A Call to Corporate Repentance
I have noticed that when I deeply study and then preach on a passage of Scripture it affects me in a much deeper way than any previous reading or study of it. Preaching is not, or at least should not be, something that merely happens in the mind and mouth. It impacts the preacher’s heart in a new, deeper way. There are many passages I could point to as examples, though I have one in particular in mind as I write this.
A few years ago I preached through the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. They are incredible books where we are privileged to see God working in and among his remnant people as he returns them to Jerusalem as their exile concludes. As I preached through those books, one thing in particular really stood out to me: the reading and understanding of the Word of God leads to repentance.
Nehemiah 8:8, “They read from the book, from the Law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.”
Shortly before this, the people had finished building the walls around Jerusalem, an effort which had been fraught with opposition. But the time had come for the people to gather together, and as they gathered they called on Ezra to read the Book of the Law. And as he did, the Levites went out among the people to explain what was being read so that all could understand. Together, the remnant who had returned from exile heard and understood the Word of God. This was no individual act; it was God’s people, from many different towns, hearing and understanding as one.
Nehemiah 8:9, “And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, “This day is holy to the LORD your God; do not mourn or weep.” For all the people wept as they heard the words of the Law.”
I find the response of the people to be quite significant: they wept as they heard God’s Word. Based on what is recorded in Nehemiah 8 and 9, these were tears of grief, not joy. As they heard, the people began to understand the ways in which both they and their forefathers had sinned before the Lord. But it wasn’t the right moment, and so Ezra, Nehemiah, and the Levites instructed the people to first celebrate the feast that was before them. As Solomon wisely wrote in Ecclesiastes 3:1, “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.”
Nehemiah 9:1–3, “Now on the twenty-fourth 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 from all foreigners and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers. And they stood up in their place and read from the Book of the Law of the LORD their God for a quarter of the day; for another quarter of it they made confession and worshiped the LORD their God.”
Once the feast was concluded, the people gathered once again to hear the Word of God. This time, however, they came prepared with fasting and in sackcloth. That is, they came humbly before God, together, recognizing their sin and their need to corporately repent. We often find a worship service extending beyond an hour to be burdensome, yet they gathered, willingly, for half a day confessing their sins and the sins of their fathers, hearing the Word of God, and worshiping together. They had heard God’s Word earlier that month, understood the truth of it, and were deeply moved to turn towards God, and to do so as one united people.
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Advent Christians are not all that different from the returned remnant of Nehemiah’s day. We love God’s Word – to read it, hear it, study it, and proclaim it. That defined us even before we were first organized together. Many have come before us who were seeking to do these things faithfully. And many continue to do so today. That heritage matters.
Yet, like the remnant in Nehemiah’s day, there are fewer of us today than there were in the past. We are a small people compared to what we once were. More importantly, though, we are no more perfect than those who gathered to hear God’s Word and confess their sins before the merciful and gracious God.
None of us like to hear that. We want to be told that we have done well. And, honestly, in some ways we have. Yet no one is righteous, not even one. Individually we have sinned before God. Corporately we have sinned before God. And if we are willing to examine ourselves in the light of God’s Word, as his people did in the days of Nehemiah, then we have much of which we must repent.
We have sinned in what we believe and confess.
We have invited confusion by refusing to define our beliefs. God is the God of order, not confusion.
We claim "Thy Word is truth," but then say that the truth cannot clearly be known among us.
We claim to search out the truth from God's Word on our own, yet, unlike the Bereans, we have failed to search it out together as a united people.
We have zealously guarded secondary doctrines while failing to guard the primary truths upon which they depend.
We have embraced different gospels, and fundamentally different views of God, as though they are one and the same.
We have failed to cry out in unison, “Jesus Christ is Lord!” by tolerating fundamentally different understandings of what “Jesus is Lord” means.
We have, as another of our pastors indicated a few months ago, failed to preach and teach a consistent Gospel according to the Word of God.
We have sinned in how we understand the church and one another.
We have allowed the Christian life to become far more about “Jesus and me” than about the Bridegroom and his gathered, redeemed Bride.
We have prized our independence so highly that we have failed to encourage, exhort, correct, and hold one another to account before Christ.
We have held the independence of our churches so highly that we have failed to see and embrace our interdependence as churches who should be united together in one and the same Christ.
We have sinned in how we relate to one another.
We have embraced division, or at least turned a blind eye to it, on the fundamental truths of Scripture, including the nature of God and the Gospel, while yet claiming such division as unity.
We have sinned against one another by defending the truth without love, speaking dismissively, assuming and assigning motives, sacrificing the truth for relationships, and sacrificing relationships over secondary, and even tertiary, disagreements.
We have sinned in what we have failed to do.
We have cared more about preserving our relationships within the denomination than we have about glorifying God with all that we are through the faithful proclamation of the whole truth of God’s Word among our churches.
We have failed to love our neighbors as ourselves by neglecting to faithfully proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the lost.
We have failed to faithfully pass on the faith once and for all delivered to the saints to those who come after us.
We have failed to depend on God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – in prayer, in times of abundance and decline, and in all that he has called us to be and do.
We have inherited problems and sins from those who came before us, but rather than seeing, confessing, and correcting them, we have ignored, defended, and embraced them.
And we have ignored our problems, flaws, and failings, pretending that everything is alright.
These are not small matters. Each one strikes at the very heart of what it means to be a Christian, or an Advent Christian. And no one person is to blame. We are Advent Christians together. These sins belong to you and me alike.
As a people we must repent. We do not like to hear it, but we need to hear it. Together we must hear the Word of God, acknowledge our sins, and confess them together for ourselves and our forefathers. For God is the God of mercy and of steadfast love, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression. Or, as the Apostle John said, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (I John 1:8-9).”
Yet repentance is more than merely admitting we were wrong. The people in Nehemiah’s day followed their confession of sin with a renewed commitment to walk together according to God’s Word. That is repentance. And we must be willing to do the same.
Then we can cry out as one people in Christ, as was done in the days of Nehemiah, “Stand up and bless the LORD your God from everlasting to everlasting. Blessed be your glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise (Nehemiah 9:5).”