people whom God never gave up on. These people were loved by God.

So Nehemiah told them, “The joy of the Lord is your strength.”

God’s word has brought us to repentance.

It has led us to Jesus.

And it continues to lead us to confession with the expectation of the Lord’s pardon.

It equips us to be his light and love and body in this world.

We are the light of the world.

We are the salt of the earth.

We are the body of Christ.

People will know us by our love.

When we awaken, we do not dread the day, we rejoice.

The joy of the Lord is our strength.

Do we believe our Lord that his joy is our strength? Do we believe?