SPEAKER_00: Nehemiah 9, we will read verses 1 through 5 this morning.
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.
SPEAKER_00: And the Israelites separated themselves from all the foreigners and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers.
SPEAKER_00: And they stood up in their place and read from the book of the law of Yahweh their God for a quarter of the day.
SPEAKER_00: For another quarter of it, they made confession and worshipped Yahweh their God.
SPEAKER_00: On the stairs of the Levites stood Jeshua, Bani, Kidmael, Shabbaniah, Buni, Sherubiah, Bani, and Shaniah.
SPEAKER_00: They cried with a loud voice to Yahweh their God, and the Levites, Jeshua, Kidmael, Bani, Hashbroniah, Sherbaniah, Hodiah, Shabbaniah, and Pedaniah said, Stand up and bless Yahweh your God from everlasting to everlasting.
SPEAKER_00: Blessed be your glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise.
SPEAKER_00: This is the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I want to encourage you this morning by reminding you that there is a middle ground between sinning and saying that you're not a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: And let me say it somewhat differently and hopefully in a more clear way.
SPEAKER_00: I have often encountered as a pastor people who are dealing with sin in their life, and so they conclude from the reality of sin in their life that they must therefore not be a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: They understand that when a person comes to Christ, they receive a new nature and they have their sins forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: They understand what John says, that those who walk in the light do deeds of the light, and those who walk in the darkness and say they're in the light are liars and the truth isn't in them.
SPEAKER_00: Which the Bible very clearly teaches.
SPEAKER_00: But they mistakenly reason from that to examining their own lives and seeing sin present in their life, and they deduce that because there is sin in their life that they haven't been able to have victory over, that they therefore must not be saved.
SPEAKER_00: And that's a wrong assumption.
SPEAKER_00: And before I work through that, let me say that I am thankful for those kind of people.
SPEAKER_00: I am thankful for those that are rightly dealing with sin in their life.
SPEAKER_00: I would take one of those, over 20 people who claim the name of Christ and are brazenly living in sin and it doesn't appear to be slowing them down one iota.
SPEAKER_00: They're just trucking along and they're like, hey, chosen and forgiven, no big deal, man.
SPEAKER_00: Only one life to live.
SPEAKER_00: I may as well send my way right through it, since I have faith, it's not going to matter anyway.
SPEAKER_00: Which is the opposite of what the Bible teaches.
SPEAKER_00: But I'm not talking about those people this morning.
SPEAKER_00: That's a different sermon.
SPEAKER_00: This morning I'm talking about the person who has a soft conscience.
SPEAKER_00: They are sensitive towards the word.
SPEAKER_00: And yet they're aware of their sin in their life.
SPEAKER_00: This is more of the Romans 7 kind of scenario, the person who hates the sin that they see in their life.
SPEAKER_00: And so they don't know how to make of that.
SPEAKER_00: They identify sin in their life, they don't like it, and yet they keep doing it.
SPEAKER_00: And so they want to know what how do I respond to finding sin in my life?
SPEAKER_00: And it's it's so easy for them to deduce, I must not be saved.
SPEAKER_00: That's the easiest explanation.
SPEAKER_00: I've even seen people get baptized, you know, three times.
SPEAKER_00: You know, they get baptized, you know, once and they get convicted of more sin in their life, and they're like, okay, I can't, but I finally have victory over that sin.
SPEAKER_00: I better get baptized again because that's my real conversion.
SPEAKER_00: And then a few years later, they're dealing with more sin in their life, and they, you know, confront that and are start growing in godliness there, and so they get baptized a third time.
SPEAKER_00: It's almost a cop-out, isn't it, to say, uh, I must not be saved, and that's why I'm sinning.
SPEAKER_00: You know, the truth is much more devastating than that.
SPEAKER_00: The truth is that we are sinners, and we're gonna lead a life that has sin in it because that's what it means to live in a fallen world.
SPEAKER_00: Now, obviously, we should be growing in our sanctification.
SPEAKER_00: You should be growing in godliness throughout your life.
SPEAKER_00: But the very idea that you're growing in godliness means that you have sin in your life.
SPEAKER_00: It's the the corollary.
SPEAKER_00: If you're growing in godliness, that means you're putting off sin, which means that you have sin.
SPEAKER_00: Let me say it differently.
SPEAKER_00: Do you have room to grow spiritually?
SPEAKER_00: Amen, right?
SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, that means you have sin.
SPEAKER_00: Do you follow that logic?
SPEAKER_00: If you got room to grow, that means you've got sin in your life.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what we encounter in Nehemiah chapter 9.
SPEAKER_00: Nehemiah chapter 9, the Israelites are in the promised land.
SPEAKER_00: They are back in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: They are, in a sense, trying here.
SPEAKER_00: God has called them, God has brought them back, they have followed Ezra's lead.
SPEAKER_00: Many of these families, it required immense sacrifice to leave the wealth that they had in Persia to come back to Israel for the poverty of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: They're living in a dilapidated city, it doesn't have a wall, the temple is still under construction, and when they finally see the temple, they weep, Ezra describes.
SPEAKER_00: These are people that are trying to be pleasing to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: On the other hand, there are people with sin in their life, and in some cases, very serious sin in their life.
SPEAKER_00: You see at the end of the book of Ezra, they were intermarrying with the people around them.
SPEAKER_00: They had married some of the Samaritans, they had married some of the Arabs, they had married some of the Persians, even, perhaps some of them even brought their wives from Persia back to Jerusalem, and this was a sin.
SPEAKER_00: This was a sin that brought Israel into judgment before the exile.
SPEAKER_00: This was Solomon's sin.
SPEAKER_00: This is how sin got let.
SPEAKER_00: You know, this Israel under Solomon's day had the wall, but he opened the gate, so to speak, to all of the pagan women to come in who brought their idols, and that led ultimately to their captivity.
SPEAKER_00: And now they're back.
SPEAKER_00: The Israelites are back in the land.
SPEAKER_00: They have the wall completed.
SPEAKER_00: We looked at that a couple weeks ago.
SPEAKER_00: And now they take assessment of their life.
SPEAKER_00: They found the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: They found it last month or last week in our time.
SPEAKER_00: It was in Nehemiah chapter 8, but it was a month ago in their time, and they had read the Word of God, and they had got convicted by the Word of God.
SPEAKER_00: As they read it, they were weeping.
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember we looked at that passage last week?
SPEAKER_00: They were weeping so much, the Levites spread out in the camp of the meeting there, where they were all outside by the water gate and said, Stop weeping.
SPEAKER_00: This should be a happy occasion.
SPEAKER_00: You should be celebrating.
SPEAKER_00: And so they put away their weeping and they went to the week-long celebration, the feast of Sukkot, the tabernacles, the tents, the most joyous celebration, even to this day, it's the most joyous celebration in the Jewish calendar.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's the most festive Jewish holiday, and uh they celebrated it for the first time.
SPEAKER_00: We looked at that last Sunday evening, filled with joy and rejoicing.
SPEAKER_00: But now the tents are packed up, the Sukkot tents are put away, the Gentile visitors have gone home, and you're left there just with your family and the Word of God, and they are back to sorrow because they see their sin.
SPEAKER_00: They see their sin.
SPEAKER_00: And again, this could be your own life story.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, let me give you an outline this morning how believers should respond to sin in their own lives.
SPEAKER_00: And what I mean by your own life story, this could be your own story, couldn't it?
SPEAKER_00: That you are living in the world, living in sin, living for yourself, and then you have an encounter with Jesus Christ through the Word.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps uh neighbors shared the gospel with you, or friends invited you to church.
SPEAKER_00: Or I've heard so many incredible testimonies.
SPEAKER_00: This has been a great week for me to hear testimonies.
SPEAKER_00: I've just heard incredible testimonies from people.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I heard a testimony from some guy who was stationed here by a foreign military.
SPEAKER_00: He was an attaché here in the Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: area, moved into Alexandria, and his neighbor kids became friends with his kids and invited him to church.
SPEAKER_00: And says, Whole family gets saved and they petition their government.
SPEAKER_00: Their government lets them stay here permanently because they're believers now.
SPEAKER_00: It's incredible.
SPEAKER_00: It's like reverse missionary work right there.
SPEAKER_00: Heard a story this week about two people who knocked on someone's door, family's door, and asked, could they bring their little kids to VBS?
SPEAKER_00: And the family said yes.
SPEAKER_00: Instead of calling the police, they said yes, take my little kids to VBS.
SPEAKER_00: And the non-parents are like, How would you do that?
SPEAKER_00: And the parents are like, Listen, I needed a few hours, okay?
SPEAKER_00: And the kids go to VBS, and the ultimately the family comes to faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, just a crazy story like that.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe this is your story.
SPEAKER_00: And you come to faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You hear that Jesus dies on the cross for your sin, and that God is angry with your sin and you get convicted of your sin, and then you hear that Jesus bore the penalty for your sin and then rose from the grave on the third day, and you believe that.
SPEAKER_00: And your life has changed.
SPEAKER_00: And 2 Corinthians 5 says, when you believe that, you become a new creation.
SPEAKER_00: The old has passed away.
SPEAKER_00: Behold, the new has come.
SPEAKER_00: And now you're growing in godliness, but then years later, you find yourself dealing with sin in your life.
SPEAKER_00: And you think, what's wrong?
SPEAKER_00: Did the conversion not take?
SPEAKER_00: Is it like the vaccine?
SPEAKER_00: You need to get a booster again later?
SPEAKER_00: Do you need a brand new conversion?
SPEAKER_00: And the answer is no.
SPEAKER_00: Conversion took.
SPEAKER_00: This is a normal Christian life.
SPEAKER_00: So what do you do when you find sin in your life?
SPEAKER_00: That's certainly what is happening here.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, there's periods of spiritual dryness in your life.
SPEAKER_00: There are seasons of spiritual dryness.
SPEAKER_00: Your new creation in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Except when you aren't, because sometimes you won't.
SPEAKER_00: To quote Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Seuss.
SPEAKER_00: Your new creation in Christ, but sometimes you are weighed down with sin.
SPEAKER_00: And when that happens, this is what you should do first.
SPEAKER_00: You turn to the Word.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what happens in chapter 9, verse 1 here.
SPEAKER_00: On the 24th day of this month, so this is after the feast of Sukkot, everything is wrapped up.
SPEAKER_00: The Israelites are assembled, and now they're back with the fasting and the sackcloth and the earth on their heads.
SPEAKER_00: And they would often put ashes in their heads, but there's a lot of people here, not enough ash to go around.
SPEAKER_00: Apparently, they're rubbing dirt on their head.
SPEAKER_00: And the ESV translates it dirt here.
SPEAKER_00: You've seen this before in mourning.
SPEAKER_00: It's just other passages usually translates it dust, but it's the same principle.
SPEAKER_00: You're putting, you know, dirt.
SPEAKER_00: The difference between dirt and dust in your head is inconsequential, really.
SPEAKER_00: You're wearing sackcloth, which is made out of goat's hair or camel hair, and it's designed to be abrasive to your skin.
SPEAKER_00: They'd sometimes wear it as loincloths when they were fasting.
SPEAKER_00: It was supposed to not be comfortable.
SPEAKER_00: It was supposed to disfigure your face even, and then you put dirt or ash on your head.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's obvious that you're fasting.
SPEAKER_00: It's obvious that you're mourning.
SPEAKER_00: It's obvious that you're grieving, and that's what they're doing.
SPEAKER_00: And they're doing this because they've discovered the Word of God.
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember that during the Feast of Sukkot, they're reading the Torah.
SPEAKER_00: They read the whole Torah.
SPEAKER_00: The first five books of the Bible, the books of Moses, these people knew the book of Jeremiah.
SPEAKER_00: They're living out as prophecy.
SPEAKER_00: They're familiar with the book of Daniel for sure.
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah is calling them to repent for various sins, but discovering the Torah had a profound effect on them.
SPEAKER_00: They'd wept and they'd been told to put away their weeping and to celebrate, but now they're back to the Word of God.
SPEAKER_00: They can't take themselves away from it.
SPEAKER_00: And they know it produces sorrow.
SPEAKER_00: They know, I mean, the last time they read it, they wept.
SPEAKER_00: They know it will have that effect.
SPEAKER_00: But this is what the new nature in a person looks like you need the word.
SPEAKER_00: And that's where you go.
SPEAKER_00: When you have sin in your life, you go back to the word.
SPEAKER_00: The order here that we're going to see this morning is critical.
SPEAKER_00: It starts with the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to deal with sin in your life, repentance is the way you do it.
SPEAKER_00: But the first step towards that is to be confronted with the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: You need to go to the word.
SPEAKER_00: If you're led by the Spirit, you will put to death the deeds of the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: You can't be led by the Spirit unless you're in the Word of God.
SPEAKER_00: The most effective way, the most immediate way for the Spirit of God to lead you is through the Word of God.
SPEAKER_00: Often we think of being spirit-led as being more mystical than that, being internal to yourself, being, you know, I had this desire or this unction, and certainly I have room for that in my spirituality, but I think predominantly the way the Spirit leads people is he leads us through the Word, the Spirit-inspired word.
SPEAKER_00: As the Word resonates in our heart, God convicts us of sin through a word.
SPEAKER_00: He exposes us to new desires through his word, and his word is what guides us.
SPEAKER_00: This is why the Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of truth.
SPEAKER_00: He applies the word to our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what they see here.
SPEAKER_00: They go back in chapter 9 to the Word of God.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 2, the Israelites separated themselves from all foreigners.
SPEAKER_00: They stood and confessed their sins and their iniquities of their fathers.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what their confession looked like.
SPEAKER_00: They stood up in verse 3 in their place and they read from the book of the law of Yahweh.
SPEAKER_00: For a quarter of the day.
SPEAKER_00: They read.
SPEAKER_00: For hours.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, this is the same thing they did in chapter 8.
SPEAKER_00: They're going back to reading the Torah.
SPEAKER_00: The last time they did this in chapter 8, they wept.
SPEAKER_00: Now they're doing it again because they want to be convicted by the Word of God.
SPEAKER_00: They understand the easiest way for the Spirit to lead a person is by reading the Bible and doing what it says.
SPEAKER_00: So let me challenge you this morning with that.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to be led by the Holy Spirit in your life, pick this book up, read it, and obey it.
SPEAKER_00: That's the most direct way.
SPEAKER_00: Now, obviously, you need some understanding of hermeneutics to do that.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you can't.
SPEAKER_00: What if you are dating somebody and you open the Bible and you come across the verse where Jesus says, What you do do quickly.
SPEAKER_00: I gotta propose right now.
SPEAKER_00: No, that was Jesus talking to Judas.
SPEAKER_00: And uh to betray him quickly, and yeah, it's don't interpret it that way.
SPEAKER_00: You need to understand what the Bible is saying and who it's saying it to and how you apply that.
SPEAKER_00: And we get a little window into that this morning.
SPEAKER_00: You read this passage, the wrong takeaway from it is that you need to wear sackcloth and ashes until you put your sin to death.
SPEAKER_00: The right takeaway from it is the importance of confession, the importance of repentance, the importance of going to the word and reading it.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the model here.
SPEAKER_00: You go to the Bible, you read it, you seek to understand it, and you apply it to your life.
SPEAKER_00: That's you understand, that's what these people are doing.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't go to Bible college, they didn't go to seminary here, they're reading the Torah and they're the Jewish people.
SPEAKER_00: They're under the commands of the law, and they're reading it, and they're saying, we want to do this, and we're not doing it.
SPEAKER_00: They look around, we're not keeping this law, and they've been convicted by it.
SPEAKER_00: Well, if you want to put sin to death in your life, if you want to have growth in godliness, step one, read the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: Read the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: I can't think of anyone I've ever talked to who said, I'm having such a difficult time spiritually.
SPEAKER_00: So difficult dealing with all these sins.
SPEAKER_00: But you know what?
SPEAKER_00: My Bible reading's incredible right now.
SPEAKER_00: It's not normally how the conversation goes.
SPEAKER_00: So you want to grow spiritually, you want to respond to sin in your life.
SPEAKER_00: First step is read the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: Second, don't just turn to the word, but second, now confess your sin to God.
SPEAKER_00: You pick this up again down in chapter 9, verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: After they read for a quarter of the day, they followed it with another quarter of the day, making confession.
SPEAKER_00: They begin confessing their sins to God.
SPEAKER_00: What confessing looks like is calling your sin what God calls it.
SPEAKER_00: It means reading the word, seeing your lack of conformity to the word, identifying that lack of conformity, articulating that lack of conformity, and specifically articulating it to God.
SPEAKER_00: Confession does not look like saying, Well, I've messed up.
SPEAKER_00: That's not confession.
SPEAKER_00: That's just a statement of fact.
SPEAKER_00: Confession does not look like downplaying your sin and using different language to mitigate against your sin, like, hey, mistakes were made, kind of language, you know.
SPEAKER_00: Politicians are famous for that.
SPEAKER_00: They get caught in some horrible scandal and they're like, hey, mistakes were made.
SPEAKER_00: That's not confession.
SPEAKER_00: Confession is using the words the Bible uses to describe your lack of conformity to God.
SPEAKER_00: Not mistakes were made.
SPEAKER_00: How about anger?
SPEAKER_00: How about greed?
SPEAKER_00: How about covetousness?
SPEAKER_00: How about idolatry?
SPEAKER_00: Adultery, those kind of words.
SPEAKER_00: Call your sin what the Bible calls it and use that language back to God.
SPEAKER_00: As you read the word of God, you discover blind spots in your life, you discover new sin in your life.
SPEAKER_00: And what's first a blind spot can't remain there.
SPEAKER_00: Confession does not look like saying, God, I'm sorry I have blind spots in my life.
SPEAKER_00: Again, that's a statement of fact.
SPEAKER_00: You do have blind spots in your life.
SPEAKER_00: So you read the Bible to discover them.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible's like adjusting your mirror.
SPEAKER_00: You see them more clearly, and you're able to identify them.
SPEAKER_00: And then you call them what they are.
SPEAKER_00: When you call them what they are, that leads to an attitude of repentance.
SPEAKER_00: Like sackcloth and ashes and dirt on the head.
SPEAKER_00: That was the culturally appropriate attitude of repentance they had back in Nehemiah's day.
SPEAKER_00: I would say our day has a different form of repentance, but certainly it looks like sorrow in your heart over your sins.
SPEAKER_00: Certainly it looks like a confessing it to God.
SPEAKER_00: Three times in this book, by the way, we see the Israelites gather together and confess their sins.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to notice something before we go on here.
SPEAKER_00: They're not only confessing their own sins here.
SPEAKER_00: Look at down in verse back, go back up to uh verse two again.
SPEAKER_00: They separated themselves from foreigners, they stood and confessed their sins in the iniquities of their fathers.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't simply their own sins they were confessing, they were confessing their fathers' sins as well.
SPEAKER_00: Three times in this book it says that.
SPEAKER_00: Here, we'll see it again later on in Nehemiah chapter 9.
SPEAKER_00: And we saw it earlier in the book of Ezra, which is the same book as Nehemiah, as Ezra fell down and confessed the sins of his fathers as well.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what does that mean to confess the sins of your fathers?
SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you a story I saw in the uh the news this week.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna actually just read you the news story from the local CBS station.
SPEAKER_00: A VHS movie rented more than 20 years ago has come back to haunt a woman in Texas.
SPEAKER_00: The problem, she never returned the tape she rented in Norman, Oklahoma.
SPEAKER_00: Twenty years later, she applied for a wedding license in the state of Texas, which denied her application for a wedding license.
SPEAKER_00: Can you believe that?
SPEAKER_00: Telling her she needed to contact the district attorney's office in Cleveland County, Oklahoma.
SPEAKER_00: She contacts them and finds out she has a felony warrant out for her arrest for embezzlement 21 years ago.
SPEAKER_00: She rented Sabrina the Teenage Witch on VHS and never returned it.
SPEAKER_00: Through a little bit of investigation, they discover she in fact did not rent Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
SPEAKER_00: Uh her, um I think it's her younger sister rented it in her name and never returned it.
SPEAKER_00: She swears she'd never seen the movie.
SPEAKER_00: Well, you know how remember Blockbuster back in the day?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, those there's exponents and then there's Blockbuster late fees.
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember that?
SPEAKER_00: Three days late, they just they just repossess your car and call it even.
SPEAKER_00: Well, in this case, the late fees that had accumulated had been turned over to collections agency, which added their own fee on top of it, turned it over to the district attorney's office, when it costs a thousand bucks.
SPEAKER_00: She's had a felony warrant for 21 years.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I hope you find that story amusing.
SPEAKER_00: It'd be less amusing if she got stopped for speeding and had to spend a night in the clink for it, but the question is, is she responsible for that movie rental?
SPEAKER_00: And we would say, no.
SPEAKER_00: It was her sister that rented it.
SPEAKER_00: She probably had no knowledge of her sister renting it.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, and it comes down down to really like, should she have known?
SPEAKER_00: Was she having oversight of her sister?
SPEAKER_00: You know, you can ask all those other kinds of questions to figure out how responsible she really was.
SPEAKER_00: It gets, of course, exaggerated by time.
SPEAKER_00: I think Blockbuster is closed even to begin with now.
SPEAKER_00: So, really, what are you even gonna do?
SPEAKER_00: So understand, when you're making confession here, it says for your father's sins, there's gotta be some way that you're connected to the sin.
SPEAKER_00: What you're seeing here in the Bible is there's what I'm gonna call a covenantal connection.
SPEAKER_00: The Israelites here are connected by covenant, by God's covenant, to the Israelites that went before them.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, they had received the covenant back out in the plains of the wilderness plains.
SPEAKER_00: This is the first time they received the covenant, they cross the Jordan River, they ratify the covenant again at the end of the book of Joshua, where there are blessings for keeping it, curses for failing it.
SPEAKER_00: Circumcision marks their entrance into the covenant, and when they're circumcised, they are receiving the blessings and the cursings of the covenant.
SPEAKER_00: If they fail to walk in the covenant, they receive the curses for that.
SPEAKER_00: And those curses, by the way, were exile.
SPEAKER_00: And so they are exiled from their land because they never kept the year of Jubilee.
SPEAKER_00: They never gave the land its Sabbath rest.
SPEAKER_00: And so God tallied up all of those transgressions and threw them out of the land.
SPEAKER_00: Now, obviously, the people he exiled were not the ones who defaulted on all of the Sabbath years.
SPEAKER_00: And their great great great great grandparents defaulted in the Sabbath years, but they all got exiled.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody alive got exiled for that sin.
SPEAKER_00: Daniel at the end of his life is sending the Israelites back to the land.
SPEAKER_00: Seventy years was the exile.
SPEAKER_00: They hit the 70 year mark.
SPEAKER_00: They're supposed to go back to the land.
SPEAKER_00: And Daniel, who had never sinned in that way, of course, you know, Daniel was a teenager when he went off to Babylon.
SPEAKER_00: He never owned farming land.
SPEAKER_00: He was in the government in Babylon.
SPEAKER_00: He goes out at the end of his life, some of his last recorded words are confessing the sins of the Israelites that went before him.
SPEAKER_00: And when Daniel's confessing it, he's saying that their judgment was just.
SPEAKER_00: He's trying to persuade the Israelites it was right for you to be exiled for 70 years.
SPEAKER_00: You deserved it because of our grandparents' sin, our ancestors' sin.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we're exiled.
SPEAKER_00: And so don't be angry at God for the exile.
SPEAKER_00: Receive it as a just punishment for our sins.
SPEAKER_00: So that's Daniel's prayer.
SPEAKER_00: They go back into the land.
SPEAKER_00: They're rebuilding the temple.
SPEAKER_00: Ezra, as the temple gets built, looks around, and guess what he sees?
SPEAKER_00: They're remarrying foreign women.
SPEAKER_00: The same sin that Solomon did that led to the exile, that led to them neglecting the Sabbath years, the same sin.
SPEAKER_00: They're repeating it.
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember what Ezra does?
SPEAKER_00: Falls down at the temple, weeps, and fasts, and makes confession for their sins.
SPEAKER_00: Because it's the same sin that's happening again.
SPEAKER_00: Now, did Ezra marry foreign women?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: But as their leader, he was taking on responsibility for them.
SPEAKER_00: And he's saying, This is happening on my watch.
SPEAKER_00: Ezra's saying this, this is my responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I should have taught more about this.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I shouldn't have been so naive.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I should have asked more questions.
SPEAKER_00: And Ezra's broken over their sin.
SPEAKER_00: So broken, remember, he spends days out there by the wall.
SPEAKER_00: The town is gathering around trying to figure out what's eating Ezra.
SPEAKER_00: It's bad news when you when the Israelites see their leader fasting at the temple wall.
SPEAKER_00: Ezra's confessing their sins.
SPEAKER_00: Now you jump to the Nehemiah and you see all of the people.
SPEAKER_00: This is the same period of time here as what you saw in Ezra.
SPEAKER_00: The repentance is contagious.
SPEAKER_00: Ezra's repentance is being amplified here by the whole people.
SPEAKER_00: The people are seeing their sins.
SPEAKER_00: This is the same sin of their fathers.
SPEAKER_00: So there's a connection to their fathers as they're confessing this.
SPEAKER_00: What they're doing is the same thing their fathers did.
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to see this as the book of Nehemiah goes on.
SPEAKER_00: These people who are confessing them, they're going to repent when you get down to the end of chapter 9.
SPEAKER_00: We'll look at this next week.
SPEAKER_00: They had also married foreign women.
SPEAKER_00: This wasn't just their father's sin.
SPEAKER_00: This was their sin too.
SPEAKER_00: They had done this.
SPEAKER_00: You see this even hinted at in chapter 9, verse 2.
SPEAKER_00: They had had to separate themselves from the foreigners.
SPEAKER_00: In some of the cases, that was their wives.
SPEAKER_00: That was their wives.
SPEAKER_00: And I pulled the car over to talk about this for a second because I think this is a hermeneutic that is very popular today, to say that, you know, every member of a race or of an ethnicity or a culture has to bear corporate responsibility for previous sins of that race or that ethnic group or that culture.
SPEAKER_00: And it's this is a verse that's often used to teach that.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to say to you that you bear responsibility for sins that you commit.
SPEAKER_00: And sins that your ancestors committed very well can affect you.
SPEAKER_00: You very well can bear the natural consequences of that, and even the divine consequences of that as God meets out justice and judgment on the world for sin.
SPEAKER_00: But you bear the moral responsibility for sins that you commit.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when you recognize sin in the world, you confess it.
SPEAKER_00: And when you recognize sin that your parents or your ancestors committed, it is good to confess that too and say, I'm aware of that sin and that sin is wrong.
SPEAKER_00: But you can't repent for somebody else's sin.
SPEAKER_00: And there's a huge difference between your sin against a neighbor or your parents' sins against their neighbors and your sins against God.
SPEAKER_00: You absolutely can repent of your sins against God.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't make no sense to repent of somebody else's sin against somebody else.
SPEAKER_00: At least it doesn't make sense to me.
SPEAKER_00: To repent of sin, it has to be sin that you've committed.
SPEAKER_00: That's what repentance means.
SPEAKER_00: You have to call it what God calls it.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to give you just this biblical perspective on it because I hope that you see, because sometimes we're very quick to say, hey, there's no examples in the Bible of people repenting for their ancestors' sins.
SPEAKER_00: Well, here's a huge one staring at you in Nehemiah 9, right here.
SPEAKER_00: And they're huddled together confessing the sins of their fathers.
SPEAKER_00: So you better file that away in your minds.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there is sins in the Bible that people confess that their fathers committed.
SPEAKER_00: I see a covenantal connection with the people who committed the sins and those who are confessing it, and that is a connection to judgment as well.
SPEAKER_00: And part of that is confessing it, which means calling it like God calls it, and that's what they're doing here.
SPEAKER_00: Understand this.
SPEAKER_00: Christians are called to be confessing people.
SPEAKER_00: Confession should mark your life.
SPEAKER_00: John, 1 John 1, verse 8 says, if you say you have no sin, you're a liar.
SPEAKER_00: So go ahead and try that sometime.
SPEAKER_00: Say, God, I can't think of any sin I have in my life right now.
SPEAKER_00: You're a liar.
SPEAKER_00: Do you think your parents had sin in their life?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: Are you gonna deny they had sin in their life?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: Because now you're making them a liar too.
SPEAKER_00: Don't call your mom a liar.
SPEAKER_00: Come on.
SPEAKER_00: We all sin and fall short of the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: And if you say you have no sin, you deceive yourself and the truth isn't in us.
SPEAKER_00: So what do you do with the knowledge of your sin?
SPEAKER_00: You confess it.
SPEAKER_00: And when you confess your sin, God is faithful and just to forgive you of your sin.
SPEAKER_00: This is the heart of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: You have to call sin what God calls it, which means you have to see it like he sees it.
SPEAKER_00: And for you to see sin like God sees it, you have to expose yourself to God's word so it works in your heart.
SPEAKER_00: John provides us with a helpful illustration of this in John chapter 13, when Jesus goes to wash the disciples' feet.
SPEAKER_00: You remember Peter's first response?
SPEAKER_00: Back off, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Don't touch my feet.
SPEAKER_00: I'm fine.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you very much.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, No, you're not fine.
SPEAKER_00: Your feet are dirty, and unless I can wash your feet, you have no part with me.
SPEAKER_00: And then do you remember what Peter says?
SPEAKER_00: Bath time, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, No, you don't need to.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: No, you don't need to bath.
SPEAKER_00: If you've had your sins forgiven, you don't need to have them forgiven all over again.
SPEAKER_00: You don't need to confess all of your sins every day because when you confess your sins, they are forgiven by the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: When you come to faith, you are a new creation.
SPEAKER_00: Part of confessing your sin means that it is removed from you because Christ died for it.
SPEAKER_00: And so if you're going on confessing the same sins, it starts to become a lack of faith in the Lord's ability to forgive you.
SPEAKER_00: So you confess your sin today, a sin that you did five years ago.
SPEAKER_00: You confess it today.
SPEAKER_00: You confess it tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that.
SPEAKER_00: Now, at some point you're working through your guilt.
SPEAKER_00: I grant that.
SPEAKER_00: You're working through your guilt.
SPEAKER_00: It was a profound sin, you're working through it.
SPEAKER_00: I get it.
SPEAKER_00: Keep confessing it and keep applying your forgiveness to your heart.
SPEAKER_00: But at some point, you get to the level where it's like, I'm wondering if you are really believing the Lord forgives you.
SPEAKER_00: Are you?
SPEAKER_00: Because if you are, believe that when you confessed your sins to Him and put your faith in Christ on the cross, he forgave you of your sins.
SPEAKER_00: That's what you see here.
SPEAKER_00: They're confessing their sins.
SPEAKER_00: And believe me, they are working through this.
SPEAKER_00: They confessed these, they started to confess them before the feast of Sukkot, and they were weeping, and the Levites told them, Stop and celebrate.
SPEAKER_00: Celebration is done, they're back to weeping again.
SPEAKER_00: They're working through this.
SPEAKER_00: But they have to get to the point where they believe that God is faithful and just to forgive them of their sins.
SPEAKER_00: This is the Christian life.
SPEAKER_00: If you say you have no sins, you lie.
SPEAKER_00: If you confess your sins to the Lord, He is faithful and just to forgive you of your sins, which leads to the third response, the sin in a believer's life.
SPEAKER_00: Third response is you pray to God.
SPEAKER_00: You turn to the word, you confess to God, and then you pray to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: This is a critical element of the spirit-filled life.
SPEAKER_00: The spirit-filled life means you're filling your mind with the word.
SPEAKER_00: The spirit-filled life means you're identifying areas in your life that you fall short of the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: You're confessing it by calling it what God calls it.
SPEAKER_00: And then thirdly, you're bringing your confession, you're bringing your request to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: You're praying to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I find it so interesting that after six hours of preaching and confession comes six hours of praying.
SPEAKER_00: Because that's what they do next.
SPEAKER_00: This prayer, and we'll look at this next Sunday morning.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, just for the sake of our time today, we'll I'll save it for next Sunday morning.
SPEAKER_00: But verse six to the end of the chapter, that's Nehemiah's prayer.
SPEAKER_00: That's the prayer they pray as a result of this confession.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know this is the longest prayer in the Bible?
SPEAKER_00: It's right here.
SPEAKER_00: After being confronted with the Word of God and confessing their sins, they turn and they go to the Lord with the longest prayer of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And we'll, you know, we'll just grab a little phrase of it.
SPEAKER_00: Here's a summary of the prayer at the end of verse 5: Stand up and bless Yahweh your God from everlasting to everlasting.
SPEAKER_00: Blessed be your glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise.
SPEAKER_00: Blessed be the name of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Blessed be your glory.
SPEAKER_00: Name speaks to your will and your identity.
SPEAKER_00: That's what your name is.
SPEAKER_00: This is why you sign a document.
SPEAKER_00: You're saying, My who I am with all of my authority and my will consents to this.
SPEAKER_00: That's what it means when you say, you know, you might we have in English, we have the idiom, don't, you know, don't use my name, don't throw my name in my place.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you get pulled over and you're like, yeah, but you know who my boss is, so and so.
SPEAKER_00: You name drop.
SPEAKER_00: That's this idea.
SPEAKER_00: You connect somebody's authority to their name.
SPEAKER_00: Here in the Bible, you name-drop God's name to God.
SPEAKER_00: You tell God, hey, Yahweh, I believe in you.
SPEAKER_00: Stand up and bless Yahweh your God.
SPEAKER_00: I'm claiming your name, your will.
SPEAKER_00: I'm yours.
SPEAKER_00: I place my faith in you.
SPEAKER_00: I'm exalting your name.
SPEAKER_00: Notice that he uses his name.
SPEAKER_00: Stand up and bless Yahweh your God.
SPEAKER_00: Bless your glorious name.
SPEAKER_00: God's name here is speaking of all of his glory, all of his attributes.
SPEAKER_00: It is exalted above all blessing and praise.
SPEAKER_00: God's name is what it means to be exalted above blessing and praise is that it's the object of blessing and praise.
SPEAKER_00: That's what it means to be above it.
SPEAKER_00: So your blessing, your praise, your songs, your prayers are funneled to his name, his will, his identity.
SPEAKER_00: He made the world so that he could be worshipped.
SPEAKER_00: He made the world, he made you so that you could bless him.
SPEAKER_00: And that is not because he is shallow and he needs your blessing.
SPEAKER_00: It's because he's kind and he's benevolent and he knows that it's for your good to bless him.
SPEAKER_00: You receive the blessing when you bless him.
SPEAKER_00: You gain more than God gains, in other words, by worshiping him.
SPEAKER_00: When you worship God, you're making much of his name, you're lifting up his name, you're lifting up his identity, you're attributing his attributes back to him, and you are the one who is blessed by that.
SPEAKER_00: That's the kindness and the benevolence of God.
SPEAKER_00: When you drink from the fountain, you're the one who's quenched.
SPEAKER_00: The fountain doesn't notice the water is gone.
SPEAKER_00: You magnify the glory of the fountain by delighting in him.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what is all about this prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Blessed be your glorious name.
SPEAKER_00: It is exalted above all blessing and praise.
SPEAKER_00: Notice this is an everlasting to everlasting name.
SPEAKER_00: From eternity past to eternity future, Yahweh lives.
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh is life, he possesses life in and of himself, and he is above all of his creatures.
SPEAKER_00: His creatures respond by blessing his name and exalting him above all things.
SPEAKER_00: This is the right response to six hours of preaching and confession, is to follow it with praying.
SPEAKER_00: And let me just give you a practical point about this.
SPEAKER_00: Again, we'll look at the prayer more in detail next week, but a practical point about this.
SPEAKER_00: The person who prays all the time but neglects doctrine will become mystical.
SPEAKER_00: The person who's known for their prayer life but not known for their Bible study becomes mystical.
SPEAKER_00: They become unstable.
SPEAKER_00: They become led by intuitions and feelings and impressions.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not a ultimately they become unstable.
SPEAKER_00: The person who reads the Bible and fills their mind with doctrine but lacks prayer becomes heady and puffed up and argumentative and obnoxious.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know a person like that?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Both are heirs.
SPEAKER_00: The person who fills his mind with the word but bottles it in, do you see why that would make them arrogant?
SPEAKER_00: It would make them puffed up because they're bringing it all in and it's not leaving.
SPEAKER_00: And the person who is focused on prayer to the neglect of God's word is exiting, is giving, and is not refilling the tank, so to speak.
SPEAKER_00: And that's going to make them mystical and unstable.
SPEAKER_00: It's going to make them floaty.
SPEAKER_00: You know, their head will be in the sky and their feet won't be on the ground.
SPEAKER_00: Whereas the person who's filled with doctrine, his feet will be on the ground, but is his head in the sky?
SPEAKER_00: And here is the balance.
SPEAKER_00: I love the division of the balance here.
SPEAKER_00: You have the longest Bible reading in the Bible followed by the longest prayer in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: They're joined.
SPEAKER_00: That is not a coincidence.
SPEAKER_00: That's not just rhetorical flair.
SPEAKER_00: There's a powerful way that those two operate together.
SPEAKER_00: Your life should be marked by Bible reading, and it should be marked by prayer.
SPEAKER_00: And don't sacrifice either one.
SPEAKER_00: When they're in balance, you're reading the Bible, and that keeps your feet on the ground.
SPEAKER_00: You're growing doctrinal roots.
SPEAKER_00: And when you're praying, that keeps your head in the sky, so to speak.
SPEAKER_00: It keeps you focused on the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: That's the right balance.
SPEAKER_00: Or picture the scale.
SPEAKER_00: The word of God weights one side and your prayer to God, your relationship with God weighs the other side.
SPEAKER_00: And that might be even a better way to say it.
SPEAKER_00: The word and relationship work together.
SPEAKER_00: God gives you his word, not just so that you can pass an ordination exam or not just so you can study it and become an expert in it.
SPEAKER_00: He gives you his word so that you can do those things by having a relationship with him.
SPEAKER_00: You want a relationship with him, pour your mind into his word.
SPEAKER_00: You pour your mind into his word, express it in a relationship with him through prayer.
SPEAKER_00: When you're living your life in the word and in prayer, you will have a life that is marked by repentance.
SPEAKER_00: You will have a life that is marked by what you see on the screen.
SPEAKER_00: Turning to the word, giving out in prayer, and in the middle of that is repenting from your sins.
SPEAKER_00: This is real repentance.
SPEAKER_00: It is focused on your relationship with God.
SPEAKER_00: Pharaoh, unlike Pharaoh in the Old Testament, remember Pharaoh feigned repentance as a way to negotiate with God.
SPEAKER_00: He acted like he was going to let the Israelites go just to get out of trouble.
SPEAKER_00: But Pharaoh's so-called repentance was not partnered with confession, it was not partnered with scripture reading, it was not partnered with prayer, it didn't manifest itself in prayer and it wasn't fueled by the Bible, it was a false repentance.
SPEAKER_00: But if you're a believer and you're reading the word of God, the word of God is what is fueling your repentance.
SPEAKER_00: And then you see sin in your life, you confess it because of what you see in the Word, and you express that confession to God in prayer, that keeps you growing spiritually.
SPEAKER_00: If you're a believer and you find yourself dealing with repetitive sin in your life, understand that here's a better analogy for you that you're on the wrong path.
SPEAKER_00: So cut back.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you're living your life and there's a fork in the road, and you're following Christ, and you're following Christ, and you veered off into sin.
SPEAKER_00: Confess your sin.
SPEAKER_00: Identify you're on the wrong path, confess your sin and get back to the right path.
SPEAKER_00: But don't dynamite the whole thing and say, I must not be a Christian because I feel like I'm lost right now.
SPEAKER_00: No, if you have faith in the Lord and you trust the Lord and the Lord is working on your heart and convicting you of sin through your reading of the word, express that confessing to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Express that through prayer in the Lord and take confidence that it's God who's at work in you.
SPEAKER_00: The truth is that knowledge of sin is a gift that God gives believers.
SPEAKER_00: Repentance is a gift that God gives believers.
SPEAKER_00: Your awareness of sin in your life should encourage you because it shows you how God is at work in your life.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we're grateful that you call us to turn from our sin and to turn towards you.
SPEAKER_00: We pray that you would fuel our repentance through your word.
SPEAKER_00: We pray that you would fill our minds with your word, our hearts with the knowledge of our sin, that we turn towards you in confession.
SPEAKER_00: I pray for anyone who's here today that has never trusted in you.
SPEAKER_00: I pray for anyone who's here today that has never turned to you in faith.
SPEAKER_00: I pray that today they would be aware of their own sin.
SPEAKER_00: They would look around for an outlet, that they would look around for something to do with their sin and their eyes would be drawn towards you.
SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus, we see your arms lifted up, inviting us to faith in you.
SPEAKER_00: We see your arms lifted up that are pierced with nails because you died for our sins.
SPEAKER_00: So where else can we go, Lord?
SPEAKER_00: Who else can atone for our sins?
SPEAKER_00: What else can we do to have our sins removed from us?
SPEAKER_00: There is nothing.
SPEAKER_00: There is no one, there is only you.
SPEAKER_00: And so, Lord, we do confess our sins to you today.
SPEAKER_00: I pray for the weak and struggling believers in our congregation.
SPEAKER_00: I pray that they would draw encouragement from your word.
SPEAKER_00: I pray for the doubting believers that they would draw certainty from your word.
SPEAKER_00: I pray for the bold believers that you would direct them according to your word.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I pray for the timid believers, I pray that they would find courage in your word as they confess their sins to you.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, you've called us to a spirit of not timidity, but a spirit of courage and boldness.
SPEAKER_00: And so I pray this congregation would be marked by a boldness in evangelism towards the world, but before even that, that they would be marked by a boldness in confessing their own sins to you.
SPEAKER_00: We ask this in the name of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining us today.
SPEAKER_00: If you're in the Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: area, I would love to meet you personally at Emmanuel Bible Church.
SPEAKER_00: Our service times and other church information is on our website at ibc.church.
SPEAKER_00: If you want information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: location, go to tms.edu.
SPEAKER_00: I hope this resource has been an encouragement to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel of Jesus Christ with boldness.
SPEAKER_00: May the Lord bless you.