Redemptive Prayers - Nehemiah 1:1-11

Welcome to God's Word for You, from Ministry of Sharon Arby Church in Southeast Iowa. We want to thank you for listening today, and we pray that you'll be blessed by both hearing God's Word, as well as having it applied to your life and your heart. What a great last line there. Oh Lord, you are my rock. You have redeemed and set me free.

Well, let's turn over in our Bibles to the book of Nehemiah. Nehemiah. So Nehemiah is one of the last books of the historical books. And we're going to be spending a large part of the rest of the year going chapter by chapter through the book of Nehemiah. And I'm really excited about it. It's about faith being revitalized, the city of God being built up, and the work that God does through his people by his promises. And so look with me now at Nehemiah chapter 1. Nehemiah chapter 1. And we'll read the first chapter, 11 verses. Nehemiah chapter 1, you can find that on page 428 of your pew bibles. Hear now God's word.

The words of Nehemiah, the son of Hakaliah, it came to pass in the month of Kislev in the twelfth, or sorry, the twentieth year that I was in Susen, the citadel, that Hanani, one of my brethren, came with me from Judah. came with men from Judah. And I asked them concerning the Jews who had escaped, who had survived the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem. And they said to me, the survivors who are left from the captivity in the province are in great distress and reproach. The wall of Jerusalem is also broken down, and its gates are burned with fire.

So it was when I heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned for many days. I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven. And I said, I pray. Lord God of heaven, O great and awesome God, you who keep your covenant and mercy with those who love you and observe your commandments, please let your ear be attentive and your eyes open, that you may hear the prayer of your servant, which I pray before you now, day and night, for the children of Israel, your servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against you. Both my father's house and I have sinned.

We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, nor the ordinances which you commanded your servant Moses. Remember, I pray, the word that you commanded your servant Moses, saying, If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations. But if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though some of you were cast out to the furthest parts of the heavens, yet I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen as a dwelling for my name. Now these are your servants and your people whom you have redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand. O Lord, I pray, please let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant and to the prayer of your servants who desire to fear your name. and let your servant prosper this day, I pray, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man. For I was a king's cupbearer.

The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Well, there was a foolish man who died in 1980. There is a foolish man named Harry Truman who died in May of 1980. And he wasn't the president. He was an old man living on Mount St. Helens. He was an old foolish man who the geologists and the surveyors and the park rangers came to him time and again pleading with him, save your life, the volcano is about to blow. And he said, no, no, I got this. I have a mine shaft. It's been abandoned. I have food and I have booze stored in there. If something happens, I'll go there. I'll be safe." Up to the very last day, he refused to flee to safety. He was a fool. And the next day, he died because of his pride. He died because he said he didn't need to be saved by anyone, but he could keep himself safe.

How many of us have experienced this in our own lives with people we have told the gospel to? When we've told people, there's wrath going to come, flee Jesus Christ is away, and they say, no, no, no, I got this, I'm not that bad. How many times have we grieved the way that people are going, making decisions in their life because they refuse to be redeemed? It's ingrained in our American experience. It's ingrained in our we-can-pick-ourselves-up-by-the-bootstrap-and-do-it-ourselves attitude. It's part of what it means to have gumption as an American.

But it's at direct odds with what God says and portrays here in the book of Nehemiah. And so as we look through chapter one of Nehemiah, we need to be praying redemptively. We need to be praying redemptive prayers. God, save us. Our prayers need to be filled with redemption, with humility. And that's what we explore this morning in Nehemiah chapter one. It all starts with hearing some bad news. The reality is that we have to hear the bad news. Look with me at the first four verses.

The words of Nehemiah, the son of Hakaliah, it came to pass in the month of Kislev in the 20th year. I was in Shushan in the citadel that Hananiah, one of my brethren, came with men from Judah. And I asked them concerning the Jews who had escaped, who had survived the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem. People come from Jerusalem.

See, why is Nehemiah in the citadel in Susa? Why is Nehemiah in Persia? He's there because God's people have been taken out of Jerusalem, ripped out of their homeland, and transplanted in Babylon. Now the Babylonians by this time had been taken over by the Medes and the Persians. And we find Nehemiah there as an alien in a foreign land.

And some of his relatives come back from Jerusalem, and he asks them, what's going on in Jerusalem? How's it going back at home? See, Ezra had already been sent before to go build up the temple. Cyrus had given that decree. But now, Nehemiah is asking, how are the people? Is it better there? Are things going well? And the report isn't good. They have to hear the bad news. And they said to me, verse 3, the survivors who are left from the captivity in the province are in great distress and reproach.

The wall of Jerusalem is also broken down and its gates are burned with fire. The city of David is still in rubbles. The wall is still torn down. The people of God, the Jews, there are Jewish people living in Jerusalem, but they have no safety. The gates are still burned with fire. Anyone at any whim could walk in and destroy the people again. It's in ruins. It's in ruins. And what do we find in Nia's response in verse 4?

So it was when I heard these words that I sat down and wept, and mourned for many days. I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven. Nehemiah finds out about this hard providence. Nehemiah finds out about the disastrous state of what's going on. He hears this bad news and what does he do? He weeps. He mourns. And he goes to the only place he knows to find comfort. See, Nehemiah's very name means God comforts. And here, in his mourning, when he hears this bad news, he sits down, he weeps, he no longer desires food around him, but his food is going to be in the presence of God. And that's where he goes to be comforted when he hears the bad news.

When bad news comes to you in your life, where do you go? When bad news comes into your own experience, what do you do? Again and again and again in the scriptures, we find that when God's people encounter bad news, they do not run to themselves as if the strength is in them, but they run in prayer to God. Where do you run to when bad news comes?

Run to the Lord in prayer. And in this prayer, as we look at the remaining of the chapter, almost all of it is taken up by this godly man's holy prayer. And it starts with Nehemiah invoking God's name. Look with me at the first part of verse five. And I said, I pray, Lord God of heaven, oh great and awesome God, you who keep your covenant and mercy. Nehemiah calls, he invokes on God's very own name here. I want you to seriously put your finger on verse five, look at it, one, two, three, four, five.

The sixth word in the pew Bibles is the word Lord. Do you notice it's got a weird type text to it? Capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D. Lord, this is the Hebrew Tetragrammaton. This is Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh. This is the name that God gives to Moses. He says, I am who I am. I am the covenant-keeping God, full of mercy and longsuffering. This is the God who Nehemiah calls on. It's not some, you know, oh, he's kind of out there. It's maybe kind of like a fuzzy image of who God is. No. Nehemiah invokes God's holy name.

What does he call him? He calls the Lord the God of heaven. He calls him the great God and the awesome God. He calls him the God that when you come into his presence your mouth drops and you're rendered speechless. This is the God that before his name the angels bow and sing his praises. When we pray we invoke God's name. When you pray Know that there is a God in heaven who truly hears you and loves you. There is a God we pray to.

And this is exactly what Jesus tells us to pray in Matthew 6. Do you remember the different petitions that we've been working on over the last month in the Lord's Prayer? Our Father, who is in heaven, hallowed be your name. This is how Nehemiah starts his prayer. He prays to his Father, who is in heaven, and he immediately invokes his holy name. See, Jesus' prayer, his model prayer, is not like it's Brand new. We'd never known this before. It's a model of prayer we find all throughout the scriptures. But it starts with praying His holy name. It's God-centered prayers.

But as Nehemiah continues this prayer, look with me at the second half of verse 5. He not only calls upon God's name, but he says, you who keep your covenant and mercy with those who love you and observe your commandments. When Nehemiah prays, he does not just invoke God's name, but he appeals to his covenant nature. See, when we pray, we invoke God's name, but we also appeal to God's covenant nature. That's what Nehemiah does here. Did you catch it? How he appeals to God's covenant nature? How he appeals to how God has said he interacts with people?

You who keep your covenant and mercy. See, God doesn't make covenants that he's willy-nilly going to break. God doesn't make promises that he's just going to toss aside. When God makes promises, those are things that we can cling to and know that they're ours. Pray the promises of God.

When we appeal to God's covenant nature, we are appealing to who he is. We're saying, God, you're the one who shows chesed. You're the one who shows loving kindness, loyalty, devotion, grace, and mercy to your people. You're the one who loves your people and are patient with them.

Do you see, Nehemiah doesn't jump in his prayer to, oh God, save us. Nehemiah jumps to who God is first. Do you see the God-centeredness of this redemptive prayer? But he also, in that same sentence, takes an evaluation of his own heart, doesn't he? Keeping his covenant mercy to those who observe your commandments. Later we're going to see that he confesses that he doesn't. But he also calls on God. He makes an appeal to God. He pleads with God for him to hear him. Look with me at verse 6.

Please let your ear be attentive and your eyes be open, that you may hear the prayer of your servant, which I pray before you now, day and night." Why does Nehemiah have to pray for God to hear him? I mean, maybe we're just too familiar with the Bible, right? Maybe we've just been in the church for too long. Maybe you've just prayed too often to take notice of this. Why does Nehemiah have to ask God to hear him?

When you pray, I'm guessing you just assume that God hears you. But see, God doesn't owe us anything. God does not owe us anything. Everything he gives to us, even hearing our prayers, is an act of grace. And Nehemiah recognizes that. Nehemiah recognizes that unless the Lord decides to turn his ear to him, to open his eyes and see him, It's God's prerogative. Now God has promised that he's going to hear our prayers, but it's an act of grace, and Nehemiah doesn't take that for granted, and neither should we. Neither should you in your own life plead that God would hear you. Why does God hear us? Right? I mean, Nehemiah doesn't just strut into the throne room of God full of pride, but he comes humble, asking God to hear him. But why does God hear you? Well, God hears us.

God hears you in your prayers because you have a high priest who makes intercession for you. See, you're able to cry out to your father who is in heaven, because you have a Redeemer who makes your prayers perfect for you. And Jesus Christ is ever faithful. And your prayers don't go unanswered because we pray in Jesus' name. We pray relying on Jesus, on the Holy Spirit to take our prayers to Christ who makes them perfect to the Father. Pray to your Father who is in heaven But you need to plead with him that he would hear you because of Jesus.

But as we continue to look at this prayer that Nehemiah has, he continues to humble himself. See, he said that God is going to show covenant love to those who keep his testimonies, but Nehemiah knows that he doesn't do that. Nehemiah knows that he is not a righteous person in and of himself. And he doesn't hide that from God.

One of the most prideful things we can do in our lives, one of the most foolish things we can do in our lives, is to act as if we're righteous before a holy God in and of ourselves. Nehemiah here tells us to confess our sins. Look at the second half of verse six and verse seven with me. For the children of Israel, your servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel. Nehemiah could have just stopped there. God, I'm gonna confess their sins. Man, Lord, they are sinful people. They really need your help. They really need your grace. But that's not what he does.

Notice what he says, which we have sinned against you. Both my father's house and I have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, nor the ordinances which you commanded your servant Moses. See, Nehemiah is saying it's not only the people who sin, but it's me. I've sinned. My household has sinned. We're all sinners.

And again, some of us might just take this for granted. We've been raised in evangelical churches or been in evangelical churches for long enough that we just are used to this. But do you realize what Nehemiah is doing? He's saying, Lord, I've got a problem. I'm a sinner. You show love to those who keep your testimony, but I'm not one of them. I've broken your ordinances. I've broken your statutes. I've broken your judgments. So the book of 1 John is clear.

We cannot be those who say that we are without sin. If we do that, we lie to ourselves and we make God to be a liar. But when we confess our sins, He, He is faithful and He is just to forgive us of all of our sins and to cleanse us from all of our unrighteousness.

When you pray, will you pray what Jesus told you to pray in the Lord's Prayer? Forgive us our debts. Will you humble yourself before God in prayer like Nehemiah does here? This is part of redemptive praying. It's part of us humbling ourselves before God. When we confess our sins to God, we remember Jesus Christ. When we confess our sins, see, Nehemiah is looking forward to the day of redemption. The day of redemption has come, brothers and sisters.

Jesus Christ was numbered among the transgressors, and his very name means he will save his people from their sins. Will you confess your sins? Will you rely on Jesus Christ in your prayer life? Will you go to him? See, Nehemiah is praying a prayer both very personal as well as corporate.

We should not hide in our congregation like we're a holy huddle bunch of people. When people in the community look at our church, we should have a reputation of those people are sinners. and they know it, and they love Jesus because of it. Is our reputation in the community, oh, those holier-than-thou people, or do we know that we are those who fall and that we need redemption, that Jesus Christ is the one we rely on?

See, this is what redemptive praying looks like. This is why Jesus tells us where to pray daily. Because we need this reminder. We need to be humbled by God and we need to be looking to Christ. Nehemiah doesn't just stop there. He doesn't just pray this prayer of confession, but he pleads God's promises. When we pray, we must plead God's promises. Look with me at verses 8 through 10. Remember, I pray, the words that you commanded your servant Moses, saying, if you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations.

That's the first part. God did that. See, when God says something, He's going to do it. Now, God is also patient and merciful, and He waited hundreds of years to do it. But Nehemiah can't deny, God told Moses in Deuteronomy chapter 30, verses 1 through 4, that He was going to scatter His people across the heavens. That's happened. That was a promise, and God brought it to fruition.

Now he's praying the second part of that promise. Verse 9. But if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though some of you were cast out to the furthest parts of the heavens, yet I will gather them from there and bring them to the place which I have chosen as a dwelling place for my name. Now there are your servants and your people whom you have redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand. Nehemiah is giving us a pattern here.

God is giving you a pattern that when you pray, you need to run to the promises like your life depends on it. You need to run to the promises of God that he gives you in your prayer life. When God says that he is going to complete the good work that he has begun in you, and you live in your experience and you realize, man, I got a whole lot more to do, you better plead with God in your prayers, Lord, finish the work, you've promised it. When you plead with God in your prayer of confession, you better cling to the promise, God, you have promised that you will make me as white as snow.

Do it. Father, you have promised that you will remove my sin as far as the east as from the west. You've promised it, God. Do it. Do you have confidence in God's promises like Nehemiah has here? See, God has done a good work and God has made many promises. Will you call on your covenant God to keep his promises? Will you do it? Now I'm going to warn you, there takes a certain amount of biblical literacy to be able to do that. See, we need to be in our Bibles to know how to pray this type of prayer.

How did Nehemiah know that God had promised to gather back in his people? How did Nehemiah know that he had told this to his servant Moses? How did Nehemiah know these things? It's because he knew God's Word. He knew God's Word and he loved God's Word.

You cannot pray scripture-filled, scripture-rich, promise-overflowing types of prayers if you don't know the promises. And the way you find the promises is by opening it up. Go to the Word of God. Eat your daily bread. Find what he has for you. When we go to the Word in prayer, we remember what Christ has done, and we plead for Christ's work to be done in our lives.

This is what it means for, again, Nehemiah. Nehemiah is teaching us in different ways what Jesus taught us in the Lord's Prayer. Your kingdom to come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Nehemiah is praying, God, don't let your words just be something that's written on a page, but let it actually happen, God. Do we pray for God's kingdom? Do we believe God's promises?

That's what Nehemiah is calling you here to this morning, to plead those promises. But we also, again, he goes back in verse 11 to asking for God to hear him. O Lord, verse 11, O Lord, I pray, please let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant and to the prayer of your servants who desire to fear your name.

I mean, this is like bookends of his prayer. Are the bookends of your prayer humility? Are the bookends of your prayer relying on God that He alone hears you and shows you grace? Are the bookends of your prayer pleading that God would hear you for the sake of Jesus? We plead for hearing.

Lastly, we rely on the King of Kings. In our prayers, we must realize that we pray, we rely on the all-sovereign King of kings.

Look with me at the second half of verse 11. I pray, and I pray and grant him mercy in the sight of this man, for I was the king's cupbearer." Nehemiah asks to prosper, or a better word for there is thrive. Nehemiah has a request for the Lord, and that's to have success with this man.

He's talking about Artaxerxes I, the king of the Medes and the Persians at this time. He's a cupbearer. He knows he's going to go into the king's presence and, well, the Mede and Persian kings are fickle kings who will kill people who walk into their presence without their authority or without their permission. And he knows that the only way that he's going to be able to walk into that throne room and not possibly face death is if the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord. If the king of kings grants him prosperity before the king of the earth. Do you see how he says that there? And let your servant prosper this day, I pray, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.

Nehemiah gives us a pattern of realizing that we might have wonderful plans, we might have great things we're planning to do, but I hate to tell you All the power of Satan and the demons and of the rulers of this world are against the kingdom of Jesus Christ and his righteousness and don't want his kingdom to advance. Do you want to know why we don't see revival in our land today? The kingdom of this world doesn't want it. Do we want to know why our families are disintegrating before our eyes? Because that's exactly what Satan wants.

Unredeemed people outside of the hand of the King of Kings, who redeems people by his mighty right hand, who brings them up with his righteous right arm, will always stay there. When we pray, we plead to the King of Kings. When we pray, we make petition to the sovereign Lord of the universe. who can actually do something about it. When you pray, you don't pray to some futile, lonely, impotent, can't-do-anything God.

In Chalk and Talk, in a few hours, we're going to look at what the kingdom of the Medes and the Persians covered, from India to Greece, from Turkey to Egypt. And a king who can cover that great swath of land can be controlled by the God of the universe. So can every ruler and principality today.

Closing Prayer

Do we pray that type of prayer with that type of confidence? Do we pray that the kings of the nations would bow to Jesus Christ? And do we have confidence that he can do it? Pray like that. Pray those types of redemptive prayers. Let's pray now. Lord, do a heart work in us now.

Father, you are the one who can bury these words in our hearts and can transform the ways we think and believe and pray. Lord, please turn our hearts to cling to you, to look up to you with awe. Father, forgive us for how often we don't treat you that way. We don't fear you. God, please. Lord, if we don't fear you now, make us fear you. Do that heart transplant work. And Father, please, throughout all the nations, let your glory be proclaimed. In Jesus' name, amen.