The way we see our sin and the way we deal with it has a huge impact on our spirit

spiritual growth and on our worship. Today on Truth For Life, we'll learn how to prepare for

worship in a way that declares our faith, displays our unity with other believers, and reveals

our dependence on God.

Alistair Begg is teaching from the opening verses of Nehemiah chapter 9.

The application of Nehemiah chapter 9, when we come to it, and it says that the people

of God separated themselves from all foreigners, is simply this. If you are in Christ today,

you are different, radically different.

So how they dressed, revealed their hearts, where they stood, made clear their allegiance,

and thirdly what they said, revealed their need. They stood in their places and confessed

their sins and the wickedness of their fathers. We are so consumed with the idea that all

we're supposed to get is good news that if anybody apparently brings us bad news, we

regard them as being a close cousin to Attila the Hun, or having their license plate in

Salem, Massachusetts. But when the law of God was read, sin was pinpointed and defined,

sin came out of its hiding place, sin showed up and revealed the immensity of the problem.

The loved ones, I need to say to you this morning, and God is bringing this forcibly home

to my own heart and my own life, as long as sin in our minds remains simply a nuisance,

or an inconvenience, or an embarrassment, then we will never ever deal with it and we will

never make any progress. This kind of encounter with God is directly related to understanding

that sin is an offense against God. And the only way that we will come to that conclusion

is if we have the privilege of sitting under the kind of proclamation that took place here in

NAMIA chapter 9. The law of God needs to be proclaimed. Without the proclaiming of the law of God,

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