How to Ask God for Help

My name is Justin.

I'm one of the pastors here, and it's my privilege to be able to bring God's word to you.

We are in our series in Nehemiah, and as Holly said, that we're looking at how to ask God for help.

What we see in this text is that the people of Israel are in a dire situation.

They find themselves in need of rescue and redemption.

They're in need of help to get out of the circumstances situation they find themselves in.

And so at the end of Nehemiah 9 into Nehemiah 10, which will start next week, we see them petition God for help.

Now, often when we are working to ask God for help, if we're really honest with ourselves, we tend to be asking God for help because we want out of the consequences of our actions and choices, right?

We've done something to get ourselves in the situation that we're in, and we don't want to face the consequences.

We don't want to face the implications.

And so we plead with God to help us.

And often that looks something like, God, if you just help me out, I'll never do X ever again, right?

There is a great reformer named Martin Luther, and uh the story of how he got saved was that he was riding on horseback through a rainstorm, and he was terrified.

He said, God, if you save me from this storm, I will serve you the rest of my life.

And God was like, All right, prove it.

So he kept him safe in the midst of the storm.

He he brought him through to continue in life, and Luther, by God's grace and providence, not by Luther's vain uh promise, uh, did he serve God the rest of his life?

But it is often in the midst of our lowest valley of these pain points in our life that we actually even plead to God for help.

And often it's rooted in wanting to be alleviated from the possible ramifications rather than being rooted in true sorrow over the sin that led us there.

Uh C.S.

Lewis, he wrote the series of Chronicles of Narnia, but he has a book called The Problem of Pain.

And in that he makes this statement.

He says, pain is God's megaphone to a deaf world.

We loll ourselves to sleep under the blessing of God.

And when our choices and actions get us into the discipline of God, we tend to want to be alleviated from what comes next.

And so we ask God for help.

Get me out of this.

In Nehemiah 9, God's people are requesting God for help, but they model it for us in a way that's proper in regard to our relationship with God as his people, not in a way that's self-serving as we tend to do in our own life.

And so as we enter into this text, we see there's 37 verses laid out before us in Nehemiah 9.

We're going to try and walk through them in chunks so that we see the whole of the picture of what's happening and how God would use this passage to speak to us even today.

So as we engage with it from the beginning in some verses 1 through 5, what we see is that God's people responding to the Word of God.

God's people responding to the Word of God.

If you have our app, you can open it up, click on the sermon notes tab.

These highlighted words are kind of fill-in-the-blank stuff.

You can do your own notes in there or get out your Bible.

We're going to be working through verses.

You're going to want to see the things that we're quoting and working through here in this sermon.

But right here in 1 through 5, we see God's people responding to the word of God.

What happened in Nehemiah 8 was that for the first time in generations, God's people heard God's word.

And it had been generations of silence, not having God's word before them, not having the life and promises and blessing of God's word ingrained in the culture of who they are and ingrained in the identity of who they are as God's people.

And in hearing God's word, they were cut to the heart.

And they desired to repent and to live their life in obedience and faithfulness to what had been spoken through the Word of God.

In their discovery of God's word, they discover where God had called his people to practice something called the Feast of Booths.

You might have heard it as the Feast of Tabernacles, or you may have never heard of it at all.

The Feast of Booths was simply a time of consecration where the people of God would construct these kind of makeshift shelters and they would live in them for a week.

And they would go through these kind of liturgical meals and prayers to remember the wilderness journey that they had through the Mount Sinai, 40 years journeying through the wilderness as they were coming out of the land of Egypt.

So in the Exodus story, God's people being delivered from Egypt.

If you ever remember Pharaoh, Egypt, parting of the Red Sea, this dude named Moses, right?

What happens here is God then brought them through the wilderness for 40 years, where they lived in these booths, tabernacles, tents, really.

And so God called them to do this yearly so that they would remember, so they would not forget, and so that they would consecrate this time to the Lord in remembrance of his provision and deliverance out of the hand of their oppressor, Pharaoh.

So they had heard this in the Word of God in Nehemiah 8.

They practiced the Feast of Booths at the end of Nehemiah 8.

Now at the top of Nehemiah 9, we're coming out of their practicing of the feast of Booths.

And what are they doing?

They are continuing in their response to the Word of God.

And how are they responding?

We see here that it says, they gather together with fasting and in sackcloth and with earth on their heads.

This posture that they're gathering together in is one of mourning and repentance.

Because they have heard the word of God, they are desiring to respond faithfully to it and repent, which is aligning themselves rightly with the truth of God's word.

And so they were fasting.

They might have looked emaciated from their fasting, of depriving themselves of food.

They were in sackcloth, which is just kind of like this scrappy garment that represents humility and poverty.

And then earth, literal, earth on their heads, poured on their heads, dirt on their clothes, because they wanted to hold this posture of mourning and repentance.

Mourning was a sorrow for the absence of the word of God among his people.

That's what they were mourning.

A sorrow over the absence of the word of God for his people.

But repentance was a turning away from the world into an alignment with God and his righteousness.

So they had lived their lives according to the customs of the world.

They were a scattered people that found themselves among the nations.

And in that, when you couple these two things together, that they were scattered among the nations, and they were absent of the word of God, that is a perfect equation for idolatry, false worship, sin, because they are adjoining themselves to the ways of the world.

And now what they desire to do, because they've had God's word being brought back to them, they desire to turn in repentance and align themselves with the promises and truth and righteousness of God's word.

This posture portrays humility and desperation before a holy God.

They have not had the word of God so long, and they are positioning themselves to respond to it properly.

What we see in the Old Testament, and it's often it's also carried into the new, is that when God is referring to his people, he used this language of ecclesia.

It's a Hebrew word meaning called out ones.

What God is literally defining his people as are those who have been called out from the world and made a people of his own possession.

They are set apart, they are removed from the world and its ways, and they are brought into his family, his identity, his truth, his ways to worship and glorify him.

So they are literally the called-out ones.

And so what Israel's doing here in physically separating themselves from all foreigners is they are demonstrating and participating in the reality that they have been called the ecclesia, the called-out ones.

And when we look at the wholeness of the scriptures and the wholeness of the gospel, what we see is that in the New Testament reality, from among the nations, God calls out to establish his ecclesia, his church, his people that are his own possession.

But they aren't just from the bloodline of Israel, they're from the bloodline of his son, which is inhabiting all the nations, all the people of the earth that now are separated, set apart, and called at his own.

We are a called out people, called out from the world in its culture, called out to be separated in purity.

Jesus uses this very language.

We see this recorded in the Gospel of John, chapter 17.

John 17 · chapter mention

In the high priestly prayer of Jesus, as John 17 is referred to, we see him use this very language, this idea of separation.

He says, This, I have given them your word, and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.

I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.

They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.

Now look at this next passage.

Sanctify them.

Sanctify literally means set them apart, right?

In the truth.

Your word is truth.

What creates this set apartness of God's people?

It's the word of God calling the people of God to be set apart.

As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world, and for their sake I consecrate myself that they also may be sanctified in truth.

So Israel, in separating themselves from all foreigners, were really participating in a truer spiritual reality, that they are God's people who respond to God's word.

The second thing it says that they did is they stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers.

They stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers.

Their hearts were burning to make things right with God.

Correction through repentance was the only proper response to having heard God's word.

So what did they do?

In hearing God's word, they reached back through their bloodline to be honest about the sins of their fathers, to be sorrowful for the sins of their fathers.

It was a corporate confession that was not rooted in guilt, but an honest reflection of past sins in order to eliminate present realities.

So it was an honest reflection of past sins in order to eliminate present realities.

It is kind of like history forgotten is history repeated, right?

And so they were honest about the ways that their fathers had sinned.

They were honest about the ways that they had even ignorantly participated in some of that sin.

And they had been honest about that sin was what was causing their current state of distress.

And so they sought the Lord to repent, to be sorrowful, to confess and be honest about those things.

So on this 24th day of the month, that it says there in the opening passage, the people came in a posture of humility and repentance to hear from the word of God, to confess sin and to worship the Lord their God.

For six hours, it says they did this.

Reading from God's Word for three hours, then responding in confession and worship for another three hours.

So they're literally reading the Word of God for three hours, listening to the Word of God being proclaimed for three hours, and then in response to that, what are they doing?

They're confessing and worshiping for another three hours.

Six-hour worship service.

Can you imagine?

I've got the stamina, I can do it.

Y'all, I don't gotta get ready for another gathering after you all.

I can go along.

No, I'm just sorry.

I won't.

But as we approach this prayer of confession, we see some of the leaders of Israel make a call to the people.

We actually read it, a part of it as our call to worship this morning.

It says, 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.

It's a call to worship, to change their very posture, and the ways in which they respond to God's word.

It's a call to bless the blessed one, to exclaim gratitude and admiration, the name which is higher than all other names.

God's people are being called to exclaim God's praises.

The people of Israel are responding to God's word in the only proper way.

Repentance, faith, and worship.

When we hear God's word preached, when we hear God's word proclaimed to us, there is one proper response from you and I.

Repentance, aligning ourselves with its truth and righteousness, faith, believing that in Christ all of it has been accomplished and applied to us as believers.

Worship, exclaiming the praises of his glorious name for the grace and mercy has shown to us in the blood spilled of his son.

That is the only proper response to God's word.

Repentance, faith, and ultimately worship.

These three things together establish the only true response that we should have to the word of God.

As we get in verses 6 through 15, what we see is God's people retelling the story of God.

Retelling the story of God.

In this prayer, we're brought into two beautiful, distinct realities of the entire scriptures.

So the first one is that this is the longest prayer recorded in the entire Bible that is not within the Psalms.

So you could make some arguments that Psalms were more poetic.

It might have been a song or a hymn that was actually recorded.

This is straight prayer, and it's the longest one in the Old Testament recorded.

It's also in all of Scripture the longest recorded retelling of the story of God redeeming and serving and loving and blessing his people.

The next ten verses will outline for us the glory and majesty of God in the power of creation, the power of covenant, the power of redemption, and the power of provision.

Let's walk through these scenes together as we examine the retelling of the story of God and his people.

In verse 6, we see the power of creation.

Verse 6, we see the power of creation.

It says this you are the Lord, you alone.

Right there, what do we see reiterated within this text?

We see the Shema.

In Deuteronomy, there's this prayer that the Israelites would hold fast to to understand who God was and who they were in relationship to him.

And it's called or referred to as the Shema.

It says this: Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one.

What they're saying, what they're saying is, there is no other God but Yahweh.

He alone is the living God, and we are his.

Right here in verse 6, in the top of this prayer, you are the Lord, you alone.

You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their hosts, 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.

They begin retelling the story of God in creation to proclaim the power and sovereignty of God in all things.

He alone is creator, creator of the heavens and the earth, but also creator of you and I.

And there's something about where repentance begins here.

Now you would think, why is retelling the story of creation the foundation or starting point of repentance?

You and I needed reminded constantly that we are not our own.

We are his.

And being his, we're accountable to him.

You see, we love the sense of autonomy.

We love the sense of isolation, that we can stand on our own, that we don't have to give an account to anyone.

I am my own person.

No, you are not.

You can try to convince yourself of that all day long.

But if you are married, you are your spouses.

If you are children, if you have children, you are their parent.

If you are employed, you are their employee.

You are not your own.

We do not get to live in a sense of autonomy, and that's not rooted in the customs and ways of this world.

That's rooted in the very creative power of God.

He has made you, you are his, and in that you are accountable to him.

That's what establishes for us repentance.

God, I am not my own, I am yours.

Verses 7 through 8, we see the power of covenant.

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 you made with him the covenant to give to his offspring the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizite, the Jebusite, and the Gergeshite.

And you have kept your promise, for you are righteous.

Here we're brought into the story of God in his calling Abraham and making a covenant with him.

You see, we see the power and sovereignty of God in making a people for his own glory.

If we can retell the story of God, we have to understand Abram was a pagan idol worshiper.

He did not serve God, he did not love God, he did not worship God.

What God did was in his power and sovereignty called him out to establish his ecclesia.

Abram, you will be mine, you will serve and worship me, and through you all the nations of the earth will be blessed.

Through your seed, Abram, singular seed, that is the coming Messiah, I will bless all the nations, where every tribe, person, and tongue will worship me and declare me as the only true living God.

What did God do in his power and sovereignty?

He called out Abram to establish him as his own, to establish a people through him, and then he made a promise that was unbreakable because it was contingent upon his very name.

It is God who makes a covenant with man.

To establish a people who would be called out from the world and made to be his own.

Throughout the retelling of God's story, the nature of him being a God of covenant is recited over and over again.

And the emphasis resides on one reality God keeps his promises.

Man fails to.

The story of God is simple.

When you boil it down and distill it.

To one simple truth.

God's loving kindness prevails.

Man's empty promises fail.

God makes promises to us.

He establishes a word with us, a covenant with us.

That's the root of our confidence.

Not in our own performance, not in our own strength and striving, but in his.

Verses 9 through 11, we see the power of redemption.

And 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 all his servants and all the people of his land, for you knew that they acted arrogantly against our fathers, and you made a name for yourself as it is to this day.

And you divided the sea before them, so that they went through the midst of the sea on dry land, and you cast their pursuers into the depths as a stone into mighty waters.

God is a deliverer of his people.

God used this term, this phrasing through Moses as he was redeeming his people out of Israel.

He said this, Moses, tell them, I am the Lord their God, and I will deliver them with what?

An outstretched arm and a mighty hand.

An outstretched arm and a mighty hand.

What does that talk about?

That talks about God is near enough to reach out and help us.

He's near to us, and he's able.

God defeating the enemies of his people is essential to his story.

It shows and reminds us of both his desire, his nearness, and his ability to deliver us and give us confidence to ask him to do it again as his people.

In verses 12 through 15, we see the power of provision.

I won't go through that whole section.

It's a longer passage, but what we see is that God did not just deliver his people out of the oppression of Pharaoh in Egypt.

God provided for his people.

Here the people retell the goodness and kindness of God.

Not only did he deliver them, but he provided for them.

And in this retelling of God's story, we see both the strength of God and the tender care of God for his own.

He provides them with guidance, a way to which they should live, with sustenance and land that they could call their own.

Remember, church, how good God is.

In the retelling of God's story, God's people are setting their hope on the power, faithfulness, and goodness of God.

They are kindling, in a way, their source of hope.

A God who loves them and calls them his own.

Without retelling the story of God, they would be tempted to forget all the ways that he has shown himself to be there for them.

What are they really doing here?

They are making much of God.

They are remembering all the ways that He has been faithful.

They are remembering all the times that He has been there for them.

They're remembering all the ways that He has provided for them.

Maybe you've experienced a situation of distress or despair and you've needed help.

What's happened in your mind?

The very first thing that probably happened was without even trying, your mind went to the people who have always been there for you.

The people who have always provided when you need it.

The people that have always come to your side and had your back.

Those are the people you're probably calling first.

What they're doing is they're reminding themselves God has infinitely been that for his people.

Without fail, without ever missing the mark, God has been that.

Why should our plea of help go to no other but him alone who keeps his promises?

In 16 through 31, we see God's people recalling the sins of the past.

Recalling the sins of the past.

This is one of the lengthier sections of the text.

But I want to point out some things that help us understand the summary of it without working through every nitty-gritty detail of it.

In this next section of the prayer, the people of Israel begin to be honest with the role that they have played and their fathers have played in the story of their people.

They confess their sins and the sins of their fathers, and the ways in which they took both the redemption and provision of God for granted.

There's some rhythms and patterns to pay close attention to in this section of the prayer.

First, there's this sharp contrast between the reputation that God has and the reputation the people of Israel have.

And you see that they use these descriptive adverbs to describe who God is in his reputation and who his people are in theirs.

And they're very stark contrast between the two.

God is perpetually described as ready to forgive, gracious, merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, not forsaking.

That's the reputation of God.

This reputation is what Israel is counting on.

To provide the help that they truly need.

But the people's reputation, on the other hand, when we look through here, we'll see this kind of language.

We'll see stiff-necked, presumptuous, refusing, not mindful.

This is the reputation that God's people have.

They have to be honest about how they've related to both God and his word in the past.

After all, in all honesty, this is what had gotten them into the situation that they currently found themselves in.

But second, what we see is the cyclical pattern of God and his people.

And it kind of goes like this God blesses, right?

Then his people become sinfully content.

What does that mean?

Underneath God's blessing, you and I have a propensity to get fat, happy, and comfortable.

And in that, we forget God.

We forget God on the mountaintops of our life.

That's why we call out to him at the depths of the valley.

We get sinfully content.

We forget God.

We're not mindful of him.

And then what happens?

We sin.

What does God do?

God disciplines to correct us because he's a loving father who desires to discipline his children so that they might be pushed toward the life that he has for them.

Then his people repent.

God, we're really sorry.

We won't do it again.

We'll repent.

What does God do?

He blesses.

What does his people do?

Get sinfully content.

What does God do?

He disciplines.

What do we do?

We repent.

What does God do?

He blesses.

This is a cyclical pattern.

In some ways, this is the divine dance between God and his people.

It's the divine dance of his steadfast covenant-keeping love and our continual covenant-failing sin.

We're shown in this section of the prayer that the call of God was always to come back to him and his law, for in them are life.

Though the people of God would commit to them for a time, eventually they would sin and turn from both.

God shows us his unstoppable love and relentless pursuit of his people, while his people show an ungrateful heart in continual rebellion away from their love.

Israel's confessing the sins of their past.

And they were confessing the sins of their past because they didn't want it to be a reality of their present.

Though they held no guilt for the sins committed by their fathers, they were in a state of despair and suffering because of those very sins.

They were being honest about the sins of the past to correct their hearts and lives in the present so that they might have a better future.

Let's unpack this for a minute.

When you stand before God at the judgment throne of Christ at the end of time, you will not stand in the shadow of your father.

You will not stand in the shadow of anyone.

You will stand alone, and you will be shined upon by the radiant glory of Christ.

And the guilt that you might have will be because of your sin, not because of anyone else's.

But there's a reality that Israel was experiencing.

What led them to repentance, what led them to call out their father's sin in this specific situation is in ignorance they were participating in the very same things.

But what happened?

Their minds were illuminated by the truth of God's word that they might actually know the sins of which they were committing.

And that drove them to repentance.

They were able to be honest about the sins of their fathers so that they might create a different reality for the present and a better future for tomorrow.

It was important for them to be honest.

To be honest about the sins of their fathers, but more importantly, to be honest about their own sin, where guilt actually resided.

And in repentance and faith, they worked to make things right.

Summary of verses 32 through 37, we see the people relying on the character of God.

Relying on the character of God.

One of the great mysteries of the character of God is the harmony of his perfect, righteous justice and his unmerited, lavish mercy.

As we work to be in relationship to God, we must strive to know and love him in the tension of both.

God is fully just and fully merciful.

There was nothing that God was doing in disciplining Israel that was unmerited.

God wasn't just some angry father that wanted to take his anger out on something, so he chose Israel to do it.

He wasn't one who couldn't control his temper, and so he just had to make sure that he punished something and someone.

No, God is not that type of father to his children, but God is just.

And our sin demands his perfect justice.

But there's another equal, full, and whole side of God.

He is lavishly merciful.

What that means is that he doesn't give us what we deserve in his mercy.

Instead, he gives us his hand of blessing, he gives us his favor, he gives us his unmerited grace and love.

That is what God gives to his children.

God gives good things to his people.

And the people of Israel are calling on that character reality of God in this moment.

Not denying his justice, not denying their sin and its demand for his justice, but they aren't pleaing for that.

They're pleaing for the equal, opposite end of his character that's held in perfect harmony with his justice, and it's his lavish mercy that he gives to his people.

That's what they're pleaing on.

Same God.

Same God in relationship with his people.

While they acknowledge and affirm the justice of God for their sins that they and their fathers have committed, they are pleading for the mercy of God to be shown to them now.

You see, they discover themselves under the rule and reign of a foreign king.

They do not have the liberty and blessing that God once had given to them.

So they ask God for help.

They ask God to move according to his character, to show them mercy, and to put on display the power of his redemption and provision once again.

The people of Israel are relying not on empty promises of trying harder and doing better that they might make.

They're not relying on their own strength and effort to get them out of the situation they're in.

No, they're relying on one thing: the character of God.

The character of God.

His mercy that has unwaveringly displayed to them from generation to generation.

So what does this help us with?

On asking the question, well, how do we ask God for help?

We have to fundamentally understand this.

Our help is assured in his reputation.

Our help is assured in his reputation.

The most critical thing for us to see and understand in this passage is the persistent plea made by the people based on the reputation of God, not on their own.

It's the retelling of the story of God, the ways in which he's been faithful, the times of blessing, and when he has shown mercy.

That is the root of their petition.

That is the foundation of their request, their prayer.

It is in the darkness of our distress that we must recall and remember what God has done for us in the light.

The places that he showed his steadfast love, his kindness, his faithfulness, his blessing, his mercy.

It's for us to set our gaze heavenward.

To be able to look upon the Lord, who loves us and causes us to be beneficiaries of his blessing.

Church, can you think back?

Are you able to recall and reflect on the ways that he's moved and worked on your behalf?

Or have you been lulled asleep?

Have you been forgetful?

Have you been presumptuous?

Are you able to see and retell the glories of his loving kindness that he has shown to you?

You see, this is the reputation that God has before his people.

Israel did not ask for help based on anything that they were committing to do.

They asked for help based upon everything that God had already done for them.

As they were able to be committed and be honest with themselves, they discovered how unfaithful they were, but how faithful he had been.

To attempt to ask God for help based on any condition of self would have been utter vanity.

Any plea for help based on promises to be better or more faithful or try harder would have never panned out.

So the plea for help was based on his promises.

We can ask God for help because he is truly our helper.

And he has shown himself time and time again to be just that for his people.

How do we ask God for help then?

We ask it from a remembering.

We ask it from a remembering of who he is and what he has done.

Because there, there, that is the root of our confidence that he will do it again.

Many of us though we struggle with this, we struggle in asking God for help.

And I think that there's two kind of primary reasons that I want to put forward before you of why this is the case.

Some of us, some of us are so prideful and arrogant, we don't even ask God for help.

We don't ask God to help due to prideful rejection.

Hear me out.

Many of us, if we're honest with ourselves, we look at our current situation and we either blame God or blame others.

We look at our current situation of distress and despair, and we can point the finger anywhere, around us or upward, but we cannot point it back to ourselves.

We fail to reflect and take responsibility for our own actions, which ultimately has determined the very need for us to ask for help in the first place.

We approach our need for help through a sense of entitlement, convincing ourselves very effectively that if God really loved me, if God really was good, I wouldn't be in this situation in the first place.

So what do we do?

With our eyes fixed on our circumstances, stiff-necked and head down, we reject God and his help.

And we strive to get ourselves out of our mess.

But how foolish of folly is such a thing?

Because it's our very selves that has gotten us into the mess we find ourselves in.

It's a man steeped in pride who refuses to take ownership of the reasons he's in trouble, and who also works in his own strength to try and get out of it.

And in that pride, we often end up rejecting God and the redemption that he freely offers to all of those who call on the name of the Lord, they will be saved.

That's a promise of God for his people.

But instead, we reject God.

We find ourselves in far more distress than what we're actually in because in our rejection of him, we fundamentally reject life itself.

Too many people have rejected God because in their pride they refused to be honest about their actions and decisions that had gotten them into their need for help.

Not because God was not near to them to provide the help that they were truly needing.

Others of us, though, we tried to persuade God's help through false repentance.

We tried to persuade God's help through false repentance.

How foolish are we to imagine we could persuade God that we could convince him to move on our behalf.

Many of us, if we're honest with ourselves, often we try to persuade God through empty promises of doing better and trying harder just to get his help.

We say things like, I'll never do that again, or if you get me out of this, I'll fill in the blank.

We try to persuade God, but ultimately we do this because we don't really understand God or his character.

We fail to understand the gospel and the nature and character of God.

God is omniscient.

What that means is he knows all things.

He doesn't just know if you're going to keep that promise or not, he knows the very intentions of the heart making the promise in the first place.

That's how intimate God is with his creation, with his image bearers, you and I.

We can promise till we're blue in the face.

But God truly knows the intention of our heart and our ability to follow through to actually keep the promise that we've made in the first place.

And too often, as God in his omniscience gazes into the heart of man, what he sees is a desire to escape the consequence of his choices and actions, not a godly sorrow that causes him to turn from his sin.

This is not true repentance.

This is the root of false repentance.

When we get found out, when we get caught and we want to escape the consequences and implications, we are willing to do whatever it takes.

The celebrity media is chock full of people who get caught and found out, and they're willing to do whatever it takes to get out of the consequences of society.

To do whatever it takes to get out of the condemnation of culture.

But they don't really hate the sin that got them there in the first place.

They don't really, they're not really full of godly sorrow of the ways that they fell short and missed the mark.

No, they're terrified of the aftermath.

That's false repentance.

In the moment of our pain, suffering, hurt, people will say anything to get us out.

But true repentance, true repentance hates the very sin that landed us in the position.

You see, true repentance takes responsibility for the choices and actions, and it sees them in light of God's holy word and righteous standard.

They're not blind to the pain that they've caused to others or to self, but their primary source of heartache is what they have done against God who loves them.

We don't want to act as if there's no pain that's extended to the others in our life and our sin.

If I was to commit adultery against my wife, the pain that it would cause to her, the pain that it would cause to my children, the pain that it would cause to many of you sitting in these seats.

I don't want to ignore that reality.

But I should be driven by the way that I have sinned against my Maker, the way that I have not lived to his righteousness, the way that I have rejected and been stiff-necked and rebellious against his holy word.

The psalmist David, King David of Israel, he sums it up perfectly.

After he had committed adultery with a woman named Bathsheba, and they had consumed a child, that they he actually put Bathsheba's husband on the front lines of war so that he might die, and David could cover up this iniquity and sin.

And in heartache for the way that he rebelled against his maker, David writes this in Psalm 51, verse 4.

Psalms 51:4

He says, Against you and you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.

True repentance is evidenced by godly sorrow, not a fear of consequence.

Remember, church, Romans 2, 4 shows us that it is the kindness of God that leads us to repentance.

It is not our repentance that invokes God's kindness to us.

It is experiencing the everlasting, perpetual kindness of God towards us that causes us to repent.

The beauty of the gospel for us this morning, church, is that through Jesus' finished work, God's help is with us.

God's help is with us.

In Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection, he stands before his disciples and followers and he says, This, it is better that I go away and be with the Father than to remain with you.

Because when I go away, I'm going to send the helper.

The Spirit of God sent by the Word of God to be the help of God for His people.

You see, we want to ask God to help us.

God has filled us with His help.

If we are in Christ, the helper Himself fills you.

The help of God seals you.

The help of God sustains you.

The help of God fortifies you.

The help of God sees you into glory.

God's help is ever present and near to his people now more than it has ever been.

And too many times we ask God for help, and God in his response says, I have filled you with it.

I have given it to you freely.

In Christ we have the helper, the Spirit of God.

How much more near could God be to us than to fill our very chest?

How much more able could God be for us to help us than to make us alive in Christ?

How much more help could we have from God than that he carries us along by the power of his spirit into his ever-present arms?

It is through Jesus' finished work, God's help is with us.

And so what should we do?

My prayer for us is that we would ask God for help because of who He is and what He has done.

Church, we might find ourselves in situations of despair and distress.

We might find ourselves in places that we are crying and pleaing out for help.

Let it not be motivated by us trying harder next time to not get in this situation.

Let it not be motivated by working harder and striving more.

Let it be motivated by gazing up from the valley we find ourselves in.

Look, what is what is the songs call us to?

Look to the hills where my help comes from.

That means set your gaze heavenward because your help comes from God alone.

When we retell and reflect and remember the nature and character of God, what he has done, and who he has proven himself to be in his reputation, it is in that that we can be assured our help is present.