Faithful God, Unfaithful People

0:44And that means three additional months since the last time they've had their teeth brushed at all. So that got me thinking, it must be discouraging to be a dentist. I mean, here you are, a certified doctor who's studied for years and been through a residency and practiced. You know what you're talking about. You know what's best for teeth and leads to the flourishing of the mouth. So you see people and you issue these commands. Brush your teeth twice daily.

1:16Floss every day. Rinse regularly with fluoride. And without fail, these people come back to you next time with cavities and in all kinds of pain because they have utterly disregarded everything that you've just told them. Surely, every single dentist in the world is a Christian, because I don't think there's any other profession where you can relate as closely to what it's like to be God, who issues commands and warnings and directives to us that we regularly ignore.

1:51Friends, we're covering Nehemiah chapter 9 today, where the people are going to gather, assemble once again to worship God and to read the word. But unlike what they did in chapter 8, they're going to be gathering today for the express purpose of confessing their sin before him. They're going to spend the majority of the chapter talking about how they have ignored God's warnings and rebelled against his commands despite his perfect faithfulness to them. And so what we're going to reflect on today is the faithfulness of God. And we're going to be challenged by the reality that because God is perfectly faithful to us, we must strive to be faithful to him.

2:32So let's look now at the text together, beginning in verse 1. You see that now it's the 24th day of the month. The people have celebrated the Feast of Booths in the last week and the Feast of Trumpets at the beginning of the month. Both of those were celebrations that were largely celebratory in nature. They were times of great rejoicing. But they gather again here on the 24th day of the month, and they're wearing sackcloth. They've got dust on their heads, and they have been falling. Fasting. They've separated themselves from all foreigners, that is, anyone who did not worship the one true God of Israel.

3:07And this time, they have not gathered to celebrate, but to mourn, to confess their sins before the Lord. As we see in verse 3, they spend a quarter of the day reading the law of the Lord. Then they spend a quarter of the day praising God and confessing their sins to Him. As we observed last week, the Word of God convicts us of our sin. You remember back to chapter 8, the Word of God is read, and the people experience great conviction over their sin, and they begin to weep.

3:40They begin to mourn over the fact that they have disobeyed God. You see, that's what conviction is. Conviction is an awareness that we have not kept God's commands, that we have disobeyed Him. But conviction alone does not honor the Lord. To honor the Lord, we have to move from conviction to confession. See, confession is different than conviction. Conviction is an awareness of sin, but confession is agreeing with God that we have broken His law. It's acknowledging that that was wrong, and it's recognizing that we deserve punishment for our disobedience and rebellion.

4:19That's what confession is. See, everyone, including non-Christians, experiences conviction for sin. Everyone knows what it feels like to do sin. Something or think something or say something and then immediately be convinced in your heart, in your soul, in your mind, that was wrong. Christians and non-Christians experience conviction, but we cannot mistake conviction for confession. We have to remember that John does not say if we're convicted of our sins, God will forgive us. What does he say? Look at 1 John 1:9 on the screen.

4:56If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So the people gather to confess their sins on this 24th day of the month. And the Levites, as you see in these first few verses, they command the people to come together and to stand and bless the Lord, whose name is exalted above all blessing and praise. And during this time, they praise God by acknowledging both who he is, his character and his nature, as well as what he has done, his faithfulness to the people of God throughout all generations.

5:38And so in verse 6, if you look there, you see the people begin by confessing who God is. You are the Lord, you alone. They acknowledge that he is the creator. Look what it says. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their hosts, the earth, and all that is on it. They acknowledge God as the creator, but they also acknowledge him as the sustainer of the world. Look at what he says. You preserve all of them.

6:05This is very important, all of this, to begin with a confession of who God is. You see, God is both creator and sustainer. Many of the founding fathers of our country recognized that God was the creator of the world, but they had a very deistic worldview. They believed that God created all things and then just set them in motion and stepped back. It has nothing to do with the world now. But as we see here and in many other places in Scripture, God is not just the creator, He's also the sustainer of the world. He's the one that keeps everything in motion, that holds everything together, as Paul talks about in Colossians chapter 1. He is intimately involved in our world today, just as he was when he began and created all things. Now, I want you to see that although this chapter is mainly about the people coming together to confess their sin before the Lord, they don't begin with confession.

6:57They don't begin by talking about their sin. And I think that's instructive for us, both for our prayer lives as well as for our evangelism as we share our faith with others. See, they begin with a confession of who God is. But oftentimes, and if we think especially about our evangelism, we don't begin with who God is. We begin by talking about Jesus, or we begin by talking about our sin. Now, when we share our faith with others, it's critical to tell the truth about who Jesus is.

7:29It's critical to tell us about the truth. To tell the truth about our sin and what it means for our relationship with God. But oftentimes in our gospel presentations, we leave out and don't start with God. And so I want you to imagine that you're a missionary in a foreign country and you are going to be talking to people about your faith. Where are you going to begin? You're going to begin not with Jesus, not with sin. You're going to begin where the Bible does, with God. Acknowledging that He is the creator and sustainer of the world. Because, friends, if there is no creator and sustainer of the world to whom we are all accountable, then it doesn't really matter what else we might say about our sin or about Jesus if we have no one to whom we are accountable, no one to whom we must answer at the day of judgment.

8:18And so they begin by acknowledging who God is. He is the creator and the sustainer of all things. And then in verse 7, if you see there, the people transition to confessing all that God has done for them. So they thank God for this. They begin with God choosing Abram, this pagan man who did not worship God and was not seeking God. He begins by choosing Abram, and then Abram responds with faith. And he goes out and does what God called him to do. Leave your country, leave your family, your kindred, and go to the land that I'm going to show you.

8:50God made him these great promises, promised to make him a multitude of nations and to bless all the families of the earth through him. Promised him land one day. And at the end of verse 8, we see this, and you have kept your promise, for you are righteous. That's a recurring theme in Nehemiah chapter 9: is that God has kept every promise that he has made. This is an important chapter for us, friends, because I think so many things happen to us in life, and we begin to question God's faithfulness. We begin to ask the question: you know, God, do you still care about me?

9:27Will you still honor your word, what you've said? And we can begin to doubt those things. So it's critical that we have these reminders, like in Nehemiah chapter 9, that call us to remember that God has kept every promise that he's made, and that he will keep his promises to us as well. They move on to these 400 years of captivity in Egypt, where God saw their affliction. Look at verse 9, and heard their cry at the Red Sea.

9:55So God delivers them from slavery in Egypt and from Pharaoh. He delivers them from the pursuit of the army after them by parting the waters of the Red Sea. He led them through 40 years in the wilderness, guiding them by a pillar of cloud during the day and a pillar of fire by night. He revealed himself to Moses on Mount Sinai, sharing with them his just and true laws, his right rules. And he shares with them, especially the Sabbath day, this good news that because God is their provider, they don't have to work themselves to death like every other people group around them. They can rest and worship one day in seven because God has promised to take care of them. And he did just that over 40 years in the wilderness. You look there, and it says that their sandals did not wear out, their feet did not swell over 40 years of wandering. God was faithful to keep all of his promises. And one of the things that I want you to notice, especially in this section, verses 1 through 15, is that God is the one who is acting on behalf of his people. God is the one who's acting on behalf of his people. The people are the recipients, the beneficiaries of God's actions. If you start in verse 7 and you move through verse 15, look at how many verbs that we have here. You'll notice them in the English. You have made, you preserved, you chose, you brought, you gave, you found, you have kept, you saw, you heard, you knew, you made, you divided, you cast, you led, you came down, you make known, you gave, you told.

11:41I don't know any other section of Scripture where there are that many verbs all in a row in just eight verses that so highlight God as the primary actor who is acting on behalf of his people. See, friends, I think we get it backwards. So many professing Christians seem to think that human beings are the primary actors, and God is waiting in heaven to respond to our action. But the message that we get all through the scripture and in this passage particularly is that God is acting and we are responding to what he is doing.

12:22He is the primary actor and we are responding. Now, we are responsible moral agents. We do act, we do make choices with consequences, but we act in response to what God is doing. He is the primary actor, and he is working on behalf of his people and has been working on behalf of his people since the creation and foundation of the world. That is very good news. He was perfectly faithful from the time that he called Abraham to the time that he brought the people into the promised land. But unfortunately, as we're going to start seeing in verse 16, the people weren't always faithful to him. Let's look at verse 16 together.

13:07But they and our fathers acted presumptuously and stiffened their neck and did not obey your commandments. 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 sorrow. Steadfast love, and did not forsake them. 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. 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. You gave your good spirit to instruct them, and did not withhold your manna from their mouth, and gave them water for their thirst. Forty years you sustained them in the wilderness, and they lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out, and their feet did not swell. 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 Bashon. 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. 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. 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.

15:00Well, as we see in this passage, the sad reality was that the Israelites stiffened their necks. They didn't obey God's commands. They committed great blasphemies by fashioning and worshiping a golden calf and almost unbelievably appointing a leader to return to slavery in Egypt. Though God was perfectly faithful, his people were not faithful to him. They turned away from him and they presumed upon his grace. But thankfully, God is unlike all of the gods of the nations around them. God is not vengeful, that he wishes to cast out his people from his presence. But instead, if you look at verse 17 again, it says here that God is ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.

15:51That is such an important word for us. Because here we see how the people have responded to God and his grace and his mercy. Time and time again, they rejected him. Time and time again, they disobeyed him. And yet, what does it say? God was ready to forgive. God was eager to show grace and mercy to them. But if you think about ourselves and how we respond when we are sinned against, we're often hesitant to forgive people who have sinned against us even one single time.

16:22And that's why Jesus tells us in the New Testament that just as we have been forgiven, so we must forgive others. Contrary. To the popular teaching of the day, people don't get seven chances and then they're done. Jesus says, you forgive 70 times seven. In other words, you go on forgiving as long as they come to you and ask for forgiveness. You keep on forgiving, just as God forgives. Well, after 40 years in the wilderness, God brings them into the promised land, as we see there in verse 22.

16:53They drove out these proud, rebellious kings who hated God and took inheritance of that land that God had promised to give them. And if you look at the end of verse 25, it says this again. So they ate and were filled and became fat and delighted themselves in your great goodness. If only that were the end of the story. Before the people entered the promised land and before Moses died, he spoke these words in Deuteronomy chapter 8. Look on the screen.

17:26Moses warned, Take care lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today. Lest, when you have eaten and are full, and have built good houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, who led you. Through the great and terrifying wilderness with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you to do you good in the end.

18:22You see, friends, trials and suffering normally have the effect of leading us to God. Trials and suffering normally have the effect of leading us to God because when we experience trials and suffering, we come to the end of ourselves and we realize, where else do I have to turn? I have to throw myself on the mercy of God. There's no other options. Now, it's true, sometimes when we go through trials and suffering, it leads us away from God. We begin to question his promises and his goodness, and that's certainly what happened to Israel during various times as they were wandering in the wilderness.

18:55But I think, guys, far more than trial and suffering, perhaps a far greater danger is prosperity. It's forgetting God in times of prosperity. And that's why Moses warned the Israelites like he did. And that's why Jesus says this in Matthew chapter 19. Again, look on the screen. Jesus said to his disciples, Truly I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. Again, I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. For a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.

19:36Now, I think a lot of times we read those verses from Jesus and we think to ourselves, yeah, I could see that. You know, wealthy people, they have a hard time entering the kingdom of God. And we think to ourselves, you know, the disciples probably thought that too, right? Jesus says these words, and they're thinking about their wealthy friends, and they're like, yeah, that probably is hard for them to enter the kingdom of heaven. But I want you to remember: the disciples, almost all of them, were not wealthy. In fact, they were very poor. They were fishermen. They were common people with little education.

20:08And if you read the rest of chapter 19, when Jesus speaks these words and he says that it's with difficulty that a rich man can enter the kingdom of heaven, the disciples say this, who then can be saved? These fishermen, these uneducated followers, are so taken aback with this statement that they ask the question essentially, then who is going to ever make it into the kingdom if that's true? See, friends, the problem with the way that we view wealth is that there's always someone who's wealthier than us. There's always someone who makes a higher salary or who has more things or who lives a more luxurious lifestyle. And so we always read these things and we think Jesus is talking to someone. Else. He's not talking to me. But if you look at the statistics on wealth in the world, friends, the very fact that we live indoors, the fact that we have plumbing and electricity, the fact that we have phones, smartphones in our pockets, we are in the top 1% of the world. These words, these warnings are directed to us, not only to people like Bill Gates.

21:30So we have to understand that when we look at the danger of prosperity, we have to receive this as for ourselves. Wealth can lead us to conclude that we don't need God because it can be used to buy comfort and pleasure, security. It can give us the illusion of self-sufficiency. And that's why Jesus says, not just to the super wealthy, but to people like you and me, that it's difficult, if you're wealthy, to enter the kingdom of God. So we have to be careful. We have to watch out. That's the very warning that Moses gave. So let's pick up in verse 26 and see what happened to them after they became wealthy.

22:15Nevertheless, 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. 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. 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, 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. Many years you bore with them and warned them by your spirit through the prophets, yet they would not give ear. Therefore you gave them into the hand of the peoples of the lands. Nevertheless, in your great mercies, you did not make an end of them or forsake them, for you are a gracious and merciful God.

23:35See, those last two verses, 30 and 31, they perfectly summarize Israel's experience from the time of the judges to the time of the exile. During that period, God bore with them and warned them repeatedly, but they refused to listen, and they even put God's prophets to death. God disciplined them through temporary judgments like military defeats and famine. Caused by pestilence or drought. And afterward, every time, the people would confess their sins and cry out for deliverance, and so God would deliver them. But as soon as they were settled and prospering again, they would go right back into the same cycle of disobedience, of forgetting God, of turning aside to false gods. The word again and again in this chapter that's used is presumptuously. They presumed upon the grace of God.

24:30You see, friends, the sin of presumption is one that not just the Israelites deal with, but one that we deal with as well as God's people. The sin of presumption is essentially saying, God, I know that you say that this choice or this decision, this way of life is wrong, but I'm going to do it anyway because I think that you will forgive me, because you've forgiven me before. That's the sin of presumption. It is one thing to sin against God.

25:03It is a different thing to sin against God, as the Bible talks about, with a high hand. To say, God, I don't care that your word says that this is wrong. I'm going to do it anyway. And that's what the people of Israel did again and again. They cast God's commands aside. They cast him behind their backs, and they did whatever they wanted to do. And so finally, God gave them into the hands of the other nations. Assyria conquered the northern countries. Kingdom. Babylon conquered the southern kingdom. Persia conquered Babylon. And so for the last 150 years now, they have been under foreign rule.

25:41They have turned away from God and they've reaped what they've sown. And yet, according to verse 31, God did not make an end of them or forsake them. The very evidence of that fact is the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, which we've been studying this year. God didn't make an end of his people or forsake them. He brought them back just as he promised to do hundreds of years earlier. He has been faithful to keep his word. So that's their confession. They acknowledge their father's sins from hundreds of years ago. They acknowledge their own sins from today. They confess them before the Lord. And so now what are they going to ask of God? How will they petition him? Well, let's pick up in verse 32.

26:28Now, therefore, our God, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love, let not all the hardships 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. Yet you have been righteous in all that has come upon us, for you have dealt faithfully, and we have acted wickedly. Our kings, our princes, our priests, and our fathers have not kept your law or paid its. Attention to your commandments and your warnings that you gave them, even in their own kingdom, and amidst 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. 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, 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. 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.

27:47At the end of this prayer, the people say, God, we have gotten exactly what we deserved. You have been faithful, and we have acted wickedly. Nevertheless, they ask God, let not all this hardship seem little to you that has come upon us. They say, God, in spite of the fact that all of this is our fault, in spite of the fact that all of this rebellion has been brought back on our heads by us getting exactly what we deserve, we ask you to remember us. We ask you not to forsake us. Even though they're back in the promised land, they're still not free. They're slaves in a different way, but they're slaves just like they were in Egypt before God ever delivered them. And the great irony of this whole situation is that 600 years ago, the people begged the prophet Samuel to install a king over them, just like the kings of the other nations.

28:43And so God said, if that's what you want, that's what you'll get. And so he gave them kings, just like the kings of the other nations. Many of them were Jewish kings, but they had the same value system as the kings of the other nations. And then finally, literally, kings from other nations ruled over them, from Assyria and Babylon and Persia. And at this point, it's crystal clear. They should have never forsaken God their king to begin with. They should have never turned away from him. And so the chapter ends with them making this firm covenant in writing, which we're going to cover next week in chapters 10 and 11. And it's significant that the people who affixed their names to this covenant are the descendants of the very people who rebelled against God to begin with, the priests, the princes, and the Levites. They're now saying, God, we, on behalf of our fathers who went before us, and on behalf of these people, we are making this firm covenant in writing today. We want to renew our commitment to you.

29:45I don't know about you, but when I read about Israel's disobedient and rebellious history, I am tempted to think to myself, why couldn't these people ever learn? Why do they make the same mistakes? Why do they rebel in the same way over and over again? Why do they expect a different result? But of course, as soon as I think that, I'm reminded about my own life. And the fact that before I was a Christian, I lived this exact same cycle of rebellion and discipline and crying out to God for deliverance, promising Him that I would never do it again if He would just spare me from these consequences. And then, as soon as the discipline relented, I went right back to doing the same thing.

30:39I'm reminded of the fact that, even as a follower of Christ for nearly 20 years, that I still don't always respond to God's grace and mercy with the kind of worship and obedience that I am called to. I still don't always allow it to shape the way that I view myself and others and the world around me. See, the story of rebellion and deliverance isn't just Israel's story. It is my story, it's your story. Perhaps today your eyes have been opened to the truth that God is the creator and sustainer and judge of this world.

31:20And the reality is this: every one of us is going to stand before Him one day. We will have to give an account for our lives. And at that point, nothing will be hidden. God is ready to forgive. He is gracious and merciful. But, friends, in order to be forgiven by God, the creator and sustainer of the universe, you have to come to him. You've got to confess your sin. It's not enough to just be convicted about it. You have to confess it. And so I want to urge you to do that today.

32:00I think there are some of you who are locked in that cycle of disobedience and discipline and crying out to God and being delivered and then starting the whole thing over again. And I hope you see now that what you need is not a second chance. It's not a third chance. It's not a 50th chance. The people of Israel got 50,000 chances, and nothing ever changed. You don't need another chance. You need a Savior. And Jesus is the Savior that you need. He is the one who came to fulfill all of the law and its demands in our place. He is the one who offered right obedience to God.

32:49He is the one who offered himself as a sacrifice for sin in your place, who died, was buried, and rose again, so that anyone who trusts in him will be forgiven and received by God. And so I want to urge you today to receive him by faith, to not walk out of here resolved to try harder to do better, but to walk out of here confessing your sin to God and receiving Christ as your Savior. If you're already a Christian, then I want to remind you of the words of Romans chapter 2. Paul says, it is the kindness of the Lord that leads us to repentance.

33:30God has been abundantly kind and patient, merciful and gracious with every one of us, and we don't want to do what Israel did. We don't want to presume upon the grace of God. And that is a particular danger for us, as we talked about, in our prosperous country that we live in. I want you to look in the screen at the words of commentator Raymond Brown. He notes, in their periods of prosperity, the Israelite people began to take God for granted and foolishly imagined that they could live as they liked. We too can become flippant about spiritual issues and indifferent to or apathetic about the things that matter most of all. If that happens, it is because we have become content with a severely limited doctrine and experience of God.

34:25Friends, we don't want to become flippant about spiritual issues. We don't want to become apathetic about the things that we're going to be speaking Things that matter most. And so, like Israel, we're called today to reflect on God, His nature and character, and all that He has done for us, and to remember His faithfulness. God has been perfectly faithful to us, and so we should strive to be perfectly faithful to Him. Let's pray. Father, you are in heaven, and Your name is holy.

35:02We acknowledge today that we have sinned against you just as the Israelites acknowledged their sin. I hope that we see clearly that we are in need of your forgiveness, a forgiveness that can only be had through confession, through agreeing and acknowledging our sin and recognizing what we deserve for it. And I pray that every person here would see Jesus as the Savior that they need. God, we thank you that on Sundays we have the opportunity not just to hear the word preached, but to also be reminded through the Lord's Supper that Jesus' body was broken and his blood was poured out for the forgiveness of our sins.

35:50I pray that we would never walk away from worship discouraged, but that we would walk away from worship praising you for sending us such a great and mighty Savior. That is exactly what a rebellious people like us needed and still need today. In Christ's name, amen. Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. For more information or to support our ministry, visit us online at newlifecs.net.