Well, happy Thanksgiving. Woo! I'm loud. Sorry, I had a Bryce moment there. He's never heard that jerk before. Good morning. Happy Thanksgiving to you all. There is much to give thanks for. And in the text we're going to be in today providentially and by God's leading in Nehemiah 9, we are going to see at the as we come to the end of this text a lot that we can be grateful for before our God. Your life started with two cells coming together.
One from your mother, one from your father. Each of those cells carried 23 chromosomes. When the cell from your dad and your mother and met they formed one cell and joined to form together your specific DNA. Your DNA carries the basic code that tells how God would ordain that you be designed. Using four character nucleotides to write out the three billion character descriptions that are referred to as your genome.
God ordains you exactly as he wants you to be. If I were to take your DNA out of that single cell, it would stretch out to 6 feet in length. And if I were to read your DNA at a at a rate of one character per second, it would take me 96 years to read your single DNA strand. Now, imagine this.
There are those in our world who believe all of that happened and happens continuously by chance without a designer apart from a god who creates. They would be they would like to tell us that these things are random chance and yet just by looking at DNA just that alone without looking at anything else should help you to understand that is ludicrous. Design points to a designer. And as we will see in the text here, there is reason for us to look at our creator and give thanks today.
So let me take you there. Nehemiah 9:es 1-8. We're we have been doing larger chunks through Nehemiah. Our goal, Lord willing, is to be finished Nehemiah by Christmas. And we're going to do larger chunks, but we're slowing them down in chapter 9. If you've read chapter 9, you know there is so much richness here that we don't want to miss it. So, we're taking three weeks through chapter nine so that we can hit the depth of this as much as we can. So, the first eight verses is where we'll be today. Here's what we read.
Now, on the 24th 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 and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers. And they stood up in their place 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 Yeshua, Benny, Cadmile, Shabbaniah, Boon, Shereabaya, Benny, Chenani, and they cried out with a loud voice to the Lord their God.
Then the Levites Yeshua, Cadmile, Bani, Hashebaniah, Sheriah, Hodiah, Shebaniah, and Pthayiah 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. 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 the Calaldanss and gave him the name of Abraham. You found his heart faithful before you and made with him the covenant to give his offspring pardon me to give to his offspring the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Jebusite, and the Gegosite. And you have kept your promise, for you are righteous. Let's pause there.
There's a lot here. We're going to look for a few minutes here at some of the introductory statements before we get into this prayer of confession. And and in this prayer, we're going to see a lot of things. In this text, we're going to see a lot of things. The first thing that we see here is that God is to be worshiped by his people. And you might say, "Well, duh. Of course, that's true. We know that. We've been coming to this church for a while." But the text brings something out here that I want us to understand and see. Now, first of all, isn't this quite a contrast from the previous chapter? If you were here last week for Pastor Joe's message, which by the way was excellent.
If you haven't listened to it, you can listen to it. I believe it's on our YouTube feed. And I pro probably on our podcast as well. We have a Gateway Bible Church podcast that has all of our sermons on it, but I encourage you to go listen to it. It's excellent. But it's it's joy, joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart. And now in verse one, on the 24th day of this month, the people of Israel are assembled in with fasting and in sackcloth and dirt on their heads. What has gone on here?
Exactly. See, he gets it. That's right. So, you got joy because in during the feast of booths, it was commanded that they express joy during the feast of booths. And so, they did that. Hence, the command that was given to them in chapter 8 that they that they express themselves with joy. But now if you even at the end of chapter 8 there you'll see that they on the eighth day there was a solemn assembly.
So already there's a somnity creeping in there. And now as we're in the 24th day of this month they're they're weeping and they're grieving and they're mourning. So why? Well, chapter 2 says something significant. All the Israelites separated themselves from all foreigners and stood and confessed their sins and the sins of their fathers. Now, we have seen this if you've been with us through Ezra and Nehemiah, we have seen this now many times that they had married with those who are foreigners.
That is to say that they did not worship the same God and they had aligned themselves in marriage in this way. In fact, go with me if you if you maybe weren't here when we went through Ezra. Ezra 9 1 and two says this. So, this is going back now when they were establishing temple worship again, establishing true proper worship. The people had just returned and and they began to enter Mary. And in fact, when we read here in Nehemiah 9:2, it says they they confessed the iniquities and the sins of their fathers is probably a reference to Ezra 9 and 10.
The distance between Ezra 9 and Nehemiah 9 from a year standpoint is at most probably 40 years. And so probably a lot of these fathers that they're confessing the sins about are still alive, many of them. So let us not, by the way, this is an aside, this is not advocating for making reparations for generations ago as the woke culture today tells us we have to do. Why am I paying for the sins of someone from 200 years ago that I did not commit? That is not found in scripture.
That's not what this is advocating for. These fathers that are talking about are the ones in Ezra 9 and 10. Here's what we read about their fathers. After these things had been done, the officials approached me and said, "The people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands with their abominations." Now listen to the group that he lists. From the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites. That list sound familiar to you? We just read it. Nehemiah 9.
For they have taken some of their daughters to be wives for themselves and for their sons, so that that holy race has mixed itself with the people of the lands. And in this faithlessness, the hand of the officials and the chief men has been foremost. So the key spiritual leaders even have aligned themselves in marriage in this way. And Ezra 10 carries on and says more about that. You can read that on your own if you'd like. They were to refrain from mingling and mixing themselves in marriage with those who worshiped other gods.
Now, let's let's make sure we understand this. This is not saying we should cocoon ourselves from the unsaved world. That's not biblically we're told to be salt and light. You can't do that if we're never around the unsaved folks. We have to. In fact, Jesus in his high priestly prayer in John 17, he just says, "I do not pray that you take them out of this world, brother." He prays for their steadfastness and faithfulness while they're in this world that they would be salt and light in this world. However, marriage to join yourself in marriage, to join yourself even in business partnerships, that kind of thing to align yourself in and to say, "I'm going to we're going to be together and now all of our decisions are made together.
All of our affections are together. All of our thinking is together." To align yourself with someone who worships a faulty god is going almost always to lead the believer astray. I'm a firm believer in spiritual gravity. It's rare that the unsaved person gets pulled up. God can do that. God has done that. Praise God for that. But more often than not, the believer gets pulled down. 2 Corinthians speaks a little bit about this.
2 Corinthians chap 6 14-18. Do not be une unequally yolked with unbelievers. Yoke, that is to say, tied together, bound together. This is not talking just about your mere friendship. No, no, not that. But rather, you're aligning yourself. You're yoking yourself, whether it be in business or marriage or what have you, to this person so that you're fully together in absolutely everything. Now do not be yolked together with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?
What accord has Christ with bile? Or what portion does a believer share with the unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God. And it goes on from there. So there's some clear teaching old and new testament about this. This is a very important matter. It it is a big deal to God. And here are his chosen people. And they have mingled in marriage with their fathers.
And now even this generation here in Nehemiah 9 has obviously done the same thing. And they're now understanding the depth of their sin and they're confessing it before God. We are easily led astray. So, can I just say to the young people here who aren't yet married, you might think that, well, I love this person. They don't believe the same as me, but I'm sure we'll be fine. And when all of the when you're Twitter ped, if if you've ever watched the movie Bambi, you know what I'm talking about.
All your emotions are right there. You can't see straight. God's word always sees straight. Your heart is fickle. Look at what we read in Galatians chapter 1. This is a picture of the human heart. Chapter 1 verse 6 says, "I am astonished that you were so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel." Not that there is another one, but there are some of you who trard me, there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.
But even if we or an angel of heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preach to you, let him be accursed. As we've said before, so and I now say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you receive, let him be accursed. The heart is fickle. Here are the Galatians and and they've swerved off. They're starting to believe a different gospel. That's what can happen when the believer and the unbeliever yoke themselves together. And it was happening here. They were completely disregarding the command of the of the Lord.
In Joshua's time, when they were crossing into the promised land, what did God say to Joshua? Get all the people out of here. Every last one of them. The Canaanites, the Hittites, the Gegosites. Get them all out. Why? Because if you leave even one, there will be intermarriage and people will be led into faulty worship. And Joshua and the people came in and they almost completed the job, but they left some. And the rest, the book of Judges is a result of their failure in Joshua.
God wants a pure people, a pure bride with pure worship, untainted by the notion of faulty gods and idolatry. And he still wants that to this day. And so we just want you to know here at at Gateway Bible Church, everyone is welcome to come and attend. Seriously, we mean that. Doesn't matter if you know of someone that is far from the Lord, their life is a train wreck. They're welcome to come here.
Absolutely. But you need to know when you come here, we will not swerve or waver from the scriptures. We are not going to teach you a different gospel. We're not going to teach, as I've seen sadly, in some churches, quote unquote, where they will say, "Here's Christianity, but now here's Buddhism, here's Islam, here's you name it, and now you pick which one you think is the best." No, that's bunk. It's Christianity alone and biblical Christianity alone. So that's what we're going to teach here.
And we are unapologetic about that. We are unashamed about that. We are not here to entertain the goats. We're here to make the sheep holy. And we do that by adhering to the gospel and not watering it down, not changing it, not cozying up in bed with any faulty religious thought. Because Hebrews 12:28-29 is very true. Listen to what we read here. Therefore, let us be grateful to for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken.
And th and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, which implies, by the way, that there is unacceptable worship. Let us offer to him acceptable worship with reverence and awe. Why? For our God is a consuming fire. Let us pay heed to that. So they are mourning because they have sinned against the Lord and their worship has been affected by by this. And so they're rightly broken about this. This is a good thing.
But now he moves on. I want I want to just draw one other thing out before we get into the actual prayer itself. Notice that God has provided servants. So what do I mean by that? Well, what what's involved here is the reading of the word. And confession and worship, right? Verse three, they read from the book of the law for a quarter of the day. And then they made confession and they worshiped for another quarter. We read in verse three. So there's the reading of the book of the law. There's confession and there is worship. This is what's involved in it. And we have all these names listed here. Now, why are these names listed here?
Is it just so that the preacher has to trip over them when he preaches? It took everything within me not to call that guy in verse four bunny. I just couldn't do it. No. These names are here for a reason. Partly because God knows all of our names. He knows all of those people that are his. He doesn't call general swaths of people. He calls people by name. He knows them by name. Praise God for that. He knows if you're in Christ, he knew you from the foundation of the world.
And he knows you by name. Rejoice in that. But I think another thing that's striking, there's a name that isn't listed here. Ezra, up until now, Ezra has been the primary instrument in leading the people of God spiritually. When they returned, if you read, if you were here with us through the book of Ezra, it was Ezra was the Lord's man for reestablishing proper temple worship. And he has been their key leader throughout this time. In fact, in chapter 8, when the book of the law was being read, Ezra was the one leading that.
And now here they are and they are reading from the book of the law. They are making confession. They're worshiping. This is a key moment for Israel. And Ezra isn't listed here. Now, some of you might say, "Well, I got a footnote, Pastor Matt, in chapter in verse 6 that says, you know, maybe Ezra was there." Notice the footnote. If if you have a reputable Bible, it'll have that footnote there. And it says it's from the Septuagent. The Septuagent is an excellent document, but is the Greek rendering of the Hebrew Old Testament.
In the original Hebrew, Ezra's name is not there. And we want to always go as much as we can by the original languages. And so in the original language, Ezra is not there. You have all of these people listed, but not Ezra. Am I how things have changed? By the way, can't just see it. And remember, and if you were with us through the book of Ezra in chapter 8, verse 15, listen, listen to what it says here. So, this is Ezra speaking and he says, "I gathered them to the river that runs to Ahava, and there we camped for three days.
As I reviewed the people and the priests, I found there were they found there none of the sons of Levi." That was chapter 8:15 of Ezra. Now the Levites and these lower level spiritual leaders are there in abundance. Now I say lower level I don't mean they're lesser in importance. There's the high priests and then there's these Levitical priests that were there for serving the common man. Can I just say as well 1 Corinthians 12 tells us that God has put together each one in the member of in the body of Christ exactly as they're meant to be.
We need all the people, those who preach the word, those who serve in various ministries and committees, those who are involved in maintaining the the church building. There are so many facets to the church ministry and and there's not a leveling. We're all one in Christ. We're all the body of Christ. We need one another. And so here are the Levites. These are those who took the word of God to these smaller groups of people and were teaching them and were leading them in instruction as we saw lived out even in chapter 8.
But Ezra doesn't appear to be there. In fact, Ezra does not come up again until chapter 12. Why is that? Because I'm I'm convinced this is because it's spiritual leadership done right. This is how it should be. Spiritual leaders according to scripture. And we see example after example of this through scripture. They are to train up, prepare, lead people in such a way that they work themselves out of a job. So that then these new spiritual leaders, these have been trained and prepared and equipped, they take over and the older spiritual leader fades into the background championing, cheerleading these folks that he has trained and equipped.
And it appears that's what's happening here. We see this modeled for us throughout scripture. Jesus of course led and trained and equipped perfectly his disciples and then left. And then of course he gave the Holy Spirit to enable them. But we see Paul doing that with all kinds of people. Equipping Timothy and then calling him to lead. Equipping Titus, calling him to lead and leaving them there to lead while he left the scene. This is how it should be. We've even seen it in our church. And it's a good thing.
Pastor Joe was here from this big whatever. I I remember we remember little Pastor Joe. Remember? Yeah. Yep. Kids ministry. My wife was the first one at of our family to meet and we're like, there's this Joe kid. Lots of energy. And but his primary influence was Pastor Bryce who trained and equipped and built into him. And now Joe has taken Pastor Bryce's job. It's exactly how it should be. Wouldn't it be wonderful in all seriousness if whatever the time frame is a few years down the road if the people that are sitting on like Peter Fluteman's lap there and around the room if those are the next pastors of his church and they take over our role. Praise God.
That's how it should be. That's how spiritual leadership should be. There should not be a hanging on desperately. No, I have to be the guide. No, no, I'm going to train up and equip and then you take over. That's that's biblical. And we I think we see that here because Ezra is not even listed. And that all this incredible spiritual leadership is going on. One of the most amazing things about the Olympics. We what was it 2010? Was that in Vancouver? I believe it was 2010. We have a vast nation and when when the Olympics are held in Europe, it's different.
But when it's held here, the the torch relay starts at one end of our country and goes through to the other side. In Europe, it'll go through all kinds of countries. But in our nation, it stays in our nation. And if you we went to watch as the torch was being relayed through High River, we went and took up a little rally there. But it's meticulously planned who it is that's going to carry the torch next. And they're equipped. They're given instruction as to how to do this to ensure the flame does not ever go out. And to make sure it's passed properly to the next person and it goes all the way across the nation until it finally reaches its destination.
It is a m a momentous thing. But in the Christian church, it's even far more momentous than that. Until we get home with the Lord, the torch is to be passed. And the Lord has said, "I will build my church. I will." He doesn't say, "I might. I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it." So, we know that that torch will build past. We simply must be found faithful in doing so. I believe Ezra was and so ought we to be. Now let's turn our attention to the prayer itself.
We see here as we begin that God is the creator. Notice how in verse 5 they are saying stand up and bless the Lord. So they're presumably standing for this entire prayer of confession. And it says to bless the Lord. We've talked about that in weeks past. That is to say, to exalt him, to make to make his name high, to make known how glorious he is. That blesses the Lord. So stand up and bless the Lord. Speak of his amazing wonder from everlasting to everlasting.
And now, how does he start it? Verse six. You are the Lord alone. You made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is in it, the seas and all that is in them. And you preserve all of them, and the host of heaven worships you. Isn't this incredible? God is the creator. Let me say it again for the people in the back in case you missed it.
God is the creator. This is important. We need to understand this. He He created all things. The angelic realm included the heaven of heavens. We read here. And you might you might want to say, "What does that mean?" Well, 1 Corinthians 12 verse, sorry, sorry me 2 Corinthians 12:2, Paul says, "I know a man almost certainly it was himself who had this vision and I was caught up into the third heaven." You might say, "What in the world is that?"
It's actually not that complicated. The first heavens, if you want to call them, that would be the the realm you and I can see with our natural eyeballs. You look at the atmosphere, you look at the skies, you look at the stars. The second heavens would have almost certainly be the expanse of galaxies that are beyond our human comprehension. We can't see them with our eye, but God's created all of that. And then the heaven of heavens, the third heavens, would be where God himself dwells. And he created it all. And he created it all in six literal days.
We hold that here at Gateway Bible Church. If you say, "Well, could it be another way?" No. The Bible says it. So, if you want to come at me with a different way, show me here because the Bible says it was six literal days. You might say, "Where does that say that?" Turn with me if you will. To Genesis chapter 1. And we're going to do look at more than one text. By the way, we're also going to be in Exodus, so you can get your finger there, too.
Genesis 1. It's always good to start at the beginning. Genesis 1. I'm going to read you just the first five verses. We could read this entire chapter to get a picture of it, but let me just read you the first five verses. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, "Let there be light, and there was light.
And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. And God called the light day, and the darkness night. And there was evening, and there was morning, the first day." You see that? That's a very important inclusion here. There was evening and there was morning the first day. What do we understand a day to be? Evening and morning. 24 hours. And that's what he seems to very clearly articulated. By the way, there is a incredibly faulty notion called the gap theory. There are those who would say without biblical merit that there is a gap between verse one and verse two here, even though nothing suggests that.
But they would say that there's millions of years between here. The Bible doesn't say that. The Bible simply says, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And now here's how he did it. There's no gap. He did it and there was nothing and then there was everything." Now turn with me if you if if you want some would say, "Well, but isn't a day maybe that's an epoch of time because with God a day is a thousand years. A thousand years are one day." Maybe this is just just, you know, figurative language.
Well, well, what do you do then with Exodus 20? This is a passage that we would refer to in terms of the Ten Commandments. And look at what it says in verse 11 of Exodus 20. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
So the people of God here thought, oh, sixth day, he he explicitly states, for in six days, but that doesn't really mean days. Well, if you take that logic, then murder in verse 13 isn't really murder. You, if you're going to have that logic, you got to follow it all the way through. And the logic breaks down pretty fast. No. In six days, God created the heavens and the earth. Tim read to us from Psalm 33, and I don't know if you noticed it. It says, "He spoke and everything existed."
He spoke and it was there. Isn't that amazing? God said, "Let there be light." there was light. Not a person in this room can do that. Not one. No one can. People will sometimes say, especially in the more hyper Pentecostal realm, they'll say, "We can speak things into reality." That's a bunch of hoo-ha. You cannot do that. God's the only one who can speak anything into creation, into existence. And but not only does he speak it into existence, he then sustains it.
Did you see that in our text in Nehemiah? He sustains it. Let me take you to Colossians 1 to double down on that. This is an incredible passage in Colossians 1. Pastor Bryce read to us from Colossians 2 in our communion time. And in in Colossians 1, listen to what we read in verses 15 to1 17. He that is Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities.
All things were created through him and for him. Now listen to verse 7. And he is before all things and in him all things hold together. Some there's a there's a thinking out there that God just spun the earth and then took his hands off. Well, not according to verse 17. In him all things hold present tense hold together. We read that in Nehemiah as well that he created it all. He sustained it all.
And this is important that we understand. It's important that we get this. We want to be slaves to the word of God. The Bible says God created it all. Seems pretty clear. He that it says that God created it all in six days. So there is no such thing as macroeolution. There is no such thing as God involved evolution. He spoke it in six days. It was all done.
I don't believe in the gap theory. We at the church don't believe here as elders in the gap theory because it's not biblically supportable. God created it all out of nothing. That's the Latin word there in Genesis. X nahilo out of nothing and out of nothing came everything and only God can do that. So if why does this matter? Well if we believe this if we believe what the Bible teaches and by the way it takes an enormous amount of faith to believe anything else. It it takes far more faith to believe in evolution.
Far more faith or or the big bang theory like that requires inordinate amount of faith to say that hm I can look around and see design everywhere and including the human body thus there must be a designer right logic it takes way more faith to believe anything else if we believe the common sense truth of the scriptures then nothing else should be doubted in the scriptures, everything should be possible because it is possible because with God nothing is impossible.
So when we read about God parting a sea, he created it all with a word of his mouth. He can't part it. Of course he can. When he makes an axe head float, what? That's too hard for God. He created it all out of nothing. He He caused the man to live in a fish for three days. He can't do that. I mean, it'd be gross, but he can't He can't do, of course, he can't. And he can raise the dead. And he did because all things are possible with this God who created all things.
And so, we bless the Lord when we uphold what the Bible tells us and we say, "Yes, God, you are the creator." And to God be the glory. Great things he has done. One more thing, a reason for thanksgiving. Friends, God is faithful to his covenants. Look at verses seven and 8. You are the Lord, the God who chose Abram and brought him out of the of the Calaldanss and gave him the name Abraham. Okay, let's go back to that.
Genesis chapter 11. In chapter 11, starting at verse 27, here's what we read. Now, these are the generations of Tara. Terara fathered Abram, Nahor, and Heron. And Heron fathered Lot. Heron died in the presence of his father Terara in the land of his kindred in of the Calaldanss. And Abram and Nahor took wives. The name of Abram<unk>'s wife was Sarai.
And the name of Nahor's wife, Mila, the daughter of Heron, the father of Mila and Iska. Now Sarah, Sarai was barren. She had no children. She had no child. Tara took Abraham, Abram, pardon me, his son, and Lot, the son of Heron, his grandson, and Sarai's daughter-in-law, his son Abram<unk>'s wife. And they went forth together from of the Calaldanss to go into the land of Canaan. But when they came to Heron, they settled there. So if you read anything about of the Calaldanss, you know that that was a a place of idolatry.
They worshiped faulty gods there. And they were heading to Canaan, which was at that time a land of idolatry and the worship of faulty gods. This is who Abram was. And then in chapter 12, we read this in verse one. Now the Lord said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."
And Abram went. Isn't this remarkable? He was he grew up in idolatry. He wasn't seeking after God. God called him out of it and he just went because God had changed his heart. Now if you go to chapter 17 3 to 5, then Abram fell on his face and God said to him, "Behold, my covenant is with you and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham.
For I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. And that is true. Through Abraham came Jesus. And all who put their trust in Jesus are adopted into the family of God, which fulfills Genesis 12:3. Through you all nations will be blessed. That is the seed that is coming through Abram, which is Jesus Christ, the Messiah. And God was faithful to his promise. Now look at who we read here in verse 8. You found his heart faithful before you. Really?
Now, Pastor Bryce preached on the life of Abraham in the summertime. Did a great job. Also a good sermon to go listen to. But but covering Abraham's life exhaustively is impossible in one sermon as Pastor Bryce will attest. And we saw his faith and there was an enormous amount of faith that he exercised. Yes and amen. But there were some times of sheer unfa unfaith. Lack of faith. Lack of faith. We'll call it lack of faith. Here is my wife. No. No. She's my sister. What? You don't trust God?
You trusted in him all these other ways? Nope. Not here. And yet we read here, the Lord found his heart faithful. It wasn't perfect, but it was faithful. That should be an encouragement to all of us because if you're like me, you're very aware of your imperfections. Even as you seek with all your might to follow the Lord and yet you ah I lacked faith here again. The Lord knows your heart.
He knows my heart. And even those imperfect hearts, he will find some who are faithful. Praise God for that. That's good news. And it says he made a covenant to give his offspring the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amite, the Perizzite, the Jebusite, and the Gegosite. The Minionites are off this list, but you get the point. And so these are the people that they intermarried with, the land that they were given that they were supposed to remove all those people from, but I'm going to give you this land.
This is your land. I'm fulfilling my promise to you. And then he says, "You have," and so this is now the the Levites leading them in this prayer of confession. You have kept your promise. Why? For you are righteous. God is righteous. If God were to reig on even one promise, even one, he would cease to be righteous.
That's why you and I, everyone in this room, we're all unrighteous on our own, right? Show of hands here. How many of you have never ever broken a promise? Okay, good. We're all truth tellers here. Appreciate that. So, everyone in this room is altogether unrighteous apart from Christ. Praise be to God that in Christ we can put on his righteousness. God clothe us in the righteousness of Christ which is the only way to be sufficient before God the father when we come to the end.
Praise the Lord for that. Praise the Lord for the righteousness of Christ. But on our own we have no inherent righteousness. But God does. He is righteous. And one of the proofs of his righteousness is that he never breaks his promise. That's why even the lamementor in Lamentations 3 in the midst of all the ugliness going on because of their sin and God's hand of discipline upon them is able to say great is thy faithfulness. We serve a God who is always faithful to his promises. He is.
There was a man named Daniel who was visiting a close friend of his in the hospital. His friend was dying of cancer and it was nearing the very end. The chemotherapy had taken away by this point pretty much all of his ability to to speak and even to to to any form of communication at all. And so Daniel was grieved as he saw his friend laying there, but he wanted to be of some comfort for him. So he sat at his bedside and read him scripture, not knowing whether his friend could even hear him at this point, but he thought, I'm just going to read scripture.
And he did that and he prayed and then he got up to leave. And as he was walking out the door, a man, the man apparently said, "How do I know that he'll keep his word?" Caught Daniel off guard. And once he regained himself, he turned around and he said this to him because he guaranteed it with a cross and a covenant. It's true. He has guaranteed his word by a cross sending his own son to perish in my place to take my iniquity to atone for my sin because I he can't sweep sin under the carpet.
It's got to be dealt with. And so he did that in Christ that if I repent and bear fruit in keeping with repentance and trust him by faith, his righteousness is sufficient to cover me as he bears my sin. This is the covenant that he has made. And so all that should encourage us. This is you said I said to you this is a reason for thanksgiving. Let me get there now. If this is all true, if God is altogether righteous and he never breaks his promises, then let's look at a few of his promises just from the gospel of John.
We could go all to the scriptures to see them. But let me just take you to John. Let's look at just three of them. In John 1 verse12, it's probably one that you may, if you've grown up in the church, you may have memorized, you might have it on a coffee cup, it says this, but to all who did receive him, that is repentance and faith. For all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.
This is a promise of his. Everyone who receives Christ through repentance and faith becomes a child of God, adopted into the family. Two people are smiling. I hope there's more. This is really good news. Chapter 12 verse 26 of John says this, "If anyone serves me, he must follow me. And where I am, there will be my servant also.
If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him. Isn't that amazing? This is a promise from the Lord. If anyone serves me and follows me, they will be with me and the Father will honor them. Isn't that amazing? How humbling is that? A wretched sinner such as I upon repentance and faith and serving the Lord with my life can be with him and and can be honored by God. What a promise. Two chapters later, listen to me read chapter 14 in the upper room.
Jesus says this, "Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me. In my father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself that where I am, you may also be. Isn't that a great promise? If you are in Christ, God, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, has gone to prepare a place for us.
And he's coming back so that we will be with him there. And he and he makes it a promise. I will come again and I will take you to myself and you will be there with me also for all the redeemed of the Lord. This is only for the saved. But if you are saved, praise Jesus. This is a promise. And every one of God's promises are money in the bank because he's righteous. So we can trust it. This is a reason, friends, for thanksgiving.
If there is no other reason for thanksgiving, this is it. God created the heavens and the earth. He provided an atoning sacrifice for our sin because we rebelled against him. And that atoning sacrifice rose bodily from the grave and is alive today. And he's coming back to claim all of those who've trusted him as savior to be with him one day where he is. This is the reason for our hope.
This is the reason for our joy. This is the reason for our thanksgiving. To God be the glory. Great things he has done. So God, may we never forget the wondrous work you have done. You are so magnificent and all altogether wonderful and great and mighty and powerful. Yes, Lord. We declare you are righteous along with scripture. We believe it. We believe you are righteous and you never break your promises. We know that you have made all things and you sustain all things by the word of your power.
May we be humbled in your presence. And may you be glorified in us and through us as we go from here. May we live our lives with thankfulness as unto you. These things we pray in Jesus name. Amen. Love it.
Transcribed automatically from YouTube captions, so names and words may be misheard.
