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1:48
This is Undaunted Life of Man's Podcast.
1:51
I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
1:53
Let's get into it.
1:55
Coming back to the forging table, the mission of Undaunted Life is equipping Mint to push
1:59
back darkness with content that forges spiritual, mental and physical resilience.
2:04
At the forging table, you'll see a group of regular guys forging spiritual resilience
2:07
by digging into God's Word and we're welcoming all of you to come along on that journey.
2:11
That's Caleb.
2:12
That's Robert.
2:13
That's Ryan, the horn.
2:14
We're going to get right back into Nehemiah.
2:16
We're going to get into Nehemiah 12.
2:18
The interesting thing about Nehemiah 12 is you're like, "Okay, well, this just seems like
2:21
a continuation of Nehemiah 11 because the first however many verses are just, it's just
2:27
names again.
2:28
Here we are with these names.
2:29
Why does Kyle like this chapter or this book of the Bible so much?
2:32
It's because there's so much here that doesn't always present itself as obvious because it's
2:36
obvious why Nehemiah 1, 2, 3 and 4 are so exciting and so there's so much there.
2:42
I've given entire talks and sermons just on Nehemiah 1 through 4.
2:46
It's very, very important.
2:48
But there's a lot here as well but before we move on because the biggest chunk of what
2:51
I want to talk about is really the climax of the Book of Nehemiah which starts in verse
2:55
27.
2:56
I want to go to verse 24 and so I'm going to read from the ESV and then I want to start
3:01
our conversation here and we'll see how bad I do these names but here we go.
3:04
And the chiefs of the Levites, Hashabiah, Cherabiah and Jeshua and the son of Cadmiel
3:11
and their brothers who stood opposite them to praise and to give thanks according to the
3:15
commandment of David, the man of God, watched by watch.
3:20
So as I was reading that, because again what I like to do, just to remind you guys how
3:25
I like to read the Bible, I like to read the words by themselves first, which I'm so glad
3:31
that I got these journal Bibles through crossway.
3:34
So it's each individual book of the Bible and so on the left side you have the scripture
3:39
on the right side you have where you can take notes and then there's a bunch of note pages
3:42
in the back and so I like to read it without commentary first and then I'll start reading
3:47
commentaries.
3:48
Maybe I'll go and do something a little bit deeper and it's interesting what phrases
3:52
or words or parts of the scripture reaches or speaks to me or kind of gets my attention.
3:58
When I read David the man of God, I thought and I literally wrote in the margin, oh what
4:05
it would be like to be called Kyle the man of God because it's one thing when you die
4:11
for people to say nice things at your funeral or when they distill your entire life down
4:16
to a tombstone and it's father, husband, friend, you know, that type of thing, but it's another
4:24
thing while you're alive for someone to call you blank the man of God, right?
4:31
And I just think that's almost like a rallying cry for me or like a reminder like some people
4:37
are aware of rubber band on the wrist to remind them to don't cuss and if they cuss they pop
4:42
their wrists or they have little triggers like, okay, I'm not eating carbs right now
4:45
or I'm not doing whatever like they always want to remind themselves.
4:49
That was such a thing that stood out to me and if you just buzz through the first 26 verses
4:54
because you're like, ah, it's just another list of names, you would have missed it.
4:57
So I think that's important.
5:00
The, you know, we think about like, again, I mean, it's kind of the generation, you know,
5:06
talking about heritage stuff like that and to be to be described in that way, I had this
5:12
is an exercise I did years ago that was recommended by someone I can't remember.
5:17
But it's to basically write your eulogy.
5:20
Yeah.
5:21
It's like, what do you want to remember?
5:22
I think that's the seven habits of highly effective people.
5:25
I think that's one of the things they make you do.
5:26
Maybe, yeah, but it's like, but then the key was like read it every day, which is kind
5:31
of weird.
5:32
Think about it, but I mean, what you're trying to kind of, yeah, you're trying to, you know,
5:37
it's aspirational, right, and it's what do you want to be remembered for, but then remind
5:42
yourself of it every day.
5:43
And I feel like that's just, you know, because I don't think this is the only place he mentions
5:47
David, the man of God, but yet to be described in that way, I mean, that's, I've often thought
5:52
that I want, I want people to say his life really matched up with his words, you know,
5:58
because there's like, it's easy to say the right words.
6:00
I mean, that, that part's easy, but it's to do the things that you're saying.
6:04
Does that make sense?
6:06
Yeah.
6:07
So, I mean, I absolutely agree.
6:08
I mean, again, it's heritage, it's legacy.
6:11
It's all those things.
6:12
So, you know, to keep reminding ourselves of that, that was an exercise that I did years
6:16
ago that I mean, I don't still read it every day, but I probably should.
6:19
To be labeled as a man of God at the end of your days.
6:22
I think people can encapsulate and they can see these points in your life where you just
6:30
shined, you know, where you were above and beyond, you were faithful to one woman your
6:33
whole life.
6:34
You know, you raised your kids well, but then again, to be able to say that you are actively
6:40
a man of God every day, there's a difference.
6:44
It's not these highlights and these points over the course of, you know, six decades,
6:49
seven decades, hopefully if we get a chance, but it's this daily chance of being able to
6:55
die to self to, you know, do everything that we can to be able to glorify God.
7:01
And are we doing that in the mundane?
7:03
Are we doing that in their daily actions?
7:05
Well, Robert, let's talk about that a little bit deeper because I think that connects to
7:08
what Caleb was saying as well.
7:10
It's what are the things that we do to remind ourselves of what our commitments are.
7:16
So there was a guy, I saw a video and I can't remember the guy or the exacts, but you know,
7:19
the general gist of it's going to be true.
7:22
This guy, I think he took, he looked at his life expectancy.
7:28
He's probably in his 30s or he's probably in his 40s.
7:31
And he looked at his life expectancy, which was like 82.
7:34
And he calculated the number of weeks until death.
7:36
It was either weeks or months until his death.
7:40
And every time a week or another month went by, he would color in the bubble and he printed
7:44
this out and put it on his wall to where it was, yeah, to where all things being equal.
7:50
You know, I don't, you know, get on some heater and live a whole lot longer.
7:53
And also, you know, I don't get hit by a bus or attacked by a pack of wolves.
7:56
Like this, like this is how long I got.
7:59
And so what it did for him is he's like, it's what I'm working on right now, because again,
8:03
this is like a leadership guru guy is what I'm working on right now.
8:07
Is that helping me make the difference and make the impact that I want to make?
8:13
Because this project's going to take me, let's say he was doing it in weeks, he's like,
8:16
this is going to take me four bubbles to finish this thing.
8:20
And I was like, wow, like it seems macabre, it seems morbid.
8:24
But you know, really, at the end of the day, it's like, like that's really how we should
8:28
be acting.
8:29
I mean, what do you guys think that that's kind of too much?
8:33
Like some people are like, that's a bit too much like to think about it in those terms
8:37
because stress me out.
8:38
I think it depends upon the, I don't know, the character of the person.
8:43
You know, I know if I were to try to put that up in my office and my wife walk in and see
8:47
it every day, it would probably have a fight and she starts filling in more bubbles.
8:54
She starts taking away bubbles at the bottom of it.
8:56
She's like, you're not going to live that.
8:58
You know, but I do think that I can look at it and see the value and the health in it.
9:04
If I were to just have that personally in a journal that I look at every once in a while
9:08
and be able to see, you know, I mean, I think would I be a little bit less about binge watching
9:15
an episode or, you know, would I, would I manage my time better?
9:19
Again, it's circling back to what last week we talked about is that, you know, the altars
9:24
of comfort and entertainment, you know, all too often, you know, it's easy for us as men
9:29
to just, you know, put ourselves as a self God, this idea of us being God.
9:34
And those are the altar that we prayed to on a consistent basis.
9:38
And I think if I saw a bubble there, it would be easier for me to go.
9:41
You know what?
9:42
I can deal without that.
9:43
I need to be investing my time here.
9:45
So I like the idea of the eulogy and writing it down.
9:49
Never thought about that.
9:50
I think it's a kind of a good way of like reminding yourself of like kind of who you
9:56
want to be.
9:57
I mean, the most I've done is like set up the soundtrack to my funeral.
10:00
So you know, but, but it's all Britney Spears.
10:04
It's not.
10:05
We're curious.
10:06
It's Taylor Swift.
10:08
That's right.
10:09
Sorry.
10:10
Wrong blonde pop.
10:11
Actually Taylor Swift was in there because I have the national, but see, see when jokes
10:15
become real life.
10:16
Yeah, it's true.
10:18
My wife will attest to it.
10:20
But the thing that I look at is I don't know if it's just me that in it, I just shoot life
10:25
at the hip.
10:26
Like I just don't look that far ahead.
10:28
I just want to live in the moment now.
10:30
You know, because if I'm in the moment now, then I'm going to enjoy it.
10:35
Because if I keep thinking about life of what it's going to be 30 years from now, if I die,
10:39
like that's just where my mind's going to set.
10:41
And so when I, when I look at, you know, being a man of God, I want to be known for my faith,
10:46
you know, and, and where that faith got me.
10:50
And knowing that my full depravity in life, like, you know, I'm not the perfect man.
10:53
I'm not a, you know, I'm not the good man that I think I am.
10:57
There's a reason I need a savior.
10:59
And so just being able to just go out on faith and just kind of shoot at the hip.
11:03
Like, that's just kind of like how am I, I feel, I find it very macabre to do, you know,
11:08
like, well, I got these many years left and I'm just like, I can't do that.
11:11
If I do that, I'm just going to, I'm going to dwell on, I'm going to dwell on that future
11:15
and not dwell on the present.
11:16
I think one thing that helps, there are certain cultures around the world.
11:20
We have a very sanitized view of death in America, okay?
11:24
So when people in our families get old and they're closer to death, we put them in homes
11:31
with people that can help care for them so that we don't have to deal with that level
11:34
of death and pain.
11:36
And then whenever they die, we have a funeral service.
11:39
They come and they pick up the body and they prepare it and they do all these different
11:43
things and some funerals are closed caskets.
11:45
Some are open, but that creates a lot of negative emotions for people.
11:49
And so, you know, they maybe do a closed casket and it's just a very sanitized view of death,
11:53
whereas there are other cultures around the globe where death is a constant reminder.
11:58
So what is it? What is it? Momentumori, like, you know, we're remembering the dead.
12:03
When I was in Rome for the first time, I had been on the ground less than an hour and our
12:06
guide took us to, he's like, hey, before the rest of our group, because we were traveling
12:10
with a larger group, it was like before they get here this afternoon, let me take you some
12:13
places that you would never see because you want to go see the Colosseum and the Trevi
12:17
Fountain and, you know, the Vatican and all those things, he took me to something called
12:21
Bone Church. So it was an early sect of Christianity that had an outsized reverence for the dead.
12:30
And so if you search Bone Church on Google and go to images, you will see all the decorations
12:35
in this church are created using human bones, actual human bones.
12:40
So there's like these mosaics and it's ribs and jaws and femurs and tibias and like that's
12:47
how they've made this whole thing. And people go in there and they're just, they're shocked
12:51
and appalled. Some of them are, you know, they're clutching their pearls, they're offended.
12:55
But this was a culture that had a tremendous, this particular sect had a tremendous reverence
13:00
for the dead and they wanted to be constantly reminded of that. Like, hey, while I'm not
13:04
bones on a wall of a church somewhere, there are things that God has me on this planet
13:09
to do. And I didn't need to make sure I'm doing that. Like, I need to make sure I'm over
13:14
the target, which doesn't mean that you can't binge watch that show every now and then.
13:19
It doesn't mean that you can't, you know, go take a vacation and unplug, but it's like,
13:23
you're here for a reason. You're still taking breaths. So God has a purpose for you. And
13:28
I think that that ties into to what we're looking at here because really the climax
13:33
of the entire book of Nehemiah technically is in the middle of Nehemiah 12 because starting
13:39
a verse 27 and we'll get into some of the details. It's the dedication of the wall.
13:44
This is a, this is a big, big, big day. Okay. So from the very beginning of Nehemiah one,
13:49
when we were looking at him just lamenting the fact that a city that he had never even
13:54
been to was in shambles, right? And then here we are at the climax. And so we've got a lot
14:00
that we're going to talk about Nehemiah 13. So I'm a little bit afraid we won't be able
14:03
to, to exactly, you know, talk about this. I just want to open this up for anybody just
14:08
to give your generalized thoughts of the totality of the work that was done by Nehemiah because
14:13
we're going to, we're going to dig into the celebration and some of the corollaries to
14:16
worship and things like that. But just Nehemiah in general, because this, this really is the
14:21
culmination of a work that, you know, started well before what we're reading here in Nehemiah
14:26
12. So whoever wants to lead us off.
14:28
Yeah. And I think we, I mean, I think we see it leading up to verse 27, you know, I mean,
14:34
he's talking, I mean, Ezra comes back into the picture. He's talking about everybody that
14:38
was involved up to that point, you know, mentioning David. So I mean, it is a great celebration.
14:45
I mean, obviously it takes a kind of a, in the beginning of chapter 12, it changes to
14:50
just this attitude of Thanksgiving that's mentioned throughout. So, you know, they're
14:56
very celebratory and giving thanks and just understanding kind of the, the eternal meaning
15:02
of what they've done. So, you know, I mean, they're, they're celebrating God's work.
15:07
And I mean, it started all the way back when, you know, Nehemiah was the cup bearer. I mean,
15:13
it's all and leads up to this one day, like he mentioned. So I mean, it's, it's significant.
15:17
I think the, the attitude of Thanksgiving is one that stands out to me reading this little
15:23
section here.
15:24
Yeah. I looked at him too, is that I think one of the things that amazed me just digging
15:29
through Nehemiah was how tactical he was it with his faith and in his wisdom and leadership.
15:37
How there would be a problem immediately went to prayer. And he would spend time in prayer
15:45
focusing on what God wanted him to do. And he would always wait before. And then once
15:52
he felt ready, he would then move to action with what he did. You know, he, I think that
16:00
was probably one of the most, you know, just things that led out to me more than anything.
16:05
It's how a lot of examples of him pausing long enough to pray. So Ryan, I saw you just
16:11
scrolling Facebook a second ago. I know you were looking for something. It was funny.
16:16
I lived to my ride and see the Facebook app. But what were you saying?
16:19
Um, I was coming back to kind of like what you've been known for, you know, and I was,
16:24
I was really hit by Paul's words and the acts chapter 20, which was what I was trying to
16:28
pull up, um, which I have to go back to Facebook. I know you hit me. You have to be ready at
16:40
all times. You might get called on like in college when the professor is like, Hey, at
16:44
any point you're going to get called on it. If you don't have something to say, you get
16:46
zero for the day. I have, I have had one message for the Jews and Greeks alike, the necessity
16:51
of repenting from sin and turning to God and having faith in our Lord Jesus, but, and then
16:56
chapter, verse 24, but my life is worth nothing to me unless I use it for finishing the work
17:01
assigned me by the Lord Jesus, the work of telling others the good news about the wonderful
17:06
grace of God. Then he falls up in verse 26. I declared today that I have been faithful.
17:11
If anyone suffers eternal death, it is not my fault.
17:14
I don't know. I look at that. I look at what Nehemiah has done here is like, he's taking
17:19
the Jewish people back from, um, from, from the sin that they had. I mean, they're coming
17:24
out of what 70 over 70 years of captivity, uh, by, by other nations. And, um, he's, he's
17:32
just, you know, having them, they turn and they repent. And, and I think it was six, six
17:38
in my chapter six was the, uh, repentance. Go ahead and flow. I find it. Yeah. So they
17:46
were a pant from their sins and then, uh, and they turned back to God. And so we just talked
17:51
about, you know, two episodes ago, um, the, um, the ceiling of the, uh, the covenant. And
17:57
so, you know, he can look back, Nehemiah can look back and say, but my life is worth nothing
18:02
to me unless I use it for finishing the work assigned to me by the Lord. And this was the
18:07
work that was assigned by God to Nehemiah, which I think is a beautiful encapsulation,
18:13
what our work is as Christians and disciples. Um, and so our work now is telling everybody
18:19
about the good news. I mean, we're not, we're not the prophets now being low as,
18:23
well as this, you know, we already see the low in our culture. We see the low in our daily life.
18:28
But now we actually have freedom from it through the grace of Jesus.
18:31
I'll let you try to find it. I was having trouble as you were, you were chatting, but I would,
18:35
I would say the, um, the totality of the book of Nehemiah for me, and this is probably why I'm drawn
18:41
to it is it's a story of resilience, especially in those early chapters where we're describing,
18:47
you know, Sam Ballet and Tobias and Gesham and all these people that were, you know, trying to
18:53
actively stop this work of God from happening. And if Nehemiah wasn't a prayerful guy,
18:58
and if he wasn't a dutiful guy, not a leader, this is a very political book to me as well,
19:02
because you're telling me that a guy just waltzes into a city that he's never been to before. And
19:07
then with a snap of a finger can just get, you know, all these people to fall in line and be like,
19:13
yeah, we need to do this because these people have been living amongst that ruin for decades.
19:16
Like it's, it's generational ruin at this point. Like it's almost like, hey, these walls can't
19:22
be built. It's like, you know, people didn't think you could run a four minute mile until
19:25
someone did people didn't think you could live this amount of weight until someone did.
19:29
And now we're changing the paradigms in our brain to kind of comport to, oh, this is possible now.
19:33
And so I'm just really drawn to Nehemiah's resilience. And we'll talk about this more
19:38
as we wrap up Nehemiah next week. But this was not this wasn't an easy process to get from start
19:45
to finish. And then it immediately got hard again, because people are stupid. And so it's like,
19:50
in like, we're inconsistent, and we don't have the right levels of dedication to the project.
19:54
But as I look at the book of Nehemiah, I find that to be that the one thing that sticks out to me
19:59
is just the overall, overall resilience and sticking to God's word.
20:02
There's a final verse to that. I look at the growth of Nehemiah from the beginning,
20:08
just his personality, how much it's grown. You know, from him being a cup bearer to being sad and
20:14
brokenhearted before the king and the king then compelling him, and then him going through with
20:19
all the grace and rebuilding the law and training everybody and whatnot, and then wrapping it up
20:24
in 25. So I contended with them and cursed them, struck some of them, and pulled out their hair
20:30
and made them swear by God. I mean, he is an absolute boss by the end of the book. I mean,
20:36
the guy is just zero tolerance, zero patience. This is exactly how it's got to be.
20:42
I think when we look at Nehemiah, I think we should look at it as a descriptive view of
20:46
how our walk is as Christians. I mean, we will come in as a broken wall that needs to be rebuilt,
20:52
who rebuilds us, Christ rebuilds us. As that wall is rebuilt by Christ, there's still cracks,
20:57
there's still things that we're walking into and running into. And we're going to see through
21:01
the Jewish people that, you know, yes, they've repented, they've sealed this covenant, but they
21:07
still have more, they still have more cracks. They still have more cracks that are built in
21:14
their wall. And it's basically, you know, that's where Nehemiah comes back.
21:19
For those of you now watching this on YouTube or rumble, for the last two sessions, I have
21:24
begged my friend, Robert, who has a tremendously velvety, lovely, strong voice to speak into the
21:31
microphone. Because if I can't speak into the microphone, I could be making a really good point,
21:34
but the microphone is not going to know that. And so now I am publicly shaming you. And I'm
21:39
going to sign this and you're going to keep it so that you can have this momento from that one time
21:44
you're invited in the never. And the next time I won't bring all of this material, so I'm trying
21:50
to move this giant microphone. Hey, I know that it's it's insignificant to make sure my audience can
21:56
hear you, Robert, I'm so sorry that you are individually inconvenienced at this point. But
22:00
no, we appreciate you. That's why we want to be able to hear your silly little voice. That's what
22:04
we want to be able to do. We're velvety to silly, just, you know, there's a spectrum,
22:08
right? It's 2023, everything's a spectrum. But again, I think that there's there's so many good
22:13
points like that's the thing I remember Matt grassmier who's not here, but he's he's done a lot of forging
22:18
tables. I remember he admitted this to me later. Whenever I said we were going to do Nehemiah, he was
22:24
like, Amaya, okay, sword and trial, like, okay, but like there can't be that much there until he
22:31
started digging into it. And you're like, Oh my gosh, this is a this is a leadership book. This is a
22:36
business book. This is a book about prayer. This is a book about faith. This is a book about resilience,
22:40
like there there's so much here. And even something very, very small here that stuck out to me as a
22:45
guy that struggles with worship is verse 30. So I'm going to read verse 30 here. We're again reading
22:50
from the ESV. So Nehemiah 12 verse 30, and the priests and the Levites purify themselves,
22:56
and they purified the people and the gates and the wall. So that doesn't say anything, right?
23:03
Like when you read through, it's like, okay, and the priests and Levites purify themselves,
23:07
and they purify the people and the gates and the wall. So there's a corollary to ministry here,
23:14
but also to worship, because at this time, more so than it is today, they were very reverent
23:22
of holy places, right? So, you know, the Ark of the Covenant, you know, where the Lord touched down,
23:29
you have the temple, you have the Holy of Holy, you have all these things that were covenantal
23:32
places that where God dwelt, and you know, we're really going to take these holy places seriously.
23:37
But this one verse shows that this people group had expanded their understanding of holy places
23:46
beyond the temple, beyond a building, but to include people, a people group, and the whole of Jerusalem.
23:55
And that is something that gets that gets really missed here. And to fast forward to our modern
24:00
context, we don't have an ecclesia model anymore, right, where it's like, you know, a small group
24:06
of people where it's the gathering of the people, that is the point. Now we live in an era where
24:10
it's a building, that's the point. And I'm not getting on to churches that build big, beautiful
24:14
buildings. I'm not getting on to churches that, you know, expand because, you know, this church
24:18
was built 50 years ago and it needs some upkeep and we're going to go ahead and expand and we're
24:22
going to get a bit of bigger parking lot like I'm describing our church. Like our church did an
24:27
addition to the building and then the church like doubled in size in six months. And it's a very
24:33
healthy expository preaching Bible church. So that's a good thing. But my goodness, how many of us
24:40
grew up thinking that there was something special about a church in terms of the type of place it
24:45
was, where you can have church in a garage or you can have church in a $10 million building.
24:51
God's presence is still there. And that just really struck me when I read verse 30.
24:55
I think church is a community. It's not a building. It's a community of people. It's like-minded
25:00
individuals that believe in one truth. And that is in Jesus Christ who died for our sins.
25:05
And we mold that truth and we disciple that truth to hopefully other people to grow our community.
25:14
But we live life together. And I think, you know, what I loved about this was,
25:17
I think there was a couple episodes back. You talked about baptism and how we don't get excited
25:23
like we should with baptism. Like look what's going on when they're dedicating this wall.
25:27
I mean, they're having a parade. I mean, they're going from north, south, east, west, purifying
25:32
symbols, gladness, thanksgiving, singing, harps, liars, like leers, however you want to pronounce it.
25:39
Is it liars? There you go.
25:41
Jobe will correct me. Yeah, he will. Sorry, Jobe.
25:43
But I mean, that's the thing that we look at. Presuns with trumpets, the musical instruments of
25:48
David the man of God again. You know, David, you know, it's, it's, it's a beautiful thing seeing
25:55
this dedication. It's basically a baptism, which is a baptism is your dedication to the church,
25:59
your dedication to Christ. So go ahead, Kale.
26:02
They're trying to come up with all the different ways that they can celebrate this, right? I mean,
26:06
like you think about, I mean, they're blessing the wall. They're blessing the gate. You know,
26:10
what might that have looked like, right? They're putting choirs on top of the wall. I mean,
26:14
they're thinking about what are all the different ways that we can celebrate this?
26:17
One of the things that stood out to me was verse 43. I may be jumping ahead a little bit, but
26:22
was that they said they offered great sacrifices and rejoiced because God had given them great joy
26:28
and the women and children rejoiced as well. So that the joy of Jerusalem, Jerusalem was heard
26:32
from far away. We think about, think about the things that we yell and shout about right now.
26:39
I mean, like, if you're, if you're outside of a football stadium, you can hear that from far away.
26:42
Yeah, right. You can hear a lot of things like that from far away. Can you hear the church
26:48
celebrating from far away? And that was something that I thought about with that passage was just
26:53
like, do we celebrate? And I know that, you know, for some guys and some people in general,
26:58
it's just worship is kind of a weird thing anyway. And I know it's something that I personally
27:04
have room to grow in, but you know, you think about what the Lord's done for us and the ways
27:09
that I can celebrate and should celebrate him. And can I be heard from far away?
27:13
So I want to park on this for a little bit. So I think that's perfect. So bringing up baptism
27:18
and bringing up how we celebrate. Yes, I brought this up at the Forgy table before I don't know how
27:22
long ago it was, but I've talked about it on my show, but it's like compare and contrast the
27:26
difference between, you know, an SEC football game, where the home team scores a touchdown versus when
27:34
somebody publicly declares that they are now like, you know, dedicating their lives to Christ or
27:40
that Christ chose them so that everybody is is good on their language, whether you're reformed or
27:44
not, maybe Christ shows them maybe they decided themselves are really good deciders. Who knows?
27:49
But like, and we just do a little golf club like, Oh, isn't that so sweet? Little Susie has decided
27:57
to dedicate herself to the Lord. Oh, isn't that so sweet? Guy in his 40s. That's, you know, an ex
28:01
fell in that, you know, decided to give his life to Christ. And now it's not a big deal. He's not
28:06
he's not doing coke office strippers bottoms anymore. Like he's he's going to Bible study like this is
28:10
such a this is such a good. It's a little clap, little clap. And the emotion is saved for the
28:17
family. So Ryan, whenever will your oldest was baptized, like I was sitting in front of you at
28:23
church, and I'm getting choked up and I'm getting emotional because this is a big deal. And I know
28:28
it went into it. There was some catechizing that went into it. There are a lot of conversations
28:31
from dad to son. Hey, are you, you know, are you just getting baptized? Because your buddy got
28:35
baptized or what do you think baptism is? And like, these really as deep as you could get at the
28:39
time with what is he seven or eight? He's eight. Okay. And so it's like, as deep as you could
28:43
get at the time that he was baptized. And, you know, I was emotional, I turned around and he's he's
28:49
crying. Ryan's crying. I was like, okay, yeah, that's it. But there were two, three people in the
28:54
entire building. Like, and there were maybe a thousand people in the service. No one else was
28:59
getting teary. I just like, and I'm, I'm at fault too. Like a fighter gets knocked out. It's a crazy
29:05
knock. And I jump out of my seat and I'm like, wow, like it just this craziness. And then I catch
29:10
myself just golf clapping like I struggle big time with that. What's funny is you had the
29:14
village or thought. I'm sorry. No, no, no, go for it. You had the video. You took the video of
29:18
getting baptized and you could see the couple in front of them smile with excitement that you
29:24
would have thought it was their kid getting baptized. Like, you know, there's that. You know what I'm
29:28
saying? Like, and I get it like, I next time our church has baptisms, I think we're going to be
29:33
the loudest guys there. You know, let that be the goal, right? Yeah, let that be the goal. But
29:37
it just amazed me. We went back to look at the video of will being baptized and just seeing the
29:43
people in front of them. Like he like looked over to his wife was smiling like it was their kid that
29:48
just got baptized. I thought it was a beautiful moment, you know? And so I think there's some beauty
29:53
in the quietness. But there's also like there needs to be a choice. There needs to be a way
29:58
of rejoicing. Like we need to rejoice so much more than than what we do now. You know, I feel like
30:04
culture is kept. You know, we need to be laid back and not so spiritual. Like I'm not the guy that
30:08
raises his hands during worship. You know, but when I do see that, I don't I don't feel embarrassed
30:13
for those people. I feel like empowered by them. I'm like, Hey, that's good. I'm glad that they're
30:17
feeling a sense of the spirit. They're rejoicing. So baptism for me is what the kids has been
30:22
a special deal that I put a lot of time and energy, which we all do, you know, and just the teaching
30:27
of the kids and everything else along the way and getting them to really understand what they're
30:30
going through. You know, we remember times of great joy and times of great sorrow in our lives.
30:38
You know, they mark back. And I think those times of great joy, sometimes we remember them because we
30:43
have so many people that come around to celebrate that with us. And sometimes that ceremony anchors
30:50
us to that covenant or event. And so one thing that we've done that's a little bit different and
30:55
is I've done all my baptisms for the kids and we've done them in ponds and we'll have 100 people
31:01
that will come. And there is this bold declaration and leading up to that, I give my testimony for
31:09
the first time to my child and leading them to Christ. And like, there's none, like none of us
31:16
are worthy. This is dad's story and why I'm not worthy, but God's grace is sufficient. His sacrifice
31:24
is so powerful that I'm able to stand before the throne of God clean because of the sacrifice
31:30
that Jesus has made. And so there's a bonding that I've been able to pull together. And then what's
31:36
really cool is the kids that have already been baptized, they and only they get to be with me
31:42
when I'm with the new one. So I have a lot of kids. And so our youngest got baptized as the last one.
31:49
I've baptized and done this with all four of my children. And then all three of my others. And
31:53
this is usually like two days, three days a week before I'll go through and give my testimony with
31:58
the kids. But the whole point is it's special because it's this like neat, like story. And I see
32:05
the other kids smile because they know what part of the story I'm getting ready to get to. And they're
32:09
like looking at their younger sister because she's gonna hear it for the first time and see what her
32:13
eyes are gonna look like and how she responds. And then, you know, we'll end up having everybody
32:18
out for the baptism itself. And there's this big celebration that happens with it. And so,
32:24
yes, I do believe there needs to be a massive celebration when this event happens.
32:33
So I think there's some some takeaways that we can take from this. That's a beautiful story,
32:37
especially since I know your individual story. But especially when kids are younger, how much
32:43
effort we put into birthdays. And so kids Kelsey and I've talked about it because, you know,
32:47
we don't live in her hometown. We don't live in my hometown. Edmund is our hometown. We have
32:51
no family here. Like, you know, we get to make our own routines and get to make our own traditions.
32:57
And so it's like, you know, what, what things do we want to make a big deal, a big deal out of?
33:01
So Caleb, just like you guys, we love baseball. And so we've talked about the idea whenever our
33:06
kids are old enough to play baseball and understand what the world series is, we're going to make a
33:10
big deal out of game one of the world series. So like, think about a Super Bowl party. How many
33:15
people actually watch the game? Think about going to a big UFC. Yeah. So it's a handful of people
33:20
think about a big UFC and buy guys over how many guys are actually watching the fights.
33:23
And it's like, it's the point is not Hey, let's watch game one of the world series,
33:28
because we love baseball. It's this is an excuse to get a community of people together.
33:33
And every year, everyone, every family will know, oh, yeah, the Thompson's man world series is
33:37
coming around. I know the Thompson's make a big deal out of it. The the wife of the the guy that
33:41
leads our Sunday school, she saw me on opening day of baseball, like three years ago, and I'm
33:46
walking through Walmart wearing a jersey and I got my hat on and she's like, Oh, like, what is that?
33:51
I don't even understand like today's opening day. She's like, what's opening day? I'm like,
33:55
you don't know about opening day? And then I just tell her and she will tell that story
33:59
all the time now, like she knows when opening day is because she knows, like, Kyle thinks that's
34:03
a big idea or a big deal. She was excited by your excitement. Exactly. And now she's bought in.
34:07
That's the exact point, Robert. She was excited by my excitement. So what if we put a big level of
34:13
excitement into the baptism of our kids, which could be in a pond, it could be in the baptism
34:18
on a church, but it's like, it's not just, okay, make sure grandma and grandpa are there and make
34:22
sure that a few other people are there and then we'll go to the dinner afterwards. But it's like,
34:27
make it a party, make it a thing. And again, I know what we talked about these guys often,
34:31
you're probably getting tired of it. But church of 1122 down in Jacksonville, Florida,
34:34
that's Joby's church, they do beach baptism, because apparently they're not that far, you know,
34:39
from the beach. So they are literally dunking people in the Atlantic Ocean. That's where they're
34:42
doing baptisms. And the last time that I know about it, they did over 1000 baptisms in one day.
34:48
And there's, there's, there's tents and there's, there's music set up and there's, you know,
34:54
people coming through in a line, there's people deciding to follow Christ right then and there
34:58
on the beach, they're in Florida. And it's like, it is a party, like it is like, they're trying to
35:05
do a rejoice like the angels are rejoicing, right? And they're trying to do their absolute level best.
35:10
And it's like, that's what it should be. You know, again, as you were talking about Caleb, like,
35:15
dude, they've got, they've got people in the wall, they have a verse 31. And then I brought the leaders
35:20
of Judah up onto the wall and appointed two great choirs that gave thanks. We don't know how many
35:25
people were in those choirs, but just the use of the word great there is not to say that they
35:30
sounded good. It means that there was a large number of them. And that was a dedication to their work.
35:37
What were they working towards? Something that God put on the heart of Nehemiah to do to help restore
35:42
his chosen people in Israel. And I like, man, I could keep going on like you guys feel free to
35:48
hop in. But man, it's just, it is such a big deal. We need to make it a bigger deal.
35:51
I think it's, it's a huge deal. And the fact that they were able to do this in 52 days, like,
35:55
God was behind this and they know it 100%. And they're giving their gladness and our thanks
36:00
giving towards him. I mean, it's, it's a full on worship service that's going on through here,
36:04
and which kind of comes back to the covenant of, you know, of a Sabbath, you know, Christ came and
36:11
took care of the ceremonial law. So we create Sunday as our day of worship. Like, that's our day
36:16
of us coming together as these people came together and worshiping the one true God, you know, like,
36:23
we should treat what they did on the dedication of this wall. We should do every Sunday just on
36:28
what God's done in our lives. I think it's a beautiful thing. What's going on right here?
36:32
Yeah. I mean, so much is said about what we celebrate. You know, I mean, even so one of the
36:37
notes I had here was Ezra 3 13, which is said the foundation walls were complete and a shout
36:42
one out that could be heard from far away. I mean, it was just like they didn't even have a wasn't
36:47
even vertical, really, you know, I mean, it was foundations probably not very high. I'm not a
36:52
builder, but you know, that's just the beginning. So I mean, I think our so much is said about what
36:57
we celebrate and coming together with with God's people every Sunday should be celebrated. So,
37:04
you know, the energy that we have with with worship, and it's something that I'm telling my kids all
37:08
the time, like leadership and commitment to something is not about your volume, right? I mean,
37:14
it's not about how loud you are that doesn't make you a leader. But you know, it's it's what's going
37:19
on inside you that how significant you're treating something. So you're gonna say something, right?
37:25
I was just thinking just with the celebration alone on the walls, but they're also, you know,
37:30
we get into verse 44 and the temple, like, you know, like the temple was basically
37:37
somewhat it was rebuilt to know the house of God is now back in order.
37:41
And so I mean, that was I think a cause for celebration as well.
37:45
And the thing that I find important here is again, I keep going back to it, but I feel the need
37:52
to remind everybody. These are these are all concepts that we spent the last 30 minutes or so
37:57
talking about that you could have easily missed with a cursory reading of Nehemiah 12. And that's
38:03
the other thing I guess I want to encourage people to do because I've had to kind of get out of my
38:06
own head a little bit from starting the forging table, because I was one of those, you know,
38:11
numbschools that was like, well, I don't have time to study the Bible. So I'm just not going to read
38:16
it because I had been convinced that well, it's too dense. I can't understand it. Like, and it's
38:22
like, yeah, I have a certain level of intellect, but there's plenty of people that are smarter than me
38:25
that struggle with the Bible. So who am I to be able to read it? But you don't get all this stuff
38:30
just from reading a bunch of commentaries and then learning the original Greek or Hebrew or Aramaic
38:35
or any of those types of things. It's just here in the text. And the Holy Spirit is doing a work in
38:40
you as you're reading this to help pull things out for you. The one caution I would give to everybody
38:45
is don't make the book of Nehemiah about you and your business or you and your household,
38:49
because at the end of the day, the book of Nehemiah is not about you. It's about God. And as we'll see
38:55
when we talk about the very last chapter of Nehemiah next week, it's pointing to unfinished work at
39:01
this time in history. Okay, it's unfinished work. And God still had a work to do even after Malachi,
39:08
the last book that we see in our in our New Testament, but it was actually the last book,
39:12
the last chapter of Nehemiah, rather, that is the latest thing written in the Old Testament,
39:18
because as you'll notice guys, as you read forward for next week, you would think Nehemiah is going to
39:21
end with a, you know, a thump, but it kind of ends with a good like it's kind of a little bit of a
39:27
dud ending. And there's a reason for that. But one thing I did want to point out in verse 31 through
39:32
37, this is a listing of the gates. And it, you know, kind of goes back to something that you said,
39:38
Robert, I don't know if it was this week or last week about when you see these names,
39:42
there's a, the reason these names are there is because there were a lot of hard fought battles,
39:47
not like, you know, sword and shield battles, but there were a lot of battles at these different
39:52
gates at these different walls. And there's a listing in verses 31 through 37 of these gates.
39:58
And with with all this kind of happening, we know that one thing Nehemiah is doing is under the cover
40:05
of night, he's going to inspect the work that's been done. He's inspecting the walls, he's inspecting
40:10
the gates. And the last time we saw this happen was in verse two, because this is after he, you know,
40:16
risks his life, by asking King Artaxerxes for a sabbatical, and for timber, and for letters of
40:23
safe passage, to travel to a city he's never been to, to rebuild the walls. And as I make a big point
40:28
every time I talk about it, he could have just kicked the doors in and been like, all right,
40:32
Jerusalem, I'm here, I'm the savior, I'm Nehemiah, let's get it done, didn't do that. When he arrived,
40:38
as we see in chapter two, he arrived and evaluated, got out his notebook and his pen and he just like,
40:44
all right, well, this needs to be done, this needs to be done, which is what a leader would do,
40:47
which is what a politician would do. And now this again, this is why this part of the of Nehemiah is
40:52
the climax of this entire book is because he's doing the same thing he did at the beginning,
40:58
now that the work is finished. And so it shows a cumulative nature and culmination of the work
41:04
that he's done, that look, we get to see this from beginning to end, but the story's not over,
41:09
that that still strikes me like, hey, he's still the same Nehemiah, like, he doesn't win the tournament
41:14
and then I don't need to train for a couple weeks. He doesn't accomplish the physical goal and it's
41:19
like, all right, I guess I can take six months off now. Like, he's obviously doing the same
41:22
dutiful work that he's done the whole way. I love that. Something significant to about the gate is,
41:27
I mean, through the same door that you welcome in the people of Israel to build, you know,
41:32
what God is doing in this and just let me hear is the same gate that the enemy can come through
41:39
to be able to destroy everything that God's will. Just catch that, let me right back.
41:45
Well, I caught it. So the weird thing about that, Robert, is I wasn't even looking at you because
41:49
I was doing something else on my notes, but I heard you trailing off into the nether regions.
41:53
And so it like got me to divert right back. Is this the one and only right? Does the microphone
41:58
like smell bad? Not doing a great job of making your invitation to come back very forthcoming?
42:03
That's what I said. So it probably does smell bad. Okay, you're just like recoiling.
42:09
But the same gate, you know, he's looking at is as the main, you know, protection and the main
42:15
invitation for everything that he began with the gates and he's ending with the gates in his vision.
42:20
I think there's, you know, making sure that it's up to, you know, up to the code, it's inviting,
42:26
it's it's safe, it's sacred. It's everything that needs to be to protect the city.
42:30
Well, when we talked about Nehemiah three, Robert, I remember Matt kind of bringing that up like,
42:34
no, no, you're reading it like, Oh, the dungate. I don't know you think about the dungate.
42:38
Don't you think the people in Jerusalem at the time knew something about the dungate?
42:41
Think about your city. I thought about this yesterday, like, you can tell when people are
42:45
kind of full crap when they pretend to be from a certain area. And like, if you're from that area,
42:50
you can start dropping some knowledge from your hometown because like I'm from lot in Oklahoma,
42:54
Southwest Oklahoma. So I can mention some things like, Oh, Luigi's Italian restaurant that you would
42:59
only know about if you lived there, Wayne's drive through mirrors. You know, if you go out to the
43:05
refuge out there, there's mirrors and they have these big plate size burgers. And so if somebody
43:10
was not from lawn, but was pretending, I'm going to know pretty quick. You know, we talked about
43:14
baseball quite a bit. Like when someone says, Hey, how many points did the cardinal score last night?
43:18
You're like, all right, this person doesn't know what baseball is because they call it points and
43:22
not runs. Yeah, what's opening day? And it's like, there's this inauthenticity to what they're saying
43:27
and what they're doing. And I mean, kind of back to your point, like, those those things meant
43:33
something. The dungate meant something. These random names that none of us will be able to
43:38
pronounce or understand, like it meant something to these people. And we just lose that when we read it.
43:43
We channel my grass mire. So going to talk real low, but still real silky all at the same time.
43:51
It's impressive. I'm super jealous. Duongate, you know, bro. I mean, it's just like, I don't
43:56
know that he's ever said, you know, bro, but it's not the best Matt grass mire. Well, I also don't
44:00
have a mustache. So we can work on it. But no, when I think of dungate, I'm like, man, who wants to
44:06
hang out at the dungate? I think, you know, we look at this and we look at we look at where Nehemiah,
44:13
you know, and what he's done with with the Israelites and rebuilding this town and then rebuilding the
44:19
Holy Holy Temple. I think it's it's just something that shows, you know, what he's done. But I kind of
44:26
wanted to bring into the surface of the temple service of the temple. So, you know, we talked
44:31
about the Levites and we talked about the priests at the beginning of this chapter, you know, and
44:36
it's like, well, who are the Levites? Who are the priests? You know, the priests and Levites are the
44:39
same. Not all Levites were priests, but the Levite, the clan of the Levites was the Holy Priesthood
44:46
of the 12 tribes. So all 12 tribes got land except for the Levites. So they were and that's why the
44:53
taxes and the first fruits and everything comes into the store room for the Holy Temple. And, you
44:58
know, now the Holy Temple is rebuilt. And he's basically in this chapter telling you who, you know,
45:04
these Holy priests are these are, you know, these are where your first fruits are going. They're
45:08
going to take care of this. And this is where a lot of God's condemnation comes down on on the
45:13
Israelites is because they're not taking care of the Levites. They're not taking care of God's
45:17
Holy Temple. And so I think it's awesome on it's awesome on verse 44 on that day. The men were
45:24
appointed over the store rooms, the contributions, the first fruits, the tides to gather into them,
45:30
the portions required by the law for the priests and the Levites according to the fields of the
45:34
towns for Judah and rejoiced over the priests and the Levites who ministered. So the priests and the
45:40
Levites minister God's where they minister, you know, everything that God wants these people to know,
45:47
but we have to take care of them. And then we're going to this is going to set us up in chapter 13.
45:52
And the fact that look at these store rooms, look what they're filled with. These are these
45:56
aren't little rooms, little closets that we just fill with some toilet paper and stuff that the
46:01
church needs. I mean, this is what keeps the Levites and the Holy Temple going. And then watch how we
46:08
is. They as Israelites in the new covenant walk away from what God's asking to do, what they've
46:14
sealed and signed on to do, just like we as Christians can do sometimes. But I think the first
46:19
fruits is something we definitely talk about the tides and then and then how that's going to
46:23
take effect in chapter 13. We've been including the first fruits. That's not just our money.
46:29
It's also our attention. But of course, in this time context, they are clearly talking about
46:35
currency, which is important as well. Yeah. I think one of the things that stood out,
46:39
I know we're kind of looking at this as like the culmination of the book, right? And we talked
46:43
about it a little bit is just the planning that went along to it. I mean, with it, I mean, they're
46:48
mentioning everything, right? I mean, it's leaders that you put in place, obviously protection around
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the city leaders that you put in place, the planning with, you know, food and first fruits
46:57
and all those things that stands out. And then we'll see, obviously, how we talked about a couple
47:03
weeks ago that they made the covenant. They're not going to neglect the house of the Lord.
47:08
And then oh, behold, that's exactly what we do. You know, just in our in our disobedience. So,
47:13
I mean, I think that that's the first fruit fruits also makes me think of, I heard said that give,
47:21
don't give until it's uncomfortable or until it makes you uncomfortable, give until it makes
47:26
you feel good. Yeah. Is that I mean, it's not, you know, the 10% thing. I mean, I know that was,
47:31
I feel like that was the original kind of thought of what a tithe was, but that that went away.
47:36
I mean, it wasn't, it was, it was give all you can give, give you the cheerful heart.
47:40
Yep. Exactly. So I think that's a good way to think about it and really heard it kind of put
47:44
in that way. But you said something there that I think is what we should wrap on is disobedience
47:49
because I feel like if you were a screen play writer or a director or something like that,
47:55
you would have ended the, the movie with Nehemiah 12, but there is a Nehemiah 13. So we're going to
48:02
leave the discussion for Nehemiah 12 and we're going to pick it up next week when we wrap up the
48:06
book of Nehemiah by going into Nehemiah 13 and keep that word disobedience in mind. So guys,
48:11
make sure you read through the end of Nehemiah, Nehemiah 13 for next week so you can be ready to go.
48:16
But before we let you go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost. Add and don't apply for
48:20
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48:24
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Keep seeking the Lion of Judah.