Sermons

Good morning, Trinity. It's great to be with you this morning. Full disclosure, we have a great relationship among the elders, but sometimes there is manipulation. And some more than others. So, this week, I have 38 verses. Next week, Mark has 39 verses. But if you look closely, I have over double the words. So really over double the verses. So, I'm not gonna say who's been manipulating who, but I just, it's the reason we had to cut a song short so we could have time to read the chapter.

If you have your Bibles, I'd ask you to turn to Nehemiah chapter nine. It's a fantastic chapter, and I'm glad I get to teach it. It's wonderful, and it's meant a lot to me, and I think it'll mean a lot to you. The title of our message this morning is "A Prayer that Renews Cold Hearts," and I don't know about you, but a lot of times I find my heart cold and needing renewal, and so this is a fantastic chapter, that has helped me and I think it'll help you. Let me mention this, the obvious, Christianity is not abstract. Sometimes we read these words in the Bible, and we tend to think it's fiction, it's abstract, but the reality is Christianity happens in real time through real people and in real places.

Just for a review, how we got here in Nehemiah chapter 9, the Babylonian Empire crushed Judah. They burned Jerusalem. They destroyed the temple around 597 years before Christ. They deported the Jewish people in several ways into exile. They took them a long way away, there into captivity in the region of Babylon. There in southern Iraq.

And we know throughout history, this is really what Satan has tried to do. He's tried to dismantle and dilute and destroy the Jewish people. But God's purposes, thankfully, are never frustrated. And 47 years later, after the Babylonian Empire conquered Jerusalem, the Persian Empire conquered the Babylonian Empire and the stage was set for an amazing man, a layman named Nehemiah. And he gets permission from King Artaxerxes to return to Jerusalem and start rebuilding Jerusalem and to begin with the wall.

And so, he leaves Susa. That's where he was. That's where he found himself. And for you to get in your mind where Susa is, you basically see it every day on television because it's in southwestern Iraq. And if you see that Persian Gulf every day when they throw it up on the screen, Susa was just at the top and the east side of the Persian Gulf.

And so, when Nehemiah made his trek back, he worked his way back west all the way to Jerusalem, some 800 to 900 miles away. And he goes there and he travels all that time because God has called him to start to help unify his people and to protect them and start building a wall around the enemies.

So, the wall went up, that's what we read last week, and yet they lived under the Persian rule. They were heavily taxed still, they were forced into labor, they were calling themselves slaves in their own land. But they had the wall, sort of like a gated community here in Dallas. It was all around to protect maybe guards from the enemies outside, but they were still under the authority and the rules of the city and the government, just like we are. And so last week, this perimeter wall, probably a mile and a half or two miles, was standing and it was finished. And all the people gathered and Ezra the priest read the law to Moses to them from morning until noon.

And you remember Andrew taught us that their hearts broke. They wept and then they celebrated simply because they were deeply moved by God's word. But there's a difference between being moved and being changed. And in Nehemiah 9, we're gonna see that the people stop and they look back over their history and they're admitting how faithful God had been and yet how unfaithful they had been. And the word of God that Ezra read to them had cut them deep and caused incredible conviction.

And we see that in this prayer. And this morning, we're gonna study this prayer. It's amazingly instructive. And it shows us what it looks like when cold hearts are rekindled with warm, genuine love for our Lord. And I think if we pay close attention, it's gonna be a great example for us, really, and help us renew our hearts as well. So I invite you to read chapter nine with me. And I'm not going to ask you to stand up because it's going to take about 10 minutes. So, keep your seat, but stand up on the inside.

Verse 1:

(Scripture reading) "Now on the twenty-fourth day of this month the people of Israel were assembled with fasting and in sackcloth, and with earth on their heads. And the Israelites separated themselves from all foreigners (meaning they separated themselves from the pagan influences that they had been around) and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers. And they stood up in their place (you're standing inside, but the standing is a sign of reverence and seriousness.

And so they stood up in their place and it says) and read from the Book of the Law of the Lord their God for a quarter of the day; for another quarter of it they made confession and worshiped the Lord their God. On the stairs of the Levites stood Jeshua, Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani, and Chenani; and they cried with a loud voice to the Lord their God. Then the Levites, Jeshua, Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah, said, (now this is where the actual prayer starts. Here's what they said:) Stand up and bless the Lord your God from everlasting to everlasting. Blessed be your glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise.

(Now verse 6.) You are the Lord, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you. You are the Lord, the God who chose Abram and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans and gave him the name Abraham. You found his heart faithful before you, and made with him the covenant to give to his offspring the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Jebusite, and the Girgashite. And you have kept your promise, for you are righteous.

(Verse 9) And you saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt and heard their cry at the Red Sea, and performed signs and wonders against Pharaoh and all his servants and all the people of his land, for you knew that they acted arrogantly against our fathers. And you made a name for yourself, as it is to this day.

And you divided the sea before them, so that they went through the midst of the sea on dry land, and you cast their pursuers into the depths, as a stone into mighty waters. By a pillar of cloud you led them in the day, and by a pillar of fire in the night to light for them the way in which they should go. You came down on Mount Sinai and spoke with them from heaven and gave them right rules and true laws, good statutes and commandments, and you made known to them your holy Sabbath and commanded them commandments and statutes and a law by Moses your servant. You gave them bread from heaven for their hunger and brought water for them out of the rock for their thirst, and you told them to go in to possess the land that you had sworn to give them.

(Verse 16) But they and our fathers acted presumptuously and stiffened their neck and did not obey your commandments. They refused to obey and were not mindful of the wonders that you performed among them, but they stiffened their neck and appointed a leader to return to their slavery in Egypt. But you are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and did not forsake them.

Even when they had made for themselves a golden calf and said, ‘This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,’ (Can you believe that? They gave credit for this idol, the golden calf, for bringing them out of Egypt. In verse 19) and had committed great blasphemies, you in your great mercies did not forsake them in the wilderness. The pillar of cloud to lead them in the way did not depart from them by day, nor the pillar of fire by night to light for them the way by which they should go. You gave your good Spirit to instruct them and did not withhold your manna from their mouth and gave them water for their thirst. Forty years you sustained them in the wilderness, and they lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out, and their feet did not swell.

And you gave them kingdoms and peoples and allotted to them every corner. So, they took possession of the land of Sihon king of Heshbon and the land of Og king of Bashan. You multiplied their children as the stars of heaven, and you brought them into the land that you had told their fathers to enter and possess.

(Verse 24) So the descendants went in and possessed the land, and you subdued before them the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, and gave them into their hand, with their kings and the peoples of the land, that they might do with them as they would. And they captured fortified cities and a rich land, and took possession of houses full of all good things, cisterns already hewn, vineyards, olive orchards and fruit trees in abundance. So they ate and were filled and became fat and delighted themselves in your great goodness.

(Verse 26) Nevertheless, they were disobedient and rebelled against you and cast your law behind their back and killed your prophets, who had warned them in order to turn them back to you, and they committed great blasphemies. Therefore you gave them into the hand of their enemies, who made them suffer. And in the time of their suffering they cried out to you and you heard them from heaven, and according to your great mercies you gave them saviors who saved them from the hand of their enemies. But after they had rest they did evil again before you, and you abandoned them to the hand of their enemies, so that they had dominion over them. Yet when they turned and cried to you, you heard from heaven, and many times you delivered them according to your mercies. (Many times, you see that? That means frequently, frequently God rescued his people from repeated failure.)

(Now look at verse 29) And you warned them in order to turn them back to your law. Yet they acted presumptuously and did not obey your commandments, but sinned against your rules, which if a person does them, he shall live by them, and they turned a stubborn shoulder and stiffened their neck and would not obey. Many years you bore with them and warned them by your Spirit through your prophets. Yet they would not give ear. Therefore you gave them into the hand of the peoples of the lands. Nevertheless, in your great mercies you did not make an end of them or forsake them, for you are a gracious and merciful God.

(Verse 32) Now, therefore, our God, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love, let not all the hardship seem little to you that has come upon us, upon our kings, our princes, our priests, our prophets, our fathers, and all your people, since the time of the kings of Assyria until this day. Yet you have been righteous in all that has come upon us, for you have dealt faithfully and we have acted wickedly. Our kings, our princes, our priests, and our fathers have not kept your law or paid attention to your commandments and your warnings that you gave them. Even in their own kingdom, and amid your great goodness that you gave them, and in the large and rich land that you set before them, they did not serve you or turn from their wicked works.

(Now here in verse 36 and 37, they're giving us an explanation of where they are right now. Listen to this.) Behold, we are slaves this day; in the land that you gave to our fathers to enjoy its fruit and its good gifts, behold, we are slaves. And its rich yield goes to the kings whom you have set over us because of our sins. They rule over our bodies and over our livestock as they please, and we are in great distress.

(They're back in the promised land but they still have this foreign domination. Verse 38) Because of all this we, (because of this rebellion against God's faithfulness) make a firm covenant in writing...(end scripture reading.)

...To follow God, to go forward with you. Because of this, we have our study. So, if you spend any time in the Bible, especially reading the Old Testament, one thing hits you like a freight train.

And it's that God has set apart a people for himself. It's a nation of Israel. And no other nation, no other nation saw and experienced the incredible amount of blessings that they did. We just read, didn't we, that God rescued them from Egypt from 400 years of slavery using these drop jaw-dropping miracles right in front of their eyes.

He splits the Red Sea. He rains manna from heaven. He brings water from a rock. He led them with a pillar of cloud by night and fire by day and fire by night. And less than two months later, two months later, Moses is still on Mount Sinai and they build this golden calf and they worship it. And the priest Aaron is helping them build the calf. And they traded the living God who had just rescued them for an idol.

It's almost hard to imagine. And you would think these miracles that they had seen had burned forever in their memory and they would never forget, but that's not what happened. They did and this cycle of being blessed and seeing God's grace and mercy and then resting and having everything God gives them and then they get lax and forget. And it's repeated over, and over, and over, and over, and over again. God blesses his people. They get comfortable, they drift, and they sin, and God brings hardship, and they cry out, and God shows mercy, and he rescues them, and they rest, and they fall again, and again, and again.

And you may say, well, maybe they weren't true believers. I'll remind you, true believers struggle with this. David, a man after God's own heart, commits adultery and murder, and Peter denies Christ three times, and Paul confesses this ongoing battle of sin that he deals with, and the issues have always been the same. It's the heart that is wicked and deceitful above all else, that even if we're saved, we still have to deal with our hearts.

And they're made out of the same material. My heart and your heart are made out of the same material as these men and women. And now in Nehemiah 9, the walls of Jerusalem had been rebuilt. Physically, the people were secure. But spiritually, their hearts had grown cool toward the Lord, maybe cold. Yes, God had given them safety and he'd given them success, but what he wanted most was a surrendered people. That's what he wanted. And so, isn't it interesting? I was thinking about this. That God so often gives us walls first too. Maybe it's the job or the healing. Maybe it's the family or some sort of blessing.

And even while your heart and my heart is not fully in tune with him, God will still bless us. And that doesn't mean your heart's right with him because you have certain blessings. You see, the Lord is far more concerned with the condition of your heart than with your outward performance. And if your heart has grown cold or is drifting, what do you do?

I think Nehemiah 9 gives us the answer. It's regarded as the longest prayer in the Bible. And I think there's five really golden nuggets that I wanna mention to you that you can take with you. And remember, Lord, when my heart grows cold and when I'm wondering, come back to these five golden nuggets. So, number one, if we want our hearts renewed, we must return to God's word. If we want our hearts renewed, we must return to God's word. Again, last week in chapter eight, we saw something extraordinary.

The people had asked Ezra to bring out the word of God. They stood; they listened intently from early morning until midday. six hours as God's word was read and carefully explained. And as mentioned, they were deeply convicted and they were filled with great joy.

And clearly, they had a hunger for God's word that they hadn't had in a long time. And they couldn't get enough of it. Their minds weren't wondering. They weren't looking at their watches, and they weren't thinking about the afternoon activities. Hearing the Word of God meant more to them than anything. And so, look at verse one, now on the 24th day of the month, the people of Israel were assembled.

Now this is just two days, just two days after chapter eight ended, they circled back up. No one required them to return. No one forced them, it wasn't scheduled, it wasn't on their calendar. This coming back together in chapter nine was completely voluntary.

And the reality is, is they wanted more of God's word because they were hungry for it. And notice how they came. Verse one, with fasting and in sackcloth and with earth on their heads. They fasted. It was showing really that their spiritual hunger mattered more than their physical hunger. And they wore sackcloth and they put earth or handfuls of dirt on their heads. Clearly visible signs of deep humility, recognizing how unclean they were and undeserving they were. Deserving only of judgment rather than grace. That's how they came. And their hunger and respect for God's Word had not faded. If anything, it had grown since they had left. More intense.

And they stood in their place, look, and read from the book of the law of the Lord their God for a quarter of the day. A quarter of a day. Three hours. We just read for 10 minutes. For three hours, they stood and listened to God's Word. They are not relaxing and they're not half-hearted. They were fully present, fully engaged, and they were hungry for the instruction of God's Word to them. They wanted it. They couldn't get enough of it.

You know, we're gonna never, we will never see a revival in this nation. until people start immersing themselves in God's Word. You'll never have a renewed heart until you're feasting on God's Word. Because only this Word of God, only this Word of God, this is the only thing that we have that can cut deep enough into your life to heal what's broken and bring dead things back to life.

And so, it takes time. It takes effort. It takes strength. I remember Dr. Johnson looking at me years ago and asking me how much time I spend in the Word. And I knew the honest answer, it wasn't nearly enough. And he said something I'll never forget. He said, you know, Kent, the more you're in the word, the more you'll want to stay in it. And he was right. You've heard it said, sin will keep you from this Bible and this Bible will keep you from sin.

Well, the more we feed on it, the hungrier we become for it. And the more it speaks to our hearts, the more it renews them. And that's what we're seeing happening with these Israelites. They're hungry for God's word. They've heard it and they want more and more and more of it. And so, when I ask you this morning, how hungry are you for God's word? Don't answer too quickly. I want you to think about it.

Your real appetite for Scripture is telling the truth about where your heart stands with God. So that's our first point. If we want our hearts renewed, we must return to God's Word. Just remember, if you've got a cold heart, you've drifted from the Lord, you've got to get back into His Word. Now here's number two. A renewed heart requires confessing your sins honestly. I don't want you to miss this simple fact.

Spending time in God's word had a massive effect and caused an incredible response on these Israelites because we read in verse two, look what we read, they confess their sins. It seems like that's the first thing that happened. Matthew Henry said, the careful study of God's Word will more and more bring us to the discovery of our own sinfulness. If God's Word never convicts you of sin deep in your heart and create a desire to change, you may not truly know Christ. It's an indication your heart's not in a healthy place. But the Word of God convicted these men and women. And the first thing they did was confess. They confessed their sin. Now, let me go over the basics. What is sin? What is sin? Well, it's by definition, it means to miss the target. Some of you are deer hunters. Sam, I think Sam uses a bow. It's like an archer that misses the bullseye and the target is God's perfect, holy character.

Anything less than perfect conformity to God is sin because of His holiness. And you can live 99.9% of your life perfect. And yet one sinful thought, one harsh word, one wrong attitude, one careless remark fall short of the perfect standard of God and you are doomed to hell. That's what sin is.

One single miss. God doesn't grade on the curve. And these Israelites realize that. And now let me just add this. Sin is not just what you do wrong. Your sins of commission. God also holds you accountable for sins of omission. Failing to do what you know is right. Like loving the Lord God with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul and loving your neighbor as yourself. And so, these Jews are being convicted. These Jewish Christians are being convicted. And it says in verse two, they confess their sins and iniquities. And the word here comes from the Hebrew word yada.

It just means agreeing with God, what you've done wrong and openly admitting it before him. It's that simple. And the picture is of throwing out or casting forth an acknowledgement or coming to grips with the weight of your sin in front of a holy God and just agreeing with His assessment of the way He looks at you.

True confession is usually inseparable from repentance too. It's full disclosure of failure. Our confessions, I will admit, are half-hearted. They're shallow. But true confession, like we see here, like we see in Nehemiah 9, is never light, it's never casual. Genuine confession comes with repentance, and it has two sides of the coin, and we must honestly name our sin and turn from it.

And notice in verse three, after reading the word for three hours, for another quarter of a day, they made confession and worshiped the Lord, their God. They spent another three hours in confession and worshiping the Lord, their God. Now, how many of us have spent more than three minutes confessing our sins? It's because we don't take it serious. This entire prayer is detailed confession of Israel's sins throughout their history, and it led them to worship. And you got to remember; we only have the highlights of these 38 verses. They spent three hours confessing and worshiping the God they love. They made no excuses. They minimized nothing.

I was with a missionary several months ago, a godly man, and I brought up the word confessing. I need to confess my sins more. And he said, I need to too. I really don't do that. I think that's an indictment on all of us. We need to be more serious about confessing our sins and agreeing with God what we've done wrong and acknowledging every single thing we've done wrong and what we haven't done right. That's what we see these people doing. Now that is convicting. Many of us, I think, pray like, now lay me down to sleep, forgive me of my sins. I pray the Lord, my soul to keep.

MacArthur says, remorse over sin, daily confession, and the continual attitude of repentance are marks of a healthy Christian life. On the other hand, no remorse over sin, little confession, zero repentance are marks of a struggling Christian and a heart that may not even belong to God at all.

Which one describes you? You see, if we want a renewed heart for God, we must deal with our sin and not brush past it. Be specific in your confession. Be thorough in your confession. Give confession the time and honesty it deserves. And so, our second point this morning is a renewed heart requires confessing your sin honestly.

Now third, if we long for renewed hearts, we must remember God's greatness. We must remember who God is and never forget that. It's so easy. It's so easy to forget. I don't know about you, but when I'm under conviction of sin and I'm walking through tough times, and I can't see a way out and maybe God feels distant.

One of the best things that strengthens my faith renews my heart is to look back on what God has done in my life and the character of God and the greatness of God. And this is exactly what the people do in Nehemiah 9. They look back at what God had done in their lives, and it renewed their hearts. It's so healthy. Look, I want you to see five things I wanna just point out real briefly of the greatness of God. Number one, he's the creator. He is the soul creator. Look at verse six.

You are the Lord, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens with all their hosts, the earth and all that is on it, the sea and all that is in them. You preserve all of them and the host of heaven worships you. God created everything effortlessly. He didn't even lift a finger. He just spoke. And He created something out of nothing. The same God who formed us from the dirt, dust, is the one who right now keeps your heart beating and your lungs breathing. And He creates, but also, He sustains what He creates. And these Israelites are remembering. The great God is the sole creator. And if he spoke the universe into existence and he keeps you alive this moment, how hard is it for him to handle whatever you're facing? It's not hard at all. It's not hard at all. Secondly, they were reminded that God is the sovereign redeemer. Look at verses seven and eight.

You are the Lord, the God who chose Abram and you brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans and you gave him the name Abraham. You found his heart faithful before you and you made with him the covenant to give his offspring the land. The same sovereign God who chose Abraham and brought him out by grace is the God who chose you. And He chose me and He saved you and He saved me.

And this sovereign Redeemer is the one that we can rest in. Your salvation doesn't rest on your strong faith or how you feel or how consistent you've been or how much you've cleaned up your life. It rests on His sovereign work and His choice of you. Are you resting in that truth? That magnificent truth? That the God who chose Abraham chose you and will never let you go? He's the sovereign redeemer. He's the sole creator and the sovereign redeemer. Next, he's the supernatural deliverer. It just gets better.

Look at verse nine. And you saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt and heard their cry at the Red Sea, in verse 10, and performed the signs and wonders against Pharaoh. Now look at verse 11. And you divided the sea before them so that they went through the midst of the sea on dry land. And you cast their pursuers into the depths as a stone into the mighty waters. Supernatural deliverance. That these Israelites in Nehemiah 9 are remembering what happened to their forefathers a thousand years earlier. He's the supernatural deliverer.

Where in your life do you feel stuck? Powerless? Maybe surrounded or unable to move forward? Why wouldn't you turn your heart back to the Lord who can part the seas? Our Lord is the supernatural deliverer. He's the creator, the redeemer. And next, He's the provider. He's the provider. Look at verse 15.

You gave them bread from heaven for their hunger and brought forth water for them out of the rock for their thirst. In 21, 40 years, you sustain them in the wilderness and they lack nothing. Their clothes did not wear out. And look at this, and their feet did not swell. I like that one. For 40 years, their feet didn't even swell. I mean, think about that.

The long, hot walks over rocks in sandals, it would have and should have left them blistered and sore, and yet God protected even the smallest thing like their feet so they could keep going even when they were disobedient. Perhaps you're lying awake wondering how you're going to cover the bills, or you feel empty, or you're drained, or there's some other problem that's weighing you down. Will you bring your heart back to the God who sustains his people in the wilderness? Down to the smallest detail and who will sustain us when it seems impossible to go on because he is the provider, the great God, the provider.

And lastly, I want you to notice he's the faithful promise keeper. Look at verse 23, you multiplied their children as the stars of the heaven. You brought them into the land that you had told their fathers to enter and possess. I read where a man named Everett Storms spent a year and a half counting every promise in the Bible and he came up with like 8,810 promises in the Bible. I can tell you this, God kept every one, every one.

Joshua 21, 45 says, not one word of all the good promises that the Lord had made to the house of Israel had failed, all came to pass. So, if your heart is drifting this morning because of a struggle you're facing, it very well could be, wouldn't it be far better to return fully to Him and trust His faithful promises with whatever you're trying to carry yourself.

So, who is the great God? He's the sole creator. I mean, think about that, the sovereign redeemer, the supernatural deliverer, the sustaining provider and the faithful promise keeper. That is my God and your God. That's what these people are remembering. What could strengthen us more than remembering He's still great, He's still faithful, and still working His amazing power for us? So, number one, return to God's Word. Number two, remember, confess your sin honestly. Number three, remember God's greatness. And next, a renewed heart must be mindful, this is good of the devastating effects of sin.

Look at verse 26. Now this verse comes right after the Israelites had seen all these acts, the firsthand acts of the great God, right after they'd seen Him and praised Him for the promised land and their blessings. And we read in verse 26, this word, nevertheless, nevertheless, what an indictment on my heart and your heart and their hearts.

Despite everything God had done, even after receiving so many blessings, they turned their hearts from God. Nevertheless, it says they were disobedient and they rebelled. They knew God's commands, but they deliberately refused to obey. And they cast your law behind their back, meaning God's law was worthless and irrelevant to them. And look what else and killed your prophets. God lovingly sent men to correct them and they killed them.

Verse 28, and they had rest, but they did evil again and over and over and over. And verse 29, toward the end, look, they turned a stubborn shoulder like an oxen that refuses to accept the yoke and pulls away and stiffened their neck and would not obey, like an animal that just locks up and won't submit and won't turn. That's what they did. That's the devastating effect of sin. How can this happen? How can this happen after all they knew and all they saw? How can God's people do it over and over and over again? Well, it's sobering, isn't it?

It's a sobering picture of our own hearts, of the devastating power of sin. That's the bottom line. How many times have you confessed sin in your own life and returned to it and confessed again and returned to it over and over and over again? If you want a renewed heart, you need to recognize the devastating effects of sin. Look, sin at its core, sin at its core is refusing to believe and trust God's Word. It's that simple. When we ignore God's word, we decide to do what we wanna do. There are devastating consequences that we set our self-up for that are often impossible sometimes to even imagine what can happen.

Someone said, sin will take you farther than you wanna go, keep you longer than you wanna stay and cost you more than you want to pay. The fact that God had sent His Son to die on the cross reveals the true weight and horror of sin. You see, sin were a small matter. A lesser payment would have been enough. But the infinite cost of Jesus' sacrifice shows that sin is infinitely serious in God's sight.

And perhaps you've been ignoring God's Word. Perhaps you've been stiffening your neck. Perhaps you've been secretly choosing your own way. I think what we learn here that if we truly focus on how devastating sin is and the damage it causes, we would run from it instead of returning to it.

And so don't wait. That's the message. Don't wait until the full cost of sin comes due. Stop. Stop and remember how destructive it is and turn your back now to the Lord who paid and come back to him to the cross, who paid the infinite price for sin. Now, lastly, and this may be the best one, a cold heart will not be warmed without rejoicing in God's abundant grace and mercy. Look at verse 30 and 31. They have the words grace and mercy in here. In fact, it's in the chapter six times. Verse 31, nevertheless in your great mercies, you did not make an end of them or forsake them for you are a gracious and merciful God.

Gracious, we know what that is, that's God's free undeserved favor. This grace is not payment for good behavior, is it? What did they do that was good? No, this is pure gift. God acts out of his own generous heart towards people who have no claim on it.

And then mercy, merciful, God's deep emotional compassion towards those who need help out of their misery. It moves God to help his people. And so you put these two together and it tells us that God is both generous in his kindness and he's stirred by the need.

And so, this verse sums up what the Israelites in Nehemiah came to understand. And here it is, that Israel's survival had nothing to do with their performance and everything to do with God's abundant grace and mercy. And after generations of rebellion and complete destruction was exactly what they deserved. The only reason any of them remained. was God's grace and mercy.

Now there's another aspect of grace. We tend to forget this part of it. One commentator put it this way, God would not let them go, but God did not let them off. God's grace is free, but it's not always comfortable. Look at verse 30, many years you bore with them. God patiently endured. He endured their rebellion for a long time.

And it goes on to say, and he warned them by your spirit through your prophets. He warned them actively and he waited, yet they would not give ear. They deliberately refused. And therefore, it says, you gave them into the land of the peoples of the lands and God allowed the Assyrians and the Babylonians to conquer them. We've talked about that. And so, God disciplined his people and handed them over to their enemies. And that is God's parental grace, his corrective grace.

You see, don't miss this, that even as believers, sin still carries consequences. We can never think sin doesn't matter. God's grace will not let us off the hook. Because true grace cares more about our long-term good than our short-term comfort. Do you want a heart that pleases God? You need to rejoice in God's abundant grace and mercy, that he refuses to let you go. And he refuses to leave you uncorrected without discipline because he loves you too much to leave you unchanged. Let me close with this. I borrowed this illustration from a book called "Best Little Stories from World War II" and it was used by Dale Ralph Davis in his commentary on Nehemiah.

In February 1940, a young man named Bill Miller bought his first car. In late one night, he was driving home from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Matt, and the roads looked clear, but under that thin layer of wet, they were frozen solid. He decided to see just how fast the new car would go.

Bad timing. He hit 110 miles an hour, then the brakes locked. He went through the windshield, and he was buried in a snowbank. A passing motorist pulled him out, got him to the hospital. The motorist's name was Warren Felty. Five years later, Bill Miller is in a B-17. He's a pilot.

He gets shot down over Germany. He ends up in a long line of allied POWs being forced on a 75-mile death march in the dead of winter. Two feet of snow, temperatures at zero, every man for himself. Miller's legs were about to give out and collapse in the snowbank. If he does, he stays there and dies. Someone's kicking him, shaking him, dragging him back to his feet and forcing him to keep walking. It's another POW, and it's the same man, Warren Felty. Five years later, 4,000 miles away, the same man. The war ends. Bill Miller is back home in Pennsylvania.

He's sitting in a roadside restaurant. about to lose his job because he can't find a local distributor for his company's products. A stranger walks into the restaurant, sits down, starts talking to him, and within two hours, this man has arranged the exact business connection that Miller Nate needs to keep his business going, to distribute his products.

Providentially, it was Warren Felty, the same man again. And Miller must have thought, I can't shake this guy. He just keeps showing up. Friends, that's the heart of the Lord in Nehemiah 9. Israel had failed God again and again, rebelled, forgotten, and chased other gods, and yet the Lord kept showing up. He pursued; He still refused to walk away. And that's our story. You and I have crashed more times than we can count. We've collapsed in the snowbank of our own sin, our own stubbornness, our own quiet drifting.

And yet the same God who would not let Israel go, thankfully will not let you go. He keeps showing up, in conviction, in kindness, in grace, mercy, in second chances we never deserved. And if you're a believer, you can't shake him. He just will not let you go. But hear this too. He doesn't keep showing up just to rescue you from your troubles or build walls of protection or give you safety. He keeps showing up because He wants your heart, not half-hearted commitment, not religious performance, not leftovers of our attention. He wants us fully and freely given over to Him. Stop pretending you can handle this life by yourself.

Stop straddling the fence, one foot in the world and one foot for God. Turn, confess. Imagine placing your whole heart on the altar and saying, Lord, this is yours, all of it now. I have a picture in my house, Calvin. And underneath it is his signet. And it's a picture of his heart, holding his heart, handing it to God. And I'm sure it's over and over again.

And it says promptly and sincerely, giving his heart to God. Even if your heart feels cold toward him, bring him that cold heart and do what the Israelites did. Return to God's word. Confess your sin honestly and remember the greatness of God and stay mindful of the devastating effects of sin and rejoice in his abundant grace and mercy. He is still the God of Nehemiah 9, the God who refuses to give up on his people until he gets your whole heart.

‍