All right, well, hey, good morning. Hey, across all of our churches, all of our campuses, man, I just want us to lift up a shout of praise for what we believe God is going to do in 2026. Can we go ahead and acknowledge that? We believe he's going to move in an incredible way in the next year. And actually, all of our campuses right now, our awesome volunteer teams are going to begin to pass out these multiply booklets.
And I want you to grab one of these books and keep it as sort of a companion for your quiet time. All right.
So, like for the next month, when you're reading your Bible and you're praying, man, grab this book and begin to look back through it. It has a lot of stuff about what God did this year. Man, I said it in that video, but guys, this was a year that was unlike all the others. I mean, God just did some incredible things. And then also, it has a lot about what we want to see happening in the future.
Guys, the world is sort of against the family. There is such an attack on the family. You know, Satan really wants to break families down. God wants to build families up. And so for this next year, we're really going to be focusing on fortifying the family.
Now, if you are a college student, a late high school student, if you are a young pro that's not married, Married, if you're a couple that is married with no kids and you're like, man, is this really for me? Listen, you may need this more than anyone else. All right, there is a preparatory phase that can happen in 2026 that could get you ready for seeing what a godly marriage and parenting and biblical roles of manhood and womanhood and wives and husbands. There, you know, if I were you and I was a college student, and I was like, Oh, this doesn't really apply to me, that's an immature way to think about it. All right, instead, you need to flip the way we think about it and say, Oh no, I'm gonna have a notebook, and by the end of 2026, I'm gonna have a masterclass and what it looks like to be ready for that time in my life.
And let me say this very particularly: if you are a young man, You need this maybe more than anyone else, especially if you're not married yet, but you think that's out there for you. And here's why. Because in marriage, one day you are going to bring a daughter of God into your home, and you will be responsible for her in a way that she is not responsible for you. She will take on your name, not the other way around. And so, you need to make sure that you are ready to receive one of God's daughters into your home.
And so, let's not have this, you know, I'm not sure if it's for me, it's for all of us. It's going to be an incredible year. Guys, we've set a goal to see $2 million come into the multiply offering so that we can hit some of these things: marriage conference, the things that we want to do with the retreat center. Church at the ballpark, these types of things. If we don't hit that goal, then we'll still do week in and week out ministry.
Mercy Hill will keep rolling, I understand, but don't we wanna see more? And I know I do, and I think that many of you guys do.
So, hey, if you're brand new, I hope that this might be an opportunity that kind of pulls you into, like, all right, I'm putting a stake in the ground. I'm part of the team here. Man, we don't want to be filled with a church with a bunch of people who are jumping on the merry-go-round but refuse to push. All right, like we can't just ride.
So we pray, hey, let's jump in this thing together and let's keep the mission moving forward.
Some of you guys are, man, you've been around Mercial for a while. You're super bought in. Man, if there are stored assets, an opportunity in your life, maybe to give a five, six, seven-figure type of gift, now's the time to do that. All right.
Our budget literally runs January to December, but pragmatically, it runs from like December to November.
Okay, like we think about funding our ministry from what will come in next year, but also from the multiply offering this year. It's a first fruits. All right, so that's kind of the way that the ministry goes forward. And so I pray that you guys will take us up on that. Hey, one more thing, real quick.
I know this is an announcement heavy weekend, it's that time of year. I just wanna say this: all right, God, think about Christmas services. And it just he can do whatever he wants, all right? But I'm telling you what I've seen over years. God will bring us.
about the amount of people that we in faith were ready to receive. I'm just telling you, that's just the way that it goes. Let it sit for a minute. God will bring about the amount of people that we were ready to receive through our faith. And you say, what about faith?
I mean, we're going to prepare the jars with volunteers.
Okay.
So if we're ready to receive seven or eight thousand people in terms of kids ministry, you know, parking, you know, lot, people in the lobby, you know, just security teams, of course. If we're ready to receive that, I bet you God will bring it. He can do whatever he wants. But I'm just telling you, we prepare the jars. We can't multiply the oil, 2 Kings 4, but we can prepare the jars.
All right, and so I'm asking you, hey, December 18th through 21st, man, jump in. RSVP to serve. I want you to think about serve one and bring somebody to one, okay? Serve in one and bring somebody to one. Your staff is going first.
Man, we're committed to invite 5,000 people as a staff with names. I mean, we want to invite 5,000 people. Our staff team will serve. There's seven services. They will serve all six and except for the one that they're attending.
So we'll be here the whole weekend. We can't wait. Our elders are going to serve to attend one. People are going first is my point. And I pray that you guys will go first as well.
And so, man, let's just sort of get after it here. All right.
December 18th through 21st Christmas services. All right.
Enough of that. All right.
Nehemiah chapter 9 is where we're going to be today. And in Nehemiah 9. I want to tell you, we get dropped right smack dab in the middle of a revival. You know the other way to say rebuilding? Revival.
That God is relaying the foundation and building something that was being torn down and crumbly. And what we see is in chapter 8, the word comes in, in chapter 9, we see confession and worship. Y'all, 1,500 people gathered a month ago for the cryout night here. What we were praying for: we were praying for revival. There is no revival without confession and repentance of God's people, which leads us to worship.
Here's the big idea this weekend: it's kind of a bit of a cyclical idea. Confession leads to worship. Which leads to confession. And then, what does confession lead to, right? Confession leads to worship, which leads us to confession.
When we get a good glimpse of who God is, it shows us who we're not. We have the opportunity to confess our sins before Him and seeing that His grace doesn't run out on us, seeing Him as both a sustainer and a Savior. We're going to talk about that later. Man, it begins to open our hearts for worship again. Dead religion turns to revival when people confess their sin and repent before God.
You know, I was thinking about I, you know, many of us have a lot of mission things in our mind. We want to see revival come. We want to see marriages rebuilt. We want to see adult children who have walked away from the faith come home. We want to see families founded on the gospel.
Maybe you're one of our awesome college students today here, or maybe you're at Clifton or at High Point. And I had a chance to preach for our college ministry this Tuesday night. I'm going to tell you something: your heart will burn when you see 500 college students worshiping, when you see them on their face in these altars three rows deep. Man, God's doing something in their generation. Maybe a college student wants to reach their dorm room mates, you know, sweet mates, and all that.
Whatever it is, you want to see your kids come to Christ, whatever it is, okay? All of that mission stuff, man, it begins with a revival in our heart. And that revival cannot happen if there is not confession and repentance, which leads us to worship. Look at what it says in Nehemiah chapter 9, verse 1.
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.
So we see a posture first, sackcloth, ashes.
Now we see a place. They separated themselves from all the foreigners and stood. And confess their sin and the iniquities of their fathers.
Now, chapter 9 sits right on the backs of our sermon last week that was so convicting for me, Pastor Bobby's sermon.
Okay, I don't know about you guys, but this idea of how many words flow into my life right now, you and I take in 100,000 words a day. 100 years ago, people took out 10,000 words a day. What is that doing to us? You know, and it's so crazy with your phone and your radio and just everything, it's coming at us all the time. We need to turn the word up and the words down, right?
Turn the word of God up. That was a great word from Pastor Bobby last week. What happened in chapter 8? When the word of God. Got turned up into people's lives, it immediately led them to this eye-opening, sort of worshipful attitude.
They ended up coming to the Lord in worship. Revival has these three elements to it: it's the word of God, it's the worship of God, it's confession and repentance, all undergirded by the Spirit's power. And we saw the word last week.
Well, now we get a chance to see the confession of God's people. Look back with me again, verse one. They've got fasting, sackcloth, ashes. They've got this posture about them that they are mourning over their sin. What does it say?
They separated themselves out and confessed their sin and the iniquity of their fathers. This confession of their sin is going to be so important for the next step of revival, which is again to turn to the Lord in a wholehearted proclamation of who he is type of worship event. Confession is integral if we are going to get to true worship. Why is that? Listen, confession dislodges sin.
that is blocking the joyful worship of God.
Now, some of us might say today, well, you say, well, wait, wait, I'm a. Why do I need to confess that I'm already a Christian? The blood of Christ covers me now and for always. No one can take me out of the Father's hand. He is the strong man.
I totally agree, okay? But that doesn't mean that it can't affect your worship. doesn't mean that it can't affect your enjoyment. You know, it's a little bit like kids when they come home, dad comes home, and you can kind of tell if the kids have had a good day or a bad day based on if they come running out on the porch when you get home. If they've had a good day, they come running out to meet you.
If they've had a bad day, they kind of just stay in the house hanging back.
Well, why is that? It's not that they don't think they're family. It's not that they don't think they got kicked out of the family. It's that they feel a little bit of the shame and guilt over, I don't know, hitting their brother in the head with a golf club.
Okay? Like they feel some type of way about it. And that can be us as well. How hard is it to come in here and raise our hands in worship if we know, man, I have unconfessed, unrepentant sin in my life? I'm not saying Christian, that makes you not a Christian, but it can make you an unjoyful Christian, a non-worshiping Christian, right?
And what happens is, if we confess those things, it's sort of like a dam that gets blown up. I've told you guys one of my favorite shows of all time, Duck Dynasty.
Okay, I know you guys probably, but I, hey, and I'll tell you, speaking of Duck Dynasty. We have a very special guest coming for Father's Day Sermon 2026.
So I'm just going to leave it at that.
Okay, I'm going to let your minds kind of wonder here. But anyway, so the duck dynasty thing is they've got the duck impoundments and the beavers build the dams. And they gotta blow up the dams. They're like, what are we gonna do about these dams? And of course, Uncle Cy just happens to have napalm in his truck from Vietnam.
Okay.
And so, you know, but the idea is we gotta blow the dam so that the worship can flow. And that's what confession does in our life. Look at 1 John 1:9. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
So the confession of sin blows the dam, worship can begin to flow.
Now, let's get into this a little more granularly.
Okay, the first thing I said was from chapter verse 1 was that there's a posture involved. All right, the posture of confession. is a manifest sorrow. Because of the weight of sin. It's not just a stoic I feel sorry in my heart.
No, no. There's a manifest sorrow. There's a posture that is involved. That's what happens in verse 1. They assembled with fasting, sackcloth, and earth on their heads.
This is how they showed. I'm not, I'm feeling the weight of my own sin.
Now, I'm not telling you to go throw dirt on your head. All right, this is a little cultural for us. Even by the New Testament, this has changed. Luke chapter 18: the Pharisee and the tax collector. What happened?
The Pharisee's high and mighty. The tax collector stands at the altar beating his chest. All right, so different cultures, different times, but there's always a posture. That is assumed when it comes to repentance. Let me ask you something.
How heavy does the weight? of falling into pornography again. Feel. How heavy is the weight? Of knowing that you tore down your kids and used words like arrows.
How heavy is the weight of gossip in our life? How heavy is the weight of the pride of life? When we begin to realize who we have sinned against, We begin to see all of these things in their proper Place, it's a heavy thing. And it creates a posture in us. Can I just speak to the men in the room for one second?
Listen. This church is filled with a lot of strong men. I praise God for that. All right, I'm talking about guys that want to take care of their business, guys that want to take care of their family, guys that want to take care of their kids, guys that take care of their body. There's a lot of you guys like that.
Some of y'all are super spiritually mature, some of you are new to the game. You're trying to figure all this whole thing out. But here's what happens many times. You take that strong man and you put him in an environment with the church and with God, and it can become hard for him to manifest. A childlike faith.
It can be hard to manifest. the weight of sin in my posture.
Some of us Maybe struggle with this where it's like, man, I know I'm a sinner. I'm confessing my sin before God, but it's like, man, you're feeling the weight of your sin. It's just that nobody told your face that.
Okay.
And so what's happening is it's like, man, I don't manifest it at all. I'm stoic with it. And what I'm going to tell you is, you know how powerful it is for your wife and your kids or your friends or even your business partners or whatever to see you manifest a childlike faith and to come forward at the end of a service and to kneel down in submission? to put your body in a place Where the weight of our sin before God is evident. I mean, this is what the Bible's calling us to do.
There's a posture of it, it shows the weightiness of it.
Now, it doesn't crush us because what we're gonna see later, in the fact that we are covered in the blood of Christ, but it is a weight. To it. There's a weightiness to it. Second thing I would say is this, there is a place of confession. And that place of confession is within the assembly.
Look at verse 2 again. and the Israelites separated themselves from all foreigners. And they stood and confessed the sins and iniquities of their fathers.
Now You say, well, what is a place for us now? The first thing I want to make sure you understand is. The nation of Israel separated themselves from other ethnic nations. They pulled themselves apart. That is under the old covenant.
In the new covenant, you and I are the people of God now if we have admitted our sin, believed in what Christ has done for us on the cross, and confessed him as our Lord and Savior. You guys, right now, are part of a local assembly, Mercy Hill Church, but all these local assemblies make up one big C church, we call it. That is the people of God. Does that mean that there's not a place in the end times for what you think about the actual nation of Israel? Of course, it doesn't.
There's a lot of people who have a lot of different thoughts on those things. But one thing that is absolutely certain. Is that you and I, if you are a believer, are the people of God now? 2 Peter 2:9 says it like this: You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession. Verse 10 says, You who are not a people, 1 Peter's written to the Gentiles, you who are not a people, God has made a people.
So, you and I are the people of God now.
So, if you think Israel separated themselves from foreigners. But now, the church of Jesus Christ that is made up of every nation, okay, I mean, not every nation yet, that's where it's gonna go, but made up of so much diversity in terms of the nations, it's like, how do we separate ourselves out? Here's what I wanna tell you: there is a place and a time for us to separate ourselves out. Mercy Hill is a very missional deal. If you come, you're going to hear church planning, missions.
We're talking about reaching your neighbor, invite people to Christmas. We're all about those things. There are times where the family needs to take care of family business. And those times come, and the family separates itself out. It's not about the mission, it's about the health of the family.
You say, well, what do I mean? I mean, when it comes time to confess sin. We do that among brothers and sisters. We do that in groups. We do that around kitchen tables.
We do that with other believers that we can trust with the weight of that information that we just gave them because they know that they can trust us with the weight of that information as well. We separate ourselves out during communion. I know some of you guys are brand new.
Some of us at our campuses, you might have thought about this before. I've had people email me this before, a little upset. They say, hey, during communion, every time we do communion. You guys will stand on the stage and literally say, if you're not a Christian, don't do this with us. Let it pass by you.
Why do we do that? Because I'm not going to put somebody in a position to proclaim something about their life that's not actually true.
Somebody says, Well, I don't want my friend to feel weird.
Well, I'd rather him feel weird than feel like a fake. If they're not a believer, it's loving for us to say, let it pass by it. Why? Because the family has business to do. And the family is, what is communion?
Communion is all about confession, repentance, and worship. And those are the time where we separate ourselves out. We need to take those times very seriously. Verse 2. And confess their sins and the iniquities of their fathers.
Y'all, I wrestle with this all week. And I want to bring you into the wrestling match for a second, okay? Because this is very charged. I mean, how many of us right now, politically and culturally, can understand how charged it is to say, well, you don't just repent of your sin, you repent of the sin of previous generations?
Now, this is charged, right? I mean, this is all through our society. Let me give you an example from my own life. I grew up. in Northeast Florida, in Jacksonville, Florida, and I felt like I was pretty acquainted.
With racial issues. Jacksonville, North Carolina is a very racially charged environment, mostly speaking black and white. And I mean, you just see it kind of boil over. You see, I tell a story. I used to play football every year against a school called Nathan Bedford Forest High School.
It was a public high school named after the founder of the KKK. I mean, he was a Confederate general, right? And they didn't change that name until 2015. And so it's like, man, I grew up sort of in this environment and kind of understanding some of these things and racial issues and all that. And then I went to Montana and I realized I didn't know anything.
Because I went on the for from when I was 12 to 22. I went on the reservations and did work on Indian reservations there. And I mean, it shaped my life. It's one of the reasons why we do so many mission trips here with young people and stuff like that. But man, I couldn't tell you, I'd never seen the type of hatred that was from on the reservation to off the reservation and from off the reservation to on the reservation.
Buddy, this was a total two-way street, okay? We don't like y'all, y'all don't like us.
Now, The crux of the whole issue, and this is politically charged now like crazy, especially among Indian reservations. And you think about some of the different political movements that are happening, it's this idea of, well, you off the reservation. Are responsible for the oppression of my ancestors who were on the reservation.
Okay, and the other side obviously says, and I analytically agree with this, it's like. How can I be held accountable for something that I didn't do? You know, if I'm sorry that it happened, but how can I be held accountable for that? But here's what happens. And then the church takes the bait, okay?
The culture tries to take this massive issue, this gen, you know, very complicated, we boil it down. to about 60 characters on X, and then we try to beat each other up with it. And the church just takes the bait. And what I want to tell you is, I've told our church this so many times: we need to think well about these things, we need to be some of the sharpest people in the room. And here's what we need to understand today.
Okay.
These people confessed the sin. of their own life. and the sin of their fathers. We can't just skip over that. But we also have to understand we live under a new covenant.
And in the new covenant, Jeremiah says it like this. In those days, they shall no longer say, the fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge.
Now, what does that mean? All right, they had a saying: the father ate the grapes, but the children are the ones that had the sour reaction. You ever read a warhead? You ever ate a warhead?
Okay.
All right.
So the dad ate it, but the kid tasted it. That was a saying then. He's saying, no, no, under the new covenant, that will no longer be. The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge? No.
But every one shall die for his own iniquity. Each man who eats sour grapes. His teeth will be set on edge. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant. This is what I want our church to understand.
The nation of Israel had no problem confessing generational sin. But they were under an old covenant. What does this mean for us? I think it means something like this. We need to be deep people.
The principle is we are not held accountable for another person's sin and I believe should never even tacitly accept responsibility for it. At the same time We should mourn it. We should be brokenhearted over it. We should be able to say out loud: that was sin, that was wrong. And we can sympathize and empathize.
So we have to be deep people here. I'm not responsible for something somebody else did. But I can absolutely confess out loud it was wrong. And that's where we need to walk. And I think that's the best way to interpret this in light of the new covenant.
Verse 3, and they stood up in their place, and they read from the book of the law of the Lord. For God, their God, for a quarter of the day. For another quarter of it, they made confession and worshiped the Lord their God.
Now, two quarters of a day gone. Y'all, that's six hours. of daylight. I can't do anything for six hours. I don't know if you can, guys.
It's not this time of the year, some of y'all are in a tree stand right now, okay? And I want you to understand, nobody's trying to hurt the deer, okay? We're just trying to kill the deer. That's all we're trying to do. And so you're like.
And I don't know if you're like me, it's, I mean, you can't get closer to God in terms of just like. Serenity, creation, you know, it's beautiful outside, and within 10 minutes, you're texting your buddy: hey, man, you seen anything yet? What why? We can't even get away from it for five seconds. They're for six hours.
They have a concentrated, they locked it in. Us and all of our modernity, we're so smart. And yet, these people locked it in. The word, confession, worship, all these necessary ingredients of revival. The word leads to confession, which leads us to worship.
That worship leads us to confession. That confession leads us to worship. The Word of God, it's this awesome mix of all of these things. It's so important that we do this together on Sundays. Do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together.
What do we do? We do the word, we do worship, we do confession. On the stairs of the Levites stood.
Now here's a bunch of names, okay? Uh Jeshua. Banny, Cadmiel. I'm gonna skip through here. I see a bunny.
Okay, that's good. Uh Hodiah, all right. And here's the point. The Levites are the leaders of the people in worship. And they get up on the steps.
There's a little confusion about what steps they are, but they get up on these steps and they call out to the people. And here's what they say: stand up. And bless the Lord your God from everlasting to everlasting. Can I make one quick point about this that is so important? If you are an elder, if you are a community group leader, if you are a staff person, if you lead a serve team at Mercy Hill, you are a leader.
And here's what we understand from this text. The Levites, Jeshua, these other people, they were leaders. You know what leaders do? Leaders go first. Leaders say, follow me.
Leaders say, Hey, I'm going to stand and we're going to worship and I'm going to do it in front of you so you can see what I'm doing. And he says, Stand up and bless the Lord. And they go, who goes from everlasting. to everlasting. You can't take someone where you're not going.
You can't take someone where you have not been. But you also can't take them there without being seen. They've got to follow you. Here's what I would say: Mercy Healing: If you are a leader, like I just mentioned, elder, staff, small group leaders, Go Team leaders, people who lead stuff on the weekend in terms of kids' ministry, just all of that, if you are a leader. Lead out in the worship gathering at all of our campuses.
Lead out. What does that mean? It means sit up front. It means the expressive in worship. Lead others.
We have a lot of new believers in this church. We got a lot of people who don't understand the culture. I was raised in church. Man, somebody raising their hand, shouting amen in a sermon, okay, talking back to the preacher. You know, these things are all things that like...
We, you know, hey, giving a tithe, all this stuff. Many of us who grew up in the church, it's just our culture. We got a lot of people that are brand new. This is all foreign to them They're trying to work it out. It's all alien culture to them, okay?
The things we say, the things we we want to try to help lead them and show them the way.
So sit up front and worship. Man, hey, talk back to your boy in the sermon. Thank you.
Okay.
I'm telling you, man, I grew up where people would talk back, and we do in the Thursday night some, which is good. All right.
Now, a lot of times in other services, people are just writing furiously. That's a new amen.
Okay, so I get it. But, you know, hey, there's a reason why different traditions talk back to a preacher, and it's not a show. What it is, is a confirmation for everybody to stay engaged. That's what it is. It's like, man, when I'm looking to talk back and I hear other people doing that, it's a way for all of us to not let our mind wander and we kind of stay locked in.
So, I mean, hey, you know, be expressive. One time, I had a couple at Mercy Hill. I did this whole speech: stay engaged, you know, come forward, worship up front. And they sent me this email.
Okay, they were very upset. All right, which listen, if you ever got a problem, you can always email me at bobbyharrington at gmail.com. Anytime you got a problem, okay, you just send me an email. That's fine. And they were very upset.
And they said, We do not worship to be seen by other people. Yeah, because I had column before. And I got a chance to talk to him. I said, hey, man, it sounds so spiritual. Too bad it's very immature.
Incredibly mature. Paul says to Timothy, follow me as I follow Christ. I know every single one of you that's worth your salt. When you worship, you want your little kids to see it so you're forming in them how to worship. All right, nobody is saying, come up front and worship so that you can be seen by others.
Come on. Like, have a little bit of maturity, right? What we're saying is, we are worshiping to an audience of one, but in the presence of many. And we can lead these young believers by showing them: this is what it looks like to clap your hands, this is what it looks like to raise your hands. This is what it looks like to be involved.
All right.
Now we get to the meat of this thing, all the way to the bottom of it. You ready?
So they've confessed we have the word last week. We've confessed this week.
Now this is a big worship moment that we're being pushed to. Stand up and bless the Lord your God from everlasting to everlasting. Blessed be your glorious name, which is exalted above all blessings and praise. You are the Lord, you alone. You have made heaven the heaven of heavens with all 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.
Now listen, this is very serious. The word Their confession You're talking about A You are talking about barely a city. Poverty unimaginable. The enemy is at the gate. And their hands are raised.
And here's what they begin to say, born out of their confession. God, you are from everlasting to everlasting. You have no beginning, and you have no end. God, there is no blessing or praise. that we could give you.
that would attribute the worth that you are due. They say, God, you are unrivaled. There is no Allah, there is no Brahman, there is no Tao. It is only you. Every star you made it.
Everything on the earth, you made it, you sustain it by the word of your power. You are so great that you are to be praised by the heavenly host. That does not mean angels, it means the stars in the sky that are burning with all of their nuclear fury with one heartbeat. God, you are great, you are grand, you are the designer, and it is all for Him. It is all for him.
This type of worship comes from our confession cry. It's like, what would I call you to do? Confess your sin and worship Christ. Confess your sin and worship Christ. Now you say, wait a minute, Jesus, I mean, I know we're talking about God, but Jesus here, oh no, maybe I failed to mention, okay?
Here's the thing. They may not have been able to see it as clearly as you and I can see it. But make no mistake, the one they are worshiping is Jesus Christ. He is that part of the Trinity that they are talking about in view right here, right now. How do you know that?
Because Jesus was the word that created. Jesus is the sustainer of all that is. They're saying, You have the stars in the sky, you made the earth. Oh, they're talking to Jesus. They just maybe didn't see it.
As clearly as we do now, Hebrews 1 says it like this. He upholds the universe by the word of his power. He's talking about Christ after making purification for sins. He sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. Jesus is the sustainer of all things.
This is who they are talking to, and it's who we get a chance. to think about in our hearts and our inner meditations here for just a moment. I want you to think about this. This awesome God is portrayed in Nehemiah 9 in two ways. Number one, He is the Creator, the Sustainer, but He is also the Savior.
who you can confess your sin to. And he will be the one who is faithful and just to forgive you.
Now, how good is that? How good is it that we serve a God who is both of these things? He creates and sustains by the word of his power, and yet he revives or rebuilds the church one by one by bringing people into a worshiping relationship with him. Destiny by destiny, future by future, individual by individual. They come in from all over.
He is both of these things. I mean, it's just an incredible thought. That the one who creates also sustains. That the one who creates also died for you on the cross so that you could have your confession cry break forth into worship. We don't deserve this.
What we deserve because of our sin is death and hell for all eternity, and yet we can confess our sin before God, He will forgive us. And we can have a relationship with Him, Sustainer and Savior. Y'all, this week we lost a precious sister in our faith. in our church and our faith family here. Tracy has been battling brain cancer for multiple years, and when I say battle, I mean battle, y'all.
I'm talking about with faith. Leaving a legacy that our children and children's children will remember of someone who fought their fight with hope. who never surrendered to hopelessness, who knew That God was going to work in spite of the pain, and that He held her future.
Some of you guys at the ridge would see her week in and week out. Praying for others at the altar. Not praying for yourself, praying for others. despite imaginable pain, willing herself through it. Until the very end.
Our church was blessed with an absolute blessing by God, a gift. The gift was. that God gave Tracy the amount of strength. and resolve and resilience. to be able to see Mary her youngest daughter.
was in the water to be baptized just a few weeks ago here. And I want you guys to see a picture of Tracy's posture and her attitude. Just praising the Lord sitting right there. When Mary came up out of the water, there was an excitement. By many that knew the situation that was unmatched.
And here's what I want you to see. The same God. who fashioned the stars in the sky. Who fixed the boundaries of the ocean to say you go this far and no more? The same God.
Loved her enough to give her the power and courage and faith to fight the last three years in the way that she did. Who saved her soul when she admitted and believed and confessed, and who received her when one day last week she lay down in darkness and woke up in glory. Fully healed, fully restored. Sustainer. and savior.
So here's the thing, y'all, all right? If you are a believer, this is very simple application. I have no idea what's going on in your life. Every one of us could be at the altar confessing sin.
Alright. Let's blow up the dam.
so that the worship can flow. And if you're not a believer and you're right on the edge, man, I want to call you to salvation. Would you bow your heads with me for just a few minutes here? Just another couple minutes. Bow your heads.
Christians do this just to help get the world out and really focus for a moment here. But if you are not a believer, today might be the day that you need to confess your sin for the very first time. Confess your sin and say, God, I know that I'm a sinner, but I believe that Jesus Christ. has done what is necessary. to save me from that sin.
And confess him as the Lord of your life today. This is what it means to become a Christian. Is he after you? Are life events funneling you here? Are you hearing the gospel?
Are you meeting Christians? You can't get away from him. I'm going to tell you something. Do not leave today. If God is calling you today, there is no guarantee that He will call you tomorrow.
You come to Christ on his terms, not your terms. And if he is calling you today, then today is the day. for repentance, confession, and salvation.
Some of you in here right now, I know this. You're like, man, I know. I know that's me. I know I'm who you're talking to. God sees you, all right?
We had seven people or so in the Thursday night service give their life to Christ. We had 10 people right here at the ridge at the 9:15. I have not heard from the campuses yet. God is on the move this weekend. Today is a day for you.
If you want to pray to receive Christ, you pray this with me. God, I know that I'm a sinner. And I know that separates me from you. But I believe. In what Christ has done on the cross for me, not my works.
but what he has done. And I confess him as the Lord of my life. That in his resurrection I am united with him. Spiritually speaking, and I will trust him. For all of my life.
Are you praying that prayer right now? The angels are rejoicing in heaven. Mm.
