SPEAKER_00: Good morning, church.
SPEAKER_00: Can I tell you it is great to be a part of a church on mission this past week, just being so encouraged at the celebration of what was happening on campus at VBS.
SPEAKER_00: And then, of course, many of you that were here last week remember we had a vision team, an exploratory team, five church members that went out to Columbia.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna share a little bit of testimony from that trip in my sermon, but it is fun that we have mission right here at home and mission abroad, all happening at the same time.
SPEAKER_00: It is such an encouragement to me.
SPEAKER_00: I do want to let you know that we're in Nehemiah chapter nine.
SPEAKER_00: So if you'll turn to Nehemiah chapter nine, and we're praying for a pastor that I got to spend a lot of time with this past week.
SPEAKER_00: His name is Alex Diaz, and he pastors the refugio, I'm gonna say it right, Refugio, the refuge, refugio on uh an island outside of Cartagena, Colombia.
SPEAKER_00: And Pastor Alex is a man that I've come to respect greatly.
SPEAKER_00: Uh he's doing a wonderful job, not only leading a church and partnering with kind of a sister church in the city, but there is a school there in this little refuge compound, four teachers, three classrooms, village of several thousand people that barely have potable water.
SPEAKER_00: They get it sent over from a barge.
SPEAKER_00: But at the refuge, they have a 20,000-gallon cistern that's treated, and people come to the refuge for clean water.
SPEAKER_00: Now, here's the good thing.
SPEAKER_00: Pastor Alex says, I can do better than just clean water, I can give you living water, and it's through Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That's not even part of the sermon, but I'm just so encouraged by this man, Pastor Alex, because he's discipling young men.
SPEAKER_00: He's making sure they understand the word and they understand the gospel, but at the same time giving them a trade that they might make something of themselves when they graduate from this school.
SPEAKER_00: And so there's four young men that go with him on HVAC jobs, and it's just incredible encouragement to me to see how God is using this place, this man.
SPEAKER_00: And there's all kinds of other Christians that that are but banding together to help this brother out.
SPEAKER_00: But I want to pray for Pastor Alex.
SPEAKER_00: He preached last night, and he'll be attending church in Cartagena this morning.
SPEAKER_00: But let's pray for him.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray that God continue to pour out his grace on his ministry.
SPEAKER_00: God, I thank you that we've sung so many truths about victory in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for the blood of a confession of our sin.
SPEAKER_00: I know who I was outside of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That we've come to this place and declared that you are gracious and merciful, that you're a promised keeper and you stand ready to forgive because Jesus paid it all.
SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus made a way.
SPEAKER_00: And so we praise you in this place.
SPEAKER_00: God, I thank you that even walking in among brothers and sisters in my own life, you would take a discouraged heart and turn it for joy.
SPEAKER_00: God, I thank you that you do that.
SPEAKER_00: You do that over and over and over in my life.
SPEAKER_00: You do that with in us as a church.
SPEAKER_00: Would you take discouragement and turn it for joy?
SPEAKER_00: I do pray for Pastor Alex, and I'm grateful to know him better after this past week.
SPEAKER_00: I just ask your grace and blessing over him.
SPEAKER_00: There are so many people he's training up and leading and discipling.
SPEAKER_00: And it's fun to see a church is thriving there in a totally different culture.
SPEAKER_00: I just ask God that you continue to help him walk in humility because you are using him in great ways.
SPEAKER_00: Would you help help him walk in dependence?
SPEAKER_00: That he would stand on your word alone, that he would be full of the Holy Spirit, that every tough decision he makes, and those that come in as counselors for him and help him make those decisions, they would be led by the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: They would not just be one man's opinion, but God, you would continue to use Pastor Alex at the Refugio.
SPEAKER_00: He would continue to see lives changed as people come into your kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: We ask that you do huge things in their church, there in Columbia, and continue to do huge things in our church.
SPEAKER_00: We pray in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Nehemiah chapter 9, if you read ahead, is people confessing their sin to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And as they confess their sin to the Lord, and you read the whole chapter in its entirety, you see sin just piling up and piling up and piling up.
SPEAKER_00: The bad news is they're responsible for a lot of rebellion, and their families are responsible for a lot of rebellion.
SPEAKER_00: The good news is God stands ready to be merciful.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you let things pile up in your house.
SPEAKER_00: One of the things that piles up in our house is junk mail.
SPEAKER_00: If you love junk mail, just raise your hand and say, I love junk mail.
SPEAKER_00: We have one there.
SPEAKER_00: We have one.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't think we were gonna have any.
SPEAKER_00: I hate junk mail.
SPEAKER_00: I hate it.
SPEAKER_00: It's just it just seems to keep coming and coming and coming.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how people know that they think we need 20 different tree services because we live out in River Mountain Ranch, but it just keeps coming and coming and coming.
SPEAKER_00: And it piles up, and after a while it piles up and it begins to be a little bit like insurmountable.
SPEAKER_00: Like we can't even sort this.
SPEAKER_00: There's so much junk mail piled up.
SPEAKER_00: And I praise God for a wife that sorts their junk mail because I hate it.
SPEAKER_00: As we read through Nehemiah chapter 9, we can take a funny idea of junk mail piling up and have a real gut-wrenching, soul-centered idea of what it would feel like for them in their sin because it's piled up and piled up and piled up and piled up.
SPEAKER_00: I want you as I read this to get a sense of that.
SPEAKER_00: They were a people weeping because they had heard the law for the first time in many generations, and that weeping was turned to joy, and they said, The joy of the Lord is your strength.
SPEAKER_00: And Nehemiah and Ezra said, Weep no more.
SPEAKER_00: And now we come to chapter 9, and they're weeping again because they're actually dealing with sin.
SPEAKER_00: Their weeping turns into repentance and confession of sin.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna read verses one through sixteen, and then later on we'll read other sections of this scripture.
SPEAKER_00: But see, if you can't just imagine the feeling and the weight of sin piling up as you listen to this.
SPEAKER_00: Nehemiah chapter 9, verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: Now on the twenty-fourth day of this month, the people of Israel were assembled with fasting and in sackcloth, and with earth on their heads, and the Israelites separated themselves from all the foreigners and stood and confessed their sin and the iniquities of their fathers.
SPEAKER_00: And they stood up in their place and read from the book of the law of the Lord their God for a quarter of the day, for another quarter of it, they made confession and worshiped the Lord their God.
SPEAKER_00: On the stairs of the Levites stood Jeshua, Benai, Cadmiel, Shemiah, Bunai, Sherebiah, Bani, and Shannonai.
SPEAKER_00: And they cried with a loud voice to the Lord their God.
SPEAKER_00: Then the Levites, Jeshua, Cadmael, Bani, Heshab, Hasheh Baniah, Shereh, Hodiah, Sheboniah, and Pethehiah, said, Stand up and bless the Lord your God from everlasting to everlasting.
SPEAKER_00: Blessed be the glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise.
SPEAKER_00: You are the Lord, you alone, you have made heaven the heaven of heavens, with all their hosts, the earth and all that is in them, the seas and all that is in them, and you preserve all of them, and the host of heaven worships you.
SPEAKER_00: You are the Lord, the God who chose Abram and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans, and gave him the name Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: You found his heart faithful before you, and made with him the covenant to give to his offspring the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Pezurite, the Jebusite, and the Gergeshite.
SPEAKER_00: And you have kept your promise, for you are righteous.
SPEAKER_00: And you saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt, and you heard their cry at the Red Sea, and performed signs and wonders against Pharaoh and all his servants and the people of the land, for you knew that they acted arrogantly against our fathers, and you made a name for yourself, as it is to this day, and you divided the sea before them, so that they went through the midst of the sea on dry land, and you cast their pursuers into the depths as a stone into mighty waters.
SPEAKER_00: By a pillar of cloud you led them in the day, and by a pillar of fire in the night, to light for them the way in which they should go.
SPEAKER_00: You came down on Mount Sinai and spoke with them from heaven, and gave them right rules and true laws, good statutes and commandments, and you made known to them your holy Sabbath, and commanded them commandments and statutes, and by the law of Moses your servant.
SPEAKER_00: You gave them bread from heaven for their hunger, and brought water for them out of the rock for their thirst, and you told them to go in to possess the land that you had sworn to give them.
SPEAKER_00: Praise God, praise God, praise God.
SPEAKER_00: But right here at verse 16 is where the sin starts to pile on, and I won't read all of it, but I want you to get a sense.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 16 But they and our fathers acted presumptuously and stiffened their neck and did not obey your commandments.
SPEAKER_00: They refused to obey and were not mindful of the wonders that you performed among them, but they stiffened their neck and appointed a leader to return to their slavery in Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: But you are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and did not forsake them, even when they had made for themselves a golden calf, and it goes on and on and on.
SPEAKER_00: It talks about their disobedience, and then even us now, we've been so disobedient, and God, we confess our sin before you because we need forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: Nehemiah chapter 9 shows us how we can lay bare before the Lord in honesty and transparency and vulnerability and say, God, I have failed you again.
SPEAKER_00: And without feeling the weight of guilt and shame and embarrassment, but just to say, I'm coming to the foot of the cross, knowing Jesus paid it all, knowing he didn't be conquered by death and sin, he conquered death and sin at his resurrection, asking you to forgive.
SPEAKER_00: And you know what the response is that God is showing, even in the Old Testament, as he was pointing forward to a time where full redemption would be available, the response is God is gracious and merciful and abounding in steadfast love.
unknown: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: If you walked into church this morning and you feel the weight of sin piling up in your life, I got bad news for you.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot take care of it yourself.
SPEAKER_00: And if it doesn't get taken care of, you will pay a punishment for it.
SPEAKER_00: But I got really good news for you.
SPEAKER_00: If you will cling to the cross and come to Jesus, he is merciful and gracious and abounding in steadfast love.
SPEAKER_00: So let's walk through this.
SPEAKER_00: What we can identify as steps to confession.
SPEAKER_00: What happens as we walk through chapter 9, we can identify a few steps to confession.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to start at the end.
SPEAKER_00: The first step is distress.
SPEAKER_00: You have to feel some kind of way about your sin.
SPEAKER_00: You have to understand that you stand as an enemy of God, that you've rebelled, that you are his opponent.
SPEAKER_00: You have to stand under knowing that your sin is offensive to a holy God.
SPEAKER_00: At the end of this chapter, I think we have that explained pretty well.
SPEAKER_00: Starting in verse 34.
SPEAKER_00: It says, Our kings, our princes, our priests, and our fathers have not kept your law or paid attention to your commandments and your warnings that you gave them.
SPEAKER_00: Even in their own kingdom, and amid your great goodness that you gave them, in the large and rich land that you set before them, they did not serve you or turn from their wicked works.
SPEAKER_00: Behold, we are slaves in this day, in the land that you gave to our fathers to enjoy its fruit and good gifts.
SPEAKER_00: Behold, we are slaves.
SPEAKER_00: And its rich yield goes to the kings whom you have set over us because of our sins.
SPEAKER_00: Did you see that?
SPEAKER_00: Because of our sins, they rule over our bodies and our livestock as they please, and we are in great distress.
SPEAKER_00: Their commitment, recommitment back to God, verse 38.
SPEAKER_00: Because of all this, we make a firm covenant in writing.
SPEAKER_00: On the sealed document are the names of our princes, our Levites, and our priests.
SPEAKER_00: They felt the distress of their sin.
SPEAKER_00: Before you walk into steps of confession, you need to feel a little bit of brokenness and distress over your sin.
SPEAKER_00: I want to help illustrate how sometimes that stress can be a good thing.
SPEAKER_00: It was 2019, 2020.
SPEAKER_00: My wife found a CrossFit gym.
SPEAKER_00: And 2020, we did the Murph workout together for Memorial Day.
SPEAKER_00: It's been six years since we've done that.
SPEAKER_00: Every now and then she's like, we should get back to that.
SPEAKER_00: But I remember when she first started CrossFit.
SPEAKER_00: If you've ever met people that do CrossFit, it's a whole culture.
SPEAKER_00: I get it.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what I'm after here.
SPEAKER_00: What I'm after is this point that she would make where she would be so sore and her muscles would be so sore because they do all kinds of different workouts and plyometrics and box jumps and lifting weight and rowing and running and cardio and all of it.
SPEAKER_00: And she's like, I've never felt this sore in this area or this area or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: And she'd say, It's a good thing.
SPEAKER_00: It's a good thing that I feel this sore.
SPEAKER_00: Because it means that I'm growing, I'm getting stronger.
SPEAKER_00: It's a good thing.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to understand when you feel an initial distress over your sin, don't run from that.
SPEAKER_00: You can read later in the New Testament it says, Godly grief leads to repentance.
SPEAKER_00: There's something good about Lord, thank you for showing me this.
SPEAKER_00: Now help me know where to take it.
SPEAKER_00: That feeling a sense of brokenness over your sin is the first step to confession.
SPEAKER_00: It says in Romans chapter 2, do you presume on the riches and kindness and forbearance and patience?
SPEAKER_00: Not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance.
SPEAKER_00: When we feel a sense of conviction because the Holy Spirit is on us, and we say, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: I don't think that's good.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think that honors God.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think that should be my attitude.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think I should have said that thing.
SPEAKER_00: It's good, it's a sweet gift of God that you feel that sense of conviction.
SPEAKER_00: And let the kindness of God lead you to repentance.
SPEAKER_00: Don't feel that sense of distress or brokenness and run from it and say, ah, that feels so bad.
SPEAKER_00: I want to go away from that.
SPEAKER_00: Actually say, This is good for me.
SPEAKER_00: Because once I feel that, I can I can take that to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And I can ask for forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: That first step is distress.
SPEAKER_00: The next is praise.
SPEAKER_00: I love this.
SPEAKER_00: In the passage, right before before any of the confession of sin, before all this, these were our forefathers, this is our sin, and this is where we've rebelled.
SPEAKER_00: They start with praise.
SPEAKER_00: Listen again to verse five through eight.
SPEAKER_00: They said, Stand up, bless the Lord your God from everlasting to everlasting.
SPEAKER_00: Blessed be your glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise.
SPEAKER_00: You are the Lord, you alone, you have made heaven, the heavens of heavens, with all their hosts, the earth and all that is in it, all that's in the sea and all that's in them, and you preserve all of them.
SPEAKER_00: And the host of heaven worships you.
SPEAKER_00: You are the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see that praise?
SPEAKER_00: Do you understand this morning?
SPEAKER_00: When we stepped into church, we have so many reasons to praise God.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sitting here on my knees praying with my wife, just saying, God, thank you.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for life.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for air in my lungs.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you that I made it to church to be encouraged by my brothers and sisters.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
SPEAKER_00: That overwhelming sense of gratitude and praise.
SPEAKER_00: Let us count the ways.
SPEAKER_00: There's none like God.
SPEAKER_00: He alone is worthy.
SPEAKER_00: He is the rock.
SPEAKER_00: He made the heavens and he made the angels.
SPEAKER_00: He made the earth both dry and sea.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see what they're doing?
SPEAKER_00: It's just pouring out in the text here.
SPEAKER_00: I wonder if we can't take a cue in our own walk with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And when we say, God, thank you for this, we would ask him to just have that gratitude pour out of our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: We approach the throne to ask for forgiveness of sin and confess our sin, but we also just remind our heart and our mind, this is how awesome God is.
SPEAKER_00: He is an awesome God and He has done big things.
SPEAKER_00: He's bigger than we even imagine.
SPEAKER_00: That's what my wife was praying over me just earlier.
SPEAKER_00: God, you do more than all we ask or imagine.
SPEAKER_00: God, you are big.
SPEAKER_00: Do you ever look up at the stars at night and feel really small?
SPEAKER_00: I got a picture for you to see.
SPEAKER_00: This is our Milky Way galaxy zoomed out from the Hubble telescope.
SPEAKER_00: Outside of our solar system, outside of our galaxy.
SPEAKER_00: That is one galaxy in a universe that has two trillion galaxies in it.
SPEAKER_00: Just imagine.
SPEAKER_00: I look up at the stars, just what I see is really just in our Milky Way galaxy mostly.
SPEAKER_00: Some of them are super bright, they're further and I can see them.
SPEAKER_00: But one of two trillion galaxies.
SPEAKER_00: Do you feel small yet?
SPEAKER_00: And you know who made them all?
SPEAKER_00: And you know who's sovereign over them all?
SPEAKER_00: And you know who can speak things into existence.
SPEAKER_00: And what I believe, we can have this conversation later, is God created aged stars and put them billions of light years away from us so that when we look up and we see that light coming to earth, we say, Wow, God's a big God.
SPEAKER_00: God's a big God.
SPEAKER_00: I wonder this morning if you can't find some things to praise God for in your life.
SPEAKER_00: And as you approach the throne to ask for forgiveness, don't forget to just praise Him.
SPEAKER_00: God, thank you that you've made a way.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you that you're awesome.
SPEAKER_00: You've created it all.
SPEAKER_00: You're sovereign over it.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, God, when I have a small picture of you, increase my picture of who you are, then I might stand in awe.
SPEAKER_00: God, you're bigger than I even understand.
SPEAKER_00: That third step is recalling God's past faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: So they praise and then they start to list all the ways that God's been faithful.
SPEAKER_00: We remember that you rescued a people out of Egypt and you had the plagues and you had redemption, and even in the desert, people complained, but you gave them manna every morning.
SPEAKER_00: You you brought water out of the rock.
SPEAKER_00: That's a past faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: Recalling how God's been so faithful in the past.
SPEAKER_00: If you've been a Christian for a week, you can recall God's past faithfulness in your life.
SPEAKER_00: If you've been a Christian for a year, you should be able to call more of God's past faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: If you've been a Christian like I have for decades, don't you think you can find some things in your life where God's been faithful, where he's proved to be a promise keeper, where he's showed his faithfulness, then we go to the throne and we say, God, I know that you've been faithful in the past, so I can trust you'll be faithful in the future.
unknown: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: In discipleship, about a year ago, I was challenged to go back into some of my old journals.
SPEAKER_00: When I was 16, I started journaling.
SPEAKER_00: I take notes at church, I'd write out prayers.
SPEAKER_00: I made it to college, I started journaling a whole lot more.
SPEAKER_00: I made it to the seminary, and I had a seminary professor say, You need to journal.
SPEAKER_00: You need to write down the things that God's doing in your life.
SPEAKER_00: Even this past week in Columbia, pages and pages of just journaling, prayers.
SPEAKER_00: God, please bring salvation to the people of this island.
SPEAKER_00: God, please continue to use the leaders here.
SPEAKER_00: Journaling, journaling.
SPEAKER_00: God, I'm so grateful for what you did in this situation.
SPEAKER_00: And last year I was challenged to go back and read some of them and circle with a red pen every time God had answered a prayer.
SPEAKER_00: And so I read two or three journals.
SPEAKER_00: I've got them in my office, and I have circles.
SPEAKER_00: I circled hundreds of things.
SPEAKER_00: God has been so faithful to me in the past.
SPEAKER_00: And so when I come with sin and shame, instead of feeling guilt and embarrassment, I remember, God, you've been so faithful.
SPEAKER_00: And so I know that you'll continue to be faithful.
SPEAKER_00: Continue to stir in me, being conformed into the image of Jesus, that I don't have to come to you with the weight of sin over and over and over.
SPEAKER_00: I thank you that when I confess, you are ready to forgive, but also help me.
SPEAKER_00: Help me that these errors of my life will show steady growth and improvement that you might be honored in my life.
SPEAKER_00: And then God's faithful.
SPEAKER_00: And then I look back and I see his faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: And so if he's been faithful in the past, I can trust he'll be faithful in the future.
SPEAKER_00: For you this morning, if you can identify three ways, or 30 ways, or 300 ways that God has been faithful to you in the past, guess what that's going to help you do?
SPEAKER_00: Trust that he will be faithful to you in the future.
SPEAKER_00: So there's a distress over sin, there's praise, there's recalling God's past faithfulness, and then this last step is so important receiving God's forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: And then to actually say, Lord, I am so grateful that you've forgiven me.
SPEAKER_00: I want, I want.
SPEAKER_00: To receive this forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: That's what you see here repeated over and over and over.
SPEAKER_00: But I just want to read verse 17.
SPEAKER_00: It says, But you are God, ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and you did not forsake them.
SPEAKER_00: There's a promise that I pray over people often, and it's in 1 John 1 9.
SPEAKER_00: I hope you know it.
SPEAKER_00: It says, confess your sin that you might be healed.
SPEAKER_00: 1 John 1 9, if we confess our sin, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
SPEAKER_00: Did you know there's actually two promises there?
SPEAKER_00: That if we confess, God is faithful and just.
SPEAKER_00: By the way, it would not be just for God just to say, all right, clean slate, everyone's fine, no big deal.
SPEAKER_00: It's just because someone paid the penalty.
SPEAKER_00: His name is Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He gave his life that I might be forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: That's why it's just.
SPEAKER_00: He's faithful because he said, I'll bring redemption.
SPEAKER_00: A redeemer is coming, a Messiah is coming.
SPEAKER_00: He's just because that Messiah actually paid it all so that I didn't have to pay punishment of my sin.
SPEAKER_00: But it doesn't just say that God is ready to forgive.
SPEAKER_00: He's faithful and just forgive.
SPEAKER_00: But then that second part, which is so beautiful, he cleanses us from all unrighteousness.
SPEAKER_00: That I can come to the Lord stained and guilty, and he cleanses me from all unrighteousness.
SPEAKER_00: I love praying that prayer over people as they receive God's grace.
SPEAKER_00: As they receive forgiveness, as they trust in Christ alone.
SPEAKER_00: That's the testimony I want to bring to you from Columbia.
SPEAKER_00: Lots of other stories that I could share, but one of the most impactful times I had, I got to preach on Wednesday, not in Spanish.
SPEAKER_00: I read some Spanish scripture, I said some Spanish words, but Pastor Alex translated for me.
SPEAKER_00: And then we had this time at the end of the church service or Wednesday night service where people came and prayed.
SPEAKER_00: Some of them prayed over our team, some of them asked for prayer.
SPEAKER_00: And this young man, I won't tell you his name.
SPEAKER_00: I'll just call him this young man.
SPEAKER_00: He's 14 years old.
SPEAKER_00: I'd seen him at the school.
SPEAKER_00: He's on the worship team.
SPEAKER_00: He was practicing.
SPEAKER_00: And some most of the kids that are on the worship team were pretty open with our team and they were getting to know us.
SPEAKER_00: But he was standoffish and I couldn't really understand why.
SPEAKER_00: And I just saw, man, this is such a cool kid.
SPEAKER_00: It reminded me of my son, Zadek, who's 13 and long and lanky, and this kid is long and lanky.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm, man, this is such a cool kid.
SPEAKER_00: And I had no idea what was going on in his life.
SPEAKER_00: But as he's as he came to ask for prayer, he came with his mother, tears in her eyes, shame on his face, and he came and he said, I need to ask for forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: And then Pastor Alex let me in on the story a couple weeks ago.
SPEAKER_00: This young man, 14 years old, got really angry at his mom and raised his hand and hit her on the face.
SPEAKER_00: Now let me build some context.
SPEAKER_00: This guy doesn't have a dad.
SPEAKER_00: This guy is living in extreme poverty.
SPEAKER_00: Single mom, oldest son, two other young siblings.
SPEAKER_00: The culture on this island is that people who run drugs in and out of Cartagena start really young trying to pull these young men in.
SPEAKER_00: How they do it on the island is they give them a motorbike.
SPEAKER_00: There's no trucks, there's no cars.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone, if they're gonna get a taxi, just sits on the back of a motorbike and hangs on to a teenage boy.
SPEAKER_00: They give them a motorbike and then they say, Now we got you.
SPEAKER_00: We gave this to you as a gift, but you have to do certain things for us.
SPEAKER_00: You have to give us money.
SPEAKER_00: You have to pay the piper.
SPEAKER_00: And the higher you go up in the ranks, the worse it can get.
SPEAKER_00: Violence and drugs and the whole nine.
SPEAKER_00: You can imagine it.
SPEAKER_00: And so this kid is right on the brink of being that kind of young man and being pulled into something really evil and really violent.
SPEAKER_00: But instead, he gets to go to this Christian school and he has the influence of this pastor, and he sees Pastor Alex as kind of a surrogate dad, and he's coming in in honesty and vulnerability and saying, I need to confess something.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Alex already knew that this young man hit his mom, and the youth minister on the other side, where the big city is, knew that this young man had hit his mom, but that young man was walking in rebellion.
SPEAKER_00: That young man was distancing himself from godly influences.
SPEAKER_00: And in response to the word of God and by the Holy Spirit, he came forward to confess this sin.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I did a bad thing.
SPEAKER_00: I get really angry with my mom, and I hit my mom.
SPEAKER_00: And she's crying, he gets misty-eyed, he starts to cry, and everything's being translated.
SPEAKER_00: And I just look at this kid and I said, Do you know how much your mother loves you?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I do.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know that your mother would die for you?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I do.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know that God loves you even more?
SPEAKER_00: And do you know that Jesus died so that you don't have to pay for that sin?
SPEAKER_00: It was so rich and so meaningful and so impactful.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Have you asked your mother for forgiveness?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: Have you asked the Lord for forgiveness?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: Then let me pray over you.
SPEAKER_00: And we prayed over this kid, and we prayed all kinds of God's love and God's grace in his life and all kinds of hope that that's a decision he will never make again, that he will never get so angry with his mom that he hits her again, that he would not feel the pressure and the weight of trying to be the man of the house in a really upside down, twisted culture where he would have to do some crazy things if he's gonna succumb to worldliness and evil, that he would be a man of God that says, it's gonna be different with this generation.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna stand up and I'm gonna love Jesus, and I'm gonna figure out how to work hard and start helping my mom, and I'm gonna figure out how to influence my younger brothers and sisters, and he has every chance in the world to be discipled by this pastor, and every chance in the world to learn this train, this trade of HVAC to not succumb to the world around him.
SPEAKER_00: And where it starts was that humility and that honesty with God to say, I hit my mom and I felt bad about it for weeks, and and I'm asking for forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: I was so proud of that young man.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you've walked in to church this morning carrying the weight of your own sin, but I want to tell you that you don't have to carry it anymore.
SPEAKER_00: That you can confess it and give it to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people say wrongly, they say this wrongly, that you can see the God of grace in the New Testament and the God of wrath in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of judgment in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: I can see why they make that misguided observation.
SPEAKER_00: But I say that it's misguided because you read Nehemiah chapter 9, and this is all about God's grace.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, there's a lot of judgment in the New Testament, too, right?
SPEAKER_00: God is one constant, steady God.
SPEAKER_00: His character does not change.
SPEAKER_00: He's always been a God of love, he's always been a God of justice, he's always been a God of extreme mercy and forgiveness, and he's always been a God that's ready to pour out wrath when need be.
SPEAKER_00: That's true in the Old Testament and the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: But what we see right now in chapter 9 is this overwhelming sense of God's grace.
SPEAKER_00: The rest of this whole passage, there are six times in 21 verses that we have a repetition of God's mercy and God's steadfast love, God's grace.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, we've got it up here on the screen for you.
SPEAKER_00: You can just take a picture if you like.
SPEAKER_00: Six times in 21 verses, starting in verse 16 and 17.
SPEAKER_00: I've already read that one.
SPEAKER_00: Then 18 and 19, you and your greatness and your great mercies don't forsake them in the wilderness.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 26 and 27, according to your great mercies, you gave them saviors and saved them out of the hands of their enemies.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 28, many times you delivered them according to your mercy.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 29 and 30.
SPEAKER_00: Many times you bore with them and warned them by your spirit through your prophets.
SPEAKER_00: And verse 30 and 31.
SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless, in your great mercies, you did not make an end of them or forsake them, for you are gracious and merciful.
SPEAKER_00: I read those back to back to back to back, hoping maybe for you to just get an overwhelming sense of gratitude of God's grace and mercy in your life.
SPEAKER_00: And if you stepped into this place and you would say, Pastor Aaron, I'm not a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: I never asked Jesus to forgive me.
SPEAKER_00: That's that's foreign to me.
SPEAKER_00: Or I've I've been angry at God and I'm ready to let that go and I'm ready to follow Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Would you today be so bold, similar to this young man in Columbia, and just come to the Lord and say, Will you forgive me?
SPEAKER_00: I trust that Jesus died, I trust that Jesus rose, and I'm just asking, would you please forgive me?
SPEAKER_00: That would be such a beautiful response to a sermon like this.
SPEAKER_00: And then understand that the Christian life is filled with ups and downs.
SPEAKER_00: Nehemiah chapter 9 is this roller coaster of the forefathers and their descendants and their Exodus out of Egypt and going into the land, now being exiled and away from the land, now they're slaves again in God's land and in God's country, and it's up and down and up and down and up and down.
SPEAKER_00: Yet every time they come and turn to the Lord, he's merciful and gracious.
SPEAKER_00: You might feel like a Christian that's similar to these guys.
SPEAKER_00: I'm up and I'm down, and then I'm I'm passionate, and then I'm lazy and my walk with the Lord, and then I keep falling into the sin and I cast it off, and I'm good for a few days or a few weeks, and I go back and I'm just a constant roller coaster up and down, and I don't know how to get rid of this.
SPEAKER_00: Can I tell you you're in good company?
SPEAKER_00: Because Paul says this in Romans chapter 7.
SPEAKER_00: I do not understand my own actions.
SPEAKER_00: I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing that I hate.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law.
SPEAKER_00: It is good.
SPEAKER_00: So now it's no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
SPEAKER_00: For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is in my flesh.
SPEAKER_00: For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.
SPEAKER_00: For I do not do the good I want, but evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if I do what I do not want, it's no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
SPEAKER_00: So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil life's close at hand.
SPEAKER_00: For I delight in the law of God and my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.
SPEAKER_00: Wretched man that I am.
SPEAKER_00: Who will deliver me from this body of death?
SPEAKER_00: Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord, so that I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
SPEAKER_00: That is a conflicted man, a roller coaster of sin.
SPEAKER_00: And then praise God, the next chapter is all about God's grace and mercy.
SPEAKER_00: It starts in chapter 8, verse 1, when he says, But there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are found in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So if you feel like you're on that roller coaster, you're in good company.
SPEAKER_00: You know what the answer is?
SPEAKER_00: Steps to confession.
SPEAKER_00: You feel the distress, you praise God for who he is and what he's done.
SPEAKER_00: You recall his past faithfulness to trust in his future faithfulness, and then you just receive, you receive from the Lord that forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: I want to read this last verse and we'll be done.
SPEAKER_00: Lamentations chapter 3.
SPEAKER_00: It says this Remember my affliction, my wanderings, the worm wood, and the gall.
SPEAKER_00: My soul continually remembers it and bows down within me.
SPEAKER_00: But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope.
SPEAKER_00: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.
SPEAKER_00: His mercies never come to an end.
SPEAKER_00: They are new every morning.
SPEAKER_00: Great is your faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord is my portion, says my soul.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore I will hope in him.
SPEAKER_00: Whether you're coming to Jesus for the first time and asking for forgiveness, whether you're coming to the cross repeatedly, over and over, as we see in Nehemiah chapter 9, would you remember the mercy of God in this moment, in this week, in this season, in this year?
SPEAKER_00: And when you struggle and you feel like you're on a roller coaster, go back to Nehemiah chapter 9 or go to Romans chapter 7.
SPEAKER_00: I want to tell you, we worship a God who stands ready to forgive.
SPEAKER_00: How can we boldly approach his throne, understanding his graciousness and his mercy in our lives?
SPEAKER_00: Pray with me.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I thank you that your word never fails and never returns void.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I thank you for experiences all across this room where people can remember, as Jeremiah said in Lamentation, that they felt in the depths of who they are, that they were warm with.
SPEAKER_00: They would run to you.
SPEAKER_00: There's such freedom, there's such joy available through Christ.
SPEAKER_00: What they experience.
SPEAKER_00: Whether they come and pray on their knees here, talk to one of our pastors, just in their seats, whether they go on a walk, to the people that came to church.
SPEAKER_00: I just need to go on a walk and talk with the Lord out here on this beautiful campus.
SPEAKER_00: God, I just ask that you help us to move.
SPEAKER_00: There are things in our life that you're wanting to accomplish.
SPEAKER_00: Would we cast off sin that can cling so closely and run this race marked out for us?
SPEAKER_00: Run it for Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Run it for your name.
SPEAKER_00: Run it for your glory.
SPEAKER_00: So, however, you need to do business in this place, God, we declare we're ready.
SPEAKER_00: Be free to move in this time of response.
SPEAKER_00: I pray in Jesus' name.
unknown: Amen.