Nehemiah's Prayer Through Brokenness part 2

Nehemiah chapter one should be a familiar place in your scriptures. Of course we know where Ezra is. We spent quite a bit of time in Ezra. Like I said numerous times, Nehemiah is really just a continuation of that story, the story of God calling his people back to rebuild as a nation, rebuild their worship, and rebuild kingdom work. And we have been in verses five through eleven. We covered verses five through seven last week. Tonight we will cover the rest of the chapter. We'll be in verses eight through eleven.

Now I've been saying all along that verse four is really, and even really the entire chapter is a tremendous low point in Nehemiah's life. Now I don't know how you study. I don't know if you mark up your Bible, but if you do mark up your Bible it wouldn't hurt for verse four to really be highlighted in the chapter because that's the great turning point. That was the low point in Nehemiah's life. Now it was a low point and this was a very devastating low point spiritually. We see weeping out of verse four. We see praying. We see fasting. And this was not for five or ten minutes. This was for days.

Now I guess an application, I'd like to say this. We must ask ourselves, have we ever been to the place where we are broken in this manner spiritually? Now I know that we have personal tragedy, but we're dealing with matters of kingdom work. We're dealing with the church. We're dealing with the church and God's people and the work of God being advanced here on earth. But my question is, have we ever been to a place where we are broken spiritually? Many of you have come from difficult church situations in the past. It's not enough to be angry. We can be angry when the church is sick.

We can be angry when we see the men who are supposed to be men of God leading the church in an unbiblical manner. But it's not enough to be angry. It's not enough just to agree with God that it's wrong. Have we ever been broken like Nehemiah? I've also said that this was a high point. This low point led to a call of God on his life. These circumstances in God's work in Nehemiah through these circumstances led to a great change in Nehemiah's life. This was all part of God's sovereign plan to involve him in kingdom work. So all of these things had to take place in chapter one in Nehemiah to prepare him for the work that God had.

Now there are many things that we can learn from Nehemiah's experience, but one thing we must see, and we're going to wrap up chapter one, but I want us to see there is one thing that is in Nehemiah's heart, and that was he was very passionate for kingdom work. You know, I think you can travel the globe and you can find what men are passionate about, whether they're poor, whether they're rich, whether they're in an undeveloped country or a developed country. Men have passions. Men have desires, but we see that Nehemiah was passionate for what? For kingdom work.

And we have seen that in his reaction to the condition of the Jews, that's in verse four, it led him to this great prayer. The beginning of the prayer in verse five, we see that he immediately turns to the covenant of God, the foundation by which he came was the covenant, the word of God, and he wanted the people of Israel to come to God in repentance, and he was seeking restitution for God's people, and he wanted God to act. He wanted God to move on what he had already promised that he would do. That was the covenant. And he was so passionate, now listen, that he was willing to be a part of the solution.

Now remember, I've said this numerous times, he was not a construction worker. He did not have a crew. He did not have a business to load up and go build the walls. He was a cup bearer. You can say it like this, he would have had soft hands, but because he was a servant, he was willing to be part of the solution. Now I ran across a good quotation, which should drive home this passion for kingdom work and help it apply to us. I mentioned previously one resource that you might be interested in, it's a little Bible commentary. It's really easy to read. A layman would really be able to read it well. It's by a man named James Hamilton.

It's called Christ Centered Exposition Commentary Series. This one is on Ezra and Nehemiah. I recognize some of the editors, David Platt, who is the president of our International Mission Board, was one of the editors, and it caught my eye and it's a good resource. So I want to always give, when I give information, I want to give you, tell you where it comes from. But James Hamilton says this, an application, talking about this passion, I'm quoting, "If we love God in the advance of his glory, we will feel deep sorrow when the advance of the gospel is halted, and we will be disciplined and diligent to fast and pray.

If we are not feeling sorrow and cultivating diligence and discipline, we should seek to stir ourselves and one another up to love and good deeds." I like that because that goes beyond just being angry because God's work is halted on earth. It's not enough just to agree. We must have such a passion that we would be part of the solution. And that should be one of the purposes of our study in Ezra, in Nehemiah, that we would develop this type of passion. Now, unfortunately, many pastors turn to these books in the wrong way.

I think many pastors will turn to these books maybe during a building program, maybe they have physical goals in the life of the church. And I think that does the message of these books and injustice because I believe what God would want to do is stir up within us a true passion for our kingdom work. Now, last week we divided verses five through seven. We only explored two main truths for the sake of time. We looked at his statements about God out of verse five, and then we looked at his confession to God out of verses six through seven. Now, this is a part two. We're holding on to that same title.

This is Nehemiah's Prayer Through Brokenness. And we're going to continue in the verses. Like I said earlier, verses eight through eleven, we will look at his request of God, his concern for the people, and his concern for success. His concern for success. You see the information before you, encourage you to write that down, and again, develop your own method of taking notes so that you can continue to learn. I have said this before, this can be a great resource for you many years from now.

You find yourself in another church, another day, another place, and you can use this resource, the book of Nehemiah, and all that we're learning, if you're faithful to discipline yourself to take notes. Let's pick up in verse seven, verse, excuse me, verse eight. This is a little bit of a transition in the prayer. It was a good place for us to stop last week. Again, this is the remainder of the prayer, verse eight, all the way down to verse eleven. Nehemiah says, "Remember the word which thou didst command, thy 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 parts of the heavens, I will gather them from there and will bring them to the place where I have chosen to cause my name to dwell." Verse ten, "And they are thy servants and thy people, whom thou didst redeem by thy great power and by thy strong hand. O Lord, I beseech thee, may thine ear be attentive to the prayer of thy servant and the prayer of thy servants, who delight to revere thy name and make thy servant successful today and grant him compassion before this man.

Now, I was the cupbearer to the king." So let's look at main truth number one. I want us to see his request of God. So out of verses eight through nine, his request of God. What does he say? "Remember the word which thou didst command." He's still in the middle of this prayer. Now here we see a change in Nehemiah's prayer. We see a progression. If you read it multiple times, we divide it, you will notice that progression. He starts in verse five by praising God for who he truly is. What does he do? He exalts God. You are the one true God, the God of all creation. Then he comes to God on the foundation of his word.

He's quoting loosely the covenant, the word of God back to God. Then he moves into confession and intercession in verses six through seven. That is when things really get to the brutal reality of the situation in the confession because he's being honest about the situation before God. Now Nehemiah, starting in verse eight, begins to make requests of God. Now two observations out of these verses. First notice he uses the word "remember." Verse eight, "Remember the word which thou didst command." Remember.

Now all the translations that we study use the word "remember." I study and preach from the New American, but all of the translations use this word "remember." Now if we think about this, the fact that he used this word for Nehemiah to ask God to remember really should seem strange. I mean, can God really forget? We should understand that God cannot forget. God is not like a man. He can never forget. He is not like a man that he can put things in the back of his mind. We use terminology phrases like that. Well, I just put that in the back of my mind. God is not like a man. He can't forget. He can't file things away in the back of his mind.

God is not like man. His memory is perfect in every way. So what is Nehemiah asking of God? Why is he using this word "remember"? This is a humble plea for God to act on his word. He is warning God to act on what he has already said. I like how MacArthur says it. Just a small phrase, but it really captures it. MacArthur says this is a plea to activate his word. In other words, act on what you've already said you would do. So we need to see this word "remember" is powerful. He is asking God to activate, act on, bring about his word.

Second, notice he quotes the word "back to God." He quotes the word "back to God." Remember the word which thou, its command, thy servant Moses, saying? Now he's quoting right here. If you were faithful, 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 parts of the heavens, I will gather them from there and I will bring them to the place where I have chosen to cause my name to dwell. End of quotation. So he is quoting God's word "back to God." Now think about this. Do you think God knew his own word? Yes.

We must take notice that he is quoting, praying scripture back to God. This is not a direct quotation. This is a general reference. We can say it like this, that Nehemiah is loosely quoting the word of God. Let me give you a few references and I want to challenge you to go back and read them. You can find this very language in Deuteronomy 4, verse 24 through 28. In Deuteronomy 28, verse 63 through 65. Then Deuteronomy 30, verses 1 through 5. I'll repeat those for you. Deuteronomy 4, starting in verse 25 to verse 28. Deuteronomy 28, verse 63 to 65. Deuteronomy 30, verses 1 through 5.

And if you read those passages, you'll see where this prayer comes from. He is quoting, although it is a loose quotation, God's word back to God. So here we see Nehemiah's request. And if you really notice, it seems like a very bold request. He is referencing the scripture and he is referencing the covenant and asking God to remember. He is asking God to act on his word. If I can quote MacArthur again, he is making a plea for God to activate his word. God knew his word. God knows his word and knew his word better than Nehemiah. But he is coming to God and asking God to activate his word, act upon what he said he would do.

This is bold and this is powerful. Right to God. Now, in application, I want to ask us, can we boldly ask God to act on his word and build the church truly expecting that he would do great things? It's not enough for us to be heartbroken about the condition of the church. It's not enough for us to be angry when we see men run roughshod over the church. It's not enough for us to be angry when we see the church sick. It's really not enough for us to just be broken from time to time. I mention this to you. I will counsel friends, fellow ministers, and they will begin to tell me about how their churches are sick, problems that they are facing.

Many times it will be grievous and it's not enough to just be angry or agree with God. Yes, Lord, that's wrong. It's not enough to have the right information that God has taught us. We must move beyond that. And I believe that we can come before God on behalf of the church. We can come just as Nehemiah did and say, Lord, remember, you said you would build your church, that the gates of hell would not prevail. Would you please do that here?

And I believe if we have God to do a Nehemiah-type work, we will be able to pray that prayer for not only here, but other churches, maybe the church around the world in India and other, maybe your parents' church, maybe churches within this community. Could God grow our hearts, do such a work in us, that we would boldly come before God on behalf of the church and not just ours? Did you know we could be really even selfish in this kind of work? We can say, Lord, do this Nehemiah work in me. I'll come and pray and I'll boldly pray your word back, but just for us. Could that be a little selfish?

Remember, Nehemiah was in Persia, thousands of miles away, over a thousand. His countrymen were there, struggling in Jerusalem. He had a heart so big that he could pray for people that he most likely had never seen. You see? His request of God? Bold. Remember, please do what only you can do. Let's move on. Let's notice truth number two. I want us to see his concern for the people, his concern for the people. We're going to read this one verse. "And they are thy servants, and they, the people whom thou disredeemed, by thy great power and by thy strong hand." He's talking about the people. He says that they are your servants.

Brother Keith mentioned earlier how many times Nehemiah used the word "servant." So here we see another transition in Nehemiah's prayer. Nehemiah shifts from confession and intercession and coming to God on the solid ground of the covenant to expressing a genuine concern for the people. Those were his own fellow brothers and sisters, his countrymen. And remember, many of them he did not even know, but he had a concern for God's people. Two things out of this verse I want us to see. First of all, he reminds God who they are. He reminds God who they are. Isn't that what he says?

"And they," these Jews, the ones in Jerusalem, the ones struggling, the ones who have not finished this work, "and they are thy servants and thy people." Do we not understand? Did Nehemiah not understand that God do this? Two times he says, "These are your people." And God knew it. He uses the word "people and servants." The King James, English Standard, New American, used the same word. So what is he saying? "God, these are your people." But notice it changes. Second, he reminds God what he did for them.

Verse 10 again, "Whom thou didst redeem by thy great power and by thy strong hand." This is a reference to the fact that God delivered Israel from Egyptian slavery. This was a major part of their history. We know their history. They were in Egyptian captivity. They were slaves. And God wonderfully, powerfully delivered them. He used his servant Moses. And that was a turning point in the nation of Israel. They really journeyed from slavery to becoming a nation. Now, this redemption is a theme of great importance because it refers to the fact that they were bought with a price. They were redeemed from slavery.

This portion of the verse is almost a direct quote from Deuteronomy 9, verse 29. Let me read you the verse. Deuteronomy 9, verse 29. "For they are your people and your heritage, whom you brought out by your great power and by your outstretched arm." So, here we see that Nehemiah has a true concern for the people. But in so doing, he is quoting back to God the word which he had spoken. Again, he's going back to the word. Let me go back to the word. Remember from verse 8, he is calling God to act on his word because they are his servants, his redeemed people. He is saying, "God, act on your word. You bought them." God, act on your word.

They are your servants. Now, an application. If you were redeemed, if you were born again, if you were blood-bought, you were a part of the church, universal. That means you were in the universal church. You were brothers and sisters to every Christian who has ever lived and every Christian who is on the face of the earth. I experienced that when I went to India. I went to different churches. Me being a redeemed, blood-bought, born-again Christian, I met Christians there. And as I got to know them, I began to realize, "Wait a minute. You are a brother. You are a sister." So, if we are redeemed, we are part of the church.

But then, specifically, if you were redeemed and God has led you here, you are part of this church. And what I want us to see out of this verse, this small verse, is that we need to see who we are. We are brothers and sisters, fellow servants. We serve the same King. And look, we must be concerned for one another. We must love one another and serve one another and meet each other's needs. All of us are uniquely different. We are uniquely created. We have come from different backgrounds. We all have different struggles. Some of your struggles are my strengths. Some of your strengths are my weaknesses.

You have strengths to the left, strengths to the right, weakness in the back, weakness in the front. What am I showing you? We are all different. We all come from a different background. But God has brought us here for this particular time and for His purposes. And we need each other. And we should have concern for each other. And again, it's not enough for us to be concerned about just each other in this room and in this church. We must grow to the place where we can have a concern like Nehemiah and be concerned for brothers and sisters that we've never even seen.

We should be heartbroken when we see brothers and sisters here in our church struggle. Maybe struggle with sin, difficulty in life, you name it. But we should equally be broken and concerned when we hear of other Christians. I think we've gotten a little taste of that. We've been involved in the ministry there in India with Luke and those ministers and those ministries. I've enjoyed seeing God do that work in you. I've heard you pray and remember men in situations there. That's a concern. I don't know if concern is a deep enough or heavy enough word. But what do we see? Nehemiah's concern for the people.

And let's look at main truth number three. Let's notice his concern for success. His concern for success. Verse 11, Oh Lord, I beseech thee. May thine ear be attentive to thy prayer, thy servant, and the prayer of thy servants. Two times this word's used. Who delight to revere thy name and to make thy servant successful today and grant him compassion before this man. Now I was the cup bearer to the king. Nehemiah had been praying and great brokenness and grief for days. Verse four tells us this private prayer was fueled, if I can use that language, energized.

This private prayer was fueled and energized by fasting, that self-denial, and seeking after God's heart in the matter. You see what he's chasing after? The work God's doing. God is giving him a heart transplant, that he would have God's heart in the matter. And through this private prayer, he begins this recorded prayer. We see this recorded or public prayer, if I can use that language in verses five through eleven. Now, he not only moves to the conclusion, but to a place where he is putting his feet to the prayer. You see? Two things out of this verse. First of all, he asks God to hear his prayer. He asks God to hear his prayer.

"Thy said the very beginning, O Lord, I beseech thee, may thine ear be attentive to the prayer of thy servant." It is not that he thinks that God can't hear his prayer. Of course, we should understand that sin can prevent one's prayer from being heard, but that is not the case here with Nehemiah. Nehemiah is coming to God in confession and repentance, and on the solid foundation of the covenant, God's word. There is no firmer foundation to come before God than on his word. But he is humbly asking God to hear his prayer. Notice he uses the word "servant," which denotes his humility.

All of the translations use this word "servant." So he asks God to hear him. Second, he asks God to give him success. Isn't that what we see? "O Lord, I beseech thee, may thine ear be attentive to thy prayer, the prayer of thy servant, and the prayer of thy servants, who delight to revere thy name." See, he was desirous for the glory of God. Notice the transition. "And make thy servant successful today, grant him compassion before this man." In this portion of verse 11, the modern translations use the word "success." King James uses the word "mercy." This must be seen in light of Nehemiah's circumstances.

Nehemiah understands that to be part of the solution in Jerusalem, he needed mercy or success before the king. Now, to ask God to go back and to rebuild the walls of the city of a conquered territory would have been seen as a threat to the kingdom and seen as a disloyalty. It would have been against royal policy. So he needs success. He needs favor in the eyes of this king. See how he's putting feet to that prayer? And he needed mercy from the king. So here we see that Nehemiah is asking for success. He's asking for something that can only come from God. He is obviously preparing to go back and go before the king.

There would be no reason to expect "erxes" to grant him favor. No reason. This king had earlier stopped the work of God in Jerusalem. If you go all the way back to Ezra chapter 4 verse 21, you see that he had stopped the work. So he had been an enemy to the work before. So we see this concern for success. He is putting feet to this prayer. Now an application. We must see that God can give us success in our church. The circumstances that are before us, God can give us success.

But listen, be careful because you might be praying, "God, use someone else." When actually God wants to bring you to the end and bring you to the place where you would say, "Lord, I'm a servant. Use me." It's very important for you to see that. God can use us. You know from time to time I noticed some of our circumstances like you do. We are a distance from town. That can be a good thing and it can be a tough thing. We are a country church. Cultures change tremendously. We do have an older facility. Brother Keith and I pray to have wisdom how to address some of these needs.

But God is bigger than our geographical location in the age of our property. And I've got to believe that God can give us success in building the church, reaching the lost, growing the saints, reaching our next generation. But it could be that He is desiring to do a work in us that we would be used and not wait on God to use someone else. Now, as we move towards the conclusion, I want to conclude with a few questions. Maybe you drop these down. And I would encourage you to take them past the pondering stage and possibly to your own prayer closet. Because remember, Nehemiah is praying. Nehemiah is facing circumstances, kingdom work.

God just did not give him a broken heart so he can write a book or preach a sermon series. No. It is so that he can be a servant and be used of God, part of the solution. Okay? So, in light of the situation with Nehemiah, I would ask you to ponder over these questions, but yet move beyond that, possibly move beyond, to put feet to these prayers. First of all, can we boldly ask of God according to His Word? I've been teaching for quite some time these type of situations, these matters, about the church. Some of you might think that I'm redundant, repetitive when you move on. I don't think we can ever move on.

We must constantly sound the alarm. We must constantly blow the horn. That is the church, the church, the church. God has entrusted Himself to the church. God has entrusted His work, kingdom work, in our day to the church. There is no plan B. Nehemiah's day, there was no plan B. It was the Jews. That ragtag overrun judged people.

And so I ask you, can you get into the Word of God and take all that we've been teaching you about the church, and can you ponder these truths and then be so bold that you can come before God in your own personal prayer closet and say, "Lord, you have brought us here, you have worked in us, and you have brought us to this day and this time, and can you get to the place where you will humbly and yet boldly ask God to do all that we've been learning right here?" Second, can we truly be concerned for God's people? We don't need to overlook that. Nehemiah was concerned for those Jews. He called them servants.

You know, he really could have been mad at them. "Wow! Why haven't they finished this work? They have Ezra! They've had plenty of time!" Can we truly be concerned for God's people? Isn't that what we hear Nehemiah saying? "Lord, these are your people, your servants. You redeemed them." Sinful though they may be. Lazy, apathetic, sluggish. I'm sure he could use lots of adjectives. Can we be concerned for each other? Can we be concerned for each other as men? Can we be concerned for each other as family and each other as children? Can we be concerned that Christ would be formed in each other like we would want Christ to be formed in us?

Can we be concerned that we would all be servants? You see what I'm trying to get at? And could we take that kind of concern to the prayer closet? It wasn't enough that Nehemiah was concerned. He interceded for them. Could we stay up late at night praying for each other? When we see a brother or a sister struggling maybe in the trial of their own life, the greatest trial in their life, could we be the one to intercede for them early in the morning? And then the third question. Can we desire to be a part of the solution? Can we desire truly to come before the Lord? And when God fully does a work in us, we would say, "Lord, I'm just a servant.

I'm a cupbearer. I don't fit. I don't have the talent or the experience, but I'll be a servant if you will grant me success." Could it be that you would have that heart? I think that is exactly where God was trying to get Nehemiah. That's when we get from the low point to the high point. I think that's when the Lord finally looked around and said, "Yeah, I got him right where I want him." Could we get to that place? I hope you realize that God can use you. I'll tell you this story and then we will close. This automatically, Brother Keith probably knows what I'm going to share, brings me back to how and when God called me.

I was raised in a good home. I'm thankful for my parents. The church where I was raised was on the changing side of town and it just slowly began to die. And in my teenage years, I had a job. I loved working. And it just was a negative set of circumstances and therefore I ended up not really involved in church a lot. The church was changing. No one was there my age. It was difficult for my parents. They hated to leave, but it was not good for me spiritually. I was not the church kid in high school. I really didn't enjoy school that well. I loved working.

If I could have gotten out of school already to go to work, I would have been the first one there. God saved me when I was 20 and instantly put me in the life of the church. I've shared that with you many times. But in my home church, I'll never forget we had some minister turnover, ministers who really weren't doing some things just right, especially in the area of students.

And I'll never forget, Christy and I were engaged at the time and our youth minister had left and we went and volunteered and just said, "You know, Brother Dennis, we'll be glad to help." Brother Dennis said, "I'd love to have your help." And he gave me a Wednesday night Bible study. Now, I never taught anything in my life. I went down to the local Christian bookstore and I bought a book, studied the first week's lesson, and I went in the choir room of Highland Baptist Church and I taught that lesson and the whole time I thought, "This is awful." I think I threw it in a garbage can when I walked out of the door.

And I just said that, "Lord, I just need you to show me what to teach." I got in the Word. Fast forward the story. We just were volunteers helping and somehow God did use us. All I did was teach the Word. I never forget they had been out of our Wednesday night program and it was not a healthy thing. I said, "Brother Dennis, I'll do it, but only if I teach the Bible study before church and they come in church." I knew they needed to be in church. Didn't make some of them very happy. But we began to volunteer and God ended up bringing a youth pastor and when he came and took over, I just assumed I would step off to the side.

He said, "No, I see where God's using you. I want to continue to use you." And I just served and did whatever he wanted me to do. But through that, God was working. And I never forget, I was in a worship service in the gym of Highland Baptist Church when God brought all of those circumstances and the work he was doing in me to a head. And when he spoke to my heart and he called me, it was a definitive call in my heart. And I didn't say, "Lord, I can't do it and I won't do it." This is how I responded. I said, "Lord, I'll do it." But really in my heart, I said, "Lord, I've really been average at most everything I've ever put my hand to.

I don't want to be that way with ministry." Now, why do I tell you that? I saw my inadequacies. You might feel inadequate. But you must see that God has brought you here for this day and this time and this hour. And I hope and pray that you and all of us, you and I, will have the heart of Nehemiah, will have a prayer life like Nehemiah, and God will so work in us. When we seek kingdom work, we will say, "Lord, I will be a part of the solution. I'm just a servant. I'm a nobody. I'm not qualified. I don't even have the worldly training, but I'll be a servant." Now, it will take risk. Nehemiah risk. Left comfort.

Had to travel over a thousand miles. We will see that he had to work ultimately with two weapons. He had to work with his hands on the wall with a sword on his side. Danger. Difficult. So it won't be easy. Kingdom work never is. So, what have we looked at tonight? Nehemiah's prayer through brokenness. I don't know where you are in this process. You're probably on the front side of brokenness. Maybe in the middle of brokenness. But hopefully he will get you to the end where he will do a verse 11 type work in you. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for this.