“Lord, the God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps
his covenant of love with those who love him and keep his commandments, 6 let
your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer your servant is
praying before you day and night for your servants, the people of Israel. I
confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father’s family, have
committed against you. 7 We have acted very wickedly toward you. We have not
obeyed the commands, decrees and laws you gave your servant Moses.” Nehemiah
1:5-7
We Have
Sinned…We. And I confess
The story of Nehemiah is one of my favorite accounts in the
scriptures. In it, God calls and uses a
cupbearer to save Jerusalem…and rebuild the wall of the city. Great account, with a ‘here am I, send me’
sense about it. I’ve always wanted to be
a Nehemiah type man. I fall short on
many fronts though. One of the commands
of scripture is that we bear one another’s burdens. Today, we consider how Nehemiah bore the
responsibility for the sins of his people as he prayed to God.
I draw your attention to one element of this first
chapter…in verse 6: “I confess the sins
we Israelites, including myself and my father’s family, have committed against
you.” He was confessing the sins…not
only of himself…and his family…but also of the entire people of Israel. Remarkable!!
Notice that he wasn’t saying, “I’m sorry for the sins of this
people.” Rather, “I confess the sins…of
this people.” Remarkable!!
He wasn’t confessing that THEY had sinned. He was taking their sin as his own. WE have sinned. Verse 7: “We have acted very corruptly
against Thee…” We. We. Who does this?
When was the last time you confessed the sins of your
neighbor? Your state? Your nation? I’d wager a pound of cookies that for the
most of us, unless we are very enlightened, we have not done it in a long, long
time…if ever at all. It simply isn’t
something we are conditioned to do. As
we noted yesterday, we are inclined to deny responsibility when it comes to
sin.
It was, however, what Jesus did on our behalf. Jesus took responsibility for sin. For my sin and yours. Jesus BECAME sin…our sin. 2nd Corinthians 5:21 notes: “God made him who
had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness
of God.”
While riding through the countryside this last week, I began
to consider the sins of our nation. I
began to confess my sin and OUR sin to the Father, asking him to heal our
land. Indeed, we have acted corruptly
and have not walked in his ways. Like
Nehemiah, I sought to “remind” God of his investment in the people of this
nation, and to ask his intervention on our behalf. It is a prayer I seek to continue.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, We have
called ourselves a Christian nation, for so we were founded. And yet the years have grown long and our
hearts have sought our own way. We have
become a nation that has Christians.
Remember the place from which we have fallen and raise us up again. Call our hearts. Draw us to repentance and to your heart
again. Help us to rebuild our walls
again… In your name I pray, Amen.