Dr. Gregg Marutzky:
Good morning church.
Good morning.
You know, uh, it is slippery out there, but it always sort of surprises me
when we say it's cold here because I lived in Boston, I lived in Nebraska.
If this is cold, that's deep freeze.
It's, but, uh, it is slippery and we have to be very careful.
Thank you for being here this morning.
Yeah.
Thank you for coming to hear the word of God.
We're finishing up our Nehemiah series.
A couple more lessons, but, uh, I believe that God is always
sovereign in, uh, the sermon series.
I love how different subjects come up and I wouldn't have thought to
preach those, but it seems like it meets needs and it's important.
Maybe not right at the moment, but down the road for the church.
Uh, these different topics are very important.
But I wanna start off with something humorous.
You know, when it's cloudy outside, we can be cloudy inside.
So let's, let's get bright and happy on the inside.
All right.
So, you know, Easter had an incredible impact on people and, and, uh, there's
this story about a fellow that, that went to the Easter service and was so moved.
So the next morning he, uh, he couldn't, uh.
Uh, just get out of his mind how much he needed to change and be a better husband.
He had, he was just convicted that he was just not that good of a husband.
And so he, uh, uh, was working in the morning, but then, uh, he decided
to take the afternoon off and, and pray about things and, and he was
just moved to go and buy his wife some flowers and some chocolates,
and he went and got her a dress.
And he was just gonna come home and surprise her and,
and, and just recommit to her.
Tell her what a a, a, a hu a terrible husband he is been, he was gonna
confess all his, all the things he needed to change and convince her
that he was gonna be a better husband.
And then the other side of the story is he left the water on
in the sink in the kitchen.
They had just gotten new wood floors.
And so his wife came down to go to work and the sink had overflown and it.
Ruin the floors, and she's about to call him.
She's so upset.
But then she gets a call from her mother and her father had just
gotten rushed to the hospital, and so she just forgot about this.
The, the, the floors, she turned off the water.
She went to the hospital.
He had had a stroke.
And so, so, uh, it was, it was serious.
And then when she's at the hospital, it seems like when it rains, it pours.
Things just keep coming.
And so she got a call from school and.
Uh, her, her son was probably a little bit like me when he was in school and
he had got into trouble in PE class.
He got into a scuffle and so he got expelled and so she had to go from the
hospital to the school to take his, the son home, and then she gets home and,
uh, she's just so mad at her husband, but she just doesn't want to talk to him.
She doesn't even call him all day.
And so then he comes home and he rings the doorbell and she comes to the front door.
She's like, why is he ringing the doorbell?
And she opens the door and he gets down on his knees and he
says, honey, I'm just so sorry.
I've been a terrible husband.
I was so convicted of church yesterday.
I just want to your forgiveness.
I want to start over.
Here's, here's some flowers, here's some chocolates, here's a gift.
And, and she goes, just stop.
I can't believe it.
You won't believe the day that I've had you left the water on.
You ruined the, the floor.
I had to go to the hospital.
My dad had a stroke.
I had to go to the school.
Our son got expelled and here you come home drunk.
Uh, I wasn't sure whether to tell that story.
But I did hear it at a, at a preacher's luncheon, so, uh, it's not original to
me, but I won't tell you who told me it.
Turn your Bibles over to Nehemiah chapter nine,
Nia, Nehemiah chapter nine.
And if you wanna raise your Bible or raise your right hand.
I want us to say our form, formative statement of faith,
our confession of faith.
Say it with me, beginning with, uh, Jesus is the son of God
and then Jesus is the Lord.
Let's say it together.
Jesus is the Son of God.
Jesus is Lord.
You know, if that becomes something we just do from now on, it's probably needed.
I've seen other ministers say, have their congregations say different things.
And I've been wrestling with this for years.
And then it just hit me a few weeks ago, a few months ago, I thought,
you know, this is what we need to confirm over and over and over who
we're serving, why we're serving him, that he's Lord, he's son of God.
And so, uh, thank you for indulging me with that, and then
we'll see how it goes in about.
A year or so, I'll write up a research paper on it and say, our
congregation was just transformed.
It was so amazing.
Give glory to God.
Amen.
I want us to understand why we're studying this Old Testament book.
We're moved into the, into our building.
It's a new start for us.
We've had to do physical building.
We're trying to do spiritual building.
It really comes from this verse, a verse like it in, uh, one Corinthians 10, one
through 12, if you'll read with me, these things happen to them as examples, and
were written down as warnings for us on whom the culmination of the ages has
come, so that if you think you're standing firm, be careful that you don't fall.
No temptation is overtaken you except what is common in mankind.
And God is faithful.
Amen Into that.
He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.
But when you are tempted and we're all tempted, he will also provide a
way out so that you can endure it.
I love that verse.
I look for that way out.
Sometimes I don't think it's fair.
I don't know if I can endure this.
This seems like too much, but I claim that promise and I look for the way out.
And there's always one when I look hard enough.
Amen.
But he says, the things that happened in the past to God's people are
examples and their warnings, and I've gotta thread the needle this morning.
Let me just be honest with you.
All right?
We're gonna be talking about repentance and confession and corporate revival.
And corporate spirituality, but in an audience like this, there's
always a, an array of people.
Jesus said, there's four different kinds of hearts.
All right.
You got the, the weedy heart, the thorny heart, the, the, the
rocky heart and the good heart.
And I think in any kind of audience, we have people that are just so good hearted.
I mean, they, they just need to encourage, do so more and more
they're like the thessalonian church, that they were just doing great and
they just needed to be said, told, just keep doing what you're doing.
Amen.
I mean, you're an example and a model to have all the rest of us just do it.
And then there's a lot of us right in between that from being really good
hearted to then this other extreme that we just, we just are sort of dull.
We're a little bit calloused in the heart.
Maybe 'cause of sin, maybe not 'cause of sin, maybe just
because we've just, you know.
Been a Christian A.
Long time and we, we haven't kept growing or just, there's all kinds of reasons.
Or maybe we're going through a crisis of faith, or maybe we're just
stubborn or maybe we're just prideful.
First 20 years of my Christian life, that's what I got
challenged about constantly.
Greg, you're prideful.
In fact, Greg, I think you're the most prideful person I've ever met.
And you know what I'd always think when they'd say that to me?
No, you're the most prideful person.
That's why it took me a while to change.
But I want to thread the needle.
I don't wanna discourage you.
If, if you take things so to heart and you're very soft hearted, I want to
encourage you this morning if you're stubborn and dull and hardhearted.
I wanna, I wanna, I wanna get through to you.
I want the Holy Spirit to get through to you.
All right.
But I, I just want to encourage the church this morning.
And so let's begin in verse one of chapter nine on the 24th day of
the same month, so this is right after the, the Feast of Tabernacles.
This is just right after the, the, the, the festivals that they've had,
the Israelites gathered together, fasting and wearing sackcloth
and putting dust on their heads.
So right after the feast, these Jews felt like it was time for us
to really dig deep spiritually that we really need to examine ourself.
And there's a, there's just a an amazing thing that happens when
there's this corporate movement among the whole church where we're really
trying to be as spiritual as we can be.
And, you know, I went to the movie, uh, yesterday evening
'cause uh, Mike and Natalie went to it called The Great Awakening.
And uh, after his buildup on this text, I thought, I gotta go see this thing.
And I asked Kathy if she'd go and she, she, uh, she wasn't inclined,
so I had to go by myself, you know.
But, uh, it was great.
It was about, about, uh.
Benjamin Franklin and what a brilliant person Dr.
Franklin was.
You know, and it was about, uh, George Whitfield and their relationship.
And George was this, uh, this young man that started out to be an actor.
And then he got a scholarship to Oxford.
He met the, the Wesley brothers, Charles and uh, John Wesley.
Uh, they were there at Oxford and.
Then he started preaching in the Church of England and he was just too radical.
He had this deep, booming voice and he, people just felt like he was
screaming and, and he was pretty, uh, negative towards the Church of England.
He called it the, the darkness in a dead church, and he wanted
him to come alive and he.
His, his, uh, line was always, oh, wake up.
You sleepers.
Wake up, you sleepers.
And, and I mean, that sounded loud to you.
I'm sorry about that.
But I mean, his, even in the movie, I thought, did his,
they got some effect going on.
Boy, that was loud.
That sort of shook me in my chair.
But he had this booming voice and he, and he got kicked outta England and
he came to America and he preached in Boston and New York and Philadelphia and.
25, 30 5,000.
35,000 supposedly came out in Philadelphia, and the city
was only 25,000 at the time.
He, and he, he just got up on one of these big balconies with the, the brick
behind him and down just down the street.
And it, and, and, uh, Benjamin Franklin heard him for the first
time and it started a relationship and he asked Franklin to publish
his sermons in his newspaper.
They'd go back and forth and Franklin said he wasn't really a, a, a a, a
churchgoing guy or a spiritual guy.
He was a virtue guy.
And he believed, believed in Socrates.
He didn't believe in Jesus, but he didn't believe in Be born again.
And Whitfield was always trying to get him to be born again.
And so the, and I, I don't wanna give away too much of the movie though.
I just gave away a lot of it right there.
Right.
But what's beautiful is how it turns out at the end, and some things that you'll
learn about Franklin, but also Whitfield.
He died young, but he initiated, he and Jonathan Edwards, the great awakening,
the first great awakening in America, and we're having a great awakening right
now, especially among young people.
On campuses, the spirit is being poured out and people are
getting fired up and excited.
And, and I've been praying for this for the last 40 years, I felt like
in the seventies when, when I was a college student, there was a great
awakening and the spirit was just moving.
And I believe it's happening again.
And, and Nehemiah talks about it here in chapter nine, and there's such
a power of corporate spirituality.
When a lot of people all of a sudden come alive spiritually
and take God seriously and.
It starts with worship, it starts with repentance.
It's, it includes confession and prayer and praising of
God, and fasting and sacrifice.
We see all these, we're gonna see all these things in these verses and you'll
be encouraged, guys, I, I know you're looking at your Bible and see that there's
40 pa verses almost in this chapter.
We're not gonna go through every one of them.
I, I cut out 21 verses, aren't you?
Aren't you happy?
All right, so we'll get done early.
But some very important stuff.
Verse two, it says, those of the Israeli's descent had separated
themselves from all foreigners.
So they took Ezra as a me message and they stood in their places and confessed their
sins and the sins of their ancestors.
So there's something powerful about, uh, corporate confession, and that's
what Benjamin Franklin witnessed after George Whitfield would preach.
All the people would just start confessing their sins and repenting.
And then verse three, they stood where they were and read from the book of the
law of the Lord their God for a quarter of the day, and they spent another quarter.
So half the day in confession and in worshiping the Lord their God.
Amen to that.
You know, they've took worship seriously.
I hope you love coming to worship.
You know, I just sort of sit here waiting for the spirit to move on me.
I keep, I, I, I, I, I don't know which song's gonna get sung next, but I think,
oh, I hope this is one that gets to me.
I hope this is one of those that has Holy, holy, holy three times, because
those are the ones that always get to me.
All right?
Different songs get to different people.
He says in second Corinthians seven, verses 10 through 13, godly sorrow
brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret,
but worldly sorrow brings death.
You know, I've thought a lot about this 'cause I, I believe in positive ministry.
I gave a lesson to the LA leadership at our ministry meeting last Saturday.
On positive ministry, and I really believe that we should be motivated by the mercy
and the grace and the kindness of God, that that's what leads to repentance.
But I also know there's times we need conviction from the Holy Spirit,
and I, and I recognize that until you get serious and get cut to the
heart and have this godly sorrow, you can't really change and repent.
Right.
And there's been times in my life I, God let up.
You seem to be so hard on me.
You know, I repented.
It's time for the rejoicing.
It's time for the forgiveness and the, and the mercy.
But you seem to still be squeezing me, Lord, how long you gonna squeeze me?
And I remember one time thinking, this is too much.
I've repented back off God.
And don't say that to him because he comes on a little
stronger then when you do that.
But then I got to a point that if I need God to squeeze me this much,
this must reveal how stubborn and hardhearted or prideful I am at times.
And so then I finally fully surrendered and then the refreshment come.
It's just this spiritual outpouring from God, and it's this godly
sorrow that leaves no regret.
Verse 11, see what this godly sorrow has produced in you.
What earnestness?
What eagerness to clear yourselves.
What indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern,
what readiness to see.
Justice.
Sun.
You're totally surrendered and at every point you proved
yourself innocent in this matter.
I try to look at myself in the mirror.
Greg, do you have godly sorrow or worldly sorrow?
Are you earnest meaning you're, you're, you're really devoted,
committed, earnest to change?
Are you eager to change?
Are you, I'll get around to it.
Do you have indignation, anger towards what?
Towards sin and Satan.
I get angry at Satan tempting me and dogging me.
That's who I need to say back off.
Not tell God to back off alarm.
You know, there needs to be a time in your life that you're afraid,
Hey, what if I don't change?
I've been there before thought.
Wow, God, if it's taken this much for me to change, can I change?
You know, sometimes God always knows.
So let him work in your life.
Then a longing.
When you start feeling that forgiveness and that change, you want more.
You have that longing, give me more God, and you're concerned, will I get all
the way there, or am I gonna have to go through this again and again and again?
And I've been a Christian A.
Long time, 1977.
I know most of you weren't around.
All right?
And I've had to go through the cycle of godly sorrow many times.
It's always worth it, isn't it?
It's always worth it.
And then you just get to this surrendered point, ready for
justice, and you're innocent.
So in verse four, what happens?
You praise says standing on the stairs of the Levites, where Jesu banning cad.
Miel she, AYA Bunny, AYA.
Banney and two of them banies.
All right?
And Ken Ani.
Ken Ani, they cried out with loud voices to their God.
So these are the leaders leading in corporate worship and corporate praise.
And then he goes through the list again of Levites.
And here's what they said.
Stand up and praise the Lord your God, who is from everlasting to everlasting.
Blessed, be your glorious name.
There's our song, and may it be exalted above all blessing and praise
when you get to the point where all you do want to do is honor God.
And that's, that's not that easy.
We're pretty focused on ourselves, aren't we?
You know?
It takes a while for us to get to focus off ourselves and onto others,
but listen to how he describes God.
God is eternal.
Stand up and praise God.
Everlasting to everlasting.
God is Lord.
Blessed is his glorious name.
God is creator.
You made the heavens even the highest heavens God is life.
You give life to everything and the multitude.
See, this is why we praise God.
Never forget how great God is.
You take your eyes off of God.
You're just.
Going through the motions of church.
You're just going through the motions of that.
Ben Franklin did for a long time of just being a virtuous person.
He thought that was good enough.
Nah, we need God.
We need the Holy Spirit.
We need focused on the almighty, the everlasting.
The everlasting, right, the glorious name.
And then verse six, he says, you alone are the Lord.
You made the heavens and even the highest heavens and all their starry
hosts, the earth and all that is on it.
The seas and all that is in them.
You give life to everything and the multitudes of the heaven worship you.
If all the planets and all the aliens out there, I guess are worshiping
God, then I guess we should amen.
I don't know if Jesus visited them, but he visited us.
Right, and so we need to be worshiping and it says in the
highest heavens, I guess that's way out there in those outer galaxies.
In verse nine, you are the Lord God who chose Abraham and brought him out of
Irv the Chaldeans and named him Abraham.
And now he goes through 20, so 20 or so verses on salvation history.
And what you and I need to learn from this restoration recitation, I mean
of history over and over in the Psalms and here in Nehemiah and a lot of the
prophets, a lot of the books is you need to know your spiritual biography.
You need to know your spiritual story.
When did God initially reach out to you?
When did God try to change your mind?
Yeah.
When did your heart begin to get softened and get filled?
When did you start falling in love with other people?
When did you start wanting to serve and give to others and you need to
figure out your spiritual biography?
When I was training as a chaplain, they made us write pages and pages,
like the 20 page paper on our spiritual biography, and I thought, that's too long.
How about five pages?
Nope.
Not gonna pass you if you don't tell us your whole story.
You mean I gotta tell the bad stuff too?
Yeah, the whole story.
I don't even know you guys.
You don't go to my church.
I don't want to tell you that stuff.
I'll tell the brothers that love me.
Oh, gotta tell us.
And so it was pretty interesting and I could tell, you know, that we're
open people here in our church.
We share our lives.
I, some of the other chaplains I didn't think should have passed.
Anyway, that's, that's a long time ago.
Long time ago.
And then verse eight,
this promised land.
You found his heart faithful talking about Abraham again, and you made a
covenant, a promise God did with him.
To give his descendants the promised land, the land of the
Canaanites Hitite, Amorites, pre parasites, uh, BB sights and gsites.
All right.
Why?
Because you have kept your promise, because you're righteous.
I love the song on Caleb.
Love that you forgive me.
Not because I'm good, because you're good God, because of your righteousness.
What a great song.
I sing it out not for anybody to hear, but.
But for God.
So salvation history, and if you read those verses, you'll see the
parting, the red sea, the giving of the commandments, the giving of the
man and the quell, the pillar filer, the sacred cloud, the water coming in
the desert, and so many other things.
It's a great salvation.
Salvific, history of the Jews.
And then verse 90 in nine 30, let's pick it up there again.
For many years you were patient with them.
By your spirit, you warn them through your prophets.
Yet they paid no attention, so you gave them into the hands
of the neighboring people.
Now, why does God do that?
Why does he discipline us?
According to Hebrews chapter 12, it says He disciplines those he loves.
He's treating us as sons and daughters.
So when I've felt like God needed to back off of me, that's because
God cared about me and loved me.
All right.
They've done research.
Parents just let their kids do whatever they want.
Unfortunately, some of the worst kids are produced in those kinds of homes,
and parents can be too overbearing.
And some of the worst kids are produced in those homes too.
You gotta strike that balance and thread that needle.
It's not that easy.
I'm not down on any parents.
It's an on the job, uh, on the learning, on the job situation.
Verse 31.
But in your great mercy, there's a key word.
You did not put an end to them or abandon them, and he won't do it to us either.
Stay in there 'cause of his great mercy for you are a gracious and merciful God.
When we read this history and we see that people are so prone to sin.
When we look at ourselves in the mirror, unfortunately we're prone to sin.
Even religious people, even Christians, even disciples, you sin more
than you probably want to, right?
At least if you're good hearted.
If you're not good hearted, you think, nah, I don't sin.
I'm good.
I'm so good.
Compare yourself to Jesus.
All right?
Not to your friends or to your family.
Compare yourself to Jesus.
All right?
And you can't say that you can't.
Please don't say that.
All right?
You may get an awakening.
Verse 32.
Now, therefore our God, the great God mighty and awesome
who keeps his covenant of love.
Do not let all this hardship seem trifling in your eyes, the hardship
that has come on us, or our kings and leaders, or our priests and our
prophets, or our ancestors, or all your people from the days of the
kings of, uh, Assyria until today.
They decide that God is good and they're gonna renew their commitment to him.
So it's a covenant renewal, and this is what causes these reawakening,
these great awakenings in verse 33.
In all that has surpassed, uh, has happened to us.
You have remained righteous.
You have acted faithfully while we acted wickedly.
So always keep in mind God's good and God's faithful.
If you don't keep those two things in mind, God, you'll,
you'll never make it spiritually.
But every once in a while, we all need reawakening.
You know, the, the Stone Campbell heritage or the Restoration churches, it went, it
was a part of the second grade Awakening, not the first one with John Whitfield,
but the second one with, uh, Campbell Brothers and Barton W Stone and others.
And the emphasis with, with, uh.
The first great awakening was God loves you.
I mean, the people had just felt like God was an angry God and not a loving God.
And so Whitfield's message was one of grace.
Well, the Second Great awakening really took off because it was about
letting the Holy Spirit transform you, and so they'd have these revivals.
Until they just, the spirit would move and they'd all repent and
they'd all want get baptized.
And that's how our movement, the restoration movement started.
And so these covenant renewals are so very important and I, I want our church
to have the spirit poured out on us.
Don't you?
Don't you want to have a corporate revival and have a corporate spirituality?
I wanna be able to tell people.
In fact, in the, in the little luncheon afterwards today, I, uh,
uh, Marcel asked me talk about our church culture and our church culture.
I'm gonna tell the guy here you, I don't wanna say too much 'cause I want you
to come to the luncheon, but, but, uh.
Our, our, our corporate identity is that we're scriptural.
We're Bible based and spiritual.
We really do take sin seriously and really believe in the power of the Holy Spirit.
So it says in verse 35, even while they were in their kingdom, and join
your great goodness to them in the spacious and fertile land you gave
them, they did not serve you or turn.
From their evil ways.
So this is a lesson guys Always turn to God when God's being good to you.
Otherwise he's gonna have to discipline you.
Verse 36.
But see, we are slaves today.
Slaves in the land you gave our ancestors so that they could eat its fruit.
And the other good things that produces, they came to the realization they weren't
blame shifting, that it was their fault that the walls had been broken down and
spiritually they were where they're at.
And then verse 37.
Because of our sins.
It's uh, it's abundant.
Harvest goes to the kings.
You have placed over us.
They rule over our bodies and our catalysts as they please.
We are in great distress.
Taxes.
Let's not talk about it.
Verse 38.
In view of all this, we're making a binding agreement, putting it in writing.
And our leaders, our Levites and our priests are affixing their seals.
We haven't made an Orange County seal yet.
We got a new logo, but I, I want us to make a seal.
And when you get baptized, I wanna put a gold seal on there and then stamp it, you
know, and, and those of you that didn't get a gold seal when you got baptized,
we, we, we will make it retroactive.
You tell us the date, Kathy and I assign it, and we'll give you your seal.
But this was an oath.
This was a vow to God that all the leaders, all the levies
said, we are not gonna wander.
We're not gonna be hard hearted.
We're gonna be soft hearted.
And we want the spirit to be moving and God to be blessing us.
And so, God, we're making an oath today to be pleasing to you, and
you already made it when you said, Jesus', Lord, you made that oath.
When you said Jesus son of God, I'm not trying to trick you, all
right, but you already made it.
That's the oath of Christians, that Jesus is Lord.
Amen.
Salvation history.
What's my salvation History?
Your salvation history, sin and separation.
Lostness.
I don't know how much of my story my daughter knows.
You know, I've been pretty open in sermons, but we haven't sat
down and had one of those talks where I confess my sin to her.
That would be so heartbreaking, you know, to have to do that.
But she probably knows she's lived with me a long time.
But that's your story too.
And I don't know her story.
I don't want to know her, hers or the other daughter, or definitely.
No Uhuh Senate separation,
but then faith came along in conversion.
I remember the night I got baptized, I was at a camp and the
counselor in my cabin said, we got a newborn baby in here tonight.
He's pure as it driven snow.
How's it feel, Greg?
You're gonna go to sleep totally pure tonight, and that has stuck
in my mind all these years.
I'm so grateful.
He said that Conversion Discipleship Church mission, trying to grow in the
fruits of the spirit transformation.
That's your story and my story.
Let's close.
What are the morals of this story?
God's faithful.
Even when we're di disobedient and unfaithful, God is faithful.
God is righteous, God is everlasting.
All those things we just read, God provides provision for us
even when we're rebellious.
That's the whole story of the wander wandering in the wilderness.
God still takes care of evil people.
God is so good.
God is patient.
When we go astray to wait for us to return.
Yeah.
You know,
my dad left the church for 35 years.
My first memory in life was his baptism at a gospel meeting.
Just vaguely have this memory.
I was only about four or five.
I, I, I don't even remember how old I was, but that's my first memory.
And then when I was in junior high, he quit going and he didn't go for 35 years.
Then he came back three years before he died of cancer and he totally changed.
And I sat there with my brother who's an elder in the church during that
funeral, and I turned to him and said, we're both tears rolling down our eyes.
And I said, Sam?
I said, Sam, is this surreal to you?
It's sure.
Surreal to me.
I never thought this would be dad's funeral where we'd be so happy.
It's not over till it's over, guys.
God will wait.
God disciplines us in love to help us come to our sense.
God recognizes our cycle of rebellion, regret, repentance, and revival.
God maintains a remnant of followers throughout every generation.
There's those George Whitfield that call us back and keep working on the
Ben Franklins until they come around, but you gotta go to the movie to see it.
God desires a covenant with his people for a continuous relationship.
He makes his promises that we can claim and then God chooses a group of people.
May he choose the OC church who seeks spiritual spirituality and not profanity.
What is profanity?
Taking the sacred and making it common.
Syncretism just blending into the world.
You gotta be a counter-cultural to be a Christian.
Amen.
You're not gonna be the most popular worldly guy at your church, I mean at
your school, not hopefully at church.
You're not gonna be worldly either, but you can't be popular here.
Amen.
Just be spiritual.
Amen.
Corporate spirituality.
May that be what the OC Church is known for.
God bless you.
Amen.