SERIES: The Book of Nehemiah
TEXT: Nehemiah 10:1-39
MESSAGE: “Covenant Commitment”
“On the seals…” — Nehemiah 10:1 ESV
“On the seals are the names of … the governor … 8 the priests … 9 the Levites … 14 The chiefs of the people” — Nehemiah 10:1, 8, 9, 14 ESV
“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, 29 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.” — Nehemiah 10:28-29 ESV
“And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” — Matthew 22:35-40 ESV
Following God transforms the way we live
“Neither Old nor New Testament has any place for confessions of faith that leave life-style and practice unaffected.” — H.G.M. Williamson
“We will not give our daughters to the peoples of the land or take their daughters for our sons.” — Nehemiah 10:30 ESV
1. Following God transforms how we engage society
“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.”— Nehemiah 10:31a ESV
“… And we will forgo the crops of the seventh year and the exaction of every debt.” — Nehemiah 10:31b ESV
2. Following God transforms how we do business
“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: 33 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.” — Nehemiah 10:32-33 ESV
“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 fathers’ houses, at times appointed, year by year, to burn on the altar of the Lord our God, as it is written in the Law.” — Nehemiah 10:34 ESV
“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;” — Nehemiah 10:35 ESV
“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; 37 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;” — Nehemiah 10:36-37a ESV
3. Following God transforms what we do with our money
“It is not only the best that belongs to God, but also the first. It would be presumptuous for man to enjoy something without first giving God his portion.” — M. Tsevat
“…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.” — Nehemiah 10:37b ESV
“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. 39 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.” — Nehemiah 10:38-39a ESV
“To these comparatively simple laws in the Pentateuch governing tithing were added a host of minutiae which turned a beautiful religious principle into a grievous burden.” — J.G. S. S. Thomson
4. Following God affects how we spend
“Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.” — Colossians 3:5 NIV
“For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a person is an idolater” — Ephesians 5:5a NIV
“The power of the sacrifice is in the cost to the person making it” — Odysseyus, version 2026
“…We will not neglect the house of our God.” — Nehemiah 10:39b ESV
Following God transforms the way we live
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Jesus is our curse and our oath
“For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” … 13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree” — Galatians 3:10-13
“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” — 2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV
“For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.” — Romans 5:19 ESV
Following God transforms the way we live