Sharon Reformed Presbyterian Church · Sermon study sheet

Covenant & Compassion - Nehemiah 9-10

Bryan Schneider · November 26, 2019

Nehemiah 9

sharonrpc.org/sermons/covenant-compassion

Summary

Nehemiah 9-10 forms one covenant-renewal document in which the people read God's law, fast, worship, confess their own sins and their ancestors' sins, and seal concrete promises.
Their prayer identifies the covenant Lord as the sole Creator, preserver, sovereign ruler, and righteous keeper of every promise.
Israel's history repeatedly contrasts God's faithful provision and rescue with human pride, forgetfulness, idolatry, disobedience, and return to bondage.
God is repeatedly praised as ready to pardon, gracious, compassionate, slow to anger, abundant in covenant kindness, and unwilling utterly to forsake his people.
Confession becomes personal rather than merely ancestral: the present generation acknowledges that God's judgments are just and that they too have acted wickedly.
The sealed promises concern worship, marriage allegiance, Sabbath practice, debt release, offerings, firstfruits, tithes, and refusal to neglect God's house.
Israel's renewed commitment still points beyond itself to the better covenant, whose only mediator and surety is Jesus Christ and whose promises are sealed in his blood.

What elements make Nehemiah 9-10 a covenant-renewal document?
Which acts of creation, provision, deliverance, and patience establish God's faithfulness?
What repeating cycle characterizes Israel's response to God's goodness?
Why must confession include present personal sin rather than only the failures of earlier generations?
What does the repeated language of compassion reveal about God's character?
How do the promises of chapter 10 turn confession into concrete obedience?
Why can the renewed covenant in Nehemiah not be the final answer to sin?
How does Jesus secure and mediate the better covenant?

Covenant: A solemn, binding relationship established by promises and obligations, here renewed between the Lord and his people.
Covenant renewal: The community's fresh confession of God's lordship, its sin, and its obligation to walk faithfully under his covenant.
Compassion: God's attentive mercy toward distressed and undeserving people, repeatedly moving him to pardon, sustain, and deliver.
Covenant kindness: God's steadfast, gracious devotion to the people to whom he has pledged himself.
Confession: Agreeing with God's judgment by naming personal and corporate sin without shifting blame.
Mediator: The one who brings covenant parties together; Jesus alone mediates the covenant of grace through his person and saving death.