Hey y'all. Welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible podcast. Happy Monday. It is Monday, isn't it? Yeah. I have been at Compass now for, hold on a second here. This is the, how does this work? If I was hired on this day in 2015, that would mean I'm on year 11. Yes. I've just finished 10 years. Yeah, I'm on year 11. Congrats, man. 10 years. Thank you. That's awesome. It feels like it's flown by. Yeah. Yeah. That's amazing. And the last two, the best ones that you've had yet, it only gets better every year is better than the last, I don't know how this can keep happening. Yeah no, that's a big deal though, man. Not a lot of people are with one church for 10 years anymore. Yeah. That's true. Let alone, one church and then being a part of your church plant too. And yeah. Ministry in, in some denominations, I've never really fully understood this will move their pastors intentionally. Yeah, that's weird. Like they'll rotate them to other churches. And you don't. You're constantly having, to get to know new sheep, which is just odd. That is odd. The Mormons do that. They do it with their missionaries. The Wesleyan Church does that. Oh, I think the Methodist Church does that. Yeah. Odd, odd movement. I like being at a place for a while. I'm not a, I'm not a big fan of the transience. Yes. Yes, I'm with you on that. Yeah, so that's a big deal though. Congrats on 10 years. Thank you. I think I might enjoy myself a cake or a steak. You should today, maybe both at the same time. A cake steak. Yeah. Yeah. You could really ruin both of those if you don't do that just huh? Yeah. I'll let Kristen handle it. Put some frosting on top of a piece of cake, a steak, and a one on top of the cake. Yeah, that might mess everything up. Do you put a one on your steak? If it's available, I will. Really? Yeah. What if it's a really good piece of steak? Yeah. You'll still defile it with your Aon sauce. I mean, I don't eat a ton of steak. You're not a steak person. I like it. It you seem like more of a fish person. No, I'm not. I'm actually not a fish person either. I would choose steak or a chicken for sure. Okay. But we don't buy a lot of steak because we've got. More kids than we, we need to have. Wow. Okay. This took a different turn. Which of your kids would you like to get rid of? None of them actually. I love all my children, but when it comes to buying steak, we have more kids than I can afford to feed. Sure. And we don't typically cook two meals, and so we don't often do the steak game alright. But I do enjoy steak, but but I understand what you're meaning. 'cause if I go to Hutchins and get the brisket, I don't need barbecue sauce for that. Yeah. Doesn't I fort? Yes. Yes. But if you go to a nice steak place like Randy's. Have you guys been to Randy's and Frisco yet? Yes, of course you have. I remember 'cause we were there to Yes, we were there together. Yeah. That doesn't need a one sauce is what I'm saying. Fair. You might offend them if you asked for a one sauce. And I've been in situations like that and I wouldn't offend them by doing that. But if somebody put it on the table was like, here, you can have some I You'd still use it. I might take some. All right. Do you put ketchup on top of your steak too? I don't. Don't do that. Don't, no. On your eggs, do you put ketchup on? You Don't play ketchup on your eggs? Nope. N no, I don't. Do you put bananas on your peanut butter sandwiches? No. That's good actually. But people have, I, yeah. Do you put peanut butter in your hot dogs? No. That's really good. What? You gotta try it. Stop it. I did it. This is okay. It was a good 10 years, but we're gonna have to peanut butter on your hot dog. Okay. So we heard it. My family from Pastor Ben. And heike don't knock until you try it. And I'm, you're, no, I'm knocking it. You're weird. Yeah, that's what I said. That's what I said. And then I thought, I need to try this and I'm not gonna just do it myself. I'm gonna make all of the high school ministry do it with me. So I did it at av, I did an event and the food that we served was. Peanut butter and hot dogs stop. And when I tried it, I was delighted. This is crazy. I'm pretty sure it was Pastor Ben. It could have been someone else. I think he's the one that gave me the idea. Kristen can verify that, but when we tried it, we were both surprised and delighted that it was as good as we thought it. I was. Take your word for that. No, maybe I'll bring it in the office. I don't think so. Maybe from my 11th year anniversary or my 11th year. I'll bring it in for us. And out of respect for my work and my love for the Lord and my service to your church. Yeah. Maybe you'll have to try it. You know how much I love when we have food in the office and how I love the sense that waft through the corridors of the hallways. We'll open it in Kelly's office and then we'll eat it in here. The one right outside my door. Let's keep your door closed. Yeah. No, I think I'll pass on the peanut butter and hot dogs. Even for my 11th year. Even for your 11th year. How dare you. I'm just rejoicing the tap OFTs back on the shelf. Tap it. Did you not? It was gone, it was off the shelf. I did not know that. You could not find it. Wow. Yeah. 'cause we ran out. Wish I would known looking for it. I've, I would've sold you my bottle for a very poultry $50. We have a bottle here in the office and I kept eyeing it. I wonder if anybody uses that. That is mine. But we, I brought it. I'd love it here, but I'm happy to I'm happy to share it. No, I, we got the peanut butter ball now. We have the peanut butter balls. You may not have No those are mine. I had my own. Okay. And so I, I had my own and we're good. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. But you can always use the tapit tea. All right. I appreciate that. Anyways, let's jump in. Nehemiah 11 through 13 in Psalm 1 26. I feel like we've said this is the last Psalm, probably four or five times. This is the last one. We really think this is the last one because I don't think there's any of the New Testament that are gonna call back to our knowledge. There are none in the New Testament, but then again, we've been wrong before, so yeah, we have been wrong before. Yeah. Hey, Nehemiah 11. Jerusalem needed inhabitants. So the city was built. The wall is finished, but Jerusalem needed people to live inside it. And so there, there are men that are gonna be selected and chosen by lot to help populate the city that was still largely lying in ruins. The wall built the temple's built. But there's not a lot more than that right now. There's not a lot of homes, there's not a lot of places for people to live. And in verses two through 24, you have a list of those who lived in Jerusalem, and many of them are described as people that are valiant or mighty men. Because why, because this was not an easy assignment. You were being. Asked to live in a place that, yeah, had a wall. But this was not luxury. This was not a situation where you were gonna be, this was not a sign of honor. You were gonna have to be building your home. Probably a lot of these people building the houses, and not just theirs, but probably the homes of the other people. And to prepare the city to be inhabited. Once again, this was the people that got tasked with that job. And so they're honored here in Nehemiah chapter 11 by their names being recorded for us. We don't know a lot about them outside of this, but these are the people. Who were tasked with this job and who were selected by lots to go and do this. And they did. And then in, in the rest of the chapter, we get another list. And these are the people who lived outside the city in the regions surrounding Judah there. Again, I think chapter 11 is there as a way of God honoring these people by inscribing their names in scripture for us. Sitting here to read now that many thousands of years later as a symbol of what they did being so good and commendable. What a great honor it was for these people. For God to say, I'm gonna make sure people never forget who you are. Yeah. For thousands of years. People are going to read your names. They don't know who you are, but they do know what you did. And I think that speaks to us because it, this is how God deals with us. There's no act of service that God overlooks. Jesus will later say, if you give someone a cold cup of water in my name, you will by no means lose your reward. And this tells us that God is in the business of looking at your work. And even if it seems like nobody else is paying attention, God is paying attention. And he may not inscribe your name in the Bible, but he's got something better. He's inscribing your name in an area where he'll never forget, and he's going to reward you and honor you for the work that you do. And you'll notice there's two kinds of people here that are honored, those who are doing the work and those who are supporting the work. So you've got those who are inside the walls and those who are outside the walls both are given their due and their honor for what they did. One of my I guess it. Oh, I'm either confusing Pastor Mike or the pastor before that. It must have been pm. This sounds like something PM would say. God is not preparing us for a heavenly ghetto. We're not all getting the same thing. All of us are gonna get differing rewards according to what we do in this life, and so I think you'll see it here. There's greater honor for those who lived in Jerusalem than there is for those who lived outside. Both get what they're due. Because they both served in different ways, but there's greater honor for those who serve greatly. So let me encourage you to remember God's not forgetting the work that you do serve greatly. And even if no man pays attention, that's even better because I want God to pay attention and I know that he is, even if no one else acknowledges it. Yeah, I think we, we see this e even in from a human perspective. We back in, in California, compass Bible Institute has a list of some of the donors that are on the wall there inside of CBI. Yeah. That contributed to help get Compass Bible student. Institute up and going. A lot of times you'll go to a sports stadium and they'll have these pave stones in the ground that have people's names on 'em. Oh yeah. They help pay for a part of the stadium or something like that. And that's what, that is similar to what God is doing here. It's just this is God committing. Not, Hey, here's a pavestone that people are gonna walk on top of and put gum on and all stuff. Here's a bench. You get a bench in the new Jerusalem. Yeah. I want a stadium in the new Jerusalem, the Rod stadium in the heart of the city. Chapter 12, we get another list of names here, and this is gonna be a breakdown, a list of all the Levites and the priests who came up with Abel, the son of Sheel, teel, and Yeshua. Abel, the son of Sheel. Teel. Remember, he's the Davidic one. He's the one that is in the line of David. In fact, when we get to the New Testament here in just a couple of days, we're gonna read his name again. In, I think Matthew chapter one, he shows up as part of the genealogy of Christ as it's traced through Joseph, though you're gonna read the name Abel. And so here we are reading it right now. You're gonna read it again in Matthew chapter one. That's who it's gonna call back to, and the priests and the Levites. So what was the difference there? The priests were. Were the ones that had the job of offering the sacrifices. They were the ones that were inside the temple. They were doing the duties of the drink offerings and the sacrificial offerings and everything else. The Levites were there to, in a lot of ways, serve the priests. They were there to help the priests with their priestly duties. And so you have the two classes listed there, and that's why they're separated out there as Priest and Levites. But you get a list of all their names along with some of their roles and responsibility. We will note here also that, that not all of them were part of the ones that did dwelt in Jerusalem. You're gonna find that some of them dwelled outside the city as well. But the first 26 verses is is a listing of all these different priests similar, wanting to honor them, just like in, in the previous chapter. Verses 27 through 43, then we get the dedication of the temple. And this is quite the celebration. So after the priest had consecrated everyone, and again, the word consecrate means to set them apart as holy. And so after the priest had priests, had consecrated everyone sanctified them. The, and the wall itself. Then Nehemiah gathered the people and split them into two great choirs, one from the north and one from the south. And they end up singing and rejoicing and offering thanks to Yahweh for his kindness to them. So it's interesting here that they dedicate the temple and then there's this formalized, Hey, this choir, you guys go over here, this choir, you guys go over here. We're gonna do a kind of a caco praise of Yahweh for all of the good things that he's done to us. Yeah. That's really cool. I imagine in my mind, an one sings this chorus, the other one sings the other kind of working together in stereo. Yeah. But I think it's fascinating that God, of all the things that they could do, and they do other things besides this, but they're singing this is. More evidence that God is not just tolerant of singing. He loves it. He loves music. He loves when we sing to him. He loves to encourage us to praise him, which is why it's it's part of what we do as a church. It's part of how we honor God. And I understand we're not a singing culture. Every time I watch, I Love Lucy. And the Mertes and the Ricardo's are singing together for Yucks and Lucy of course is singing off Key. I just think, what a different time we live in. Yep. I've never sung with you. We sing at church together, but it's not like we go to each other's houses like, Hey, let's just sing a song. You know what you guys wanna do? We're probably gonna be, I dunno, there's 80 other things that you might do with your friends when you go to their place than singing a song. But God wants us to sing. This is part of how we love him. This is part of how we show our care for him. So sing Christian sing, show, show up and be there ready to sing. Yeah don't minimize that aspect of your Christian life. In fact, notice how frequently God mentions it. And take that to heart. Yeah. Yeah. We just had an event this past Friday night where we sang a little bit with with some people at the event. That was sweet. That was awesome. It was very sweet. Yeah. And lemme just echo that. I know. We have church at 10:00 AM Right? And for some of you 10:00 AM is early. It's true. But can I just encourage you to be there on time to not look at the first, 20 minutes of the worship service and think that's the singing part. I really wanna make sure that I'm there for the preaching part, for the time where the Bible is being preached to us. It's all significant. It's all important and, it's all part of our corporate experience to be there together and to lift our voices together. And when you are there on time and you are there from the very word, go when the first song is being sung then it makes the overall experience better, not just for you, but also for your brothers and sisters in Christ in that room, to have your voice being added to the sound of the voices that are being sung there and being lifted together. Be there on time value that make that a priority. I know that. We can get into this. Nobody's really relying on me to do anything because I'm not giving announcements or I'm not on the worship team or I'm not doing this. And so what does it matter if I'm five minutes late, 10 minutes late? It does matter. It, it lessens the overall quality of everything going on for all of us involved. Yeah. And so be there on time and be there ready to worship and be and sing loudly, make a joyful noise to the Lord. It's super cool. That's one of the reasons why I sit up at the very front. It's not just to have a shorter walk up to the pulpit. I do that because I like to hear. All of the voices behind us. And that's one of the best places to sit for that because you can hear all the voices coming forward from behind us. Be there on time and and worship with us 'cause that's so good and so important for us. Have you ever sang for Amanda? I did actually in college. Yeah. When did you last in college? I did when we were dating. Remember? Of course you did? Yeah. What did you sing to her? I sang a song by a band called Honey Brown called Texas Angel. Texas Angel. Yep. Give us a taste. I'm not gonna do that. You knew that before you even asked that question. I did. My point only is simply that a lot of guys who wouldn't fancy themselves singers, and I know you sang before and obviously I sing. I think we're willing to do that. For someone that we love. You do that for someone that you really care about. Yeah. I'll sing for you because I am just head over heels. I'm intoxicated with your love, all those things. No. Now we have to do that with the Lord. It's not the same thing, but it is. If you love somebody, you're gonna do things that are naturally uncomfortable because you love the person that you're giving the gifts to. And that's exactly what it is when we sing to the Lord. So let me encourage you, show whoever you are, even if you're not part of our church, show up to church on time. Sing with your church and love them, and love the Lord through that. Amen. The rest of chapter 11 or Chapter 12 rather the temple kind of gets back going and the services are going, things are happening. It's back in operation the way that God intended it to be back in operation. And then as we get into chapter 13 this kind of summarizes the rest of Nehemiah's impact here and it's pretty significant. Comes back and finds out that Tobiah, you remember Tobiah was one of the bad guys. One of the boo people, the people that we don't like, the bad actors. He's been given a place to live and the place to live that he's been given on top of that is the temple. He's been given a place inside the temple where they would store sacrifice, sacrifices and offerings and some of the extra reserves for the priests. And Nehemiah comes back and he's not having it at all. And so he. Kicks Tobiah out and confronts the people for what they've done there. Says, this is wrong. You can't be doing this. And then he moves on from there. He's going to correct some wrongs being done against the priests and and make sure that's changed. He goes after them for breaking the Sabbath law. He says this was one of the things that led us into exile in the first place. And so we need to get back to making sure that we are keeping the Sabbath and honoring the Sabbath. And then he deals with intermarriage, just like we dealt with in Ezra. I believe it was Ezra with the concept of divorce. So he's gonna deal with intermarriage here as well. And call for that same reform that that we saw there. So this is summarizing the rest of Nehemiah's impact that he had before. The Lord called him home at that point, which shows us a couple things. First, Nehemiah had gone back, he was still governor, but he had gone back to his post in Persia. And so he was. Remotely leading. But apparently that's really hard to do because people tend to lose some of their fervor and their gusto when their leader in charge is not there, and that here. So he had to come back to set, set things in account. But also notice too, this stood out to me because I haven't done this yet, but maybe it's time for us to do this. Verse 25, I confronted them and cursed them and beat some of them and pulled out their hair. This is not gonna be in most leadership books. Talk about this particular incident. Is this something that leaders should do? Was Nehemiah justified in this? And if so, when can I do it? I, I would say I, I'm gonna stop and from commending this as a good leadership practice. I don't think it is a good leadership practice. No one mentions this in the leadership books. No. Yeah. No. For some reason, this, I don't know why. This is not something that you should model. I don't know if this is a weakness of Nehemiah's leadership, but I think one of the things that I thought about is this. When I, for example, last week when I was gone and I was in California, I wasn't worried that. Things here were gonna go awry, and granted I was only out there for about 24 hours, but even, I've gone on vacation for a couple weeks and things like that. I've been away. And I wasn't worried about that because I knew you were here and I trusted in your leadership, in my stead to be able to lead and keep things going. I think without skipping a beat. And so I wonder if maybe this is indicative of a weakness of Nehemiah that when he left, there wasn't anyone else that could step up and say, Hey, we can't let Aya, the guy that was opposed to us rebuilding the temple and the walls. We can't let this guy have a room in the temple. This is bad. Let's not do that. Good point. And so while this is good, a lot of what he's doing here in the end, I, I don't know if the beating is good and I, I don't know if the fact that he didn't have a number two that was trustworthy and could lead, I don't know if that was good either. Yeah I'd have to say the same. I think, because I wanna give him the benefit of the doubt he's highlighted. He's got a book named after himself given the fact that he's a man of prayer I'm gonna I agree with you on the first point. The second part of, I'm gonna say, man, I, that's hard to wrap my head around, but maybe as God's assigned agent with special divine authority to act on God's behalf, maybe this was a way for God to get their attention and say, look, yeah I'm going to. Demonstrate some discipline so that you get your act together. It's almost as if Nehemiah and his frustration, and maybe this is a mark against him, Moses acts in frustration and he disqualifies himself from the promised land, right? So maybe that's akin to this. I certainly don't think he's perfect. Only Jesus is, but. I'm trying to give him the benefit of a doubt. I don't know where this would fit in terms of a positive leadership example, but overall, the book that we just finished, Nehemiah shows a positive shows him in a positive light. He's a man of prayer. He's a man of action. Sure. He's a man of leadership, so I'm gonna put this one in suspension and say I'm not sure what to do with that one. But overall good, dude. Yeah, I would agree. Yeah Psalm 1 26 is a short one. It's only six verses, and it really is one that does fit well with the context here. In fact, if you'll look at commentaries, for example, the Bible Knowledge Commentary says this is a pilgrim song that seems to reflect the struggle of the returned exiles. He says the psalmist was joyful because the Lord had restored them to their land, but he prayed for full restoration. So that's why I think it fits here. The temple is built, the wall is built, but there's still this transition timeframe here for the exiles as they're waiting for the fullness of God to bring them back to the full promises. Now, that's still a yet future thing for them. It's not gonna happen as of right now. This is forward looking and I think though that's what this psalm is about here. So as you read that, keep in mind the context of Nehemiah, and that's what's going on in the background here. God, thanks for your word. Thanks for Nehemiah. Thanks for just a good example of what good leadership looks like and careful leadership, thoughtful leadership leadership that's concerned with you and your glory, your name. And Lord I'd ask that we would take away good principles from this, that we would think about how we lead in, in whatever capacity that looks like for us, and whatever roles that you've entrusted to us to exercise any degree of authority we wanna do so in a way that is, is done with integrity and concern for you and concern for your name. And so we thank you for a book like Neil. May that even casts our thoughts, that direction, and helps us to understand that. And so we thank you for this. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Keep reading your Bibles Tune again tomorrow for the final day in the Old Testament. Yeah, and the Italian prophet No less in another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. See you then. Bye bye.

Well, thank you for listening to another episode of the Daily Bible Podcast, folks! We're honored to have you join us. This is a ministry of Compass Bible Church in north Texas. You can find out more information about our Church at compassntx.org. We would love for you to leave a review, to rate, or to share this podcast on whatever platform you're listening on, and we hope to see you again tomorrow for another episode of the Daily Bible Podcast. Ya'll come back now, ya hear?

Yeah. I would agree with everything that you said