God Will Clean House

Thank you so much to everybody that donated supplies or funds to help go into the Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes. We figured, man, we display some of the fruit of our work. As you saw, 285 boxes, correct, packed on the packing party itself, and then another 30 some odd came in. So we have a total, I believe, of 317 boxes. Is that right? Man, super excited. Gosh, man, it is not too late to jump into the fun, though. Is that right, Caroline? I’m a little fuzzy on the details, though. When do boxes need to be in? November 25th. Okay, so we have a couple weeks left. We’re taking them out the door, so we’ve got some more empty boxes stacked up in the back.

And just to get a little perspective on what these boxes are, you know, this is not just a way for us to send some toiletries and some toys to those that are less fortunate. That is a component. What this is really, it’s a tangible expression of our faith in Jesus and what He has done for us in the gospel. And we don’t just trust that it is that because we think it’s that. Literally, when the kids and the families get these, they’re going to hear about Jesus. They’re going to hear about the greatest gift that they could ever receive, which is being saved by a God that loves them and wants to spend eternity with them, not just give them some toys and supplies which will last them however long they take care of this.

Think about this, too. So each one of these boxes is going to land in the hands of a child. Let’s just make some pretty conservative estimates, okay? Let’s say each child that receives this has one sibling, so that’s two kids, and that child that receives it, let’s say they have a parent. We don’t know if they’ve got both Mom and Dad. Let’s just say each child that receives this represents three kids. Okay, I’m no math whiz, Seth. We have 317 boxes. That’s over 900 people that we get to communicate the love of Jesus with just through packing these shoe boxes. Man, I would love for us to just blow the socks off of Heaven by filling up the rest of those things so that we can send as much as possible to the families that are going to receive these.

So what we’re going to do right now, we’re just going to pray. We’re going to pray that God uses these to bring many people into His kingdom, whether we get to hear about it or not. All right, so what I want you to do, buddy, with a neighbor, we’re going to pray for these boxes, asking for God’s blessing over them, and then we will pull back together for our sermon. Okay? All right, so buddy up, and I’ll pull us together here in a second.

Father God, thank you so much, God. I just think about Your incredible creativity. The same God that thought up all the magnificent colors and the shapes of wildflowers that cover the hills, the same God that threw stars and planets into solar systems in the universe, is also the same God that came up with this idea for us to pack branded shoe boxes and put them on a plane, and we’re going to ship them to You, Lord, so that children that we probably will never meet get to not just receive some basic needs and some wow-factor toys, but God, they get to hear about the love of Jesus and the greatest gift. Lord, You are incredibly creative. Father, thank You. Thank You that we get to partner with You. Thank You that we get to be Your hands and feet to a world that needs to know about You, God. Thank You for that. Thank You, Lord, for the generosity of the families of our church that have fueled this for us, Lord. I’ve got a few faces in my mind in particular that went, I would say, above and beyond, and God, thank You for them, Lord. Thank You for the contributions of everybody that came, God, not just the financial contribution, but also the time put in to unpack the supplies, the time put into packing the boxes, the time that was put into decor[ating] our sanctuary, Lord. Thank You for all that. I pray that You’ll bless our church for that, Lord. I pray that You’ll bless us right now as we open Your Word together, God, that You would…

Control me, Holy Spirit, that You would get me under Your reign so that what I say would only be from You. Please, God, I pray for Al as he’s preaching at another church, who God, they’re looking, looking at their future, wondering what they have next for them. God, I pray that as Al shares Your word with, with them, You will bless him, You will bless them, that they would receive it, God, they’d be blessed for it. You would speak through Al, please, God. We love You, God. We, I’m asking that You would please, yeah, help everybody here to hear a better sermon than what I’m going to share, Lord. Thank You. We love You. Amen. Amen. Amen.

Well, you can go ahead and open up your Bibles to Nehemiah chapter 13. Nehemiah chapter 13, as we are continuing in our Revival and Restoration series. We’ve got one month left, or I guess three weeks left. So, man, it’s been a, it’s been a good time for at least me. I’ve heard from some of you guys how this book has been richer than you expected it to be, and man, it certainly has been that way for me. I’ve never actually done a deep dive in this book before, and it’s been, it’s been really powerful.

You know, last week I brought up two topics that when I was a waiter at Bonefish Grill, I was taught you never bring up in public. You know, I brought up money and I brought up politics, and in a couple weeks I’m going to bring up the third one, which is relationships. I was told you never bring those three up with people, and we’re going to do it all. So, as we are continuing our final few weeks through the book of Nehemiah, we’re going to see him lead in his final three reforms for the people of Israel. This morning he’s going to go through a reform of worship. Next Sunday we’re going to look at his reform of the Sabbath day, and then the final Sunday of November, the final Sunday of our series, we’re going to look at the reform of marriage. All right.

In all of this, Nehemiah is pursuing purity for the people. Purity. I think purity is something that we all care about very deeply, and it touches every aspect of our life. All right, I need to, to communicate this. I need to ruin something for y’all. I need to ruin food. All right, this week I got curious about the FDA’s purity allowances for the food that you buy from your stores. Okay, so as you’re going to Publix this week, if you’re going to Aldi or Walmart, wherever you go, maybe you’ll just think twice about some of the things you’re going to purchase. Okay.

The first one on the docket, and I, I need a little, I need a little audience participation on this, okay. Apple butter. How much mold by volume do you think the FDA allows for you to purchase and put on your biscuits? How much? What percentage? That’s high. It’s not 25. It’s almost 18. It is 12%. You can go to Publix this week and buy a jar of apple butter, and 11% by volume is mold, and that’s okay. Okay, all right, let’s go to the next one. Frozen broccoli. All right, frozen broccoli. Per 100 grams of frozen broccoli, how many aphids? It’s a tiny little, little bug, it’s green, it lives on broccoli. How many aphids do you think are acceptable per 100 grams? Or 60 grams? Per 100 grams, how many aphids? How many individual aphids? A million? A million 100? It’s not a billion, no. How many? How many? Way higher than five. 60. 60 aphids per 100 grams.

All right, let’s go to ground cinnamon. Ground cinnamon. Per 50 GR. Per 50, exactly. Per 50 grams, how many rodent hairs are allowed? No, how many rodent hairs do you think are allowed per 50 grams? I heard 10. What else? 11. Should I keep going or should I stop now? Stop, stop. Okay, you guys get the, y’all get the, y’all get the point. If you want the last two, you come get me afterwards. All right.

Purity is important. We all care about purity. The next time that you are making what for us is apple cinnamon pancakes, yesterday I’m making apple cinnamon pancakes, and you better believe I still dashed that stuff right out the canister after I learned all this. Okay, purity is important. We all care about it. It’s not just that we care about it with our food, but I think that we all care about purity in every Fast of Our Lives last week I defined Purity this way: Purity is enjoying God’s gifts in the correct context. It’s enjoying God’s gifts in the correct context. It’s not just being able to enjoy that apple butter, but it’s enjoying apple butter that’s clean, it’s healthy, it’s good for you, it’s good things. God gave Israel three incredible gifts: worship, Sabbath, and marriage. However, they had gone impure in their enjoyment of those things. So He gives them the guy Nehemiah, and Nehemiah’s purpose as we close out this book is to refine the people, to purify the people for how they’re enjoying these things. If you’re a notetaker, this is what I want you to take away from today, okay? True worship requires purity. True worship requires Purity. I’m going to start off Nehemiah chapter 13, verses 1 through 3.

At that time The Book of Moses was read publicly to the people. The command was found written in it that no ammonite or moabit should ever enter the Assembly of God because they did not meet the Israelites with food and water. Instead, they hired balum against them to curse them, but Our God turned that curse into a blessing. When they heard this law, they separated all those of mixed desent out of Israel.

Goodness gracious, man, we’re starting off with this kind of weird moment of an obscure law, but what you need to hear here, what you need to see, is that the book of Moses was read publicly to the people. Man, this is not the first time in the book of Nehemiah where we see the Bible being read to all the people, and every every time this happens in the story of Nehemiah, change happens. That’s because the word, God’s word, it’s living, it is active. That’s what Hebrews chapter 4 tells us. Not only that, God’s word is God breathed; it has the very breath and the Very life of God in it. That’s second Timothy chapter 3. Major changes happen every time God’s word is read in the story of Nehemiah. This time it’s a change of purifying their worship. There’s this command that have been Unearthed and read to the people that no ammonite or moabit should ever enter the Assembly of God.

Now we need a little historical Biblical context for this. The ammonites and the moabites, they were the direct descendants of an incestuous relationship between Abraham’s nephew lot and his daughters. You read about this in The Book of Numbers chapter 22. In fact, if you got a bulletin on the way in here, there’s a there’s some sermon o questions, then there’s a digging deeper section. This week, spend some time in Numbers chapter 22, read through that chapter, and look with those questions, and you get a bit of an idea of what’s going on there. Today, I don’t have time permitted to really dig into all that. What you need to know is that the people of Ammon and Moab had been direct opponents to Israel at every ter. They had fought against God’s people. So God, in Deuteronomy, different book, chapter 23, He makes this command. That’s what’s read right here in the book of Nehemiah. We see them reading a command out of Deuteronomy based on a story out of numbers. Man, if that doesn’t tell you the Bible is one long story, I don’t know what does. Deuteronomy 23, there’s this command: ammonites and moabites are never supposed to mix in with Israelites.

Now what you need to see in the Old Testament is that ethnic Purity was related to spiritual repentance. Think with me: when God called Abraham, there was no people of Israel. God was starting a new tribe, a new ethnic people group. That’s what God was doing when He said, “I’m going to make a covenant with you, and I’m going to multiply your descendants, that there will be more than the sand on the shore, more than the stars in the nighttime sky. I’m going to create a new family.” However, that family is supposed to be a light to the Nations. They’re supposed to draw the Gentiles to Me. You’re not supposed to put up boundaries keeping them out; you’re supposed to draw them in. But when they are drawn in, they need to become like you, not you become like them. The people of Ammon and Moab had been brushing against God’s people, and every time that happens, Israel becomes like them; they don’t become like Israel. So God said, “Hey, in this particular instance, there needs to be a boundary because you guys can’t handle the ammonites and the moabites being within you.” Does that make sense? Now when Jesus comes on the scene, and we’ll learn about this in our series through Ephesians next year. Jesus on the cross broke down the dividing wall of hostility, so that Jews and non-Jews, Israelites and and Moabites, we can all be around the Throne of the Lamb together, holding hands, singing, “Holy, holy, holy is our Lord,” because in the cross Jesus made a way of salvation for everybody, regardless of where they came from.

The story of Nehemiah, hundreds of years before Jesus. All right, a little different. Spiritual repentance was assumed with ethnic purity. This is not purely an ethnic thing, or else you and me, unless I’m surprised by your genealogy, none of us would be in God’s family because we’re not Jews. In fact, you even take the woman Ruth. Ruth, one of my heroes of the Old Testament. She is a Moabit. Remember, she is Naomi’s daughter-in-law. “I’ll go where you go. Your God will be my God. Your people be my people.” Do that sound familiar? Ruth was not part of God’s family, however, she followed Naomi, became like a Jew, started believing in the Jewish scriptures, and she was brought into the family of God. And you know what else happens? She wasn’t just allowed into God’s family; she was Jesus’s great, great, great, great, great grandmother. She wasn’t just a part of the church, man; she was the matriarch of the thing. So it’s not just an ethnic issue; this is a spiritual issue. And when the people of Nehemiah’s day heard this, they made a spiritual moment through physical actions. They separated themselves from the Moabites and the Ammonites. Man, that’s a lot of context, but I don’t want to just brush over that and say, “Hey, we need to start separating from people based off this.” That’s not the point. The point is to draw them in.

Verses 1 through 3 of our passage, they describe a moment that happens after what we are about to read. Okay? Any of you turn on the TV and you start a movie and you start in the middle, and you got to back up a little bit to get some context? That’s what happened here. Verses 1 through 3, that’s the end result. 4 through 14, what I’m about to read, that’s what begins this moment. Okay? Man, so much context for us. Verses 1 through 3 describe a moment that happens after verses 4-14. 1 through 3 is a real moment of ideal circumstance. Before they got to this place of obedience, they had to deal with an issue first. Hear it this way: if true worship requires purity, then true worship is broken through impurity.

Look at verses 4 and 5 with me now. Before this, now before verses 1 through 3, the priest Eliashib had been put in charge of the storerooms of the house of our God. You should hear Temple. He was a relative of Tobiah. You should hear Ammonite. He had prepared a large room for him in the temple where they had previously stored the grain offerings, the frankincense, the articles, the tithes of grain, the new wine, and fresh oil prescribed for the Levites, singers, and the gatekeepers, along with the contributions for the priests. Their true worship required purity. That purity had already been broken. The priest Eliashib had allowed his relative to take up residence in the temple. A family relationship was an avenue of corporate spiritual compromise.

Now Eliashib, he’s a priest. That means his job is to protect the purity and the worship of the people. Tobiah was Nehemiah’s enemy. Al preached on this two months ago. There were two guys who were leading the charge against Nehemiah. Nehemiah, his whole job that God had given him was to restore and revive Jerusalem. There’s two guys that would mock Nehemiah at every turn, two guys that are trying to lead the people away, two guys that are calling Nehemiah a fraud. Their names are Tobiah and Sanballat. They were not of Jewish descent, and one of them has taken up residence in the temple. Tobiah was Nehemiah’s enemy. He fought God’s work, he fought the restoration of Jerusalem, he fought the revival of her worship, and Eliashib’s preference for family over faith meant that the temple storeroom became Tobiah’s bedroom. No worship supplies means no worship. Look at that list again in verse 5: grain offerings, frankincense, articles, tithes of grain, new wine, fresh oil. All that describes what’s required for offerings, for the sacrifices, their way they worshiped. Not only did the temple lack worship, but it also had a defiling presence in it. This ought to bother us. We ought to be incensed.

Ought to be upset a little bit. You see, if God is worthy of worship, if Christ alone deserves our highest praise, if God really is Holy, Holy, Holy, then we should be deeply upset when we see His worship polluted or defiled. We ought to be upset about this. We ought to be upset when our purity is hurt, and which means we ought to protect our purity as a church at all costs. Nehemiah is deeply upset about this. He knew that he could not just stand by while this carried on. Look at verses 6 through 13 with me.

While all of this was happening, I was not even in Jerusalem because I had returned to King Artaxerxes of Babylon in the 32nd year of his reign. It was only later that I asked the king for a leave of absence so that I could return to Jerusalem. Then I discovered the evil that Eliashib had done on behalf of Tobiah by providing him a room in the courts of God’s house. I was greatly displeased. I threw out all of Tobiah’s household possessions. I ordered that the rooms be purified, and I had the articles of the house of God restored there along with the grain offering and the frankincense. I also found out that because the portions for the Levites had not been given, each of the Levites and the singers performing the service had gone back to his own field. Therefore, I rebuked the officials, asking, “Why has the house of God been neglected?” I gathered the Levites and the singers together, and I stationed them at their posts. Then all Judah brought a tenth of the grain, new wine, and fresh oil into the storehouses. Then I appointed as treasurers over the storehouses the priest Shelemiah, the scribe Zadok, and a Levite, Pedaiah, with Hanan son of Zaccur son of Mattaniah to assist them, because they were considered trustworthy. They were responsible for the distribution to their colleagues.

Man, we see Nehemiah. I’ll say it again: true worship requires purity. We saw this moment where true worship is broken through impurity, then Nehemiah purifies once again for true worship. But the story begins—he’s not even in Jerusalem. We have to remember that Nehemiah reviving and restoring Jerusalem, that was not his day job. His day job was to be cupbearer to the king of Babylon. Nehemiah didn’t even live in what we would call Israel; he lived in Babylon with the king. That would have been his job, that would have been his residence. The book of Nehemiah begins with him asking leave of the king to go back to his homeland to set things in order. God had already been working in the king; God helped the king bless that, and he actually sent an envoy with Nehemiah the first time. I assume he does all that same stuff again here. Nehemiah has to ask leave of the king.

Now, when Nehemiah left Jerusalem, when he went back home to Babylon, remember what had happened: the wall had been restored, the temple was operating again, everybody was rejoicing in and obeying the Word, people were confessing their sin, they were celebrating the feasts and the festivals—everything was good. So he goes back home, he thinks, “Man, my work here is done for a little bit.” He’s back with the king for some years. He requests leave, says, “Hey, King, I just want to go check on my brothers, my sisters. I just want to go see how well everything is faring in Jerusalem.” And he comes back—temple’s not working, which means people aren’t worshiping. The Ammonites and the Moabites had settled amongst the Israelites yet again, and he finds that his biggest opponent is living in the temple. Man, imagine how upset Nehemiah would have been, and then multiply it by five—that’s how he feels.

I think Nehemiah’s story, though, helps draw something out for us. I’d say it this way: Nehemiah’s royal obligations to the king of Babylon, they were superseded by, they were trumped by his royal obligations to God. God had given Nehemiah a job, and that job that God gave Nehemiah was more important than anything else. Your obligations to God will always be greater than your obligations to work, family, and self. The job God has for you, the commands of the Bible, the standard of Scripture is more important than anything else in your life. Nehemiah draws that out for us, and when God gives us His Word and we seek to obey it, that’s how we display that we love Him. That’s how we display that we love Him. Nehemiah comes back and he sees.

what He calls evil. I don’t like to do this too much with you guys. That word “evil”—it’s the same word used in Genesis chapter 6 to describe what was going on right before God flooded and cleansed and wiped out the Earth. Evil. It’s the same word for a globe so engulfed in badness that God says the only way out of this is to save a small family, Noah, and anybody that would trust in my message through them, and to save some of the animals. I just got to—I got to clean the whole thing. I got to restart. It’s the same word. It’s the same word.

Naturally, when Nehemiah sees what he calls evil, verse 8 tells us he felt greatly displeased. Man, feeling greatly displeased—that’s the only appropriate response to seeing evil. If Tobiah’s actions, though, don’t feel like evil to you, then Nehemiah’s four specific responses probably feel a bit overboard. Man, let’s look at them again. Verse 8, he throws Tobiah out and he throws out all the stuff. Verse 9, he orders that the temple and that room be purified and that all the provisions be stocked again. Verse 11, he publicly rebukes all the leaders: “Why in the world did you let this happen? Why’d you let God’s house be neglected?” In verse 13, he installed new leaders.

When Nehemiah discovered that the temple had become impure, God started cleaning house. Can you remember another moment where the temple was impure and God starts cleaning house? I got a couple nods. You remember sometime in the Gospels where Jesus walks into the temple and He sees money changers and merchants? I bet they started off with good intentions. I bet their thinking was, “Hey, some of these families probably can’t bring a lamb 200 miles to come make their annual sacrifices. Let’s just offer some lambs here. We’ll sell them at cost. Let them just purchase them here and they can make the sacrifice that way. They don’t have to deal with keeping up with the goat or the lambs or the turtle doves, whatever it is.”

Time comes and some folks get a little entrepreneurial about it and they start jacking up the prices so that whenever people come to offer sacrifices at the temple in Jerusalem, they’ve got to pay exorbitant fees just to be able to do what God has commanded them to do in the Word. Jesus comes in and you know what He does? Is it like a polite talking to? Is it like a scolding? Like He gets up on the platform and He shakes His finger? No. What’s He do? He makes a whip. He starts flipping tables.

God cleans house. When God discovers—I’ll use that verb kind of loosely—when God discovers that His temple has become impure, may He clean house. That’s what He’s doing through Nehemiah. Nehemiah comes back on the scene. Nehemiah is this agent of restoration and revival, and he discovers that his home is becoming impure. The cinnamon’s got rodent hairs in it. The apple butter’s got mold in it, and God cleans it. He’s not just trying to scoop stuff off the top, though. It doesn’t actually fix anything, right? It doesn’t actually fix it if you just kind of scoop it off the top. What you have to do, really, you have to dump the whole thing out and wash it and put new stuff back in.

Does this seem overboard? I think if we’re being honest, it feels a bit extreme. Jesus had a different perspective on it. He said in Matthew 5, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ but I tell you, everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” So what’s the solution Jesus offers? “If your right eye causes you to sin”—that’s my good eye—“then gouge it out, throw it away, for it’s better that you lose one of the parts of your own body than your whole body be thrown into hell. If your right hand”—that’s my good hand—“if your right hand causes you to sin, it’d be better just to cut it off, throw it away, for it is better that you lose one of the parts of your body than that your whole body go to hell.”

It’s not too serious. It wasn’t too serious for Jesus. When Jesus said you discover impurity in your life, the only right response is to cut it off or cut it out and move along. But maybe, though, it doesn’t feel like it’d be worth the sacrifice to go through the effort.

Again the Bible disagrees the Bible says this in Psalm 16:1 this is David praying to God you God you reveal the path of life to me in your presence is abundant Joy at your right hand are Eternal Pleasures no move to be purified with God is ever too costly because the presence of God is where joy and pleasure is and God is the one that makes known to us that the path of life not the other way around God’s not sitting on the other side of the table saying hey explain it to me explain how this sin or this cutting the corner explain how that’s better for you that’s not God God is saying this is life this is truth walk this hard path and you get me and you get life and you get pleasure nothing will ever be too costly to cut away for God but what about in the church oh I mean this is the temple that’s the old Covenant that’s Old Testament God right New Testament God wouldn’t do that nah then why else would Paul write this in 1 Corinthians chapter 5 he’s writing to a church in Corinth it’s actually reported that there’s sexual immorality among y’all and the kind of sexual immorality that’s not even tolerated amongst Gentiles a man is sleeping with his father’s wife are you arrogant shouldn’t you be filled with grief and removed from your congregation the one who did this even though I’m absent in body I am present with you guys in spirit as one who is present with you in this way I have already pronounced judgment on the one who is doing this when you’re assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus and I’m with you in spirit with the power of our Lord Jesus you need to hand that one over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh so that his Spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord man God’s call for our Purity doesn’t get lessened by The Amazing Grace that God offers through Jesus no God’s standard and his call for our Purity gets heightened because we’re not just a tribe of people that can make things right by slaughtering a lamb no we are a family of people who have been made right by God for the Lamb of God God himself being slain for us which means there is nothing there is nothing there is nothing worth holding on to if it makes us impure before the Lord there is nothing worth holding if God’s presence is where joy and pleasure and life are man that’s where I want to be and I gotta think about that in my life what’s the impurity that I’m holding on to where am I living where where am I living tolerating the things that God has already spoken his displeasure about trying to fool myself that it’s better to have that than God and the story of Nehemiah is this incredible moment in the history of God’s people where he’s just wooing them back saying do you want life do you want joy do you want pleasure man it’s with me but you got to let go of some other stuff man tolerating impurity in your life and in our church it’s like it’s like making food with tainted spices expecting it to taste good and be good for your body so what motivates Nehemiah what motivates this incredible boldness for God we see it in verse 14 we see nehemiah’s motivation look at it with me he prays remember me for this my God don’t erase the Deeds of faithful love I have done for the house of my God and for its service that phrase faithful love captured in the Hebrew with this word HED has said it’s Grace according to the Old Testament Nehemiah in his pursuit of leading with HED with Grace he shows us God’s heart see Nehemiah he saw evil and he felt deeply motivated and he personally engaged the situation and he brought about a solution he fought for the purity of God’s people so that God would be worshiped the way God deserves yet unlike Nehemiah Jesus’s solution to the problem of our evil was not only to purify the temple by kicking us out no Jesus’s solution was to purify us from the inside out through his own sacrificial life death and Resurrection in our place your deepest problem it’s not money issues it’s not relational fraction your deepest problem is not simply the presence of a spiritual contaminant in your life like bugs and your spices or a gentile in the temple your deepest problem is an incurable condition of sin it is a living evil that taints you, and it’s not just isolated like a physical resident of your home, but it is a pervasive influence of your entire life. Here’s the bad news. The bad news is you are not a clean jar of apple butter with mold on the outside that you can wipe off, cleaning up the external jar. No, the Bible says we are jars of mold pretending to be apple butter. Ephesians 2:1-3 says that we are dead in our sin, completely, inescapably trapped in sin, and we need God’s grace and His mercy to transform us, to return us to our original design to worship God and love Him and live for Him. Which means there’s nothing, nothing you could do to purify yourself. If there could, if there, if there was something you could do to make yourself right, we are not here, we’re doing whatever it is we want to be doing on a Sunday morning. There’s nothing we can do to purify ourselves. There’s nothing you can do so that you can offer God the worship He deserves or that your heart craves.

Here’s the deal: you were built to be a home for the holy God of the universe, a temple for God to live inside of. But sin has made the temple of your heart unclean, so that as the Bible describes, even your best worship, it’s like filthy rags to God. That’s the bad news. I’ve got good news. The good news is that God loves you despite all this. The good news is that even though we make a wreck of our lives through foolish, sinful, impure choices and thoughts and motives, God so loved us that He gave, He gave His one and only begotten Son. He personally made a way for you to be forgiven and purified. He took on Himself the only sacrifice that could truly cleanse you.

What can wash away my sin? What can make, make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. For my pardon this I see, for my cleansing this is my plea, nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh, precious is the flow that makes me white as snow, no other fount I know, nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Jesus did not just come to this world to knock over tables and drive us around with whips. Jesus came to clean us, to make a way, pray for us to be forgiven, so that the, the worship that we offer Him can become pure. May we all need the real, the real Nehemiah. Nehemiah’s name means comfort from God. We need the real Comforter, Jesus Christ Himself, the one that will come and make us clean. So my question for you: have you accepted God’s cleansing, purifying grace? In a minute we’ll sing that song, “Nothing but the Blood of Jesus.” In fact, I, I want you just, just bow your heads with me. I just want you to consider, just, just be very honest with the Lord and ask Him, God, have I truly accepted Your grace for me, or am I still try, trying to clean the jar of my life? God, have You made me clean yet, or am I just wiping off the outside of the jar, fooling myself? And if you haven’t, we just call on the name of the Lord right now and say, God, I accept this. I don’t know what it means for my life, but I believe You’re better than life itself. Please make me clean. You just offer that to Him. And if you have, if you’ve given yourself to Him, if you have been made pure, you ask Him, God, who do I share this good news with? Who do I invite into the family through this story?