RETURN—REFLECT– RENEW
ARE THE ROAD TO REVIVAL
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Nobleton Community Church
29084 Sentinel Street PO Box 224
Nobleton, Florida 34661
Rev. Paul V. Lehmann, Pastor
813-389-8683
Nobletoncommunitychurch.org
info@nobletoncommunitychurch.org
OUR VISION IS:
To experience SPIRIT-FILLED WORSHIP AND PRAYER
To be involved in EVANGELISM, DISCIPLINING AND TRAINING PEOPLE
To use our SPIRITUAL GIFTS
To SERVE AND REACH PEOPLE FOR CHRIST, BOTH
“ACROSS THE STREET AND ACROSS THE WORLD”
Nobleton Community Church
Date May 25, 2025
Text Nehemiah 9:1-3; 30-31
Pastor Paul Lehmann
This is Memorial Day weekend. What is Memorial Day for? What exactly are we supposed to be remembering? What are we “memorializing?” Originally the day was called Decoration Day, and people were to remember the soldiers that died in war. They decorated the graves of family members who lost their lives in war, dying for their country. Statistics for the Revolutionary War and the Civil War are hard to come by for various reasons, vut the first major war that most Americans remember is the First World War where 4,734,000 men served and 116,516 died—in World War II 16 million served and 407, 000 died—the Korean War 5,720,000 served and 36,568 died—the Vietnam War 8,744,000 served and 58,000 died—int eh Gulf War there were 378 deaths and in the War in Iraq approximately 4,419 died from 2003-2011. In Afghanistan, there were 2,420, and about 159 soldiers from Britain and other countries that participated in the coalition. This doesn’t count the thousands of Iraquis soldiers which have been estimated at about 40-50,000 and the thousands of civilians.
Memorial Day is to honor American soldiers who have been killed in combat. Since 9/11 and perhaps before, we have included those who have lost their lives in service to their fellowman, like our police officers, and firemen (First Responders) since Congress made the holiday officially the last Monday of May (instead of the traditional 30th ) in order to ensure a 3 day weekend, much of the importance of this day has fallen away. There are very few communities that still have Memorial Day Parades honoring our fallen veterans of war. It is just a holiday to go boating or swimming if the weather is nice, to have picnics and family gatherings, all of which are good things to do, but the meaning too often is forgotten.
In our text, the Israelites have more or less finished celebrating, and it has been called to their attention, that they are to remember some things. They are not told specifically to remember those who died in their struggle to rebuild the wall, in fact, we don’t have any mention of anybody being killed, despite the threats from their enemies. They are more specifically to remember the things that God has done in the past for them. After their seven-day celebration, they are again assembled together (verse 18 of chapter 8).
THEY ARE REPENTING AND RETURNING TO GOD
As we begin to look at chapter 9, we see that they are fasting, and putting sackcloth and dust or ashes on their heads which was a sign of repentance. They stood in their places and confessed their sins and the wickedness of their fathers. This kind of confession is necessary in order to see revival. There are some principles of revival seen here that are applicable to the church today.
We need to distinguish revival from evangelism. In the past, some of you perhaps remember the church in general has referred to “Revival Meetings” and they were “evangelistic meetings.” The idea was to have an evangelist come in for a week (or sometimes two) and we were to bring unsaved people to the meetings. This rarely happened, but there were always some young people who had never given their lives to the Lord who got saved. Some of you trace your salvation experience to this kind of meeting. It is true that when Christians, are revived by the Spirit of God, they should witness with power, evangelism takes place, and people are brought into the Kingdom of God. But just to make sure we see the difference between revival and evangelism, let’s say that Evangelism is winning the unsaved, Revival has to do with the Christian. Evangelism is the permanent duty of the church; revival is a gracious outpouring of the Spirit of God.
It is possible to have some success in evangelism without ever having revival, but if revival breaks out in the church, this will lead to a mighty blessing in evangelism inevitably. The problem is that the church prays for revival, and pleads with God to send revival, but we are not willing to do anything for it to happen.
There are three principles of revival that I want to mention this morning, and we need to ask ourselves if we are willing to have them applied to our own lives and to our hurch.
THE FIRST IS : A RETURN TO BROKENHEARTEDNESS
Look at verse 2, which we have already mentioned. The people are confronted with their sin. They are so saddened by what is read to them, of how their ancestors continually turned their back on god, that they are ready to repent, to turn their lives around, and make sure that they don’t fall into the same pattern of crying out to God for forgiveness, and then falling right back into sin, or flat out refusing like in verse 17, “they refused to listen and failed to REMEMBER the miracles you performed among them.”
God will never plant the seed of His life upon the soil of a hard, unbroken spirit. He will only plant that see where the conviction of His Spirit has brought brokenness, where the soil has been watered with the tears of repentance as well as the tears of joy.
When His Holy Spirit brings brokenness, there is:
A RECOGNITION OF OUR SINFULNESS.
THERE IS A CONFESSION OF SIN, THAT IS;
AGREEING WITH GOD ABOUT OUR SIN.
Days of great joy in the Lord are always accompanied by days of great humiliation in ourselves. How often the discovery of something new in the loveliness of the Lord Jesus has brought with it the discovery of some new corruption in our own hearts.
Christian people have too often relegated experience like that to the early days of conversion. Oh, for that tenderness of heart that was ours when first we knew the Lord! How easily possible it is, in the pressure of life and business and Christian activity, for the grace of repentance to be just a memory! Oh, that god would give to us a renewal of brokenness to His will, and brokenness in our fellowship with others, in which there is a yieldedness to Him and to other Christians so that God can truly bless us!
We need to ask ourselves, some self-examination questions. This is not comfortable, and it is not easy, this recognition of sin. Alan Redpath, (the former pastor of Moody Church in Chicago, preached a sermon about this, and here is his list of questions to ask ourselves. I have changed the wording on some of them, to make them more relevant for us today.
WHAT ABOUT MY RELATIONSHIP WITH PEOPLE?
· Am I consciously or unconsciously crating the impression that I am a better person than I really am?
· Is there the least suspicion of hypocrisy in my life?
· Am I honest in all my words and acts?
· Do I exaggerate?
· Am I reliable?
Now I know as I go through this list, that the first thing that will go through your mind is: How it applies to someone else you know! Let’s not do that! Think about yourself. Can any of these apply to YOU at any time.?—Let’s continue—-
· Can I be trusted? (do others feel I can’t be trusted—why? )
· Do I confidentially pass on what was told to me in confidence? (I’m just giving this to you as a prayer request.)
· Do I grumble and complain in the church, about what others do or don’t do?
· Am I jealous, impure, irritable, touchy, distrustful?
· Am I self-conscious, (afraid to talk to people). self-pitying, (I have it worse than most people) self-justifying? (making excuses for things I do, or don’t do.)
· Am I proud? Do I thank God I am not like other people? (Just like the Pharisee)
· Is there anyone I fear, or dislike, or criticize, or resent? If so, what am I doing about it?
WHAT ABOUT MY DEVOTION TO GOD?
· Does the Bible live in me? Or do I just have a lot of knowledge stored up in my brain, about the Bible?
· Do I give it time to speak to me?
· Do I go to bed in time and do I get up in time?
· Am I enjoying my prayer life today? Or is it just something I do out of duty, if at all.
· When there is a problem in my life so I pray about it, or do I use my tongue and talk about it?
· Am I disobeying do in anything, or not doing something about which my conscience is very uneasy?
· When did I last speak to someone else with the object of tying to win them to Christ/
· Am I a slave to books, cards, movies, TV, video games, music, food, dress, friends, work, or even family? (Not that any of these things are wrong, but the key is BALANCE. )
· How do I spend my spare time?
Without a doubt, there is something in this list that will convict every one of us here this morning. These are very heart-searching questions. Have you thought about recognizing sinfulness lately? Or is that something that you think is only for the unsaved to do? That they are the ones that have to get themselves straightened out with the Lord? This is the price of revival. Every one of us must want to get ourselves “straightened out” with the Lord.
If you want revival, let me remind you, that God only plants the seed of His life in a soil which has been broken up by repentance, and a willingness to turn from sin. The Israelites recognized (in verse 33) that their ancestors had sinned. We read in their prayer, that “in all that has happened to us, you (that is God) have been just, you have acted faithfully, WHILE WE DID WRONG. (— we have done “wickedly” the K.J.V. says)
Agreeing with God is saying: “Lord you are right—I have done wrong.:” This is hard enough to say to another person, whether it is our spouse, or someone in the church, or in our family, let alone to God. But that is what has to happen if we want forgiveness, if we are really willing to repent, to not continue doing what we are doing, or going in the same direction spiritually that we are going.
The second principle of revival In this chapter is:
REFLECTION UPON GOD’S GOODNESS
Practically the whole chapter is devoted to the prayer that the people offered. Some of you have been like the Israelites. You have cried out to God, prayed, and have been forgiven, but then have fallen right back into sin. Prayed again and fell back, and the cycle has been unbroken for many years. You have experienced an up-and-down Christian life, ever since you first prayed to receive Christ into your life.
What an utterance of praise there is here, and what a confession of sin and failure! There is praise for what God is, for His covenant with them through Abraham for His deliverance from Egyptian bondage, for His tender guidance all during their history, In spite of all that—– there had been repeated sin and failure. And again and again, that failure was matched by a new outpouring of the grace of God.
In spite of all His goodness, note in verse 16: But they, our forefathers, became arrogant and stiff-necked, (that means stubborn, obstinate, and Webster’s book of synonyms even says; pig-headed or bull-headed) and they did not obey your commands. Again I want to mention: THEY REFUSED TO LISTEN AND FAILED TO REMEMBER THE MIRACLES you performed among them: But you are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger! And abounding in love. Therefore you did not desert them…you did not abandon them…you gave your …Spirit to instruct them.
Have you remembered to REFLECT ON GOD’S GOODNESS.
THE FINALLY THE THIRD PRINCIPLE IS:
THE RENEWAL OF OUR OBEDIENCE
The Israelites in verse 38 made a binding agreement —a covenant—in writing. The obedience of God’s people touched every part of their lives;
Their home life, Their social life, and Their church life.
The Israelites always misunderstood this separation between friendship with the pagan world and with God. They were to develop relationships with their pagan neighbors to reveal to them the One True God, but they were not to marry those who didn’t acknowledge Yahweh. In New Testament terms, they were not to be “unequally yoked together” this means in marriage, but also in business partnerships. How many businesses have gone bankrupt because this principle was violated.It affects church life. At the end of chapter 10 verse 39 we read: “We will not How can we have revival? Charles Finney, (that great revivalist preacher) said: “revival comes by the right use of clearly defined means.”
God’s clearly defined means are just these things:
Our BROKENESS neglect the house of our God.”
Nehemiah has emphasized faithfulness in corporate worship. They were all to be present when the word was read and they stood in prayer to God.
(a tenderness of heart) which leads to
REPENTANCE. , A RECOGNITION OF SIN , in which God’s Holy Spirit
can plant a seed that will grow.
A REFLECTION ON GOD’S GOODNESS (a taking of time for meditation A and RENEWAL OF OUR OBEDIENCE (that puts revival into action.)