Confession leads to Re-commitment

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Today we continue our series from Nehemiah. We are going to cover the entire 9th chapter of this book. Aaron preached 2 messages out of chapter 8. We saw where they listened to the entire word of God read to them by Ezra…and by the entire word, I mean the first 5 chapters of the Bible we have now.

This time in the word produced a couple of responses and emotions from them…First a godly sorrow over how they have not followed God and His word. This was followed by joy since they were able to hear God’s word to them and follow it. Chapter 8 ends with a seven day celebratory festival followed by an assembly we don’t get to hear much about.

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That brings us to chapter 9 that takes place in the same month as chapter 8. I am going to approach this chapter slightly different than normal. Normally, I read a few verses at a time and talk about them. Today, I’d like to read the whole chapter to you, but before I do, I want to give you a preview of what you’ll hear and what to listen for.

Most of this chapter is a prayer to God offered by leaders in Jerusalem. This is a prayer of confession and of re-commitment to the Lord. It is unique in that in just a few short verses, recalls the entire history of the nation of Israel and ends with their current condition in Jerusalem.

Many times when we read scripture, I think there are three questions we should ask ourselves as we read:

1. What does this passage say about me or about people?

2. What does this passage say about God, His character and who He is?

3. What conclusions/decisions/actions should I make?

We are going to answer these questions with this passage today.

Let’s go ahead and read...

Nehemiah 9 NIV

1 On the twenty-fourth day of the same month, the Israelites gathered together, fasting and wearing sackcloth and putting dust on their heads. 2 Those of Israelite descent had separated themselves from all foreigners. They stood in their places and confessed their sins and the sins of their ancestors. 3 They stood where they were and read from the Book of the Law of the Lord their God for a quarter of the day, and spent another quarter in confession and in worshiping the Lord their God. 4 Standing on the stairs of the Levites were Jeshua, Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani and Kenani. They cried out with loud voices to the Lord their God. 5 And the Levites—Jeshua, Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah and Pethahiah—said: “Stand up and praise the Lord your God, who is from everlasting to everlasting.” “Blessed be your glorious name, and may it be exalted above all blessing and praise. 6 You alone are the Lord. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to everything, and the multitudes of heaven worship you. 7 “You are the Lord God, who chose Abram and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans and named him Abraham. 8 You found his heart faithful to you, and you made a covenant with him to give to his descendants the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Jebusites and Girgashites. You have kept your promise because you are righteous. 9 “You saw the suffering of our ancestors in Egypt; you heard their cry at the Red Sea. 10 You sent signs and wonders against Pharaoh, against all his officials and all the people of his land, for you knew how arrogantly the Egyptians treated them. You made a name for yourself, which remains to this day. 11 You divided the sea before them, so that they passed through it on dry ground, but you hurled their pursuers into the depths, like a stone into mighty waters. 12 By day you led them with a pillar of cloud, and by night with a pillar of fire to give them light on the way they were to take. 13 “You came down on Mount Sinai; you spoke to them from heaven. You gave them regulations and laws that are just and right, and decrees and commands that are good. 14 You made known to them your holy Sabbath and gave them commands, decrees and laws through your servant Moses. 15 In their hunger you gave them bread from heaven and in their thirst you brought them water from the rock; you told them to go in and take possession of the land you had sworn with uplifted hand to give them. 16 “But they, our ancestors, became arrogant and stiff-necked, and they did not obey your commands. 17 They refused to listen and failed to remember the miracles you performed among them. They became stiff-necked and in their rebellion appointed a leader in order to return to their slavery. But you are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. Therefore you did not desert them, 18 even when they cast for themselves an image of a calf and said, ‘This is your god, who brought you up out of Egypt,’ or when they committed awful blasphemies. 19 “Because of your great compassion you did not abandon them in the wilderness. By day the pillar of cloud did not fail to guide them on their path, nor the pillar of fire by night to shine on the way they were to take. 20 You gave your good Spirit to instruct them. You did not withhold your manna from their mouths, and you gave them water for their thirst. 21 For forty years you sustained them in the wilderness; they lacked nothing, their clothes did not wear out nor did their feet become swollen. 22 “You gave them kingdoms and nations, allotting to them even the remotest frontiers. They took over the country of Sihon king of Heshbon and the country of Og king of Bashan. 23 You made their children as numerous as the stars in the sky, and you brought them into the land that you told their parents to enter and possess. 24 Their children went in and took possession of the land. You subdued before them the Canaanites, who lived in the land; you gave the Canaanites into their hands, along with their kings and the peoples of the land, to deal with them as they pleased. 25 They captured fortified cities and fertile land; they took possession of houses filled with all kinds of good things, wells already dug, vineyards, olive groves and fruit trees in abundance. They ate to the full and were well-nourished; they reveled in your great goodness. 26 “But they were disobedient and rebelled against you; they turned their backs on your law. They killed your prophets, who had warned them in order to turn them back to you; they committed awful blasphemies. 27 So you delivered them into the hands of their enemies, who oppressed them. But when they were oppressed they cried out to you. From heaven you heard them, and in your great compassion you gave them deliverers, who rescued them from the hand of their enemies. 28 “But as soon as they were at rest, they again did what was evil in your sight. Then you abandoned them to the hand of their enemies so that they ruled over them. And when they cried out to you again, you heard from heaven, and in your compassion you delivered them time after time. 29 “You warned them in order to turn them back to your law, but they became arrogant and disobeyed your commands. They sinned against your ordinances, of which you said, ‘The person who obeys them will live by them.’ Stubbornly they turned their backs on you, became stiff-necked and refused to listen. 30 For many years you were patient with them. By your Spirit you warned them through your prophets. Yet they paid no attention, so you gave them into the hands of the neighboring peoples. 31 But in your great mercy you did not put an end to them or abandon them, for you are a gracious and merciful God. 32 “Now therefore, our God, the great God, mighty and awesome, who keeps his covenant of love, do not let all this hardship seem trifling in your eyes—the hardship that has come on us, on our kings and leaders, on our priests and prophets, on our ancestors and all your people, from the days of the kings of Assyria until today. 33 In all that has happened to us, you have remained righteous; you have acted faithfully, while we acted wickedly. 34 Our kings, our leaders, our priests and our ancestors did not follow your law; they did not pay attention to your commands or the statutes you warned them to keep. 35 Even while they were in their kingdom, enjoying your great goodness to them in the spacious and fertile land you gave them, they did not serve you or turn from their evil ways. 36 “But see, we are slaves today, slaves in the land you gave our ancestors so they could eat its fruit and the other good things it produces. 37 Because of our sins, its abundant harvest goes to the kings you have placed over us. They rule over our bodies and our cattle as they please. We are in great distress. 38 “In view of all this, we are making a binding agreement, putting it in writing, and our leaders, our Levites and our priests are affixing their seals to it.”

Let look at our questions again, one at a time...

1. What does this passage say about me or about people?

This passage covers the history of the nation of Israel from Abram all the way through their current condition.

The first thing we see is that:

God’s people were special.

We see that while God also created all of humanity and the entire universe, he saw fit to make a special covenant with Abram and changed his name to Abraham as he made a promise to Abraham to bless the earth with his descendants.

The New Testament has something similar to say to us as God’s people...

1 Peter 2:9 NIV

9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

Just as Abraham received the promise of being God’s nation and chosen people, we have received a similar promise through the promise of what Jesus has done for us.

The next theme in Nehemiah 9 is that

God delivered His people.

First, it was from slavery in Egypt through some amazing acts of God. Then at the end of verse 28, they make the observation that in God’s compassion He delivered them time and time again.

This is who our God is. He is a deliverer for His people who turn to Him. We have the ultimate deliverance from our sin through Jesus and his work on the cross. Look what Colossians 1:13-14 has to say...

Colossians 1:13–14 NIV

13 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

I am so thankful for the deliverance that Christ offers us.

Another observation about people, and ultimately about me...

God’s people are prone to rebellion.

I am saddened by this. You would think that if someone saw the great miracles of the Exodus from Egypt and those stories are retold that people would never cease following God, but that is just not the case.

Time and time again, God’s people chose their own path and ultimately rebellion. Over and over again. I read those stories and think…what knuckleheads those people were and then i think about myself…and I remember these words from Paul in Romans 7...

Romans 7:15–20 NIV

15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

While I can relate to the words of Paul here about the struggle in the flesh…this was the struggle of the nation of Israel that resulted in their constant rebellion, this is not the condition we have to stay in…look what it says a few verses later in chapter 8...

Romans 8:9–11 NIV

9 You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. 10 But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. 11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.

We have the hope of Christ in us that is the Holy Spirit who will help us in resisting the rebellion that we are prone to.

This is what the people in Nehemiah’s day lacked. They end Nehemiah 9 with a re-commitment to the Lord with a binding agreement, but this agreement was no different than all the other agreements they made. Ultimately they would again fall into a pattern of rebellion as we’ll see in Nehemiah 13.

Our second question was this:

2. What does this passage say about God, His character and who He is?

The first thing I noticed that was mentioned several times was the statement that:

God is Righteous

The first mention was in verse 8 when they called God righteous for keeping his promise to Abraham, but even more shocking to me was this statement in verse 33...

Nehemiah 9:33 NIV

33 In all that has happened to us, you have remained righteous; you have acted faithfully, while we acted wickedly.

What an amazing acknowledgement. God was righteous and faithful even when sending the people into exile. That is so often the complete opposite today when bad things are happening. People like to blame God for the bad. This is probably the most difficult conversation pastors have with people. Why does God allow bad things to happen?

The truth is that we can’t see the whole story. We don’t know the full result of the bad thing we see happen. A few years ago, my cousin’s daughter went through a horrific health battle that resulted in her receiving a double lung transplant. While it was a blessing for her, I have thought about the family on the other end of those lungs.

One thing I know is that I can trust that God in His infinite wisdom and knowledge will always act righteously and faithfully because that is who he is.

Next, even in their rebellion,

God is Merciful and Gracious.

Although we often see these words together, they have different meanings. One is a withholding and the other is a giving.

In God’s mercy, he continued to keep a remnant, he continued to pursue them and provided a way out for them when they deserved to be completely cut off and destroyed. That is what God’s full judgement could have extracted from them, but in his mercy God didn’t.

In God’s mercy for you and for me, Jesus took the penalty for our sins. While we deserved eternal death, God sent Jesus to take on our punishment for us.

By God’s grace, God provided for the nation of Israel all throughout. They didn’t deserve it at times. They were a whiny, complaining bunch and yet God provided. He provided manna and quail to eat in the desert. He provided water from a rock when they needed it. God gave them fertile ground…

While mercy is withholding a just punishment, grace is a giving of unearned favor or blessing.

Let me give you a New Testament story of mercy and Grace...

Peter was one of the disciples, many call him the disciple who was closest to Jesus. Just as Jesus was about to be arrested and hung on the cross, Peter claimed he would never disown Jesus. Yet, after Jesus arrest, Peter would deny Jesus three times that first night.

Peter deserved to also be disowned by Jesus and Peter’s remorse reflected that, but Jesus didn’t disown him. Instead, after the resurrection, Jesus would encourage Peter three times to illustrate his mercy for Peter, and for us.

After Pentecost, Peter would preach the first sermon of the new church age and 3,000 people were saved. That is God’s grace working to allow this denier to be part of the first harvest.

That brings us to the last question...

3. What conclusions/decisions/actions should I make?

At the end of Nehemiah 9, what started as confession left God’s people compelled to make a commitment to God - to make a binding agreement.

We’ll talk next week about the commitment they made. There are some great elements to that commitment and parallels for us today, but let’s talk about where this passage leaves us...

They saw who they were and are. They saw who God is. This is what God’s Word did. With this revelation, they came to place of decision. They wanted to please God. They wanted to commit their lives to following Him and doing what His Word was telling them to do.

God word has a way of doing that for us as well. Have you come to the place where you have remorse for your sin condition. Not just your condition, but your sinful actions? Have you seen a picture of the God of the universe who is not only holy and righteous, but also merciful and gracious?

He wants to be that for you as well. This is why He sent his son Jesus. God’s word calls us to be a people who would confess their sins just as the people of Israel did in Nehemiah. But the word tells us to repent of those sins as well. That means to turn away from our sin to turn toward Jesus and make him the Lord of our life.

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Closing