Nehemiah - Chapter 9: God’s Faithfulness
SERMON TRANSCRIPT
Catch us up really quick. Last week Pastor Chris shared about the census that was taken in Nehemiah and the wall has been built. We've had chapters and chapters of all that drama and the good things that have happened. And again, Pastor Chris shared that census was taken and this was a transformative moment for the people as they were returning to Jerusalem and the law of the Lord was being read. And there was recognition that they weren't rightly living the way that God wanted them to, but before the leaders wanted them to get into that place of mourning, they wanted to celebrate. So last week we talked about the celebration and this posture of hearing God's Word. And now, just two days later, things shift again. And I want to walk through this chapter to see what the people of Israel do. So let's go ahead and I'm going to start by reading the first four verses here. You can turn in your Bibles to Nehemiah 9 or watch it on the screen.
Verse 1 says, "On the 24th day of the same month, the Israelites gathered together, fasting and wearing sackcloth and putting dust on their heads. 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. 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. Standing on the stairs of the Levites were Jeshua, Benai, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunai, Sherabiah, Bani, and Kanaani. They cried out with loud voices to the Lord their God." So we see them move from a posture of celebration to now a posture of mourning and repentance. Last week, Pastor Chris talked about the posture of the heart and how that makes its way out into a physical posture. And so now the hearts are remorseful and repentant and the physical representation of that is sackcloth and ashes on the head. You may have heard of this.
This is a traditional Eastern historical way of mourning and done either to mourn someone that you love or maybe even mourning a sin that is so grievous that you are considering yourself dead in your transgressions. This is so heavy, this is so... the weight of it is so impactful on you that you have to show it somehow. And so sackcloth, which is a very scratchy... all this just screams uncomfortable and on purpose. And so it was important to the leaders at that time to set the celebration at the people just went through and being in God's will. They returned, they built the city, that was what God had planned. They wanted to contrast that to the weight and the seriousness of their sin. They wanted to yes, recognize that God's will for them was to be in the city, but also just importantly, even more importantly, was that they would they were to live in this city in the way that God wanted them to, in the way that God called them to. And they were understanding that more and more as they were reading the laws. As more of the Torah was read in front of them, again, this greater understanding of, "Oh, we're not doing that. We are living in sin. Something needs to change." And so how did the leaders, the priests, get them to understand this? Was it by bashing them over the head over and over again, like, "You guys are terrible. You guys did it. You guys messed up." No, they tell a story, and they tell their story. They put the shame and weight of sin in its proper context, explaining for those who may know and teaching those who may not in that crowd, how this all came to be.
And now we begin in our passage, starting in verse 5, this synopsis of the whole Torah, the first five books of the Bible. And I love passages like these, because if you have read the Bible, you read Genesis, Exodus, there's some story in there, but there's also a lot of names. There's a lot of...it gets kind of...get bogged down in the details, and you're like, "I don't know what's happening. I don't know where we are and who these people are. I just read a hundred names I don't understand." And so a passage like this kind of takes us to a 30,000-foot view and just says, "Here is where everything happened, and here is...let us connect the dots in the way that God wants us to understand." So I love...this is what's going to happen in our passage today. It's going to highlight the grandest parts of the rescue plan of Yahweh, and it highlights, which is a phrase that we say a lot here, who God is and what God has done for the people of Israel. It's more than just a simple reminder. It emphasizes God's faithfulness in contrast to the people's unfaithfulness. It describes the work of God as he protected and guided Israel. It instructs and reminds the people of Yahweh's providence, and it helps them understand, "How did we get here to this place where we are rebuilding a wall of a once-great city? How did this all come to be?" If you're familiar with your Bible, you'll see the priests go in chronological order and really just, again, put the whole...what's happened in the first...all before this into just like 30 verses. So let's continue. Verse 5, it says, "And the Levites, Jeshua, Cadmiel, Bonnie, Hashabaniah, Sherabiah, Hodiah, Shabaniah, 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. You alone are the Lord. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their starry host, the earth and all that is in it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to everything, and the multitudes of heaven worship you.’"
So this first part is saying that Yahweh is the Creator God. This is going back to Genesis. Genesis 1, the creation account. Everything that they see, everything in the world comes from God. And they want the people to see that God is the Creator, that's the one who holds power over everything. Because they were in a world, and their history is that they love the allure of these false gods. This is the downfall of Israel's, that time and time again, the surrounding nations and the false gods that they worship always are a temptation for Israel. And so the Levites are saying, "Hey, this is the God we serve. None of those, it's this God, Yahweh, the one who created everything." They are reinforcing what Genesis teaches. You'll notice that they aren't just teaching this, they say, "Stand up and praise the Lord your God who is from everlasting to everlasting." They are leading the people and reciting it. There is power in our words. It's more impactful to say things out loud than to just think them. For example, when we worship on a Sunday, there are times when yes, we just are gonna stand there quietly and maybe think the songs in our head or sing them quietly to ourselves. But really, in general, the principle is that we want to be lifting all of our voices. And some of you are self-conscious, like, "God doesn't want to hear my voice. He did not bless me in that way." That's no. That God, whatever you sing, whatever, however it comes out, however it sounds, it is pleasing to God. And that is the point. We're not trying to impress anyone else. But as we unite our voices and sing, there is power in praising God. And so that's what the Levites are inviting all of Israel who is standing in front of them to do. Join us in praising God.
Let's keep going. It says in verse 7, "You are the Lord God who chose Abram and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans and named him Abraham. 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." So the psalm now turns its attention to the covenant that God made with Abraham, which is a significant point in the rescue plan of God for humanity. It was going to be through a person and through a chosen people. It also mentions the faithfulness of Abraham. I think to help to remind the people of Israel right then of someone positive in their history. Someone who generally, not all the time, but generally got it right. Was an example of a faithful heart to God. Because in recent generations for the Israelites, it's more an example of a lack of faithfulness. What they did wrong. But if we think of Abraham and the biggest, most famous story from him that they would have thought about if they were hearing this, was the test that Abraham went through of having to offer his only son Isaac to God. And in that moment, Abraham choosing faithfulness to God. And so it shows this deep faith and trust that Abraham had. And also in these verses, the priests are reflecting on the promise that God made with Abraham to give his descendants a land. And now being on the other side of that, of this story, we see all the land that they actually took over. I love this because again, we're just gonna, as this plays out, as we read this, we're just gonna have a better understanding of the work that God has done in Genesis and Exodus and all the books that come before.
Verse 9 says, "You saw the suffering of our ancestors in Egypt. You heard the cry at the Red Sea. 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. You divided the sea before them so that they pass through it on dry ground. But you hurled their pursuers into the depths like a stone into mighty waters. 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." We fast forward to the story. So we were at Abraham, and now we go to past Joseph, which was the great-grandson of Abraham. And Joseph, through miraculous circumstances, God-ordained circumstances, had been to Egypt and become number two over all of Egypt. And he brought his whole family. He's like, "Hey, I'm here. I'm in a good place. All my family, come with me to Egypt." But after he passes, the Pharaoh passes that was with Joseph and loved Joseph. Things turn. So Joseph's family begins to grow, grow, and grow, and grow. We just have to remember, Israel is not a nation yet. This is just a family. This is Joseph's family and his, you know, brothers. It's just a family gathering right now that moved to Egypt and started growing. And somewhere down the line, another Pharaoh saw how much Joseph's family was growing and said, "I don't like that. They could really cause some havoc for me.”
So he enslaves the family of Joseph, what they call the people of Israel, which was Joseph's father, Jacob. Jacob had his name changed to Israel. So the people of Israel, he enslaves them. And in another pinnacle moment in Israelite's history, they cry out to God. The first time they cry out to God. They are in need. They've been enslaved. They have tried. Nothing's working. They cry out to God and God answers them. He responds by providing Moses and Aaron as representatives to do signs for Pharaoh. And eventually, we know the story, Israel leaves Egypt. And in that exodus of God's people from Egypt, he performed mighty signs like parting the Red Sea. And as Pharaoh and his army tried to, you know, change his mind again and wanted Israel to come back, God closed that sea upon them. And God made a name for himself that the whole world at that time, Egypt and all the surrounding nations knew that whatever God, whoever this God is of Israel, this God's legit. He can do everything. He can do things that we've never seen before. And then once in the wilderness, he guides them. In the wilderness by a pillar of fire by night and cloud by day. We could spend all year here. This is so good, but we got to keep going. The point is God's faithfulness to his people, providing for them as only the God of the universe can.
Continue in verse 13. It says, "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. You made known to them your holy Sabbath and gave them commands, decrees and laws through your servant Moses. 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." This is all about how God made them into a people, into a nation. Again, remember before this, there's a very, very large family now. Huge family. Thousands and thousands and thousands. And all descendants, and they have certain ways of doing things, but there's no laws. You know, for example, when I got married, we had different dishwashing loading rhythms. I have since learned the correct way to do it, thank you for teaching me. No law about it, but we just have our own family customs that we do. And God was saying, "You guys are a family right now out in the wilderness, but I'm gonna make you into a nation. I'm gonna give you rhythms and laws and decrees and things to do, things to celebrate. I'm gonna give you a yearly rhythm of weeks of here's when we do this and we're gonna stop and we're gonna take a rest." All of it was good. And he gave it to them for multiple reasons, but a couple of the highlights are one, so that they can live a righteous and holy life the way that God intended for all of humanity to live. And also to distinguish them, saying, "This is how you're different. All these other nations, they live their way and really at the heart, they're serving themselves. They're very selfish, they're prideful, they're dealing with sin. You guys, Israel, you have the answer. You have me, Yahweh. It makes life completely different." And notice the priests here in our passage continue to recognize that everything that God did, including implementing these regulations, it was good. They're looking back in history and seeing things correctly. We don't always do that. We don't always look back and see it correctly. Sometimes we change history, we become victims in history, whatever it is, but they're looking back and saying, "No, God was the right, He was right the whole time." And they continue by acknowledging God's provision, not only with laws and rhythms, but also as they're in the desert, the barren wilderness with no food and no water, God provides. He gives them heavenly bread every day and He gives them water in miraculous ways from a rock. Again, it's telling us to look at what God has done and who He is, gracious and merciful. He's a provider who loves His people and wants to give everything they need to them. But as we continue, the psalm that they're reciting right now turns from praising God to an honest reflection of the Israelite people.
Verse 16, "But they, our ancestors, became arrogant and stiff-necked and they did not obey your commands. 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 slavery. But you are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in love. Therefore, you did not desert them. Even when they cast for themselves an image of a calf and said, 'This is our God who brought you up out of Egypt,' or when they committed awful blasphemies, 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. 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. For 40 years you sustained them in the wilderness. They lacked nothing. They're clothes did not wear out, nor did their feet become swollen." This is talking about that moment in Israel. They come to Mount Sinai, they receive the law, and as Moses comes back down the mountain, he comes to find them worshiping another God. This is one of the most heartbreaking moments in Israel's history. And he's saying, even the priests are saying, "Even then you did not desert your people." This section begins a bit of a confessional from the priests on behalf of the people, leading them through acknowledging the wrongs of the generations that went before them. Remember, they're sitting there and there's sackcloth and ashes on their head, and they're seeing now and they're hearing from the reading of God's Word and in this psalm that God is still generous. He's still patient and compassionate, abounding in love.
That section, verse 17, that's quoting Exodus 34, 6 through 7, which is the most quoted scripture by scripture, because that's God telling Moses exactly who he is. It's God telling the people of Israel for the first time in history, "This is who I am. I've done miraculous things, but I'm telling you, here's my bio, here's my, you want to know who I am? Here it is. Forgiving God, gracious, compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in love. And even knowing all that and hearing all that, they forget this phrase again, "Who God is and what he did." They appointed their own leader, thinking they can do it all without God. Does that sound familiar, by the way? Does that sound like the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve were like, "Hey God, thanks for setting this all up. This place is beautiful. I think we got it from here. That fruit looks really good. I want it." It's that sin all over again. The priests recount, "Even when the Israelites made the new idol, God didn't abandon them. He was compassionate and sustained them for 40 years in the wilderness." What a better way for a people, a stubborn people, to learn who God is and what he can do, what he can do than to have to depend on him every single day for 40 years. I am not yet 40 years old, so it's my lifetime and a bit more that every day I would have to wake up and say, "I don't have anything. I have no food. I have no water. God, it's a new morning. Will you provide again?" Day after day after day, there is fresh food on the ground. There is water, fresh water there for them to live in a desert, in a barren wilderness, purely only by God. After all that, will they then understand? They've rebelled once in the desert and now, God, 40 years. Will they remain faithful to them? Well, we know, and they know.
Verse 22, "You gave them kingdoms and nations allotting to them even the most, even the remotest frontiers. They took over the country of Sihon, king of Heshbon, and the country of Og, king of Bashan. 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. Their children went in and took possession of the land. You subdued them 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. 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 and reveled in your great goodness. 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, 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. Priests, now praise God for fulfilling this Abrahamic covenant, making Israel into a nation, and also giving them a land. So in the desert, they were made, "Here's your laws. Here's how you are a people. Now as a nation, you need a place to dwell. Wilderness is no place. I've been sustaining you, but it's not the permanent place. I'm gonna give you a place." He gives them the promised land, which is already set up for them. I love this connection. This is the first time we see this of wells that were already dug, vineyards, olive groves. Everything is already there. And again, we get this Eden picture of this is amazing. This is a place that has the full blessing of God, and it's there for them. They don't have to do the hard work. They don't have to dig wells or plant. It's all there. Even after all that, 40 years of miraculous food and water, just walking into the promised land, enemies fleeing from them, houses already set up, and vineyards, and wells, and water, and do they remain loyal to God? Do they see all this and see, "Man, we know who God is, and we know what he can do." No. Verse 26, "But they were disobedient and rebelled and turned their backs on God." Not just that, but even killing the prophets sent by God to warn them. That's a whole other kind of level of disrespect. The priests are talking about the very hardened hearts of Israelites, the hearts that knew the truth, knew what was right, and still chose to ignore God. Not just ignore, but in the most disrespectful way say, "God, I don't need you at all. Don't need it. We got this. We're going to do it our own way.”
And so in verse 27, it says that, "God allowed them to be captured by their enemies after multiple attempts from God to say, 'Hey, come back to me.' And them saying no, he's like, 'All right, I'm going to let you find out the consequences of your sin.'" And they get captured, and they get put in slavery, and then God would show them incredible passion and rescue them. And this would develop into this cycle of sin, crying out to God, God rescuing them, them following God for a bit before hardening their hearts. And there's a temptation for us today as we read this to just shake our heads at Israel and say, "You fools. You guys. Why? You're the worst." And it's true. They are the worst. But it's a mirror. It's a mirror for us to look at our hearts because we have the exact same tendencies. We who know God's word, know its truth, know how God wants us to live, can often say, "God, I hear you, and no, thank you. I'm going to do it my own way. In this moment right now, God, I know that your spirit is pushing me to do this, but I'm actually going to do this. I'm going to do it my way. I'm going to be selfish. I'm going to be prideful." So as we continue reading, let's not go to judgment, but rather let's pay attention to what God might want to say to us through this example of the Israelites.
Verse 28 says, "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 enemy 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. 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. 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 their neighboring peoples, but in your great mercy, you did not put an end to them or abandon them, for you are gracious and merciful God." This continues, that confession and that cycle. So live under God's law, become arrogant, turn your back. God will let them face the consequences, get captured, they would cry out. God would be compassionate and merciful and save them, and then we'd start all over again. And we know this period to be the judges and the kings and those books in our Bible where Israel had some good years, but mostly just terrible, terrible years. But what is great in this setting of Nehemiah in the city, is that the people are taking full ownership of that punishment. They're saying, they're looking at the consequences and saying, "God, you were right to do everything that you did. That was on us. We failed you. We were the ones who were sinful. We were the ones who were not faithful to you. We deserved that punishment." That's not what the generations who got captured would have said. They were the ones who were saying, "God, I don't want anything to do with you." But this generation right now is saying, "God, you were right. We were wrong." And they're seeing things in the correct way.
Lastly, in this last section, it says in verse 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, and all that has happened to us, you have remained righteous. You have acted faithfully while we acted wickedly. 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. Even while they were in their kingdom, enjoying your great goodness to them in their spacious and fertile land you gave them, they did not serve you or turn from their evil ways. But see, we are slaves today, slaves in the land that you gave our ancestors so they could eat its fruits and the other good things it produces. 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. So we now move from this expression of acknowledgement of past guilt to present appeal for forgiveness and deliverance. They're crying out. They're ready to once again live in the way that God desires them to, according to his law, to be a righteous people, a holy people, set apart from every other nation. And the question is, will the cycle be different this time? They're in that spot of crying out to God to deliver them, to bless them. Will they be able to break the pattern of sin from the generations before? We're going to find out in the weeks to come.
But as we close, I just want to put into perspective some of the things that we heard today. I want to speak to some truths that were put on my heart this week as I was preparing the sermon. The first one is this. God is the faithful one. We need to see that God is faithful. It's important to recognize even in our own lives, as we look back, as I said before, we can be tempted to look back in our own lives and our own history and to change how things really happen. Maybe we're defensive. Maybe we're victims to our own stories. We rewrite history even to ourselves to say, "Man, someone treated me wrong. I was the right one in that situation. I didn't deserve to go through what I did." Now, some of that may be true, but it's important to see the example of the priests and the Israelites and recognize where God has been faithful. We just did this as a church with our celebrations a few weeks ago, looking back on the past year and saying, "This is where God has been faithful to us and the ways that he is blessing us." But it's also important to do this in our own lives, just individually. We tend to do this in our family around birthdays. We have family dinner with extended family, and we typically ask questions of, "How was this past year? What has God done for you? How have you been blessed?" Maybe you guys do this around New Year's. It's a natural time to look back on the past year that is about to end, and you just say, take inventory of, "God, what have you been doing? How have you grown me? What are the things that you've done?" Take moments to remember who God has shown himself to be in your life and what he has done for you in your life. It'll be encouraging. It will bring you peace and joy to see that it is indeed true that God is at work. And for a long time, go further back than a year. Just take time to look over your whole life and see the ways in which God has been faithful, even in the hardest of times, in hard seasons of your life. It's so important to see, especially those seasons, how God was faithful to you, how he was there, how he was present, how he provided for you. And I promise you that he has. Take time to see that God is faithful.
The next is this truth that generational sin is a reality. This has been relatively new for me, I'd say, in the last few years, and maybe more specifically in this last year of really getting into what this means. And let me tell you, so basically, we are all sinners, right? We all inherited sin from Adam and Eve. All of humanity is tainted by sin. We inherit the selfishness and the pride in the heart that wants to put itself above God. And the only way to be saved is by surrendering to Christ, asking him to save us and putting our full faith and trust in him. Now, a part of that sin that we inherit can be classified as generational sin. And what I mean by that is there are more specific sins that we inherit from our families of origin, your childhood environment, your circumstances. Like Israel, who kept running from God, becoming stubborn and generation after generation stiff-necked and arrogant. Each of you come from a family with maybe some solid strengths, some characteristics, habits that are good, but probably also some negative things, habits, mentalities, approaches to life, some of them sinful. Be it anger or pride or judgment to others, drunkenness, gossip, envy, dishonesty. You fill in the blank. You know your family. You know the situation that you came from. But often the roots of some of our deepest sins that we struggle with are the ones that have deep roots because they come from our family. And it's been ingrained in us and who this family is and how that family interacts with each other, how they deal with situations.
Pete Scazzaro, who's a pastor and author, writes, "God in his sovereignty chose to birth us into a particular family, into a particular place at a particular moment in history. That choice offered us certain opportunities and gifts. At the same time, our families also handed us other entrenched unbiblical patterns of relating and living." He goes on to describe that if we were going to live as the men and women that God created us to be, wants us to be, we must be prepared to break the power of the past that holds us back. We have the choice. You sitting here today have the choice and really the opportunity to do something about those generational sins. So let the Spirit of God come into your life and sanctify that area. Transform you. Transform your heart to stop that pattern from continuing on into the next generation. How? Well, that'll vary from whatever generational sin that you're dealing with, but a basic level, very basic, the first step is praying. Praying that God would continue that work in your heart, in your mind, that he would give you peace and a calm and a clarity over what it actually means to live like Jesus in whatever situation. To surrender to him that area of life and ask that he would transform you.
Now, there are more steps addressing those different sins, but again, step one is acknowledging it and then better understanding that sin. When does that happen? When that thing happens, that sin that I saw my parents do, I saw my grandparents do, and now I'm struggling with that same sin. When does that happen? Why does it happen? What's going on inside of me, in my heart, in my mind, when that sin is coming, when I want to sin in that way? We can make the effort to learn better practices, better solutions, better approaches, learn Christ-like habits and mindsets and behaviors. But it all starts with the surrendering and saying, "God, I don't want to do that anymore. I don't want to do what..." Again, fill in that blank. "I don't want to do that anymore. I don't want my kids to see that. I don't want my friends to see that in me. I don't want to pass that on." God is the only one who can truly make that difference. And yes, if you're a parent, you're thinking of your kids and they will deal with their own sin. They will still have sin to deal with, and maybe at some level, some of that generational sin. But at the very least, what an example it would be for them to see you working through it with God. Seeing the evidence of saying, "I know that this runs in my family, that we tend to be this, but I saw my parents, I saw them work very hard at surrendering that over to God. I've seen change in their life." The evidence that God is at work is powerful. We want to be that example for ourselves, for others. Generational sin is a reality.
And this last one ties right into that, which is, "Own your sin, seek forgiveness, and move towards Christ." Just like these priests were leading the church to the people of Israel through, we need to own our sin. We need to admit when we are wrong. And that means confessing our sin. 1 John 1.9 says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." Proverbs 28.13, "Whoever conceals their sins does not prosper, but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy." Confess our sin, own your sin, then seek forgiveness, repent. Ask God for forgiveness. You may need to ask others for forgiveness, that's good. But ultimately, every sin that we commit is an offense against God, first and foremost. So we need to ask forgiveness to Him. And then that final part, that repentance, is turning from sin and turn to God. Run towards Him, seek Him, strive for Him. That repent, that definition means to turn, literally turn from sin and head in the other direction. So we're turning from that, whatever that sin is, and we're heading to the cross, we're heading to God.
And I'll end with this. Our prayer is that as these things happen, in our own lives and even as a community of believers, as we confess our sins, seek forgiveness, and move towards Christ, dealing with generational sin, and looking back and understanding that God is faithful in all seasons, that He would use our lives to reach people, that it would be a light to the world around us, to the people around us, and that we could praise Him through all things that we go through, knowing that He is good, that He loves us, that He is faithful to us. You guys pray with me. God, thank you again for your word. Thank you for this chapter in Nehemiah that lays out your rescue plan in such a beautiful way to see that you are faithful in all situations. And God, I pray that that would speak to us today as we go through whatever we're going through. And I know some of us are going through heartbreak, we're being, feel like we're being dragged through the mud, and it is hard just to get through another day. God, I pray that you would make yourself so known to us that we would see how you are faithful to provide, to be there, to be present with us. And God, use the rest of us who are maybe in a better place to encourage and equip and stand alongside them. God, I pray that you would help us to deal with the sin that we have in our lives, deep rooted sin that we may have inherited from our own family. Help us to bring that before you and say, "God, make it stop here. Change this in me." We surrender all that we have to you, God. We love you and we pray this in your name. Amen.