Message of the Week

The Little White Community Church

Scripture: Neh. 9:1-6 June 22, 2025

Message: “Confession, Worship, and Commitment!”

by Pastor George Gnade

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Introduction:

1. Nehemiah 8 & 9 both took place in the 7th month of the Jewish year. In Neh. 8, Ezra and Nehemiah built a high platform and placed a pulpit on top of it so Ezra the priest could teach those who came back from captivity about God’s Word.  At that time, it was called the Book of the Law, which was another way to refer to the first five books of our Bible. 

2. Ezra also asked others to assist him. This project took many days. In the process, they learned about the Feast of Tabernacles and celebrated it for a whole week. This reminded them how God had delivered them from Egypt and provided for them in the wilderness before they entered the promised land of Canaan. 

3. That brings us to Neh. 9 which took place on the 24th day of the same month.  By this time, the Jews had become aware of how far short they had fallen from the laws God had given them.

a. I believe that is a normal reaction for anyone who begins to learn God’s Word. Our own inadequacy drives us closer to the Lord and is often accompanied by a desire to do better with God’s help.

b. To show their change of heart, they came together wearing sackcloth and ashes (Neh. 9:1), a practice more common in their day than in our day. This was their way of showing their sincerity. Prayer and fasting can be helpful to us too (See Mat. 6:1-18).

4. By now they had developed a thirst to know God better. They spent a fourth of the day reading God’s Word and meditating on it. With the help of Ezra and the Levites, they began to understand it more clearly (Neh. 8:8). 

a. The Bible is sort of like a spiritual language that requires the help of the Holy Spirit to understand it. 

b. But the more you read it and study it, the more you do come to understand it. Of course, that is where the pastor comes in. Just as Ezra tried to make it clearer to them, so your pastor’s job is to make it clearer to you.

c. In Gal. 6:6, God encourages you to encourage your pastor when a message touches you in a special way. 

5. There are three ways in particular that we all should grow in the Lord. I want to share them with you, based on this passage. The first two are mentioned in Neh. 9: 5. 

a. After they spent the first fourth of their day learning about the Word, they spent the next fourth of their day “in confession and worship.”

b. In our busy culture, I doubt any of us spend that much time praying and worshiping the Lord. Let us consider how it affected those who did.

A. In vs. 5, it mentioned confession first of all.

1. I doubt this was done like it is done in the Roman Catholic Churches. In our day, too many misuse confession as an excuse to sin even more. 

a. In our passage, it was more likely that each person evaluated his own heart as he listened to God’s Word. As he did this, the Holy Spirit convicted him of his sins. 

b. It is amazing how the Holy Spirit can put His finger on each area in our lives where we could and should do better.

2. Often it comes down to a clash between the culture around us and what God desires of us. Isn’t that just as true today? The world believes and says something is okay while God’s Word says it is wrong.

a. Usually it came down to the influence of the non-Christian world.  As it says in I Cor.15:32, “Bad company breeds wrong behavior.”

b. That is why in our passage many of them realized they had to choose between the influence of foreigners with their ideas and the influence of those Jews who wanted to stay faithful to the Word. 

3. Now the Bible is full of stories about Gentiles who came to know and believe in the Lord. 

a. Ruth married into Naomi’s family and saw the difference between her and her own countrymen. After Naomi’s husband and her sons died, Naomi realized she had to get back among her own people. 

b. And Ruth wanted what Naomi wanted. As a result, she chose to go with her. She said: “Entreat me not to leave you or forsake from following you. Where you go, I will go, and where you live, I will live. Your people will become my people and your God my God” (Ruth 1: 16). 

c. Please observe she understood the choice she was making. Gentiles who chose to follow the Lord in the O.T. became known as proselytes. They were well received.

4. But most unbelievers are more likely to push their own ideas and try to change the Christian rather than the other way around. 

a. It was because of their influence that many Jews had moved away from the Lord and the teachings of God’s Word. In the end, God allowed them to go into captivity because they had moved away from Him. 

b. Now that many of them chose to return, they had to choose whom they would serve. In our culture, all of us must make the same choice. 

5. In our passage, as the Jews learned God’s Word from Ezra, they became convicted of their sins and began to confess those sins to each other and to God. 

B. Secondly, as they studied and learned God’s Word, they began to worship the Lord in a moving and life changing way. 

1. Prayer and singing and praise began to flow out of their mouths. Ezra encouraged them “to stand up and praise the Lord your God, who is from everlasting to everlasting.” 

2. He prayed: “Blessed be your glorious name and may it be exalted above all blessing and praise. You alone are the Lord. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all the starry hosts, the earth and all that is on it. You give life to everything and the multitudes of heaven praise you.”

3. The rest of Neh. 9 is one long prayer, referring back to the past with its mistakes as well as pointing to the future which with God’s help was full of hope.

C. Thirdly, Confession and Worship led to a deeper Commitment.

1. Notice the last verse in Neh. 9. In vs. 38, Ezra concludes his prayer for and with the people with the following statement: 

2. He writes: “In view of all of this, we are making a binding agreement, putting it in writing, and our leaders, our Levites, and our priests are affixing their seals to it.”

3. By example, these leaders were encouraging all the people to do likewise.

In conclusion: 1.These three – confession, worship, and a deeper commitment- are the normal results of feeding on the Word of God. Each of us will probably respond a little differently..

2. But all of us have areas in our lives where we can do better. If we listen to the Holy Spirit of Jesus in our hearts, He will show us what to do. Amen!