Knowing How To Pray
Nehemiah 1; 2 Chron 36:15-23 – 7 October 2007
Andrew Lim

How do we respond to bad news? / Bad news come to us in many ways
- a dreadful phone call late at night
- a conference with your child’s teacher
- an unexpected call from your lawyer / someone is taking you to court
- the much-dreaded report from the medical lab

Not a single one of us here is immune to bad news
Life is such that tragedy will strike
and when it does strike / how do we respond to it
some react by getting bitter / blaming others / blaming God
some people begin to look for ways to overcome the problem
others withdraw into themselves / and never speaking

How we surface from our troubles
lies in the way we learn to respond to it / and our text today
shows how one man react to the bad news he receives

I am of course talking about Nehemiah / and to understand him

Now / a little bit of history is necessary here to understand Nehemiah
Some of you will remember that the Kingdom of Israel
was established around 1050 BC

But because King Solomon compromised so badly
with the things of God / God would strip everything from him
And true to God’s Word / after the death of Solomon
there was a civil war and the Jewish nation /was torn into two halves
Israel to the north / and Judah to the South

But in spite of this tragic split / both nations continued to violate His laws
They were idolatrous / they were unfaithful
And for that / God stepped in with His judgment
The northern kingdom was destroyed the Assyrians in 722 BC
The southern kingdom /by the Babylonians under King Nebuchadnezzar
in 586 BC

This Babylonian invasion was an incredible devastation
Jerusalem / the centre of worship for the people of God was destroyed
And the walls around the city
that served as protection for the people / were destroyed too
- all the young men were killed in the sanctuary
- women/children boarded into wagons with the barest of essentials
- and together with those men that were not killed
the people were deported a thousand miles into a foreign country
and they became servants to Nebuchadnezzar and his sons
In a sense / Jewish history had come full circle / from the Egypt bondage

Israel / God’s people / gone! / The golden age of that nation
under King David / is now only a distant dim memory

But God did not forget his people He loves
He promised Jeremiah it was not His intention to destroy His own people
70 yrs later God Himself would bring his people back into their land
This massive act of God / is often called the Second Exodus

So what happen after 70 years? / How did they suddenly get to go home
Did the Babylonians suddenly changed their minds / and say “Go Home”

No! Rather it happened this way / There was a shift of power
The Persians defeated the Babylonians / and Cyrus the Persian king
adopted a different foreign policy from the Babylonians

King Cyrus believed that the best way to maintain peace in the empire
was to let the captives return to their homelands
so they can follow the Gods of their own beliefs
according to the dictates of their own conscience

He reasoned that if he allowed his captives this
they would be more likely to be his loyal subjects

Look at 2 Chron 36: 22 / “In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia
in order to fulfill the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah
the LORD moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia
to make a proclamation”

Look at v. 23 “This is what Cyrus king of Persia says:
“The LORD / the God of heaven / has given me
all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me
to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah
Anyone of his people among you
may the LORD his God be with him / and let him go up”

You will not believe this / Here is a pagan king / with an unbelieving heart
And yet openly / publicly saying to God’s people in captivity
“You want to go home / feel free to go home
You want to rebuild the broken walls of your city /Go rebuild them
I will do all I can to facilitate your return journey”

Now Who / do you think is behind all of this / GOD!
God is the author of all the flow and ebb / of human history
And right here in our story / God uses a pagan political leader
to accomplish His holy divine purpose

And this is what exactly happened / King Cyrus give his decree
and a first group of 50,000 Israelites set back for home
And for next 20 years / under the leadership of Zerubbabel
they began rebuilding the temple

But although the temple was completed in 516 BC
morale became low / the people became discouraged / and they quit
And the city walls remained a heap of rubble
a shambles for the next 70 years
This was when God sent them the prophets Haggai and Zechariah
to encourage them to finish the project
and Ezra was sent to help them regain their spiritual fervor

And 13 years after that / an ordinary man of God
not a priest / not a prophet / but an ordinary man
serving in the court of the Persian king / received word
that the walls of the city was still in a state of disrepute
and how that that had brought ridicule and shame

For a living Nehemiah is a cupbearer to the Persian king / what’s a cupbearer?
Bible scholars tells us / that Nehemiah / as a royal cupbearer
would have been a most trusted and intimate counselor to the King
- he would have been the one to select the wines set before the king
- he would be the king’s constant companion
- he is the one who determines who could see the king / who couldn’t
Some scholars have added that the cupbearer was the one
who daily tastes the king’s food first / before the king ate it
he was tasting the king’s food for poison
- how do you like a job like that!

Now does this sound like your ordinary butler?

So here is Nehemiah / working for the king of the Persian empire
He is comfortable / he has a top-notched job
He lives in Persia’s capital city / Susa
- the winter palace of the Persian kings
- the most powerful place in the world at that time

And it is right here / in this place / that one day
through his brother / Hanani / he receives the bad news

Verse 3 / “They said to me / Those who survived the exile
and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace”

The walls of the city of Jerusalem / is in a state of shameful disrepair
And / on account of those broken walls / the people of God
have become a laughing stork to the neighboring nations
- they were mocked / ridiculed / and taunted

And Nehemiah’s heart is roused to do something to the honor of God
he becomes moved by his passion for God

But he is faced / with one huge obstacle / He has to come face to face
with the most powerful man in the face of the then known world
the King Artaxerxes / the one he now is a cupbearer to

20 years prior to this the Jews had attempted to build this very same wall
And in the middle of the rebuilding / some pagan residents of the land
became fearful that if the Jews have the wall
they might become a strong nation again

They had complained to King Artaxerxes
They instigated the king / saying “If you let these despicable Jews
build the wall they are only going to regain strength
and in time to come they will ever overcome us
You king / you better clamp down on the rebuilding project
or we might one day be overcome”
They played on his anxiety / and the king felt he had to act/ and he did
and he gave a decree that the rebuilding should stop
- we see that in the book of Ezra

Now this is the same king Nehemiah now faces / and N has a problem
How will a king ever turn back on a decree he has written?

Let’s now take a look at how Nehemiah responds to the problem before him?
Does he at once begin a massive program of rebuilding
Does he spend time using all his intelligence and skill / and influence
and come up with an impeccable water-tight case
as to why the king should release him of his duty
so he may return to Jerusalem to rebuild those walls?
No / but neither does he complain / or grumble / or whine
or look around to see who could fix this problem

No he doesn’t do any of that / What then does he do?
He drops down to his knees / and he prays
What makes Nehemiah so significant
is that he is painted in the Word of God as a man of prayer
In a book of 13 chapters / he prays in 10 of them
and what powerful God-honoring prayers those are

Hudson Taylor once said / “It is possible to move men through God
by prayer alone”

Nehemiah knows his God as the mighty sovereign God
Nehemiah knows his God as One
Who stands sovereign over all the princes / rulers and kings
It is He / Who sets up those in authority / It is He Who removes authority
And this / is our God / as the Bible tells us
* Daniel 2:20-21 / “Wisdom and might are His
He changes the times and the seasons
He removes kings and raises up kings
He gives wisdom to the wise
and knowledge to those who have understanding”
* Proverbs 21:1 / “The king's heart is in the hand of the LORD
Like the rivers of water / He turns it wherever He wishes”
* Romans 13:1 / “There is no authority except from God
and the authorities that exist are appointed by God”

Because Nehemiah knows his God
he will not manipulate / he will not seek influence
he will not plot / or devise his own plans to move the king’s heart
He will simply come before the Sovereign God
Who alone / is able to do with the king / whatsoever pleases Him

He prays!
He knows that without the sovereign power of God
working on his behalf / he will be left totally without any recourse
He knows without God / he can do nothing

This should remind us all
that prayer is the means by which God moves in this world

E.M. Bounds once said
“What the Church needs today is not more or better machinery
not new organizations or more and novel methods
but men whom the Holy Ghost can use
- men and women of prayer / men and women mighty in prayer

If we are to experience the power of God
in our life and in our church / then we must pray
There is no substitute for prayer
Work is not a substitute for prayer
Programs are a not a substitute for prayers
A theological education is not a substitute for prayers
Management expertise is not a substitute
Money is not a substitute.
Charisma and charm are no substitutes
In the Bible / we see mighty acts / brought about by prayer alone
By prayer / kingdoms are subdued / promises are obtained
By prayer / the jaws of hungry lions are muzzled
By prayer / people escaped the edge of the sword
seas are divided / and the rivers rolled up
By prayer / fountains gushed from flinty rocks
flames of fire quenched / vipers disarmed
poison rendered harmless / the course of the sun stopped
By prayer / iron gates burst open / the strongest devils conquered
the raging passions of man bridled
By prayer vast armies of the proud are routed and destroyed
By prayer one man was brought from the bottom of the seas
and another carried into heaven in a chariot of fire
With Elijah and Elisha
the power of prayer reached down even to the abyss of the grave
and in each case / a child was pulled out from the jaw of death
and brought throbbing into life again

Through prayer Moses saved a nation
Through prayer Ezra saved a church

What has prayer not done?
Prayer will unleash God’s limitless power
and things thought impossible / will come about

And this / is what Nehemiah does as soon as he heard the bad news
Neh 1:4 / “When I heard these things / I sat down and wept”
Nehemiah’s immediate reaction is extreme / He feels numb
There is no strength in his legs / He said “I sat down”
And he begins to weep / and mourn / and to fast

Each time God is about to do a great work
He begins a great work in somebody’s life
Way back in time / God saw the need in heaven
but little can be accomplish until the right man also felt the need

God is going to do something through Nehemiah
but first / God must do something in Nehemiah

The Bible says he starts to pray beginning in the month Kislev
and 2:1 tells us that his prayer was answered in the month Nisan
This was about four months later
Four months is a long time when your heart is breaking
and you are ready to break out to do something

Those of us who pray daily for the growth of this church
will find that prayer is agonizingly hard work
To many unbelieving / impatient / proud / self-sufficient people
four months is a long waste of time

You know / when it finally came to rebuilding the wall
it took only 52 days to finish the job / A 52 day project
but it was birthed on a four month foundation of prayer

We need to be growing in our prayer / we cannot today / be praying
the same way prayed when we first came to the Lord / 10 / 20 yrs later
Are we praying differently now
than when we first knew the Lord say ten years ago
when we first began praying
I am not talking about the length / but the substance of our prayer
Does a teenager speak the same way as she did when she was a child
Does an adult speak / the same way she did as a teenager
We grow in our speech / just like we grow in all other ways

What’s the stuff we hear in most prayer meetings
“Lord please touch my refrigerator / make it right again
for I cannot afford a new one”
“Lord / please be with my gardener’s son
his football team has got to win this weekend”
“Lord / please please make my asparagus dish turn out right / I can’t
make a fool of myself / Not with Bob and Sue coming for dinner”
“Lord / I pray for Aunt Mildred / she’s in distress
because her gas station attendant won’t ever talk to her again”

Now! Just what seems to be happening here?
Its like having an audience with the Queen
and you’re spending all that time
talking the stain your dog had made on your doormat
It’s a conversation that is way out of character
with the dignity / and the majesty of the person you’re with

Now please don’t leave this place / saying pastor does not believe
in praying to God about the small things in life
I am absolutely not saying that
I am not for a minute suggesting / that we can’t come to God
with our needs no matter how small they are

After all when our Lord taught His disciples to pray
did he not tell them to ask
“Please put a loaf of bread on our table this day”
and that’s asking for something very small / a loaf of bread

Of course we’re to ask God for what we need / no matter how small
Jesus said: “If you then / being evil / know how to give good things
to your children / how much more will your heavenly father
give good things / to them that ask him”
James said: “You do not have because you do not ask
Ask / that you might receive”

So I am clearly not saying
that we should not bring our ordinary concerns to God

But I AM saying / that our prayers / must be progressively shaped
by our ever growing understanding of Who God truly is

I AM saying / that our prayers
ought to reflect our understanding of Who God is

Our Lord Jesus’ own personal prayers / when He was on earth
must have deeply reflected His intimate closeness with His Father

Have you ever asked the question / Why would the disciples
even asked our Lord / to teach them how to pray

After all / were they not / Jewish men / people of the covenant faith
who would have been praying all their whole life through
Ever since they were little kids / they have been praying

Why then did they ask our Lord / to teach them to pray?
It must be / that they were astounded and dazzled
by the way our Lord prayed
He would have prayed like He knew His Father intimately

Like our Lord / and like Nehemiah / who knew how to pray
we too / ought to learn to pray better

Let us now look deeper / into the prayer if Nehemiah
It has several aspects that will inspire us in our own praying
I have time this morning / to explore only one of them

And that is this / This prayer is deeply saturated
with an understanding of the character of God

v 4 “When I heard these things / I sat down and wept
For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed
before the God of heaven
Then I said: / “O LORD / God of heaven
the great and awesome God / who keeps his covenant of love
with those who love him and obey his commands
let your ear be attentive and your eyes open
to hear the prayer your servant is praying before you
day and night for your servants / the people of Israel”

He starts with a high and lofty declaration affirming the character of God
He starts by focusing on God / He addresses God
He makes some very bold and staggering statements about Who God is

In fact the only one thing he wanted to ask God for
he didn’t make it known / until the very last line of the prayer

Worship before intercession
And this is the reason why if you should come to our prayer meetings
on Tuesday nights / you will find / that quite intentionally
we do not begin with asking for this and that

We begin each evening with a short study of God’s character
And we break off into a time of praising God for the attributes of His
It is only after we have done that / that we come together again
this time to ask Him for the things we need

And this is the pattern we see happening each time / every time
someone in the Bible / prays an extended prayer
Doesn’t matter who they are
Moses / Solomon / Ezra / Daniel / Jeremiah / Nehemiah
Its always the same / before they asked for anything
each one of them would first drench and percolate their prayer
with a high vision of the character of God

When we make such strong declarations of God in our prayers
we become reminded of Who our God is
and this / in turn / will shape they way we pray
- it will strengthen our confidence / inspire us boldness in our prayer

Neh 1:6 “O LORD / God of heaven / the great and awesome God”
The Name is Yahweh Elohim / a declaration that God is sovereign
over all things / over all kingdoms / all rulers / all powers
- that He is the great and awesome God
the God of all authority all heaven

Did you see that word there / “awesome”
The way people today flip and chuck that word around
you’ll be forgiven for not realizing that it is a Bible word / Neh 1:6
Neh 1:6 “O LORD / God of heaven / the great and awesome God”

Today / everything is awesome
The cone of ice cream is awesome / the sunset
The latest model of the Jaguar / is awesome
The All Blacks final victory / is they should win / will be awesome
To many of us / and I must confess myself included
the curry dish is awesome / the restaurant is awesome
the sleek BMW is awesome / the concert is awesome
the orchestra is awesome / the kid’s picnic is awesome

And yet / when you look up the word in a dictionary
the word awesome means
- to inspire awe / to engender intense fear
- an overwhelming feeling of reverence and veneration
- the power to inspire terror and dread
- it is something / which by virtue of its very presence
has an immobilizing effect / it freezes you / paralyses you
terrifies you / fills you with quiver of trepidation

Does that seem to you to describe a BMW
NO!! / They describe GOD / the only Awesome Being

I don’t believe that there are many of us here / who think of God
as One who inspires dread and fear and terror
who immobilizes us by the sheer majesty of His being

This is the reason why so many of us
have so little inspiration to make costly sacrifices for His kingdom
or fight valiantly for His glory

Only great thoughts of God can compels great works for God

When our vision of God is small so will be our ambition for His service

Let us work at this / let us begin searching the Scriptures
for all those strong declarations that the prophets made about God
- let’s list them down / read them / inwardly digest them
and then pray them in our prayers

There is another side to the character of God that Nehemiah sees
Verse 5b / This great and awesome God is One
“who keeps his covenant of love
with those who love him and obey his commands”

Nehemiah sees God as a covenant-keeping God
A covenant is a religious contract between two people
Early in the life of the people of God / way back in Deuteronomy
God entered into a covenant relationship with His people

And each one of us / on the day of our baptism
we have covenanted with God / to be His people
just as He promised to be our God

But you know something
Our God always keeps His end of the covenant promise /no matter what
He abides faithful
He remains faithful / even when we are faithless / 2 Tim 2:13

If we prove faithless / God will still be faithful
God will make good all his promises
He cannot deny himself / His word cannot fail

1 Thess 5:24 / “The one who calls you is faithful”
2 Thess 3:3 / “The Lord is faithful”
Numbers 23:19 / “God is not a man that he should lie
nor a son of man / that he should change his mind”
Romans 3:3,4 ? “What if some did not have faith?
Will their lack of faith nullify God's faithfulness?
Not at all! / Let God be true / and every man a liar”

Nehemiah sees his God as One Who never fail us
but rather as One will always / absolutely always
keep His end of the covenant promise

Now you meditate on this attribute of God / His faithfulness
it will fill your heart of great reassurance
even when you have to walk through a dark road

We need to be praying like Nehemiah
We need to infuse our prayer / with a vision of the character of God

Now you cannot hear such great declarations about God
and have such a high vision of the character of God
and not be gripped / and mesmerized / and enthralled by it

It makes you want to drop to your knees in humble worship

I don’t know about you / but only two sentences into his prayer
and they generates this sense of awe and reverence in my heart
- there’s something that surges through my whole being
making me want to drop down on my knees and begin praying

And it must be like that in your personal daily prayer
Each time you come to God in prayer / and
you begin with making such declarations about God’s attributes
- it emboldens you / it inspires great confidence in God
It will fortify you / reassure you / reinvigorate you
hold out fresh hope for you / not matter how dreadful your situation is

You will begin to see the God you are praying to
You will be embolden / to believe God’s ability to act to our favor
will never by outstripped by any human factors

Knowing God to be such a God / as Nehemiah sees Him
you will be very bold / in your asking

What are you asking God to do / that only God can do
so that when He does it / He only gets the glory for it

Just what is it that we are asking God to do / that only God can do?
- asking for a one million property / when we are so puny and small
IS asking for something / that ONLY GOD CAN DO
And when He does it / He only / gets the glory

When you ask God for something / so small / so small
that you and I / with our own two hands / can pull it together
- very little glory goes to Him

We need to be asking God for something so huge
that when it is delivered / everyone will know
it was only from His hands / that we have received it

Just what are you asking God for?
No way you can ask God for something that is beyond His ability
Why are we so very timid?

God reassures Abraham by calling Himself El Shaddai
which means Almighty God

God is saying to Abraham / Trust me / what I say will come to pass
I am El Shaddai / Almighty God”

God is our Warrior King
God is our Deliverer / our Defender
No one else will fend for us ultimately
No one loves us consistently and faithfully

Through the dark corridors of hopelessness / ill health / grief and injustice
Through the days of despair and months of darkness
God remains our Mighty Warrior

This is how as a church / we will get to where God wants for us to go
With a kind of praying that is inoculated and saturated
with great thoughts / of our great God

It will brace us / bolster us / and inspirit us
it will undergird us / and uphold us

Let begin to do that shall we not
let’s spend time in the days to come /contemplating and meditating
on all those great verses in the Word of God

You will be a different person! You will be / to the glory of God