Well, we are back in the book of Nehemiah. So I'd ask that you turn with me in your copy of God's Word to Nehemiah chapter 10. We are still in the middle of the book, the heart of the book of Nehemiah, these chapters which form the really center of the message, which began back in Nehemiah chapter 8, chapters 8 through 10. We've seen a lot happen. And we're now drawing to the close of this passage. We've looked at this passage in one way or another two other times, but it's been about a month, maybe even five weeks since we looked at it last, so I'm going to do a brief overview. But before I do that, follow with me as I read verses 28 through 39. Nehemiah 10, 28 to 39, this is the Holy Word of God. the rest of the people, the priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers, the temple servants, and all who have separated themselves from the peoples of the lands to the law of God, their wives, their sons, their daughters, all who have knowledge and understanding, join with their brothers, their nobles, and enter into a curse and an oath to walk in God's law that was given by Moses, the servant of God, and to observe and do all the commandments of the Lord, our Lord, and his rules and his statutes. We will not give our daughters to the peoples of the land or take their daughters for our sons. And if the peoples of the land bring in goods or any grain on the Sabbath day to sell, we will not buy from them on the Sabbath or on a holy day. And we will forego the crops of the seventh year and the exaction of every debt. We will also take on ourselves the obligation to give yearly a third part of a shekel for the service of the house of our God, for the showbread, the regular grain offering, the regular burnt offering, the Sabbaths, the new moons, the appointed feasts, the holy things, and the sin offerings to make atonement for Israel and for all the work of the house of our God. We, the priests, the Levites, and the people, have likewise cast lots for the wood offering, to bring it into the house of our God, according to our Father's houses, at times appointed, year by year, to burn on the altar of the Lord our God, as it is written in the law. We obligate ourselves to bring the firstfruits of our ground and the firstfruits of all fruit of every tree, year by year, to the house of the Lord. Also to bring to the house of our God, to the priests who minister in the house of our God, the firstborn of our sons and of our cattle, as it is written in the law, and the firstborn of our herds and of our flocks. And to bring the first of our dough and our contributions, the fruit of every tree, the wine and the oil, to the priests, to the chambers of the house of our God. And to bring to the Levites the tithes from our ground, for it is the Levites who collect the tithes in all our towns where we labor. And the priest, the son of Aaron, shall be with the Levites when the Levites receive the tithes. And the Levites shall bring up the tithe of the tithes to the house of our God, to the chambers of the storehouse. For the people of Israel and the sons of Levi shall bring the contribution of grain, wine, and oil to the chambers where the vessels of the sanctuary are, as well as the priests who minister and the gatekeepers and the singers. We will not neglect the house of our God. Well, we started looking at this passage earlier on. This is probably two months ago at this point. I forget the exact date. thinking about, meditating on this principle, what to expect when we're affected by revival. Chapters eight and nine have set before us the fact that there has been a type of revival among the people of Israel as the book of the law has come to them, as they have sat under its hearing and its explanation at various times, often long lengths of time throughout the days and weeks. It has had a profound influence upon them, and they recognize we need to do something about this. And so what we noticed is that when there's a revival, things change. Things change. And the first sermon that I preached was primarily taken up with the nature rather than the details of change when the Lord brings a true revival of religion. And the three main points were, I don't flatter myself that much. Social change. economic change, and cultic change. And so we just talked about how these three, what's going on in verses really 30 through 39 can be grouped in these three categories, social, economic, cultic change. And the three applications were these, change will affect all areas of life, social, economic, and cultic. Change will be hard. and easy, hard because you are undoing previous spiritual lapses and you're in a hostile environment not conducive to change, but it's also easy because God gives grace and changes hearts and dispositions so that what previously seemed impossible now seems very possible. And in fact, it's happening as we read about it. We also learn that change will involve specifics. And that's exactly what we see here. They didn't walk away saying, oh, we're now going to serve God. They detail the way that they're going to be serving God going forward. Now, looking at the specifics in a revival of religion can help in two different ways. Again, by way of introduction, it can give us a sense of what we ourselves may need to stop doing. We read about what they felt they needed to stop doing, and it may remind us, well, there's things like this in my life. I need to stop doing these things. or it can give us an idea of what we ourselves may need to start doing. Well, look what they were started to do. Look what they were incentivized to do as they listened to the word of God. Maybe I need to start doing something similar in my life. Now, the verses we will look at in more detail, really just verses 32 through 39 this evening, they recount the post-exilic Jewish community doing exactly this, pledging themselves to stop doing certain things. And then in verses 32 through 39, to start doing certain things. We focused on the stop in a previous sermon. We're gonna focus now on the start in this sermon. And we can learn from them because these things in principle are things that are relevant to us today as we will look to demonstrate from the word of God. For example, we might know something is a sin. And in the study, we may become more convinced that these things must never be named among us. Or we might not even have thought something was a sin. And now it's revealed to us and we say, that's the way of obedience, I need to walk in it. Something like this can happen as we study verses like this. So, as we go through this passage, many of you have the outline in front of you. I'm just going to give a brief survey for some of you who weren't here and for those of us who need some refreshing. Brief survey of verses 32 through 39, just the details of them. And we see, first of all, that this is engaging in a cultic change, right? That's this category, all these cultic changes. And what I mean by cultic isn't the cults we think of cults. It's worship activities, right? Worship activities. And the first cultic change we have here is that they will be giving an annual gift of one-third a part of a shekel for the service of the temple. Look at verses 32 and 33. We also take on ourselves the obligation to give yearly a third part of a shekel for the service of the house of our God. And then in verse 33 describes what all that service entails, right? They want to support those things that are going on. The gift is described in verse 32. The service supported by the gift is described in verse 33. And there was a precedent for such a gift found in Exodus. Again, keep your fingers here. Turn with me back to Exodus chapter 30. Again, by way of review, they weren't making these things up. This was probably something they had read about. Exodus chapter 30, beginning at verse 11. Something like what they are pledging to do, maybe not exactly, but something very similar happened in Exodus chapter 30, beginning at verse 11, where we read this, the Lord said to Moses, when you take the census of the people of Israel, then each shall give a ransom for his life to the Lord when you number them, that there be no plague among them when you number them. Each one who is numbered in the census shall give this, half a shekel, according to the shekel of the sanctuary. The shekel is 20 geras. Half a shekel as an offering to the Lord. Everyone who is numbered in the census from 20 years old and upward shall give the Lord's offering. The rich shall not give more and the poor shall not give less than the half shekel when you give the Lord's offering to make atonement for your lives. You shall take the atonement money from the people of Israel and shall give it for the service of the tent of meeting, that it may bring the people of Israel to remembrance before the Lord, so as to make atonement for their lives. Now, what I'm not saying here is that this is exactly what was going on here in Nehemiah, but it seems like there was a precedent set, and as their minds read about that, and as they heard about what had happened there in Exodus 30, they said, we need something today to continue the service in the temple. Now, it's not half a shekel, this time it was a third of a shekel, and probably the difference is due to what they felt was needed at that time. They probably had some idea of the census themselves, and okay, if this is what we need, you do some math, This is the money we need, this is the people involved, this is approximately the amount that people need to be giving. And so they came up with this idea of a third of a shekel. That's the first cultic change. The second cultic change is outlined in verse 34 of Nehemiah chapter 10. It's that wood would be brought to support the offerings in the temple year by year. We read in verse 34, We, the priests, the Levites, and the people, have likewise cast lots for the wood offering to bring it into the house of our God, according to our Father's houses, at times appointed, year by year, to burn on the altar of the Lord our God, as it is written in the law. Now, you might be thinking to yourself, man, I, you know, I haven't read, I'm a little bit rusty on Leviticus, I've read through it, I know the offerings, I don't remember this wood offering. Well, you wouldn't be wrong by saying that. Now, it doesn't seem to be such a thing as the wood offering. It's just that every offering needs wood, right? It pays its burden. Every offering needs wood. And there isn't a specific command to bring wood to the temple. See, they're here saying, well, we need to bring wood into the temple for the wood offerings. If you go back, there doesn't seem to be a specific command to bring the wood. And this is when one of my applications in a previous sermon was, Sometimes we need to understand that there are implied commands. If God's telling us you have to make these offerings, does he have to spell out every detail? You gotta light the match. There's got to be wood there, right? And so there's implied offerings. You have to have wood. And the people understand this. If we're going to be obeying God and all these various offerings, we need wood. And so this is part of what needs to be done. Wood needs to be brought for the offerings. I gave the illustration of, you know, if we told one of our children, you got to go vacuum your room. We wouldn't tell them, well, you've got to go get the vacuum and you've got to bring it up to your room. And that seems to be, in my judgment, what's going on here. That people understand, well, in order for us to engage in the offerings, we've got to bring the wood. Who's going to do it? And so they cast the lots because they want to make it happen here. Getting wood was prioritized in order to enable the required sacrifices to take place. And so they commit themselves to do this. It's amazing, isn't it? And you know this from your own life, how the simplest things can get set by the wayside. I mean, it makes you wonder if back 500, 1,000 years ago, they would have thought, we're going to have to recommit ourselves to getting the wood. But that's what happens when there's declension of religion in the midst of the people. Well, the third cultic change is outlined in verses 35 through 39. The first fruits, I'm not gonna reread it, but the first fruits and tithes would be brought to the temple as an offering to the Lord year by year and to support the temple work and the temple workers in their work. Now, these gifts were prescribed, again, by the law. Turn with me back to Numbers chapter 18. Numbers chapter 18. We're going to look at a verse in Numbers and a couple verses in Deuteronomy. Numbers chapter 18. Just look at one verse with me. Numbers chapter 18 verse 21 we read. Numbers 18, 21. Turn with me over to Deuteronomy chapter 18. Deuteronomy chapter 18. We're going to read the first four verses of Deuteronomy chapter 18. And I'm just demonstrating that they had determined to do these things because they had been reading the book of the law. Deuteronomy 18, beginning at verse 1, the Levitical priests, all the tribe of Levi, shall have no portion or inheritance with Israel. They shall eat the Lord's food offerings as their inheritance. They shall have no inheritance among their brothers. The Lord is their inheritance, as he promised them. And this shall be the priest's due from the people, from those offering a sacrifice, whether an ox or a sheep. They shall give to the priest the shoulder, and the two cheeks, and the stomach. The first fruits, and here it is, the first fruits of your grain, of your wine, and of your oil, and the first fleece of your sheep, you shall give him. So yes, he's getting part of the offering, but in addition to the offerings, or a portion of the offerings that you're bringing, you're also giving him the first fruits of other things that you're bringing to support the Levites and the priests. The gifts being brought were varied, as was prescribed, but they are all either the first fruits or the tithes that are being brought in. The gifts were going to the temple, they're going to the priests, they're going to the Levites and those who work there. In other words, at the end of the day, it's all going to support the worship of God in the temple, whether directly to it or indirectly through supporting the ministers, you could say, in the temple. And that's, and the people understood this. And that's why at the end of verse 39, they said, we will not neglect the house of our God. You'd say, well, you're not really neglecting the house of our God. You're not neglecting some of the Levites and priests. They'd say no, because their action terminates on the house of our God. That's what they're there for. So they viewed all their gifts and all their service as going to support the house of God and its activities. If you notice there, and also verses 38 and 39, the Levites were involved in collecting the tithes themselves. They would be sent around. But also the Levites would themselves tithe on the tithes, which is very interesting. They would tithe on the tithes that they received. That's mentioned in verse 38. So this just again, Kind of a quick, brief summary of these verses for those of us like myself who, even in the preparation of the sermon, had to go back and say, okay, let's refresh myself on what's going on here. That brings us next to what I'm calling the great motivation. And it's a title of our sermon this evening. In the second half of verse 39, the very last phrase, we read this, we will not neglect the house of God. of our God. I'm terming this a great motivation. Now, the house of God clearly in the context is the temple. Why are they doing all that they're doing here? They tell us. Well, the author tells us, right? The people, in their own words, they tell us. We're doing this because we're not going to neglect the house of our God. That's not an option for us. We're driven. We're driven to this activity because to us it would be a great shame if the house of God was neglected in any way. Now, what does it mean to neglect the house of God? Well, neglect means to fail to care for properly. We've all seen neglect in practice. It's that neighbor down the street. Well, maybe some of you are in condos, I see. But the neighbor down the street has the yard that's bringing down everybody's property values. It's like, do you know what a lawnmower looks like? Do you know what it means to trim the bushes? Not have your couch in the front yard. It's neglect. Neglect. We've seen what neglect looks like. You just let it go. You don't care about it. We've seen what human bodies look like when they're neglected. What about kids when they're neglected? Yeah, not a good sight when kids are neglected, right? And what I mean by neglected is they could be neglected in a number of ways, but we've all been, I'll use kind of an innocent example. We're all aware of that situation where somehow the parents and adults get distracted and the kids are left to themselves up in the upstairs bedroom for a while, and then who knows what you're gonna find when you go up there and look for them later, right? Because they were, you know, we could even say in a non-sinful way neglected, right? They were just left to themselves. And that's what had happened to some extent with the house of God. It had been left to itself. People were not paying attention to it. They didn't care about what was going on in it, what it looked like. They might not even have been frequenting it to understand and to see what was happening. We have to understand that God's house at times was neglected. Turn with me back. We're going to kind of do a quick perusal through 2 Chronicles. 2 Chronicles chapter 15. 2 Chronicles 15. So, we're going to go through a bunch of kings who reversed the trend of the neglect of the temple. That's what we're going to do. So we're not going to be looking at the neglect so much itself, but the kings who reversed it. First, we have King Asa and his religious reforms, as my ESV highlights it here. That's in chapter 15. Look at verse 8. We read this, as soon as Asa heard these words, the prophecy of Azariah, the son of Oded, he took courage and put away the detestable idols from all the land of Judah and Benjamin, and from the cities that he had taken in the hill country of Ephraim, and he repaired the altar of the Lord that was in front of the vestibule of the house of the Lord. Why did he need to repair it? It had fallen into disarray, to disuse of some kind probably. Turn over to 2 Chronicles 24. 2 Chronicles 24. Josiah's reign, you could say, is characterized by his reformations with respect to the temple. Follow with me as I read part of verses 4 through 14. 2 Chronicles 24 verse 4, After this, Joash decided to restore the house of the Lord. He gathered the priests and the Levites, and he said to them, Go out to the cities of Judah, and gather from all Israel money to repair the house of your God from year to year, and see that you act quickly. But the Levites did not act quickly. So the king summoned Jehoiada the chief and said to him, why have you not required the Levites to bring in from Judah and Jerusalem the tax levied by Moses, the servant of the Lord, and the congregation of Israel for the tent of testimony? For the sons of Athaliah, that wicked woman had broken into the house of God, and had also used all the dedicated things of the house of the Lord for the bales. What's being described here? Neglect. It's not important anymore. We're not taking care of it anymore. So it says in verse 8, the king commanded, they made a chest. They collect the tithes and the taxes from the people. They bring it all in in verses 9 and 10. And then later on, we find that they hire people to start doing the work. And in verse 13, we pick up the narrative. Those who were engaged in the work labored and the repairing went forward in their hands. And they restored the house of God to its proper condition and strengthened it. And when they had finished, they brought the rest of the money before the king and Jehoiada, and with it were made utensils for the house of the Lord, both for the service and for the burnt offerings, and dishes for incense, and vessels of gold and silver. And they offered burnt offerings in the house of the Lord regularly all the days of Jehoiada. And the implication seems to be before all these repairs took place, the house of God was in neglect and the offerings were not as regular as they should have been. Now, I had here three other passages that we could look at. I'm not going to do it because it's going to be too much time. We see something very similar in the reign of Hezekiah. And this isn't, by the way, this is not chance. The author of the chronicles, of the chronicler we could call him, he's purposefully recording this to show that time and again Israel was neglecting the house of God. And this is one of the things that led to Judah's demise and its deportation. And so we see Asa involved in repairs. Joash, we just read about him, involved in repairs. Hezekiah involved in repairs. Josiah, Josiah involved in repairs. And the people of Israel didn't quite learn, did they? Because even after they returned from exile, we studied this a year or so ago, the book of Haggai. Right? And what happens? They come back and they start the work, and lo and behold, it gets neglected pretty soon after that. And it becomes just a construction site where nobody's working on it. They're neglecting the Temple Mount. They're neglecting the house of God. They're busy building other things. They're not neglecting everything. They're just neglecting the house of the Lord. And so this was, you could say, a recurring sin among the people of God, the old covenant people of God. Now, what does it mean then? What could we say? What does it mean that the house of God was neglected? Well, it means they didn't properly care about or pay attention to its condition or activity. And it was never just the building for the people, the people who had a heart for God, at least. And we even see that here. It's not just about the building. Oh, let's get the building, and now let's put the museum markers in front. We don't want anybody to mess up what we have. No, it's about the building so that worship can be taking place in it. So it's the building and the activity of the temple. The physical building, the parts of the premises, they fell into disrepair. Funding for temple activities slowed or ceased. If you noticed in this one we read about Joash, they had to go out and collect money. This should have been happening all the time to support the temple. People stopped giving. And then temple worship activities were not maintained as they should have been. It might not have meant that they ceased altogether, though at times they might have, but it means they were not maintained as they were supposed to be. So what's the result of the neglect? The temple is not the place God intended it to be. The activities of the temple are not what God had prescribed. And this is their motivation for the covenant promises they had just made. They considered it a travesty A shame that something so central, so important, so fundamental to their life and their identity should fall by the wayside and be treated as if it was something optional instead of necessary. They're saying, we can neglect many things, but the house of our God cannot be numbered among them. We will not neglect the house of our God. Other generations may have neglected it. But we won't. We will not neglect the house of our God. That brings us next to the demonstration of their non-neglect. I don't even know if that's a word. But you guys are used to me making up things now at this point. That probably doesn't surprise you. You can get away with a lot of things by hyphenating it, and that's what I did. The demonstration of their non-neglect. I have six ways that we see here in Nehemiah chapter 10 that they demonstrated their non-neglect with respect to the house of God. And you can see they all have to do with giving. First, we have systematic giving. Systematic giving. We see in verse 32 that they are going to engage in yearly giving, right? Yearly giving. Annual giving. And then in verses 34 and 35, we have set before us twice the fact that they are going to be doing this year by year. Year by year. Annual giving. Year by year. In other words, they did not view this as a one-time event. One-time events happened in the past in Israel. You get it all nice and pretty again, and then it goes down, right? No, no, we need to support, we need to maintain what's happening. We're going to commit to systematic giving. It's not a one-time event. Now, this required planning. It requires intentionality. They're looking forward. Year by year, I gotta plan for this. I'm gonna be giving to the temple and its activities and its service. I gotta be intentional about it. And this is especially evident in the fact that they are doing all this in order that the activity of the house of God could continue indefinitely. That's their perspective here. We don't want this to stop again. We don't want to be back in the same place again. So, systematic giving. Secondly, organized giving. Organized giving. There's evidence of great organization here. First of all, we read in verses 35, 36, and 37, the place that the gifts will be received. Right? So in verse 35, it says, we obligate ourselves to bring, and then at the end of the verse, to the house of the Lord, to bring them to the house of the Lord. And then in verse 36, also to bring to the house of our God. Right? Again, so they know where to go. No one had any questions about where to go. You bring it to the house of God. That's the first part of the organization. Second part of the organization is the people receiving the gifts are noted, who you bring it to. It's not just anybody, it's specific people. Verses 37 and 38 reference that the fact that the Levites are going to be among those receiving the tithes, and the priest, verse 38, the son of Aaron shall be with the Levites when they receive the tithes. You may be supervising what's going on there, right? So we know where to bring it to, we know who to bring it to, And then lastly, the location where the gifts will be deposited is stated. Okay, now the Levites have it all, the priest has it all. Where is it going to go? Verse 38. The Levites, middle of verse 38, the Levites shall bring up the tithe of the tithes to the house of our God, to the chambers of the storehouse. So we know where it's going to be when everybody's done it. A lot of organization here. They thought about this. It's not just, well, let's set up a drive and people have no clue where to go, who to give it to, what's going on. Very, very organized. It's organized giving. They thought about the logistics surrounding the giving of God's people. That's secondly. Thirdly, prioritized giving. How many times, this is prioritized giving, how many times is first fruits, first born, or just first mentioned? You don't have to count. I counted myself. Six times in verses 35 to the beginning of 37. In other words, they didn't say, listen, we're going to give God the leftovers. We're going to exhaust our desires. And then if there's stuff that we're just, we don't want it, give it to God. No, we're giving God our firsts. We're going to prioritize giving to God. Again, they're not giving God the leftovers. That's thirdly, prioritize giving. Fourthly, obedient giving. Obedient giving. They did not view this as, you know what? God has revealed to us how we can be these super spiritual, extra religious, hyper Israelite people. We're gonna give. They view this as just basic obedience. They view this as something God had commanded, as obedience, something God had commanded them. In verse 36, we read, right in the middle of the verse, right? As it is written in the law. Now, sure, it's only mentioned specifically there, but that's why I turned. That's one of the reasons, again, we went back to the book of the law. These people weren't making it up. God had said to do things like this or exactly what they were doing. And so they viewed their giving as obedient giving. That brings us, fifthly, to obligated giving. This kind of follows, in a healthy group of the people of God, this should follow on from obedient giving. Obligated giving, in verses, maybe you noticed this, in verse 32 and verse 35, they say, we take on ourselves the obligation. In verse 35, we obligate ourselves, right? We obligate ourselves. They're basically saying, hey, we're gonna look around, and we'll look at each other in the eye, This is not optional. This is not optional. This isn't like we're having a sign-up sheet. Everybody's name, I can come up with a sign-up sheet if we want. Everybody's name's gonna be on it. We obligate ourselves to do it. Remember also, I mean, they understood this is serious. Remember what we read at the beginning. They put themselves under a curse and an oath. They're not messing around. This is really important. And of course, part of the reason is it flows from the fact that it is a command from God. They did read about it in the book of the law. But it's obligated giving. When they went out day by day, it's like, this is what I need to be thinking about. This is what I need to be planning and prioritizing. I need to do this. Woe to me if the time comes to bring something into the house of God and I don't have something. That brings us to our last point under this. How do they demonstrate their non-neglect? And that's universal giving. Kind of hinted at this a little bit later, or earlier. But who is doing the giving? Basically, everybody. In verse 32, it says, we. In verse 34, it's we, the priests, the Levites, and the people. In verse 39, it's the people of Israel and the sons of Eli, not Eli, Levi, No one's excluded here. This is universal. They view this as a duty and a responsibility and an obligation from the least to the greatest in Israel. From the highest to the lowest. This isn't like, okay, we need to figure out who are going to be the givers. Everybody's a giver. If you're a Jew, you're a giver. So we have here, again, by way of review, we have systematic giving, organized giving, prioritized giving, obedient giving, obligated giving, universal giving. Now, we come to our next question then. Okay, well, that's Nehemiah's day, we're here, Englewood, Bergen County, New Jersey, 2025. Let's ask this question first. What is the new covenant house of God and how do we not neglect it? What is the new, first of all, what is the new covenant house of God? I'm going to proof text you here, right? You can't always do this, but something like this you can. First Timothy chapter three, verse 15, Paul writes to Timothy, if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the house of God, which is the church of the living God. He defines it right there. What is the house of God? It's the church of the living God. Hebrews 3 verse 6, Christ is faithful over God's house as a son. And we are his house. Who is God's house? It's the people of God. First Peter 2 5, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house. And Peter's writing to Christians. He's writing to the church of Jesus Christ. Same book, 1 Peter 4, verse 17. For it is time for judgment to begin at the house of God. Well, what is that house of God? Then he goes on to say, and if it begins with us, right? He's saying, we're the house of God. It's beginning with us. The answer to the question is, what is the new covenant house of God? The new covenant people of God is the new covenant house of God. The Church of Jesus Christ is the New Covenant House of God. We, as believers, we are the New Covenant House of God. So, if we are going to echo the sentiment and commitment of the Old Covenant people of God, how do we, in 2025, not neglect the New Covenant House of our God? How can we have the same sentiment where we can walk out of here saying, we're not going to neglect the house of our God? Well, the answer is this, that the condition of the new covenant people of God and their prescribed activities will be maintained in a state of good repair. That's what it means not to neglect the house of God in our day, that we are going to do what we can to ensure that the condition of the new covenant people of God and their prescribed activities will be maintained in a state of good repair. Essentially, what we're talking about here, it involves all the life and activity of the church. In the same way that it involved all the life and activity of the temple. That the life and the good condition and the activity of the people of God would continue as God would have it to continue. that no one would ever look at the people of God that we're part of and say, yeah, is anybody paying attention to that group of people? They look like no one's taking care of them. No one's paying attention to them. No one's watching out for them. That's what it means. Well, then we come to the next point here. How can we demonstrate our non-neglect of the new covenant house of God? And I have all these blanks in your notes because I just didn't want to give you the answer. Maybe you're smart enough to figure this out. But it's basically all the six things we've mentioned before. I don't want to put giving, giving, giving. You'd be like, I know what these blanks are. But that's essentially what it is. I'm going to make you rewrite it. And I'll give you a lot of blanks, but I'm going to make you rewrite it. So first of all, we have systematic giving. I will keep it in the same order. I thought it could be really tricky and change the order. So if anybody went ahead and tried to fill them in ahead of time, I'm going to make it easy. Same order. Okay? Same order. We have systematic giving. Remember the Old Covenant people of God engaged in annual giving. They gave year by year. It wasn't a one-time event. It required planning and intentionality. Now, I want to state right off the beginning here, you might think giving, and you might read this in Nehemiah, and you think giving, and you might just be thinking in terms of what we put in that box in the back. That's a part of it. That's not the only way the New Covenant people of God give to the house of God. But I'll start with there, right? Do you have a budget? Because it's easier for us to kind of wrap our minds around. Do you have a budget? Do you schedule your giving? I'm not saying you've got to have it on the first of each month. Some of you may have a recurring debit from your account, because we have electronic giving now, and it's like, yeah. Our treasurer can go in there and it's like, yeah, on the first of every month, so-and-so's tithe comes in, or every Monday their tithe comes in. You could have something like that. I'm not saying it has to be that structured, but you schedule your giving. Is your monetary giving, is there some systematic way that somebody could look at what you're doing and say, yes, they have a plan, they have a structure, they're giving systematically and intentionally to the church. But that's not the only way you can give. What about giving of time? Like any kind of giving, if you don't schedule and plan, it's not gonna happen. So is there planned hospitality, scheduled hospitality? Scheduled visits to elderly people. Scheduled tract distribution. Now you may say, well that's for the tract distribution, that's evangelism. We want to build up the house of God. We want to fill the house of God, right? So I'm not going to neglect evangelism. Included in giving of time would be giving times of prayer out to even prayer partner. When you engage in time, when you're scheduling prayer partners, you're scheduling time to give to the house of God. When you come to a weekly prayer meeting, you say, I'm going to be there on Wednesday night, you're systematically giving to the work of the house of God. You're saying every other week, I'm going to be there to pray and I'm giving to the house of God. Or we could say this about really any activity of the church, the prayer and fasting that we engage in, or really anything. Is there some kind of systematic, is your life structured in this way that things are in place, or I'm giving, I'm giving, I'm giving, and it's planned. in one way or another. Or does giving sneak up on you? We're like, I never think about giving. I just come to church, I receive. And if I happen, if something hits me in the moment, then I'll give. The spirit moves in a certain way. Well, the way the spirit moved the man was to plan their giving out. That's usually the way the spirit moves. You read the Bible and you realize this is something I need to be doing the rest of my life. And you do it. That's systematic giving. Actually, I'm going to go back a second. I missed something I wanted to say. If I looked at your calendar, right, the calendar of your life, and we are a very calendared family, there's things that are written in there, color-coded. Some of you may have seen the wonder that is Leah's calendar. And she plans out every month, and we got everything on there. I don't know what color I am, but I'm a color, and the boys are a color, and the food's a color, and it's just masterpiece. You just got to look at it and just marvel, right? And in a spiritual way, are there things written into the calendar of your life? related to giving to the New Covenant people of God. It's scheduled there. I don't want to use the word rigid in a bad way, but you make sure it's going to happen and you do things to remind yourself to make sure it happens because it's being scheduled. It's systematic giving. Well, that's the first thing. The first way you can demonstrate non-neglect for the New Covenant, the New Covenant house of God. Secondly, organized giving. We looked at all the organization they had, the place the gifts would be received, the people receiving them, the location. They thought about the logistics surrounding the giving of God's people. When we get to the New Testament, Paul evidences some same concern for monetary gifts. In 1 Corinthians 16, he says, now concerning the collection for the saints, as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do, do whatever you want. No, it gives them the day on the first day of the week. Each of you is to put something aside, store it up as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come. And when I arrive, I will send those whom you accredit by letter to carry your gift to Jerusalem. It's very organized. It has a plan. It has a structure. That's for monetary gifts. And we as a people of God in the church, we should have a similar structure. You put it here. These are the people collecting it. These are the people depositing it. This is what we're doing with it. Praise God we have that. But organization can also be seen in, I want to give. We want to give. How are we going to organize it? A meal train. A baby shower. We had a baby shower recently. I know there's some organization with that, right? Visits to the elderly. We're going to organize these things. Maybe a church will say, listen, we want to make sure that this is happening. So we're going to schedule. We're going to count. You're going to have to sign up downstairs for something like this. In God's providence right now, there's no member of our church that's in a state where they're in a nursing home or something like that. But that would be very appropriate to do. We don't want to neglect the house of our God. What about scheduled times of prayer? Again, I'm going to go back to prayer partners. It's just on my mind. I heard some people talking about it this morning, right? You're organizing it. And that's what we're doing as elders in the church here. We're organizing formal times of prayer. We don't want this to be neglected. We're doing this because this is our way of not neglecting the house of our God. And then you have Bible studies. I'm gonna come to Bible studies, and they're gonna be every first and third Wednesday. We're gonna have it, that's organized. It's scheduled, it's organized, and we're gonna make sure it happens on these days, and I'm gonna go so I can give to the people of God at those studies. And secondly, then we have, probably have to shorten my comments on a couple of these, but we have prioritized giving. Prioritized giving, the old covenant people of God were giving their firsts. Do you? Giving to the Lord should not be in the category of expendable income or expendable time. Well listen, I do this with my family, and that's non-negotiable. And I do this with the guys at work, and that's non-negotiable. And I do this with my friends, and that's non-negotiable. And then after all that, let me see if I can squeeze in something with the church. I'm telling you, this is the way people treat things. They didn't say, we're not gonna neglect X, Y, and Z. That's not the emphasis of the Word of God. It's we're not gonna neglect the house of our God. It's prioritized giving. It should be the first on your budget, the first on your list of to-dos for the week, as it were, even if it's like a mental to-do list, the first on your list of goals and objectives. As it were, if I don't accomplish anything this month, I want to make sure I do this and I do that for the house of our God. Prioritized giving. Then we have obedient giving. Again, hopefully no one here is saying, well, I guess Pastor Amos, he's talking about if we want to be the really spiritual people in the church, the really good Christians, the notch above the rest. No. Thus says the Lord. This is written in law of God. We read the other week, Matthew 25, the sheep and the goats. Jesus says, this is such a fundamental characteristic of my kingdom that I'm going to be judging people essentially by the way they either neglected or didn't neglect the house of our God. That's what he's saying when he says, Did you visit me in prison? Did you give me clothing? He's talking about the house of our God. Because the people of God are the house of our God. And Jesus is saying, I'm going to be judging people in that way. And that's going to determine if you're a sheep or a goat. This isn't like extra. It's essential. And then we have all the commands. We did a series right when I became full time here. All the commands regarding loving the brethren. That's not neglecting the house of our God. All the things the epistles say, specifically Paul, about loving the brethren, that's not neglecting. Paul didn't say, hey listen, for that category of Christians that really want to go above and beyond. If you're a Christian, you're called to do this. Just obedience. When you give money, time, energy, or effort to the work of the church and the well-being of the people of God, you're engaged in an act of obedience. Then there's obligated giving. That people said, we obligate ourselves, it's not optional. Do we here at Englewood Baptist Church view this as, this is a non-negotiable? This is what it means for us to be a church. This is what it means for us to be the people of God. We, as it were, obligate ourselves. We're committing to do things. Now, there are many things we don't miss and we obligate ourselves to do. Think of the things in your life that if somebody knew you, they'd be like, wow, Amos never misses that. Like, you cannot get him to cancel that. You can't get him to ignore that, or leave that, or neglect that. We're talking about events, get-togethers, things like that, family gatherings. Or there may be things you just commit for yourself. Some people are like this. On X and X night, it's just me, and this is what I do, and this is my thing, and you can't mess with it. I'm not saying those things are wrong at all. But you see how we can obligate ourselves to so many things and maybe not be obligating ourselves first and foremost to the house of our God. They are saying here, we're gonna obligate ourselves in this way. It doesn't mean that that was their only obligation, right? It doesn't mean you can't obligate yourself too. I'm gonna go, I'm gonna get season tickets to the Mets and I'm gonna go every Monday night or whatever they're in town. You could do that as long as your priority is first the house of God. That's the point. Obligated giving. Then secondly, universal giving. Who is doing the giving? Okay, so let's choose who's gonna do the giving here tonight. Let's see. Everybody raise their hands. I'm not asking you to raise, but that's what it should be, right? Everybody should be raising their hands. This is universal. It was all the people of Israel. No one seemed to be excluded from this giving. This is a call to all of God's people, great and small. This is another way of saying every contribution matters. No one should say, well, you know, it's more important that they give. Well, it's important that everybody gives. I thought about this, and maybe this will encourage some of the really young people here. I didn't get the math right. I didn't labor to get the math exactly right, but let's say there's somebody, and I know my kid did something like this, they would give 10 cents a week to the church, right? Money can sometimes be easy to understand. They give 10 cents a week to the church. If they do that for a year, it's gonna be something along this, right? That means that they're paying for the lights to be on a whole Sunday. Something like that. Think about that, right? I mean, I know that you might think $0.10 a week. You're paying for the lights to be on. At least one service, all service, so that people of God can get out. That's what you did. You paid for that. That was your contribution, and you just gave $0.10 a week. And here we are enjoying the lights on, and it's your contribution that you gave. No service is too small. And this goes for every type of contribution. Every little word of encouragement Oh, I'm not the type of person that can deal with these Bible sentences. What about a word of encouragement? What about, I'm just praying for you? That's service to the house of God. Oh, it's so small. It's maybe sustaining the light of someone's spiritual life for a day. Every contribution of time and resources, it's a universal giving. Well, that brings us finally tonight, very briefly, to the great motivation revisited the great motivation revisited, they said, we will not neglect the house of our God. Dear brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ, let this be our great concern and our great motivation, that we will not neglect the house of our God. Because of our love for God, because of our love for his son, his kingdom, his people, we would consider a great shame and reproach if his house was neglected. It has been neglected in various times throughout church history. We looked at the ways it was neglected in old covenant history. There have been times it's been neglected throughout church history. People engage in a lot of activity and giving, but not in a way that truly contributes to the well-being and spiritual health of the people of God. God help us to consider it a travesty and a shame That something so central, so important, so fundamental to our life and our identity, that we are the house of God, should fall by the wayside and be treated as if it was insignificant. Because we understand what we're doing, what we're saying when we do that. It's not about us, we're saying, God, you're not worthy of a house that's maintained well. Many things can be neglected, we should say, but the house of our God is not one of them. We will not neglect this. We will not neglect the house of our God. Other generations, other groups may have neglected it. They will stand before God, but we will not. We will not neglect the house of our God. Amen. Let's bow our heads and our hearts in prayer together. Our Father in heaven, we want, as we have meditated upon your word, we want to reflect on your greatness, your holiness, your majesty, your worthiness, your grace, your mercy, your loving kindness. Lord, you are a God who is worthy of the greatest of houses. So Lord, we ask that you would keep us from being among those who neglect the house of our God. May we give ourselves to the new covenant house of God, the people of God, the church of the living God. Lord, we ask that you would help us to prioritize and to demonstrate our non-neglect in all the ways that we discussed this evening, all the ways that the old covenant people of God demonstrated their non-neglect. And Lord, we pray that to motivate us to this type of activity. You would cause our views of you to increase and enlarge so that this is our natural response. Please forgive us, Lord, for the times we have been neglectful of your house. We pray that you would lead us in the way of righteousness for your name's sake. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.