SERMON: Confessing Corporate Sin,

Thank you for subscribing to the Shepherds Church podcast. This is our Lord's Day sermon. And we pray that as we declare the word of God that you would be encouraged, strengthened in your faith, and you would catch a greater vision of who Christ is.

And may you be blessed in the hearing of God's word. And may the Lord be with you. But Paul has been such an encouragement to me. He's prayed for you. He's prayed for you specifically. He's helped in the leading and the guidance of this church, even while having responsibilities at his own church.

Paul has been such a friend to the Shepherds Church. I'd like to welcome him to give us the word today. Brother Paul.

It is a great pleasure to be here. The breath of God, when I talk to my children up at Tri-City Christian Academy and talk about God breathing into Adam, the breath of life, and Jesus breathing on his disciples, the breath of life, I say that when it's time to sing, to encourage them to sing, I say, now let's stand because God wants his breath back.

So we put our breath into our singing and we return some measure of the spirit that God gave us. Well, this is a day of mixed emotions. I see Dan and Janelle, and you know what I'm gonna say. We're gonna miss them.

They're military people, they're a military family, and God has told us that we are military as well. We're soldiers of Christ. And the Bible says, thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

That's our job, enduring hardness. We know hardness of soldiers. Sometimes you don't get enough sleep, sometimes you're cold, sometimes you're too hot, sometimes you're in danger. Oh yeah, all of those things are the experience of a soldier, but there's one more thing that soldiers have to endure.

One more hardness that they have and we have, and that is not always knowing what headquarters is doing. Why in the world are Dan and Janelle being moved away from our flock here, away from our body here?

Why? Well, we just don't know. We're told to endure hardness. And sometimes God does things without asking us. I'm being, I'm kidding. You know what I'm saying? I found this out, I used to work on the flight line at Pease and we would, one of the things we had to do was external fuel tanks to the FB -111s, put them up, put them down.

They had eight stations on the wing, so there were all different combinations of fuel tanks and we're always loading them up or taking them down,.

On and on and on.

And sometimes we were so frustrated, we just uploaded those tanks and now we're asked to take them off the same airplane that just put them on and there's another airplane that already had them. Why don't they just fly that one instead?

One time I went up to job control and my eyes were opened. This was like the headquarters for the flight line and I saw the multitude of screens, the multitude of inputs, the multitude of communications.

It isn't just all about us. The kingdom of God is a big operation and it's complicated and we don't always know what the Lord is doing. We're confident that he does and that should be enough. That should be enough.

I also think, this wasn't in my notes, but your pastor and I were talking about this Friday with regard to your real estate transaction. The, I used that illustration of, there was a group of British soldiers that were doing some training and I think they were like part-time soldiers.

Like we have the Guard and Reserve, weekend warriors, you've heard the term. You go for two weeks for your training and then you return to your civilian life. Well, these guys in this British reserve unit were tasked to go and spend two weeks up in Greenland on the ice flow of Greenland and they had their training up there.

All right, imagine it. Two weeks, you're away from your family, you're away from your normal comforts of home. It's not easy. Two weeks finally comes to the end. The guys are assembled, their gear is packed, they're going home.

Oh, this is wonderful. The helicopters are coming to pick them up. This is a true story. The helicopters are coming to pick them up and the guys are just about ready to, you know, cling on to them. They're so anxious for them to land and then they board the helicopters with their gear and go home.

The helicopters hovered for a few moments and tossed out this message and then they reverse course and flew back. And the message was, we'll be back in two weeks. They had to stay another two weeks as they were poised to make this move to go home.

Can you imagine the disappointment? Can you imagine? It was part of their training. It was part of enduring hardness. It was part of having a setback. That's training. And we don't know what's going to happen with our building up in Londonderry.

We don't know.

It might all turn out smoothly and everything might be fine. But we know that we are told to endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ and be prepared for setbacks. Because we have a God that nothing's a setback to him.

And he's in full control of everything so we can trust in his providential care of his creation. And the most important part of that creation is us, the church. There's no part of creation that's more important than the church that Jesus died for.

This sermon is a Lenten season sermon. Lent is a time of penitence, a time of reflection, a time dedicated to turning away from sin. I like the church calendar because if it weren't for the church calendar, things like Lent and repentance might not be first on my agenda.

Okay, so we need the discipline of periodic reminders of the church seasons, the church calendar. We need Lent. We need contrition. We need repentance. We need turning away from our sin. But this emphasis this time will not be as much on individual sin.

We all know what that means. Closet prayer, kneeling down, confessing our sin to God. I have sinned against the Lord, as David said. But this is a time of, we wanna remember that we are a body and there's also corporate sin, okay?

Individual and corporate. Both are personal. Both are personal confession. But we are one and we are many. As modern Americans, we find the focus a little unusual because we tend to emphasize individual identities more than we emphasize our corporate identities.

And we emphasize individual repentance more than corporate repentance. Corporate is a word, you know, corpus, body. Corporate is a word that refers to the body of Christ. Now, ye are the body of Christ.

It doesn't say you are like the body of Christ. You are the body of Christ and members in particular. This really shouldn't be that much of a foreign concept because we are creatures made in God's image.

What does that mean? Well, our God is both one and many. Our pastors just said earlier this morning, one God, three persons. Good way to remember the doctrine of the Trinity. I told the children, we're Christians, we're made in God's image and he is one God, just one God, three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

And we image this God. We are Trinitarian Christians. And there's really no other kind. Christians worship one God and three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And as we gather before our God, like we're doing now, we gather both as individuals and as the body of Christ.

Corporate, body, both. The more I study the scriptures, the more I think of that word both becoming my favorite word. We're both one and many. We're certainly commanded to confess our individual sins.

This is often done as what is termed closet prayer. But today we'll be looking at a passage in scripture that is a corporate confession of sin. We're gonna be looking at the chapter one in Nehemiah. And Nehemiah was in Persia.

Interestingly, where's Persia today? It's Iran. We're gonna have a Bible story from the nation of Iran today. And Nehemiah had been one of those that was carried away captive, or actually his ancestors were carried away captive because God said, you've become idolaters.

And he spoke to Israel and said, you're going to be taken away. You're gonna be judged. And the judgment was severe. And the judgment involved going first to Babylon, and then later Babylon was captured by Persia.

And Nehemiah was in this generation about the fifth century BC. God also promised not only captivity to his people, not only exile, but a return. God is long suffering. And God promises to restore us.

Nehemiah, reading from chapter one, hear the words of God. And they said unto me, the remnant that are left of the captivity there in the province are in great affliction and reproach. The wall of Jerusalem also is broken down and the gates thereof are burned with fire.

When I read this, the walls are broken down in Jerusalem, I think of the proverb that said, a man that has no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down without walls.

Yeah.

And that's what cities, back then, walls were very important. They were protection. And they were also symbolic of strength. And here is Jerusalem. The walls are broken down. And it came to pass when I heard these words that I sat down and wept and mourned certain days and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven and said, I beseech thee, O Lord, God of heaven, the great and terrible God that keepeth covenant and mercy for them that love him and observe his commandments.

Let thine ear now be attentive and thine eyes open that thou mayest hear the prayer of thy servant, which I pray before thee now, day and night, for the children of Israel, thy servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel, which have sinned against thee.

He's confessing sins of other people besides his own individual self?

Oh, yeah.

My people, us. Both I and my father's house have sinned. Hey, I wasn't even back there during those days of idolatry. We could go further. All of us could say, hey, I wasn't in the Garden of Eden when Adam betrayed his wife and his God.

I didn't, I wasn't there.

Oh, yes, you were.

You were there.

Both I and my father's house have sinned. We have dealt very corruptly against thee and have not kept the commandments nor the statutes nor the judgments which thou commandest thy servant Moses. Remember, I beseech thee, the word that thou commandest thy servant Moses, saying, if he transgress, I will scatter you abroad among the nations.

But if he return unto me and keep my commandments and do them, though there were of you cast out under the uttermost part of the heaven, yet will I gather them from thence and will bring them unto the place that I have chosen to set my name there.

I'll bring you back after the time of chastisement. Now, these are the servants and thy people whom thou hast redeemed by thy great power and by thy strong hand. Oh, Lord, I beseech thee now, let thine ear be attentive to the prayer of thy servant and to the prayer of thy servants who desire to fear thy name and prosper, I pray thee, thy servant this day and grant him mercy in the sight of this man, the Persian king, for I was the king's cupbearer.

Let us pray. Dear Heavenly Father, as we become more fully aware of the extent of our sin, we more and more abhor ourselves and cling to your mercy and grace. And as we become more fully aware of our redemption purchased by the shed blood of your son, we can only sing with the saints throughout all the ages, amazing grace, how sweet the sound.

Take us back to yourself again this hour, we pray. Move our hearts, enlighten us, transform us from glory to greater glory by the power of your word and Holy Spirit. May we leave this place better Christians, more worthy to bear your name before the watching world.

For we offer our prayer in the name of your son Jesus, our king and our God, amen. The core part of the reading that I wanna emphasize in Nehemiah's prayer, we have sinned against thee. Both I and my father's house have sinned.

We have dealt very corruptly against thee and have not kept the commandments nor the statutes nor the judgments which thou commandest thy servant Moses. Israel had many prophets, many prophecies of coming judgment.

Finally, God's patience was exhausted. I was gonna say God's patience with them, but I caught myself. We're a covenantal unit people. God's patience with us was exalted. You know, the plural pronoun. Their last king, Zerubbabel, was blinded after seeing his sons executed.

That's what the Babylonians did to him. They executed his sons before his eyes and then they took out his eyes. The last thing he saw was his sons being murdered. Is there any kind of application for this judgment that Israel absorbed in America?

I don't know all the details. I just know that our nation has a lot to answer for. How would our nation be characterized right now? How are we doing in terms of idolatry? I don't have all the answers, but when I reflect upon how God looks at our nation, I'm extremely sober-minded about that and I'm sure you are too.

Nehemiah, after this confession of corporate sin, he had to approach his king, the ruler of Persia. And that was a big deal. Remember in Queen Esther, the same country,.

Just a little earlier,.

How she trembled to go before her king, who was her husband? She didn't dare go into the king's presence unless he pointed the scepter.

At her.

Then she could have an audience with him. Now, how would our approach to the king, King Jesus, be characterized? I know much of Christianity, and I'm talking about our church as well as the typical evangelical church.

It is exceedingly casual. Yeah, I might be able to show up on time, but I got something to do. I'm gonna check my email. And I haven't finished my coffee yet, so I'm not quite ready to go in. At our church, we're trying to, we have a trumpet sounds.

Of course, even then, it's still too casual. Approaching the king is a big deal. That's why we have a call to worship. We are called into the presence. We don't just strut in on our own. And we learn from a human king what a big deal this was.

Nehemiah knew what a big deal it was. He had to approach his king. I know what, like in Isaiah, when Isaiah had that vision, when he saw where we are now, in Isaiah 6, he saw the throne room. Now, we don't realize this with our eyes of flesh, but we're there now.

We are in this throne room now. And Isaiah, he just said, woe is me, woe is me, for I am undone. I'm in the presence of the king. I'm standing before his throne. I'm a man of unclean lips. And that means more than I say bad words from time to time.

That means he was in a culture that was unclean. And here's the corporate part. And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. I'm in bad shape. I am undone. That was the posture, entering the presence of the king.

Now, Nehemiah was entering the presence of a human king, but we can learn from that. Dr. Rushner and he said, when we uncover our sins in confession, God then covers them by Christ's atonement. Atonement means covering, okay?

So when we approach the king, as Nehemiah was approaching his king, we do so in a posture of humility and confession. We have sinned against thee, both I and my father's house have sinned. We have dealt very corruptly against thee and have not kept thy commandments, nor the statutes, nor the judgments, which thou commandest thy servant Moses.

We're not just an I. We're not just a me. We are an us and a we. We're not just individuals.

We're corporate.

Remember the story of right after the Jericho fight, when Israel was conquering the promised land, they had a great victory when they took Jericho. You know, the walls came tumbling down. It's time for the next city, a little town called Ai.

We don't have to send a big army here. Just send a few thousand guys. We can take Ai. It's a small, small potatoes. Israel went into Ai and their first part of the fight, they were turned back. They were defeated.

They lost 36 guys. What happened? Joshua fell on his face. What is going on here? And you know the story. The Lord said, somebody has taken of the accursed thing. I said everything in Jericho was mine.

Somebody took something. There's sin in the camp. And the idea was 36 guys died. Plus, not only that, these other cities around here are watching what's going on. They know we just took Jericho, but now, hmm, we lost Ai?

Ai beat them? Maybe we can beat them too. Let's not lose heart, folks. We can push these Israels back across the Jordan where they came from. It was a big deal. Joshua got on his knees and prayed, and the Lord said, take by tribe, and then by family, and then finally by individual.

And it was one family, the family of Achan. Now the other Israelites, especially those of the 36 guys, they could have said, hey, we didn't do anything wrong. We weren't guilty at all. Oh yeah, both I and my fathers have sinned.

Now the application for us as Americans, that's our nation, by the way, we dare not stand in any kind of posture of self-righteousness. We should stand in a posture of humility. There's this little phrase that children sometimes learn.

In Adam's fall, we sinned all. Oh yeah, we may not have been back in the Garden of Eden, but we were there. We were there. Covenantally, we were there. There are many parallels between our nation and ancient idolatrous Israel.

What makes us think that God's patience with us is inexhaustible? Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it, except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain. Like you, I tremble when I think of the condition of our nation.

Especially now in wartime, we need less hubris, less boasting, less pride, and more humility. I'm thankful for the strong leadership of some of our leaders. I'm thankful for that. I'm thankful that some of these leaders that we have are acting like men.

But this is not a time for boasting. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord for as much as you know, your labor is not in vain in the Lord. Our cultural walls have been broken down.

In America. Our gates have been burned with fire. But like Nehemiah, we confess both corporate and individual sins. And then we rebuild. We're told in scripture in 2 Chronicles 7, 14, if my people, that's us, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

Like I said, I'm a little troubled by some of the hubris that we have talking about the current war. You turn on the Fox News or CNN or something like that. Yeah, we really beat them.

We blew this up. We blew that up. All right.

But one thing that did encourage me, a couple of days ago, Pete Hegseth and some other leaders too, they say we are praying to our God, the Lord Jesus Christ. All right, I'll take that. That's a good turn.

That's good leadership. After this humility, this turning has to begin with the church. If my people, see that the church is the key here. All of history is for the wellbeing of the church. And this humility begins with the church, with us.

And just as Nehemiah assigned specific parts of the wall to be rebuilt to specific tribes and families, it's that way with us too. We have a multiplicity of gifting. You know, many gifts in the body. And we have a big country to rebuild, but it's not one person's responsibility to do it all.

It's all of us. Many hands make light work. We have specific assignments in this job, division of labor, different giftings and callings. What part of the broken wall of America have you personally been assigned to rebuild by your high commander, Jesus?

What part? What's your job? What's your gifting? What's your calling? It might be something personal. It might be something within your family. It might be something at your job, or maybe even in your church, the shepherd's church, or maybe in your civil community.

We have resistance. It's not easy. We have mockers. We have, just like Nehemiah did, we have detractors. We have to rebuild this land we have, but at the same time, we have opposition. It shouldn't surprise us.

Even before the fall, think back, even before the fall, Adam's job in the garden was twofold, dressing and keeping. They're not the same. Dressing is improving. Dressing is glorifying. Dressing is making it better than it was.

We have that job, but also keeping. Keeping is guarding, protecting what you have. In Scotland, a castle is called a keep, okay? They're defensive measures, and that's our job as dominion-taking, spirit-filled Christians.

We have both offense and defense to do. Dress and keep. Nehemiah had the same thing. And it came to pass from that time forth that half of my servants wrought in the work. Dressing, you know, building the walls up.

The other half of them held both the spears, the shields, and the bows, and the harbichons. Hey, those guys could have been doing work with tools. Uh-huh, no. They were doing the keeping part. Dressing and keeping.

Offense and defense. It's the same with us. On any battlefront in which Jesus places you, you have two jobs. You have to improve what you've been given, sanctify it, make it more glorious, transform it from glory to glory.

But you also got to hold and keep what has been gained. Not easy. Dressing and keeping. So half the guys are holding shields and swords, and the other half's doing the work. They which build on the wall, and they that bear burdens, with those that laid it, everyone with his hands wrought in the work.

And with the other, held a weapon. Lord, this would be a lot easier to build this wall for you if I didn't have to hold this sword here, or this spear. But that, Christian, is our calling. It hasn't really changed since Eden.

It's become a lot harder with sin in the world. But even in heaven, your pastor said something about we have a false view of work. Won't it be great when we don't have to work? Wait a minute. Work is glorious.

God, it's a privilege. Thank God for Mondays. But also, thank God for Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. And six days, shut that labor, do all thy work. But remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. We work and we rest.

The Bible says we are to cast down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. That's our job. That's our job in America.

That's our job with the battle fronts that God has assigned for you. Bring every thought, every area of life into the obedience of Christ. And, and, having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.

God will revenge all disobedience when? When we, if my people who are called by my name, if the Christians humble themselves and repent. Some of you have seen the Braveheart movie from years ago. Gee, it's probably 20, 25 years ago now.

It's one of my favorite movies. But the young William Wallace and his friend Hamish are out there playing with rocks, pretending they're soldiers defending Scotland. And they have these fake English soldiers come by.

They was the enemy then. And they're throwing these rocks at the soldiers. And there's this line I just love. Wallace says to Hamish, it's up to us now, Hamish.

Oh yeah.

Having a willingness to revenge all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled. The last verse in the chapter one, Nehemiah said, for I was the king's cupbearer.

All right.

Interesting little tidbit of information, Bible trivia. What was Nehemiah's job? Oh, he was the king's cupbearer. Hey, that was a big deal. That meant more than just pouring the wine and handing it to the king.

The king's cupbearer, his job was to taste the wine first to make sure it wasn't poisoned. It was a life or death job. He was entrusted. The king didn't put anybody in that casually. He had to pick a guy who would put his life on the line to make sure the king didn't get poisoned.

For I was the king's cupbearer. A high role of trust and responsibility. Interesting. Back in Egypt, Joseph had that role too, didn't he? Not the cupbearer, but he was a second only to Pharaoh. It's funny that even during captivity, God's servants get elevated.

How about Daniel? He was right there for both the king of Babylon and the king of Persia. What can we learn from this? In our quest to take back our country, in our quest to fulfill our responsibilities on our battlefront, personal, family, church, state, whatever it is, in our quest to do that, we have to remember that power flows to those who are willing to take responsibility.

This is an important point. Adam was a classic guy, and we all carry the first Adam with us, an abdication, ducking responsibility. He was with Eve when she was dealing with the tempter. And what did he say?

Nothing. Not my job, man. Men especially are famous for that. But that's not the way of the second Adam. And that's not the way of us. Let us take responsibility, first for our own sin, and then for the sin of our nation.

First, let us repent from our own sin and be restored to rebuild the fallen walls of America, the broken gates of our once great culture, and God will revenge all disobedience when our obedience is fulfilled.

Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever, amen.