Built Through Confession

Heat up here. Well, good morning, Cross Church Phoenix. How are you? >> Morning. >> Good. Good. We're already off to a way better start than 9:00 a.m. because it sounds good. Does everything sound okay? Can you hear me? Okay. All right. Woo. Man, I want to thank the tech team, Stephen and Jordan, the guys back there. They did something, but it it sounds good. So, all right. If you would open your Bibles to Nehemiah chapter 9. And if you don't have a Bible, there's one in the seat back um near you. Uh we're refilling some Bibles. We have a lot of people taking them home with them, which is fantastic. And we'll be replacing these Bibles um to get more in there. But if you need one, feel free to grab one that's near you and make that your Bible. You can highlight it, underline it, do your thing. uh just bring it back next week as you're opening to Nehemiah chapter 9. Uh we have yet another announcement. So I'll be the first one to say we got a lot going on here at Cross Church Phoenix and I'm super excited. And part of you know expanding and growing is is uh offering more and you know people come and they have burdens on their hearts. And um one of the things that we're going to be starting to do here soon is evangelism training. And we have a slide here I'd like to put up move out of the way for y'all. Um, we are going to start uh Saturday, February 21st. So, you see there's no QR code or online sign up. If you're interested, this will be an 8week evangelism training class, and it's going to be facilitated by Josh Dean. He's back here. He's going to stand up. He's got the red hat on with the green hope shirt. Hey, Josh. Um, hello. Uh, he'll be hanging out in the foyer hallway area in the back. If you want to sign up, we're just going to do a regular one. Name, email, phone number, so he can follow up with you. This will be an 8week course through and his phone number and emails up here as well, but if you can't see it, just bother him with it, hit him up. Uh, but this will we will be using the way of the master training and obviously the disciples multiple times called Jesus master. And all it really is is sharing Christ and doing evangelism. Uh the way that looking to Jesus as our example. Now there are multiple ways. There's like the three maybe you've heard some of these, right? There's the three circle method. There's different ways of articulating the gospel. So this is one of them. One of the things that I hear often is, you know, I know what I believe, right? It's in here. It's in not just in my head, it's in my heart. Like I know what I believe, but it's so hard for me to articulate it. Well, we want to help you with that. Our main mission, right, it's plastered all over, is making Jesus known. Well, we want to help you do that. Not just at church, but when you're at home, in your community or maybe at work, wherever it is. And uh that class will also address some of the difficult questions cuz a lot of hesitation in evangelism can come from like, well, I want to share Christ with someone, but what if they ask a question that I don't have the answer to? Um we will help with that. So, um, if you're interested in that, once again, uh, see our brother Josh after church. Well, this morning we come to Nehemiah chapter 9, which is, uh, a direct result of Nehemiah chapter 8. I know, surprise, surprise. Um, but if you're new with us, first of all, welcome. And second of all, I want to bring you up to speed on uh, what's going on. And so if you remember, if you were here last week, Nehemiah chapter 8, the word of God was put on full display uh for hours and hours, right? The people listened attentively. And what happened was they were brought under the conviction of God's word. The people were a complete mess, right? They're a wreck. And rightfully so, because the word of God, the reading of God's word revealed their sin and the sins of their family who had gone before them. And so, the result of the public declaration of the word of God was conviction and a renewed vigor to obey it. Uh you might recall that they found out while they're reading, you know, they're and they come across the book of Leviticus, that book we all ignore. They were reading it and there's a command to celebrate what's called the feast of booze and it's the seventh month and they're like, "It's we're here in the seventh month and it's the day. Oh, it's the day. Let's celebrate the feast of booth." So they obeyed God and they feast. They they uh celebrated the feast appropriately and their sorrow, you'll see, was turned into joy as a result of obedience to God's word. Well, here in chapter nine, what we're going to see is they didn't just do one day of reading. All right, let's read the word of God and then let's put it away and we'll come back to it like next year. They continuously read the word. And what happens as they continuously read? More conviction, right? More of God's word produces more conviction. And here in chapter 9, we'll see how they responded to it. I believe this chapter gives us a template of how to respond to the conviction of God. So, if you have a handout, you're going to see that at the top. If you don't, there's some in the back tables if you'd like one. When God is convicting you, how do we respond? Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this morning. I thank you for your word. Help me uh help our people, Lord, to have um listening ears, ears to hear what the spirit has to say to the church at Cross Church. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Well, let's start with verses 1-5. On the 24th day of this month, the Israelites assembled. They were fasting, wearing sackcloth, and put dust on their heads. Those of Israelite descent separated themselves from all foreigners, and they stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers. While they stood in their places, they read from the book of the law of the Lord their God for a fourth of the day and spent another fourth of the day in confession and worship of the Lord their God. Yeshua, Bananai, Cadmile, Shebaniah, Bunai, Cherabiah, Bani, and Chinani stood on the raised platform built for the Levites and cried out loudly to the Lord their God. Then the Levites, Joshua, Cadmile, Bani, Hashabia, Sheriah, Hodiah, Shebaniah, and Pthiah, I got all those right, uh, said, "Stand up. Blessed be the Lord your God from everlasting to everlasting. Blessed be your glorious name and may it be exalted above all blessing and praise. So the first thing I want us to see is this. When God is convicting you, come to him with a posture of humility. You see in verse one, the Israelites fasting, wearing sackcloth, and putting dust on their heads. What on earth are they doing? Well, it's a common Old Testament way of showing your grief, right? showing your sorrow, showing your humility, your mourning. If you read through the Old Testament, you'll see that multiple times this comes up. Many people do this. It represents a posture of humility before God. So, basically what they're doing is coming humbly before the Lord, confessing sin as they continue to listen to his word. And what's interesting is that they're not only confessing their own sin, but the sins of their ancestors, right? Some translations will say the sins of their fathers. So, they're not pointing fingers, right? Saying, "Well, we're so great, but it's their fault. It's dad and grandpa and great great grandpa's fault where we're here." They're confessing their own sin and those sins, too. Instead of pointing fingers, they're recognizing that they have the same problem. They're saying, "God, we're sorry, not only for what we've done, but for what our family who has gone before us done." Have you ever prayed that way? I've been challenged by that this week. Have you ever just come before God confessing not just your own sin, but the sin of your family? or I will also add the sins of our nation. Here's because first of all, I want you to see I want you to know that this is also not just a collective confession of sin for like their families, but a collective confession of sin nationally. They're saying all of Israel, we have messed up many times, right? Is what they're going to ultimately start saying. And so here's what I'm not saying. So start with that, right? What what I'm not saying is that we can save someone else by confessing their sin. Not at all. It doesn't fly, right? You can't be saved by, you know, osmosis or whatever they call it. We're like, I'm going to I'm going to save that guy by praying for him. No, it doesn't work that way. We pray for them, but they must come to the Lord themselves. What I am saying is, have you ever just come before the Lord God and said, "God, I'm sorry for what I've done. I'm sorry for what my family has done. I'm sorry for what this nation is doing. And God, please intercede. Please change the hearts of my lost family. Change the hearts of this lost nation. We live in a post-Christian nation now. I think personally, whatever it might be, have we ever prayed that way? When God is convicting you, our first response should be humility. And one of the ways you can do that is to come before him in prayer. Leonard Ravenh Hill was um an author and an evangelist. He held evangelistic meetings during World War II. And he once said this, I'm quoting directly. Quote, "The self-sufficient do not pray. Uh the self-satisfied will not pray. and the self-righteous cannot pray. That's good. End quote there. Right. That's good. The Bible, both the Old and New Testament, put on repeat. It's like this track that plays. If you read through it, it it comes up every so often that God opposes the proud. It is such a grand narrative, a grand theme of scripture that New Testament writers repeat it and quote the Old Testament multiple times in their writings to say, "In case you're wondering, God opposes the proud." Okay? He's like, "Don't forget that, please." Because when when we have human pride and self-sufficiency is basically an abomination to God. You say, "How on earth? Why? Why? Why? Because it is the created shaking their fist at the creator, which is complete absurdity, right? Completely absurd. When God is convicting you personally of sin or where you might need to get right with him or maybe where you're out of line with his word, the last thing you want to do is ignore it. That screams of self-sufficiency, right? And like I know, Lord, you want me to stop doing this sin, God, but hey, not right now. Maybe later. I'll get to that. Um, putting away that sin that I know grieves you later. Not so fast, right? Respond to that. Come to him right away with a heart of humility that says, "Yep, Lord, you're right. I'm wrong. I need to come back to you." And this leads us to our second step. Let's read uh verses 6- 15. They continue in this. This is basically a prayer, a cry out to God. It says, "You, Lord, are the only God. You created the heavens, the highest heavens, with all their stars, the earth, and all that is on it, the seas, and all that is in them. You give life to all of them, and all the stars of heaven worship you. You the Lord are the God who chose Abram and brought him out of the Calaldanss and changed his name to Abraham. You found his heart faithful in your s in your sight and made a covenant with him to give the land of the Canaanites, the Hathites, the Amorasites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, and the Gegosites to give it to his descendants. You have fulfilled your promise for you are righteous. You saw the oppression of our ancestors in Egypt and heard their cry at the Red Sea. You performed signs and wonders against Pharaoh, all his officials, and all the people of his land. For you knew how arrogantly they treated our ancestors. You made a name for yourself that endures to this day. You divided the sea before them, and they crossed through it on dry ground. You hurled their pursuers into the depths like a stone into raging water. You led them with a pillar of cloud by day and with a pillar of fire by night to illuminate the way they should go. You came down on Mount Si and spoke to them from heaven. You gave them impartial ordinances, reliable instructions, and good statutes and commands. You revealed your holy Sabbath to them and gave them commands, statutes, and instructions through your servant Moses. You provided bread from heaven for their hunger. You brought them water from the rock for their thirst. You told them to go in and possess the land you had sworn to give them. So as we come in humility, the second thing we do is contemplate his faithfulness. We don't have time to go through all of this, but basically this is a summary of what they're reading, right? They're reading the law. Genesis through Deuteronomy, the Torah, Penetuk, whatever you want to call it is what they've been reading. And just to point out some broad themes, right? If they if they open with Genesis, you start with Genesis 1:1, what does it say? In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. You created verse 6. You see Genesis 1. You see Genesis 12 and verse 9, covenant with Abraham. Where that starts, you see Exodus in verse 10, the 10 plagues God brought to Egypt right there. Verse 11 is the crossing of the Red Sea. Verse 13, you're still in the book of Exodus as they remember God giving the Ten Commandments at Mount Si along with the rest of the law. Verse 15 are events that occur in Exodus and Numbers and Deuteronomy and even into Joshua. They're reflecting on God's faithfulness to them when they didn't deserve it. All these verses start with you. You, you, right? Referring to God, not you, not me, God. Right? And that's why I can't stand man-c centered preaching. It's called anthropocentric preaching. Right? This this passage says, "God, you did this. God, you did that. God, you are creator. You are righteous. You work miracles. You led. You revealed. It's all about what God did." And when we make it all about ourselves, we're kind of missing the point, right? I can't stand when where there's preaching where Bible verses are kind of like thrown in here and there, but the most the sermon most of the sermon is telling you about how great you are or telling me about how great I am, right? We don't need to hear that cuz we're not we're not all that great. We're not awesome. We're not all that in a bag of chips, right? We are broken. We're sinners in need of salvation. And so the fact of the matter is we need God to work. It's about what he does, not us. When God is convicting you, it should cause us to humbly come before him and contemplate how he has been faithful to you. They don't spend all these verses saying, "God, thanks for parting the Red Sea. We totally deserve that cuz we were like obeying you perfectly." And like, dude, finally like you paid up cuz we were like worshiping you perfectly, rightly. Like our hearts were right before you. We don't know why you sent us as slaves in Egypt, but you let us cross. Thanks. No, they didn't deserve it. Right? Maybe you're listening to me and saying, "I'm not even a Christian. I just showed up. How has God been faithful to me?" You have no idea how God has been faithful to you. The reason the sun rose this morning is because of God's faithfulness. The reason that you woke up this morning is because of God's grace and mercy on you. God's ultimate demonstration of his faithfulness in forgiving sin, which is declared in the prophets beforehand, right? Isaiah, God says, "I'm the only savior. There's no one besides me. I'm the only savior. There's no one besides me." And who shows up? Christ. and his faithfulness in forgiving sin is demonstrated on the cross of Christ for us, for you and I. Now, you can reject that or receive it. Either way, God's been faithful. He has. Now, it's uncommon for me to skip through, but we're running low on time, and there's a reason for it. But I'm going to kind of summarize verses 16 to 31 instead of reading them. Number three, after we come in humility and contemplate God's faithfulness, our third step is confess your sins in light of his grace. Because that's exactly what they're doing in verses 16 to31. They're confessing sin, but weaved into that is the light of God's mercy, grace, compassion, and forgiveness. So, similar to the last section we just read, what they're doing is rehearsing their own history. God, we stink, right? You have been so good to us. Throughout the whole thing, you see how they weave in God's goodness to them. You see attributes of God on repeat. Verse 17, you're a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate. Verse 19, your great compassion. Verse 27, your abundant compassion. Verse 28, many times in your compassion. Verse 30, God is patient. Verse 31, God has abundant compassion and is gracious and did I mention compassionate? If we were going to preach a topical sermon on God's compassion, it would be Nehemiah 9. It shows up all throughout it. And not only that, but we see God not abandoning his people. Verse 17, you did not abandon them though they did this, this, this, this, and this. You didn't abandon them. Verse 19, you did not abandon them. Verse 31, you did not destroy or abandon them because they gave God plenty of reasons to just wipe them out. God had plenty of reasons to abandon them for their sin, but didn't in his grace. Why? He's a promisekeeping God. He declared and made promises to Abraham, who's come and gone, who's dead and and gone. And guess what? Even though Israel doesn't deserve it, God is faithful to himself. How did God make the covenant with Abraham? Abraham was asleep. Abraham's fighting off birds for this sacrifice so long that he just falls asleep. And God makes the covenant by himself. Read it. God says, "I'm going to swear by myself." What does that mean? No matter how bad my people get, I'm going to remain faithful to them because of the promise I made to myself. Abraham was sleeping. Because of who I am, God says, I'm going to be faithful and compassionate to my disobedient people. He is gracious, forgiving, and compassionate. And if you belong to him, he'll never abandon you. What did Jesus say? Affirming the same thing in the New Testament. What? I will never leave you nor forsake you. Right? When God is convicting you, will you confess those sins he's convicting you about? Will you humbly go to him and say, "God, you're so faithful and good. I messed up. Please, please, God, forgive me by the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ." Because repentance is a right response to godly conviction. You say, "Well, I'm a Christian. Aren't I forgiven past, present, and future?" Of course, you are. Yes. But you see the struggle in Paul's own life. I do the things I don't want to do. I don't do the things I do want to do. What do you say? Oh, wretched man that I am. Present tense. I am. And then what does he say? Praise be to God for his abundant mercy and grace. And I forget all the exact words, but that's what it is, right? Praise be to God for saving me from all that garbage, right? He understood that he still struggles and wages war with what? The flesh. We do, too. And God will convict when we're out of line. What does the scripture say? He disciplines or chasens those whom he loves. So when he's got a child, when he's got a a a son or daughter of him and we're out of line, it is sound. It is biblical. It is good doctrine to say he'll chasenth us. Chasteneithth us, right? For the old King James, he'll chasenth you. Um, but when God is convicting, will we respond this way? God, you are so faithful and good. I messed up. Forgive me. Let's round this out. Verses 32 to 37. Again, I know out of character for me. I love reading all of it. I don't have time. But verses 32-37, our fourth step, number four, is draw near to him for restoration and forgiveness. This is ultimately, if you were to read 32-37, which please do. Please take some time yourself to read through this, it is ultimately a plea to God, right? God, you are gracious. You are righteous. You are faithful. You are good. What do they have to say for themselves? We've acted verse 33, wickedly. That's what we bring to the table. Our wickedness. God help us. Right? We haven't obeyed your laws or listened to your commands or warnings. We're in great distress. And maybe that describes you this morning. Maybe you're in distress. Maybe it's over your own sin or over lost friends or family members or God is convicting you right now over something. I know, news flash, I'm not God, so I have no idea what that might be, but this is God's word. And I believe wholeheartedly, I'm sold out for the power of the Holy Spirit to use his word to convict. Because if it was all about me, you wouldn't be convicted, right? It's not about the power of oration, public speaking skills of the pastor. Has nothing to do with that. Has everything to do with the word of God. Doesn't say that Ezra was super eloquent, so they all repented. No, it says Ezra read the word of God and they're all a wreck. That's what it says. So, here's our closing thought. If God is convicting you of sin, don't delay. Come to Christ now in a posture of humility. Turn from your sin and ask him to forgive you. Now, as I thought through this uh this week, I was burdened personally um to not only uh preach this passage, which of course I love, but provide us um allow us the time and the space to perhaps experience this passage. So, before we celebrate communion, if you have a communion packet, hold on to it. If you don't, you can grab one from the back on the back tables uh as we move forward in this. But before we partake in communion, here's what we're going to do. I'm going to invite the worship team to come up uh right now a little early. And as they come up, I want to explain something to you. Jesus talked about the Holy Spirit's role. Jesus said, "It is good that I go away." Of course, the disciples are like, "What? How could it possibly good that you go away?" Well, for one, he needs to go to the cross because apart from the cross, we're dead in our sins. Bad news. The only reason there's good news is cuz Jesus went to the cross, died on it, rose again the third day according to the scriptures, and he has ascended into heaven. And he tells his disciples, here's why that's good. Because I'm going to send the Holy Spirit. And then he gives you a little, you know, job description, so to speak, of the Holy Spirit. Now, among the other things that the Holy Spirit does, the three specific things Jesus said was that he will convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. Convict the world, all of y'all, all of us, right? Of sin, where we failed of righteousness, our need for it, and judgment that is coming, right? Second Timothy 4, Paul tells Timothy, "Preach the word." Why? Because judgment's coming. And that's why. And so here's what we're going to do. If the Holy Spirit is moving in your life or is convicting you right now, don't ignore it. Okay? Maybe you're here and you're not a believer in Jesus Christ. You're not a Christian and you say, "Um, I don't know. I'm just convicted of my sin right now. I don't know what to do. Come on down. I'll chat with you." or if you want to come later to the I said yes corner you can but you can come down and pray and turn your life over to Jesus Christ that's first option number two maybe you are a Christian right you're like I'm forgiven past present future amen and amen yes yes yes and yes you are but if God is convicting you of a certain sin maybe in your life that you are not giving up turning over to him that you're hanging on to that you're saying maybe next week I'll give up this sin. No, no, no, no, no. I want to invite you, Christian. You can come down to the altar. You can, if you don't want to, I understand there's limitations or some people, you can pray where you are. You can kneel. You can do what you need to do to spend time in communion with God. I will come back up and and do communion uh with the bread and the juice, but we're going to hold off. If you want to come down right now, I I will say this. There's a little strip right here that holds our cords. Just watch out for that. But I don't want this to get in the way of an opportunity to come. If you want to come down to the altar and pray, you can. If you want to pray where you are, you can. And we're going to spend a few minutes just responding to this text and and living this out. This is what they did. They did it for a quarter of the day. I could be like, "Hey, let's spend the next six hours right here." Hey, but at least right now, take some time. We need to allow some time. If God, if the Holy Spirit is convicting you, you're invited to come down and pray it and turn that over to the Lord. Let's do that now. Wow. Thank you. If you're still spending time with the Lord, don't let me interrupt Um, but if you are ready and you have taken just some time to be with him, if you'll grab your communion packet and on the uh peel back the layer that has the bread on it. A few admonitions. Um, every time we do this, I share because Paul takes this seriously. We should, too. If you've trusted Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, you say, "I have a relationship with him personally. He saved me from my sin." We invite you to partake. Even if you not a member of Christ Church or you've in for the first time, but if this is for Christians, sorry, this is for believers. So if you if that's you, partake. If you're here and you don't know Christ, we invite you to watch. We do invite you to watch and not partake. However, today could be the day it is. The scripture says today is the day of salvation. Don't put it off. You could turn your life, your heart over to the Lord Jesus Christ today. And you can come find me in the back if you want to talk about that. But we are told to do this uh in a worthy manner and not to do it in an unworthy manner. And we're not here to preach 1 Corinthians 11, but I just want you to hear me out. We do this. The scriptures basically teach three things that I like to kind of summarize for you. We do this looking forward, looking backward, and then looking within, right? We do this in remembrance of him, looking back to the cross. We do this looking forward because Paul says that every time we do this, Jesus says, right, we proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. What? The Lord's death. Yeah. Till he comes. You kind of have to be alive to come. and he's proclaiming that we serve a risen savior then because he died and is risen and is coming again. So I'm going to read 1 Corinthians 11 uh 23- 24. We've taken some time to examine ourselves. I hope you did. Um and if you need more time, don't let me interrupt you. But Paul says this in 1 Corinthians 11:23. For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your body which is broken for us. You did that for us. You demonstrated your love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. A death he didn't deserve. He's perfect. No sin. He took our sins, bearing our sins in his body on the tree. And we are grateful for it. Thankful. May we respond in obedience and worship to you in Jesus name. Amen. Let's partake. And if you'll peel back the layer with the juice. Paul goes on to say in 1 Corinthians 11, "In the same way, he also he Jesus took the cup after supper, saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes." He's coming back. I don't know when, but he's coming back cuz he's alive, right? Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the shed blood of Jesus Christ on the cross. Your word says without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin. All those Old Testament sacrifices that you ordained point to you. The blood of bulls and goats and lambs could not pay for sin. It can't remove sin. It was a temporary picture that pointed to the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. The Lord Jesus Christ whom John the Baptist proclaimed. It is he who washes away sin. What can wash away our sin? Nothing. Oh, nothing. Nothing. Nothing but the blood of Jesus Christ. We thank you for it in Jesus name. Amen. Let's partake.