April 13, 2025 • 56 mins
What does real repentance look like? In this message from The Passion Project series, Pastor Scott Wiens explores Nehemiah 9—a powerful account of how the people of God responded after hearing the law of the Lord read aloud.
Scott walks us through the covenantal structure of the passage, revealing three key movements: Perspective, Remembrance, and Response.
It begins with Perspective. The Israelites spent a quarter of the day reading God’s Word, followed by confession and worship. They acknowledged God’s greatness and re-centered their hearts around His sovereignty. This wasn’t a ritual—this was a reorientation. As Scott explained, without seeing ourselves rightly before God, true repentance is impossible.
Then comes Remembrance. Nehemiah 9 recounts Israel’s long history of rebellion, but also God’s unmatched faithfulness. The people didn’t make excuses or hide their sin. Instead, they laid it bare. Again and again, they had turned away from God, experienced judgment, cried out, and received mercy. Scott reminded us that honest remembrance isn’t meant to bury us in guilt—it’s meant to lift our eyes to grace. As Romans 2 tells us, it’s God’s kindness that leads us to repentance.
The final step is Response. The people didn’t just confess—they committed. They entered into a covenant, pledging to walk in obedience moving forward. And while we know the Israelites would fall again, Scott pointed us to the hope we now have in Christ: the promise of a new heart and a new spirit within us. Through the Holy Spirit, God empowers us to live transformed lives—not just momentarily moved, but continually changed.
Scott also quoted R.C. Sproul, who said, “When we realize that we have offended God, we must feel this rupture of our soul.” That rupture is not condemnation; it’s a holy discomfort that leads us to the arms of Jesus. If you’re feeling that tug—if you’re weary from carrying sin on your shoulders—Jesus invites you to come and find rest.
This message isn’t just a history lesson—it’s a present-day call. God still draws us back. He still speaks through His Word. And He still transforms hearts.
Watch or listen now and let Nehemiah 9 shape your perspective, stir your memory, and invite your response.
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Episode Transcript
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Scott Wiens (00:03):
I want to begin with a quote from a gentleman by
the name of RC Sproul onrepentance, and it's a really
powerful quote and it says whenwe realize that we have offended
God, we must feel this ruptureof our soul.
When we realize we haveoffended God, which really is
(00:26):
sin, we must feel this ruptureof our soul.
Just take a moment to thinkabout that.
Have you ever experienced arupture of your soul?
(00:53):
Our response to our sin isreally one of the hallmarks of a
true Christian.
It really is.
And today we are going to talkabout repentance because that's
what our text is talking about,and we're going to come back to
this quote towards the end.
We're in a sermon series on thebook of Nehemiah which we call
the Passion Project, and we areon week nine, week nine.
So therefore it's sermon nineand it's on chapter nine.
(01:17):
And last week Kelly really setthis up beautifully when he
preached on chapter eight andhow the word of God is the real
core of any revival and anyrepentance.
It was a great sermon, kelly,it was wonderful.
I want to remind us of thepoints he made because it was
really vital to understand thathe said the Word of God awakens
(01:40):
our faith.
The elevation of God's Wordcorrects our vision.
The elevation of God's wordcorrects our vision.
The explanation of God's wordbrings encounter and the
continuation of God's wordtransforms our behavior.
And this is so beautifulbecause this is leading directly
into what we're going to talkabout today, which is really the
(02:01):
response of what they read theword of God.
So we're going to continue thisstory in chapter nine and we're
going to see the people stepinto this process of repentance
and owning their sin.
And really, chapter nine isinteresting because chapter nine
follows and it's actuallychapter nine and 10, but I've
only got nine it follows what'scalled a covenantal form.
(02:23):
Now, the covenantal form was avery common process in the Near
East at the time this waswritten and these covenants
usually fell into three primarycategories.
There were three primary phases.
The first was a preamble andthen there was what's called a
historical prologue and thenthere was this acceptance of the
(02:44):
covenant prologue and thenthere was this acceptance of the
covenant.
And we're going to see thatreally clearly in this chapter.
And, of course, because thefocus of chapter nine is
repentance, this is a covenantof repentance that we're going
to read about today.
Now, each of these sections.
As I read this and I studiedand I prayed, three themes came
out with each one of theseprocesses the first one, the
(03:06):
preamble I've called itperspective Perspective.
The second, which is thehistorical prologue, I called
that remembrance.
And the last one, theacceptance of the covenant.
I call that response.
And so today, as we look atthese three sections of this
covenant of repentance, we'regoing to see parallels, very
(03:26):
clear parallels of how we, asChristians, should respond when
we are walking throughrepentance.
Are you with me?
Let's pray, father.
We are so grateful for yourword, father, we are so grateful
that we can sit here in thisbeautiful building and we can
worship you, and we're sograteful that we can open up
(03:47):
your word and we can study it.
Father, we thank you for thebook of Nehemiah, we thank you
how you preserved it through allthese years.
And, father, my prayer is thattoday, as these words become
unpacked, that they become alive, that each one of us are
convicted, that hearts would beconvicted, that our hearts would
be set right on the right pathof repentance, not a worldly
(04:10):
repentance, but a godlyrepentance.
Lord, help us to hear.
Rend our hearts.
Lord, in Jesus' name, that's myprayer, amen.
Well, normally what we do atthis time is the pastor will
read the entire chapter.
This is 37 verses, and Ithought you know what I'm going
to do.
Instead, I'm going to preachthrough it.
I'm going to read it as Ipreach through it, because it
(04:32):
really kind of lays out in avery wonderful story format.
So let's get the setting andget ready to kind of set up.
So in Nehemiah, verses 1through 2, we're going to start
here, just to kind of set thestage here.
Now, in the 24th day of thismonth, the people of Israel were
assembled with fasting andsackcloth and with earth on
their heads, and the Israelitesseparated themselves from the
(04:56):
foreigners and stood andconfessed their sins and the
iniquities of their fathers.
So this is the setting we havenow their fathers.
So this is the setting we haveNow.
Just so you know, in chaptereight, as Kelly was unpacking
that and talking about it, thatwas the first day of the seventh
month and he talked about thefeast of booths.
I grew up keeping the feast oftabernacles, which is the same
thing, booth tabernacle.
You know, I always thought youdon't go through a tall
(05:19):
tabernacle on the expresswayright.
It would be a real change thewhole meaning of that, wouldn't
it?
So a toll booth.
But at the beginning of thatchapter was interesting because
Nehemiah told them what he saiddo not mourn.
He said do not mourn and weep,because they were already
starting to feel repentance, buthe said not yet.
(05:41):
This is a time, it's a time tocelebrate.
There's time for that.
And guess what?
Here came chapter nine.
Now, it's time Now, and it'sinteresting that, however, as
they're entering this covenantprocess, they were convicted by
the law, but they already hadthis welling up inside of them,
(06:01):
which was the right response upinside of them, which was the
right response.
And, by the way, you wondersometimes why the putting dirt
on their head, or ashes?
It really is a sign of humbling.
It's placing yourself in theright perspective, which we're
going to talk about.
When you humble yourself beforethe Lord with fasting and
(06:21):
sackcloth and these ashes,really what you're doing is you
are placing yourself low, andthat's what repentance is.
It's placing yourself low.
Now, where was this?
Well, it's obviously Jerusalem.
It does not specifically say inverse nine what part of
Jerusalem.
It says something about thestairs of the Levites.
So it could possibly be at thetemple, but it may be at the
(06:44):
same place, which was the watergate, and no, president Nixon
was not there.
If the younger people go andsay what Well, you didn't live
through that, you can bethankful, but we can probably
assume that was roughly the sameplace.
And who was there?
This is interesting.
It said the entire assembly ofIsrael.
(07:04):
Now, remember who's telling thestory, nehemiah.
So he was there, obviously, butyou know, neither Nehemiah or
Ezra are mentioned inside thisscripture, this whole chapter.
What we're going to read isspoken by the Levites, and it
said they separated themselvesfrom the foreigners among them.
Now, as I read that, I think atfirst it hit me and I realized
(07:28):
almost immediately why they didthat.
You know, when we havecommunion, when we take the
Lord's Supper, what's one of thethings we always say?
If you're not a believer,please do not feel pressured to
do this.
Why?
Because you're reaffirming withthe Lord, you're remembering
the sacrifice of Christ, andit's between you and God, it's
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between believers and God.
And so the foreigners that werethere, they didn't believe in
this God, right?
So this was between the nationof Israel, and there's also an
element of a corporaterepentance that's going on here.
And, by the way, just becauseit's a corporate repentance
doesn't mean there's not anapplication for us individually,
right?
So let's keep that in mind.
(08:11):
So, with that as a background,let's jump into the first one,
which is the preamble, whichI've called the perspective.
Okay, and we're going to startby beginning in verse 3 and
going through verse 6.
So Nehemiah 9, verse three, andthey stood up in their place
and read from the book of thelaw of the Lord their God for a
quarter of the day.
For another quarter of it, theymade confession and worship the
(08:33):
Lord, their God.
On the stairs of the Levitesstood Jeshua Bani Kadmiel
Shebaniah, bunai SherabiahBenaiah Cheraniah, and they
cried with a loud voice to theLord their God.
Then the Levites now listen tothese guys Jeshua Kadmiel
Benaiah, hashabaniah, sherebiah,hodiah Shebaniah and Pethahiah.
(08:54):
I want applause, please.
Thank you.
Brian Durfee said you know,we're just all thankful we don't
have to get up there and saythose words, and that's exactly
right.
Anyways, they said stand up andbless the Lord, your God, from
everlasting to everlasting.
Blessed be your glorious name,which is exalted above all
(09:16):
blessing and praise.
Verse 6, you are the Lord, youalone, and you made heaven, the
heaven of heavens, with all oftheir hosts, the earth and all
that is on it, the seas and allthat is in them, and you
preserve them all and the hostof heaven worships you.
(09:36):
This is the preamble.
Now it's interesting in thispreamble, the Levites are going
through three specific things togive them perspective.
Perspective, and what are they?
Well, first it was the readingof the Word of God.
Then they went into praisingHim right Praising and
worshiping Him and then theywent into acknowledging the
(09:57):
greatness and the power of God.
And I just want to unpack thosethree things here because
they're very important for ustoday.
Now the Word of God.
I am not going to give Kelly'ssermon again because it was so
good, but if you missed it, Ialways say this if you missed
the service, please go back andlisten to the sermon online,
because they all flow together.
It's all in the same book.
(10:17):
So Kelly addressed the role ofthe Word of God so well last
week, but really, the thing isthey started again and they read
it again.
For a quarter of the day theyread it.
They just finished reading itin verse 8, I mean literally
maybe a couple weeks before this, but they read it again and
(10:39):
that should tell you somethingthe Word of God was so important
Because, listen, if they don'tknow what the word of God is,
what do they know to repent of?
I remember in seminary I wasdoing a paper on Josiah, king
Josiah, and it was interestingbecause they were rebuilding and
they were fixing the temple upand they discovered the book of
(11:02):
the law and one of them broughtit to Josiah and they read it to
him and he's like he had neverheard this before.
How can you repent if you don'tknow what God's law is?
So they were remindingthemselves again.
That's what we need to look atthis.
What is it?
It's a catalyst.
(11:22):
The word of God is always acatalyst.
Truth is always a catalyst forrepentance.
Now, secondly, they praised God.
In verse 5 it said Stand up andbless the Lord, your God, from
everlasting to everlasting.
Blessed be your glorious name,which is exalted above all
blessings and praise.
This sounds like what one of uswould say when we get up here
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to introduce worship.
It was the most beautifulworshipful statement and you
know anytime you read where itsays you know blessings and
praise from everlasting toeverlasting.
This is a huge,all-encompassing praise that
they're doing, and what it didis it demonstrated their
repentance through this worship.
(12:04):
That just naturally came out.
It naturally comes out when youare coming to repentance.
It should.
And think about when you worshipsomebody, when you worship God,
what are you doing?
You're placing yourself underhim, underneath him.
Some of us have fallen into thetraps in the past and maybe you
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might be there where youworship something else and you
just have to understand.
You might say I don't worshipanything else.
Well, how important is your401k, especially now?
How important is your job oryour relationships?
I've seen people literallyworship their spouse.
I've seen that.
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So you place yourselfunderneath them and so by doing
this worship, that's whatthey're doing.
They're placing themselves in asubservient position to God and
they're doing it before God.
They're announcing this to Godthrough this worship, reading
the law.
God brought on the spirit ofrepentance and that
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automatically men led to worshipand placing them below.
Remember, this whole thing'sabout perspective, right, and I
love Judy's word today, by theway, that was spot on the mess,
everything.
I'm sitting here listening tothe worship.
I'm just going God.
Once again, you did yourtapestry, you lined everything
up.
And third, the third thing theydid is they acknowledged the
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greatness of God, verse 8, youare the Lord, you alone.
You have made heaven, theheaven of heavens with all their
hosts, the earth and all thatis on it, the seas and all that
is in them, and you preserve allof them.
Wow, wow.
(13:54):
They worshiped God and then theyacknowledged his complete
sovereign control overeverything, over everything.
You see what they're doing.
They're gaining perspective.
Remember, the Levites arespeaking this to the people.
The people are listening and asthey listen to this, you're
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going to see that their heartsare becoming.
They're putting themselves,they're realizing that.
Wait a second.
We are down here and God is wayup here.
He created everything the depthof the ocean, everything that's
on the earth, the heaven andthe heavens of the heaven.
I mean, these are allencompassing statements,
brethren.
It's so, so powerful when we'regetting even more.
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They're giving me moreperspective because they're
acknowledging who God is.
I call these truth statements.
In your personal prayer time,do you make truth statements?
These are statements that arerock solid.
They are so solid, they neverchange, and everything they said
here hasn't changed inthousands of years and had
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existed for years, millions ofyears before.
God is always on his throne.
He's the one.
And why was this so important?
Well, because they had to gettheir relationship right with
God before they could move intorepentance.
They had to get that right.
It's the trifecta.
You know the law of God, youworship God as the one who's
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over you and you acknowledge hisgreatness.
It's beautiful.
And, by the way, if you haveidols in your life and think
about the Israelites, by the way, they didn't always do this,
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always do this what's the firstthing they did when they started
to slip away?
They looked for other gods.
You know, why didn't they justgo sin?
Why didn't they just go?
You know, do all.
No, they've.
The first thing they did isthey looked for another God.
What should that tell us?
Because we are saying we're thesame thing.
You show me somebody that'swalked away from God and I'll
show you somebody that foundanother God.
(16:10):
They found another God, theyfound something to worship and
unfortunately, I think sometimesthat thing is themselves.
That thing is themselves.
Adam and Eve in the garden.
The great deception.
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What did Eve?
What did she want to do?
What was the tug for her?
What was the tipping point forher when Satan said you will be
like God, you don't have toplace yourself under him, you
don't have to worship him.
You, you don't have to worshiphim.
You're going to be on par withthat.
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If you don't worship God,you're worshiping another God.
Now, what's interesting, by theway, is I thought about King
David when I thought about thesethree perspective gaining
things, and immediately in mymind I started thinking about
certain Psalms that I'd read inthe past.
And David was a man after God'sown heart.
Right, this man knew repentance.
We know that because we've readPsalm 51.
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It's a heartbreaking Psalm toread, right?
But there are three things I'mjust going to bring up three
things that he did that followthis same pattern.
I'm just going to bring upthree things that he did that
follow this same pattern.
He acknowledged God's word aspreeminent in his life.
Think of Psalms 119.
I'm going to start in 97.
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Oh, how love I your law.
It is my meditation all the day.
Your commandment makes me wiserthan my enemies, for it is ever
with me.
I have more understanding thanmy teachers, for your
testimonies are my meditation.
Verse 100.
I understand more than theagent, for I keep your precepts.
I hold back my feet from everyevil way in order to keep your
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word.
I do not turn aside from yourrules, of course rules, of
course, that you've taught mehow sweet are your words to my
taste, sweeter than honey in mymouth.
Through your precepts, I getunderstanding.
Therefore, I hate every falseway he did this.
He acknowledged that the wordof God was his foundation for
everything.
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What else did he do when it cameto worship?
Well, I don't really need toreally address that much, do I?
Because most of the songs thatwe sing up here, that when
they're coming from biblicaltext, most of them are Psalms of
David.
Right, I just picked out one,psalm 63, three through four.
Because of your loving, becauseyour loving, kindness is better
than life, my lips will praiseyou, so I will bless you as long
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as I live, I will lift up myhands to your name, Worship,
worship, praise andacknowledging his lowly position
and God's lofty position.
Immediately my mind went to thisscripture in Psalms 8, verse 3.
When I look at your hearts,heavens, the works of your
fingers, the moon and the starswhich you have set in place,
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what is man that you are mindfulof him?
What is man that you aremindful of him?
There is nothing moreperspective gaining than to
being out and just looking atthe creation and just realizing
I'm just a speck of dust.
I'm less than a speck of dust.
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Why are you mindful of me?
Of course I know why, becausescripture tells me why, but it
puts me in that perspectivewhich is so important, thank you
.
So the application for pointone for us, this whole thing
about getting perspective howdoes this apply to us?
Well, I think a lot of you areprobably nodding already.
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You know where I'm going.
If we want to experience truerepentance, it should naturally
include these three things.
It first and foremost and mustalways be informed by the word
of God Truth.
You and I need to know truth,we need to understand truth and
we need to hold on to truth.
And, by the way, if you haven'tfigured that out, that's
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getting more and more difficultevery day.
So many people are nullifyingthe word of God by twisting and
explaining it away or making itfit into the culture.
Oh, that can't be right, that'sgoing to offend somebody.
So therefore, I'm going totwist that.
I've seen that before and it'ssad.
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What's really sad is I felttempted to do that before.
If we're honest with ourselves,sometimes we're like this is
really harsh.
I don't know if I want to saythat.
But we can't walk away fromtruth and, more importantly,
forget that yourself.
When you find yourself straying, you have to stand back and
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look at what truth is.
That's your measurement.
That's your measurement andunfortunately, that's what
happens.
We did a class called theDeconstruction of Christianity.
We went through that book ofthe same title, called the
Deconstruction of Christianity.
We went through that book ofthe same title.
Neil and I did this lastsemester I think it was last
semester.
It was powerful, but it was sadbecause so much of the
deconstruction is people sayingwell, I want to be a Christian,
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but I want to be this kind ofChristian.
I want this to fall in here, andsome just literally reject it
totally and walk away in here,and some just literally reject
it totally and walk away.
And unfortunately, we like toshape and mold our God into an
idol that we can follow.
You can't identify sin if youdon't know what truth is.
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It's as simple as that.
Secondly, when it comes toworship, we should desire to
worship God readily and with awilling heart.
Boy, worship is so powerful Ican't imagine not being in this
room when we worship.
It's so powerful.
It's so powerful If someonedoesn't want to worship the Lord
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, their God, then I can almostguarantee you they probably
don't have the right perspective.
Their perspective's off.
If you don't want to raise yourhands to God, ask yourself why.
Why wouldn't you do that?
I challenge any of you to findsomebody any one of our
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spiritual heroes in the Biblethat were not worshipers.
Just try to find one and you'reprobably.
Well technically, it doesn'tsay he worshiped, no, no, they
all worshiped the Lord, and alot of times you know the way
they worship the Lord is theyfell flat in their face.
That is an act of worship.
You remember?
I always think of that burningbush example Moses out there
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doing his thing with the sheep.
It's like that bush has beenburning a long time.
What's that all about?
Take your shoes off.
You're on holy ground, shoesoff, face down.
He knew who God was and he knewwhat his response should be to
God, and we need to alsoacknowledge the greatness of God
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.
One of the things Judy had andshe shared this a couple of
times she's come up duringworship and one of the things
she did was share the names ofGod.
Why was that important?
Was that just likeinformational?
Well, that's really neat.
I didn't know that was the nameof God.
No, no, it's for you tounderstand and expand the God
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that you worship.
The more you know about God,the more you understand the
meaning and the power of it, thebigger your God gets and the
smaller you get.
Right, that's the way it'ssupposed to be.
That's the way it's supposed tobe.
Brooke wrote an amazing worshipsong about the names of God.
I love that song.
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That should be sung in everychurch.
As far as I'm concerned, I lovethat song.
That should be sung in everychurch.
As far as I'm concerned, that'sa powerful, powerful song.
And what does it do?
It gives you perspective.
That's what this whole firstsection is about.
They were getting perspectiveas they walked into repentance.
Rehearsing the greatness of Godreminds us of how big and
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wonderful God is, and we find itmuch easier to see our sin,
much easier to see their sin.
Okay, let's go to the secondsection, which is the historical
prologue.
Now you just have to understand.
And I labeled this oneremembrance.
Okay, I called it remembrance.
This is the preponderance ofthe rest of this chapter.
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I wanted to use the wordpreponderance.
I thought it was a big word.
I want some credit for that inthe guys in the sound booth.
Okay, preponderance Timothydoesn't know, he's looking up on
his phone right now.
So I'm going to break this upinto two sections because
there's a natural flow here.
So the first one begins inverse seven.
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So let's just start reading.
You are the Lord, the God whochose Abram, abram and brought
him out of the Ur of theChaldeans and gave him the name
Abraham.
You found his heart faithfulbefore you and made with him the
covenant to give to hisoffspring the land of the
Canaanite, the Hittite, theAmorite, the Perizzite, the
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Jebusite, the Girgashite andwhoever other ites were there.
He got their land and you havekept your promise, for you are
righteous.
And you saw the affliction ofour fathers in Egypt and you
heard their cry at the Red Seaand performed signs and wonders
against Pharaoh and all hisservants and all the people of
the land, for you knew that theyacted arrogantly against our
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fathers and you made a name foryourself as to this day.
And it's interesting whenJoshua was leading the children
of Israel to the promised land,remember some of the responses
of the nations that they wereconquering.
They said we heard about whatyour God did at the Red Sea.
God made a name for himself,trust me, he made a name Verse
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11,.
And you divided the sea beforethem so that they went in
through the midst of the sea ondry land, and you cast their
pursuers into the depth as astone, into the mighty waters.
You know stones are heavy.
Have you ever taken a stone andjust thrown it into a really
raging river?
It disappears.
The river's like whatever.
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That's what he's saying.
That's what he's saying.
By a pillar of cloud, you ledthem in the day, and by a pillar
of fire in the night, to lightfor them the way in which they
should go.
You came down on Mount Sinaiand spoke with them from heaven
and gave them the right rules,the true laws, good statutes and
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commandments.
You made known to them yourholy Sabbath and commanded them
the commandments and statutesand a law by Moses, your servant
Verse 15, and you gave thembread from heaven for their
hunger and brought water outfrom their rock for their thirst
, and you told them to go andpossess the land that you had
sworn to give them.
We're going to stop there.
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What are they doing?
What are they doing?
We know they're remembering,but what are they remembering.
They're remembering God'sfaithfulness, his providence,
his direction, his faithfulnessBecause, remember, they referred
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to the covenant he made withAbraham.
They're remembering thisfaithfulness and it's important
that we understand that becauseand this is a very important
part of any covenant, but forthem especially, let's just look
at some of the things theyremembered, just to rehearse
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really quickly they went all theway back to the founding of
their nation, abram right.
They went all the way back tothere and they talked about how
God Abram right.
They went all the way back tothere and they talked about how
God found Abram faithful,changed his name to Abraham,
took him out where he let himsettle.
They rehearsed their time inEgypt, which was a huge part.
Last night my wife and I had achance to do a Seder with Rick
(28:14):
and Karen Greenberg Such apowerful, powerful meetings.
It was wonderful with Rick andKaren Greenberg.
Such a powerful, powerfulmeanings.
It was wonderful.
And when you go through that,so much of it is remembering is
remembering what God has done inthe life of the nation.
He remembered how he broughtthe brought of Egypt, walked
them through the Red Sea, didall of that stuff I mean
(28:37):
everything led and provided forthem in the wilderness.
They were remembering God'sfaithfulness.
Now, why did they do this?
Why was it important?
Well, I think I just thoughtthrough this and it just kind of
made logical sense to me.
That number one it gave themconfidence that God is going to
forgive them and we're about toread about their unfaithfulness
(28:58):
here in a minute but it gavethem confidence that God is with
them.
God has always been with themand God always will be with them
.
It was a reminder of that.
Secondly, it helped themunderstand God's provision.
In the history of their nation,god was always there and
providing God's provision.
In the history of their nation,god was always there and
(29:19):
providing.
And you know, I think, what itreally did.
It really helped them build aspirit of thankfulness.
Aren't you thankful that yourGod forgives you?
Now, however, their remembrancealso involved remembering the
(29:42):
sins of their fathers, andthat's what we're going to now
read.
Now, I've been toying aroundwith how I was going to read
this.
I figured I don't want to losesight of this, but I've got to
change my tone of voice just soyou understand.
I've got it highlighted in mything.
There's a pattern that's goingto jump out to you, so just
listen to this, starting inverse 16,.
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But they and our fathers actedpresumptuously and stiffened
their neck and did not obey yourcommandments.
They refused to obey and theywere not mindful of the wonders
that you performed among them.
They stiffened their neck andthey appointed a leader to
return their slavery in Egypt.
Yeah, it's just what sin.
I was going to do a New Yorkaccent, but I can't do that.
(30:24):
It's sinful and this is theirresponse.
This was the response of ourfathers to all of God's
faithfulness.
But look what he says afterthat.
But you are a God ready toforgive, gracious and merciful,
(30:44):
slow to anger and abounding insteadfast love, and did not
forsake them, even when they hadmade for themselves a golden
calf and said this is your God,who brought you out of Egypt and
had committed great blasphemies.
You and your great mercies didnot forsake them in the
wilderness.
Okay, sin, god's faithfulness.
(31:05):
Right, let's keep reading.
The pillar of cloud that ledthem in the way did not depart
from them by day, nor the pillarof fire by night, to light for
them the way by which theyshould go.
You gave your good spirit toinstruct them and did not
withhold your manna from theirmouth and gave them water for
their thirst.
Forty years you sustained themin the wilderness and they
(31:27):
lacked nothing, god'sfaithfulness right.
Their clothes did not wear outand their feet did not swell.
I never thought about feetswelling until I got a little
older.
I never thought about feetswelling until I got a little
older.
That's a big deal, by the way.
And you gave them kingdoms andpeoples and allotted to them
every corner.
So they took possession of theland of Shion, king of Heshbon,
(31:50):
and the land of Og, king ofBasham.
You multiplied their childrenas the stars of heaven, by the
way, that's happening here inour church, by the way and you
brought them into the land whichyou had told their fathers to
enter and possess.
So the descendants went in andthey possessed the land and you
subdued before them theinhabitants of the land.
By the way, we know Joshua wentin and fought those battles,
(32:12):
but they identified correctlywho was winning that battle.
Right, they said you.
They didn't say you allowed usto win, they just said you did
it right the Canaanites and gavethem into their hand, with the
kings and the peoples of theland that they might do with
them as they would Verse 25, andthey captured fortified cities
(32:32):
and a rich land and tookpossession of houses full of all
good things.
Cisterns already hewn vineyards,olive orchards and fruit trees
in abundance, so they ate andwere filled and became fat and
delighted themselves in yourgreat goodness.
Oh, my goodness, what awonderful picture of God's
faithfulness and his provisionand all that stuff.
(32:53):
Oops, here comes verse 26.
Nevertheless, they weredisobedient and rebelled against
you and cast your law behindtheir back and killed your
prophets, who had warned them,in order to turn them back to
you, and they committed greatblasphemies.
That's the response.
One of the things you'll noticeis there are no excuses being
(33:17):
given.
You see that, no excuses.
So verse 27, god goes enemies,your turn.
Therefore, you gave them intothe hand of their enemies, who
made them suffer.
Sometimes God punished himself,sometimes he used their enemies
(33:40):
to punish, which I think was tohelp them realize that, listen,
the only reason you're here isbecause I brought you here and I
provided it.
If I take my hand off, you'redone, you're done.
But then look what he says.
And in time, in the time oftheir suffering, they cried out
to you and you heard them fromheaven and, according to your
(34:03):
great mercies, you gave themsaviors who saved them from the
land of their enemies.
Here's God's faithfulness again, uh-oh, verse 28.
But after they had rest, theydid evil again before you and
God went and you abandoned themto the hand of their enemies, so
they had domin.
They did evil again before youand God went and you abandoned
them to the hand of theirenemies, so they had dominion
over them.
(34:23):
Punishment, oh.
In the same verse, though.
Yet when they turned and criedto you, you heard from heaven,
and many times you deliveredthem, according to your mercies,
and you warned them in orderthat they warned them, in order
to turn them back to your law.
Merciful God faithfulness.
Yet here we go again.
(34:45):
Yet they acted presumptuouslyand did not obey your
commandments.
They sinned against your rules,which, if a person does them,
he shall live by them, and theyturned a stubborn shoulder and
stiffened their neck and wouldnot obey.
Many years you bore with themand warned them with your spirit
, through your prophets, yetthey would not give ear.
Therefore, you gave them intothe hand of the people of the
(35:09):
lands.
But wait a second.
Here we go.
Nevertheless, in your greatmercies, you did not make an end
to them or forsake them, foryou are a gracious and merciful
God.
You see, this pattern we'reseeing.
This is the historical prologueand it's really important.
(35:31):
We don't just read over thereand say that's a neat history.
No, they're doing somethingvery purposely here, verse 32,.
No, they're doing somethingvery purposely here, verse 32,
now, therefore, so they have.
They rehearsed all this.
Now, therefore, our God, thegreat and mighty and the awesome
God, who keeps covenant andsteadfast love, don't miss that.
What did they say?
You keep covenant.
(35:52):
What is this whole chapterabout Covenant?
They're moving into a covenantand they're identifying that God
keeps their covenant.
Let not all the hardship seemlittle to you that has come upon
us, upon our kings, our princes, our priests, our prophets, our
fathers and all your people,since the time of the kings of
Assyria until this day.
(36:13):
They'd been in bondage thatwhole time.
Yet you have been righteous inall that has come upon us, for
you have dealt faithfully and wehave acted wickedly.
And they identify again Ourkings, our princes, our priests
and our fathers have not keptyour law or paid attention to
your commandments and yourwarnings that you gave them,
(36:35):
even in their own kingdom, andadmit, amid your great goodness,
that you gave them, and in thelarge and rich land that you set
before them, they did not serveyou.
Return from their wicked works.
God once again brings theenemies in to punish them.
36,.
They're acknowledging this, bythe way.
(36:56):
Behold, we are slaves this day,in the land that you gave our
fathers to enjoy its fruit andits good gifts.
Behold, we are slaves and itsrich yield goes to the kings
whom you have set over us.
Because of our sins, they ruleover our bodies and over our
(37:22):
livestock as they please, and weare in great distress.
That's the pattern, obey,everything's going.
Great Sin, bondage, cry out formercy, forgiveness restored,
and again and rinse and repeat,which I don't do, literally, I
(37:48):
don't do rinse and repeat.
Does it not depress you, thosewho are in the Bible reading,
did it not depress you just alittle bit, going through the
book of Exodus and all this, tosee this constant turning away
from God, constant turning away?
They were doing this becausethey needed to humble themselves
(38:14):
before God and they needed toown it.
Humble themselves before Godand they needed to own it.
They needed to own their sin.
They didn't make any excuses.
I see nowhere here.
And they said but we turned toother gods, because, after all,
they didn't say that, they justowned it.
And so the application for us isreally, really clear.
(38:35):
I don't care how long you'vebeen walking with the Lord.
Most all of us should be ableto look back on our lives, and
we should be able to see God'sfaithful hand in our life, in
spite of our sins.
Now you might say, scott, areyou telling me to dwell on my
past sins?
No, no, no.
I want you to hear me realclearly, and I appreciate what
(38:56):
was said up here this morning.
We're not defined by those sinsanymore, right, god puts them
as far from us as east from thewest, right, but we need to
remember his faithfulness.
I can look back in my life andsee times when I literally
should have deserved a greatpunishment for what I did, for
(39:17):
my sin.
Yet I received grace, and Godis always ready to forgive you,
always ready to forgive you.
He's faithful, even though weare not.
He's faithful.
Romans 2, verse 4, is a reallypowerful verse.
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I'm going to read this in theNew Living Translation.
It says don't you see this isPaul talking?
Don't you see how wonderfullykind, tolerant and patient God
is with you?
Does this mean nothing to you.
Can't you see?
His kindness is intended toturn you from your sin.
Turn you from your sin.
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Brethren, are you responding tothe kindness of God?
Do you know the kindness of God?
You know, every morning, when Iwake up and take a deep breath
and I'm just like I'm redeemed.
I'm redeemed this day.
I might do really well or Imight fall on my face, but I've
(40:24):
got a faithful God that willnever leave me.
He will never forsake me.
He will be there with meentirely, the whole time.
That kindness should drive meto my knees to repent.
It should drive me to the pointwhere I hate my sin.
The Israelites were displayingthis by reminding themselves of
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the riches of his kindness, hisforbearance and his patience.
Point three we're going to talkabout the acceptance of the
covenant.
Their response I only get oneverse.
Well, let's read it.
Nehemiah 9, verse 38.
Because of all this, everythingthey just talked about, from
(41:08):
verse 1 all the way to verse 37,because of all this, we make a
firm covenant in writing.
On the sealed documents are thenames of our princes, our
Levites and our priests, and nowthey go to chapter 10.
Now, there really shouldn'thave been a chapter break here,
but they had a lot of verses sothey had to break the chapter.
But it is a transition point inthe covenant because chapter 10
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, which we preached on in acouple of weeks by Mark you're
going to see their response tothat.
But I'm going to seal just alittle tiny bit of it by saying
they responded and the thirdpart of this covenant is in the
acceptance of the covenant wastheir response, and that's the
key word was a response.
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They've gone through theperspective of hearing the word
of God, worshiping God,acknowledging his greatness.
They remember their sinfulhistory and they are now
choosing to respond.
And their response was making acovenant to obey.
That's their response.
They're about to make acovenant that we are going to
obey.
And, by the way, just so youknow, there are many times in
(42:14):
the history of the children ofIsrael they went years with not
obeying.
They went years it's not likethey sinned and you know, later
that day God threw them into,you know, punishment, and then
the next day they went oh, I'msorry.
And then restored.
There were years that they wentthrough punishment and they're
(42:34):
in that process now.
Right, the application for ustoday is pretty evident.
What do we do when we are facedwith our sin.
I'm going to go back to thatquote from the very beginning.
When we realize we haveoffended or sinned against God,
we must feel this rupture of oursoul.
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When we sin, do we number one,do we acknowledge our sin, or do
we do what so many people doand they justify it?
God, everybody's doing it.
I know this couple that didthat and they got away with it
(43:18):
and they're good now.
And I knew that guy thatcheated at work or he took stuff
home and he's okay now.
I mean, you know it's okay andit's like people start
justifying sin.
You want to know why we justifysin.
If we're Christians, you wantto know why we justify sin.
It's because the Holy he's inus, the Holy Spirit's in us, and
(43:40):
we're miserable.
And we got to somehow try toput salve on that gaping wound
that needs surgery.
We put a little band-aid on itby trying to justify it.
But if you're truly one ofGod's, he will not let you go.
He will make you miserable.
I've been through that.
(44:00):
It's not a good place to be.
I'd rather just repent.
It's much easier to just repent.
It's so much easier.
The sad part is and Tylermentioned this the other day, I
think.
If you read forward in Nehemiah,if you've read the whole book,
(44:21):
guess what?
It didn't take long until theyfell out of that covenant.
But even though that can be alittle depressing, there's
something different between themand us, isn't there?
There's one big differencebetween them and us.
God took a part of the Godhead,holy Spirit, and he placed him
(44:45):
in us.
You and I have God in us.
Paul talks about Christ in us.
That means we have the powerthat he's transforming us and we
have the power to obey.
We have the power to obey, wehave the power to get out of
that kind of a cycle.
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I'm not saying, don't, we'renot going to sin.
I'm not saying that, but we'regoing to start walking away from
that habitual sin.
We're going to start walkingaway from sin that used to
define us and we're now beingdefined by who we are, and
that's we are gods, we're men.
We're men, women, children ofgod.
We're adopted.
You know, by the way, he, forgod, so loved the world he gave
(45:28):
his only begotten son.
Begotten means was from him.
You and I are adopted, butwe're adopted.
Oh man, man, that's powerful.
You got to actually give youchills.
You and me are adopted.
And when he came into our lives, we had a heart transplant.
(45:48):
We had a heart transplant.
Ezekiel 36, one of the mostpowerful prophecies, says it
best in verse 26.
And I will give you a new heartand a new spirit.
I will put within you and Iwill remove the heart of stone.
Who had a heart of stone?
The Israelites Guaranteed.
I will remove the heart ofstone from your flesh and give
(46:10):
you a heart of flesh.
And now check this out.
And I will put my spirit,capital S person within you and
cause you to walk in my statutesand be careful to obey my rules
.
Christ in me, christ in you.
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We quote 2 Corinthians 5.17 allthe time because it's good.
That's why we quote it.
If any man is in Christ, he isa new creation.
I was going to say if anyone'sin Christ, he's just a better
person.
No, that's fake Christianity,that's false Christianity.
You're a new person and youwant to know what tells you
(46:53):
you're a new person.
Go back to the quote fromSproul.
How do you respond to your sin?
Does it grieve you?
Because it grieves God.
Does it grieve you?
Do you get that kick in thestomach feeling?
Do you want to be reconciledwith the Father?
(47:14):
You know, my wife and I havebeen married for 36 years and I
really honestly say we don'tfight anymore.
We just don't fight.
We're close, god, it's justgreat.
But there were times I rememberin our past that we fought,
like last week.
So I didn't say when thatchanged.
No, no, no, I'm kidding, no, no, seriously.
(47:39):
There was a time where everyonce in a while we'd get
sideways and then we would go toour corners.
I don't know if you're like meI hope you felt like me but any
time there was something betweenHedy and I, I had this terrible
feeling in my stomach.
I could not wait to reconcileto her and get it solved so we
(48:04):
could be one again.
I hated that.
That same feeling should bemagnified a hundredfold when it
comes to your sin, your sin.
If you're getting comfortablewith your sin y'all, you got to
look in the mirror and you gotto ask yourself God, you need to
change my heart, you need togive me a heart of flesh.
This sin should grieve me.
(48:25):
It should grieve me.
You know there might be somepeople here today that maybe
you're thinking.
What I'm saying you just havenever experienced.
Maybe you haven't experiencedthat change in your life where
you're saying, yes, god, I'm nothere and I don't get what
you're saying.
(48:45):
I've not given my life over toChrist like that.
That might be you and I'm goingto say just there's a few
things I know to be true.
If that, if you're thinkingthis way, if you're, if you're
sitting there, maybe you'regoing to growing some conviction
right now.
But if that's you, let me justsay a couple of things.
First, I know that you'relistening to this and it might
be online.
I know you're listening to thisbecause God brought you here.
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That's what I know, becausethere's no accidents with God.
He's sovereign.
We had a great example of thatin our lives this week.
God's sovereign.
Secondly, I know you'remiserable.
Why do I know you're miserable?
Because I know that when Godstarts to work and he starts to
(49:28):
work in your mind and your heartand he starts to wake you up
because we know from Ephesiansthat we're dead in our sins when
he resurrects us and we startto see our sin, it grieves us
and it makes us miserable,because we want to know what
should I do?
Remember the sermon that Peterpreached on Pentecost?
What was the response of thepeople what now shall we do?
(49:53):
They were feeling this samefeeling.
They were miserable.
They were just oh, don't leaveus here, don't take a coffee
break, tell us what we got to do.
And so if you're here right nowand you're feeling that I got a
great answer for you and it's awonderful answer, and it's a
(50:22):
wonderful answer and, by the way, you're miserable because maybe
you've been feeling this for awhile and you've been fighting
it.
Maybe you've got a differentGod up here.
Maybe you're like I don't wantto stop drinking.
Alcohol is not as simple.
You know, you get what I'msaying.
I don't want to start havingsex outside of marriage.
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I don't want to start beinghonest.
I don't want to stop telling myjokes, I don't want to do it.
You put the list up there.
It might be that you'remiserable because you don't want
to stop doing this.
Miserable because you don'twant to stop doing this.
But I heard a great song calledBlack Sheep.
I don't know what's his name.
Again, I forgot the artist'sname.
(51:06):
It's just this guy's amazing.
It's called Black Sheep and thevery last one, the very last
words in the song, was amazing.
Grace is a pesky, pesky thingwhen God's calling you, you
don't got a chance.
You don't got a chance.
(51:26):
I didn't come to the women'sthing, by the way, last
yesterday, but my wife told meall about it and she said you
know that lost sheep parable,where they leave the 99, go for
the one.
We think it's this whole comeon back, come on back to the
flock.
No, the real image is a burly,a burly sheep herder grabbing
(51:46):
the sheep and going, puttingthem on back and going back to
the sheep, the rest of the sheep.
That's what God's going to doto you.
That's what he wants to do.
He wants to call you back andhe will have you because he's
God and you can run.
You can run, you can doanything you want.
It ain't going to help.
(52:07):
Amazing grace is a pesky, peskything.
Well, you get to.
The good news is you canrespond to that and it's a real
simple response.
That's a real simple response.
That's a real simple responseAt Trinity.
We don't believe that you justsay a prayer and you're saved.
(52:28):
We don't believe that you mightbe well, that's what the Bible
says.
No, I tell you, what we believeis we believe that God begins
working in your heart and hegets you to this point where
you're grieved by your sin andyou hate your sin and it's like
a vile taste in your mouth andyou want to repent.
At that point, then it's assimple as a prayer.
(52:50):
And so if you're online andyou're listening to this, or
even if you're here, there aregoing to be a group of people up
front and we'll pray for you.
But if you're online, it'sreally simple.
If God's got you in this place,if God's got you there, all you
have to say is Lord, I don'twant to be here anymore.
(53:10):
I need forgiveness for my sinsand I am giving my life over to
you, my whole history.
I want to follow you and he'llmake you new.
He'll answer that prayer.
You repent.
He forgives because he'sfaithful, and you are now in the
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fold and all you have to lookforward to is joy.
In fact, don't trust me, don'tlisten to my words.
This is what Jesus said andit's so beautiful In Matthew 11,
verse 28,.
Come to me, all of you who laborand are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest.
It's rest, by the way, when youfinally repent.
(53:52):
The peace that comes over youis a beautiful thing.
Take my yoke upon you and learnfrom me, for I am gentle and
lowly in heart and you will findrest for your souls, for my
yoke is easy and my burden islight.
Brethren, we have a lot we canlearn from this chapter.
(54:14):
When you are experiencingrepentance, first thing you do
is get perspective.
You can do this from yourprayer room, and this time, at
21 Days of Fasting, is beautiful.
You can read the word of God.
Believe me, it's living andactive and it's sharper than any
two-edged sword.
It will convict you.
You will hear from God.
You will know truth.
Spend time remembering how Godhas worked in your life and,
(54:41):
thirdly, respond with repentanceand I can tell you that the
peace of God that transcends allunderstanding will come over
you.
This is my audienceparticipation.
How many of you have been whereI'm talking about and now
experience peace every day?
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Put your arms up high, put themup high.
If you've experienced that,that's what you guys get to
enjoy every day.
He's faithful and when werepent, he responds.
Stand to your feet and let'spray.
(55:29):
Father, what is man that youwere mindful of him?
Who are we?
We know from your word, becauseit's truth.
We know that we are not thegreat of the world.
We are the ones that are goingto make other people scratch
their head and go why them?
But God, you restored us, youbrought us back, father.
(55:50):
I pray that, as we look at thisscripture and as we continue on
these 21 days of fasting, that,father, you truly give us the
heart of repentance that we canbe as the Israelites were, we
can follow this process ofrepentance but yet, father,
through the power of Christ inus, your Holy Spirit, that we
(56:12):
can obey and we can walk forwardin newness of life.
Father, we thank you for thistruth and we pray that we would
use this every day of our livesuntil we are face to face with
you.
We pray this and give this overto you in Jesus' precious name,
amen.
I want to begin with a quote from a gentleman by
the name of RC Sproul onrepentance, and it's a really
powerful quote and it says whenwe realize that we have offended
God, we must feel this ruptureof our soul.
When we realize we haveoffended God, which really is
(00:26):
sin, we must feel this ruptureof our soul.
Just take a moment to thinkabout that.
Have you ever experienced arupture of your soul?
(00:53):
Our response to our sin isreally one of the hallmarks of a
true Christian.
It really is.
And today we are going to talkabout repentance because that's
what our text is talking about,and we're going to come back to
this quote towards the end.
We're in a sermon series on thebook of Nehemiah which we call
the Passion Project, and we areon week nine, week nine.
So therefore it's sermon nineand it's on chapter nine.
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And last week Kelly really setthis up beautifully when he
preached on chapter eight andhow the word of God is the real
core of any revival and anyrepentance.
It was a great sermon, kelly,it was wonderful.
I want to remind us of thepoints he made because it was
really vital to understand thathe said the Word of God awakens
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our faith.
The elevation of God's Wordcorrects our vision.
The elevation of God's wordcorrects our vision.
The explanation of God's wordbrings encounter and the
continuation of God's wordtransforms our behavior.
And this is so beautifulbecause this is leading directly
into what we're going to talkabout today, which is really the
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response of what they read theword of God.
So we're going to continue thisstory in chapter nine and we're
going to see the people stepinto this process of repentance
and owning their sin.
And really, chapter nine isinteresting because chapter nine
follows and it's actuallychapter nine and 10, but I've
only got nine it follows what'scalled a covenantal form.
(02:23):
Now, the covenantal form was avery common process in the Near
East at the time this waswritten and these covenants
usually fell into three primarycategories.
There were three primary phases.
The first was a preamble andthen there was what's called a
historical prologue and thenthere was this acceptance of the
(02:44):
covenant prologue and thenthere was this acceptance of the
covenant.
And we're going to see thatreally clearly in this chapter.
And, of course, because thefocus of chapter nine is
repentance, this is a covenantof repentance that we're going
to read about today.
Now, each of these sections.
As I read this and I studiedand I prayed, three themes came
out with each one of theseprocesses the first one, the
(03:06):
preamble I've called itperspective Perspective.
The second, which is thehistorical prologue, I called
that remembrance.
And the last one, theacceptance of the covenant.
I call that response.
And so today, as we look atthese three sections of this
covenant of repentance, we'regoing to see parallels, very
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clear parallels of how we, asChristians, should respond when
we are walking throughrepentance.
Are you with me?
Let's pray, father.
We are so grateful for yourword, father, we are so grateful
that we can sit here in thisbeautiful building and we can
worship you, and we're sograteful that we can open up
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your word and we can study it.
Father, we thank you for thebook of Nehemiah, we thank you
how you preserved it through allthese years.
And, father, my prayer is thattoday, as these words become
unpacked, that they become alive, that each one of us are
convicted, that hearts would beconvicted, that our hearts would
be set right on the right pathof repentance, not a worldly
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repentance, but a godlyrepentance.
Lord, help us to hear.
Rend our hearts.
Lord, in Jesus' name, that's myprayer, amen.
Well, normally what we do atthis time is the pastor will
read the entire chapter.
This is 37 verses, and Ithought you know what I'm going
to do.
Instead, I'm going to preachthrough it.
I'm going to read it as Ipreach through it, because it
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really kind of lays out in avery wonderful story format.
So let's get the setting andget ready to kind of set up.
So in Nehemiah, verses 1through 2, we're going to start
here, just to kind of set thestage here.
Now, in the 24th day of thismonth, the people of Israel were
assembled with fasting andsackcloth and with earth on
their heads, and the Israelitesseparated themselves from the
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foreigners and stood andconfessed their sins and the
iniquities of their fathers.
So this is the setting we havenow their fathers.
So this is the setting we haveNow.
Just so you know, in chaptereight, as Kelly was unpacking
that and talking about it, thatwas the first day of the seventh
month and he talked about thefeast of booths.
I grew up keeping the feast oftabernacles, which is the same
thing, booth tabernacle.
You know, I always thought youdon't go through a tall
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tabernacle on the expresswayright.
It would be a real change thewhole meaning of that, wouldn't
it?
So a toll booth.
But at the beginning of thatchapter was interesting because
Nehemiah told them what he saiddo not mourn.
He said do not mourn and weep,because they were already
starting to feel repentance, buthe said not yet.
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This is a time, it's a time tocelebrate.
There's time for that.
And guess what?
Here came chapter nine.
Now, it's time Now, and it'sinteresting that, however, as
they're entering this covenantprocess, they were convicted by
the law, but they already hadthis welling up inside of them,
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which was the right response upinside of them, which was the
right response.
And, by the way, you wondersometimes why the putting dirt
on their head, or ashes?
It really is a sign of humbling.
It's placing yourself in theright perspective, which we're
going to talk about.
When you humble yourself beforethe Lord with fasting and
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sackcloth and these ashes,really what you're doing is you
are placing yourself low, andthat's what repentance is.
It's placing yourself low.
Now, where was this?
Well, it's obviously Jerusalem.
It does not specifically say inverse nine what part of
Jerusalem.
It says something about thestairs of the Levites.
So it could possibly be at thetemple, but it may be at the
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same place, which was the watergate, and no, president Nixon
was not there.
If the younger people go andsay what Well, you didn't live
through that, you can bethankful, but we can probably
assume that was roughly the sameplace.
And who was there?
This is interesting.
It said the entire assembly ofIsrael.
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Now, remember who's telling thestory, nehemiah.
So he was there, obviously, butyou know, neither Nehemiah or
Ezra are mentioned inside thisscripture, this whole chapter.
What we're going to read isspoken by the Levites, and it
said they separated themselvesfrom the foreigners among them.
Now, as I read that, I think atfirst it hit me and I realized
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almost immediately why they didthat.
You know, when we havecommunion, when we take the
Lord's Supper, what's one of thethings we always say?
If you're not a believer,please do not feel pressured to
do this.
Why?
Because you're reaffirming withthe Lord, you're remembering
the sacrifice of Christ, andit's between you and God, it's
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between believers and God.
And so the foreigners that werethere, they didn't believe in
this God, right?
So this was between the nationof Israel, and there's also an
element of a corporaterepentance that's going on here.
And, by the way, just becauseit's a corporate repentance
doesn't mean there's not anapplication for us individually,
right?
So let's keep that in mind.
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So, with that as a background,let's jump into the first one,
which is the preamble, whichI've called the perspective.
Okay, and we're going to startby beginning in verse 3 and
going through verse 6.
So Nehemiah 9, verse three, andthey stood up in their place
and read from the book of thelaw of the Lord their God for a
quarter of the day.
For another quarter of it, theymade confession and worship the
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Lord, their God.
On the stairs of the Levitesstood Jeshua Bani Kadmiel
Shebaniah, bunai SherabiahBenaiah Cheraniah, and they
cried with a loud voice to theLord their God.
Then the Levites now listen tothese guys Jeshua Kadmiel
Benaiah, hashabaniah, sherebiah,hodiah Shebaniah and Pethahiah.
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I want applause, please.
Thank you.
Brian Durfee said you know,we're just all thankful we don't
have to get up there and saythose words, and that's exactly
right.
Anyways, they said stand up andbless the Lord, your God, from
everlasting to everlasting.
Blessed be your glorious name,which is exalted above all
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blessing and praise.
Verse 6, you are the Lord, youalone, and you made heaven, the
heaven of heavens, with all oftheir hosts, the earth and all
that is on it, the seas and allthat is in them, and you
preserve them all and the hostof heaven worships you.
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This is the preamble.
Now it's interesting in thispreamble, the Levites are going
through three specific things togive them perspective.
Perspective, and what are they?
Well, first it was the readingof the Word of God.
Then they went into praisingHim right Praising and
worshiping Him and then theywent into acknowledging the
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greatness and the power of God.
And I just want to unpack thosethree things here because
they're very important for ustoday.
Now the Word of God.
I am not going to give Kelly'ssermon again because it was so
good, but if you missed it, Ialways say this if you missed
the service, please go back andlisten to the sermon online,
because they all flow together.
It's all in the same book.
(10:17):
So Kelly addressed the role ofthe Word of God so well last
week, but really, the thing isthey started again and they read
it again.
For a quarter of the day theyread it.
They just finished reading itin verse 8, I mean literally
maybe a couple weeks before this, but they read it again and
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that should tell you somethingthe Word of God was so important
Because, listen, if they don'tknow what the word of God is,
what do they know to repent of?
I remember in seminary I wasdoing a paper on Josiah, king
Josiah, and it was interestingbecause they were rebuilding and
they were fixing the temple upand they discovered the book of
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the law and one of them broughtit to Josiah and they read it to
him and he's like he had neverheard this before.
How can you repent if you don'tknow what God's law is?
So they were remindingthemselves again.
That's what we need to look atthis.
What is it?
It's a catalyst.
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The word of God is always acatalyst.
Truth is always a catalyst forrepentance.
Now, secondly, they praised God.
In verse 5 it said Stand up andbless the Lord, your God, from
everlasting to everlasting.
Blessed be your glorious name,which is exalted above all
blessings and praise.
This sounds like what one of uswould say when we get up here
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to introduce worship.
It was the most beautifulworshipful statement and you
know anytime you read where itsays you know blessings and
praise from everlasting toeverlasting.
This is a huge,all-encompassing praise that
they're doing, and what it didis it demonstrated their
repentance through this worship.
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That just naturally came out.
It naturally comes out when youare coming to repentance.
It should.
And think about when you worshipsomebody, when you worship God,
what are you doing?
You're placing yourself underhim, underneath him.
Some of us have fallen into thetraps in the past and maybe you
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might be there where youworship something else and you
just have to understand.
You might say I don't worshipanything else.
Well, how important is your401k, especially now?
How important is your job oryour relationships?
I've seen people literallyworship their spouse.
I've seen that.
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So you place yourselfunderneath them and so by doing
this worship, that's whatthey're doing.
They're placing themselves in asubservient position to God and
they're doing it before God.
They're announcing this to Godthrough this worship, reading
the law.
God brought on the spirit ofrepentance and that
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automatically men led to worshipand placing them below.
Remember, this whole thing'sabout perspective, right, and I
love Judy's word today, by theway, that was spot on the mess,
everything.
I'm sitting here listening tothe worship.
I'm just going God.
Once again, you did yourtapestry, you lined everything
up.
And third, the third thing theydid is they acknowledged the
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greatness of God, verse 8, youare the Lord, you alone.
You have made heaven, theheaven of heavens with all their
hosts, the earth and all thatis on it, the seas and all that
is in them, and you preserve allof them.
Wow, wow.
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They worshiped God and then theyacknowledged his complete
sovereign control overeverything, over everything.
You see what they're doing.
They're gaining perspective.
Remember, the Levites arespeaking this to the people.
The people are listening and asthey listen to this, you're
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going to see that their heartsare becoming.
They're putting themselves,they're realizing that.
Wait a second.
We are down here and God is wayup here.
He created everything the depthof the ocean, everything that's
on the earth, the heaven andthe heavens of the heaven.
I mean, these are allencompassing statements,
brethren.
It's so, so powerful when we'regetting even more.
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They're giving me moreperspective because they're
acknowledging who God is.
I call these truth statements.
In your personal prayer time,do you make truth statements?
These are statements that arerock solid.
They are so solid, they neverchange, and everything they said
here hasn't changed inthousands of years and had
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existed for years, millions ofyears before.
God is always on his throne.
He's the one.
And why was this so important?
Well, because they had to gettheir relationship right with
God before they could move intorepentance.
They had to get that right.
It's the trifecta.
You know the law of God, youworship God as the one who's
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over you and you acknowledge hisgreatness.
It's beautiful.
And, by the way, if you haveidols in your life and think
about the Israelites, by the way, they didn't always do this,
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always do this what's the firstthing they did when they started
to slip away?
They looked for other gods.
You know, why didn't they justgo sin?
Why didn't they just go?
You know, do all.
No, they've.
The first thing they did isthey looked for another God.
What should that tell us?
Because we are saying we're thesame thing.
You show me somebody that'swalked away from God and I'll
show you somebody that foundanother God.
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They found another God, theyfound something to worship and
unfortunately, I think sometimesthat thing is themselves.
That thing is themselves.
Adam and Eve in the garden.
The great deception.
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What did Eve?
What did she want to do?
What was the tug for her?
What was the tipping point forher when Satan said you will be
like God, you don't have toplace yourself under him, you
don't have to worship him.
You, you don't have to worshiphim.
You're going to be on par withthat.
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If you don't worship God,you're worshiping another God.
Now, what's interesting, by theway, is I thought about King
David when I thought about thesethree perspective gaining
things, and immediately in mymind I started thinking about
certain Psalms that I'd read inthe past.
And David was a man after God'sown heart.
Right, this man knew repentance.
We know that because we've readPsalm 51.
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It's a heartbreaking Psalm toread, right?
But there are three things I'mjust going to bring up three
things that he did that followthis same pattern.
I'm just going to bring upthree things that he did that
follow this same pattern.
He acknowledged God's word aspreeminent in his life.
Think of Psalms 119.
I'm going to start in 97.
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Oh, how love I your law.
It is my meditation all the day.
Your commandment makes me wiserthan my enemies, for it is ever
with me.
I have more understanding thanmy teachers, for your
testimonies are my meditation.
Verse 100.
I understand more than theagent, for I keep your precepts.
I hold back my feet from everyevil way in order to keep your
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word.
I do not turn aside from yourrules, of course rules, of
course, that you've taught mehow sweet are your words to my
taste, sweeter than honey in mymouth.
Through your precepts, I getunderstanding.
Therefore, I hate every falseway he did this.
He acknowledged that the wordof God was his foundation for
everything.
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What else did he do when it cameto worship?
Well, I don't really need toreally address that much, do I?
Because most of the songs thatwe sing up here, that when
they're coming from biblicaltext, most of them are Psalms of
David.
Right, I just picked out one,psalm 63, three through four.
Because of your loving, becauseyour loving, kindness is better
than life, my lips will praiseyou, so I will bless you as long
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as I live, I will lift up myhands to your name, Worship,
worship, praise andacknowledging his lowly position
and God's lofty position.
Immediately my mind went to thisscripture in Psalms 8, verse 3.
When I look at your hearts,heavens, the works of your
fingers, the moon and the starswhich you have set in place,
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what is man that you are mindfulof him?
What is man that you aremindful of him?
There is nothing moreperspective gaining than to
being out and just looking atthe creation and just realizing
I'm just a speck of dust.
I'm less than a speck of dust.
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Why are you mindful of me?
Of course I know why, becausescripture tells me why, but it
puts me in that perspectivewhich is so important, thank you
.
So the application for pointone for us, this whole thing
about getting perspective howdoes this apply to us?
Well, I think a lot of you areprobably nodding already.
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You know where I'm going.
If we want to experience truerepentance, it should naturally
include these three things.
It first and foremost and mustalways be informed by the word
of God Truth.
You and I need to know truth,we need to understand truth and
we need to hold on to truth.
And, by the way, if you haven'tfigured that out, that's
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getting more and more difficultevery day.
So many people are nullifyingthe word of God by twisting and
explaining it away or making itfit into the culture.
Oh, that can't be right, that'sgoing to offend somebody.
So therefore, I'm going totwist that.
I've seen that before and it'ssad.
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What's really sad is I felttempted to do that before.
If we're honest with ourselves,sometimes we're like this is
really harsh.
I don't know if I want to saythat.
But we can't walk away fromtruth and, more importantly,
forget that yourself.
When you find yourself straying, you have to stand back and
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look at what truth is.
That's your measurement.
That's your measurement andunfortunately, that's what
happens.
We did a class called theDeconstruction of Christianity.
We went through that book ofthe same title, called the
Deconstruction of Christianity.
We went through that book ofthe same title.
Neil and I did this lastsemester I think it was last
semester.
It was powerful, but it was sadbecause so much of the
deconstruction is people sayingwell, I want to be a Christian,
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but I want to be this kind ofChristian.
I want this to fall in here, andsome just literally reject it
totally and walk away in here,and some just literally reject
it totally and walk away.
And unfortunately, we like toshape and mold our God into an
idol that we can follow.
You can't identify sin if youdon't know what truth is.
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It's as simple as that.
Secondly, when it comes toworship, we should desire to
worship God readily and with awilling heart.
Boy, worship is so powerful Ican't imagine not being in this
room when we worship.
It's so powerful.
It's so powerful If someonedoesn't want to worship the Lord
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, their God, then I can almostguarantee you they probably
don't have the right perspective.
Their perspective's off.
If you don't want to raise yourhands to God, ask yourself why.
Why wouldn't you do that?
I challenge any of you to findsomebody any one of our
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spiritual heroes in the Biblethat were not worshipers.
Just try to find one and you'reprobably.
Well technically, it doesn'tsay he worshiped, no, no, they
all worshiped the Lord, and alot of times you know the way
they worship the Lord is theyfell flat in their face.
That is an act of worship.
You remember?
I always think of that burningbush example Moses out there
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doing his thing with the sheep.
It's like that bush has beenburning a long time.
What's that all about?
Take your shoes off.
You're on holy ground, shoesoff, face down.
He knew who God was and he knewwhat his response should be to
God, and we need to alsoacknowledge the greatness of God
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.
One of the things Judy had andshe shared this a couple of
times she's come up duringworship and one of the things
she did was share the names ofGod.
Why was that important?
Was that just likeinformational?
Well, that's really neat.
I didn't know that was the nameof God.
No, no, it's for you tounderstand and expand the God
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that you worship.
The more you know about God,the more you understand the
meaning and the power of it, thebigger your God gets and the
smaller you get.
Right, that's the way it'ssupposed to be.
That's the way it's supposed tobe.
Brooke wrote an amazing worshipsong about the names of God.
I love that song.
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That should be sung in everychurch.
As far as I'm concerned, I lovethat song.
That should be sung in everychurch.
As far as I'm concerned, that'sa powerful, powerful song.
And what does it do?
It gives you perspective.
That's what this whole firstsection is about.
They were getting perspectiveas they walked into repentance.
Rehearsing the greatness of Godreminds us of how big and
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wonderful God is, and we find itmuch easier to see our sin,
much easier to see their sin.
Okay, let's go to the secondsection, which is the historical
prologue.
Now you just have to understand.
And I labeled this oneremembrance.
Okay, I called it remembrance.
This is the preponderance ofthe rest of this chapter.
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I wanted to use the wordpreponderance.
I thought it was a big word.
I want some credit for that inthe guys in the sound booth.
Okay, preponderance Timothydoesn't know, he's looking up on
his phone right now.
So I'm going to break this upinto two sections because
there's a natural flow here.
So the first one begins inverse seven.
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So let's just start reading.
You are the Lord, the God whochose Abram, abram and brought
him out of the Ur of theChaldeans and gave him the name
Abraham.
You found his heart faithfulbefore you and made with him the
covenant to give to hisoffspring the land of the
Canaanite, the Hittite, theAmorite, the Perizzite, the
(25:22):
Jebusite, the Girgashite andwhoever other ites were there.
He got their land and you havekept your promise, for you are
righteous.
And you saw the affliction ofour fathers in Egypt and you
heard their cry at the Red Seaand performed signs and wonders
against Pharaoh and all hisservants and all the people of
the land, for you knew that theyacted arrogantly against our
(25:44):
fathers and you made a name foryourself as to this day.
And it's interesting whenJoshua was leading the children
of Israel to the promised land,remember some of the responses
of the nations that they wereconquering.
They said we heard about whatyour God did at the Red Sea.
God made a name for himself,trust me, he made a name Verse
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11,.
And you divided the sea beforethem so that they went in
through the midst of the sea ondry land, and you cast their
pursuers into the depth as astone, into the mighty waters.
You know stones are heavy.
Have you ever taken a stone andjust thrown it into a really
raging river?
It disappears.
The river's like whatever.
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That's what he's saying.
That's what he's saying.
By a pillar of cloud, you ledthem in the day, and by a pillar
of fire in the night, to lightfor them the way in which they
should go.
You came down on Mount Sinaiand spoke with them from heaven
and gave them the right rules,the true laws, good statutes and
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commandments.
You made known to them yourholy Sabbath and commanded them
the commandments and statutesand a law by Moses, your servant
Verse 15, and you gave thembread from heaven for their
hunger and brought water outfrom their rock for their thirst
, and you told them to go andpossess the land that you had
sworn to give them.
We're going to stop there.
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What are they doing?
What are they doing?
We know they're remembering,but what are they remembering.
They're remembering God'sfaithfulness, his providence,
his direction, his faithfulnessBecause, remember, they referred
(27:31):
to the covenant he made withAbraham.
They're remembering thisfaithfulness and it's important
that we understand that becauseand this is a very important
part of any covenant, but forthem especially, let's just look
at some of the things theyremembered, just to rehearse
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really quickly they went all theway back to the founding of
their nation, abram right.
They went all the way back tothere and they talked about how
God Abram right.
They went all the way back tothere and they talked about how
God found Abram faithful,changed his name to Abraham,
took him out where he let himsettle.
They rehearsed their time inEgypt, which was a huge part.
Last night my wife and I had achance to do a Seder with Rick
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and Karen Greenberg Such apowerful, powerful meetings.
It was wonderful with Rick andKaren Greenberg.
Such a powerful, powerfulmeanings.
It was wonderful.
And when you go through that,so much of it is remembering is
remembering what God has done inthe life of the nation.
He remembered how he broughtthe brought of Egypt, walked
them through the Red Sea, didall of that stuff I mean
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everything led and provided forthem in the wilderness.
They were remembering God'sfaithfulness.
Now, why did they do this?
Why was it important?
Well, I think I just thoughtthrough this and it just kind of
made logical sense to me.
That number one it gave themconfidence that God is going to
forgive them and we're about toread about their unfaithfulness
(28:58):
here in a minute but it gavethem confidence that God is with
them.
God has always been with themand God always will be with them
.
It was a reminder of that.
Secondly, it helped themunderstand God's provision.
In the history of their nation,god was always there and
providing God's provision.
In the history of their nation,god was always there and
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providing.
And you know, I think, what itreally did.
It really helped them build aspirit of thankfulness.
Aren't you thankful that yourGod forgives you?
Now, however, their remembrancealso involved remembering the
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sins of their fathers, andthat's what we're going to now
read.
Now, I've been toying aroundwith how I was going to read
this.
I figured I don't want to losesight of this, but I've got to
change my tone of voice just soyou understand.
I've got it highlighted in mything.
There's a pattern that's goingto jump out to you, so just
listen to this, starting inverse 16,.
(30:03):
But they and our fathers actedpresumptuously and stiffened
their neck and did not obey yourcommandments.
They refused to obey and theywere not mindful of the wonders
that you performed among them.
They stiffened their neck andthey appointed a leader to
return their slavery in Egypt.
Yeah, it's just what sin.
I was going to do a New Yorkaccent, but I can't do that.
(30:24):
It's sinful and this is theirresponse.
This was the response of ourfathers to all of God's
faithfulness.
But look what he says afterthat.
But you are a God ready toforgive, gracious and merciful,
(30:44):
slow to anger and abounding insteadfast love, and did not
forsake them, even when they hadmade for themselves a golden
calf and said this is your God,who brought you out of Egypt and
had committed great blasphemies.
You and your great mercies didnot forsake them in the
wilderness.
Okay, sin, god's faithfulness.
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Right, let's keep reading.
The pillar of cloud that ledthem in the way did not depart
from them by day, nor the pillarof fire by night, to light for
them the way by which theyshould go.
You gave your good spirit toinstruct them and did not
withhold your manna from theirmouth and gave them water for
their thirst.
Forty years you sustained themin the wilderness and they
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lacked nothing, god'sfaithfulness right.
Their clothes did not wear outand their feet did not swell.
I never thought about feetswelling until I got a little
older.
I never thought about feetswelling until I got a little
older.
That's a big deal, by the way.
And you gave them kingdoms andpeoples and allotted to them
every corner.
So they took possession of theland of Shion, king of Heshbon,
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and the land of Og, king ofBasham.
You multiplied their childrenas the stars of heaven, by the
way, that's happening here inour church, by the way and you
brought them into the land whichyou had told their fathers to
enter and possess.
So the descendants went in andthey possessed the land and you
subdued before them theinhabitants of the land.
By the way, we know Joshua wentin and fought those battles,
(32:12):
but they identified correctlywho was winning that battle.
Right, they said you.
They didn't say you allowed usto win, they just said you did
it right the Canaanites and gavethem into their hand, with the
kings and the peoples of theland that they might do with
them as they would Verse 25, andthey captured fortified cities
(32:32):
and a rich land and tookpossession of houses full of all
good things.
Cisterns already hewn vineyards,olive orchards and fruit trees
in abundance, so they ate andwere filled and became fat and
delighted themselves in yourgreat goodness.
Oh, my goodness, what awonderful picture of God's
faithfulness and his provisionand all that stuff.
(32:53):
Oops, here comes verse 26.
Nevertheless, they weredisobedient and rebelled against
you and cast your law behindtheir back and killed your
prophets, who had warned them,in order to turn them back to
you, and they committed greatblasphemies.
That's the response.
One of the things you'll noticeis there are no excuses being
(33:17):
given.
You see that, no excuses.
So verse 27, god goes enemies,your turn.
Therefore, you gave them intothe hand of their enemies, who
made them suffer.
Sometimes God punished himself,sometimes he used their enemies
(33:40):
to punish, which I think was tohelp them realize that, listen,
the only reason you're here isbecause I brought you here and I
provided it.
If I take my hand off, you'redone, you're done.
But then look what he says.
And in time, in the time oftheir suffering, they cried out
to you and you heard them fromheaven and, according to your
(34:03):
great mercies, you gave themsaviors who saved them from the
land of their enemies.
Here's God's faithfulness again, uh-oh, verse 28.
But after they had rest, theydid evil again before you and
God went and you abandoned themto the hand of their enemies, so
they had domin.
They did evil again before youand God went and you abandoned
them to the hand of theirenemies, so they had dominion
over them.
(34:23):
Punishment, oh.
In the same verse, though.
Yet when they turned and criedto you, you heard from heaven,
and many times you deliveredthem, according to your mercies,
and you warned them in orderthat they warned them, in order
to turn them back to your law.
Merciful God faithfulness.
Yet here we go again.
(34:45):
Yet they acted presumptuouslyand did not obey your
commandments.
They sinned against your rules,which, if a person does them,
he shall live by them, and theyturned a stubborn shoulder and
stiffened their neck and wouldnot obey.
Many years you bore with themand warned them with your spirit
, through your prophets, yetthey would not give ear.
Therefore, you gave them intothe hand of the people of the
(35:09):
lands.
But wait a second.
Here we go.
Nevertheless, in your greatmercies, you did not make an end
to them or forsake them, foryou are a gracious and merciful
God.
You see, this pattern we'reseeing.
This is the historical prologueand it's really important.
(35:31):
We don't just read over thereand say that's a neat history.
No, they're doing somethingvery purposely here, verse 32,.
No, they're doing somethingvery purposely here, verse 32,
now, therefore, so they have.
They rehearsed all this.
Now, therefore, our God, thegreat and mighty and the awesome
God, who keeps covenant andsteadfast love, don't miss that.
What did they say?
You keep covenant.
(35:52):
What is this whole chapterabout Covenant?
They're moving into a covenantand they're identifying that God
keeps their covenant.
Let not all the hardship seemlittle to you that has come upon
us, upon our kings, our princes, our priests, our prophets, our
fathers and all your people,since the time of the kings of
Assyria until this day.
(36:13):
They'd been in bondage thatwhole time.
Yet you have been righteous inall that has come upon us, for
you have dealt faithfully and wehave acted wickedly.
And they identify again Ourkings, our princes, our priests
and our fathers have not keptyour law or paid attention to
your commandments and yourwarnings that you gave them,
(36:35):
even in their own kingdom, andadmit, amid your great goodness,
that you gave them, and in thelarge and rich land that you set
before them, they did not serveyou.
Return from their wicked works.
God once again brings theenemies in to punish them.
36,.
They're acknowledging this, bythe way.
(36:56):
Behold, we are slaves this day,in the land that you gave our
fathers to enjoy its fruit andits good gifts.
Behold, we are slaves and itsrich yield goes to the kings
whom you have set over us.
Because of our sins, they ruleover our bodies and over our
(37:22):
livestock as they please, and weare in great distress.
That's the pattern, obey,everything's going.
Great Sin, bondage, cry out formercy, forgiveness restored,
and again and rinse and repeat,which I don't do, literally, I
(37:48):
don't do rinse and repeat.
Does it not depress you, thosewho are in the Bible reading,
did it not depress you just alittle bit, going through the
book of Exodus and all this, tosee this constant turning away
from God, constant turning away?
They were doing this becausethey needed to humble themselves
(38:14):
before God and they needed toown it.
Humble themselves before Godand they needed to own it.
They needed to own their sin.
They didn't make any excuses.
I see nowhere here.
And they said but we turned toother gods, because, after all,
they didn't say that, they justowned it.
And so the application for us isreally, really clear.
(38:35):
I don't care how long you'vebeen walking with the Lord.
Most all of us should be ableto look back on our lives, and
we should be able to see God'sfaithful hand in our life, in
spite of our sins.
Now you might say, scott, areyou telling me to dwell on my
past sins?
No, no, no.
I want you to hear me realclearly, and I appreciate what
(38:56):
was said up here this morning.
We're not defined by those sinsanymore, right, god puts them
as far from us as east from thewest, right, but we need to
remember his faithfulness.
I can look back in my life andsee times when I literally
should have deserved a greatpunishment for what I did, for
(39:17):
my sin.
Yet I received grace, and Godis always ready to forgive you,
always ready to forgive you.
He's faithful, even though weare not.
He's faithful.
Romans 2, verse 4, is a reallypowerful verse.
(39:37):
I'm going to read this in theNew Living Translation.
It says don't you see this isPaul talking?
Don't you see how wonderfullykind, tolerant and patient God
is with you?
Does this mean nothing to you.
Can't you see?
His kindness is intended toturn you from your sin.
Turn you from your sin.
(40:00):
Brethren, are you responding tothe kindness of God?
Do you know the kindness of God?
You know, every morning, when Iwake up and take a deep breath
and I'm just like I'm redeemed.
I'm redeemed this day.
I might do really well or Imight fall on my face, but I've
(40:24):
got a faithful God that willnever leave me.
He will never forsake me.
He will be there with meentirely, the whole time.
That kindness should drive meto my knees to repent.
It should drive me to the pointwhere I hate my sin.
The Israelites were displayingthis by reminding themselves of
(40:44):
the riches of his kindness, hisforbearance and his patience.
Point three we're going to talkabout the acceptance of the
covenant.
Their response I only get oneverse.
Well, let's read it.
Nehemiah 9, verse 38.
Because of all this, everythingthey just talked about, from
(41:08):
verse 1 all the way to verse 37,because of all this, we make a
firm covenant in writing.
On the sealed documents are thenames of our princes, our
Levites and our priests, and nowthey go to chapter 10.
Now, there really shouldn'thave been a chapter break here,
but they had a lot of verses sothey had to break the chapter.
But it is a transition point inthe covenant because chapter 10
(41:31):
, which we preached on in acouple of weeks by Mark you're
going to see their response tothat.
But I'm going to seal just alittle tiny bit of it by saying
they responded and the thirdpart of this covenant is in the
acceptance of the covenant wastheir response, and that's the
key word was a response.
(41:52):
They've gone through theperspective of hearing the word
of God, worshiping God,acknowledging his greatness.
They remember their sinfulhistory and they are now
choosing to respond.
And their response was making acovenant to obey.
That's their response.
They're about to make acovenant that we are going to
obey.
And, by the way, just so youknow, there are many times in
(42:14):
the history of the children ofIsrael they went years with not
obeying.
They went years it's not likethey sinned and you know, later
that day God threw them into,you know, punishment, and then
the next day they went oh, I'msorry.
And then restored.
There were years that they wentthrough punishment and they're
(42:34):
in that process now.
Right, the application for ustoday is pretty evident.
What do we do when we are facedwith our sin.
I'm going to go back to thatquote from the very beginning.
When we realize we haveoffended or sinned against God,
we must feel this rupture of oursoul.
(42:57):
When we sin, do we number one,do we acknowledge our sin, or do
we do what so many people doand they justify it?
God, everybody's doing it.
I know this couple that didthat and they got away with it
(43:18):
and they're good now.
And I knew that guy thatcheated at work or he took stuff
home and he's okay now.
I mean, you know it's okay andit's like people start
justifying sin.
You want to know why we justifysin.
If we're Christians, you wantto know why we justify sin.
It's because the Holy he's inus, the Holy Spirit's in us, and
(43:40):
we're miserable.
And we got to somehow try toput salve on that gaping wound
that needs surgery.
We put a little band-aid on itby trying to justify it.
But if you're truly one ofGod's, he will not let you go.
He will make you miserable.
I've been through that.
(44:00):
It's not a good place to be.
I'd rather just repent.
It's much easier to just repent.
It's so much easier.
The sad part is and Tylermentioned this the other day, I
think.
If you read forward in Nehemiah,if you've read the whole book,
(44:21):
guess what?
It didn't take long until theyfell out of that covenant.
But even though that can be alittle depressing, there's
something different between themand us, isn't there?
There's one big differencebetween them and us.
God took a part of the Godhead,holy Spirit, and he placed him
(44:45):
in us.
You and I have God in us.
Paul talks about Christ in us.
That means we have the powerthat he's transforming us and we
have the power to obey.
We have the power to obey, wehave the power to get out of
that kind of a cycle.
(45:05):
I'm not saying, don't, we'renot going to sin.
I'm not saying that, but we'regoing to start walking away from
that habitual sin.
We're going to start walkingaway from sin that used to
define us and we're now beingdefined by who we are, and
that's we are gods, we're men.
We're men, women, children ofgod.
We're adopted.
You know, by the way, he, forgod, so loved the world he gave
(45:28):
his only begotten son.
Begotten means was from him.
You and I are adopted, butwe're adopted.
Oh man, man, that's powerful.
You got to actually give youchills.
You and me are adopted.
And when he came into our lives, we had a heart transplant.
(45:48):
We had a heart transplant.
Ezekiel 36, one of the mostpowerful prophecies, says it
best in verse 26.
And I will give you a new heartand a new spirit.
I will put within you and Iwill remove the heart of stone.
Who had a heart of stone?
The Israelites Guaranteed.
I will remove the heart ofstone from your flesh and give
(46:10):
you a heart of flesh.
And now check this out.
And I will put my spirit,capital S person within you and
cause you to walk in my statutesand be careful to obey my rules
.
Christ in me, christ in you.
(46:30):
We quote 2 Corinthians 5.17 allthe time because it's good.
That's why we quote it.
If any man is in Christ, he isa new creation.
I was going to say if anyone'sin Christ, he's just a better
person.
No, that's fake Christianity,that's false Christianity.
You're a new person and youwant to know what tells you
(46:53):
you're a new person.
Go back to the quote fromSproul.
How do you respond to your sin?
Does it grieve you?
Because it grieves God.
Does it grieve you?
Do you get that kick in thestomach feeling?
Do you want to be reconciledwith the Father?
(47:14):
You know, my wife and I havebeen married for 36 years and I
really honestly say we don'tfight anymore.
We just don't fight.
We're close, god, it's justgreat.
But there were times I rememberin our past that we fought,
like last week.
So I didn't say when thatchanged.
No, no, no, I'm kidding, no, no, seriously.
(47:39):
There was a time where everyonce in a while we'd get
sideways and then we would go toour corners.
I don't know if you're like meI hope you felt like me but any
time there was something betweenHedy and I, I had this terrible
feeling in my stomach.
I could not wait to reconcileto her and get it solved so we
(48:04):
could be one again.
I hated that.
That same feeling should bemagnified a hundredfold when it
comes to your sin, your sin.
If you're getting comfortablewith your sin y'all, you got to
look in the mirror and you gotto ask yourself God, you need to
change my heart, you need togive me a heart of flesh.
This sin should grieve me.
(48:25):
It should grieve me.
You know there might be somepeople here today that maybe
you're thinking.
What I'm saying you just havenever experienced.
Maybe you haven't experiencedthat change in your life where
you're saying, yes, god, I'm nothere and I don't get what
you're saying.
(48:45):
I've not given my life over toChrist like that.
That might be you and I'm goingto say just there's a few
things I know to be true.
If that, if you're thinkingthis way, if you're, if you're
sitting there, maybe you'regoing to growing some conviction
right now.
But if that's you, let me justsay a couple of things.
First, I know that you'relistening to this and it might
be online.
I know you're listening to thisbecause God brought you here.
(49:06):
That's what I know, becausethere's no accidents with God.
He's sovereign.
We had a great example of thatin our lives this week.
God's sovereign.
Secondly, I know you'remiserable.
Why do I know you're miserable?
Because I know that when Godstarts to work and he starts to
(49:28):
work in your mind and your heartand he starts to wake you up
because we know from Ephesiansthat we're dead in our sins when
he resurrects us and we startto see our sin, it grieves us
and it makes us miserable,because we want to know what
should I do?
Remember the sermon that Peterpreached on Pentecost?
What was the response of thepeople what now shall we do?
(49:53):
They were feeling this samefeeling.
They were miserable.
They were just oh, don't leaveus here, don't take a coffee
break, tell us what we got to do.
And so if you're here right nowand you're feeling that I got a
great answer for you and it's awonderful answer, and it's a
(50:22):
wonderful answer and, by the way, you're miserable because maybe
you've been feeling this for awhile and you've been fighting
it.
Maybe you've got a differentGod up here.
Maybe you're like I don't wantto stop drinking.
Alcohol is not as simple.
You know, you get what I'msaying.
I don't want to start havingsex outside of marriage.
(50:45):
I don't want to start beinghonest.
I don't want to stop telling myjokes, I don't want to do it.
You put the list up there.
It might be that you'remiserable because you don't want
to stop doing this.
Miserable because you don'twant to stop doing this.
But I heard a great song calledBlack Sheep.
I don't know what's his name.
Again, I forgot the artist'sname.
(51:06):
It's just this guy's amazing.
It's called Black Sheep and thevery last one, the very last
words in the song, was amazing.
Grace is a pesky, pesky thingwhen God's calling you, you
don't got a chance.
You don't got a chance.
(51:26):
I didn't come to the women'sthing, by the way, last
yesterday, but my wife told meall about it and she said you
know that lost sheep parable,where they leave the 99, go for
the one.
We think it's this whole comeon back, come on back to the
flock.
No, the real image is a burly,a burly sheep herder grabbing
(51:46):
the sheep and going, puttingthem on back and going back to
the sheep, the rest of the sheep.
That's what God's going to doto you.
That's what he wants to do.
He wants to call you back andhe will have you because he's
God and you can run.
You can run, you can doanything you want.
It ain't going to help.
(52:07):
Amazing grace is a pesky, peskything.
Well, you get to.
The good news is you canrespond to that and it's a real
simple response.
That's a real simple response.
That's a real simple responseAt Trinity.
We don't believe that you justsay a prayer and you're saved.
(52:28):
We don't believe that you mightbe well, that's what the Bible
says.
No, I tell you, what we believeis we believe that God begins
working in your heart and hegets you to this point where
you're grieved by your sin andyou hate your sin and it's like
a vile taste in your mouth andyou want to repent.
At that point, then it's assimple as a prayer.
(52:50):
And so if you're online andyou're listening to this, or
even if you're here, there aregoing to be a group of people up
front and we'll pray for you.
But if you're online, it'sreally simple.
If God's got you in this place,if God's got you there, all you
have to say is Lord, I don'twant to be here anymore.
(53:10):
I need forgiveness for my sinsand I am giving my life over to
you, my whole history.
I want to follow you and he'llmake you new.
He'll answer that prayer.
You repent.
He forgives because he'sfaithful, and you are now in the
(53:31):
fold and all you have to lookforward to is joy.
In fact, don't trust me, don'tlisten to my words.
This is what Jesus said andit's so beautiful In Matthew 11,
verse 28,.
Come to me, all of you who laborand are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest.
It's rest, by the way, when youfinally repent.
(53:52):
The peace that comes over youis a beautiful thing.
Take my yoke upon you and learnfrom me, for I am gentle and
lowly in heart and you will findrest for your souls, for my
yoke is easy and my burden islight.
Brethren, we have a lot we canlearn from this chapter.
(54:14):
When you are experiencingrepentance, first thing you do
is get perspective.
You can do this from yourprayer room, and this time, at
21 Days of Fasting, is beautiful.
You can read the word of God.
Believe me, it's living andactive and it's sharper than any
two-edged sword.
It will convict you.
You will hear from God.
You will know truth.
Spend time remembering how Godhas worked in your life and,
(54:41):
thirdly, respond with repentanceand I can tell you that the
peace of God that transcends allunderstanding will come over
you.
This is my audienceparticipation.
How many of you have been whereI'm talking about and now
experience peace every day?
(55:02):
Put your arms up high, put themup high.
If you've experienced that,that's what you guys get to
enjoy every day.
He's faithful and when werepent, he responds.
Stand to your feet and let'spray.
(55:29):
Father, what is man that youwere mindful of him?
Who are we?
We know from your word, becauseit's truth.
We know that we are not thegreat of the world.
We are the ones that are goingto make other people scratch
their head and go why them?
But God, you restored us, youbrought us back, father.
(55:50):
I pray that, as we look at thisscripture and as we continue on
these 21 days of fasting, that,father, you truly give us the
heart of repentance that we canbe as the Israelites were, we
can follow this process ofrepentance but yet, father,
through the power of Christ inus, your Holy Spirit, that we
(56:12):
can obey and we can walk forwardin newness of life.
Father, we thank you for thistruth and we pray that we would
use this every day of our livesuntil we are face to face with
you.
We pray this and give this overto you in Jesus' precious name,
amen.
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