Confession and Dedication

Awesome, we’re really happy to see everybody here. And man, isn’t today a good day? Man, today’s a great day. I woke up this morning thinking a little bit about how much fun it was last week, last week for homecoming. We had what kind of felt to me a bit like a birthday celebration for the church. Man, it was just a good time to meet some folks that may have grown up here and they’re at other churches or some folks that are from the area and just to get to meet them. You know, life and church is certainly not all about numbers, but numbers represent people. So I get really excited about numbers sometimes. Last week we had 131 folks just in here to celebrate homecoming with us. I mean, I am so, so stinking excited about that. I know that homecoming is always a really big deal for our church. And I just wanna say thank you to all the work that was put in, all the folks that prepared food and all the folks that made invites. We had a number of first time guests with us last Sunday. They were here because y’all, y’all invited them.

I think about a gentleman that was buying firewood from one of our church members. And the church member said, “Hey, this Sunday, love to see you at our church.” And that guy came and he brought his daughter. Think about another guy. He has recently moved into the area to help take care of his mom who already lives here. And one of our church members is their neighbor. And our church member said, “Hey, we’ve got a great community, a great church family. We’d love for you to get to meet some of us.” So he comes last week. So I just wanna say thank you all to everybody that prepared food and did all the work and invited folks last Sunday.

I wanna say thank you too for everybody that’s helping get the word out about Fall Fest tonight. Fall Fest was the first thing that me and Becca got to enjoy as part of Sauldam Baptist Church last year. We had, I had been voted on at that point, but we hadn’t gotten to move down yet. But we came down for Fall Fest and got to enjoy that with you guys. And I’m really excited about tonight. So there’s still a little time after service, hop on Instagram, hop on Facebook, or make a few phone calls and invite people here at five o’clock. That’s what we’re gonna pray for right now.

If you are new with us, then this might be a little interesting for you. You’re welcome to take a seat to this. But if you’re a member, if you have been here with us for any length of time, I invite you to just to grab a neighbor and we’re gonna ask God in prayer to bless Fall Fest. So what I want you to do, literally turn to your neighbor, the one that you can reach with a hand, all right? Turn to your neighbor and just pray that God will bless Fall Fest, that people would be brought here ultimately, that they would come to meet Jesus through this, okay? And then I’ll wrap it up here in a second. Y’all take it away.

Father, thank you so much for today. Lord, thank you for your kindness to bring us all here. Father, thank you for your goodness to wake us up this morning. Lord, we know we’ve got members here at Sauldam that are not with us this morning for various reasons. Pray for them, God. I pray for Marilyn in particular, Lord, as she’s gone through her stuff this past week. God, thank you that she’s had an excellent hospital recovering. Lord, I thank you that you see us and you care for us. I thank you, God, that you know all of our needs. Nothing about my life is hidden from you. God, there’s an aspect of that that’s a little scary. You see everything I do and I think. But Lord, how comforting it is to know that I never go through a moment of life that you’re not aware of, that you can’t help and comfort me in. Lord, I pray for the people of our church that regardless of what they are experiencing or what they will experience this week, they will know that though they go through the valley of the shadow of death, you are with them and you guide them and you comfort them. Lord, I pray that for our community. God, that the people of Ravenel and Adams Run and Meggett and all the others, God, that We would know that you are the good shepherd that watches over us. Father, I pray even for Fall Fest. God, that it would just be a tool in your hands that more and more people would come to know that for themselves. God, I pray as much fun as a dunk tank or a mechanical bull or hot dogs and trunks, as much fun as all that is, God, I pray that you would use it as a tool for more people to come into your kingdom, please. Not just to come into our church, but Lord, to embrace your gospel and to come into your kingdom. Father, I pray you would use my sermon this morning, you would use this service to do the same thing. Father, if there’s somebody here that doesn’t know the wonderful grace of Jesus, would they know that when they leave here? Holy Spirit, please get a hold of me and my words. Would you please help people to walk out of here knowing you a little more deeply and a little more sweetly, please? God, I love you. I give this to you and it’s in your name I pray. Amen. Well, if you have your Bibles, you go ahead and open them up and turn them to Nehemiah chapter nine. Just cut it in half, you’ll land in the Psalms, take a left and you’ll get there eventually, okay? So Nehemiah chapter nine. As you’re turning there, I wanna ask a question. When was the first time you experienced grace? When did you first experience grace? Now, okay, grace is one of those words that we use in church and we assume everybody knows what we mean when we use it. Here’s what I’m talking about. Grace, grace is undeserved favor. Grace is getting good things you just don’t deserve, all right? That’s grace. When was the first time you experienced grace? Now see, grace is something that we sing about. It’s something that we talk about. It’s something that guys like me like to preach about. And today is gonna be all about grace. But grace is something that I think you and I extend each other every day. I think back to when I was a waiter at the Bonefish Grill over by the airport and the convention center. Now you have to believe this. I’m not the world’s best waiter that there ever was, okay? And if you can believe that. There’s one moment where I, in fact, royally messed up a guy’s dinner. It was just a guy, he had his two sons with him and he probably ordered a steak and I brought him some soup. I don’t know, but I got everything wrong, okay? Not a lick of their order was correct. That guy offered me some grace that day because he still left some monetary, still left a tip there for me. I think about a couple months ago, I’m driving on Del Mar Highway and I’m going just my little way and apparently my little way is faster than what’s recommended by the law enforcement and I get pulled over for speeding. And the officer writes me a ticket saying I went a little slower than I was actually going. And she extended me some grace that day. I think about what’s probably gonna happen for me and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church and I’m gonna go to the church of Israel by exiling them out of the land. All right. He gave this land to them as a gift. He said, “Hey, you have really mistreated me in this gift, so I’m gonna remove both for a season.” All right. So then as an act of grace, God starts bringing them back into Jerusalem, bringing them back into Judah, and He begins this project of reviving and restoring them through a couple key figures, one of which is named Nehemiah. Now they have reused rebuilt the walls that encircle the city. The temple is back up and running. The city has been resettled. And they realized they are now, after everything’s been done physically, God starts doing something spiritually inside of them. All right. So they realized through the reading of the words that they weren’t celebrating some festivals that God had called them to celebrate. In fact, there’s this large Bible study where this guy named Ezra reads from the Old Testament for six hours. And the response of all the people is to weep over their sin. And Ezra says, hold on though. Today’s not a day for weeping. Today is a day for rejoicing. Instead, go be happy, eat good food, send some of that food to your neighbors, invite people to your homes, and let’s just keep doing this for a couple of days. So they do. And then after all of that, they come to Nehemiah chapter nine. Look at verses one through four with me. Okay. It says this, on the 24th day of this month, the Israelites assembled. They were fasting. They were wearing sackcloth. They had put dust on their heads. Those of Israelite descent separated themselves from all the foreigners. And they stood and confessed their sins and iniquities of their ancestors. 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 they spent another fourth of the day in confession and worship of the Lord their God. Jeshua, Bonnie, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Buni, Sherabiah, Bonnie, Chanani. Man, those are hard words. These guys, they stood up on the raised platform built for the Levites and they cried out loudly, to the Lord their God. And we’ll continue in a few minutes. You just get a feel for what’s going on. Now see, this isn’t just a random day in the life of Israel. This was a scheduled day. The first day of the seventh month, back in chapter eight, that was a holy day. They were told, don’t weep on this day. Just rejoice. Just be glad. They postponed their weeping and they went forward with all the celebrating. So that first day, they were celebrating. Then the tenth day, they remembered the day of atonement. For what we need to know for today, the day of atonement is just they were remembering God’s sacrifice that delivers them. All right. They’re remembering their redemption from slavery. You go then to the fifteenth day, which starts off this seven days of feasting and partying. They’ve been partying and hanging out for 24 days. But on day one, what started this whole moment, I said it a second ago, is a day of weeping. A day of recognizing their sin and their shortcomings. A day of feeling bad about how they’ve gone against God’s heart. The people shift from partying to grieving, from dancing to mourning. In fact, this little quote, it’ll be on your screens. This describes the moment. They’re going to mourn their conduct with fasting, sackcloth, and earth on their heads. They’re going to repent of their sin. What’s remarkable about this is that they first felt conviction when the law was read on the first day of the month. Almost a whole month has passed. They weren’t able to deal with the conviction they felt. They took care of all that the law requires, and they gathered 23 days later to deal with their sin. Man, I just think about how Quickly, I get over my sin. When I hurt somebody’s feelings, when I do or say the wrong thing, when I linger in a moment I know I’m not supposed to linger in, and I feel bad for a second, you know what I mean? And then some distraction pops up, and I just go about my merry way. A few moments, I might sit there feeling bad over something I’ve done. The people here, 23 days, they have not dealt with this. 23 days, the backdrop of all their feasting and celebrating is this remembrance, them remembering, but wait, we are sinners.

Now here’s the deal. Sin, it is an unpopular topic in today’s culture. Am I right? Now we do not like to talk about the bad stuff today, but the deal is the Bible takes it very seriously. And the Bible takes sin seriously because God takes sin seriously. God takes sin so seriously that when He saw we couldn’t do anything to get ourselves out of our sin, He sent His own Son to sacrifice Himself in our place so that our sin could be dealt with and we could be forgiven by Him. God willingly gave up His Son, Jesus Christ, as a substitute for you and for me because we could not deal with our sin on our own. God takes sin so seriously, He’d give up His boy for you. God takes it seriously, which means we’ve got to take it seriously too.

That song, “Amazing Grace,” written by John Newton a couple hundred years ago. You know, before he wrote “Amazing Grace,” he was somebody that did not walk with the Lord. He did not know the grace of God because he was full-fledged in his sin, full-fledged living for himself. He was a slave owner and seller. What John Newton was doing prior was a lifestyle totally against what the Bible would say is a good life. He meets Jesus. He repents of all of it. He confesses his sin. And then he writes, “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.” Am I right, Pete?

Sin is serious. The Bible takes it seriously. The people took it seriously. Those first four verses, if you’re a note taker, Nehemiah, it starts with a confessed need for grace. A confessed need for grace. Look at the posture of the people in verse one. Man, they’re fasting, they’re wearing sackcloth, and they had put dust on their heads. These aren’t just weird people out in the desert doing weird desert people things. No, they felt so bad and broken over what they had done against the Lord that they were depriving themselves of food. They’re wearing uncomfortable clothes and they’re just putting dust on their heads. It’s how they mourned.

We do some similar things. We do similar things. You go to a funeral and you’re better not be wearing yellow, right? Go to a funeral, you’re wearing dark colors, dark colors, because the clothing’s got to match the situation. For them, when they were mourning their sin, they were looking like they’re uncomfortable because they were. Their outward expression matched what’s happening on the inside. They had this posture of confession.

Then they spend all day, it seems, in this act of confession. Verse three, they’re standing in their places. They read from the book of the law of the Lord their God for a fourth of the day. Just think sun up, sun down. That’s about 12 hours, yeah? 12 hours, divide that in fourths, for three hours. For three hours, they’re standing up, listening to the Bible being read and taught. Then they spend another three hours confessing their sin and worshiping the Lord. I’ll tell you what I did for three hours yesterday. It was sit down and watch college football, right? Or am I the only one? Okay, me and three other truth-tellers and then a room full of others. They spent half their day oriented around listening to God’s take on life and responding with their confession and their worship.

Naturally, then there’s this pain as they’re recognizing their shortcoming, but there’s this hope for them as well as they’re saying, but God is good. They, verse four, they cry out loudly to the Lord their God. They’re crying out to Him, confessing, pleading, laying themselves bare before Him.

I’ll tell you, man, physical actions have spiritual power and spiritual moments are strengthened through physical action. Here’s, let me explain. I grew up in a church similar to Sauldam Baptist Church where I was just deathly afraid of hell. I was really afraid of spending an eternity separated from my family. I was afraid of the idea of fire forever, whatever You were taught. That’s probably what I was taught. I was afraid of that. So as a nine-year-old, I thought if I get baptized, then I won’t go to hell. So one day as a nine-year-old, I did what some of us have also done. And I got into the pool and I said some things that my heart didn’t really understand. And I did some things. Now here’s the deal. I didn’t actually know Jesus then. I was using a ceremony to get something from God. You fast forward my life six years and a guy named Luke is sharing the gospel with me and God opens my eyes to help me see that I did not love God. I was not living for Him in any meaningful, any meaningful way or anything like that. Like that, and God used that to draw me to Himself. Every time I had the opportunity to get baptized after that, you know what happened right here? Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do. I’d get anxious, ’cause I had to wrestle with this embarrassment or this anxiety or these feelings.

I’d go to Charleston Southern, where I have ample opportunities to go down to the swimming pool on campus and get baptized. I’d join a church in college, where I’ve got multiple opportunities to get baptized. It wasn’t until I was already a seminary student, me and Becca are married, and I’m joining a church in North Carolina. And they said, “Hey, Jeremy, we totally believe you’re walking with the Lord, all this makes sense, but man, something that we would ask from you is that you would be baptized as a Christian post your profession of faith.” Wouldn’t you know it, man, my heart, once again, do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do. I was super anxious. I knew that to deal with this physical experience associated with a spiritual moment, I just had to be a step on my part. So I get baptized during one of the services that are former church, and I tell you, the whole time I’m doing it, my heart, do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do. Anybody else have a moment like that? You’re trying to do something for the Lord, something spiritual in its beginning, but it has to have some physical aspect to it, right? Like we can’t just say that we love kids around the world without doing something physical for them. You can’t just talk about how amazing God’s grace is, but have your hands in your pockets when you’re singing, “An amazing grace, how sweet the sound.” All of our spiritual moments of life, they have physical actions, and physical actions have spiritual power.

That’s what you’re seeing in this passage, and it’s something that we’re gonna have an opportunity to express and experience in a minute. After the people confess their need for grace, these people are recounting this history of grace. Man, if you are to look back at your Bible, and you look at verses six through 31, you would see this song that the people are singing about how good God has been to them. The constraints of our time this morning, I’m not able to preach on every single verse, so let me just summarize it for you. It begins with God creating everything in verse six. Out of God’s grace, He makes everything that is, and there is nothing in this world that exists that God also did not create. God made all things of His own accord, and He made all things to worship Him. Not only that, but God also, in verse seven, calls a specific person in this world named Abram. He says, “Hey, Abram, I’m gonna make a nation, and I’m gonna start with you. You don’t know who I am yet, you don’t worship me yet, but you’re going to get to know me pretty quickly, and pretty deeply.”

So after God calls Abraham, what happens then in verse nine, the authors are talking about what happens in the Exodus moment. The people of Israel, this is long after Abraham, they are enslaved in Egypt, and God frees them, a physical act with a spiritual meaning. He frees them, and He sends them through the Red Sea that God had divided. So in verse 12, they start this long journey through the wilderness where God is guiding them by a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day. However, unfortunately, verse 16, “Our ancestors acted arrogantly. They became stiff-necked. They did not listen to Your commands. They refused to listen. They did not remember Your wonders that You performed among them. They became stiff-necked. They appointed the leader instead of trusting in God Himself.” God’s response is His grace. “You are a forgiving God.” This is verse 17. “You are gracious. You are compassionate. You are slow to anger, abounding in faithful love, and you did not abandon them.” Verse 18, “They sin again. They create this golden calf. They create this physical image that says, ‘This is God, not the God of the heavens we can’t see, but this God of gold that we can see, that we made. This is God.’ God responds once again with His own grace and His own kindness. God takes them to the promised land,” verse 22, “and God gives the land to them. However, the people sin against God again. They are disobedient. They rebelled against God. They flung God’s law behind their backs. They killed the prophets who warned them. They committed terrible blasphemies, and that’s what landed them in this situation to begin with.” The history of the Bible is a story of God and His kindness and His grace and His forgiveness constantly reaching out to a group of people that struggle to trust and walk with Him.

If you were to go back later this afternoon and read those verses, you would see this phrase, “You are a forgiving God.” There’s this little quote for you, “You are a forgiving God.” That is the key phrase of this section and perhaps of the whole prayer. In spite of all the people’s failures, God kept forgiving them. God still guided them and God took care of them. Here’s the deal. Unlike us, God is limitless and He is perfect in grace. We wear down, we empty out, but God has grace for all time for all people who would dare to love Him. God has grace for you even when you don’t have grace for others. That is God’s amazing grace. This history of grace that they’re recounting is all about God.

Now, grace, it’s got a rhythm to it. All right? Listen to me. Hear me out. God invites. You see, grace always begins with God. God starts a loving relationship with us. Then by grace, we respond. We accept His love and we return it. We give God the love He has given us. Then after we respond, inevitably and unfortunately, we all fall. We make mistakes. We drift away from God. We sin and we walk away from Him. Then God restores. All right? God seeks us out to reconnect with us. He helps restore our relationship with Him. That is the rhythm of grace. This is your life as a follower of Jesus. God has initiated grace and love with you. You responded. You fell away and God’s seeking to restore you and return you back to Himself.

Here’s the question. Have you accepted God’s invitation for a love relationship? Man, you’re here, which means God is drawing you to Himself. If you’re still fuzzy on who Jesus Christ is, if you’re still unsure about actually giving your life to Him, my invitation to you this morning, take God at His word. Give your life to Him and accept the grace that He has for you. And if you have, if you have accepted that invitation, let’s say you gave your life to Him years ago or days ago. My question then is, have you fallen away and are you resisting God’s restoration? God wants a vibrant, deep, real, and personal relationship with you. He doesn’t just want church attendance from you. He doesn’t just want financial giving from you. He doesn’t just want prayers from you. He wants a relationship with you, for you. Will you take Him up on it? We’ll all have a chance to respond to God’s grace here in a moment.

As I return back to this passage though, after remembering the history of God’s grace, the people make a request for more grace. It’s kind of crazy. Look at this with me, verse 32 and following. So now our God, the great, mighty, and awe-inspiring God who keeps His gracious covenant, do not view lightly all the hardships that have afflicted us, our kings and leaders, our priests and prophets, our ancestors, all Your people, from the days of the Assyrian kings until today. You are righteous concerning all that has happened to us because You have acted faithfully while we have acted wickedly. Our kings, leaders, priests, and ancestors, they did not obey Your law or listen to Your commands and warnings You gave them. When they were in their kingdom with Your abundant goodness that You gave them and in the spacious and fertile land that You set before them, they would not serve You or turn from their wicked ways. Here we are today, slaves in the land You gave our ancestors so they could enjoy its fruit and its goodness. Here we are, slaves, slaves in it. It’s abundant harvest goes to the kings you’ve set over us because of our sin. They rule our bodies and our livestock as they please. We are in great distress. In view of all of this, we’re making a binding agreement in writing on a sealed document containing the names of our leaders, Levites, and priests.

Man, the beautiful audacity of these people to recount how gracious and forgiving and patient God has been, to recognize their own failures in it, and then to ask for more. But man, that’s God. God is such a good dad. He’s such a good father. He has so much grace for us.

Man, I get irritable and impatient with my kids. I just feel like they ask and they ask and they ask and I wear down and I empty out. That is not your heavenly father, amen? Your heavenly father knows everything you need before you ever even ask Him. And He longs to pour grace on you and just to overfill the cup of your life so that you would never be able to say, my God has deserted me.

God has grace for you, which means we can make audacious requests like saying, God, I’ve messed up and I’ve failed. But Lord, please keep holding me and help me through this. God, I am not perfect. We all know it, God. I disobey you every day, but Lord, please, would you please continue to help me? God loves to hear those types of prayers.

You see, the people recognized their situation and ultimately recognized how God was innocent and they themselves were guilty. And that drove them to pray even harder to God. When I think about my guilt and my sin, man, the best response is to lean even harder into God and say, God, you knew this. You knew I would do these things. You knew. And still you sent your son for me. Still you gave Jesus Christ for me. God, thank you. That’s His invitation for us today.

You know, if you look at chapter 10, you’d see that dedication, that binding agreement that they write. In fact, if you got a bulletin, it has some digging deeper questions. I would love for you to take me up on it. Someday this week in your quiet time, read chapter 10 of Nehemiah and look at all the ways they are dedicating themselves to God.

They make this dedication based on grace. In response to God’s past grace and in keeping with the request for more grace, the people dedicate themselves to God and to keeping His law. They confessed their sin. They remembered God’s faithfulness and they dedicated themselves to God in it. Rhythms of grace. God invites, we accept, we fall away, He restores. That is your life as a follower of Jesus.

I’ve saved the main point for now because I wanted you to hear all that before you heard this. There’s one thing you remember from this sermon today, it’s this. Grace fuels revival and restoration. Grace fuels it. God is reviving us. He is restoring us and it is by His grace. God revives hearts and it is by His grace. He restores people and it is always, always, always by grace. Grace fuels revival and restoration.

Grace starts, continues, and ends with God. God is constantly pursuing a love relationship with you. One founded on grace and we embrace that love through confession. It’s what started this whole passage back in verses one through four.

You see, I think because of church background, it’s easy for us to think of grace as an idea. It’s easy to think about grace as something you sing about but not really experience a whole lot, right? But here’s my belief. I believe that the words of scripture are not just historical but they’re also living. While Amazing Grace is a great song, it’s not scripture, I do think that it describes a type of relationship you can experience with God.

You see, we can experience grace but not while we’re holding on to things God doesn’t like. This passage began with people gathered to confess their sin. I would say it this way. Confession is the way we access grace. Confession is like the valve of your heart. If God has this enormous tub of grace water and He wants to let it flow into your life, there’s a valve that’s gotta get turned. Confessing your sin and confessing your need for God, that is turning that valve which lets that grace water into your life.

And the invitation this morning is will you turn the grace valve? Will you turn it? God is inviting us right now to embrace grace and to be revived in Our souls, to be restored in our relationship with Him. So will you accept it? Father, would You give us purity before You? Would You help us to walk with You as a people wholly devoted to You? Would You let confession be a regular practice, not one that we dread like eating our vegetables and taking our medicine, but one that we come to delight in like eating dessert because we know that through that we get to have joy. God, I pray for those that did that today, and I ask that You would free them, free them from things that are holding them, free them from things that are weighing on them, and help them to walk out of here as people restored and revived and renewed in You by Your grace. Jesus Christ, thank You for Your sacrifice which makes all this possible. God, we love You. We wanna love You more. It’s in Your great name that we pray.