At Gateway Austin, we continued our new series “Hello, My Name Is….”
Your view of God shapes everything—how you pray, how you lead, how you suffer, how you love. What we believe about God will determine the kind of world we imagine we’re living in.
But what if our view of God is all wrong?
When Moses asked to see God’s glory, God did not first display raw power. He proclaimed His name and revealed His character: compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin – yet not leaving the guilty unpunished.
This six-week journey shows what we can learn about God from His interaction with kings, poets, prophets, and people just like you and me. When we know who God really is, we can know Him more and make Him known.
Digging Deeper:
Message Video from Gateway South Austin:
Message Audio from Gateway South Austin:
Message Notes from Carlos Ortiz, Jr.:
Have you ever noticed how easy it is to remember someone else’s mistakes and how difficult it can be to remember your own?
We can remember what they said, what they did, how they hurt us, how they disappointed us. But when the story turns toward us, suddenly there are explanations. There are circumstances. There are reasons.
“We all make mistakes. I was under a lot of pressure. They misunderstood me. I didn’t mean it that way.” And perhaps the most dangerous thing we can do spiritually is become experts at explaining our failures instead of confessing them.
Nehemiah 9 gives us something radically different.
It gives us a people who are willing to tell the truth about themselves. To understand the passage, we need to understand the moment.
Nehemiah lived during the period after Israel had been conquered and carried into exile. Jerusalem had been destroyed, the temple had been burned, and the people had spent generations living under foreign rule. Eventually, God opened the door for His people to return.
Nehemiah was serving in the Persian court when he heard that Jerusalem’s walls were still broken down and its gates had been burned. He was burdened for the city, and God used him to lead the rebuilding of those walls.
The walls were rebuilt, but Nehemiah 9 shows us something important: rebuilding the walls was not enough.
You can rebuild a city without rebuilding a heart.
So the people gathered together. Ezra read the Law of God. And as they heard the Word, they began to weep. But instead of simply sitting in shame, they began to worship and confess.
They looked backward through their history. And what they saw was a repeated pattern: God blesses. They rebel. God disciplines. They cry out. God shows mercy. Then they rebel. It’s the same pattern, again, and again, and again.
Nehemiah 9 is essentially Israel saying, “When we look at our story, we keep finding the same thing.” But there is another pattern that is even more powerful.
God remains faithful.
Their story is not ultimately about how often they failed. Their story is about how consistently God showed grace. Listen to how they tell it.
NEHEMIAH 9:16–21 – 16 “But they, our ancestors, became arrogant and stiff-necked, and they did not obey your commands. 17They refused to listen and failed to remember the miracles you performed among them. They became stiff-necked and in their rebellion appointed a leader in order to return to their slavery. But you are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. Therefore you did not desert them, 18 even when they cast for themselves an image of a calf and said, ‘This is your god, who brought you up out of Egypt,’ or when they committed awful blasphemies.
19 “Because of your great compassion you did not abandon them in the wilderness. By day the pillar of cloud did not fail to guide them on their path, nor did the pillar of fire by night to shine on the way they were to take. 20 You gave your good Spirit to instruct them. You did not withhold your manna from their mouths, and you gave them water for their thirst. 21 For forty years you sustained them in the wilderness; they lacked nothing, their clothes did not wear out nor did their feet become swollen.
Notice how honest this prayer is, and notice how this human pattern we find in scripture is much like our own:
THE CYCLE OF REBELLION AND MERCY
They became arrogant. They were stiff-necked.They did not obey. They refused to listen.
They failed to remember. They rebelled. They made an idol. They committed awful blasphemies.
There is no spin. No public relations campaign. No attempt to make Israel look better than Israel actually was. And yet notice what happens immediately after the description of their rebellion:
“But you are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love.”
Even in the cycle of sin by the people, there is an even greater Pattern of Grace
Israel’s sin is real, but God’s mercy is greater. And this is important because grace does not begin with pretending sin isn’t serious. Grace begins when we finally become honest about how serious sin really is.
The gospel is not, “You aren’t as bad as you think.”
The gospel is, “You are more sinful than you want to admit, but God’s grace is greater than you could ever imagine.”
The people of Israel repeatedly forgot God. They abandoned Him. They stopped listening. They rebelled. They deserved judgment. BUT God continued showing mercy.
He sustained them for forty years. God remained faithful. This doesn’t mean God approved of their rebellion. But it’s something we may need to hear today: Our failure is not bigger than God’s faithfulness.
That does not minimize your sin. It magnifies His grace.
SCRIPTURE LEADS US TO REPENTANCE
The people in Nehemiah 9 don’t simply feel bad. They hear God’s Word, and God’s Word helps them see their lives differently. That is what Scripture does…if we engage it. If we merely read it there is a transfer of information, and maybe some insight.
But if we engage Scripture…it gives us interpretation and an application which leads to transformation. It teaches us how to understand our lives in light of God’s truth. Think about what happens when Ezra reads the Law, the people begin to understand their story, and that realization leads them toward repentance.
There is a difference between shame and repentance.
- Shame: “I am terrible.” – the focus on self leads to —–> Hiding/Isolation
- Repentance: “I sinned, but there is mercy.”- the focus on God leads to ——-> Run towards God
This is why Scripture is so important…it doesn’t expose us to destroy us, it merely sheds light on the dark places of our life and heart…in order to heal us.
And that’s why the people in Nehemiah 9 don’t simply celebrate their return to Jerusalem. They celebrate by confessing through the lens of Scripture the past sins that brought them to this point, and then say, “God, we need You.” That is a beautiful picture of repentance.
FORGIVENESS LEADS TO OBEDIENCE
Now we need to be careful about something, because grace does not mean God simply overlooks everything. Grace is not permissiveness. Grace is God’s undeserved favor that can change what we do, if we allow it to do its work in us.
Look again at Israel’s story, and we can see that God’s mercy repeatedly gives them another opportunity to obey. The purpose of forgiveness isn’t simply to make us feel better.
Forgiveness is meant to make us different.
When God forgives us, He doesn’t simply erase the past, but ensures us a new future. That is why repentance and obedience belong together.
- Repentance says, “God, I was walking in the wrong direction.”
- Obedience says, “Because of Your grace, I’m going to now walk in the direction You have called me.”
We don’t obey God in order to earn His love, but we do obey God because we have already received His love. That’s a completely different motivation.
- One produces fear. The other produces freedom.
- One says, “I have to perform.” The other says, “I get to follow.”
- One is slavery. The other is being accepted as a daughter or son.
GOD REMAINS FAITHFUL
Look at the cycles again:
Blessing → rebellion → discipline → crying out → mercy
And if we’re honest, it’s often our story too.
We experience God’s goodness. We become comfortable. We forget. We drift. We make decisions outside God’s will. We experience consequences. We cry out. God meets us. He restores us. And then, sometimes, we do it all over again.
Why? Because the human heart has an incredible capacity to forget.
We remember God’s blessings long enough to enjoy them, but sometimes not long enough to worship Him for them. Yet look at the emphasis of Nehemiah’s prayer. It doesn’t spend the majority of its time celebrating Israel’s greatness. It celebrates God’s character. Listen to these phrases sprinkled throughout:
- “You are a forgiving God.”
- “Gracious and compassionate.”
- “Slow to anger.”
- “Abounding in love.”
- “Because of your great compassion.”
- “You heard from heaven.”
- “In your compassion you delivered.”
- “You were patient.”
- “In your great mercy you did not put an end to them.”
This is the central message. Israel’s faithfulness was inconsistent. God’s faithfulness was not, and it poses for us a thought I wanted to share from theologian R.C. Sproul.
“Grace and Mercy are never deserved.” – R.C. Sproul
You might wonder, well what’s the difference between grace and mercy if they are both underserved? Grace is the gift(s) of God we do not earn or deserve and Mercy is the punishment of God that is withheld, so we never experience it.
Think of it this way…”Mercy is God’s heart extended to us and withholds punishment, and Grace is God’s gift of salvation and blessing. Both are underserved.”
THE CYCLE BROKEN IN CHRIST
But there is something even more beautiful for us on this side of the cross. When I was a young Christian, I was told to read a book by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and to this day, it is a book that continues to rock me…to challenge me:
“Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession… Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”
– Dietrich Bonhoeffer – The Cost of Discipleship
Because Nehemiah 9 leaves us wanting something. If this cycle continues forever, who will finally break it? If Israel keeps rebelling and God keeps showing mercy, how will the story ultimately resolve? The answer is Jesus.
The New Covenant we read of in the New Testament, reveals something Israel could not yet fully see. Jesus enters the story and absorbs the discipline.
He takes the judgment. He bears the sin. He experiences abandonment so that we can experience reconciliation. At the cross, God’s justice and God’s mercy meet. Jesus doesn’t simply tell us that God is forgiving.
Jesus demonstrates how far God’s forgiveness will go.
The cycle is broken because Jesus takes what our sin deserves (mercy) and gives us a gift we could never earn (grace).
In this GRACE we receive his: righteousness, reconciliation, a new identity, the Holy Spirit
We could literally stop and celebrate being rescued from the consequences of our past, but it doesn’t stop there. Jesus begins transforming us from the inside out.
This is why Christian repentance is fundamentally different. We aren’t trying to woo God over to our side, no, we repent, we turn, we accept the invitation of God to an already made possible forgiveness. We don’t have to run towards God hoping he’ll receive us, we run towards God with confidence because Jesus already paved the way.
SO WHAT DO WE DO WITH GRACE?
Nehemiah 9 gives us three practical invitations.
Allow Scripture to transform us
Don’t simply read Scripture. Let Scripture read you.
Don’t only ask: “What does this passage mean?” Also ask: “What is God revealing about me?”
Where am I becoming stiff-necked? Where am I refusing to listen? Where have I forgotten what God has already done? Where have I returned to something God has already delivered me from?
We may pick up information along the way, but our end goal is to be transformed!
Take responsibility for our actions
Israel says: “We rebelled.” “We were arrogant.” “We refused to listen.” “We turned our backs.”
There are no excuses. There is freedom in that kind of honesty. You and I don’t have to defend ourselves before God. We don’t have to minimize your sin. We don’t have to exaggerate it either. We simply confess it.
And here’s the good news: Grace gives us permission to tell the truth. Because your identity is no longer dependent on being perfect. It is dependent on being redeemed.
Turn towards obedience
Don’t stop at confession.
Ask: “What does obedience look like now?” Many times it is doing the very opposite of what we’ve been doing.
If you have been dishonest, become truthful. If you have been bitter, begin forgiving. If you have been selfish, begin giving. If you have been hiding, begin bringing things into the light. If you have been distant from God, begin seeking Him again.
And this is true because repentance is not merely feeling sorry. It is turning around. It is changing direction. And you don’t change because you are trying to earn God’s love. You change because you have encountered God’s love.
But then there are times as we follow Jesus longer and longer, we really have to lean in and seek the parts of our hearts that don’t need a 180 degree change, but more of 1 and 2 degree change. Friends, we are to seek alignment, surrender, daily!
In light of this, I wanted to read a poem by George Macdonald (Scottish preacher and fiction writer in the 19th century who greatly influenced JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis)
Surrender
O Christ, my life, possess me utterly. Take me and make a little Christ of me.
O Master, my desires to work, to know, To be aware that I do live and grow—
All restless wish for anything not thee I yield, and on thy altar offer me.
Let me no more from out thy presence go, But keep me waiting watchful for thy will—
Even while I do it, waiting watchful still.My Lord, I have no clothes to come to thee; My shoes are pierced and broken with the road;
I am torn and weathered, wounded with the goad, And soiled with tugging at my weary load:
The more I need thee! A very prodigal I stagger into thy presence, Lord of me:
One look, my Christ, and at thy feet I fall!-George MacDonald
