Sunday School

Good mornin, Sunday School

Lesson: Community of Confession 

Focal Verses: Nehemiah 9:2, 6-7, 9-10, 30-36

2- After the Israelites separated themselves from all of the foreigners, they stood to confess their sins and the terrible behavior of their ancestors.

6 - You alone are the Lord. You alone made heaven, even the heaven of heavens, with all their forces. You made the earth and all that is on it, and the seas and all that is in them. You preserve them all, and the heavenly forces worship you. 7 Lord God, you are the one who chose Abram. You brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans and gave him the name Abraham. 8  You found him to be faithful before you, and you made a covenant with him. You promised to give to his descendants the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, and the Girgashites. And you have kept your promise because you are righteous. 9 You saw the affliction of our ancestors in Egypt and heard their cry at the Red Sea. 10 You performed signs and wonders against Pharaoh, all his servants, and the people of his land. You knew that they had acted arrogantly against our ancestors. You made a name for yourself, a name that is famous even today.

30 - You were patient with them for many years and warned them by your spirit through the prophets. But they wouldn’t listen, so you handed them over to the neighboring peoples. 31 In your great mercy, however, you didn’t make an end of them. Neither did you forsake them, because you are a merciful and compassionate God. 32 Now, our God, great and mighty and awesome God,  you are the one who faithfully keeps the covenant. Don’t treat lightly all of the hardship that has come upon us, upon our kings, our officials, our priests, our prophets, our ancestors, and all your people, from the time of the kings of Assyria until today. 33 You have been just in all that has happened to us; you have acted faithfully, and we have done wrong. 34 Our kings, our officials, our priests, and our ancestors haven’t kept your Instruction. They haven’t heeded your commandments and the warnings that you gave them. 35 Even in their own kingdom, surrounded by the great goodness that you gave to them, even in the wide and rich land that you gave them,  they didn’t serve you or turn from their wicked works. 36 So now today we are slaves,  slaves in the land that you gave to our ancestors to enjoy its fruit and its good gifts.

Key Summary: 

This week’s verses skip around quite a bit. Still, the cohesive summary of them all is that Nehemiah hoping that God will keep his promise to the people, as well as bless his efforts in attempting to rebuild the temple, prays with an acknowledgment that they are in the position they are in due to a lot of their own sinful choices. Therefore, he and the people are taking steps to correct those bad choices, confess to God those bad choices, and ask God for his grace and mercy upon their journey toward redemption.  

Key Takeaway: 

There are five steps to prayer: Petition, Complaint, Praise, Thanksgiving, and Confession. While we might get the other four correct, we often skip confession of our own wrongdoing. God cannot adequately bless us if we first admit to him our faults. Let us follow Nehemiah’s example this week, and before we ask God for anything, first admit where we have fallen short. 

Grace and Peace