Nehemiah 9: The Sorrow That Leads to Joy

Introduction

Imagine touring the old city of Jerusalem with a renowned archaeologist. He leads you into a tunnel, moves a few stones, uncovers a secret room, and in the wall, a hidden scroll. He examines it: "This scroll is 2,500 years old. I think I can translate it for you." It is a prayer, addressed to the same God we pray to every week at church.

Al Stewart, a member of Vine Church Surry Hills in Sydney, opens his message this way in the series "Nehemiah: Rise Up and Rebuild." That scroll, he explains, is already in your hands: it is Nehemiah 9. It is almost as old as Homer's Odyssey, with one difference: the Odyssey is fiction, "this really happened."

The preacher reads the whole prayer (it takes eight minutes), then draws three simple points from it: sin brings sadness, the character of God, and the sadness that leads to joy.

Message Outline

1. The Context: Rebuilding the Walls, Then the People

Between 605 and 590 BC, in three invasions, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, destroyed Jerusalem and deported a large part of its population to Babylon. Al Stewart invites us to imagine the trauma of people who saw their whole world destroyed.
About 70 years later, in 539, the Persians conquered Babylon. Cyrus allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem, on the condition that they pray for him. Some went back, others did not.
Almost a century later, the city was still in ruins. In 458, Ezra the scribe, "what we would call the Bible teacher," came back to teach the law of Moses. Thirteen years later, Nehemiah, cupbearer to King Artaxerxes, obtained permission to rebuild the walls, with the king's resources.
In 445, the wall was finished in 52 days (Nehemiah 6:15). In the Old Testament, Jerusalem is the city of God. Since Jesus, the kingdom of God is no longer a geography: it is wherever Jesus reigns in the hearts of those who love him as king.
A more important task then begins: rebuilding the people of God and their relationship with him. A thousand years separate Moses from Nehemiah, and the people had lost their understanding of the law. Nobody owned scrolls: people gathered to hear the Word read aloud. So Ezra read the law from morning until midday (Nehemiah 8:2-3), and what he read is what you have in your Bible: the five books of Moses.

2. A Prayer That Spans All of History

Three weeks later, on the 24th day of the same month, the people gathered, fasting, dressed in sackcloth, with dust on their heads. The law was read for a quarter of the day, and for another quarter they confessed their sins and worshiped. The Levites cried out: "Stand up and bless Yahweh your God from everlasting to everlasting!" (Nehemiah 9:5).
The prayer covers creation and about 1,600 years of history: God the Creator (verse 6), the calling of Abraham (verses 7 and 8), the exodus from Egypt and Sinai (verses 9 to 15), the rebellion in the wilderness (verses 16 to 21), the entry into the promised land (verses 22 to 25), the time of the judges (verses 26 to 28), that of the kings up to the destruction of Jerusalem (verses 29 to 35), then the return from exile.
"Don't worry if you don't catch every detail." The preacher asks the congregation to listen with their ears and with their hearts, to grasp the spirit of this prayer.

3. Sin Brings Sadness

"You can feel the sadness seeping out of this prayer." In verse 36, the people say: "Behold, we are servants today." They are ruled by the Persian kings and pay them tax, in their own land.
The confession names the failure: our fathers "behaved proudly, hardened their neck" (verse 16). A stiff neck is the picture of a horse or donkey that resists when you try to turn its head in the right direction. They turned their backs on the law, killed the prophets (verse 26), and did not serve God even while they enjoyed his great goodness (verses 34 and 35).
The root of the problem: they did not believe that God was good and wanted the best for them, or that he was wise and knew what was best. "Basically, that amounts to saying God is either evil or stupid, or both."
Were they complete fools? "No more than people today." They were seduced by the neighboring cultures and their fertility gods, who promised sensuality, freedom, control, health, wealth, the good life. "Does that sound familiar?" It was a lie, and it ended in slavery and grief.
Their deepest sorrow is not that their city lies in ruins. It is that they dishonored God, offended him, and did not treat him as he deserves.

4. The Character of God

The prayer paints a portrait of God: he gives life to all things (verse 6), he keeps his promises because he is righteous (verse 8), he is powerful and divides the sea (verse 11), his laws are right and his commandments good (verse 13).
He is "a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness" (verse 17). He is generous: his people lived in luxury and "delighted themselves in your great goodness" (verse 25).
But his patience has an end. "Endless patience would be indifference." For many years he warned his people by his Spirit and through his prophets, then handed them over to the surrounding peoples (verse 30). And through it all, he remained righteous and faithful (verse 33).
"How could you not trust a God like that?" And the preacher adds: "I believe all these things about God and, sadly, I regularly ignore him."

5. Sin, a Word We Avoid

Talking about sin is not fashionable. Many churches and Christian teachers never mention it: "They want Jesus to be our life coach," yet Jesus often warned against sin. In the world, the word makes people smile: a little guilty pleasure, or a temporary suspension on a sports field.
At its core, sinning means ignoring God and making your own rules. From Genesis 3, the serpent whispers the lie: God is hiding something from you, he is neither good nor wise, disobey and you will be your own little god. "And it ended in tears."
According to Romans 1 and 2, God wrote his law on the human heart. Everyone knows the golden rule is right: treat others the way you would want to be treated. Even Christopher Hitchens, the most formidable atheist in debate according to Al Stewart, writes it in his book God Is Not Great: this plain, rational rule can be taught to any child, and it is "within the reach of any atheist."
He is right. But why don't we practice it? You only need to open a news site: wars, corruption, greed, violence, right down to families where people no longer speak to each other. Sin brings sadness.
It is even much worse: "For the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23). It is what we have earned. Sin separates us from God, the source of life, and will end up separating us forever from our judge. Jesus called it hell, and he announced it again and again.
Even for Christians, every time you choose to ignore God, sadness follows. You pass on a bit of gossip, you watch on a screen what you know is poison, you are curt and selfish with someone you love: sadness arrives right behind. Other, more serious sins leave a longer trail. Paul writes: "Don't grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption" (Ephesians 4:30).

6. The Man of Sorrows and the Two Kinds of Sadness

Only one man had no reason to feel the sadness of sin, because he always trusted God. Yet Isaiah 53 calls him "a man of suffering," because he carried our sorrows.
In Gethsemane, Jesus says to Peter, James, and John: "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here, and watch with me" (Matthew 26:38). The next day, he took on our sorrows and our guilt, and he died on the cross to pay the price of forgiveness. And on the other side, there is the joy of the resurrection.
After a difficult letter to the Corinthians, Paul writes: "For godly sorrow produces repentance to salvation, which brings no regret. But the sorrow of the world produces death" (2 Corinthians 7:10).
The sorrow of the world says: I am sorry it hurts, sorry I got caught, sorry everything is a mess. "That is a dead end." Godly sorrow makes us turn around, brings us back to God to ask his forgiveness, "and at the end of it, there is life."
That is what happens at the end of the prayer: "Yet for all this, we make a sure covenant, and write it" (Nehemiah 9:38). Their sadness brings them back to God to trust him.
Repentance means "betting everything" on the fact that God, gracious and merciful, will forgive us. And we know better than the people of 445 BC why he forgives: "the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 6:23).
To those who do not yet follow Jesus, Al Stewart says: many think Christians are in the business of guilt and sadness. "No. People manage perfectly well to produce guilt and sadness without us. Christians are in the business of forgiveness and joy."

7. Betting Everything on Jesus

The preacher quotes Real Hope, a song by the Australian Christian singer Colin Buchanan, the only one he knows in which someone talks about their own sin: "I have real fears, I commit real sins, and I hurt those I cherish." And the chorus: "I bet everything I have on Jesus, I will throw myself on him, the one who died a real death for real sins."
Then he asks the question: are there things in your life for which you need to ask God's forgiveness? You will recognize them, because they make you sad. "Not everything that makes you sad is a sin. But sin will make you sad, I guarantee it."
He invites everyone to bring these things to God, "whether it is for the first time or the thousandth time." God promises to forgive, but it is a matter of repenting: turning away from these things, turning toward God, wanting to change.
The message ends with the prayer of confession from the Anglican prayer book: "Almighty and most merciful Father, we have strayed from your ways like lost sheep. [...] We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done." Then this assurance: "Be certain that God has heard you."

Key Takeaways

Nehemiah 9 is a prayer of confession that retells the whole history of Israel: the people's unfaithfulness on one side, God's faithfulness on the other.
Sin begins when we stop believing that God is good and wise. It promises freedom and ends in slavery and sadness.
God is compassionate, slow to anger, and rich in loving kindness, but his patience is not indifference.
The sorrow of the world is a dead end. Godly sorrow brings us back to him and leads to life.
Jesus, the man of sorrows, carried our griefs on the cross: repentance means betting everything on him.

Personal Application

Are there things in your life that make you sad because you know they dishonor God?
In which area do you struggle to believe that God is good and knows what is best for you?
When you say "sorry," is it the sorrow of the world ("I'm sorry I got caught") or godly sorrow that brings you back to him?
Which "short trail" sins (a bit of gossip, a screen, a curt word) have you come to see as normal?
What would "betting everything on Jesus" mean for you this week?

Verses Cited

Frequently Asked Questions

What happens in Nehemiah 9?

Three weeks after the reading of the law of Moses, the people gather in fasting, dressed in sackcloth with dust on their heads. The Levites offer a long prayer of confession that runs through the whole history of Israel, from creation to the return from exile, and ends with a written and sealed commitment.

Why does sin bring sadness?

For Al Stewart, sin amounts to ignoring God and making your own rules, as if God were neither good nor wise. It produces suffering in the world and in our relationships, it grieves the Holy Spirit, and, according to Romans 6:23, its wages are death.

What is the difference between godly sorrow and the sorrow of the world?

According to 2 Corinthians 7:10, the sorrow of the world only says "I'm sorry it hurts" or "I'm sorry I got caught": it is a dead end. Godly sorrow makes us turn around, brings us back to God to ask his forgiveness, and produces repentance to salvation, which brings no regret.