Nehemiah 9:1-37: Free at Last

Nehemiah 9:1-37: Free at Last

Please turn with me in your Bibles to Nehemiah 9. If you’re using one of the Story Bibles we provide, that’s on page 325. We’ve been going through the book of Nehemiah passage by passage, and this morning the next passage we come to is Nehemiah 9. And before we go any farther, let me pray. 

Sometimes our problems have surprisingly simple solutions. Not too long ago, I had a problem with my garbage disposal. I flipped the switch that would normally turn the garbage disposal on, and nothing happened. No noise, no rattling sound, nothing. So I immediately started trying to figure out what the problem was. I looked down to into the garbage disposal to make sure nothing was caught in there. I also went downstairs to the basement and flipped the circuit breaker switch to make sure that wasn’t the issue. And after that, I couldn’t really think of much else to do. So I started thinking about how much money it was going to cost to buy a new unit and whether I’d be able to install it myself and perhaps save a few bucks that way. So I opened the cabinet under the sink and started checking out how the garbage disposal was installed and was trying to determine whether it would be too complicated for me to do. But then, as I was examining the unit, I noticed this strange red button on the bottom of it. So of course, I pushed the button, and lo and behold, and garbage disposal started working again. I couldn’t believe it. I was so happy—because usually home projects end up being a lot more work than I initially think they’ll be, but in this case I just had to push a silly button and everything was working again. The solution was surprisingly simple. 

Let me ask you something: Have you ever felt like you have a problem spiritually—like something just isn’t right between you and God, like there’s some kind of invisible wall preventing you from being close to him? Maybe you feel that way right now. If so, could it be that the solution to you feeling disconnected from God is just as simple as the solution to my garbage disposal problem? Could it be that a meaningful connection with God and closeness to God is something that’s entirely attainable even before you leave this room today? 

Now don’t get me wrong. Sometimes, as a Christian, there are seasons where God will seemingly hide his face from you in order to strengthen your faith and accomplish specific purposes in your life. Sometimes that’s the case. But a lot of the time, the reason we feel disconnected from God is a lot simpler than that. Isaiah 59:2 explains it this way: “But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.” So a lot of the time, the reason we’re disconnected from God is because there’s sin in our life what we haven’t dealt with. Perhaps we’ve convinced ourselves that our sin isn’t really a very big deal and that we can still be close to God even while we’re walking in sin. But of course, we can’t. So the solution whenever we’ve been tolerating sin is to confess our sin to God. That’s what has to happen if we want to be close to him. It’s actually quite simple. 

And if we look to our main text in Nehemiah 9, we see that the Israelites understand that. To give you a little bit of background, the Israelites are in the middle of a national revival. That’s what has been happening ever since the beginning of chapter 8. And we see in chapter 9 that a core component of this revival and really every revival in the Bible is that the people were broken over their sin. By the way, that’s how you know God’s really working. One of the clearest signs God’s at work in someone’s life is that they’re sensitive to their sins and are confessing those sins to God. And that’s certainly the case with the Israelites as we see summarized in verses 1-3 of chapter 9. It says, 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. So those verses give a summary of the chapter. And as we look at a more detailed account of Israel’s confession in the rest of the chapter, there’s something very specific about their confession I’d like us to observe. The Israelites confess their sins in light of God’s grace. I believe that’s the main idea of this chapter. The Israelites confess their sins in light of God’s grace. And there are two ways in which God’s grace is central to their confession. Number one, Israel’s confession is prompted by grace. And number two, Israel’s confession is encouraged by grace.

Israel’s Confession Is Prompted by Grace

So first, let’s look at how Israel’s confession is prompted by grace. Here’s what I mean by that. The Israelites recognized that God had been unbelievably gracious to their nation. Even though he didn’t owe them anything, he blessed them time and time again. In verses 7-8, the Israelites recount how it all began. God graciously chose their ancestor Abraham and made a covenant with him, promising to give him countless descendants (which would later become the nation of Israel) and to give him a particularly desirable chunk of land (which would later become the land of Israel). 

Then the Israelites continue to describe God’s grace in verses 9-15: 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. 

So God had been unbelievably gracious to the Israelites throughout their history. He didn’t treat any other nation the way he treated Israel, and he certainly wasn’t under any obligation to do all of this for them either. It was pure grace. And that’s what made Israel’s continual rebellion against God, that we’ll see described later in the chapter, so messed up. They were rebelling against the One who had done all of these things for them. It reminds me of a very sad story I recently saw in the local news. I’m sure most of you remember the church we used to meet in up until a couple of months ago—Fairhaven Methodist Church. Well, it turns out that Fairhaven’s music director named Ricardo was actually murdered just a few weeks ago. Apparently, Ricardo had somehow encountered this guy several years ago who was having some difficulties in life. And since the guy needed a place to stay, Ricardo invited him into his home and actually let this guy continue living in his home for years and did all these things to help him out. According to the news article, it even got to the point where Ricardo referred to this man as his nephew even though they weren’t biologically related. But then, something happened (we don’t know exactly what), and this man turned on Ricardo and murdered him. The police found Ricardo’s body a few days later laying in the house with a gunshot wound to the head as well as multiple stab wounds on the body. And so far, every indication is that the “nephew” did it. Not surprisingly, they’ve arrested the nephew and turned him over to a psychiatric hospital. And when I read that story on the local news website, I thought to myself, “Wow. Ricardo helped this guy out in pretty significant ways for years, and the guy does that to him.” I mean, any time someone murders another person, it’s terrible. But this murder is especially messed up because of all Ricardo did for the perpetrator.  

Yet when you think about it, we’re behaving in a similar way when we sin against God. Back in Nehemiah 9, the Israelites recognize that their sins against God are particularly loathsome because of all the ways God’s been gracious to them over the years. God’s grace makes their rebellion that much worse. And we’re in a similar position. Think about all the ways God’s been gracious to you. First of all, he’s your Creator. You wouldn’t even exist apart from him. And God created not only you but also everything around you that you enjoy. If you’ve ever enjoyed good food, God created that food and let you eat it. If you’ve ever enjoyed a nice vacation at the beach, God created that beach and let you go there. If you’ve ever enjoyed time with your family, God created them too and allowed you to enjoy that time. God created the sun that shines on you, the air you breathe, and the water you drink. He’s also the one who’s provided the house you live in, the car you drive, and the job you have—if you work outside the home. We could go on and on about all the ways God’s blessed us. And all the things we’ve mentioned so far are just his earthly blessings. We haven’t even begun to get into all the heavenly blessings God’s given us through his Son Jesus. And the crazy thing is that none of these blessings have been deserved. God isn’t and has never been obligated to give us anything. You know, when I go to the bank and withdraw money, I’m not overwhelmingly grateful to them for giving me the cash. I might say a polite “thank you,” but the teller and I both know that the bank owes me that money. It’s my money that I put in there. So when they give it to me, I deserve it. But that’s not the way it is with God’s blessings. We don’t deserve any of the blessings he’s given. And yet, he’s given us so much. 

And that’s what makes our sin so messed up. When we think about our sin in light of all the ways God’s been gracious to us, it should make us weep. And as we think of more and more examples of his grace and generosity and kindness and love, it should make us weep even more. God’s grace is what makes our sin so heinous. And that’s what should ultimately lead us to confess our sins to God with a repentant heart. Certainly, there are other legitimate reasons to confess our sins such as avoiding God’s punishment. That in itself a pretty good reason to confess and forsake sin. But it’s not the highest reason. The ultimate motive for our confession should be that we’re genuinely grieved—grieved as we consider the ways we’ve repaid God for his kindness toward us and grieved as we consider the grief our sins have brought to this God. According to the Bible, that should be our ultimate motive for confession and repentance. We should confess and repent in a profoundly God centered way. And in Nehemiah 9, that’s what we see the Israelites doing. Their confession is prompted by their remembrance of God’s grace. 

Israel’s Confession Is Encouraged by Grace 

Then secondly, not only is their confession prompted by grace, we see that it’s also encouraged by grace. That’s the second point. Israel’s confession is encouraged by grace. In other words, they believe that if they confess, God’s going to respond to that confession by graciously forgiving them. Why would they think that? Well, let’s just say God had a long history of forgiving the Israelites when they truly turned back to him. And in verses 16-31, the Israelites recount that history. Listen to what they say to God in verses 16-17: 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. Isn’t that a wonderful description of God—“a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love”? And because of those things, the end of the verse says, God did not forsake his people. But then, as the Israelites admit in the next few verses, they sinned again against God, this time by worshipping the golden calf. Yet God still didn’t forsake them but continued to bless them by enabling them to conquer and settle in the Promised Land. So you’d think they’d finally be faithful. But the cycle continues in verses 26-28. And honestly, it gets a little ridiculous. Beginning at verse 26, 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. Then the section concludes with the Israelites using the same phrase to describe God they had used back in verse 17: “a gracious and merciful God.” 

So because God had been so gracious in forgiving the Israelites time after time in the past, that grace gives them the boldness to, yet again, confess their sins and beg for God’s forgiveness. Notice how they use the word “therefore” in verse 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….” In other words, “Therefore, God, since you’ve been so gracious to forgive in the past, please forgive in the present.” So their confession was encouraged by grace—the comforting remembrance of past grace and the confident expectation of present grace. 

Now you and I are not Israel in the Old Testament. But I believe we can be just as confident of God’s gracious forgiveness as they were. In fact, based on the promises God makes in the New Testament, I would say we can be even more confident. The clearest promise that comes to mind is 1 John 1:8-9: 8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Isn’t that comforting? Forgiveness isn’t just a possibility; it’s a guarantee. So rather than saying we have no sin and deceiving ourselves, God invites us to freely confess our sins to him and receive his forgiveness and cleansing. He promises that’s how he’ll respond. 

You know, sometimes, you can never tell how someone’s going to respond. I think of Kim Jong Un over there in North Korea. You never really know what that guy’s going to do. I imagine that the leaders under him probably live in perpetual fear for their lives. So if you think your boss at work is tough, just imagine working for that guy. But God’s not like that. We know exactly how he’ll respond to our confession because he tells us. He says he’ll forgive us. And the way he forgiveness us is through Jesus. Notice that verse in 1 John describes God as “faithful and just to forgive us.” So he’s “faithful” to forgive in the sense that he’ll keep the promises he’s made to forgive. And he’s also “just” to forgive, meaning that his forgiveness is perfectly consistent with his justice. You see, God’s justice demands that sin be punished. God can’t turn a blind eye to sin and be just any more than a human judge can turn a blind eye to sin and be just. So he has to punish sin. But that’s where Jesus comes in. The reason Jesus died on the cross was to satisfy the requirements of justice. Our sins had to be punished—somebody had to pay—so Jesus stepped in and suffered that punishment and paid that price. That’s how much God loves us. You won’t find love like that anywhere else in this world. Nobody possesses it nor has anyone even imagined it. Yet God demonstrated that love when he gave his own Son to die in place of his enemies. And it’s through Jesus’ death, coupled with his subsequent resurrection, that our sins can be forgiven. In the words of 1 John, that’s how God’s both “faithful and just” in our forgiveness. 

Conclusion

So maybe this morning, you feel the burden of your sin. Maybe the whole time I’ve been talking, the Holy Spirit’s been prodding your heart and making you very uncomfortable. That’s actually not a bad place to be. The bad place to be is to be calloused to your sin and giving yourself over to it without a second thought. But sensing the Spirit’s conviction in your heart is actually a very good thing. There’s hope for you! Because if you’ll confess your sin to God and turn away from it, you can be free. I love that image in the classic book Pilgrim’s Progress where one of the characters, named Christian, is carrying a tremendous burden on his back. And the whole book is intended to be allegorical, so this huge burden represents sin. And wherever Christian goes, that burden goes with him. He can’t figure out how to get it off.  It’s nearly crushing him. But then in his travels, he arrives at the cross. And as soon as Christian comes to the cross, the burden he’s been carrying drops from his shoulders, tumbles down a hill, and falls into an open grave where presumably it’s never seen or heard from again. It’s gone forever. 

Likewise, this morning, no matter how heavy of a burden you’re carrying, you can be free from that burden through Jesus. You don’t have to shoulder that weight any longer. Listen to this invitation Jesus offers in Matthew 11:28. He says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Just come to him. As we see in Nehemiah 9, confess your sins to him. You’ll find mercy. Proverbs 28:13 states, “Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.” You can obtain mercy even this morning. Confess your sins to God and look to Jesus as your only hope of rescue—and you’ll be forgiven. And if you have any questions about that, feel free to pull me aside after the service and just ask me. I’ll be standing out in the welcome area and would love for you to do that. Or if you want, you can fill out one of these Connection Cards and at the bottom, just put “schedule a conversation.” Write that at the bottom: “schedule a conversation.” Then you can place that card in the wooden box on the back table.  

Or maybe you’re here and you’ve already embraced Jesus and you’re genuinely a Christian, but you’ve been tolerating a certain sin in your life. Recognize that you’ll never be close to God as long as you keep trying to hold onto that sin. Psalm 15:1-2 says it pretty clearly: 1 O Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill? 2 He who walks blamelessly and does what is right….  If you’re truly a Christian, I believe God will show you your sin. Chances are, he already has. And if you’ll confess that sin to him with a repentant heart, he’ll take you back. He’ll restore you to close fellowship with himself. But you have to make a decision: God or the sin? Because you can’t have both. God’s a jealous Lover who doesn’t tolerate any third parties in the relationship. So he invites you to experience the joy of his presence and the wonders of his person, but he requires that you forsake whatever sin you’re holding onto. Let’s pray.