Return from Exile: Nehemiah 9.4-38 (6)

Pray Psalm 85.1-3.
LORD, You have been favorable to Your land;
You have brought back the captivity of Jacob.
You have forgiven the iniquity of Your people;
You have covered all their sin.
Selah
You have taken away all Your wrath;
You have turned from the fierceness of Your anger.

Sing Psalm 85.1-3.
(Lyons: O Worship the King)
O LORD, You Your favor showed to Your land;
Your people You saved by Your mighty hand.
Their sins You forgave, all Your wrath You withdrew;
You turned back the anger which to them was due.

Read Nehemiah 9.1-38; meditate on verses 36-38.

Prepare
1. How had the people shown that they were servants of God?

2. What did their being servants lead them to do?

Meditation
What is the end of praise? Praising God is not an exercise merely for its own sake. It is supposed to lead us somewhere. After all, when we have praised, honored, exalted, and celebrated God for His works, provision, mercy, grace, Kingdom, discipline, and deliverance, we should find ourselves more bonded to Him, more inclined to His will, and more deliriously joyful to be in His Presence.

And that should lead to action—revival, renewal, and taking up God’s covenant with fresh vision, energy, and resolve. The servants of God (v. 36) praised Him well and fully. Yet their external circumstances were threatening and uncertain, and they were still captive to sinful self-interest (v. 37). So “because of all this” the people renewed their covenant relationship with God (v. 38) and bound themselves to live by His Law and toward His promises.

God’s relationship with His people is covenantal. He holds out a rich raft of precious and very great promises, attaches to them the stipulations whereby they might be enjoyed, then leads His people by His own Presence and power, step by step, into the land of promise He has prepared for us. Our duty is to hear, obey, and enjoy the Lord. All the precious promises of God are ours in Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 1.20), so that, by believing and following Him, praising and glorifying Him in all we do, we renew our covenant with God day by day.

Praise more and you will live more like the covenant people we are.

Treasures Old and New: Matthew 13.52; Psalm 119.162.
“Train up a child in the way he should go…” (Prov. 22.6).
“Even a child is known by his deeds, whether what he does is pure and right” (Prov. 20.11).
“…but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord” (Eph. 6.4).

There is a point to parenthood.
Nurturing has a goal.
Responsibility prods us to teach obedience.
Consuming, overwhelming love for our children desires their well-being.
We want what is best for them.

If we want these things for our beloved children,
why is it so hard for us to understand that God wants the same things for us?
There is a point to His Fatherhood.
He wants us to be obedient (Ex. 20.1-17; Matt. 22.37-40).
Because He wants what is best for us.
“Stay always within the boundaries where God’s love can reach and bless you” (Jude 21).
A veritable playpen for His children—wherein is true liberty (2 Cor. 3.17; Jms. 1.25).

Repentance, revival, and renewal are not a one-time deal.
They are a daily occurrence and activity.
All meant to lead us to praise that our Father enjoys.

“For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus:
that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all,
that those who live should live no longer for themselves,
but for Him who died for them and rose again” (2 Cor. 5.14, 15).

There it is in a nutshell. The point of it all.
Praise leads to obedience, which leads to praise, leading to obedience…ad infinitum.

“Whoever offers praise glorifies Me;
and to him who orders his conduct aright
I will show the salvation of God” (Ps. 50.23).

For reflection
1. Why does it make sense that praise should lead to obedience?

2. What do we mean by saying that our relationship with God is “covenantal”?

3. Today, whom will you encourage to know more of the promises of God’s covenant?

But where he says at the end, “Because of all this, therefore, we ourselves are making a covenant and writing it down, and our leaders, our Levites and our priests are signing it,” and so on, it is shown more clearly with what gracious devotion all the various persons made a new assembly after the Feast of the Tabernacles, namely, so that after purging themselves with resolved purpose from the contagions of their wrongdoings, they might unite themselves to the divine covenant and confirm its terms by word and in writing. The Venerable Bede (672-735), On Ezra and Nehemiah 3.29

Pray Psalm 85.4-13.
Where do you need God to restore you? To revive your soul? To renew your covenant relationship with Him?

Sing Psalm 85.4-13.
(Lyons: O Worship the King)
Restore us, O God, renew us in peace,
and cause all Your wrath against us to cease.
Will You evermore all Your wrath to us show?
Revive us that we may Your joy again know.

LORD, show us Your love; restore us, we pray!
And help us to hear the words that You say.
Speak peace to Your people; in truth let us stand.
We fear You; let glory and grace fill our land.

In Jesus God’s grace and truth are combined;
both goodness and peace in Him do we find.
Truth springs from the earth as He walks in our midst,
and righteousness flows from the heav’ns as a gift.

The LORD by His grace will give what is good;
our land will produce abundance of food.
And righteousness will go before the LORD’s face,
and make of His footsteps a way in this place.

T. M. and Susie Moore

Two books can help us understand our own captivity and lead us to seek revival and renewal in the Lord. The Church Captive asks us to consider the ways the Church today has become captive to the world. And Revived! can help us find the way to renewal. Learn more and order your free copies by clicking here and here.

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Except as indicated, all Scriptures are taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. For sources of all quotations, see the weekly PDF of this study. All psalms for singing are from The Ailbe Psalter, available free by clicking here.