Confession and Renewal

Good morning to all of our Semicampuses. If you would remain standing for the reading of God's Word, Nehemiah chapter 9, just verses 1 through 3 this morning. 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 they stood and they confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers. And they stood up in their place and they read from the book of the law of the Lord, their God, for a quarter of the day. And for another quarter of it, they made confession and worshiped the Lord, their God. This is the Word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God indeed. You may be seated. You may be seated. And if you have not already done so, find Nehemiah chapter 9 in your Bibles. This is Nehemiah chapter 9. We are coming to the end of our study of Nehemiah. We've only got one more message after this one, but Nehemiah 9 this weekend. The year was 1866, and Rod was in trouble. Rod had been caught in a perfect storm. He was a 23-year-old college dropout who had immersed himself in some new and exciting philosophies of the day, one in particular which claimed that history was shaped by supermen who were basically above the law. These supermen weren't bound by normal social conventions, he believed. They rewrote the rules and sometimes had to bend the law to bring about the greater good. The ideas were intoxicating, and Rod had started to wonder if he might be one of these supermen. Well, then he got into this big fight with his landlord. She was just this nasty, mean, peevish woman, and then he got sick, and in his feverish state, he started to obsess about the wrong that she had done to him and how she made everybody around her miserable.

And Rod decided that the world would just be a better place if she wasn't in it. So one afternoon, he snuck into her apartment and he murdered her in cold blood. At first, he felt free. He felt empowered. He was a superman. But then everything in his life began to fall apart. His mind could not stop replaying the scene, her lying there in cold blood, and her blood dead by his hand. His friends thought he was losing his mind. The guilt slowly gnawed away at his soul until it utterly consumed him. He faced a dilemma. If he talked with anybody about what he had done, he would end up in jail. But if he didn't bring what he had done into the light, the guilt of it all would destroy him. Now, some of you recognize that that is the plot line of Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, which is one of, in my opinion, the best and yet least read novels of modern history. Rod is actually Rodia Romanovich Raskolnikov. And Rod is Dostoevsky's depiction of what happens to somebody when they fail to bring their sin into the light. I share that because Nehemiah 9 is all about confession also, and it shows us that unconfessed sin does more than just eat away at our souls. Unconfessed sin drives out, literally, the presence of God from our lives. Confessing sin, by contrast, bringing it into the light, if done the right way, and that's key, if done the right way, actually restores the presence of God to you. Nehemiah 8, you might recall, was all about how the Word of God brings spiritual renewal to people. Today, we're going to see the role that confession of sin plays in that renewal. Now, I will tell you in advance, okay, confession of sin, I mean true confession of sin, not the, yeah, we're all sinners, nobody's perfect kind of confession, but actual confession

of particular sin is one of the hardest things to do. It is one of the least practiced Christian disciplines. That's because it takes humility, it takes courage, and I'm telling you, the only thing, the only thing that will enable you to truly do it is a desperation for the presence of God that exceeds the discomfort caused by confession. In fact, just ask yourself, when is the last time you honestly confessed a particular sin, one that brought you shame, you confessed a sin like that to somebody? The majority of Nehemiah 9 is a prayer. It is not addressed to us, the reader, it is addressed to God. So you're going to see the word you as a reference to God more than 30 different times in this chapter. Let me set the context for this prayer, but first, I want you to know that at the end of the message today, you're going to have a chance to participate in the ultimate act of confession, if you never have, baptism. Baptism is the public confession that you are a sinner, but you want the presence of Jesus Christ back in your life. As always, we will have everything you will need to make that decision. We gotta change the clothes for you, hairspray, deodorant, everything, right? That will happen at the end. But first, let's walk through Nehemiah 9. Verse three tells us that the Levites, who basically function like the pastors of the community, spent a quarter of the waking hours of the day teaching from the law of God. So what, about four hours? And then it says they worshiped and confessed their sin for another four hours.

So overall, this was like an eight-hour church service. Some of you are like, oh, church felt so long today. Yeah, I get it, okay? And for the record, I hate rambling unnecessarily long church services too. But I am telling you, when the spirit of God really starts to move in our midst, your sense of time just evaporates. So if church really seems like a drag to you, maybe that's your cue to go home and pray. Either pray for me, that I will do a better job facilitating the movement of the spirit, or for yourself, that you will do a better job at recognizing Him. Verse one tells us they dressed in sackcloth for this worship service, and they put dirt on their foreheads. Sackcloth was a coarse cloth made of black goat's hair. It was intentionally ugly, scratchy, and uncomfortable, and symbolized how uncomfortable these people felt in their sin. Mud on their faces, of course, expressed how dirty they felt before God. To be very clear with you, I am not suggesting that you come to church like this next weekend. There are a handful of middle school boys I see that come in like this just about every week, but that is a different thing for different reasons.

But let me make one passing observation. In modern society, we have largely lost the importance of adopting physical postures as a reflection of the attitude of our hearts. So we worship like this, right? This is the joy of the Lord is my strength, right? We repent over sin like this. We plead with God for help like this. Scripture would tell us to do something entirely different. Scripture encourages us to connect our body posture with our desired soul posture, because get this, what you do physically, externally with your body actually helps shape the attitude of your heart. You see, your physical posture not only expresses your heart and reflects your heart, it actually guides your heart. For example, when you get down on your knees and you do this, it will lead your heart to an attitude of surrender and humility, I guarantee it. In fact, try it. Do it in your personal quiet time. Get on your knees, put your hands up, and I guarantee your heart will start to feel certain things. One of the things I can't guarantee is I'm not gonna be able to hop up from this without looking like a 75-year-old man, okay?

But one of the reasons that we often encourage you to come forward and pray at the end of a service is because we know that just the act of kneeling before God can guide your soul into adopting a posture of humility and surrender before him. Again, your physical posture not only reflects the attitude of your heart, it actually shapes it. Does that make sense? You say, well, sometimes I don't really feel like raising my hands or kneeling, and it just seems hypocritical and inauthentic to do something that I'm not feeling, and I am nothing if not authentic. But see, you're looking at it wrongly. I don't raise my hands or get on my knees because that's what I feel. I do that because that's what God's worthy of. I praise when I feel it, I praise when I don't. My posture is a way of praying with my body. My posture says, God, I know my heart is supposed to feel this way, but it doesn't. Please train my heart to feel this way. So they adopt a physical posture of mourning and repentance, and then verse four begins their prayer of confession. The prayer reveals four crucial things about confession of sin and show you how they lead to revival. You ready? Some of these are really in your face, let me warn you.

Number one, confession begins with, God, you are right, and I am wrong. The Levites open their prayer, verse five, by saying, blessed be your glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise. You are the Lord, you alone. You have made the heavens, you have made the heaven of heavens with all of their hosts, 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 notice the repetition of the word all. You're God, we're not. There's no higher authority than you. There's no constitution, no politician, no philosophy or ethics book that sits in judgment of you. Right and wrong come from you. They are defined by you. You are perfect, you are righteous, you are faithful. Your name, verse five, is glorious, exalted above all blessing and praise. We can't even praise you sufficiently because there's nothing higher. than you, you are above all critique or criticism. And then what follows out of that statement is the longest recorded review of Israel's history found anywhere in the Old Testament. The Levites go event by event from the time of Abraham all the way down through the present day in Nehemiah 9.

And as they do, a clear theme emerges. God has been faithful to Israel, but Israel has not been faithful to him. The first event they highlight, in fact, kind of summarizes this. It's in verse seven. It's the covenant God made with Abraham in Genesis 15. Genesis 15, God has promised to make Abraham and his descendants into a great nation, to give them land, to bless them with his presence, and then to use them to bring that blessing of his presence into the world. Their only part is to follow God and obey him. The end of Genesis 15, God and Abraham want to formalize this covenant by means of an ancient ritual in which the two covenant signatories would take a couple of animals and they would cut them in half and they would put the cloven halves of either animal on either side of a little ravine so that the blood from these animals flowed down into this ravine, making a little blood river. And then both covenant signers would walk through this little river of blood together, letting the blood splash up on the edges of their robes, basically saying, if I fail to keep up my part of the covenant, may my blood flow like this. In those days, you would basically wear one outer garment

for the duration of your life. So for the rest of their lives, people could point to the blood stains on the bottom of their outer garment, their robe, and they would say, you made a promise. By the way, I know this is all a little gross from our point of view, but you got to admit it get the point across. I mean, the most dramatic thing I ever did with a promise was make a pinky swear, remember those? You interlock pinkies with somebody and make a promise and say that if you break your promise, the other person gets to break your pinky. This was way more weighty than that. But the end of Genesis 15 is God and Abraham prepare to go through this signing ritual. The strangest thing happens. God causes a deep sleep to fall upon Abraham. And then God walks through this little river of blood on his own, all by himself, signifying that God is gonna make himself responsible for both sides of this covenant. In other words, God's saying, if I break my side of the covenant, I'll pay with my blood, but Abraham, when you and your people break your side of the covenant, I will also play with my blood, not you. And then the Levites began to rehearse story after story in the Old Testament of how God kept up his side of the covenant,

even as Israel consistently broke theirs. God provided for them. He protected them. He showered them with blessing. He delivered them from their enemies again and again and again and again. And the people responded by taking him for granted, by forgetting him again and again and again, and consistently rebelling against his guidance. They say in verse 16, our fathers acted presumptuously. They stiffened their neck and did not obey your commandment. Stiffen your neck. That is a phrase, it's one of my favorite phrases to describe disobedience. It's when a stubborn ox would resist the farmer who was trying to steer it. The farmer wants the ox to go this way, so he pulls the yoke in that direction, but the ox doesn't wanna go that way, so it stiffens its neck so that it won't turn. That one of my favorite illustrations of this, I've told you. When I was a lot younger, I think I was just becoming pastor here, just getting started in ministry. I went to a pastor's conference with a really famous pastor. And at the end, this pastor said, if anybody wanted to receive a special gifting

of the Holy Spirit, he wanted us to come up and he would pray over us. Well, y'all, I'm brand new in ministry and I genuinely want everything the Holy Spirit had to offer. So I go down there and there's a line of us, about 20 people deep or so, and I was close to the end. And I noticed as I'm watching him pray over these people, that as he prays over each of them, they would fall down and then they start to flop around like a perch on the dock. And I was truly and honestly fascinated, but I'd never seen anything like this. And as I watched it happening, I kept looking at it and I'm like, it really looks to me like he is pushing them down. And I was not trying to be a know-it-all. Honestly, I wasn't. I was like, Lord, listen, I'm in for whatever you got for me. Seriously, God, if you want to knock me on my back and make my shirt fly off my torso and tattoo John 3 16 on my chest, I am here for it. But I'm not letting that man push me down. Well, he finally gets to me and he begins to pray over me. And after a while, I could feel his hand pushing my head.

And in my heart, I was like, bro, that is not the Holy Spirit, that's you. So I stiffened my neck. And so he started pushing harder and I started pushing back harder. And we sort of had this little tug of war there for a couple of moments. And then after a few moments, he just said, amen and moved on to the next. Next person. Now I'm pretty sure later he probably said, yeah, that one guy out there was really stiff-necked and resistant to the Lord. But I never felt guilty about it because I was pretty convinced I wasn't stiffening my neck to the Holy Spirit, only to that guy. In fact, it came out later, by the way, he was caught up in some scandal during the time that he was leading this. But still, that is a good picture of what some people actually do with God. God is trying to lead you in some direction into some act of obedience and you stiffen your neck and you say, I don't wanna do that. That's what Israel had done over and over and over. And then verse 17, they were not even mindful of the wonders that you performed among them. They forgot all the blessings

and all the miracles of grace and they live with a sense of entitlement like they deserved all these things. In verse 33, the Levites arrive at the punchline. You've been righteous in all that has come upon us. You have dealt faithfully and we have acted wickedly. That is an idea, by the way, they repeat seven different times in this prayer. You're the righteous one, God, we the unrighteous. Listen, this is gonna be hard for some of you to hear. But getting into right relationship with God means acknowledging that he is unrighteous and we are unrighteous. And I say that because many of us assume the opposite. See, when you're in pain or when you're disappointed with an outcome, we tend to question God's integrity instead of our own. And we say things like, God, how could you let this happen? God, why am I sick? Why did you let this fail? Why is that friend getting married now instead of me? Why didn't you give me that opportunity? Why are my kids the ones who are struggling? Why is my marriage falling apart? It's not fair, God. I did my part, you didn't do your part. I'm the righteous one, you are unrighteous. The Levites confessed the opposite. They didn't say, God, we don't deserve what happened to us. I mean, the Babylonians who conquered us

were way worse than we were. Why did you let them take us captive? Or, hey, you know, the punishment was a little bit harsh, don't you think? Or why did you take so long to deliver us? Rather, all they said is, God, you're right and we're wrong. You see, true confession always begins there. Many of us, when we approach God, feel like we are the righteous ones. We look at suffering in our lives or suffering in the world, and we think, how dare God let bad things happen to us good people? But you see, the Bible actually starts with the opposite assumption. This is not a world full of good people to whom God lets bad things happen. It's a world full of bad people upon whom God continues to shower undeserved good things. In fact, Jesus made this point the best with one of the least politically correct things he ever said. In fact, when you really understand what he said, you're like, I can't believe he said that. I could never get away with saying this, just for the record. Luke 13, there'd been this tragic event that had occurred near Jerusalem during the days of Jesus, in which 18 people were killed when a tower fell on them, and everybody was talking about it in Jerusalem. The tower that killed all these 18 people.

So Jesus brings it up, Luke 13, four, and he said, hey, those 18 on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them. Do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? In other words, were those 18 people just the worst sinners in Jerusalem? And God saw them all together in one place at one time and thought, well, now's my chance. And so he knocks the tower over on them and kills them. Is that what happened? No, Jesus says, but I tell you, here's the politically incorrect thing. Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. What's he saying? He's saying that if we saw things correctly, what would surprise us is not why some people experience judgment, but why any of us don't. What is mind-boggling is not why bad things happen. What is mind-boggling is why God continues to pour good things out on a world full of people who have stiffened their necks toward him and consistently taken his goodness for granted. See, the Bible doesn't wrestle with the problem of evil so much as it marvels at the wonders of grace. Now, to be clear, I am not saying that any particular instance of suffering that you're going through is some kind of direct response by God to some past evil that you've committed, as in, well, the reason you lost your job

is because somewhere back there you did something God didn't like, or the reason you're not married is because of some bad stuff you did as a teenager he's still paying you back for. No, God's word never tells us to look at suffering that way. In fact, God's word tells us that believers should expect to suffer unjustly, just like Jesus did, but that God is working through all that suffering for our good and the salvation of the world, just like he did with Jesus, and that the beauty that he's bringing through us in eternity will more. than outweigh any of the suffering that we go through now. My only point is that confession begins by saying, God, you are righteous in all that you have done. I have been the unfaithful one. In fact, in the ultimate expression of faithfulness, God, after we had broken our promises to God again and again and again, actually did exactly what he promised in Genesis 15, and he took upon himself the price for our disobedience. And so at the cross, God literally paid for our disobedience with his own blood, just like he promised Abraham. By the way, the book of Revelation tells us that when we first see Jesus in heaven, he's gonna be wearing a garment splashed in blood. Blood that shows that he is unfailingly faithful and that he is the ultimate promise keeper.

All that leads me to the second thing. Confession fully owns your part in your sin. The Hebrew word for confess in verse three, yada, means to openly acknowledge or declare something to be true, to openly do it, to do it publicly. The Israelites in this chapter did not try to hide, minimize, or explain away their sin. You see, when sin gets exposed in our lives, we almost always react in one of four ways. We hide it. That's option one. We hide it, meaning we cover it up. We put on the plastic Christian smile and act like everything is fine. One thing I've learned as a pastor for 20 plus years is that every single week, there are people in here with deep brokenness and deep darkness. And I need you to hear me say right now, on behalf of Jesus Christ, that is okay. Opening that up to Jesus is the safest thing you can do. Y'all, if the gospels teach us anything, if Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John teach us anything, it teaches us that the safest place for a sinner to be is voluntarily exposed in all their sin in the presence of Jesus. You can hide it. Number two, you can minimize it. You know what I mean by that? You shrink it down.

You tell yourself, you tell other people, well, what I did is not that bad. I mean, I didn't really hurt anybody. Nobody's perfect. My sin, by the way, is not nearly as bad as that guy's over there. Oh, by the way, look at all the good things that I'm doing also. You know, as long as God grades on the curve, I think I got more on the good side than the bad side, and I think I'm gonna be okay. That's your second option to minimize it. Number three is to blame shift it. Okay, yeah, I did it. But see, it's really not my fault. You just don't know the pressure I've been under. In fact, my wife has been such a jerk to me, and so how I'm acting is kind of in response to her. Yeah, what I did was wrong, but this other person's wrong made me do it. Y'all, blame shifting has been our go-to move since the Garden of Eden, hadn't it? When God first confronted Adam in his sin, Adam blamed the only other two people in the conversation. This is a three-part conversation between God, Adam, and Eve. God reveals Adam's sin, and Adam's like, yeah, the woman that you gave me made me do it. First of all, it's her fault. Second of all, you know, it's kind of your fault, God,

for giving that woman to me. And then God looks over at Eve, and she's like, snake, right? Blame shift all the way down. Option three is blame shifting. Option four, when you're confronted in your sin, is repent of it, which is what happens in Ammon 9. It's what led to revival. True confession does not law your up. True confession does not justify, minimize, or deflect. It just says, I'm wrong, full stop. Our director of counseling here, Dr. Brad Hambrick, says that real apologies almost never contain the words if, but, or maybe. If I did something that hurt you, because all that means is I'm not conceding I did something wrong. In fact, the problem is probably in your faulty interpretation of things. That's not a real apology. But, well, yeah, I did that, but, and then insert reason why what you did wasn't so bad or why the other person was really to blame for it. Or maybe one of the most subtle ones, maybe, maybe I didn't do the right thing there, as if the jury is still out on whether what you did was wrong. And by the way, I see some of you writing these things down so that you can use them later against your spouse. You said if, stop that, okay?

The point here is for you to think about how often you divert the blame for your bad actions. The moment your apology begins to defend you, it ceases to be an apology. Listen, I get it, I really do. There may be factors that influenced your sin. Others may have indeed wronged you. First, that at the end of the day, your sins, your choices, those were your own. That is the dignity God gives you and that He refuses to take from you. You were not responsible for what they did to you, but you were responsible for what you did in response. And when you are more focused on everybody else's faults than you are your own, that shows you aren't confessing, even if you're right in what you say. In fact, I think here of these pastors who have an affair and destroy the trust of their congregations and then have the audacity to go on a lecture circuit, admonishing the Christian world for how unkindly they were treated, and then lecturing us on how we don't understand how to show grace. And I get it. And there's probably some truth in what they're saying, but I always want to say, you're not the one to give us that lecture. Your focus should be on your sin, how you manipulated your position of leadership and you sinned against the people God gave you to lead. In fact, I'll just go ahead and say it. In many cases, true repentance means you don't seek to get back into public ministry, at least not for a long, long time. I think in most cases, the best way to demonstrate your changed heart is to labor in obscurity, not to start a podcast whereby you admonish the church about how they need to get better at showing grace. Let me make sure you don't lose the point here. True confession, confession in your life that leads to renewal and the presence of God doesn't

seek to hide, minimize, or shift the blame for your sin. True confession says, I sinned, full stop. There may have been factors influencing my sin, but nothing minimizes or excuses it. And y'all, I will tell you from experience, we are so proud, we are so prone to self-justification and self-protection, that that is really, really hard to do. But see, that's the only thing that sets us up for number three, which might be the most important message, important point in this whole message. Confession appeals to God's mercy, not your righteousness. Look at verse 32, now, therefore, our God, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God. Hey, what makes God awesome? Is it how he created the universe? Is it all the incredible miracles he does? No, what makes him awesome is that he keeps covenant and steadfast love. He said, God, we have sinned, there's no two ways about it. We're guilty, inexcusably guilty, but you made a covenant, an unbelievable covenant, and your love toward us is steadfast. It never changes. So we're not asking you to restore us because of our righteousness, because we don't really have any of that, and we're asking you to bless us on the basis of your mercy, because our righteousness is non-existent, but your mercy is awesome. See, when you give up insisting on your righteousness and your worthiness, you tap into the most abundant, overflowing, awesome resource in all the universe, and that is God's grace. Y'all, again, the best picture of this is found in the Gospel of Luke. It's another one of my favorite Jesus stories, right? You know the story, but it's often not really understood. Luke 7, verse 2, a Roman centurion had a servant who was sick at the point of death. When the centurion heard about Jesus, the Roman centurion heard about Jesus, he sent to him elders of the Jews asking to come and heal his servant. When these religious elders came to Jesus, they pleaded with Jesus earnestly saying,

watch this, this Roman centurion is worthy to have you do this for him, for he loves our nation. He's the one who built us our synagogue. Let me make sure you understand what's happening. The Jewish religious leaders come up to Jesus and they're like, hey, Jesus, man, you really ought to heal this guy's servant. I mean, this is such a good guy. He's the nicest of all the Roman rulers. He is good to our people. He even built us a synagogue. They are making a case for Jesus to do a miracle based on this man's worthiness, and it's a pretty good case. But watch this, verse 6, when he, Jesus, was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends saying to him, Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy even to have you come under my roof. Therefore, I didn't presume to come to you, but you could still just say the word, and I know my servant would be healed. You see, in contrast to the Jewish religious leaders, this Roman centurion says, I have no worthiness to put before you. By the way, notice that he didn't say, I'm not worthy, so don't bother. Rather, what he said is, I'm not worthy, but your mercy can be my hope. The religious leaders make a case for Jesus to heal based on the centurion's worthiness, the centurion's. only appeals to Jesus's mercy, and then Luke throws in another wrinkle. The Roman centurion goes on. For I, too, am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me, and I say to one, go, and he goes, and to another, come, and he comes, and to my servant, do this, and he does it.

Here's the thing. This is actually a quite theologically incorrect statement. Check it, the Roman centurion says, Jesus, you're kind of like me. I don't have any of my own authority, but people obey me because I represent Caesar's authority, and that's kind of like you, Jesus. You don't have your own authority, but you represent God's authority, and so people obey you because you represent God. Wait, what? As a point of fact, Mr. Centurion, Jesus does have authority in himself. Jesus was not just God's representative, he was fully God. He could speak to a disease or demon or death itself and send it fleeing. The point is, this Roman centurion's understanding of Jesus has not risen to Nicene Creed level. He doesn't even recognize Jesus as deity. So what's Jesus' response? How dare you? Go to seminary, pal, get your facts straight, read some Gospel Coalition blogs and some John Piper books, and then come back and talk. No, when Jesus heard these things, he marveled at him. Turned to the crowd that followed him, he said, I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith. And when those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the sermon alive and well. Though theologically flawed,

this man's faith is anchored in Jesus' compassion. And get this, that kind of faith makes Jesus marvel. Make sure you see the contrast. The religious leaders make their case based on the centurion's worthiness. The centurion puts all his hope instead in Jesus' mercy. And even with wrong theology, it gets Jesus' attention. Because listen, this Roman centurion had understood the heart of the Gospel. God does not love you because there's worthiness in your heart. He loves you because there's goodness and grace in his. Listen, I think getting theology right is super important, but getting your theology right does not make Jesus marvel. Understanding the greatness of his compassion does. So let me just ask you, what's the basis of your appeals for help? When you pray for your kids, parents, what's the basis of your appeal? God, we did it all right. You owe us. See, that's how I prayed for years. When you're asking God for some blessing, a job, marriage, health, are you like, God, you owe me this one. Listen, that is a bank account that is bankrupt. But thank God you got another bank account you can draw from. By the way, you ever had the really frustrating experience of bouncing a check at your bank

because you tried to draw it out of the wrong account. You had plenty of money, but you got two accounts. Anybody else? Is this just me? And you have two accounts. One of them has a decent amount of money. The other one really doesn't have much at all. And you mix up which account to draw from. A couple of years ago, I had to make some huge payment to something. I think it was like for a car or something. So I transferred money out of my savings account into my checking account, or at least that's what I thought I did, except I reversed the account numbers so that what I actually did was transferred all the money out of my checking account into my savings. I left like $5 in my checking account. So then I write the check for the car, which is for more than $5, and the check bounces, which is bad enough, but also just random bad luck. I had a bunch of other little checks and payments all coming in on that same day. So in the space of like three hours, I bounced seven checks and all of them had that little $35 charge attached to them that the bank puts on you for drawing out of the wrong account. By the way, how cruel is that? You're charging me money for bouncing the check?

Money's the last thing I have to give you. If I had money, I wouldn't bounce the check. Make me come in and take a class or write an essay or something, but don't charge me money when I'm obviously broke. The point is, the point is when you base your appeal to God on what he owes you, you are drawing from a depleted account. Your prayers are gonna bounce. But thank God, if you're a Christian, you got another account in heaven's bank in your name. It is the bank of Jesus's mercy and it literally has unlimited funds. So when I'm praying backstage before coming out here, I will often say to God something like this, Father, these people really need to hear from you. We need your blessing today. And I've worked hard, I've worked hard to prepare something for them. But I'm asking you to bless this word, not on the basis of how hard I've worked because it's not that significant. And I'm certainly not asking you to bless this word on the basis of my righteousness because that's a bankrupt account. I'm asking you to bless it based on Jesus's mercy and his compassion and his love for these people. And that one more thing here before I... Go on to our last one. Maybe there's some sin that you need to confess today

and you're wondering how God could ever forgive a sin like that or somebody like you. Or you're wondering how you could possibly ever fix the wrong that you've done and you're sitting here right now and you're like, well, what do I gotta promise to God to get him to forgive this? What does he want? What do I need to do? What deal do I have to make with God to be able to get his blessing and his presence back in my life? And here is my answer on the authority of an empty tomb, nothing. There's nothing you could bring. The good news is that Jesus did all of it already and if you will expose your sin to him, he will forgive it on the basis of his blood and he'll help you work to heal it with the power of his resurrection. The good news of the gospel is that there is more grace in Jesus's heart than there is sin in yours. Again, the safest place in all the universe for a sinner to be. The safest place is fully exposed in the presence of Jesus. And that brings me to number four, which is our final observation. Confession leads to revival. If you go back and study the great revivals of history, you will see that one of the things

that always precedes revival, whether on a small scale or a big scale, is serious confession of sin. It's what happens in Nehemiah 9. It's what happened in Korea in the early 20th century, in 1903, there were only a few hundred believers total in Korea, I think less than 200. There are way more believers sitting in front of me right now than there is, and there wasn't a whole country of Korea in 1903. But one night, one little cluster of those believers, maybe 60 or 70 of them, held a prayer service. And at the end of the prayer service, lasted about an hour, one of the church leaders, Mr. King was his name. He stood up right before they were about to close, and all the accounts that I've read about this, so he was trembling, you could see him trembling. And he said in a voice barely louder than a whisper, he said, I have something I must confess. I have for weeks harbored intense hatred in my heart for Mr. Lee. It's another one of the church leaders. And I know the Holy Spirit is deeply grieved. And so I confess before God and before all of you, and I need you to forgive me. Now, Korea was a very faith-saving culture, and you just didn't do stuff like that. When he said that, the whole room just felt deathly silent. Everybody was like, did that church leader

just publicly admit to hating the speaker of this conference? Well, every eye turned to Mr. Lee to see how he would respond. Mr. Lee was obviously very taken aback, but he quickly responded by saying, Mr. King, I forgive you. What followed was a moment when the Spirit, it doesn't make a lot of sense, it's hard to explain, but the Spirit fell and began to intensely convict everybody in attendance for their sin. People began to confess hidden sins, to weep over them, to pray for forgiveness. The meeting, the prayer meeting, which had been scheduled only to last an hour, supposed to be done by eight o'clock, went on until 5 a.m. the next morning. That led to a massive outpouring of God's Spirit. In one year, 50,000 Koreans came to Faith in Christ, and that in a country that there had only been a couple hundred before. The local college campus near where all this started saw that 90% of its students come to Faith in Christ. Y'all, can you imagine that happening here? 90% of UNC, Duke, NC State, and North Carolina Central students coming to Faith in Jesus. Could you imagine what would happen in America if that happened? South Korea is now one of the most thriving missionary hubs in the world. And historians say it all goes back to one man

repenting of his sin and returning to the God who loved him. You may hear that and say, well, that sounds like a preacher story, it sounds like some romanticized version of something. I actually see it a little differently because I have experienced this a little bit personally, not on that scale. But when I was a student at the university I attended, there was, I started this little Bible study and it had grown to 70 or 80 people. And one night we had a, we were actually meeting outside and I had a friend come in and just said, share whatever's on your heart. And he actually talked about this subject. He talked about sin and how it grieved the Holy Spirit. And I think if I remember correctly, he told the story of the Korean Revival. And at the end, he says to this 70 or 80 of us, he's like, does anybody have anything to say? Now I'm gonna be totally transparent with you. What he said was not that good. It wasn't that convincing. Compelling, and I'm the leader of the Bible study, and I'm like, okay, here's where we wait for the awkward 60 seconds. Nobody says anything. I stand up, closing prayer, and dismisses. And I'm literally kind of waiting. I'm about to stand up. I'm kind of moving so I can stand up.

And all of a sudden, this guy across the quad beats me to it. He stands up, one of our worship leaders. And he said, I'm the one, I'm the one. I have sin in my life, and I'm the reason the Holy Spirit's not moving on this campus, and I know that what I'm doing grieves him very much. I need somebody to pray for me. A couple people got around him and started to pray for him. I don't totally know how to describe this, but whatever had gotten ahold of him, it was like all of a sudden, it just came into me. And I stood up, and I was like, no, no, no, I'm the one. See, I'm jealous of this, and I really want the attention here, and I just, my attitude as the leader of this group grieves the Holy Spirit. I know it. I need somebody to pray for me. And then what began to happen is, for the next several hours, lasted until two, three o'clock in the morning, people standing up to confess their sin and getting prayer. In fact, I remember one guy stood up. He said, you know, we're on our seventh week of school. I've never shared Jesus with my roommate. He said, that's gotta be sin. He said, would y'all pray for me right now? I'm not gonna obey right now. I'm gonna tell him about Jesus.

So we laid our hands on him and prayed for him. He went back to his dorm, led his roommate to Jesus, and brought him back for the rest of the night. One of the students stood up somewhere around midnight and said, I got pornography. I have all kinds of stuff that I know is grieving the Holy Spirit. They started a bonfire. They're burning their pornographic magazines. There was all, it just, to this day, I mean, what we're seeing here at Summit is awesome, but to this day, when I think about uncontrolled movement of the Spirit, I go back to those days when I was in college, because so much was happening that you just could not explain. It was just happening. The Spirit of God was pouring himself out on our little campus. Here's my question. What blessing does God have for you? What blessing does he have for your family? For our church? It's ripe, it's waiting to be poured out like Nehemiah 9, but it's just waiting on you to confess that sin so that the power of revival can come flooding over you. Like I mentioned, today is a baptism day, and I think that's providential. See, baptism is essentially a confession of your sin and your desire for renewal in Jesus.

The imagery is clear, isn't it? You're put under the water. You're buried with Jesus in his death because of your sin, and then you come up out of the water, a new creation, cleansed, washed, all things are new. For some of you, this is gonna be a huge step. It's you coming out of the shadows to say, I'm ready for new life. I'm ready to walk with Jesus. So if you've never been baptized since making a profession of faith, I wanna invite you in just a minute to come. Like I said at the beginning, we got everything that you'll need. Change of clothes, hair dryers, towels. We're not good at a lot around here, but we are really good at this. You step out and you come, we'll take care of the rest. Now, if you've already been baptized, saved and baptized, but God has used this message to highlight some sin in your life that you need to confess, listen, you don't need to get baptized again. But when I open up a time of response, you can come up here and pray and renew your commitment. You can confess your sins and ask God to restore and heal you, maybe bring your spouse. You know what, maybe you need to call somebody and ask for their forgiveness. Maybe they're in this room or in the room where you are and you need to find them during this invitation

and reconcile with them. I just wanna invite you to listen to the Holy Spirit and respond. I wanna invite you to listen to the Holy Spirit and respond. I just wanna invite you to listen to the Holy Spirit and respond. But see, first, I know a bunch of you in here need to be baptized because you never have. Today is the day for a brand new start for you, returning away from your sin, being washed in it and beginning a new life with Jesus. So I want you to come. I'm gonna put baptism counselors in the aisles right now at all of our campuses. We'll put them right there. They're gonna stand in the aisles. And in just a minute, I want you to step out and go to one of them and they'll show you where to go. Now, listen, I know, I know for some of you right now, your mind is filling with objections. Like, well, I don't know, I don't know if I'm ready. Well, let me be clear, okay? When you come today, what's gonna happen is that you're gonna chat with a counselor who will help determine if you're ready. Stepping out doesn't mean you got all your questions answered, it just means that you're ready to have the conversation. There are people at every campus ready to help you

make that determination. But here's the main thing I would ask. Do you believe that Jesus is your Lord and that He is your Savior? And have you repented of your sin or are you willing to? If the answer to those is yes, then you are at least ready to have the conversation, okay? You say, but J.D., I was baptized as a kid and I don't wanna shame my parents. It's not shaming your parents. It's ratifying their decision of faith. When they baptized you as a baby, that was them saying, I hope this child grows up to follow Jesus. Today, you're just ratifying what they desire. and declared over you so many years ago. You say, well, JD, I don't wanna become a Baptist. Fair point, okay, I always concede that one. But guess what, guess what? We do not baptize you in the name of Baptists. We do not baptize you in the name of the Summit Church. We baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and that's it, okay? You say, you say, well, it scares the pants off of me to think of doing this in front of so many people. Well, to be clear, you get to keep your pants on, okay? Or at least we will give you a generous and loose-fitting pair of shorts. But listen, I get it.

Maybe the thought of doing something public like this just totally freaks you out. I'll just say this, we will literally hold your hand through all of this. It will be one of the easiest things you've ever done, and you have my permission to ignore everybody who's watching. This is about you and Jesus. I just want you to know that every one of us out here is for you. We are not judging you, which is why we're gonna cheer. You say, well, I rode with people. They will wait for you. Trust me, they will wait. In fact, if you tell them you're coming, it will be the highlight of their year. In fact, they might come with you. This is what they've been hoping for. Baptism is the ultimate confession, the ultimate pasture of repentance. So here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna give you a chance in just a second to come forward. Then after that, I'm gonna open up the altar for those who wanna come and confess sin and pray for God's help. You go backwards to be baptized. You come forward to pray. I'm gonna make it really easy, okay?

I'm gonna count to three. And on three, we're all gonna stand up together. And if you need to be baptized, you're gonna step out to the closest aisle immediately where somebody will greet you. And they're there now, and they'll take you backwards to a room where they can pray with you and talk with you. By the way, just make this clear. This is a terrible time to get up and go to the bathroom, okay, or try to leave early. Because through a series of honest misunderstandings, you might end up in the baptismal pool, okay? So just warning you. But if that's you, if that's you, and I count to three, I want you to stand. I want you to come and summit. We're gonna do what we always do. We're gonna cheer in anticipation of all these incredible steps of faith. You ready? Here we go. Number one, no, not number one. One, two, three. Let's stand up. Put your hands together and celebrate what God is doing right now. Come. Don't wait, don't wait, don't wait, don't wait. Come, that's right, come, come.

That's right, just keep going. Go. Go, they're coming everywhere. You do that, you come. That's awesome. There you go. Keep going, keep going. All right, listen. Now, listen, here's the second part. As we're celebrating these that are going on, some of you have a step of faith to make, and that is to confess your sin. Bring somebody, come up here, flood this altar, and let's take advantage of the blessing and the presence of God that he wants to pour out on us, okay? All right, so I want you to come as our worship teams come to lead us. You come and you turn this into an altar of prayer if that's what God is doing in your heart.