Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Evening Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/ev/ev20110327.htm

THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION
Nehemiah: Excelling In Leadership In Hard Times
Part IV: The Leader's Role When God's People Are Mobilized By Him, Nehemiah 8:1-13:31
B. Leading By Applying God's Word By An Overwhelming Example
(Nehemiah 9:1-10:27)
  1. Introduction
    1. 1 Peter 5:1-3 directs church leaders to shepherd God's people, and not to do so by exercising dominating lordship over the flock, but by the force of an overwhelming example, 1 Peter 5:3.
    2. Nehemiah 9:1-10:27 offers an illustration of this leadership style, and we view it for our edification:
  2. Leading By Applying God's Word By An Overwhelming Example, Nehemiah 9:1-10:27.
    1. As a consequence of the public reading of the Law (Nehemiah 8:1-8), the people of Israel had responded by sensing a deep remorse for their sin as a nation that had led to the Babylonian Captivity, Nehemiah 8:9.
    2. Nehemiah, Ezra the scribe and the Levites had thus told the people not to mourn at the first reading of the Law that came on the Feast of Trumpets, the Civil New Year, when Israel was supposed to rejoice in the Lord (Neh. 8:10-11 with Leviticus 23:23-25; Ryrie Study Bible, KJV, 1978, ftn. to Leviticus 23:24).
    3. However, two days after the end of the Feast of Tabernacles (Ibid., ftn. to Nehemiah 9:1), the nation met on the twenty-fourth day of the first month to vent their grief over their sins, Nehemiah 9:1.
    4. This repentance was real, being marked by fasting, wearing sackcloth and having dust on their heads together with those of Israelite descent separating themselves from fellowship with foreigners and standing together publicly in the temple court to confess their sins as a nation unto the Lord, Neh. 9:2.
    5. Accordingly, the people stood for a quarter of the day as they were read the book of the Law, and they spent another quarter of the day confessing their sins and worshiping the Lord, Nehemiah 9:3.
    6. The leading Levites took the lead in this event, standing on the temple stairs, and telling the nation to "Stand up and praise the Lord your God, who is from everlasting to everlasting," Nehemiah 9:4-5a NIV.
    7. Then, they led the people in an expression of repentance, forming a covenant to follow the Lord:
      1. They directed the people to confess that Israel's God had both created and was preserving the universe in contrast to the pagan beliefs their forefathers had adopted from the surrounding Gentile nations that had resulted in the nation's Babylonian Captivity, Nehemiah 9:5b-6 opposite 2 Chronicles 36:14.
      2. The leading Levites also led the people to acknowledge that God had chosen and led Abram ("exalted father"; Ibid., ftn. to Gen. 11:27) out of Ur of the Chaldees, giving him the name, Abraham (Neh. 9:7), "father of a great number" (Ibid.), and that God had found Abraham's heart to be faithful before Him, and had covenanted with him to give him and his seed the land of Canaan, Nehemiah 9:8.
      3. The Levite leaders led the people to acknoweldge that God had then delivered them from Egyptian bondage, exhibiting great miraculous power and giving them the Mosaic Law in preparation for their entrance into and possession of the Promised Land, Nehemiah 9:9-15.
      4. However, the Levites had then led the people to confess that their fathers had dealt proudly, hardening their necks and disobeying God's commandments, forgetting God's great deeds among them regardless of God's longsuffering and continued goodness to them, Nehemiah 9:16-25.
      5. The Levites then led the people to confess that their fathers had then been delivered by God to various disciplines, but that the fathers had kept returning to their sins after periods of short repentance to the point where God had brought them into national captivity, Nehemiah 9:26-31.
      6. So, acknowledging their Babylonian Captivity had occurred as God's discipline for their relentless sin (Neh. 9:32-37), the Levites led the people to make a covenant of repentance unto God, Nehemiah 9:38.
    8. Very significantly, the first LEADER to set his seal of approval to this covenant of REPENTANCE was Israel's civil governor, Nehemiah himself, Neh. 10:1, 2-27. He LED Israel in APPLYING God's Word in an ASTOUNDING EXAMPLE of HUMILITY in DEEP REPENTANCE unto the Lord!
Lesson: Nehemiah led by the force of an overwhelming personal example in applying God's Word, being the first official HUMBLY to sign Israel's covenant of REPENTANCE of sin unto the Lord.

Application: May we who lead in marriages, families, businesses, government and the church LEAD by the force of an OVERWHELMING, HUMBLE EXAMPLE in APPLYING God's WORD in our lives!