Successful through Praying

Good morning. is it supposed to get in the 100s today? OK., I've actually been looking forward to temperatures getting into the 100s on a Sunday. So that we can enjoy the sensation of being cool in here.

That's something we've not known for, for years, but Just so thankful for the opportunity to, to be here and to worship God together as we have just done in song and the lyrics, just so meaningful and centered in gospel truth. we don't just worship God, but as we worship Him through song, we are transported. and I know for me, just in 25 minutes, I was moved from point A to point B, place closer to God, a deeper appreciation of His grace, a greater love for Him, a desire to just go crazy with loving such a wonderful saving God as Jehovah God is.

We, let me have you turn to Nehemiah.

Nehemiah chapter one for time of study in God's word, this morning, we're gonna look just exclusively at, chapter one, today. and there's a reading schedule that's in your bulletins so that you can, be reading along, through our summer quarter with our summer advance, program. If you're behind, that's OK. Just keep plugging.

way. There's so much in these two books. I feel like, this is, I, I believe the 5th sermon, on, are from Ezra and now Nehemiah. And I, one of the titles that you could almost give to the series is Back to Basics.

Because in a lot of ways, that's what we're focusing on. We began looking at Ezra 3, and in the first message, from that chapter, we talked about what spiritually awakened people do, very fundamental things that the people of Judah did in Ezra 3 that we should do as well. Then we looked in Ezra 7 and saw how the good hand of God was upon Ezra because Ezra had committed himself to studying the Word of God and practicing the Word of God and teaching the Word of God to other people.

and then the following week, we looked at Ezra 9 and 10, and the title of that message was good old fashioned repentance.

that's a basic in the Christian life, a staple of, living. In Christ where we repent of our sins and we learn from their example in those two chapters. And then last week, we looked at Ezra 5 and 6 and observed how the people of Judah experienced success in building through the prophesying of the prophet Hagiai and Zechariah. these are all, very fundamental things that we're focusing on, and it's good for us to do this.

We're here at a new location, and some things are different, but thankfully, some things are not different. We have the same God, the same gospel, and the same basic disciplines of the Christian life that will never change and should never change in our midst. This is a good opportunity for us to remind ourselves who we are and what we have been all about as a church, what we wanna continue to be all about as a church, and if anything, what we wanna go deeper into as a church.

If you wanna give a title to what we're gonna talk about this morning, it's yet another basic in the Christian life, and that is prayer.

And you can give the message the title Successful Through praying. Successful through praying. Last week in Ezra chapter 6 verse 14, the text says that they were successful in building through the prophesying of Hagiai and Zechariah. Today, in Nehemiah chapter 1 and verse 11, we're gonna find Nehemiah praying a prayer.

And in his prayer, he says, oh Lord, I beseech you, make your servant successful today. And that word successful is the same word as the word we found in Ezra chapter 6 verse 14. We all want to be successful. We want to be successful as a church.

We want to be successful in our homes, in our marriages, in our parenting, in our walk with the Lord, in our battles against sin. And we know that we find that success through the word, but we find today that we also find it through prayer. So today we're gonna focus on prayer. And the role that prayer plays in us experiencing the success that God has given to us by way of our birthright as Christians.

As we talk about prayer, please know, and I've researched this to find this out. That the devil actually prefers that we not talk about this subject. he would definitely prefer that even if we talk about it, that you not listen to it. So, don't be surprised if you're distracted this morning and tempted to not pay attention.

And even if we do talk about prayer this morning and actually hear what God is saying, the devil prefers that we not practice anything that we will be learning. by way of example, today. This is the way that the devil operates. He wants Christians to pray as little as possible and churches to pray as little as possible.

One of my favorite writers and commentators is D. Edmund Hebert, and he says it beautifully. He says it this way, the devil cares but little. How many activities we engage in or how many organizations the church has developed so long as he can keep believers from intensive prayer.

Without prayer, all the machinery is useless for lack of power. He goes on to say this. The church must recover the truth and practice of prayer as a vital working force. The secret of the church's spiritual power today lies not in the multiplication of organizations, the development of skillfully devised plans of operation, the achievement of organizational unity, nor yet the swelling of church roles, but in persevering spirit taught.

Intercession. The devil fears nothing. From a prayerless church. The devil fears nothing from a church that has brand new seats.

He fears nothing from a church that is in a really nice facility. He fears nothing from a church that has a really cool sound system. There's nothing wrong with any of those things. But the devil does not fear those things.

You can just imagine the devil trembling. At Cornerstone and someone saying, what, what are you trembling for? And he's like, I'm just frightened. What are you frightened by?

Well, Cornerstone, well, what about Cornerstone? He's like, well, have you seen their new seats? Have you, have you seen their sound system? I tremble before this church.

No. The devil has little to fear from any of these things. What he does tremble at. is a praying Christian.

What he trembles before is a praying people, a praying church, and Nehemiah can help us tremendously, with this. Nehemiah, amongst other things, is a book on prayer. There are a total actually of 11 prayers throughout the book. Of Nehemiah.

It is a book that indeed is bustling with activity for God, yet it is also full of prayers to God. There are actually 9 actual prayers that are found in the 13 chapters of this book. 9 prayers are recorded in this book with 2 additional times that Nehemiah is said to pray, although we don't know the contents of what he prayed. We find Nehemiah praying in chapter 1, verses 4 to 11, chapter 4, verses 4 and 5, chapter 5, verse 19, chapter 6, verse 9, and also in verse 14, chapter 13, verse 1413, verse 22, 13 verse 29, and chapter 13, verse 30.

These are actual prayers of Nehemiah. that are recorded and then there are two additional times where Nehemiah is said to pray, but what he prays is not recorded. In chapter 2 verse 4, he says, so I prayed. To the God of heaven.

In chapter 4 verse 9, he says, but we prayed to our God. 11 times in this book, we find Nehemiah and others going to prayer. Nehemiah was a man who prayed. Some of his prayers in this book are longer and some are shorter, some are even one sentence long.

At least one of them was a silent prayer. Sometimes Nehemiah prays by himself, other times others are praying with him, but all of them are prayers, and we find them throughout this book. In fact, Nehemiah, the book ends with a prayer, and we find it beginning with a prayer. Here in chapter one.

And so there's much that we can learn about prayer from this book and from Nehemiah's example, and there's a lot to learn. The longest of his prayers is found here in Nehemiah chapter one, and that's what we'll be taking a look at this morning. Let's ponder though, what it was that provoked Nehemiah's prayer. He didn't just pray in a vacuum, something had happened that caused him to go before God and began to pray.

And the first thing we observed that he did that served as the context for his prayer is he inquired about the welfare of God's people. It says in verse one, the words of Nehemiah, the son of Hachaliah. Now it happened in the month of Chislev in the 20th year while I was in Susa, the capital, that Henna I, one of my brothers, and some men from Judah came, and I asked them concerning the Jews who had escaped and had survived the captivity and about Jerusalem. They said to me, The remnant there in the province who survived the captivity are in great distress and reproach, and the wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its gates are burned with fire.

Nehemiah is living in the capital city of the Persian Empire. He is living in plush surroundings. He has a cush job as the cupbearer to the king. He is a man of very privileged position, and yet in spite of his comfortable situation, he is concerned about the people of God 900 miles away in Jerusalem.

It's actually been, you, you might read Ezra and then Nehemiah and think, OK, Ezra ends, Nehemiah, picks right up where Ezra leaves off. Actually, Nehemiah chapter 1, verse 1, the events that are recorded there are about 90 years after the initial return of the people when the 40,000. Jews return, from Persia to Jerusalem and Ezra 1. About 90 years have gone by from those events in Ezra 1, by the time we get to Nehemiah chapter 1.

And so 90 years have gone by, and many of the Jews have returned and settled in Jerusalem. The temple has been built. We've seen all of that. And Nehemiah is talking to these people that are visiting and saying, how is the city?

How are the people of God? And he hears bad news that the remnant that is there is in great distress. They are a reproach, in other words, a laughing stock, and the wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its gates are burned with fire. Look how Nehemiah responds.

He responds by weeping over the welfare of God's people. He says in verse 4, when I heard these words, I sat down and I wept and mourned for days, and I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven. The prayer that follows is not necessarily just one prayer that he prayed. This is the prayer that he kept on praying over the length of days that he is mourning and weeping and fasting as he prays before God.

In this weeping state with his heart broken for the people of God 900 miles away, Nehemiah stops eating and begins to pray in earnest, the prayer that we find in chapter one. Ultimately, he's going to pray for success for himself, but a certain success. And we're going to observe this morning 6 elements. that are inside of Nehemiah's prayer for success.

The first of these elements, and this is gonna be so instructive for us is as he begins his prayer, we observed that he confesses the greatness of God. He confesses the greatness of God. We were just singing about God's greatness just a few moments ago. and Nehemiah here goes to prayer, and he begins to contemplate and extol the greatness of God.

He says in verse 5, I said, I beseech you, oh Jehovah, God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who preserves the covenant and loving kindness for those who love Him and keep His commandments. Let your ear now be attentive. And your eyes open to hear the prayer of your servant, which I am praying before you now, day and night on behalf of the sons of Israel, your servants. Nehemiah's heart is crushed.

He's grieving. His heart is pierced. He has much that he wants to say to God and many things, no doubt, he wants to ask from God because the circumstances demand that. And yet he begins his prayer by taking a moment to stare at God.

To contemplate the greatness of God. The first thing Nehemiah does is he thinks of God and beholds God. And we find right off the bat what Nehemiah thinks about this God that he begins his prayer contemplating. AW Tozer once said, listen carefully, the most important thing about you is what comes into your mind when you think of God.

That's the most important thing about you. And given that fact, We learn here at the beginning of Nehemiah's prayer, the most important thing that there is to know about Nehemiah. We, we get to observe what comes to his mind when he thinks about God. He calls God literally Jehovah, God of heaven.

Jehovah, the self-existent one is the idea of the name Jehovah. He's the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He is the all sufficient one, as that name implies, and he also is all of our sufficiency. Jehovah literally means he is, and you can fill in the blank.

What do you need from God? What do you need him to be? He is whatever that need is that you truly need from your God. He is a self-existing and the all sufficient one who meets all of our needs.

Nehemiah also calls him the God of heaven, indicating that he views God as above all that is and as the ruler of heaven. God is not bound by the limits of earth. He is not finite. He is immense in as much as he is the God of all of heaven.

You might hear Nehemiah saying that and referring to God as the God of heaven and say, well, why? Why doesn't he say that God is the God of heaven and earth? Why did he leave earth out? Nehemiah really needs a God who is also the God of earth, not just of heaven.

But actually, Nehemiah is not leaving the earth out. Where is the earth? It sits suspended in the heavens, right? The earth is a heavenly body as much as the moon or the stars may be.

The earth is in the heavens and so to be the Lord God of heaven is to be the Lord God of earth. This is the widest. Most expansive title that Nehemiah could give to God to speak of his rule and his sovereignty. He also refers to God as the great and awesome God, the great and awesome God.

We use the word awesome for a lot of things, right? We'll sing and say, God, you're awesome, and then we'll turn around and something happens. In a football game that we're watching, and we're like, that's awesome. There's nothing wrong with that.

We use the same word in different ways. That's, that's OK. But we use the word awesome so much. That even when we hear Nehemiah refer to God as the awesome God.

our understanding of that can be diminished. Literally, the word that is translated awesome. is the Hebrew word for fear. Literally, he's the fearsome God.

He is the God who inspires fear. He is the God who inspires all and those who love Him and follow Him, and a God who rightfully should inspire terror. In the hearts of those who are his enemies. God is more than great in the mind of Nehemiah, he is fearfully great.

God is a God who provokes the feelings of shock and awe because he is so great. If somehow the scales could be removed from our eyes right now, and we could just behold God and all of His glory and immensity for one second. We would all be killed and destroyed by the sight of him. We can't even begin to comprehend his greatness.

God is the great, the immense, and the fearsome God. And Nehemiah begins his prayer by beholding this and contemplating this reality. He has a vision of God as being a great God. He has a large vision.

of God and he gives voice to that large vision at the beginning of his prayer here. The seeds of Nehemiah's greatness are found in his view of God. As being great. It's interesting, it just comes right off of his tongue.

Later in the book in chapter 8 verse 6, you can write that reference down. Nehemiah refers to God as quote, the great God, unquote. In Nehemiah 9:32, he refers to God as quote, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, unquote. It's just the way he speaks.

About God. If you were to hang out with Nehemiah, whenever he speaks of God, you would know that he is blown away. By the awesomeness of his God. Yes, the task before Nehemiah is great, yes, the need is devastating, but God is bigger than all of that.

If you would like to take the temperature of a person's soul, take note of the size of their god. If you wanna know a church's destiny and usefulness in God's kingdom, measure the dimensions of their view of God. There's a song we sing, how great is our God. That line is actually not really a question in the song, it's a statement, it's an exclamation, but let's think of it as a question.

How great is your God? How great is our God? This is one of the most important questions for you and for me to consider. One of the greatest gifts that we can give to one another.

And the people of this community is a vision of the greatness of God. We serve everyone well when we do this. When we hold forth a vision of an awesome and a great God. As John Piper says, people are starving for the greatness of God.

Most of them would not give this diagnosis. Of their troubled lives. The majesty of God is an unknown cure. We surveyed the neighborhood and said, what would you want in a church?

I don't think that most people would say, I just want to go to a place that magnifies the greatness of God. Some would ask for that, but most people would not think to ask that, and yet there's no greater service that we can render. Piper goes on to say the vision of a great God is the linchpin in the life of a church. It was the linchpin in Nehemiah's life.

It was the linchpin of his prayer here in chapter one. His prayer is filled with the aroma of the greatness of his awesome God. And if we, the leadership here can nurture in you, and if we can nurture in one another a vision of the greatness of our God, then that will revolutionize our prayer life and our lives, period. In the mind of Nehemiah, God's greatness is seen.

Also in the fact that he preserves the covenant and loving kindness for those who love Him and keep his commandments. This is part of God's greatness. God keeps His promises toward his people. His covenant fidelity never wavers.

He is a covenant making God and a covenant keeping God. God is all about relationships, not casual relationships, not consumer relationships, but covenant relationships. When God begins a relationship with you, you will have him over the long haul. Others may give up on you, you may give up on yourself, but God never will because he is a covenant keeping God.

Amen. God's greatness in the mind of Nehemiah is seen in his name and his rule over all of heaven and in the fact that he is a fearsome God of unimaginable power, holiness and justice, and also a God whose greatness is seen and how he makes and keeps his loving covenant with his people. There's a second element of Nehemiah's prayer for success here in chapter one. And that is he confesses sins against God and His word.

He confesses sins. teaching us that a true prayer for success should include admission of our failures. Look at what he says. Let your ear now be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer of your servant which I am praying before you now, day and night on behalf of the sons of Israel, your servants, confessing the sins of the sons of Israel which we We have sinned against you.

I and my father's house have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments nor the statutes, nor the ordinances which you commanded your servant Moses. God is a God who is great in His power and might. He's also great in mercy and because Nehemiah knows that God is great in mercy, Nehemiah feels safe coming to this God to confess his sins to Him.

When you read what this, he's confessing here, you observe that Nehemiah is not merely confessing the sins of the people. He's not merely confessing the sins of his ancestors, his forefathers, his parents. He's confessing his own sins also. We can learn from this.

we, are a nation of sin confessors. the only problem is we don't confess our own sins. We confess the sins of others. You turn on the TV and Whose sins do you want to hear about?

You can go on to Fox News and they do a great job of confessing the sins of the liberals. Go on to MSNBC and they do a great job of confessing the sins of conservatives. But who is confessing their own sins? Husbands and wives.

You don't have to be married for long at all, maybe a day before you develop an immediate skill. At confessing your spouse's sins. But who inside of a marital relationship confesses their own sins first and foremost? Nehemiah knew that his forefathers had sinned and others in Israel and Judah had sinned.

He knew all of that, but he includes himself. I have sinned, he says. We, including himself, have acted very corruptly. Literally that word corruptly means destructively.

Against you and have not kept the commandments. I am as much of a sinner as my ancestors and as my fellow Jews whose sins I am speaking about here. I am no better than any of them are. Nehemiah is confessing before God.

Notice the language that he uses in confessing their sins. In verse 6, confessing the sins of the sons of Israel, which we have sinned against you. Verse 7, we've acted very corruptly against you. Sin is first and foremost.

Against God. Yes, we sin against ourselves. Yes, we sin against other people. But sin is fundamentally against God.

It is intensely personal. It is a personal affront to God. All sin, whether we're mindful of this or not, is directed against Him. That's why after David committed adultery and murdered Uriah, the husband of Bathsheba, God came to him through Nathan, the prophet, and in 2 Samuel 12:10, God says, you have despised me.

You've despised me. Notice also the language. Verse 7, Nehemiah says, we have not kept the commandments nor the statutes, nor the ordinances which you commanded your servant Moses. These are all synonyms speaking of the word of God of their day.

The essence of sin is a failure to obey what God has commanded through His word. God has spoken to us through His word. It was his love that motivated him to speak to us through His word and to tell us how to live and sin is a choice to not abide by what God tells us. In His word.

That's why Nathan the prophet also says to David, speaking for God, God speaking through Nathan the prophet, says in 2 Samuel 12:9, why have you despised the word of the Lord by doing what is evil? You've despised me, and you've despised my word. If you're here today and you don't know Christ and you have never run to Jesus for forgiveness, you just need to know. Whether you've thought about this or not.

Your sin is against God. Your sin is against his word that he has communicated. And consequently, your sin is a very big deal to God. He takes you and your choices, even your thoughts, very seriously.

Sin is very serious, sin is awful, sin is huge, and yet, Nehemiah felt safe enough with God to say, I will bring these awful sins to him, and I'll confess these sins. To God. Apparently, in the mind of Nehemiah, God is a God that we can bring our sins to. God is a God that we can be open and honest about our sins with.

He is the judge of the secrets as we sang about earlier in our service, and we are safe with Him. You might say my sins are so big, I could never come to God with them. I would say to you, your sins are so big that there's no one else you can go to. Who can do anything about it other than God.

He's the only one big enough and strong enough and merciful enough to deal with your sins against him and against his word. We observe here in Nehemiah's prayer that he begins his prayer by confessing the greatness of God, and then secondly, confessing his sinful failures. There's a third element of his prayer, and that is he confesses the will of God as revealed in his word. He confesses, he speaks out loud, the will of God as revealed in his word.

It's very evident that Nehemiah has been reading his Bible. He's been reading Deuteronomy chapter 30, verses 1 through 5, and as he reads the word of God, He's like, man, when I read this, the reality of what is promised in these verses is not yet coming to pass for the people of Judah. And so he vocalizes God's word, the will of God in prayer to God. Look what he says beginning in verse 8.

He says to God, remember the word, which you commanded your servant Moses, saying, If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples. But if you return to me and keep My commandments and do them, though, those of you who have been scattered were in the most remote part of the heavens, I will gather them from there and will bring them to a place where I have chosen to cause my name. To dwell. Successful prayers are prayers that are prayed according to the will of, of God.

That's why in the New Testament says if you pray anything according to my will, I will hear you. And you might say, man, if I pray anything, I'll get what I want. Yeah, but it's gotta be according to the will of God. And often we hear that extra provision according to his will and we're like, oh, yeah, that's the fine print.

Yeah, so it's gotta be according to his will. And almost like that's a downer. Almost like we view our will as this grandiose thing, and then down here somewhere is God's will. No, your will is the puny thing.

Down here. God's will is the grandiose thing that blows your will away. And so, The will of God is phenomenal. It's fantastic.

Read the New Testament, read the gospel of what God willed for your salvation. No one would have ever dared to ask for the things that God actually has done for you in Christ and sending His Son, the second member of the Trinity, to come and actually die to be your atonement, and then he raised him from the dead. The blessings are manifold, things we would have never dreamed to ask for. That's the will of God.

It's something that no mind would have ever conceived and no heart would have ever asked for. And so if you wanna know, man, I wanna have a rich prayer life, read your Bible, read your Bible and become a student of the will of God. George Mueller. was a man who was known as a prayer warrior, but what a lot of people don't know is he read his Bible through 4 times a year.

He was a student of the will of God, and that informed his prayers. And Nehemiah is quoting scripture, and he's saying, God, I, I'm not seeing this fully coming to pass. As I mentioned earlier, the, the Jews had begun returning about 90 years earlier. The return has happened, so they were scattered in fulfillment of God's promise of judgment, and they have a lot of them, thousands of them, tens of thousands of them have, have left the Persian Empire and they have come back into Jerusalem and the surrounding area.

So even the return has happened. To some degree. But in Deuteronomy, Nehemiah is quoting God's will, where God says, I'll bring them to a place where I've chosen to cause my name to dwell. In other words, I will, that place I will gather my people to on the other side of their failure as I restore them will be a place where my name will dwell, where the greatness of my person and character will inhabit and be put on display there.

God is the great and awesome God, and He's chosen for his great and awesome name to dwell in Jerusalem. God promised this, and many have returned to the city of Jerusalem, but in the mind of Nehemiah, Jerusalem has not yet achieved the glory that one would expect in a place where God had chosen for his name to dwell. Jerusalem is in dire straits. It is a mockery and a reproach.

The walls are torn down and the gates are burned with fire. Such reproachful conditions are not in the mind of Nehemiah, befitting to the place where God promised that his name. His great and awesome name would be put on display when he gathered his people again. Nehemiah is concerned, it's not that he just loved walls and loved gates.

I'm just a lover of walls and I hear they're torn down and that just devastates me. Gates, I love gates, I love gate designs and I hear they're burned with fire, that's devastating to me. That's not what's driving Nehemiah. He's concerned about how the state of Jerusalem, the walls and the gates, reflects poorly on God.

This is God's city. This is the place on God's planet where he has chosen for his name to dwell, and it is in such reproachful conditions. This doesn't make sense to Nehemiah. In his opinion, God has not yet completely fulfilled his promise to his people.

And so he quotes the will of God. In Deuteronomy chapter 30 and even gathering thoughts from elsewhere. Just let me ask you this morning, is the state of your marriage In a state of distress and reproach. Are the walls that were supposed to protect your marriage torn down?

Are the gates of your marriage burned with fire? Are there relationships in your life that are in a state of distress and reproach? Has the enemy had free access to come and go and to do damage? Are the gates of those relationships burned?

With fire If we bear the name of God, and we do, if God has caused his name to dwell upon us and in our midst, We would look at such conditions and say this isn't good enough for something that God has caused his name to dwell upon. If your marriage, here's the way we ought to think, if my marriage bears the name of God, if my relationships with my brothers and sisters bear the name of God, if this church bears the name of God, Then what are the conditions that would be most appropriate to an entity that bears the name of such a great and awesome God?

That's the way we need to think. And burn gates and torn down walls.

Distress, reproach that would cause the enemies of God to make a mockery of him. That's not good enough. And this is what drove Nehemiah to do all that he did in the book of Nehemiah on behalf of the city of God and the people of God. His hunger is that God would be glorified, and the present conditions of the city of Jerusalem and the people in that city, the walls and the gates, that just, that doesn't glorify God.

And that's not good enough and something needs to be fixed about this. And so that's what he's praying for. And then in verse 10, look at what he says, speaking, looking at the people of God, he says they The people of Judah are your servants and your people whom you redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand. Thank God, these are your people, these are your servants.

Think back to what you did centuries ago when you redeemed them from the land of Egypt with a mighty demonstration of your phenomenal power. And God, you redeem them for this. To be living in the reproach. That they're in right now.

This is what it was all for. The spirit of his prayer is Lord, you began a good work and these people that you have redeemed, please complete that work. Your work of redeeming them as I read the story of you redeeming them from Egypt. Your past work contained within itself a promise of more than what has yet come to pass.

Please, God, fulfill all of your good pleasure towards your people. You redeem them with such great power. Can you continue working on their behalf in a way that is just as powerful and glorious. Nehemiah teaches us here how we need to view the people of God, how we need to view one another.

When you look at fellow Christians, Do you see fellow servants of God, children of God, redeemed people, redeemed at an incredible cost and with an incredible demonstration of God's power. If a fellow believer is suffering and in reproach, you should care about that because of who they are as redeemed ones. And if they need prayer, you should go to God on their behalf and pray for them. The people of Judah do not know this at this point in time, but they are blessed to have a man 900 miles away who cares about them, enough to ask about them and how they are doing, and who is interceding on their behalf the way that Nehemiah is.

Are the people in your life. Is your spouse, or your children, your parents, your loved ones, the unsafe people in your life, are the people in your life so blessed? To have you who intercedes for them the way that Nehemiah does, the people of God. How much do you inquire as to how your brothers and sisters are doing?

How much do you inquire? About the welfare of those who are in your care group. Your brothers and sisters around the world, not just here at Cornerstone, but 900 miles away across the ocean. How often do you intercede?

For them. These are good questions for us to ask. There's a 4th element to Nehemiah's prayer. For success, and that is that he asked God to make him a successful servant of God.

He asked God to make him a successful servant of God. he says, oh Lord, I beseech you, may your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant and the prayer of your servants who delight to revere your name and make your servant successful, today. just for the sake of time, this morning, the, the big point that I want to draw from here is, Nehemiah in referring to God refers to him as Lord or Adonai, ultimate Lord. You're not just someone I work for from 9 to 5, you own me.

I am your slave. And we even see him talking this way. He says, may your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant and the prayer of your servants who delight to revere your name and make your servant successful today. Twice, he refers to himself as a servant of God or a slave of God.

And when Nehemiah or when anyone comes to God and says, make your slaves successful today, what they're asking. Make me a successful slave. Enable me to succeed in doing what a slave should do. Enable me to succeed in doing your will, your bidding.

Oftentimes we may pray and we'll ask God, make me successful today, but we're not praying as servants. We're wanting success and doing what we want to do, right? but in Nehemiah's mind, like we define success as the ability to do what I want to do and to do it well. In Nehemiah's mind, success is the ability to do well what God your master wants you to do.

And that's a success. That he's praying for and you're like, man, just the thought of being a slave of God surrendered to his will. Good night. it's hard to imagine me not being in control of my life and surrendering that to God.

That is so lame, and so foolish. So you wanna be your own master. What master have you been? You really nailed it, haven't you?

You look back over your whole life, you've never made a wrong decision. You've never led yourself astray, have you? We know that we have. We know Brian has.

But we do have a fear of being a slave of God and Giving up control of our lives to him. And so what we do, we try to be our own lords. What I found in my own life. His lordship is exhausting.

Self lordship. is a burden. It's actually quite liberating to just come to God and hand over the lordship to him and say, you be the Lord. And I'll be your servant.

You control me, you call the shots, and I will make my only priority to do what you want me to do and to do it well. When you're in a conflict situation, Lord, I am your servant in this. Make me a successful servant of yours today. My priority is what are you doing in this?

What are you doing in me? What do you want to do through me? What are you doing in this other person or in this situation? Your will is what's supreme to me.

Just make me a successful servant in this today. That is That is the heartbeat of Nehemiah. Rushing on, let's just, we'll just rattle through these. Nehemiah sought success.

Here's the fifth element of his prayer. I can't think of a better way to word this. He sought success as a pathetic man in need of mercy. A pathetic man in need of mercy.

He says, oh Lord, I beseech you, may your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant and the prayer of your servants who delight to revere your name and make your servant successful today and grant him compassion. what he's saying there? What he's saying is, it's not that the only thing he needs is compassion from the Lord. This is the Hebrew word for mercy.

What he's saying is, Lord, give me whatever I need. And whatever you give me, I will put the label mercy on it. I will label it compassion. And this word implies the idea that Nehemiah sees himself as a pathetic figure in dire need.

Say, God, look upon me and my misery in the face of so vast a need that I am no match for, and even my sin, and if you see anything in me that you are moved by Lord, May it be that you see how pathetic my circumstances, how dire my need is, and give me what I need to be your servant today. And whatever you give me, I will tell everyone this was a mercy from the Lord. This was a compassion from an incredibly gracious God. The last element of his prayer is that he asked God to grant him success before men.

He asked God to grant him success before men. Oh Lord, I beseech you. May your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant and the prayer of your servants who delight to revere your name and make your servant successful today and grant him compassion before this man. who that man is?

Happens to be the most powerful man on the planet of this day. But that's the way you talk about people when you start your prayer, talking about how great and awesome God is, the God of heaven. And then Nehemiah's thoughts go to the king of Persia, and well, there's the great and awesome God, and then there's this man. This man In Nehemiah's heart, God was big and people were small.

But Nehemiah knows that if I'm going to be able to do anything on behalf of the people of God in the city of Jerusalem, it's going to need to go through this king, this man. God's going to need to turn his heart in the direction that will allow me to go and do something about this. Giving me permission to leave and providing the resources that are needed, the authorization to do so that can back me up when I go and do this. And Nehemiah knows I can't, I can't change the king's heart.

I can't make it go in a certain direction. So I'm going to go to God and ask Him. To just take control of this. Nehemiah could have immediately started conniving and strategizing, but instead, he just ran to God and said, God, I just surrender this.

I surrender this to you. We find ourselves often in situations as Christians where we are before others, we live before others, we minister to others, and we're wanting God to use us to turn their hearts in a direction that serves God's purposes, right? Well, where does the ability to do that come from? It comes from God, so we need to go to God.

we can't rely on our own ingenuity, our own genius, our own skills, our own powers of persuasion. God must do this. And so we come to God. In the face of our desire to influence others and say, God, grant me what I need to be able to influence this person and whatever you give me to enable me to do that, I will label it a compassion, a mercy from you, and I will give you all of the glory.

Nehemiah, just in closing. Pray is a beautiful prayer that sets a great example for us. Nehemiah was a man of prayer, and he was also a man of action. Are you a, a person of prayer and a person of action?

There's a lot of ways to get this wrong. Some of us can be people of prayer and no action. Sometimes we can be people of action and no prayer. Or in my case, I can be a person of prayer after action.

After I've really gone into action thinking I knew what to do without prayer, and I've made a mess and then I come and pray as a last resort. Nehemiah was a, a man of prayer and action. You read the book of Nehemiah, you find that he prayed before action, he prayed during action, and he prayed after action as well. And so what's, what, what do I wanna leave you guys with?

Do I want to say to you, hey guys, go forth from here and be like Nehemiah. Just be like Nehemiah. Well, partly. But the greater point is that Nehemiah was but a shadow, a preview of the ultimate man of prayer and man of action, Jesus Christ.

Christ was a man of action who engaged in the most amazing actions. That we find recorded in the Gospels, the world could never contain the books that would be written if we described all of the actions of Jesus. And yet he was also a man of prayer, even while on the cross. He prayed.

He prayed with his last breath, he prayed. He prays for all of us in John 17. In fact, even now before the Father, Jesus is interceding for us and he ever lives to intercede for us before the Father. The people of Jerusalem are so blessed to have a Nehemiah praying for them.

We are more blessed. To have Jesus Christ, the righteous one, interceding for us. Robert Murray McShane once said, if I could hear Christ praying for me, I would not fear 10,000 enemies that came against me. Nevertheless, distance makes no difference.

He ever lives to make intercession for us. You have an intercessor in Jesus, and you are the living beneficiary of a salvation that has come to you because of Jesus Christ, the ultimate man of prayer and action. Having been saved through him, love him, love him, cherish him. Praise God for the intercessor you have in him and let his amazing love for you through his prayers and his actions on your behalf, melt your heart into a deeper obedience to him and a desire to be just like him to others.

Let's pray together. Lord, it is our desire as a church to reach more people for Christ. We desire to grow in our ability to show the hospitality of Christ to a greater number of people. It's our desire, Lord, as a church to be successful.

But we only want, Lord, spare us of worldly success. Deliver us from worldly success and a desire for it. We only want one success, and that is a success that comes from God through the cross and through the word and through prayer. It's the only plan, Lord, that You promise to bless.

It's the only plan that will render true blessing and benefit to others, and it's the only plan that truly glorifies your name. Make us a people of the word. The people of the gospel make us a people of prayer, who pray the prayers that we see before us today in Nehemiah one. Making us a church of prayer and action.

Lord, we thank you for the opportunity to give of our offerings to you. Receive the funds that we give and use every penny that is given for the glory of Jesus Christ, to whom we pray and whose glory we seek. We surrender ourselves to you, Lord, in the name of Jesus, and all God's people said.