We Bless Thee, Oh Our God

*The sermon manuscript below was generated from the recording by AI, take it with a grain of salt…

It’s wonderful to read the works of God in former days, isn’t it? To hear of significant moments in time when the Lord breaks through into a society or a family or, or maybe just an individual’s life when you hear a stirring testimony of how God has moved in someone’s life. I think one of the reasons it’s so encouraging to us is because it reminds us of God’s steadfast love, doesn’t it? It reminds us of His faithfulness, His power, and gives us hope for today because God never changes. And so if that’s how God worked in the past, then there’s no reason He can’t continue to work the same way today. And so it spurs us on.

And we have been following a special work of God, haven’t we? A significant work in the life of Israel. The post-exilic community, which is the people that came back from Babylon, they have returned, they have rebuilt the temple, they have established the walls, they have set themselves up, and then we’ve begun to see what we might call a revival, a refreshing work in the hearts of God’s people, not just an exterior building project. There’s been many a church that has begun a building project and by the end of it has somewhat regretted it because they have a wonderful building with an empty interior, because people get distracted by buildings. But here we see a people that having done the work of the building, press on to seek the Lord with more vigor than when they sought to build the walls.

And we looked in chapter 8, didn’t we, just to remind ourselves of where we were, and we saw this great moment where the law was read for 6 hours and all of the people, all of the remnant gathered together in the presence of God and Ezra and the Levites read and expounded and taught the scriptures to the people, and the people sought the Lord with all of their heart. They took to heart that message of Psalm 27: “You have said, ‘Seek my face.’ I will seek your face.” And in taking that to heart, they sought God, and in hearing the law, you remember that moment, what happens? They break down in weeping, don’t they? They weep and weep, and yet they are corrected, for today is a day of joy. The joy of the Lord is your strength, and they’re called to feast and to celebrate in the goodness of God. And so we saw them then producing fruit and keeping with this turning to the Lord.

And so in that last section, in verse 13 through to the end of the chapter, we see the people of God celebrating a wonderful feast for a week long, honoring God in detail with both passion and specificity. And that brings us to our text. It’s been 2 days, so we assume that a good number of the people have not gone home yet. They still remain in and around about Jerusalem. 2 days later, the people gather again. Although the purpose of this gathering is very different than the first one. The first gathering, which was a festal, joyous occasion, or the most recent one, this is a gathering of fasting. This is a time for contrition and self-affliction and seeking God. And so we see them there in the first verse, fasting in sackcloth and with earth upon their heads. Whereas the last feast was to be marked by joyous celebration, covenantal sharing, giving of gifts, eating and drinking together, this gathering was to be marked by tears upon your cheeks, tears upon your cheeks.

And so they spent 3 hours, we’re told. The first 3 hours, they’re together for 6 hours, the first 3 hours they spend in confession and the reading of the law. The first 3 hours are spent in the reading of God’s law. Once again, they want to hear what God has to say. And if we can assume what they read based off the contents of the chapter, whereas previously, they seemed to be reading the Levitical law and discovering feasts that they hadn’t been keeping, now we get this grand recital of the history of God’s people, don’t we? And so one can maybe guess that they spent time reading through Kings and Judges and Exodus, retelling the story of God’s work in history among the people of God.

And so having spent 3 hours in the law of God, they then spend 3 hours worshiping and confessing their sin. It’s hard to know exactly how this played out. Was it similar to last time with little camps of people? You get these different Levites named. Was it that there was different congregations effectively gathered together, and a Levite was over each group, teaching them and reading the law with them? We don’t know. But it all culminates together with the bulk of our chapter.

But before we consider that, one thing you have to appreciate about this gathering together is it is not mere ceremonialism. Sometimes we can be like that, can’t we? Sometimes we can go through the act of doing what God requires. We fast because someone told us it was a good idea. We do religious things because someone said it’s helpful, and you might call it mere ceremonialism, akin to Pharisees tithing on their mint, right? There’s nothing wrong with tithing on your mint. But if you’re tithing mint while murdering the Lord of Glory, there’s some problems, right? It’s called ceremonialism.

But this is no mere ceremonialism. Have a look at what is joined with this day of fasting in verse 2. The Israelites separated themselves from all foreigners. What is this? Well, to understand what’s going on here, you actually have to travel back in history a little bit to Ezra. In the time of Ezra, one of the major issues they had was people had been marrying people from other nations, from other gods. And so they had this — towards the end of the book, you get this big thing about how they separated the wives from other nations. They put them out. You gotta remember, don’t you, that in the law of God, the Israelites were only to marry Israelites so that they wouldn’t be led astray to false gods. It was a specific law for a specific period of time. And Ezra looked around and said, “We have problems. Some of them can’t even speak — the children can’t even speak the Israelite language.”

Now, you might think, “Why is that significant?” How are they gonna worship God if they can’t speak the worship language of God? And what seems to have happened as time has transpired and gone on, the people of God have begun to fall into old patterns. It may not necessarily mean they’ve gone back to marrying outside of Israel, but they are beginning to associate with the world. What seems to have happened is the people of God have begun to embrace the way of the world, to become chummy and friends and to look at the world and say, “Yes, these are my people,” rather than to devote themselves to the household of faith.

And yet notice what they do. They do not just seek God with word, do they? But they seek God with action. Coupled with their fasting is a seeking to repent and obey God’s rule. And it reminds us of the Book of Isaiah. If you turn to Isaiah 58 for a second, there’s a very, very enlightening passage that speaks to this exact type of thing, what you might call true fasting.

Isaiah 58, picking up at verse 6: “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house? When you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh? Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily; your righteousness shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’ If you take away the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness, if you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail. And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt, and you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to dwell in.”

Now, what was going on here in the first 5 verses that we didn’t read is the people of God were basically saying, “God, we’re fasting and you’re not helping us.” And the Lord’s response is, “You might be fasting, but you’re living in rebellion.” Now, he’s not saying you shouldn’t fast. He’s saying obey and fast, which is exactly what Jesus says to the Pharisees, isn’t it? He says to them, “You tithe on your cumin and mint, but you neglect the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy.” Now, he doesn’t say, “So stop tithing your mint.” He says, “Shouldn’t you do both?”

And we must just be conscious, brothers and sisters, as we draw near to look at the bulk of this chapter, that we must be very careful of ceremonialism, which has an outward expression of religiosity but is dead in the heart because it lacks true obedience to Christ. So adorn your religion with works. Don’t adorn your life with religion.

And so we see this true confession, this true fasting, this true seeking of God in our text in chapter nine, and it leads us to something really marvelous that we see in this prayer. And that is what John Calvin would call true wisdom. In the beginning of his institutes, John Calvin says, “True wisdom, all true wisdom can be summarized as true knowledge of God and true knowledge of man.” So all wisdom, all understanding can ultimately be summarized down to 2 true truths, a right and proper understanding of my God and a right and proper understanding of myself, and that’s what we see in this text, and that’s what I want us to focus on, a true knowledge through true confession.

And so we begin with the true knowledge of God that we see in this passage. You know, it’s been a long day so far. It’s been 6 hours since they began. And as I said, we’re not sure exactly how the day played out, but it seems to be that when we get to verse five and six, it’s almost like they hit a crescendo, a culmination of the day. It’s almost as though up till this point there’s been little gatherings everywhere, little congregations maybe. And then in verse five and six, it culminates in this voice crying out.

Now, if you’ve got a footnote or if you’re using a different translation, you might see that it has Ezra in verse 6. The Greek translation of the Old Testament Bible has, “And Ezra said.” Now, we actually don’t know who said these words. Was it the Levites of verse 5? I don’t think so, because the impression you get in verse 6 onwards is a singular voice. But I actually think it’s very intentional that we’re not told who spoke these words, and that’s because these words are the heart of the whole covenant community of God, aren’t they? This is a prayer not of one man, not of one minister, not of one elder, not of one priest, not of a governor. This is the heart cry of the people of God as they seek God.

Which means it’s your cry, too, and it should be my cry, too. It’s the voice of God’s people seeking God, and it begins by blessing God as all good prayers should. The ultimate end of every prayer is the glory of God, isn’t it? Do you remember the words of the disciples when they came to Jesus? They must have been watching him pray. They must have been listening to him pray. And eventually, after listening to him for a while, what did they say to him? “Rabbi, master, teach us to pray. We want to pray like you. John the Baptist taught his disciples. The Pharisees teach their disciples. We’re your disciples. Can you teach us how to pray?” And what does he say? “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name.” The chief end of prayer is the glory of God.

And so this prayer, this great prayer of the Bible, ’cause that’s what it is, it’s a great prayer of the Bible. It begins in verse 5 with blessing God. “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.”

Brothers and sisters, whatever reason you have to pray, let it begin by blessing the name of God. Whether you’re praying for your food, whether you’re praying for your needs, whether you’re praying for confession like them, whatever it be, let it begin and be driven by the exalting of the name of God.

But what do they bless Him for? So we’re thinking about a true knowledge of God, right? They say, “Bless the Lord.” What do they bless Him for? And there is a huge number of things, but I wanna summarize it down to just 8 things that they bless the Lord for.

Firstly, in verse 6, they bless Him for Himself. “You are the Lord. You alone.” They bless Him for who He is, don’t they? They bless Him in verse 5 because He is glorious, because He is exalted above all blessing and praise. The beginning of their prayer is a recognition of the total otherness of God. God is a being that is completely other than humanity, right? We are finite. He is infinite. We are unholy. He is holy. We are limited. He is limitless. Everything about God is other, and this makes Him high and lifted up. What being is there in creation that can look at God and say, “I am like you”? There is none. We can say He made us in His likeness, but we cannot look at God and say, “I am as strong as God. I am as wise as God. I am as good as God.” Even the devil, for all of his pomp and power and pride, is but a fool and creature standing before a thrice holy almighty God, right? What do the cherubim do in the presence of God? They cover their face. They cover their body with their wings because of the perfection of God, and so they bless Him for who He is.

But then they focus primarily on what the Lord does. So they focus upon His creative works, and so they pray in verse 6: “You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them, and you preserve all of them, and the host of heaven worships you.” Everything is created by God’s hand. Is there anything that you can find in all of creation where you can say, “Ah, here’s one atom not by the will of God?” No, every atom, every particle, every grain of sand, every leaf, every tree, all of it by the sovereign will of God alone. And so they bless Him for it. They say, “Bless your name, for all that we see, all that we touch, all that we have has come about by your power, by your great hand, by your holy name.”

I can’t help but chuckle to myself when I hear the atheists ranting and raving about how they finally proved that God doesn’t exist. They’ve finally figured out where everything comes from. And I think to myself, “My 8-year-old knows more than they do.” I mean, ask any of the children in this room, “Who made the heavens and the earth?” And what will they say? “God did.” Because deep down in their hearts, because of the revelation of the Word of God, the smallest babe in the Church of God has more wisdom about creation than the greatest scientific minds on our planet. Because in their folly, they have rejected the wisdom of God. And yet here we see His glorious works, not just making earth, not just making heaven, the skies, but the heaven of heavens, the throne room of God, and all of the host in it, and even the host of heaven. What do they do? They worship. They bow down before Him in glory and praise.

And so they bless Him for His creative work, but then they bless Him for His covenantal grace lavished upon Abraham. They say, verse 7, “You are the Lord, the God who chose Abram and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans and gave him the name Abraham. You found his heart faithful before you and made with him the covenant to give to his offspring the land of the Canaanite, Hittite, Amorite, Perizzite, Jebusite, and the Girgashite, and you have kept your promise, for you are righteous.”

God set His covenantal love upon Abraham. Do you remember in Genesis chapter 12? As Abram is a moon worshiper, we’re told in Joshua. He’s a moon worshiper. Of all the people in the world God could have picked, He picks a moon worshiper. And He says to him, “Leave your home. Come with me. I will bless you. I will make a name for you.” And what does Abram do? He follows Him. And because he responded, as we’re told here, in faithfulness, the Lord establishes an everlasting covenant to him and his offspring. God’s faithful to His people. And did Abram deserve it? What did he do to deserve it? He worshiped a moon god. And yet God, in His free grace and favor, lavished goodness upon Abraham in His covenantal favor. And they bless Him. Why? Because they are benefactors in it.

And then they bless Him because of His covenant deliverance in verse 9 to 12. “You saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt and heard their cry at the Red Sea and performed signs and wonders against Pharaoh.” And they rehearse that great moment. You remember it, don’t you? Maybe you learnt it in Sunday school or from your parents or in school. And you read through Exodus, and you read of that great moment where God comes in His mighty arm of power, wielding an 80-year-old Moses and his older brother. And through these feeble old men, He flattens Egypt, shakes their king to its knees, humbles and decries every false god in Egypt, and exalts His name alone so that the people of God plunder the Egyptians on the way out. And by the time they get to the promised land, do you remember what Rahab says? She says, “We have heard what the Lord did to the Egyptians.” And everyone is shaking in fear. The Lord exalts his name through the deliverance of his people from Egypt, and so they bless him for his incredible display of power.

And then in verse 13 to 14, they talk about Sinai. “You came down on Mount Sinai and spoke with them from heaven and gave them right rules and true laws, good statutes and commandments, and you made known to them your holy Sabbath and commanded them commandments and statutes and a law by Moses, your servant.” What did he do? What are we seeing here? We heard the voice of God. We heard the will of God. He didn’t just save us, but he revealed his will to us. He brought the law, the Ten Commandments, and he spoke to us through his prophet and by his own hand. He took tablets, and he wrote his will upon it so that we would be a special people. You remember the reflection of Moses where he says, “What other God has come down and taken a people and spoken to them?” Do you remember that moment at Sinai when the people stand at the foot of the mountain, and what do they do? They shake with terror, and they say, “Please don’t have him speak to us any longer. You go up on our behalf, Moses, but the voice of the Lord is terrifying.” He spoke before them in power and might so that they might hear him and fear him always.

And then what else did he do? Why else do they bless him? Because of his gracious care for them in the wilderness. In verse 15, we read, “You gave them bread from heaven for their hunger and brought water for them out of the rock for their thirst, and you told them to go to possess the land that you had sworn to give them.” And in verse 19 to 21, “You in your great mercies didn’t forsake them in the wilderness. The pillar of cloud to lead them by the way did not depart from them by day, nor the pillar of fire by night to light for them the way by which they should go. You gave your Good Spirit to instruct them and did not withhold your manna from their mouth and gave them water for their thirst. 40 years you sustained them in the wilderness, and they lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out, and their feet did not swell.”

He cared for them, didn’t he? Like a father or, or maybe better, like a shepherd, right? The Lord’s my shepherd, I shall not want. And as they wandered through the wilderness, the shepherd was there. And the New Testament tells us Jesus led them through the wilderness, the Son of God, he led them through in the cloud.

Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever thought about this, but 40 years is a long time. I’m 40. Now some of you, it’s not very long. I appreciate that, it feels like a long time for me. I’ve never experienced being older than 40. You have to give me some sympathy here. But 40 years is a long time. Now I can assure you, children, there is nothing I own for clothing that is 40 years old. All of it’s worn out. I had to buy new suit pants recently. I got home, and I realized I’d ripped them open. I was glad no one noticed. I’m not sure at what point they got ripped, but they got worn out. Why? Well, I’d had them for about 5 years, and they got thin. Well, your clothes wear out, right? It doesn’t matter how well you look after them, even if you hang them up in the cupboard and never use them. Isn’t it a mystery? The moths eat them, and they go thin, and they fade. And the jeans, which were once a lovely dark denim blue are now a light, faded, yucky gray blue color, and they’re just not quite the same. And yet we’re told in this prayer none of their clothes wore out. For 40 years, they wandered around on sandals, and they never wore out. I mean, that’s a great clothing advertisement. But it’s only because of the goodness and favor of God, His love for them. Their feet didn’t swell. 40 years of wandering in the wilderness is gonna take its toll on your body, right? And yet you would not be able to get to the end of the wilderness wandering period and say, “Here is a classic example of someone who wanders in the wilderness.” They would’ve been plump, healthy, having everything they needed, because their God looked after them. And they bless Him for it.

And they bless Him seventhly, in case you’ve lost count, for the inheritance that He gives them in verse 22 to 25. “You gave them kingdoms and peoples, and allotted to them every corner,” the land of Sihon, King Og, and, “You gave them descendants and possession of land over the Canaanites, fortified cities,” and this is beautiful, they captured fortified cities in a rich land, “took possession of houses,” AKA, they didn’t build them, right? This is in 25. “Cisterns already cut up into place,” right? You didn’t have water bottles back then, so you had to cut things to catch water in. Already cut. Vineyards already grown. Takes a lot of work to grow a quality vineyard. Olive orchards. Not just an olive tree, right? Olive orchards. Fruit trees in abundance, so that they ate and were filled and they became fat. Now, I know nowadays we don’t like the idea of being fat, but in most cultures, it’s good to be fat. When I went to Papua New Guinea to visit my parents, we went there for 3 weeks, and I had to get really used to especially elderly women coming up to me and slapping my thighs and saying to me, “Oh, big pale white man,” which you might be able to work out what that means. A big, fat white man. Now, when you’re young and that happens to you at first, you are tempted to be slightly offended. But of course, my parents had prepared me for this, because most people there can’t eat enough to get fat. And so if you’re rich, you’re able to put weight on, and it’s a sign of blessing. And so the people prayed and said, “Lord, you gave us so much in the Promised Land. We were able to get fat.” God’s goodness. He gave them a land flowing with milk and honey out of His love for them.

And then to top it all off, He was a God who was long-suffering and patient with His people. And so they say in verse 16 to 18, “Our fathers acted presumptuously and stiffened their neck and did not obey your commandments. They refused to obey and were not mindful of the wonders that you performed among them, but they stiffened their neck and appointed a leader to return to their slavery in Egypt. But you are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and did not forsake them.” And here is the ultimate example, “Even when they made for themselves a golden calf and said, ‘This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,’ and had committed great blasphemies,” what did God do? “You, in your great mercy, did not forsake them in the wilderness.”

Incredible, long-suffering patience. I mean, let’s be honest, brothers and sisters, if it was you or I in the wilderness with the people of God, what would you have done? Be honest. I would’ve left them there to shrivel up a long time ago. I mean, you know how hard it is with a child that’s ungrateful, right? No matter what you do, just ingratitude. I don’t know about you, it grates me something chronic, ungrateful children. What about an ungrateful nation? And yet the Lord, remember what we read in Exodus 34? “The Lord, the Lord, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” And so they bless Him for His great patience.

Ultimately, they acknowledge their God for who He is and what He has done. And brothers and sisters, could we not do the same thing? I mean, this is our history, isn’t it? Could we not do the same thing? Could we not reflect upon the fact that He gave us His one and only Son? That Jesus came and walked upon this earth, and dealt with affliction and burden and heartache for us? That he who knew no sin became sin so that we might become the righteousness of God. Could we not reflect upon his faithfulness in giving us apostles to record and write down the very words of the Lord Jesus Christ? I mean, without the apostles, what would we have? We wouldn’t have the Gospels. Could you imagine life without the Gospels? And yet he’s given them to us. He’s been so good to us, brothers and sisters.

And think, the early church fathers who maintained the testimony of the church, who faithfully stood in the face of lions and bears and Roman persecutors and torture. They willingly embraced being boiled alive in pots of oil and thrown into brass bulls and for the sake of Jesus Christ. They were brutally murdered, and yet they never gave up the word of their testimony. Have we not received this blessing?

Could we not talk about those like Wycliffe, who would stand faithfully in the midst of the Dark Ages and give up their life to maintain the truth of God’s Word? Could we not recall of the ways where fathers would lay down their life and die for one simple act? They taught their children to pray the Lord’s Prayer. Could we not recall of Luther and Calvin, who would stand strong for the sake of Christ and for the word of Christ’s testimony, holding up the light so that we might no longer live in darkness? And could we not go on into the Puritans and the Covenanters and the faithful missionaries who hopped on ships and traveled all the way to New Zealand, to the uttermost ends of the earth for the sake of an island people, because the light had not dawned upon New Zealand. And could we not recall of days when 90 percent of the natives of New Zealand believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, and God’s great faithfulness to us as a people, and the way that he established a church here, and he raised up reformed people who love Christ’s Word in this nation to hold forth the testimony of truth while liberalism sought to undermine everything in the church. Some men and some women stood up and said, “Here we stand. We stand upon the word of truth, and we will not buckle.”

And brothers and sisters, could we not talk of God’s faithfulness to us since last year, and how he’s come and manifested himself among us in the preaching of God’s Word and in the ministry of the saints, in the way that he has brought us together as a family, in the way that he’s cared for the weak and the vulnerable, that when the sick have needed help, they’ve received food. When the tired and weary are struggling, someone turns up with a meal or an encouraging text message or a phone call. For the way in which 2 young people needed help for a wedding, and God faithfully was with them. For the way that God is adding to our number by giving parents children and opening the eyes of the blind. We’ve seen professions of faith. We’ve seen babies born. We’ve seen baptisms. Week after week after week, have we not seen the covenant faithfulness of God?

Could we not write our history in this exact same way? Could we not bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless the Lord. Why? He has done great things. He has done great things. Hallelujah. He has done great things. Bless His holy name, right?

Brothers and sisters, this is our God. Is this our theme? The blessedness of God. Brothers and sisters, this is what we’ve been made for. Not just as humans, but as adopted sons and daughters of God. We’ve been purchased at a price for the glory of God. So let us make it our theme. Live for the glory and praise of God, and may RBC be known as a place where the Lord is blessed. Not first and foremost where we are blessed, but where the name of God is blessed. So that, as Paul says to the church in Corinth, so that when the people of the world come into this place, they sit down, and they see our worship, and they hear our songs, and they hear the Word being preached, and do you know what they say? “Surely God is here.” May it be so.

---