Summary
Pastor James walks through Nehemiah 1:1-11, highlighting how Nehemiah's heart is burdened for the people of Jerusalem, who are living in distress and disgrace. He emphasizes the importance of prayer and confession, as Nehemiah seeks God's guidance before taking action to rebuild the city. The sermon encourages listeners to recognize their own burdens and to respond with prayer and a willingness to act, trusting in God's promises and sovereignty.
Welcome and Housekeeping
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If you have your Bibles, we're going to be in the book of Nehemiah. We're going to start a new series of walking through the book of Nehemiah over the next couple of weeks. And I want to give you some encouragement for us as we walk through this.
We're going to look at the first chapter today, chapter 1, verses 1 through 11. And so you can find your way there. It's in the Old Testament. It's before you get to Psalms. You've got Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, and Job.
So Nehemiah's in the middle there, if you're thumbing through there. If you get to Psalms, you went too far, sort of go back a little bit. And part of walking through the book of Nehemiah is you jump into the middle of what's going on in church history, church history, Israel's history.
And so we're going to give some of that exclamation for you this morning. And so let us stand out of the reading of God's word. We'll read all 11 verses and sort of set the mindset of where we're at this morning. The Bible says, The words of Nehemiah, son of Hekelah,
during the month of Chisleveh, the 12th month of the 12th year, when I was in the fortress of the city of Susa. Hananiah, one of my brothers, arrived with men from Judah, and I questioned them about Jerusalem and the Jewish remnant that had survived the exile. They said to me,
Jerusalem walls have been broken down and its gates have been burned. And when I heard these words, I sat down and wept. I mourned for a number of days, fasted and prayed before the God of heaven. I said, Lord,
the God of heaven and the great and all inspiring God who keeps his gracious covenant with those who love him and keep his commands.
Let your eyes be opened and your ears be attentive to hear the servants' prayers. That I now pray that you day and night for your servants, the Israelites, I confess the sins we have committed against you.
Both I and my fathers have sinned. We have acted corruptly toward you and have not kept the commands, statues and ordinances that you gave to your servant Moses. Verse 8, Please remember what you have commanded your servant Moses.
If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among your people. But if you return to me and carefully observe my commands, even though your exiles were banished to the furthest horizon, I will gather them there and I will bring them to the place where I chose and have my name dwell.
Verse 10, They are your servants and your people. You redeemed them by your great power and strong hand.
Please, Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant and that your servants who delighted in your name give your servant success today and grant him compassion in the presence of this man. At that time, I was the king's cupbearer.
Father, we love you. We thank you for the reading of your word. Give us wisdom and guidance as we preach this book, as we preach this chapter over the next coming weeks, that you would help us to be a people that have a burden for those that are around us. We love you.
In your name we pray. Amen. Amen. You may be seated.
When you open the book of Nehemiah, you sort of feel like you're standing in between stories that have happened. And this story of what Nehemiah is explaining has been unfolding for hundreds of years. And quickly, I want to give you and bring you up to speed as quickly as I can this morning
God's Call to Abraham
as a way of introduction. God had called Abraham out of the land of Ur to be the leader and the family, the nation that he would make a great nation through. God delivered Israel from Egypt.
They were in bondage and he gave them the promised land. We know that he established the great King David and King Solomon that followed him.
And the nation and the land of Israel grew to heights of earthly kingdom and authority that is greater than what we have ever seen of any one nation. Jerusalem was a great city.
God's people were there. They had built this temple. The nation was strong. The kingdom was prosperous. But one thing came into this nation that was destructive to them. And this one little thing called sin. Sin came into this nation. The kingdom began to be divided.
They split the 12 tribes into a tribe of 10 and a tribes of 2.
And they had a northern kingdom and a southern kingdom. And God sent prophet after prophet after prophet to come to them and say, come back, repent, and turn from your sin.
And for a while they would do that. They would repent. They would turn. They would go back to the Lord. And then all of a sudden they would see prosperous again. But eventually in 722 BC,
judgment came and the northern kingdom fell to Assyria. In 586 BC, Jerusalem was overtaken by the Babylonians.
This is where we get Daniel and the stories of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego all come from this time period.
And when we begin to think about this and we begin to think about what happened to a city that once was representation of God's people, Zerubbabel was now what we consider a pile of rubble. They were nothing. They were destroyed. But did God forget his people?
God remembered his people. God required some things of his people. And Babylon fell. And a new empire took over. The Persian empire named Cyrus took over.
And the first group of people began to go back in Zerubbabel during the time of Ezra.
If you go back, and it would be a good thing if you went back this week and read the book of Ezra because it lays the foundation of what happened.
Ezra comes in and they began to put a particular emphasis on the proper spirituality and the word of God and the covenant that had been done. They had rebuilt the temple, the second temple that was rebuilt.
And all of a sudden the people were back in the land that had been restored. But yet there was still a massive problem. Jerusalem, the Bible says, was still in ruins. They had no walls. They had no gates.
Everything had been torn down and everything was still burned. The people who lived there, the Bible said in chapter 1, they were living in distress and in disgrace.
And then we get introduced to this man named Nehemiah. That's sort of the shortest version of the history that I could give. And all of a sudden Nehemiah comes onto the scene and he's not in Jerusalem.
The Bible says that he's in a land called Susa, which is the capital city of the Persian empire. And all of a sudden he's here and he's far away.
And yet he is beginning to hear some things that are going on. Now, you have to understand about Ezra, I'm sorry, Nehemiah, is that he is in the king's palace. He is the cupbearer to what is going on here. So he has tremendous amount of trust.
He's not just a servant that comes along and gives the king his cup.
He is the person that has to partake of every piece of food before, this is a pretty good job.
He has to eat every piece of food that before the king eats it, he has to eat it. Before the king took a drink of his drink, he had to take a sip of it because if it was poison, Nehemiah would die and the king wouldn't. And so he lived in the palace.
He had a tremendous amount of influence on the king. He had access to the king. He had his own security guards. And he lived in this royalty.
And you can imagine if Nehemiah was in this position and if you were in this position and someone came to you and told you all the bad things that were going on in your hometown, it would be easy for him to say, hey guys, that's not my problem.
That's a really far ways away. I'm doing pretty well here.
I don't really have to deal with those things that are hundreds of miles away. I've got a pretty good job. I've got a comfortable life. Maybe someone else can worry about Jerusalem. I'm just going to continue going and doing what I'm doing here. But Nehemiah never forgot where he came from.
He never forgot what mattered to the Lord. And he began to be burdened by the news.
And this is the very first point, the news that he had heard from this brother of his that stirred his heart. This news came along and it was so just burdening to him that he couldn't stop thinking about it.
He couldn't stop being consumed about what was going on from this news. And the very first verse says that some men arrived. Some of his brothers arrived from Judah.
Nehemiah's Concern for Jerusalem
This man named Hanani comes and he begins to tell him about what is going on. They had escaped from exile.
They are now back in their homeland and they are beginning to rebuild. But there are some things that are going on. And this is a very important point for us because all of a sudden God's people are hurting. Jerusalem is broken down. And Nehemiah makes this statement.
He doesn't use it in this passage. But I can almost imagine him in his mind saying, I can't just simply sit here and do nothing.
I can't just simply sit around and allow these things to happen to my nation, to my country, and just sit around and do nothing.
And before God ever uses Nehemiah to do anything great with rebuilding the wall, and if you know anything about the story of Nehemiah, he does an amazing job at rebuilding the walls around the city that are still there
to this day. I'll probably show some pictures of the walls of Nehemiah that are still there.
But what God does first, before he says, I want you to go and rebuild the wall, he looks at Nehemiah and he says, I've got to break your heart for what is going on first. I've got to stir your heart.
I've got to begin to work in your life before you can ever move forward with anything that I have for you to do. So the news began to stir his heart.
And there's a couple of things as we look through these first four verses that we see that Nehemiah does. The first thing he does is he asks about the people. Look at where his heart is at in verse one. He begins to ask about what they're doing and how they're living.
Nehemiah, he's in Susa. He's eight to nine hundred miles away from this land of Israel.
And he doesn't say, how are things in Jerusalem? He says, how are my brothers and sisters in Jerusalem? And he begins to ask specifically about the people. Now, remember, Nehemiah had every reason to become comfortable where he was. He had position. He had security.
He had proximity to the power. He had everything in life that gave comfort.
And yet through this comfortable life, he never replaced the concern that he had for his people.
And we must be a people who never lose the concern that we have for those that are around us. What interests you reveals a lot about how important things are to you. And when he began to ask, he didn't say, hey, how is the temple?
How are the things of God that's going on? How are the walls looking? He first said, how are the people? The things that interest me, I ask about.
I ask and I care about my children. And when they come home from school, the first thing I do is, hey, how was school today? Did you get in trouble today?
Because my kids like to get in trouble for some reason. I think most kids like to get in trouble. What did you do? Oh, you fell and broke your arm. Wonderful. That's great. I'm glad you got to do that.
What are things that are going on? What are the tests and the quizzes and things going on? Because I care about them and I want to know about them. I care about my wife and I care about our family. And so we ask questions about those things. I care about sports.
I was talking to a friend of mine just yesterday or this last week about how, how horror, it was actually Friday. We were at the, we provided a meal.
Thank you to our women who provided a meal for the East Wilkes football team. And we were talking about how the Miami Dolphins are going to start their season.
And if we win three or four games, I'll be happy because we are going to be horrible. And I was watching the highlights of them playing the Falcons. And it was just the worst thing ever. And all of a sudden I care about these things. I'm watching them.
I've got guys texting me because when we care about things, if it interests us, it is important to us. If you care about your job,
if you care about the things that you're around, you care about what's going on. You care about what's happening at work because God has allowed you to be in that position. Nehemiah, his heart was still with God's people.
Even though he was eight, 900 miles away from them, he still cared deeply about them.
Caring for Our Community
He didn't care about his position. He didn't care about the things that were around him. He simply said, how are my people doing?
What occupies your thoughts when you aren't forced to think about anything will reveal what you are truly thinking about.
When we as men, there's a book out, Husbands and Wives, if you want to grow in your marriage, there is a book. It's one of my favorite books that I suggest to people in marriage. It's called this, Men Are Like Waffles and Women Are Like Spaghetti. Okay?
Have y'all read that? Heard about that? A couple people have. All right. And it talks about how men, we live in a compartmentalized life.
And we live in what we call boxes. When we're in our work box, we think about work. When we live in our sports box and we're sitting outside and we're watching TV,
or we're sitting inside and we're watching a football game, we're just thinking about what's on the TV. We're not thinking about anything else.
But when you, and the crazy thing is women don't have this, they don't, most women don't have what we call a nothing box. We can sit there and literally think about nothing. Nothing can consume our minds. And our wives will say, hey, what are you thinking about? Nothing.
The women are like, how can you think about nothing? I'm thinking about 25 different things all at one time.
And if you look at a bowl of spaghetti and you begin to follow one noodle in that bowl of spaghetti, all of a sudden that noodle gets lost in about 14 million other noodles.
Because as a woman begins to talk about, and these are broad statements here, as they begin to think about the things that happened at work, they ran into an old friend that they met at high school.
And then all of a sudden that friend told them about this deal at Walmart and they went over to Walmart and they bought this deal.
And then they saw that, they saw their old high school principal and it brought up this memory of when they were playing football or cheering or whatever it was.
And by the end of the conversation, they've jumped in our men's minds to 25 different boxes.
And the wife goes, well, did you understand what's going on? And he goes, I'm still thinking about you were at school. You were at work. How did you end up way over here?
So when we are in our, and I've sort of got a mix of that in my mind, I can jump around and multitask.
But when we go through our life, when we are sitting and nothing is occupying our mind and the Lord brings into a thought into your mind, what is it that he's bringing into your mind?
How are you allowing that to be processing how you are thinking and what is occupying your heart? You see, my sister lives in Texas. She lives hundreds of, probably a thousand or so miles away.
I don't even know. It's like 17 hour drive, whatever that equals in the miles, you can figure it out. And a couple of years ago, right when I got here, she had a really hard time.
She had thrown her back out and she had to go into back surgery. And they removed a couple of vertebraes and did a really hard thing.
And I remember her calling home and I remember her calling and talking about the financial bills and the difficulties that she was going to be having of missing work and all the different things that was going on in their life. And I could have looked and said, hey, that's really good.
I'm glad that's happening to you. But you know, I'm 17 hours away. I don't really have time for that. What I said was, what can I do? Do I need to come out there? Do I need to drop what's going on here? Like, how can I help in this situation?
And this is what happens in our life when we look at the story of Nehemiah. His distance is there, but it doesn't diminish the love that he has for his people. And he's so consumed by what's going on.
He says, what can I do? How can I help? What are the things that the people need? And verse three leads us to the problems that are going on. He heard about the problems.
He said that these problems are happening and the report was devastating. They said that there was, the people were living in great distress.
They were living under reproach. The walls were broken down. The gates were burned. And this wasn't just an architectural problem. It wasn't that they said, hey, Nehemiah, do you know of any good architects?
Do you know of any good general contractors that we can contact, that they can come in and help us figure out this problem? It was so much bigger than that because they were living in a place that was totally defenseless.
The Bible says that in the Bible.org describes it like this, that a place or a city without walls was showing a picture of complete and total defenselessness.
These are people that were saying, we don't have anything. We are constantly fearing for our life because we are afraid of the robbers that are going to come in, the villains that are going to come in. We can't even do anything in this life because we're so consumed with fear.
And I want us to understand that the people were mentioned well before the walls were ever mentioned. The walls matter.
The building matters of where they're at because the people mattered to Nehemiah more. And Nehemiah, he hears this and he doesn't hear that there's a construction problem. He doesn't hear that there is just some bad management going on. What he hears is this, he says, God, your people are suffering.
Look at where I'm at. I've got everything. I've got food. I've got shelter. I've got security. I've got everything that can be ever imagined in life. And I'm hearing this report from my people and they're struggling. They're in captivity still.
They're fearing for their life. And they would be better off if they were still in captivity because where they're at now is horrible. And all of a sudden, his mind begins to get so burdened by the people that are there.
I want you to imagine for a moment for just in your mind's eye, imagine driving through a neighborhood and you walk through, you're driving through this neighborhood and every house you see, the windows are busted out. The doors are ripped off their door frames.
Sometimes the houses are overgrown in weeds and it just looks like all the stuff that was inside the house has just been ripped out of the house and strewn out through everything. And you wouldn't look over at your husband or wife and go, you know, this place needs better architecture.
This place needs a better general contractor to come through and figure out what's going on.
You would look at these people in this house and you would say that there is a condition that is wrong and people who are living here, there is something wrong with them. There is something that needs to be fixed.
There is an ideology where people have abandoned these things and there's robbers and there's looters and there's things that are going on that just need to be repaired.
And you would come in and you would say, how can I help? The broken walls that Nehemiah hears about is the visual problem of what's happening behind the scenes.
And he hears this and he says, it's not just the walls that are hurting. It's the people that are being devastated by what's going on. Verse four, he begins to be broken over the problem.
This is where the passage begins to get really personal for each and every one of us in here because it says here that when he heard the words of his brothers and sisters as they reported to him, it says this, he sat down, he wept and he mourned for days.
And the Bible continues on.
Nehemiah's Response to Distress
It says, I continued to fast and pray before the God of heaven. You see, he didn't hear the news and say, that's just really terrible.
That's really bad for the people over there. He didn't pull his phone out and go, man, I see what's going on over at Jerusalem. That's really, that's really fun. Let me scroll past to the next one. He didn't begin to, to look at it and go, you know, that's really bad, Hananiah.
I'm glad you told me that. I'm just going to pray for you real quick.
That would have been really easy for him. It would have been really easy for him just to look and say, you know, what, what, can, can I just sort of tell you something to sort of get you out of here? Like, hey, the king's about to eat.
Like, this is his favorite meal and it's going to be steak and potatoes.
And he's having root beer and he's got the chocolate pie that's going to come out. Like, I'm about to,
there's a, there's a really good meal that I'm about to miss because you're over here telling me about these things. Can we wrap this conversation up so I can get back to work?
What happens is, is he hears this news and his heart is completely broken and he completely falls on his knees and he says, God, I don't know what I can do.
This burden from God begins to deal with every single part of his body and he begins to break his heart and he begins to say, God, I am so grieved by what is going on. I have to do something.
What is grieving you and causing you grief this morning? What is causing you to pray and what is making you say someone needs help?
Someone is struggling. Someone is, is, is hurting and dying and what can I do about it?
Sometimes God gives us this burden because he is allowing us to be connected with what God can do through a man or a woman who simply says, I want to give everything that I've got in order to reach
someone that's around me, which leads him to this idea and this thought that, that should lead for each and every one of us. He sees the need.
He hears the news of what's going on, but then he begins to see the need for prayer. He doesn't look around and say,
I don't know if I can handle this. He doesn't look around and say, you know, this task is just too big for just me. He looks around and he immediately says, the first thing I've got to do is pray.
The first thing I've got to do is I've got to get on my hands and feet. I've got to get on my hands and knees. I've got to fast.
I've got to pray and go before the Lord. Now, many people will read this and say,
well, Pastor James, that's all we got to do. All we got to do is pray. And that is all that we can do most of the time is pray. But we understand if you know anything about the story of Nehemiah, Nehemiah was a man of action. Nehemiah wanted to get things done.
And you're going to see the things he gets done as we look through this book. He does some things that the people of this time say there's no possible way these things can happen. And he is a man of action.
The Bible says that he has a sword in one hand and a trowel in the other hand.
And he's working and he's fighting off the people that are around him.
He is a man that is going to do some things that is incredible. But we must not forget the fact that before he ever does anything for the kingdom and before he ever does anything for the people that are in Jerusalem, he stops and he gets on his hands and his face
before God. And he says, God, I can't do this without you. God, I need you in my life because he cannot act without ever praying.
And the first thing he does is we look at this model prayer that Nehemiah leads out for us as he praises God for his character. Before Nehemiah tells God about the problem, and I'm guilty of this.
I'm guilty of this as we teach our children to pray, as we teach our children how to have a relationship with the Lord.
I'm guilty of going before God and saying, God, these are the problems that I've got. Can you just come and fix them all?
These are the things that I'm dealing with. These are the things that I'm struggling with.
These are the things that I need you in my life. And so often we come before God with all of our problems and we never come before God and praise him for who he is. Look at verse five.
Look at the words that Nehemiah uses as he goes before the Lord in prayer. He calls him Lord. He says, God of heaven,
look at how great and awesome you are. The one who keeps his covenant and your faithful love. You see, God, he is so great and he is so awesome. And we come before him and we say, God, my problem is big, but you are so much bigger than my problem.
Confession and Humility
And Nehemiah recognizes this and he goes before God and he says, God, I just want to praise you and tell you how great you are and what you've done.
And I want you to understand that the things that I'm going to pray about in coming up, I know they're insignificant to you because you are such a huge God. But I got to come before you first and foremost and tell you that this is so much bigger than me,
but it's so much smaller for you. Before we ever focus on the size of our problem, we must be focused on the greatness of who God is, the sovereignty of who God is.
And oftentimes he'll lead us into these things so that he can get the glory for what is going on. Nehemiah, he looks at Jerusalem and the Bible says that he is so overwhelmed that he falls before his face, he fasts and he prays.
And in this moment, he looks at God and he's encouraged by how great and awesome God is.
Imagine if you have a problem that is so big for you, you can't figure it out. You don't know what to do.
And all of a sudden you begin to share with one of your friends that this problem that's going on and your friend looks at you and goes, hey, we don't need to worry about that.
I got a call yesterday from the president of the United States. It's in his ear and he's going to take care of it.
Whether you like it or not, the president's got more power than you've got and the president's got more authority than you've got. And the president is going to take care of the problem that you think is huge.
And all of a sudden, when you realize that when this man who's in power has so much more power than you do, and he can take care of things in your life that you never even thought possible, all
of a sudden the perspective in your life begins to change.
And God looks down from heaven and says, would you just come and just talk to me for a minute? I'm here with you. I'm here for you.
The Bible says that he is with us in the middle of our storms. And we just have to turn and acknowledge that he's there. And we say, God, I can't handle this on my own. I need you in my life.
And all of a sudden he speaks down from heaven, maybe not in an audible voice, but in an inaudible voice. And he says, son, I've got you.
Daughter, I'm here with you. I'm wanting to walk you through the valley of the shadow of death. The Bible says in Psalms 23 that he is walking with us through our valleys. He's not saying, hey, go and take care of it yourself.
I am coming with you and I am going to be there for you. Nehemiah understands this.
And he understands that he is about to go before the most powerful man in the face of the earth at this time, King Artaxerxes.
And he's about to approach this king and he's about to ask him something that we're going to look at in chapter two next week. And he's going to approach him with this authority that he's been given and understand that he could lose his life by approaching him.
But before he ever approaches the king here on earth, he goes before the king in heaven. And he says, God,
you know what you've burdened me. You've given me this burden and you know what I'm about to do. And so you've got to go before me. Verses six and seven, he continues on. Not only does he praise God's character, he professes his sin.
Now, if you understand here, there's no sin that we can recall that Nehemiah has done. But look at what he does. He says, I confess the sins that we have committed against you. Both I and my fathers have sinned. Look at the front of we. He uses this we multiple times.
He doesn't say, God, look at those wicked people in Jerusalem. Look at how bad they are. God, I can't believe you would allow them to go back to Jerusalem with how wicked they are. Look at the people over here. They've caused a mess. They've destroyed your temple.
And all of a sudden, they're not even caring about rebuilding the walls. God, all of a sudden, he could have had the opportunity to rip them to shreds. But instead, he begins to identify himself with the sins of the people.
And he begins to say, God, I am just as bad as those people.
I am just as bad as the ones that are there. Yes, I've got a different position and a different authority. But God, I am wrong as well.
And Lord, I need you to come into my life. I need you to work through our life. I need you to forgive the things that I have done wrong.
In my years of ministry, in my years of life, I'm only 37 years young, people would say.
For some of us, it's like, man, I wish I could be 37. For me, I wake up and my back hurts and my knee hurts. And I'm like, oh, what is going on? And I realize that as age happens, things get older with our life.
And it's easy for us to do this. It's easy for us to criticize and say, you know, the church isn't what it used to be. It's easy for us to say, young people don't care anymore.
They don't show up to church anymore. They don't show up to the things that we're doing anymore. And it's easy for us to criticize. It's easy for us to say, people aren't committed. People used to be committed.
They used to come every single time the doors were open. And that's how I grew up. I was in church every Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night. And every Thursday night Bible study. And every Saturday visitation.
And every Sunday afternoon thing that was going on. Every time the doors were open, I was in church. Still am to this day. My kids are still like that to this day. I bring them to church that way. When I was born on a Thursday,
on the Sunday, my mom was driving the church bus to pick up kids and there's a picture of me in my car seat, four days old, on the bus, going to church as a four-day-old kid.
It's easy for us to say, why aren't people committed anymore? It's easy for us to look and say, no one wants to serve. I'm the only one doing everything.
It's easy for us to look back and say that. It's easy for us to say, you know, the church is just getting too worldly. And maybe, maybe just some of those things may be true.
But Nehemiah, when we look at what's going on here, the city has been destroyed. People are starting to return. And he never points a finger.
What he does is he looks at himself and he confesses his own sin. He says, God, there's something wrong in my life. There is something wrong. And he looks at it. He makes this statement, not audibly in the scripture.
I'm sort of reading a little bit James Seyfried in this. He looks into this and he says,
God, maybe I'm responsible. God, maybe I'm the reason that Jerusalem's the way it is. Look at how good I have got it over here. Look at how blessed I have had it over these last 20 years. The Bible says that he has served under this king as the cupbearer.
And I haven't once thought about my people that are back home. Maybe I'm the reason that this is happening.
Maybe he looks and saying, I haven't contributed to any of this. I haven't allowed myself to have a burden for my people.
And all of a sudden, I am so overwhelmed that I have to look at this and say, God, we have sinned and we have done wrong before you. And all of a sudden, in his prayer, he begins to profess his sin.
Then in verses 8 through 10, he begins to look and he says, God, I've got to plead your promises.
I've got to plead what is going on in my life.
And I've got to begin to use your word to be able to help encourage me. He goes back to what God had already said. And I've got to hurry. I'm running out of time. He goes back to what God has already said. He says, God, remember what you told your servant Moses.
Remember that when Israel disobeyed and you caused them to be scattered, you told them that if we repented, you would bring restoration.
And Nehemiah begins to say, God, I'm not trying to remind you of something that you forgot. You don't ever forget anything. You're the same yesterday, today, and forever. You are there. But he is trying to remind himself of the promises that God made.
And too often, we get to the point where we say, God, and we begin to demand things of God instead of begin to understand who he is and what he has done.
Trusting in God's Promises
Nehemiah begins to rest in the hope of who God is. He rests in the redemptive purposes of what God is going to do.
And as I've said many times over the last several weeks of our prayer study, biblical prayer is not trying to convince God to do something that he doesn't want us to do.
Biblical prayer begins to lay a hold of what God has already promised for him to do. One commentator said it like this, Nehemiah bases his request based on God's covenantial promises and God's past redemptive acts.
Played football for many, many years. And before I could drive, I would have a specific person that would pick me up. They would tell me, hey, your dad's going to pick you up at five o'clock when practice is over. And there was never one time that I sat there at 4.55.
And I began to think, you know,
it's 4.55. Dad's forgot about me. Dad's not going to come pick me up today. I'm just going to sit out here and waste away underneath the sun.
I didn't sit back and just begin to forget everything that my dad had done for me. Because it was five minutes till and the person that was going to pick me up wasn't there yet.
And too often, we pray and we say, God, hey, you haven't answered all my time, God. Why aren't you here? Have you forgot about me, God?
Have you, you're just not even there with me, God. And all of a sudden, we begin to try to convince our dad. Dad, where are you at? You call him and you text him. Dad, are you coming?
Or do you even care about me? And the dad's like, I got five minutes. What are you doing? I'll be there when I'm supposed to be there.
You just trust in me. But too many times, that's how we are with God. We say, God, will you work in my life? And God says, yes, I'm going to work in your life. It's going to happen on my time, in my provision, in my sovereignty, and what I have for you. And then we're like,
God, do you even care about me? You forgot about me, God. I'm nobody to you.
And God says, no, no, no. It's going to happen. It's going to work out the way I want it to work out. You just have to align your will with my will. And you've got to align your priorities with God's priorities.
One of the most encouraging things for us to know is you cannot pray God's word back to him if you don't know God's word. If you don't know what the word of God says, how in the world are we supposed to pray it back to him?
How are we able to claim God's promises if we don't know God's promises? And how can we pray God's word if we don't know God's word?
We must be a people who know the promises of God because we are claiming the promises of God because we love the promises of God.
And we are so in love with his word and so in love with what he has for us that we get back to this book. And we say, God, I can't take another step.
I can't take another breath until I open up your word and get something from you today. See, Nehemiah was able to do that because he knew what God had said in the past. And then in verse 11,
after he begins to go through all this, he praises God. He professes his sin. He pleads with God the promises. Then he begins to petition.
One verse out of these six verses, only one verse, does he ever pray specifically for anything that he has in verse 11. He petitions God specifically.
He gets the request. He says this, give your servant success today and grant him compassion as he goes before the presence of this man.
The word this man here is not before he goes before God. It's not before he goes before his brothers and sisters. He is saying, I'm about to go before the king, the most powerful man here on earth. And I need your protection. I need your success as I go before this.
Nehemiah says that I'm about to ask the most powerful man in the world for permission to do something that could potentially put my life at risk. King Artaxerxes could have very well and very clearly said, How dare you abandon me in this time when I need you?
Servants, come behead him. And it would have been one statement and one move and immediately Nehemiah would have been taken off the face of the earth. And he understood this. He had seen it happen before. He had known of people who had made requests of this king. And he came in with swift and powerful judgment.
And he said, this could happen to me. I'm about to put my life on the line for these people. God, help me as I go through this. He doesn't pray, Lord, just bless everything.
He specifically comes before the Lord and says, God, you see the need. You feel the burden that I've got. I've sought you.
I've confessed my sins. I'm claiming your promises and I'm making a specific request before you today that you would go before me. As Isaiah says, that you would go before me and you would make my path straight.
You would take the hilly roads and you would abolish them and make them smooth. God, I'm claiming your promises to come before you today because if I don't, I know what can happen. He's coming before him both prayerfully but also practically.
As Terry comes and begins to play as we dismiss here in just a moment, verse 11 ends with Nehemiah asking God to give him success. Why doesn't Nehemiah pray for someone else to fix the problem?
Why doesn't Nehemiah look in this moment and say, God, look at all the people that you've allowed to go back. Look at all the people that you've allowed to go back to Jerusalem. Can't you pick one of those people? Look at where I'm at. Look at what I'm doing.
I'm in a place that is so good that you blessed me. Why would you take me away from this?
Nehemiah looks and he says, God, maybe you've prepared me to be part of the answer. He saw the need.
He began to ask questions. He shared the burden of the people that they had. He began to weep. He sought the Lord and he began to pray. And then he steps into the work that he was about to go into. Nehemiah eventually gets to Jerusalem.
And we're going to look at that. And this is the movement of the entire book. He saw the need. He shared the burden. He went to the Lord and he began to get to work. God gave Nehemiah a burden.
As I said this before, God gave Nehemiah a burden before he gives Nehemiah the building project that he was going to do. Maybe, just maybe for us, God is putting a burden on your heart and on your life. Before you ever do anything, before you've ever done anything,
maybe there's a burden on your life and you're like, God, this burden is on my life for a reason. Why is it here? Why is it on my heart?
We can't fix everyone, but we know, we can't fix everything, but we know a God who has the answers to everything. When God repeatedly puts something before you, when he repeatedly burdens your heart about it, when he is driving you to pray about it,
maybe he has given you the opportunity to address it.
And maybe you just need to say, Lord, if you're wanting me to do this, if you're calling me to do this, equip me to do the work that you've called me to do.
Nehemiah, he prays, he plans, and ultimately we're going to see that he begins to act because the burden becomes everything for him.
And he says, God, I have to do the work that you have called me to do.
Burden for the Lost
What breaks your heart this morning, church? Maybe this morning you're sitting here and you say, Pastor James, I've got a family member that's away from the Lord, that doesn't know you, that doesn't know who he is. And one day they were there, but now they have completely turned from their faith.
Maybe you're here this morning and the Lord is working in your heart because you don't know him. Jesus is saying, I am here for you.
Second question I want to ask is, what are you doing about it? What are we doing about what is breaking our heart? Are we just praying or are we praying and then saying, God,
allow me to have the feet as we looked at last week that are so encapsulated with the gospel that I've got to go out and do something. A good soldier doesn't just stand there, but when the commander in chief looks at him and says,
now I need you to go because you've been equipped. The soldier goes and does what the commander tells him to do. And we are being told to go out into the reaches of all around us and to tell people about the gospel. We must ask ourselves,
God, why are you giving me this burden? God, why are you causing me to be so burdened by the things that are here?
Nehemiah was approached by his brothers and his sisters and he was told what was going on. And he was so consumed that he says he mourned for a number of days.
How often have we been mourning and praying and fasting and saying, God, give me the wisdom that I need to go and do what you've called me to do. This morning, church, we have a burden that we have. Each of one of our, our burdens are different.
And we must go before God and say, God, give me the desire to do the right thing. Let us pray. Father, we love you. We thank you for what you've done.
Lord, help us as we go through this study of Nehemiah. The walls that are broken down, the lives that we look at that are restored. The burden that you gave Nehemiah that he was able to go in and see restoration.
And the faith that they begin to see as you worked in this people's life.
Lord, I'm reminded that you are not just the God of the Old Testament. But you're the God today. And you can work in our lives. You can work in our church. You can work right here on the last Sunday of September,
August, whatever month it is, Lord. That you would come and you would work in our lives. That you would help us to grow closer to you.
That you would give us a burden that would be so in touch with you. That our lives, we can't leave this place today without working on that burden. Lord, help us to serve you. In your name we pray. Amen.
Thank you again for taking your time to listen to the sermon audio of Pleasant Grove. Please subscribe to get our latest sermons each week. Listen to me as always. Olhumance each week. Thank you.
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