“And of the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem, they sought the Levites in all their places, to bring them to Jerusalem to celebrate the dedication with gladness, with thanksgivings, and with singing, with cymbals, harps and lyres.”
– Nehemiah 12:27
Oh, I wish I could go on and read the rest of this chapter, because it describes one of the most glorious worship gatherings in all of the Bible.
Let’s pray that in our personal lives and when the church gathers together that we will worship God appropriately for His glory.
So, picture Nehemiah 12:27. After the people of God rebuilt the walls around Jerusalem, walls that their enemies and adversaries had said would not even be able to hold a cat if a cat were to walk across it.
This Verse Shows Us The Appropriate Picture Of Worship
So what do they do? In Jerusalem, as soon as they finish building the walls, they take all the people, and they stand up on the walls, and they march around them. And they sing. They celebrate with thanksgiving, with singing, with cymbals, with harps, with lyres. You see all kinds of instruments, you see choirs like this is a massive celebration.
It says they rejoiced with great joy, later on. Like, not just rejoiced, they rejoiced with joy. And not just with joy, they rejoiced with great joy. That’s pretty repetitive, but it’s a picture of this was a blowout celebration and this is appropriate for the people of God to do, to celebrate, to sing, to use all kinds of instruments. With thanksgiving, to shout, to rejoice with great joy over who God is and what God has done.
Nehemiah 12:27 Prays That We Worship God Appropriately
Oh, God, we pray, we pray that we, as your people today, would worship appropriately. Meaning that we would worship with joy. Not just joy, with great joy. Not just with great joy, that we would worship with great joy rejoicing. God, please, please, take our joy and worship to new heights.
Individually we pray for this, and our time with you, alone with you, God, we pray that you would be appropriately worshiped when we go into our room, close the door, and pray to our Father who is unseen.
God, be honored, be glorified in joyful worship when nobody else is looking. And then when we gather together on a Sunday with your people, or any other type of gathering, God may there be thanksgiving, loud singing, instruments that bring you glory. That brings you glory and bring us joy.
Teach us, teach us to worship you appropriately. We pray in Jesus’ name, amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
