Covenant Renewal

Nehemiah 9:1-38

Introduction

Welcome again to this gathering of Hope Bible Fellowship. I invite you to open your Bibles to Nehemiah chapter 9. We’re going to be walking through the whole chapter today. Nehemiah had rebuilt the walls and the people had heard the Word of the Lord read to them. They had studied the Word. They had discovered the rules for the festival of tabernacles and had celebrated it. Now, after the festival we have the events of chapter 9 We are going to see the people praise God for His goodness to them and confess where they have sinned and rebelled against Him.

As a sinner, I’d expect to identify with the words of the passage. One writer said, “if you know that the accumulation of your transgression would pile up like all the dirty laundry you’ve ever soiled, like a bottomless sink of dirty dishes,” then the prayer that we are going to read in part of Nehemiah chapter 9 will probably resonate with you. You’ll see yourself in it but more than that I want you to see the goodness of God to sinners like you and me.

Let’s read and hear what the Word of the Lord says happened next.

Read Nehemiah 9: 1-38

Nehemiah 9:1–38 ESV

1 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. 2 And the Israelites separated themselves from all foreigners and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers. 3 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. 4 On the stairs of the Levites stood Jeshua, Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani, and Chenani; and they cried with a loud voice to the Lord their God. 5 Then the Levites, Jeshua, Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah, said, “Stand up and bless the Lord your God from everlasting to everlasting. Blessed be your glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise. 6 “You are the Lord, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you. 7 You are the Lord, the God who chose Abram and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans and gave him the name Abraham. 8 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 Perizzite, the Jebusite, and the Girgashite. And you have kept your promise, for you are righteous. 9 “And you saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt and heard their cry at the Red Sea, 10 and performed signs and wonders against Pharaoh and all his servants and all the people of his land, for you knew that they acted arrogantly against our fathers. And you made a name for yourself, as it is to this day. 11 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. 12 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. 13 You came down on Mount Sinai and spoke with them from heaven and gave them right rules and true laws, good statutes and commandments, 14 and you made known to them your holy Sabbath and commanded them commandments and statutes and a law by Moses your servant. 15 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. 16 “But they and our fathers acted presumptuously and stiffened their neck and did not obey your commandments. 17 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. But you are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and did not forsake them. 18 Even when they had made for themselves a golden calf and said, ‘This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,’ and had committed great blasphemies, 19 you in your great mercies did not forsake them in the wilderness. The pillar of cloud to lead them in the way did not depart from them by day, nor the pillar of fire by night to light for them the way by which they should go. 20 You gave your good Spirit to instruct them and did not withhold your manna from their mouth and gave them water for their thirst. 21 Forty years you sustained them in the wilderness, and they lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell. 22 “And you gave them kingdoms and peoples and allotted to them every corner. So they took possession of the land of Sihon king of Heshbon and the land of Og king of Bashan. 23 You multiplied their children as the stars of heaven, and you brought them into the land that you had told their fathers to enter and possess. 24 So the descendants went in and possessed the land, and you subdued before them the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, and gave them into their hand, with their kings and the peoples of the land, that they might do with them as they would. 25 And they captured fortified cities and a rich land, and took possession of houses full of all good things, cisterns already hewn, vineyards, olive orchards and fruit trees in abundance. So they ate and were filled and became fat and delighted themselves in your great goodness. 26 “Nevertheless, they were disobedient and rebelled against you and cast your law behind their back and killed your prophets, who had warned them in order to turn them back to you, and they committed great blasphemies. 27 Therefore you gave them into the hand of their enemies, who made them suffer. And in the time of their suffering they cried out to you and you heard them from heaven, and according to your great mercies you gave them saviors who saved them from the hand of their enemies. 28 But after they had rest they did evil again before you, and you abandoned them to the hand of their enemies, so that they had dominion over them. Yet when they turned and cried to you, you heard from heaven, and many times you delivered them according to your mercies. 29 And you warned them in order to turn them back to your law. Yet they acted presumptuously and did not obey your commandments, but sinned against your rules, which if a person does them, he shall live by them, and they turned a stubborn shoulder and stiffened their neck and would not obey. 30 Many years you bore with them and warned them by your Spirit through your prophets. Yet they would not give ear. Therefore you gave them into the hand of the peoples of the lands. 31 Nevertheless, in your great mercies you did not make an end of them or forsake them, for you are a gracious and merciful God. 32 “Now, therefore, our God, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love, let not all the hardship seem little 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. 33 Yet you have been righteous in all that has come upon us, for you have dealt faithfully and we have acted wickedly. 34 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. 35 Even in their own kingdom, and amid your great goodness that you gave them, and in the large and rich land that you set before them, they did not serve you or turn from their wicked works. 36 Behold, we are slaves this day; in the land that you gave to our fathers to enjoy its fruit and its good gifts, behold, we are slaves. 37 And its rich yield goes to the kings whom you have set over us because of our sins. They rule over our bodies and over our livestock as they please, and we are in great distress. 38 “Because of all this we make a firm covenant in writing; on the sealed document are the names of our princes, our Levites, and our priests.

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This is the Word of the Lord. Let’s pray and ask God to help us understand and apply it.

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I. Gathering to God as a Community

The text tells us that it was the twenty-fourth day of the seventh month. This would have been after they had rejoiced and celebrated the festival of booths after discovering the commands of the Lord regarding it. They then would have had the solemn assembly as we ended with last week.

- Fasting, sackcloth, and earth - mourning

- Now the time for grieving over their sin had come.

This was the Israelites completing the business that they had started at after their day of hearing the Word in chapter 8 when they were ready to weep. But due to the time of year in the festival calendar they had been instructed to rejoice at that time. Then they held the festival. But now, it was time to deal with their sin. Has this happened to you? Have you been in a situation where you had sinned and you needed to cry out to God for forgiveness and deal with that sin in your life but you didn’t Ruth then for whatever reason? Some of you may have that going on in your heart right now. You know there is some sin that needs to be dealt with. You have business to do with God. Don’t wait on that. Get to that unfinished business today.

The Israelites had unfinished business and the time had come. They put on their sackcloth, fasted, and put earth on their heads. This is the position of mourning or grieving. When was the last time you sat and looked at your sin and mourned over what that sin has done? What it has done to your relationships, to your life, and ultimately how it was sin against a Holy God. My youth pastor Kurt Anderson who many of you have met told us that there was a time in his life where he asked God to show him his sin. He said it was one of the darkest six months of his life. But at the other end there was joy. He had forgiveness in Christ Jesus and could walk away from all of that sin because of Christ’s completed work on the cross. So would you today ask God to show you your sin? I wonder what our lives would look like if we got serious about not just the consequences of sin but about sin itself. After all, it was sin that Christ died to forgive. It was the punishment for that sin that He bore on the cross in our place. How would our lives change if we took it as serious as it truly is?

II. Praising God for His Goodness and Grace to Them

Right away in verse 5 and 6, after a list of the names of the Levites, they bless the name of God and confess that there is no other God than the Lord. Look at verse 6 in particular.

Nehemiah 9:6 ESV

“You are the Lord, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you.

This passage reminded me of the first commandment that God gave when He gave Moses the ten.

Exodus 20:3 ESV

“You shall have no other gods before me.

They are returning to confess that yes, God alone is their God.

In verse 6 they acknowledge that God is the Creator. It is very interesting and telling that when they are renewing the covenant and returning to confess their praise of God and confess their sin that they take it all the way back to confessing that God is in fact the very God who created the heavens and the earth. It’s an acknowledgement of the owner of creation and therefore the only one who has the right to say what all of creation should do and how it should look.

They begin to walk through a list of all of the ways that God had shown the people of Israel amazing kindness, care, and provision in the history of their people. They give God the credit and praise that He is due. Before they ask for anything, they honor God. How many times do we go to God in prayer and jump straight to our shopping list instead of first honoring God and praising Him. Part of our prayer time should be about worshipping God for who He is, not because we can get something from Him, but simply because He is God and that these things that they are saying are true of Him.

- Creation v. 6

- Covenant with Abraham v 7-8

- God's sovereign choice of Israel as His chosen nation by which to glorify His name and we know, bring forth the Messiah, Jesus.

- Exodus and wilderness wandering v. 9-21

- conquest, rebellion, judges, prophets, exile, and merciful preservation v. 22-31

Even though the people were continually sinning and this cycle continued, God still had mercy and they were not completely destroyed but sent off in to exile. The Babylonian Exile was what Nehemiah and some had returned from. This took their memory of God’s goodness right up to this current time that they were experiencing.

An important part of this memory of God’s goodness is that when God makes a promise, He always follows through on it. It might not look the way our human minds think it should but God always keeps His promises. Those promises include both the promises for blessing and the promises for cursing. Just as those who trust Christ have the promise of eternal life, those who reject Christ have the promise of eternity apart from Christ in Hell.

As I broke down the history of what God did for Israel, I wanted to give it some short summary of what actually happened. What did God actually do for His people that we see in this passage?

- God protected His people.

- God rescued His people from Pharaoh's army.

- God led His people where He wanted them.

- God spoke to His people, giving them His Word.

- God made Himself known to them. He made His Word known to them.

- God provided for His people.

- God quenched the thrust of HIs people - Beatitudes? Matt 5:6

- God directed His people.

That is a huge list of the goodness of God to His people. But how did the people respond to all of this goodness along the way?

III. Confession of Sin and Seeking Restoration

- The people were

- Presumptuous

- Stiff necked

- Disobedient

- They refused to obey.

- They were not mindful… MEANING?

- Of the wonders God had done.

- Siffened their necks again.

- Appointed a leader - So they could go back into slavery. How backwards does that sound? They would take slavery over freedom in order to follow their sinful desires.

After recounting the goodness of God to themselves, they enter into a plea for restoration. They confess God's righteousness and Israel's sin, their slavery, and their distress in v. 32-37

- E. Plea for restoration, confession of God’s righteousness and Israel’s sin, slavery, and distress (9:32–37)

- V. 25 - Delighted in God’s goodness.

- Killed the prophets - sent to warn them

- God gave them over to their enemies

- Time of the judges and the cycle of disobedience during this time.

- Whenever the people called to Him and turned from their sin, He responded.

- V. 29 - reason for warning

- V. 30 - gave them over to the people of the lands

- V. 33 - God deals faithfully. People act wickedly.

- This is about the goodness and faithfulness of God to save His people. - Ultimately He has provided for and saved us in Jesus.

- God gives.

- Repentance - turn from your wicked works v. 35

- Understand: They were slaves in the land where they should have been free because of their refusal to follow God’s way of freedom.

- They were in great distress. They could do nothing about their situation. Only God could. They needed to acknowledge this truth.

- They made the covenant in writing.

Conclusion:

- V. 17 - But you…

- The things God did even though they had broken the covenant on their side…

- Even when they made an idol.

- They were blasphemers.

- Merciful God

- God is faithful even when we are not

Does this seem unfair, that so repeatedly unfaithful a people would still receive such goodness and grace from God? Does it seem like God should have just moved on? Verse 17 tells us what kind of God He is. Look at the last sentence of it.

Nehemiah 9:17 ESV

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. But you are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and did not forsake them.

They had broken their side of the covenant. But God doesn’t break His promises. God is faithful even when people are not. He kept His promises to them and He will keep His promises to us. God’s chosen people to bring glory to His name is the church. He doesn’t just have a nation now, but a universal church of those who believe the gospel and trust Christ. Let me show you how God is still the same.

Do you remember that list of things I said God did for Israel?

- God protected His people. God protects us from a life without Him.

- God rescued His people from Pharaoh's army. God rescues us from slavery to sin.

- God led His people where He wanted them. God still leads us.

- God spoke to His people, giving them His Word. He has revealed Jesus to us in His Word.

- God made Himself known to them. He made His Word known to them. Listen to this: God dwelt among the people in the cloud by day and fire by night. But when Christ came, He came to dwell among us as one of us. As all human and all God and to perfectly fulfill the Law of God. He died for human sin even though He had none of His own.

- God provided for His people. He still provides for us. It might not look like we want, but He provides.

- God quenched the thrust of His people - Beatitudes? Matt 5:6

Matthew 5:6 ESV

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

-God directed His people. He has given us direction for life and living like Jesus in the Bible.

The people were renewing their covenant with God. They were returning to the path that had been laid out before them. They knew God was good and that He would never drop out on His promises. They also knew that went both ways, towards blessing or towards allowing them to be subjugated by other nations. But they trusted in the goodness of God and the trueness of His Word.

“Covenants are made for the hard times, not the good times. They draw us out of ourselves and call us to our commitments.” Gundersen

We have a new covenant in the blood of Jesus. That covenant does call us to a life like Jesus. It calls us to return to the promises of God and repent when we have sinned. And we have the promise of sweet and amazing grace from the cross of Christ and our risen Savior. It’s grace. It’s nothing we can earn. Jesus did it. We are called to trust Him and believe.

Let me illustrate this with some help from Randy Alcorn:

If you’re not stunned by the thought of grace, then you aren’t grasping what grace offers you, or what it cost Jesus. In 1987, eighteen-month-old “Baby Jessica” fell twenty-two feet into a Texas well. Rescuers labored nonstop to save her. After fifty-five grueling hours, her life hanging in the balance, they finally reached her and extracted her from the well. The nation breathed a sigh of relief and cheered the heroes. This was not the story: “Baby Jessica clawed her eighteen-month-old body up the side of that twenty-two foot well, inch by inch, digging in her little toes and working her way up. She’s a hero, that Jessica!”

Baby Jessica was utterly helpless. She could do nothing to deliver herself. Her fate was in the hands of her rescuers. Left to herself, Jessica had no chance. Likewise, when it comes to our salvation, we’re utterly powerless.

That’s grace: Romans 5:6 “At just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6). We get no more applause for our redemption than Baby Jessica got for being rescued. God alone deserves the ovation. In the story of redemption, He’s the only hero. And it didn’t just cost Him fifty-five hours of hard work—it cost Him everything. Do you want to say “Thank You” right now? (From The Grace and Truth Paradox by Randy Alcorn)

How do you need to respond to this grace TODAY?

Don’t leave unfinished business on the table.

PRAY