The Faithfulness of God and our Response of Obedience (Nehemiah 10-11)

God is faithful.  Over and over, we read in the Scriptures that God keeps His promises.  That God will never fail.  Though others might leave us high and dry, God never will.  This is part of God's character that we should cling to.  It is one of the things that makes Him worthy of our trust and our dedication.

If you read Nehemiah 10 and 11 with us today, you probably skimmed a lot.  There are a lot of names.  And these Old Testament people sure came up with some strange names!  They are hard to pronounce, even for those who read pretty well.  And there is list after list of them.  Chapter 10 begins with a bunch of names who signed this covenant.  And chapter 11 is almost completely a list of names and the people who re-settled in Jerusalem and the surrounding villages.  Why all the names?  Why should we care?

Well, one of the major promises of God given in the Old Testament was that after He had judged Israel for their sins by deporting them to hostile nations, they would repent and He would bring a remnant back into the land.  It is first found in Deuteronomy 30 and later restated by the prophets.  The generation at the time of Nehemiah clung to this promise.  They WERE that remnant!  And, so they listed their names and the names of their fathers and grandfathers in order to do two things: 1) trace their genealogy in order to verify their place among the people of Israel, and 2) to show the faithfulness of God from generation to generation.

In response to God's faithfulness to them, they pledged (together!) to be faithful to Him.  They signed a covenant as one people.  Verse 29 says they, "join with their brothers, their nobles".  They formed a community and agreed to commit to one another and to their Lord.  They had specific things they agreed to be responsible to one another for.  They agreed to live a specific way and to hold each other accountable.

This is very much like what a church does today.  In our church, we have a church covenant.  We don't talk about it near enough, but anyone who has become a member of our church has agreed to the stipulations of this covenant.  The purpose is for us to commit before God to build one another up in our faith and to live like Christians.  We hold each other accountable (at least we are supposed to).

So, in thinking through this passage this morning, consider the faithfulness of God.  He is STILL faithful.  And consider your commitment to our church, not just the institution, but the people.  For further consideration, our church covenant can be found at http://www.gracebaptistonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Covenant-of-Membership.pdf.