This morning we'll be in Nehemiah chapter nine, if you read through it. And I'm not going to read the whole thing to you today, so I'm going to walk you through a little bit of it. What the Israelites acknowledged in Nehemiah chapter 9 was that God had heard them, that he had blessed them, that he had been faithful in all these ways. And as you read through chapter nine, you start seeing all these things where they say, you did this, God. You blessed us in this way, you carried us in this way, you protected us, you provided for us, you've been with us, you've been faithful to us.

But then they confess their sins. And I'm worried when we read that part that we think of confessing sins as something that was just something they did in this worship setting. Because if you look in the first couple verses, it tells the setting. They showed up wearing sackcloth and they put dust and ashes in their hair. That's not a very good hair treatment.

I don't know what the latest trends are. I know there's some products out there that have, like, charcoal in them. Have you seen charcoal toothpaste? Some of that made its way into my house. I tried it once.

It might work fine. I don't know. I say made its way in. I didn't buy it. Emma wasn't on Amazon, so you can figure out who did it.

But anyway, it's like you brush your teeth to this and you think, there is no way this is good. But supposedly it's good. Well, they put, you know, stuff from, like, cleaned out the fireplace and put ashes on their head, that kind of thing. And we look at that and we think, that's just weird. Well, yeah, it is to us.

But for ancient peoples, it was a sign of deep sorrow and mourning over some condition. When Job, the guy that lost everything in one day, when. When he lost all this stuff, all of his. His. His wealth goes away, his kids die.

Everything that you think that's bad could happen, happens. And. And the first thing he does is he tears his clothes, he puts on sackcloth, he sits in the dust, and he covers his head in ashes. It was a sign of deep, utter mourning over your condition. And so the Israelites showed up on this day.

It says, it's the 24th day of the month. Now, if you're paying attention over the last couple chapters as you were reading, you'll notice that they had gathered on the first day of the month. And the law was read, start. They start weeping because they recognize they haven't kept the law very well. Then they, they're told like, don't weep.

Today is a day of celebration. So go and celebrate, eat some good food. I say amen to that. Some of my favorite scriptures is like, where, where God tells Noah after the ark, he's like, you know what? I gave you guys every seed bearing plant.

Now I'm giving you every animal to eat. You're like, yes. He made us like carnivores, you know, that's fantastic. That's one of my favorite verses in the Bible. Another one is where Peter has this vision and there's a sheet lowered from the heavens and has all these animals.

And God says to him, rise up, Peter, kill and eat. That should be like on every man cave everywhere. Rise up, kill and eat. Like, yes. You don't even have to be a hunter to get excited about that.

You know, it's in our DNA, man. You know, somewhere back there we were the hunter gatherers. You know, like we, we go out, we kill something, we drag it home, the family has food. These are some of the great verses in the Bible for me. I love it.

And so they, the, the, they show up though, they've, they're weeping, they're mourning over their sinful condition. They've celebrated the beginning of the month. They've had a worship festival, the feast of Booth, that reminded them of their exodus and that lasted eight days. The celebration did. And now they show up with sackcloth and ashes.

They've heard the law, they've celebrated what God's done for them. They've had their festival in remembrance of what he'd done for them. But now they've showed up ready for business. The Israelites in the time of Nehemiah and Ezra, they've had this, this, this period where they were celebrating what God had done. And to be to just like wrap that up really quickly.

What he had been doing for them in the recent time was they had had the culminating period of their disobedience, their running away from God a few years before, a few decades before, and they had, they had run so far from God for so long. And even though he was patient with them in their, in their backsliding from him, even though he was long suffering and slow to anger, it says all these things in Nehemiah 9, they acknowledge that this is how God acts. Even though he, he is very patient with us in our times of sin, he still had to do something. And he, he sent them into this thing that we call the exile period, where they were Exiled from the promised land. They leave the promised land and they go away.

They're carried away by a foreign king into a foreign land. All their treasures that are. That they have are taken from them. Everything they hold dear. The temple is stripped of everything valuable and precious and holy and sacred and taken away by a foreign nation.

And then the temple's destroyed. The king's palaces are destroyed. The homes of the nobility are destroyed. All the nobles are taken from the land and taken and made to serve a foreign king. And then all that's left, all that you've got left is the kind of the poor folks of the land.

And the poor folks of the land are left there to kind of take care of the farming and keep some of the villages going and send tribute back to the king. Other than that, you've got all this land that's just kind of left almost vacant. And so in the long run, what we do have is we've got this time period that's gone past. They've lived in this foreign land for 70 years, and finally God sends them back. He sends them back home, those who are willing to leave the land that they're in, and they go back to this promised land.

Now, the really interesting thing to me in all of this is that they had been living a fairly healthy life in the land of exile. Life was actually good. You see Jeremiah in Jeremiah 29:7, he says, when you go to the land that I'm sending you into exile, seek the good of that land, for when it prospers, you too will prosper. And they had done that. God spoke to some of them through his prophets at the time and said, wherever I've sent you, go there and live well and don't fight against that land.

I'm actually using that king, as evil as he may be. I'm using him as a tool to teach you Israelites a lesson. I'm teaching you to rely on me to follow my laws and obey my commands, and I will bring you out of that land. See, he had this covered. I mean, the prophets, they're broken.

The Bible doesn't spell this out, but different prophets ministered at different times and in different locations. So some of them spoke of the impending exile. They said, it's going to happen. You can't fight it. It's time.

Some of them spoke during the exile to the people that still lived in the land. And some of them spoke to the exiles in the foreign land that they were carried off to and spoke to them there and ministered to them in Those places. And some of them spoke in the time after the exile, and they were calling the people, they were calling them out and calling out how their fellowship, how their communion with God should look. And so as you look at these different prophets and start to recognize who they are speaking to or what time they are speaking to them, it begins to make some sense. So the people, they've had the word of God telling them to seek the prosperity of that land, and they do that.

But now they're told that they can leave and go back to Israel, go back to Jerusalem and rebuild the city walls, the city, the temple within the city, the homes. And they do all this stuff, and they spend all this energy to do that. And it's amazing to me that somebody would choose to leave this foreign land of prosperity and move to a broken land. We can't understand that in America very well, today, see, we're considered the land of prosperity. And yet people come from other nations that are poor and broken down, looking for a better life.

They come here looking for that. This was the opposite. They left the land of plenty and moved to the land that was in ruins because God had still promised that he would bless them there. So as he does that, as they come back there, they've gathered, they've built the wall, the temple's rebuilt, they do all these things. But now it's time to figure out, how do we worship God?

You see, it's one thing to have the walls, the building, the structure, the lights, the air conditioning, the carpet, the seats. It's one thing to have all those things in place, but you've got to have people that will minister. You have to have musicians and singers. You have to have people at the doors. You have to have people running.

The technology. I know they didn't have this in the temple back then. This is how we are now. But you understand, like, you can't just throw up a building. It's not like, you know, field of dreams, build it and they will come.

You've got to advertise, let people know that it exists. You've got to go out there and talk to your friends and neighbors and push, pull, or drag them to church. Seriously, just get them here, you know? No, really, do whatever you got. Get your friends in church.

If you care about their eternity, spend time in prayer over them. If you spend any time in prayer over them, you'll invite them to come with you. So anyway, the Israelites, they have. They have this time. They show up the 24th day of the month, ashes, sackcloth, Even though they're in a place where they should be celebrating everything God's done, they come face to face with one problem.

That problem is their sin. They recognize their sin. They recognize, they confess their sin, what they have done, and they start confessing it to God. And they don't just confess their sin. They confess the sin, the iniquity of their ancestors.

It's like this. This sin that just is pervasive throughout their generations. But they don't separate themselves from it and say, that was them. And then, here's where we are. They actually kind of adopt or unite their sin with the sin that their ancestors had and say, okay, we recognize that this attaches to us.

You can close those doors. It's okay. Somebody talking out in the lobby is like, I can hear it. I'm sure you guys can too. There we go.

Isn't that nice? So the sin that they had, they recognized that their ancestors sin and their sin are both part of it. So they confess it all before God. We don't do that very often, if ever. I don't think we've ever had a time where I said, why don't you come forward, Confess the sin of our nation and yourself.

See, it's easy for me to talk about the sin of our nation. I can point fingers at our leaders, at our people, at our institutions, our social and news media and all that stuff. I can point out flaws and all of that stuff pretty easily all day long, no problem. And then you put a mirror in front of me and say, okay, now tell me about that guy. Tell me about his sins.

Well, I mean, there's probably a couple, you know, and we don't like to look at ourselves and really dig into our own lives and say, here's where my sin is. Here's where my rebellion against God is greatest. Here's where I am. We say, oh, I'm struggling with this thing. I'm struggling against this problem.

Many of you have struggles. Sure. How many of you want to say, my struggles are actually the sin in my heart and in my life? It gets uncomfortable when we do that. It gets uncomfortable when the preacher starts talking about it.

You're worried that there's going to be a spotlight that all of a sudden starts pointing on you. I'm not going to shine that on you. That's the job of the Holy Spirit. I'm going to tell you about the Word of God, and I'm going to let the Holy Spirit of God speak to you about your life and your sins. And one of the things that's hardest to do for a preacher is I can talk for minutes and hours and try to convince you that you have sin in your life.

If you won't acknowledge that before God on your own, you won't listen to me. So I'm not going to go on and on about that. But as you read the Word of God, look at it and say, where is this a reflection of me? I could read Nehemiah 9 to you and you could tune it out just as easily as anything else. But if you take the time to read it yourself and you look at it and you say, where do I fit into this?

Where has this shown who I am and what's going on in my life? At the very end, at the very last part, the last few verses, it says this, starting in verse 33, says, you are righteous God. God is the you here. You are righteous with regard to all that has happened to us, for you have acted faithfully. It is we who have been in the wrong.

Our kings, our leaders, our priests, and our ancestors have not kept your law. They have not paid attention to your commandments or your testimonies by which you have solemnly admonished them even when they were in their kingdom and benefiting from your incredible goodness that you have lavished on them in the spacious and fertile land you had set before them. They did not serve you, nor did they turn from their evil practices. So today we are slaves in the very land you gave to our ancestors to eat its fruit and to enjoy its good tidings. We are slaves.

Its abundant produce goes to the kings you have placed over us due to our sins. They rule over our bodies and our livestock as they see fit, and we are in great distress. Now, what happens after that? The last verse there is actually probably part of chapter 10, and so we'll save that for next week. One of the interesting things is they recognize that the law wasn't just a system of rules that was binding them in a way.

The law wasn't just these harsh rules and punishments that went along if you broke them. The law, it says, and they acknowledge it earlier in chapter nine. The law is actually their life. God gave them the law as a means for showing them how to live. And if they abide by it, then they live life to the fullest.

One of the things that's really happening here, the core of it is the people moved from. From this dead, worthless, kind of limp, weak religion and into the actual worship of God. See, religion is something. Oh, man, we need a joke or Something to lighten it up in here. You guys just move a little bit, get limber, move some blood flow and crack your neck or your back, whatever you got to do.

The air feels stiff in here today. Do you feel that? We've been talking about sin. Nobody likes that part. Let's check this out.

Here's the thing. The people had been just at their best, checking off the boxes. They were very religious. They knew how to follow the religious patterns. They knew how to be obedient at the right times in front of the right people.

They knew how to dress just the right way and how to. How to show up at the right ceremonies or festivals or all these things. They knew how to look in the assembly of the people of God, but they didn't know God. See, I brought up Job a little bit ago. At the end of the book of Job, after everything, he goes through all of his suffering.

And then on top of that, his wife nags Adam and tells him to curse God and die. That's why I say Job lost everything. I didn't mention he didn't lose quite everything. Satan that had taken everything from him, left his wife to nag him. Now, I'm not saying all wives nag all the time, but I'm saying this lady did.

Just to be clear, you know, this was a nagging wife, and she nags him, and then she's out of the picture after that. Like, we don't hear anything else from her. I don't know what happens to her. But Job, he. He's left with his nagging wife and nothing else except for a few friends in air quotes.

Friends. Because these guys, if these are their friends with a quote, who needs enemies? You know, These friends show up, and they sit with him for seven days in the dust. And then after that, they say, all right, here's what's wrong with you, Job. And they start telling him he must be an evil guy because God is good and God wouldn't let this bad stuff happen to him.

It's that old argument we've heard people say, how could a loving God allow bad things to happen to good people? You really don't know what's going on. And that's the core of the argument with Job. And at the end of it, God finally speaks out. It says, out of the whirlwind, God speaks to Job.

And he says, job, what do you know? And Job's like, I. He's like, that wasn't a question. It was a question. But I didn't mean.

You answered. Listen to me, he says, you sit there and you listen, and God just schools him over and over and over for, like, four chapters, just question after question after question. Finally, Job says, I really talked about things I didn't know. I really spoke of things I didn't understand, and I repent. And what he repented of was his ignorance.

See, Job hadn't sinned in anything that he did. His actions were pure and holy. But what he repented of was his ignorance. His ignorance showed up in the fact that he had only heard of God. It says, he says, I heard of you, God, as one hears with their ears, but now I know you.

God went from Job's head to his heart. Now, Job knows God. If you've ever read part of Job and you've been kind of, like, depressed as you read it, and you think, what's going on here? This is terrible. Yes, it is.

But the point of it is that Job went from hearing of God and just kind of having a. A dead religion. He was righteous on the surface. Job basically said. He's like, I've dealt with all these issues in my life.

I've dealt with greed. I don't have greed. Even though Job was the wealthiest man around, he was the most generous man around. He says, I've dealt with how to treat orphans and aliens. I take care of the foreigners among me.

And if there's a child that doesn't have their parents, I take care of them as if they were my own son. So he deals with those things in his life. He says, I've dealt with lust. He says, not only do I not commit adultery, I don't look at anyone lustfully. I've dealt with that.

Now, this is a man saying this. And guys, you're like, whoo. How did he do that? Like, I'd like to know. Like, we deal with that.

And don't think you women are off the hook either. I know. Like, you guys deal with it too, you know? And so is all that going on. And like Job, just, like one at a time, he testifies of his own life, how good of a man he's been.

He's interceding on behalf of his children while they were still alive and saying, lord, if they've sinned against you, I want to make atonement for their sin. He's doing everything he can to live a holy and righteous life, but at the same time, he really didn't know God. And after this whole big ordeal, the thing that he comes out from it with is he says, now, God, I Know you. And I think what he meant, what he implies, is that I'll lose everything if it means I get to know you. Lord, the Israelites were at this point in their life where they had been religious, they'd been holy.

As you look through all this stuff, they confess their sins. They. They'd been holy in a way that they. They. They looked like they were checking off all the religious boxes, but they knew in their heart of hearts that the love for God just wasn't there.

That's why they showed up with sackcloth and ashes. They sat there hearing the Word of God read to them. All morning. All morning long, the word of God was read to them. And then they start to confess their sins.

Maybe sometimes I think in part, the Catholic Church has a good idea in that. I don't mean that you have to go and confess your sins to another man. I don't agree with that. I don't see that in the scripture that there's a designated person. But I think that it's something beautiful about a designated time and a habit of going and saying, I know that I've sinned, and I want to confess that.

Because as we confess our sins, we. We're admitting who we are and the need that we have for God to heal us in that space and in that place. And so what the Israelites are doing here, I believe, is moving out of a dead and a weak religion, and they're having a revival. I believe they're having revival. That happens.

I believe they. They looked at their lives and they said, God, there's something missing, and that's your presence. Moses had felt that before when he was leading the people through the wilderness. He felt like. Like God had blessed them, but that his presence wasn't with them.

He felt like God had had kind of separated them and gave instructions from afar and said, okay, here you guys go. You travel through the land. You go to the promised land. I'll take care of you. And Moses said, God, that's not good enough.

Have you ever told God that? I'm sure you have, actually. Somebody that you prayed maybe for yourself for healing. And they felt a little better, but they weren't quite healed. Healed.

We say, God, we asked you for, like, healing, not just, like, feeling better. I can take an aspirin for that. You know, I wanted healing for them. We say, God, would you provide for us? He's like, yeah, you got a roof over your head and your car runs.

You know, most of the time, like, it started, okay, thank you, Lord. You know, you're like, God, I wanted, I wanted to not even have to worry if it would start or not. You know, like, stuff like that. We're like, God, can you, can you, like, do it just a little bit more? Like, I know you're capable of it.

Can you please do that? But, but we also tend to do it in, in a way where we say, God, I, I, I, I would really love to know that I'm doing what you want from me. I want to know that I'm following your will. And then we don't seem to hear from him. We say, lord, I wanted more from you.

Times that we should really push back on God is when we say God, just like Moses said, I don't want to leave this place unless your very presence is with us. Unless your presence, unless your holy spirit goes with me. I don't want to leave this place. That's how Moses lived. That's how Moses was leading the people.

And he told God, he says, I'm not going anywhere unless you're leading. In that case, we have the example set before us that we should do the same as a church. I don't hardly want to say like, oh, let's go and serve the community and let's go do these things. Unless we know that the presence of the spirit of God is with us.

Unless we have that assurance, unless we have the fullness of God's spirit, unless we have a revival of our spiritual lives, then there's no point in going on from here. That never happens. That revival never happens while we're content with a dead and weak religion. You know, religion is the kind of thing that enslaves people, that kills people, that leads people far from God. It's the kind of thing that killed Jesus and put him on the cross.

Religion is not something to be applauded. Religion is something of people who are trying to do it on their own and think they found some religious secret to figure it out. That's weak, that's dead, that's lifeless religion. But the true worship of God is when we recognize that we're a sinner. We repent of our sin.

We repent of those who, who have gone behind us that have sinned, and we repent of that. And we say, okay, Lord, I just want more of you. That's why we have prayer time during the service, so that it's a place where you can set aside that time and say, God, I don't want to even go on with this worship service if I don't know that the Presence of your Holy Spirit is in my life. See, sometimes we're content to just sit there. We're content to just kind of hold our spot down on these seats.

I've told you guys before, these things are bolted down. They don't need you to hold them there. Our job is not to hold a pew down. Our job, our purpose for being here is to connect with the God of the universe who sent his son down to live and die for us, that his death means something for us, that through his death we can have new life. That he took sin to the grave, he took death to the grave.

And as he rose to new life, he offers that new life to us. That's the kind of thing that we're going for, the kind of thing that we're living for. And so as we seek that, as we look at what was going on with the people here, we recognize alongside of them that if we're trapped in religion, that we are also held as a slave in that, but that Jesus Christ paid the ransom price so that we can be free of that sin and live for Him. See, that is the only thing that matters, is that you move out from a weak and impotent religion into a spirit filled life. Confession and repentance and living in the grace and glory of God.

Pastor Kendall's going to come up and offer us a benediction in a moment. My challenge to you or my conclusion for you this morning would be that if you've never, you might have given your life to Jesus Christ, but if you've never committed to walk in the fullness of the Spirit of God, that you would take your time to do that now and say, lord, what do you have for me? Because as a preacher that I used to know would always tell people, he would say that God has so much more for you than you can ever imagine. He wants to take you deeper into his spirit than you ever could have dreamed, and he wants to have closer fellowship with you than you could have thought possible. If you aren't seeking that in your life, you're missing out on everything that God has for you.