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Nehemiah: A Blueprint for Revival Prayer * Nehemiah 1-2 Good morning. How’s every one doing? Good? Well, if not I hope you will be by the time we are done this morning. Let’s take our Bibles and turn to Nehemiah 1. While you are turning, let me take a moment to remind you that we are currently in the process of considering whether or not to move forward on a permanent location for our Burlington Campus, and I strongly encourage you to continue to pray about this matter and to share your prayerful thoughts, concerns and questions with us. Last week we held Q & A times at both campuses and we will continue to have opportunities for you to give us your feedback in the days ahead. By the way, if you haven’t been here the last couple of weeks, I encourage to pick up a brochure with all of the details and watch the message from May 3 online sometime real soon. Ok, today we are going to cover pretty much the same passage of Scripture we did last week, just in much greater detail. Last week I gave an introduction to Nehemiah and an overview of where we are headed in this series, and it would probably be good for me to quickly review that today. So, last Sunday I explained that the book of Nehemiah recounts the story of how God used Nehemiah to bring about a physical and spiritual revival amongst the Jewish people in the 5th century before the birth of Jesus Christ. The story begins with Nehemiah receiving word that things aren’t going well in Jerusalem, as the city and the people there are a physical and spiritual mess. Upon hearing this news, Nehemiah, who is serving as the Persian King Artaxerxes’ right hand man, immediately begins praying that God would give him success in asking the king for permission to go to Jerusalem and rebuild it. And the primary thing we talked about last week was why Nehemiah was willing to do so. Why he was willing to risk pretty much everything in an attempt to see revival come to a place he had never been and to a people he had never met. The answer we came up with was that Nehemiah cared. He

cared about the reputation of God, he cared about the city of God, and he cared about the people of God. To put it simply, Nehemiah cared about the things God cared about. From this we determined that the first step in preparing for revival is starting to care. It’s in seeing that things aren’t the way God wants them to be, and caring enough to do something about it. That’s the first piece of a blueprint for revival. Until we care enough to do something about it, we can’t expect revival to take place. So, that was last week, and now today we are going to discuss the second, and honestly the most important part of preparing for revival: prayer. And let me just say this. Over the next seven weeks we are going to see many admirable traits in Nehemiah: he was a leader, a visionary, and a man of action and integrity. However, the most important thing we will learn about Nehemiah is that he was a man of prayer. There are nine different instances of prayer in this book of just 13 chapters, and Nehemiah is involved in all nine of them. So, from that we can take that the most important component in preparing for revival is prayer, and we are going to see how and why that is the case today. Now, with that said, let me take a moment to challenge you a little bit, and then follow that up with some encouragement. Here’s the challenge. I think it’s fair to say that by and large most of us stink at prayer. Let’s just be honest and not beat around the bush. Even though we know prayer is an essential part of the Christian life, and even though we know the Bible commands us to pray over and over again, it’s probably at the very top of the list of things we struggle to do. And I know this might sound harsh, but the reason I can say this is that many of you have told me that you struggle to pray. I also know that I struggle to pray and since I’ve found that in general we are all pretty similar, I’m confident this is a struggle for a majority of those who call Harmony Bible Church their home. It’s just not something we excel in. However, brothers and sisters, if we are going to see revival here, this has got to change. We’ve got to become people of prayer. Now, let me try to encourage you for a second. Here’s the good news today; you can grow in prayer. Are you listening? If you will pay attention today and submit to the Holy Spirit, I am confident that he will help you grow in  

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prayer, with the result that you will see God show up in your life in a big way. In fact, and I don’t think this is an exaggeration; this could be the most impactful message you have ever heard. Not because I’ve written the best message or will give the greatest delivery, but rather because prayer is the most potent tool God has given us to access the unlimited power of his Holy Spirit. What I am saying is that if you will do your part, the Holy Spirit will do his part, with the result that you will grow in prayer and find God showing up in your life in a greater and greater way. So, with that said, let’s read our passage for today, beginning in Nehemiah 1 verse 4: As soon as I heard these words I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven. [5] And I said, “O LORD God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, [6] let your ear be attentive and your eyes open, to hear the prayer of your servant that I now pray before you day and night for the people of Israel your servants, confessing the sins of the people of Israel, which we have sinned against you. Even I and my father's house have sinned. [7] We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, and the rules that you commanded your servant Moses. [8] Remember the word that you commanded your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples, [9] but if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there I will gather them and bring them to the place that I have chosen, to make my name dwell there.’ [10] They are your servants and your people, whom you have redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand. [11] O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant, and to the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name, and give success to your servant today, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.” Now I was cupbearer to the king. [1] In the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was before him, I took up the wine and gave it to the king. Now I had not been sad in his presence. [2] And the king said to me, “Why is your face sad, seeing you are not sick? This is nothing but sadness of the heart.” Then I was very much afraid. [3] I said to the king, “Let the king live forever! Why should not  

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my face be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers' graves, lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?” [4] Then the king said to me, “What are you requesting?” So I prayed to the God of heaven. [5] And I said to the king, “If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, that you send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers' graves, that I may rebuild it.” [6] And the king said to me (the queen sitting beside him), “How long will you be gone, and when will you return?” So it pleased the king to send me when I had given him a time. [7] And I said to the king, “If it pleases the king, let letters be given me to the governors of the province Beyond the River, that they may let me pass through until I come to Judah, [8] and a letter to Asaph, the keeper of the king's forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the fortress of the temple, and for the wall of the city, and for the house that I shall occupy.” And the king granted me what I asked, for the good hand of my God was upon me. (Nehemiah 1:4-2:1-8 ESV) Six Things Nehemiah Teaches Us About Prayer All right, from this passage I want to look at six things Nehemiah teaches us about prayer. 1. Prayer should be a priority. Number one, prayer should be a priority. Chapter one verse six tells us that Nehemiah prayed day and night, and he did so until God answered, which as we saw last week took four months. Now, we don’t see this in the text, but I think it’s safe to assume that just like Daniel before him, this was Nehemiah’s habit. In other words, it wasn’t just a special occasion. We can assume that Nehemiah made it a practice to spend regular, daily time in prayer. So, let me get right to the point here; we all need to do the same. We all need to have a regular, daily time dedicated to prayer. Now, I’m guessing none of you are shocked that I would say this. None of you are thinking right now, “What? I’m supposed to pray? I never knew that.” However, I’m also guessing that a couple of objections or excuses immediately pop into your mind. The first is that you are too busy. You just don’t have time. You  

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know you should pray, you want to pray, but you just don’t have the time. But here’s the reality friends; it really isn’t about having enough time, it’s about prioritizing the time we do have. If prayer is a priority for you, you will find time for it. That’s how life works. We give our time to the things we believe are most important. A while back, John Piper made a statement that illustrates this very well. He said: One of the great uses of Twitter and Facebook will be to prove at the Last Day that prayerlessness was not from lack of time. Now, not all of you are saying ouch right now, but if you’re not all you need to do is replace Facebook with TV, or sports, or hunting, or shopping, or sleeping, or whatever. [American adults spend 5 hrs. a day watching TV, over 11 hrs. total on digital media]. If we are not praying, it’s not because of a lack of time, but rather because of a lack of priority. And so one of the biggest things I hope to get across to you today, something I hope will reach all the way into your heart is that there is nothing more important in the Christian life than prayer. Why? Because there is nothing more important in the Christian life than God, and prayer is the means by which we experience our relationship with him. Battle for joy Dingeldein Psalm 16:11 in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. (Psalm 16:11 ESV) Now, a second excuse for not making prayer a priority is that we don’t know how and I’m going to spend the rest of the message addressing this issue. I want to free us all from using this excuse. 2. Prayer should begin with praise. So, the second thing Nehemiah teaches us about prayer is that it should begin with praise. Look at how Nehemiah begins his prayer in v. 5:  

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“O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments.” You will note that Nehemiah doesn’t dive right in and make his request; no, he first takes time to praise God for how great and awesome and loving he his. Now, I don’t know about you, but this is not my tendency. My tendency when I pray is to get right down to business; to immediately start asking God for things. Lord, give me this. Lord, take care of that. Lord, please spare me from having to deal with this right now. However, prayer shouldn’t start with asking God for things but rather with praise, and here’s why. First, God deserves it. He deserves our praise. He is great and awesome and loving and we need to tell him so. By the way, Harmony, do we believe this? Do we believe God is great and awesome and loving? Yes? Well, if so, we need to tell him this is the case. Second, before we are ready to ask the Lord for things, we need to remind ourselves that he is able to grant our requests. We need to be reminded, as Paul says in Ephesians 1, of “his unbelievably great power towards those who believe.” I’m convinced one of the reasons we don’t pray as we should is due to the fact that we forget just how awesome God is and the reason we forget is we fail to praise him for that fact. Third, praise helps get our heart in the right place. I don’t know about you but I hardly ever come to prayer with my heart in the right place. My habit is to pray in the morning…and even though I am a morning person I still more often than not wake up on the wrong side of the bed spiritually. Hallelujah chorus. Too often when we come to prayer we are focused on ourselves and on our problems. But you see, at the core of every problem we face as human beings, and in particular with prayer, is our tendency to make ourselves way too big and God way to small. And listen, if you approach prayer with a big self and a little God, you are doomed before you ever get going. That’s why we need to start with praise, because in doing so we become small and God becomes big and when that happens we are right where we need to be in order for prayer to work as it should.  

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3. Prayer should include confession. The third thing Nehemiah teaches us about prayer is that it should include confession, which Nehemiah clearly shows us in v. 6-7. Look at them with me: Let your ear be attentive and your eyes open, to hear the prayer of your servant that I now pray before you day and night for the people of Israel your servants, confessing the sins of the people of Israel, which we have sinned against you. Even I and my father’s house have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments, the statues, and the rules that you commanded your servant Moses. Confession, of course, is another aspect of prayer we all too frequently leave out, and yet it is just as essential as praise. In fact, prayer can be useless with out it, as Psalm 66 tells us that if we have known sin in our lives, our prayers fall on deaf ears. In other words, God won’t hear us. Let me point out three things about Nehemiah’s prayer of confession. First, note it’s not only corporate, but also personal. Nehemiah confesses the sins of the people of Israel as a whole, but he also confesses his own sin. He doesn’t distance himself from the fact that he has personally sinned against a holy and righteous God. Second, Nehemiah’s confession isn’t general, but specific. He doesn’t simply say, “We have sinned,” no, he goes a step further and says that, “we have have broken God’s commandments, statues, and rules.” This is important because it’s easy to admit that we have sinned in general. It’s easy to agree “we all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory.” It’s another matter, however, to get specific about where we have done so, and that’s exactly what we should do when we are confessing our sins. We should get specific about it. Third, in his confession Nehemiah isn’t just admitting that he has sinned, but agreeing with God about how awful it is. Notice that he is painfully honest  

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when he says, “we have acted very corruptly against you”. And brothers and sisters, at its heart, that is what confession is. It’s agreeing with God about our sin. It’s not generalizing, it’s not rationalizing and it’s not downplaying sin in anyway. It’s agreeing with God that what he calls sin is sin, and that we have been very wicked in committing it. Now, that’s pretty heavy, so let me give you some comfort. Note what God promises to those who confess their sins. Everyone listening. Put your phones away. Wake up. This is wonderful. If you don’t need it today, you will need it at some point in your life. Everyone needs to pay attention here. Isaiah 55: Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; [7] let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. (Isaiah 55:6-7 ESV) Another objection is that pardon. Another reason we don’t pray is that we think we aren’t worthy. He will make us worthy. 4. Prayer should focus on God’s Word. The fourth thing Nehemiah teaches us about prayer is that it should focus on God’s Word. I want you to look closely with me at how Nehemiah prays in v. 8-10: Remember the word that you commanded your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples, [9] but if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there I will gather them and bring them to the place that I have chosen, to make my name dwell there.’ [10] They are your servants and your people, whom you have redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand. (Nehemiah 1:8-10 ESV) In these verses Nehemiah is essentially praying Scripture. He’s reminding God of the promises he has made to the people of Israel in the book of  

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Deuteronomy. Now, why would Nehemiah pray like this? Does God have a memory problem? Is God like us and forgets things from time to time? No, of course not. Instead, Nehemiah is actually reminding himself. He’s reminding himself of God’s promises and that those promises always come true. What Nehemiah is essentially doing here is expressing faith. He’s showing that he believes in God’s promises and he’s asking God to fulfill those promises. And I want to submit to you today that this is how we should pray. We should pray God’s Word back to him? Why? Well, because we can know that when we pray God’s Word our prayers will be answered. 1 John 5:14-15 says this: And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. [15] And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him. (1 John 5:14-15 ESV) According to this passage, when we pray according to God’s will, we always get what we ask. And how do we know what God’s will is? Well, we find his will in His Word. Do you want to know God’s will for your life? Well, then look in God’s Word. And when you find God’s will, then you should pray God’s will, and when you pray God’s will, you can know that your prayers will be answered. Very practically – how do I pray? Start with praise, move to confession, and then take your requests and pray God’s Word over them. 5. Prayer should have God’s glory as its goal. The fifth thing Nehemiah teaches us about prayer is that should have God’s glory as its goal. Look at the first part of v. 11: O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant, and to the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name.

 

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It’s clear from this verse, and also from how Nehemiah responds in chapter 2, verse 8 to Artaxerxes granting his request, that Nehemiah’s greatest goal in all of this was to bring glory to God. Nehemiah prayed what he prayed not for his own glory, but rather because he delighted to please the Lord. Let me tell you why this needs to be the case for us as well. At the end of the day, the primary purpose of prayer is to draw us closer to God and to bring our line in will with his will. It’s about, as Jesus prayed, seeing his will done in our lives as it is in heaven. Prayer is not primarily about getting what we want, but rather about what God wants. It’s crucial that we get this, because a great deal of the time God doesn’t answer our prayers the way we want him too. That was true for Nehemiah. I’m quite sure he wanted an answer right away, but God waited four months. I’d have to guess there were a few moments during those four months where Nehemiah questioned what God was up to. Not only that, but as we will see in the days ahead, Nehemiah ran into all kinds of opposition, not only from his enemies, but from the Jewish people himself. I mean, here’s a guy trying to do what God has clearly led him to do, but God doesn’t exactly make it easy on him. And I’m guessing you have had similar experiences. God hasn’t answered your prayers the way you have wanted him to. Why wouldn’t God do this? And that’s why you have to keep in mind that the goal of prayer isn’t to get what you want, but what God wants. And what does God want? God wants to bring glory to himself by drawing you closer to him. That’s what we are actually going to see happens with Nehemiah. Throughout this book, God brings glory to himself as he draws Nehemiah and the people of Jerusalem closer to himself. God may not give you what you want, but he will always give you what you need. Which is more of himself. 6. Prayer should be spontaneous. Ok, the sixth and final thing Nehemiah teaches us about prayer is that it should be spontaneous. Not only should prayer be planned, but it should also be on the spur of the moment, as Nehemiah shows us in chapter 2.

 

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You will note that in v. 4 when Nehemiah finally gets his chance to make his request to the king, before he does so he pauses to pray. Now, I think we can assume that this wasn’t a long pause. I’m guessing Nehemiah didn’t ask the king for a timeout so he could go to his room and pray. No, the king would have wanted an immediate response, and so Nehemiah’s prayer could have only been seconds at the most. In fact, Nehemiah was probably praying and answering the king at the same time. From this I think we can learn two things. First, we can learn that spontaneous prayers work. You might think that there is no real reason to pray quick, spontaneous prayers because, you know, what good can they do? You’re in a tight spot, and you need help, but hey, God doesn’t really have time to work. However, note what Isaiah 65:24 says: Before they call I will answer; while they are yet speaking I will hear. (Isaiah 65:24 ESV) God doesn’t need 5, 10, or 15 minutes to answer our prayers. In fact, he doesn’t need anytime at all. Or to quote John Piper again: God can do more in five seconds than we can do in five years. Second, from Nehemiah’s spontaneous prayer we can learn that when we think we’ve prayed enough, we need to pray a little more.1 Nehemiah had been praying for four months, night and day. He could have said, I’ve prayed enough. I’ve met my quota. But no, he showed his continued dependence on God by praying just a little more. So, here’s the application. I’m sure we have some parents here who have prayed for a wayward child to for years, but nothing has seemed to happen. Nehemiah would tell you to pray a little more. I’m sure we have a husband or wife here who has prayed for their spouse for                                                                                                                 1  Adapted from a sermon on Nehemiah 1 by Steve DeWitt.  

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years, with no apparent change. Nehemiah tells you to pray just a little more. No doubt there are those here who have prayed and prayed for an illness to be taken away. I urge you to pray just a little more. Brothers and sisters, whatever you have been praying for, be inspired by Nehemiah to pray just a little more. Notice the result for Nehemiah. He could have been killed, but instead the king granted his request. Actually, if you look at v. 8, it wasn’t the king who answered, but rather God himself. God moved the heart of the king to grant what Nehemiah asked for. And so, I say to you again, when you think you have prayed enough, pray a little more. As Jesus told his disciples in Luke 18, keep on praying and never give up, because at just the right time God will answer, even if it requires changing the mind of a wicked, pagan king. Let’s pray. Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. [15] For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. [16] Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:14-16 ESV) Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. © 2015 by Chris Carr. You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that: (1) you credit the author, (2) any modifications are clearly marked, (3) you do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, (4) you include Harmony Bible Church’s website address (www.harmonybiblechurch.org) on the copied resource.

   

 

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