Better Pray Nehemiah Dr. Matt Cassidy 6/5/2011

Transcription

1 Better Pray Nehemiah Dr. Matt Cassidy 6/5/2011 I am very excited about the summer sermon series we are going to have. [starting June 19 July 24]. Working through our church, I hope it changes the way we do things around here. I hope it changes the lives of the people who attend. Next week, we have a very special Sunday and I will tell you about that right before we leave. [check This Sunday, I want to tell you about a way of viewing life as just Better Pray. A number of years ago, I was in a class and we were doing a get-to-know-you thing. The way we got to know each other was someone saying Hey, why don t we tell about God-things? Tell us a story where you had to blame God for how this thing worked out. * * * One that was especially memorable to me was a man who was traveling across the California desert on I.H. 10. His car just died; it died ugly and could not move or roll. He was a bit of a mechanic so he got under the car hood. Before computerized cars, the electronics part of the car ran off a distributor which sends sparks to each one of the spark plugs. The thing which tells which spark to get the electricity going to it is called points. It is inside the distributor and you take the cap off and there are these arms that go like this [two arms which come together, touching at one end] and when they touch, it arches and sends a spark to that spark plug. Those are called points because they touch at a point. Where these two were coming together, and they have little knobs on them, one of the knobs just broke flat off. The other knob was burned off. So one was burned and the other broken off and he pulled the cap off, looked at his points, and said Oh gosh, look at us. He realizes they are out in the desert, about 25 miles west of Blythe. If you know where Blythe, California is, I am sorry. The Chamber of Commerce says Blythe is West of nowhere and just South of hell. That can t be right but it is accurate. He just looked at his wife and said We are going to die out here in the desert. This is where it happens, baby. She said: Well, we had better pray. He said: That is cute but that is not how cars work. She said: Let s just pray. You put the things back in the other thing and then we can get on our way. Better Pray, Docx Page 1 of 12

2 The man just said: That is not how this is going to work. This car is broken. Honey, let s just pray, and you do that. So, they pray over the points and he puts them back. He turns the key and it starts! Then he drives 25 miles to Blythe and finds a mechanic. They open the hood and they pull the distributor cap off. The mechanic says: These points don t even they are gone! He said: Yea, I know. I have been driving 25 miles on those points. The mechanic says: That is not how points work. That is not how cars work. You didn t do that. He said: I don t want to go into it right now but could you save me that little part, the points. The mechanic said: Why? They are not good for anything. He said: They are good for a plaque and I am going to make a plaque out of those points. In his office, he has this plaque that reads: Better Pray. Those points are glued onto that plaque because his wife doesn t know much about cars but she knows a lot about prayer. * * * That is what I would like to talk to you about this summer. Nehemiah is like us Especially today, I want to look at a guy who knows how to pray. His name is Nehemiah. I like the way he looks at life because people who say Better Pray like that pastor s wife, those people have a view of life that is different from the rest of the world. Without even thinking, when people say Better Pray if you are that type of person, it means that you think that God is still working, here and now, in the details. It is not just a macro level with global history or the Middle East peace thing. I am talking about your life, your car, in the middle of a desert with blown up points. If you would think in your mind We had better pray then you are thinking the way the Bible is trying to tell us to think because you think God is still active right here right now in everyday lives in what we would call trivial, or what we would call very important but God would call trivial because everything else is pretty small when you ask Him to do something. We are going to survey Nehemiah s life very quickly because I like who he is and I love the way he thinks. Who he is he is just a regular guy. He has three secular jobs; he is not a pastor or a priest or an apostle. He is an Old Testament saint. But he starts off as a government worker; then he is a construction worker; ultimately he is a politician. That is any one of us. The other reason I like studying him is because he has such a healthy soul. The sign of a healthy soul is when a person says, intuitively without thinking We had better pray. Better Pray, Docx Page 2 of 12

3 The third reason I want to study Nehemiah s life is that the youth group is going to study Nehemiah this summer at camp. Camp is going to be great. They are going to re-build the temple and put a fence around it because that will be the wall. It will be a fabulous experience. It is a great camp. If you are the parent of a teenager, make them go just make them go. Don t let freedom be wasted on those kids. Context Let me give you some background to understand what is happening here. Turn in your Bibles to Nehemiah and while you are doing that, I will tell you about the background. Go to Psalms, about the middle of your Bible, and turn two books back and that is Nehemiah. This is a really bad time in Israeli history. Israel has been conquered by the Babylonians who completely destroyed this capital city on a high hill. While it once was the show place of the Middle East, as a strong hold and as a religious center, now the walls have been pummeled to the ground and the stones were blown up and burned. Just to add insult to injury, when the Babylonians came through, they also destroyed the religious center that was the temple that King Solomon built. They burned it and stole the gold and humiliated the Israelis. Besides the circumstantial things going on in this story, you have to understand the hearts of the people who are scared. They are vulnerable up on that hill. Now when other people look, they see it is easy pickings. There is nothing to protect the city now. The soul of the collective people is gone because the temple is gone. There are no more sacrifices and there is no more pride in the God they serve. Now, they are coming to an end of that disciplining time where they lost their capital, lost their fortified city. They are repenting and so God is going to allow them to come back and to make things right. But they have a long way to go, not just architecturally and commercially but also their hearts need to be rebuilt. Nehemiah: Government Worker for King Artaxerxes The Persians beat up on the Babylonians and now the cupbearer to the King of Persia, King Artaxerxes, is this man named Nehemiah. He is a government worker and a trusted confidante to the king but that is it nonetheless. While Nehemiah is in Persia, his brother comes back from Jerusalem. Nehemiah does not know what life is like there because he has lived in Persia for so long. (Nehemiah 1:2, 3) He says to his brother: How are things? Better Pray, Docx Page 3 of 12

4 His brother tells him: There are no walls. There is no temple. The people s hearts are broken. Here he is as an employee, grieving about the news. Nehemiah 1:3 They said to me, Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. Look at those emotions trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire. So what does Nehemiah say when the people are despairing and when he is grieving? He says: We had better pray because that is the kind of guy he is. 1:4 When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven. That is what a man of God does. That is what a person who thinks right does. He says I had better pray. This is his most formal prayer and his longest prayer in our book. He is going to talk about the greatness of God and the promises that God has made Then he will call for repentance in his own life and in the life of Israel. 1:5 O Lord, God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant of love with those who love Him and obey His commands, let Your ear be attentive and Your eyes open to hear the prayer your servant is praying before You day and night for Your servants, the people of Israel. I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father s house, have committed against You. We have acted very wickedly toward You. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees and laws You gave Your servant Moses. That is how Nehemiah takes out his grief. Nehemiah says: I will expend all the energy of sorrow and verbalize it towards God. Think about that. Those of you who have spent time in grief and sorrow and despair, you know how you feel those emotions can turn you in on yourself and it just gets darker? What if you turned them out, or even better up, towards God and use that energy to pray out loud about God s bigness, His goodness, and how He desires to help those who are living for Him? Maybe you could be released from the sorrow, and maybe feel His presence. That is what Nehemiah is doing here. Then Nehemiah has to talk to his boss. I told you a little. He is a cupbearer to the King and that means he is one of the most entrusted people to King Artaxerxes because he is the food taster. The king has to believe that this man will eat the food and taste the wine before the king eats it. He cannot be bought or connived. King Artaxerxes father was killed in his own house by an inside man. So this is a pretty important position. If you know anything about Artaxerxes in history, he is crazy, absolutely Better Pray, Docx Page 4 of 12

5 insane. He is very moody and you never want to show up in the presence of this man in a bad mood or sad because he will kill you -- no, really, not figuratively but he will kill you. So that is where Nehemiah is here. He is trapped with his sorrow. He is presenting himself to the king. Let s see what he does with that. Nehemiah 2:1 In the month of Nisan He is three months grieving now. 2:1 In the month of Nisan in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was brought for him, I took the wine and gave it to the king. I had not been sad in his presence before; so the king asked me, Why does your face look so sad when you are not ill? This can be nothing but sadness of heart. I was very much afraid, [because I could be killed], but I said to the king, May the king live forever! Why should my face not look sad when the city where my fathers are buried lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire? The king said to me, What is it you want? What does a man like Nehemiah do when his boss says What do you want? What do you think he says? Better Pray. 2:4 b Then I prayed to the God of heaven, This is a very quick prayer. Oh look, God, three months I have been grieving, three months I have been stuck and nothing to do here. Now look! My boss is saying the words, What do you want? I am sure Nehemiah has this view of Proverbs 21:1 Proverbs 21:1 The heart of the king is like the waters of a river in the hand of God and can be turned in any way. 2:4b Then I prayed to the God of heaven, and I answered the king, If it pleases the king and if your servant has found favor in his sight, let him send me to the city in Judah where my fathers are buried so that I can rebuild it. Do you know what happens when you pray? God-things happen when you pray. So King Artaxerxes says: Well, sure. Yeah. Tell you what. Go ahead and go, take some friends, and I will give you a military escort all the way there because there might be trouble and here is my credit card. You just spend away all you want. There will be forests and you will need lumber; put that on my tab. Let me help you rebuild your capital city and those walls whatever you need. [Nehemiah 2:6-9] Can you believe that? It is a God-thing. Better Pray, Docx Page 5 of 12

6 Current Illustration I was in a study not long ago and it was a women s study. There was a question and answer time and it was pretty fun. One of the women raised her hand and said: Hey, I don t know how to deal with this. But my husband works all the time I mean all the time. We just had a baby and I need some back up, some help. But his boss just drives him into the ground. There is no release, no way out of this. I just do not know what to do. The lady next to her says: Better Pray. So their little round table of women got together and the woman said: Well, you don t know my husband s boss. I don t but I know God. So, they bowed their heads and prayed. The next week, they came back and she says: Guess what? Don t even tell me. No, it is better than that. My husband was pulled in to the boss office who said: You work too much. You need to go home more. I heard you had a baby recently. Go spend time with your wife and your newborn. It was a God-thing. That happens when there is Better Pray. Nehemiah: General Contractor Rebuilding Walls of Jerusalem Nehemiah s career changes. He travels up around the Fertile Crescent from Persia to the capital city of Jerusalem. Now he is a manager, just like some of you are managers. Pretty much, he is the general contractor of the rebuilding of the wall that surrounds the city. The people around Jerusalem, [non-jews] they know that if the Israelis rebuild the walls, they will regain more than their morale. They will regain their ability to defend themselves. Let s see how Nehemiah responds to the ridicule and the trash talking. Nehemiah 4:1 When Sanballat You know that guy is bad. He might not have been but his mom named him Sanballat and then he turned out that way. 4:1 When Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall, he became angry and was greatly incensed. He ridiculed the Jews, and in the presence of his associates and the army of Samaria So Sanballat has his team and his army with him and says this. Better Pray, Docx Page 6 of 12

7 And he said, What are those feeble Jews doing? Will they restore their wall? Will they offer sacrifices? Will they finish in a day? Can they bring the stones back to life from those heaps of rubble burned as they are? Then the co-captain of the team, Tobiah the Ammonite, says 4:3 Tobiah the Ammonite, who was at his side, said, What they are building if even a fox climbed up on it, he would break down their wall of stones! Do you see what is happening? The bad guys are trying to demoralize the people before they even get started. When Nehemiah looks at the faces of the people, the construction workers, the people of Jerusalem, he sees their countenances change. Guess what he says? Better Pray. This is what he prays and you are not going to believe this prayer. 4:4 Hear us, O our God, for we are despised. Turn their insults back on their own heads. Give them over as plunder in a land of captivity. Do not cover up their guilt, or blot out their sins from your sight, for they have thrown insults in the face of the builders. Do you see what he is praying? He is praying for justice. He is saying: God, are You hearing this? Are You taking notes? Look at how a God-thing happens: 4:6 So we rebuilt the wall till all of it reached half its height, for the people worked with all their heart. So from sunken shoulders and despair after the trash talking, he prays and they lift up and get to work. They finish the wall, half height now. Can you pray a prayer like that? He is calling for justice. Current Illustration There are a couple of entertainers that don t just amuse people by mocking God but they assault God. They make art out of the crucifix and they think it is funny. There is a magician team that does things that are indescribable with Jesus. I was reading about one of their acts in Las Vegas and I just punched my fist, looked up, and said: Did you see this, God? Are you taking note of this? Can you pray that? Nehemiah did. You can pray: Dear God: That they would be repentant and come to You and tell the world about it. If they don t, let them be an example for the world to see what happens to people who make a career out of mocking Your holiness. You would not believe the release that happens when you quit praying feminized, baby prayers toward God s enemies. When you pray biblical prayers toward people who hate God, you can then go Better Pray, Docx Page 7 of 12

8 Oh, good. Are you getting on this, God? Okay, then I can move on. I don t have to avenge for you. I will let You do that. Look at the next thing that happens. Nehemiah is afraid. Sanballat and Tobiah are stepping up their persecution and now they are going to form a confederation of enemies against Israel. They have to stop this wall from being built. Nehemiah 4:7 But when Sanballat, Tobiah, the Arabs, the Ammonites and the men of Ashdod heard that the repairs to Jerusalem s walls had gone ahead and that the gaps were being closed, they were very angry. They all plotted together to come and fight against Jerusalem and stir up trouble against it. Guess what Nehemiah said when he saw a confederation of forces surrounding the capital city, trying to stop the wall from being built? Two words and you say it: Better Pray. Nehemiah 4:9 But we prayed to our God and posted a guard day and night to meet this threat. They prayed and they worked. They prayed and they posted guards. 4:14 After I looked things over, I stood up and said to the nobles, the officials and the rest of the people, Don t be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, He reminds the people how great and big God is. And then he says this. and fight for your brothers, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes. Let s remember how big and great God is and let us be willing to fight for our families. Guess what the result is? Another God-thing. 4:15 When our enemies heard that we were aware of their plot and that God had frustrated it, we all returned to the wall, each to his own work. 4:21 So we continued the work with half the men holding spears, from the first light of dawn till the stars came out. Current Illustration That happens in real life. People are against what God is doing. When we were trying to build this building, there were two men who wanted no part of the expansion of our church. They had a real estate law loophole on us. I can t go into the details because it Better Pray, Docx Page 8 of 12

9 would take too long. But we went to them and said that we needed to get out of this loophole to build this building. They said: No. We are going to tell you what you can build and how big it will be. It will be a lot different than what you have planned. We said: But we have plans and this was an oversight by someone else. It was a clerical error. They said: Yeah, but it is a clerical error in our favor and we are not going to change. We said: We will do what we have to. They said: You don t know how real estate law works. We said: Well, we better pray. Well, apparently, we won. You are sitting in this auditorium. But we prayed against those guys. We said: Hey, God, they have all the bases covered. They have all the legal power to keep us from doing things. God said: Well, I have a little power. I know a little real estate law. Nehemiah: Governor of Judah Now Nehemiah is a governor. He has been ruling now for twelve years and this is the last series in chapter 5 and 6. While the wall was being built, Nehemiah was able to take a better view of the people. He saw them as absolutely broken people. Like a lot of broken people, the cause of their despair was not just nationally and spiritually but it was economically. He started surveying the people and realized that there were unfair interest rates being charged against the people. The banks were charging way too much for loans and the people were going into debt because the governors before Nehemiah took over had over taxed the people. So Nehemiah did two things and it is very interesting. First, he brings in all the bankers, those doing all the lending and said: Shame on you. Do you have no fear of God? [Nehemiah 5:9] If you fear God, then these rates need to be lowered. Nehemiah made these costly decisions which were: lower the interest rates for everyone or make it zero so they can have hope of paying their debt back. The second costly decision Nehemiah made was that he told everyone during my entire governorship, twelve years, I will not take the governor s salary. I will not even take the governor s food. I will live like the rest of you. [5:14-16] Wouldn t you love for that to happen? Can you imagine how we would follow our leaders if they voted themselves an income decrease, a salary decrease, and take no advantage of the things allotted to them? Better Pray, Docx Page 9 of 12

10 Because of these costly decisions, what do you suppose Nehemiah said to himself? Better Pray. Weird prayer 5:19 can you pray this prayer? 5:19 Remember me with favor, O my God, for all I have done for these people. Could you pray that prayer? --- your sacrificial giving, barely making ends meet so you can send people around the world, trying to be extravagant and generous with your giving? Can you say: Hey, God, are you watching? I think you can. The reward is in heaven, right? I am just saying, the guy prays about everything. That is my point. Finally, the people are threatened and discouraged and it is getting very ugly now in Chapter 6 because the wall is going up. The bad guys have to put a stop to this. Here is what they come up with. They sent four letters to Nehemiah saying: You need to meet us at this place. That place was an ambush. Nehemiah knows that because those people know if they can kill this leader, this governor, this cupbearer, this contractor, they might be able to put a stop to the building. So they try to kill Nehemiah. He won t respond to their notes and so they send this last note, the fifth note out, and it is opened for the whole world to see. They say this [6:6-7] that Nehemiah is doing all this so that he could be the king of Judah. It is all about Nehemiah. When Artaxerxes finds out that you people are building a city so that Nehemiah can be king of Judah, Artaxerxes is not a man that you want to make mad. So the enemies post this all over; it is an open letter. What do you suppose Nehemiah does? What does he think? What do you suppose Nehemiah says when confronted with the idea that the whole world might be against him? Better Pray. 6:9 They were all trying to frighten us, thinking, Their hands will get too weak for the work, and it will not be completed. But I prayed, Now strengthen my hands. Guess what happens when you pray? A God-thing happens when you pray. 6:15 So the wall was completed on the twenty-fifth of Elul, in fifty-two days. Look at verse 16. This is the showcase of the whole project. This is what happens when a person prays. 6:16 When all our enemies heard about this, all the surrounding nations were afraid and lost their self-confidence, because they realized that this work had been done with the help of our God. It is a bunch of rocks piled on top of each other. No, it was a God-thing four and one-half miles of wall built around that city in 52 days. Everybody knows. The whole world knows that you can t do that; only God can do that. It is a secular endeavor. It is a God-thing. Better Pray, Docx Page 10 of 12

11 Part of that wall still exists today. You go to Jerusalem and there is a place called Nehemiah s Wall. Do you know why they call it Nehemiah s Wall? Because it is Nehemiah s wall. It is 2,500 years old and it was a God-thing. They didn t just build a wall. They rebuilt the people s hope in God. They rebuilt their self-image. They rebuilt their spiritual vitality because someone else could come in Zerubbabel could come in to build the temple now. Ezra could come in now and rebuild the people themselves. I know it is just stones but they are stones of life because Nehemiah prayed. Current Illustration I just want you to see how earthy and secular it is. This building has four to five miracles attached to it. They are crazy. They are not extravagant. They are construction miracles. That driveway behind this building, which goes out to the street with no name, that cement slab is a miracle of God. I know it looks like something that would be fun to skateboard on but it is a miracle; I am telling you. To get that exception was impossible. I was at a party one night and this commercial real estate developer here in town, a Christian guy who loves the Lord, spent an hour telling me how this building was impossible to be built. It could not happen. He went on for a whole hour. He went on and on. It could be built in 1985, maybe in 1989, but never in 2007; it can t happen. That driveway cannot exist because you have to have an exception from the fire marshal and he is never going to give it to you. Our engineer came back to us and said: This deal is over. It is gone. It can t happen. I guess you guys could pray. Well, we better pray. We just sat on it and nothing could happen until we got that exception for the driveway. Then our engineer was at a party one night, an awards banquet for the Boy Scouts. He was sitting at the head table because he is a big leader in the Boy Scouts. Guess who was sitting right next to him? The guy who gives exceptions to driveways. He said: Hey, how are you doing? Hey, are you the guy who gives exceptions to driveways so we could put a fire lane back there? I am that guy. Could we go to lunch tomorrow? Could you bring your pen? Better Pray, Docx Page 11 of 12

12 I just want us to pray about little stuff. I want us to pray about big stuff. I want us to pray all the time. So, if you are going to go see your boss about something, what should be at the tip of your brain? Better pray. If you have a problem in calculus Better pray. If you are an auto mechanic or a brain surgeon and you cannot figure out what the problem is what should you do? Better pray. Everything, pray about everything because if you do, besides igniting God s favor, it shows that you sincerely believe that God is still working in your life and in the lives around you. I don t want to talk so much about what happens when He does not answer those prayers. We will talk about that in weeks to come. But right now, better pray. Let s be a church that prays about everything, all the time. Let s be that church. How do you end a sermon on prayer? Better pray. Dear heavenly Father, Would You inspire us by the life of Nehemiah. He was just a regular Joe like the rest of us. He prayed about everything and He prayed so honestly. He prayed for revenge and he prayed that you would watch him do good. He prayed for strength and he prayed about your bigness. Lord, I ask that You would help us pray those types of prayers, that we could be honest in our prayers and fervent and constant, that we would be a praying church. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen Better Pray, Docx Page 12 of 12