Nehemiah - Chapter 1: Nehemiah’s Prayer
SERMON TRANSCRIPT
I am pumped to be kicking off our Nehemiah series today. Me, Pastor Andre, and I, we've been working on a teaching series and figuring out what was next and how things were coming. We both kind of just stumbled in, I felt like, into this book of Nehemiah, but I feel like every time that I've done planning and prepping and year scheduling and stuff, when we kind of stumble into the sermon series, it's like, "Okay, God's got something for us. God's leading us in this place. God has something He wants for us today and in this series." I'm really excited we're going to kick this off. We're going to be about, I think, 12 weeks or so. We're going to have a break in the middle for a little bit, so we're not going to do all 12 weeks in a row. But this is going to be, I think for us, a really powerful study and book for us as a church and I think individually for us as well. So I'm really looking forward to you. If you're trying to find Nehemiah in your Bible, we just finished Psalms. If you head towards Genesis, a couple books, you'll land right in Nehemiah. Nehemiah is actually a two-part kind of a book where originally Ezra and Nehemiah were included together. These are all written in the same period and same time frame. The first part of the book being Ezra. I don't know if you guys have ever studied through Ezra, but this is a really incredible moment for the Israelite people. They in this time have been in this Babylonian exile. You're looking at around 586 BC, so if you want to get your time charts out, you guys can track exactly where that's at. But the Israelite people have gone through this season of amazing kings. You have King Solomon, King David, King Saul, just this year of reigning and then things just kind of fall apart. And the Babylonian Empire rises up and just basically conquers everything of the known world at that time and takes over everything. And so they march into Jerusalem and they destroy the city, they destroy the temple, they destroy the walls, they destroy everything about Israel and Jerusalem and they take basically everybody captive. They take everybody and they take the brightest of the brightest and they take them back to their main cities. The Babylonian Empire had this huge focus on learning and knowledge and education. And so as they conquered the surrounding nations and people, they would take the brightest of the brightest and bring them to their main capital city and they would just begin to learn and grow and understand all the different cultures and the societies and all their learning and growing with them to become the biggest, the brightest and the best that they could be.
And King Nebuchadnezzar at this point just had full reign of everything. He controlled basically everything in the world at that point. There were other subsidiary kings in different regions, but King Nebuchadnezzar was in charge of everything. And this displacement of the Jewish people was just a heart-wrenching time. I don't think we can fully understand what this would be like, but if you had the place where you were born, your hometown, your love, your family was there, people you grew up with were there, and all of a sudden somebody came in and packed you up and took you to the other side of the globe and said, "You can never go back there again," that would be horrible. It would be a horrible, horrible place to be. And the Israeli people are just so confused. They're like, "God, you brought us out of this slavery in Egypt. You brought us through all this stuff. You brought us into this promised land you said was going to be our place. It's going to be our home. We're going to have prosperity. We're going to have our families here for generations upon generations. This is where we're supposed to be, and yet you've now allowed this empire to take us away." Well, the Babylonian Empire eventually falls to the next biggest and best, and that's the Persian Empire. And they take over, and we have this King Cyrus the Great who comes in and conquers Babylon, and so now you just get passed off to the next king. But something special was happening here. Shortly after the Persian Empire takes over, God prompts the King Cyrus to issue a decree to allow everybody who had been captured in the Babylonian Empire to have free travel to go home to wherever home was at some point. And I find this pretty interesting, because God moves the heart of someone who does not have a heart after God.
This gives us a little glimpse of who God is. It doesn't matter who's in charge. It doesn't matter who the top dog is, who holds the throne, who is the one in the big house. It doesn't matter who is there or what's going on. God is still sovereign above all. Amen? I want us to hear this this morning, because I feel like even in America right now there's a heaviness on the nation. I don't care what side of the aisle you're on. There's a heaviness right now. And we're looking at what would be doomsday come November. I wasn't going to go here this morning. Holy Spirit's leading me, okay? We look at this doomsday of if this person, it's all gone. If this person, it's all gone too. And we've got the third guy out there. I don't know what his deal is. And we look at that and go, like, if my person doesn't get in there, it's over. We might as well pack up our bags. Jesus, come now. Still a prayer of my heart. Because it's always better when God's in control, right? Always better in heaven than it is down here. But God still has us down here. God still has us down here to love people, to care for people, to be there for people.
But King Cyrus is moved by the heart of God and issues a decree that people can go home. And so this fulfills a promise, a proclamation, a prophecy that Jeremiah said, that even though my people will scatter, they will come home. And it's after a guy has no heart for God, moves for God. And so this guy by the name of Zerubbabel, say that 12 times past, Mr. Z, Papa Z, we'll call him Papa Z. Papa Z says, we can go home. So he grabs a group of people, packs them up on their camels, their donkeys, dusts off their sandals, and they start trekking home. Going home to find only Jesus knows what Jerusalem is like. And so they get there and they have this incredible moment of God's faithfulness being blessed upon them to rebuild the temple. They get back to Jerusalem and it's in ruins. And begins to mark this amazing moment as the post-exilic period in our Bibles. And this is around 539 BC. So if you do the math there, you're looking at about 80 years or so of exile. So the people who have grown up that are the second generation have only heard of this mythical place called Jerusalem. Their parents, their grandparents, maybe their great-grandparents have shared with them of this place where God had this temple. And he came down and he dwelled among us and we had worship in God's presence. We had community with God Almighty. Our Yahweh was with us at all times. They've gone a whole generation without being able to experience this. And so the homecoming that is happening here is just marvelous. Their home. And they rebuild the temple and everything seems to be going great. They're trying to begin to find the old scriptures that were there in Jerusalem and begin to read God's word and begin to fall in line to follow God's law. And they think everything is going great. They got the temple rebuilt, but something just isn't right. Something's missing. God hasn't come back down to dwell in the temple like he did before and the people are confused. We thought we'd follow these laws and check the boxes like God was going to show up. And yet God's not showing up like they had taught.
So we move about a decade or so later and you have this guy Ezra who comes on the scene. He's in exile in Babylon and he hears that he can go back to Jerusalem as well. And so he grabs a group of people and this is kind of that second wave of coming back in Jerusalem and they show up and they think, "You guys have been here for a couple, like 10, 20, 30 years. You've done it. You fixed everything." And they show up and then they realize everything's not good. The city's still in disarray. Yeah, the temple's built, but it's not working. People are living in the way that they've learned being in exile and they're worshiping other gods and they're being deceitful with each other and there's this selfishness and this pride that just kind of lures over the people and something just isn't right. And so Ezra tries to bring in more laws and more strictness going, "Okay, if we just follow more laws, everything will be right." But we know what's wrong is the heart of the Israelite people. No matter how many laws were forced on them, no matter how many decrees from the leaders, no matter how strict they were with their code of conduct and their lifestyles, there was still something missing. And so we come on to the scene here now a little bit. Even after that, the temple's been rebuilt, Jerusalem is kind of functioning, but it still just isn't where it needs to be. The social and spiritual renewal about the people is not happening in Jerusalem like they thought. Still a disaster.
And so we come on to Nehemiah chapter one and we find out about this guy who has this incredible heart for the Israelite people. It says in Nehemiah chapter one, "The words of Nehemiah, son of Hakaliah, 'In the month of Kislev in the twelfth year, while I was in the citadel of Susa, Hanani, one of my brothers came from Judah with some other men, and I questioned them about the Jewish remnant that had survived the exile and also about Jerusalem. They said to me, 'Those who survived the exile are back in the province and in great trouble and disgrace.' The wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its gates have been burned with fire." Nehemiah is an Israelite living in exile and he's serving as the cupbearer to King Arxazerxes I of Persia. This is about 445 BC that Nehemiah has some family come to town who have been living in Jerusalem and have been in that region and he gets his visit from his brother and he's just so excited. Nehemiah asks about Jerusalem and he's like, "Hey, the people are back, they're living in Jerusalem, how amazing is that? What's going on in the city? How's it going? How's everyone doing? Is it amazing or what? You guys are back there, the promised land, the land of milk and honey, you've got the temple. Oh man, I can only imagine how amazing it is to live in Jerusalem and to be back there. Tell me all about it." Womp, womp. Not the news that he was hoping to hear, right? All these years of being forced out of their homeland, all these years where their beloved city lying in ruins, all these hopes and these dreams and these prophecies and holding on to God's word and His promise and His covenant word that we will go back someday and they're back and yet it's not what they had hoped and dreamed. Turns out what's really going on is pretty grim. The people are in great trouble, disgrace, the walls of Jerusalem are broken, the gates are burned. Yes, the temple's built, however the rest of the city is just a hot mess. It's run down, it's all broken, it's all messed up still. So Nehemiah responds, verse four, "When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days, days, I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven." Nehemiah hears the news and he's deeply distressed. He weeps, he mourns, he fasts, he prays, not just, "Oh, that's a bummer. God help Jerusalem." He goes on with his day. Days. He weeps over the brokenness of his family. His heart just sinks hearing the news of what's happening. See Jerusalem represents the spiritual identity of who the Israelite people were because God dwelled there and yet it's in shambles. Not only is it messed up without the protection of the wall and the gate and the city being built up, they're vulnerable to attack. And I can imagine Nehemiah saying, "We're going to get in captivity again. It's only going to be a matter of time before some army marches by and goes, 'That looks pretty sad. We can take that over in an hour.'" And Nehemiah's like, "God, don't let this happen again. We just lived through this. The generation of being scattered and under the control of other people and oppression and not being able to worship, not being able to praise you, not being able to live the life that you have called us to God under the oppressive control, it's going to happen again.”
So what does Nehemiah do? He goes before God. He prays. This is his prayer. "Lord, the God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps his coven of love with those who love him and keep his commandments. 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 family, have committed against you. I have acted most wickedly towards you. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees, and laws you gave your servant Moses. Remember the instruction you gave your servant Moses saying, 'If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations. But if you return to me and obey my commands, even then, if your exiled people are at the farthest horizons, the edge of the earth, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen as a dwelling for my name. They are your servants and your people whom you redeemed by your great strength and your mighty hand. Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of this your servant and to the prayer of your servants who delight in revering your name. Give your servant success today by granting him favor in the presence of this man.'" Nehemiah has this incredible heartfelt confession for the sins of Israel, acknowledging that their disobedience to God has led them to their current plight. He reminds God of his promise though, reminds God of his promise to gather his people if they return to him. He then asked God for a favor as he prepares to approach King Cyrus with a request to go back and to rebuild Jerusalem. This is the heart of Nehemiah. And this is going to set the tone for this entire study and this entire book because this introductory chapter highlights his deep concern that Nehemiah has for his family, his people. And at the same time, this incredible foundational faith and reliance on prayer is the very first step in addressing this crisis. See, I believe Nehemiah shows us that there's power of prayer in times of crisis.
I don't know if you guys have ever been in a place like that where literally all you can do is pray to God. There's no decision you can make. There's no person you can call. There's nobody that can fix it. There's nobody that can rescue you. There's nobody that can redeem you from the situation that you are in. Not your spouse, not your parents, not your best friend, not any political figure, no lawyer or attorney, no, no, nobody can fix what is happening or where you're at in life. And the only thing you can do is turn to prayer. And I want us to see here that this wasn't a last result of Nehemiah. Nehemiah didn't go, "Well, I guess the only thing I can do is pray. Nothing else I can do." I think sometimes we live like that, right? We try everything we can to fix it. And if that doesn't work, well, I guess I might as well call on God. Might as well bring the big man into the conversation. Nehemiah sees prayer as the first power move in this situation. Prayer should be our first action, not our last act of result. His immediate reaction to the distressing news, he turns to God in prayer. This focus and dependence on God of going first to prayer is who Nehemiah is. That's who this man of God is. The character of Nehemiah. This is actually the first of nine core prayers we're going to read about in this entire book. That this wasn't the first time that Nehemiah just turned to prayer and then he got the green light and he packed his bag and hopped on the camel and headed to Jerusalem and then he got there and he said, "All right, God, I got that from here. Thanks, man. Appreciate the ticket to Jerusalem. I'll take it from here.”
Nehemiah continually goes back to God as his first offense, his first defense against what's going on in the situation. Nehemiah is a man of prayer. And his prayer includes four key elements that I see for us. You guys may have heard this before, but his prayer includes adoration. It includes confession. It includes thanksgiving. It includes supplication. This deep reliance on God and his mercy and guidance. What is this? You probably may have heard praying the acts, A-C-T-S. A, adoration. This involves praising God's nature, who he is, which actually in turn boosts our confidence in prayer. He prays, "Great and awesome God. You are our God who keeps covenant. You are God who is loving. You are God who is near to the heart of your people." He then goes into confession. This requires us acknowledging our sins with humility and this fosters an intimacy with God. I confess the sins of Israel. I confess the sins of myself. I confess the sins of my father's family who have acted wickedly and have not obeyed. Nehemiah's prayer includes thanksgiving. And this involves recalling how God has moved. Recalling God's past faithfulness, which in turn provides hope for our future. God, if you did this before, I know you can do this again. God, I remember when you did this back here. And when I thought there was no way out, you provided a way out. God, I know you can do it again. Nehemiah prays and he says, "Remember Moses. How God, you moved and saved us from Egypt. You are a great and you are an awesome God and I know you can do this again." Nehemiah's prayer includes supplication. And this is where we present our request to God, viewing obstacles in light of his power. Do you notice here, the last part of the prayer is when we actually ask God for something. This is a model of prayer we see in scripture that kind of puts us in our place, right? We struggle in life because we want to become God's ourself, right? We want to be in control. We want to be the one making the calls. We want to be the one handling everything. And when we pray like Nehemiah prayed with the axe, it puts us in our place, which is not first, but last. God is first. He is mighty. He asked God, "Bring your people back." And then he asked for favor for himself. Give me favor. Give me success. Grant me with the hope to be ability to return home as I go before the king.
Nehemiah was a cupbearer and so he knew the king pretty well. A cupbearer would have to taste all food and drink before the king ate it to make sure it was safe and it wasn't poisoned. And the king wouldn't get killed. That's how you would assassinate a king. You would poison the food as a quick way to take him out. They didn't have any other means of taking out leaders and so they would do that. And so a cupbearer would be one that would put his life on the line every time he'd take a bite of food. He never knew that that might be his last bite of food. And so the king at some point understands that this cupbearer is putting his life on the line and begins to develop a relationship with this king. And yet he still knew that the king was king and going before a king and making a request, it wasn't guaranteed that you were going to have this granted. I'd say 60-70% of the time you were killed because the king didn't like what you asked for and they would just, he would take you out. And Nehemiah is probably thinking, "Well, I'm on the line anytime eating dinner every time with this king. I might as well make my request to him because if I got taken out, I get taken out. But at least I went down swinging, right?" And so Nehemiah goes to the king and he's like, "Hey, can I go back? My people are hurting. The city is a mess. I want to help fix and restore what God blessed us with. Can I go back?”
Prayer is a vital means for finding guidance, expressing concerns, and seeking God's intervention in our lives. Nehemiah has this deep faith that God's response is evident in his prayer. Nehemiah has faith that this is going to happen even before it happens, even before he prays. He believes that God is a God who is faithful. God is a one who can respond and that God is one who is hearing us. Sometimes when we pray, we just feel like nobody's listening. I've been there. Even as a pastor, sometimes I pray for things and it's just, "God, are you there? Do you hear?" But Nehemiah has this faith that is unbelievable, knowing that it's going to happen no matter what circumstances we find ourselves in. God is faithful, right? Crisis or blessing, God's faithful. Hard or great times, God is faithful. When we are struggling or success, God is faithful. And this is a true core character of who God is, that God is faithful to his promises and covenant. Nehemiah references this in his prayer. If the people return to him, that he is faithful to return them to their home, to take them to their rightful place on earth that God promised to them years and years and years and years before this. I can only imagine how hard captivity must have been for Nehemiah, considering where scholars think his age was. He was born into captivity. Nehemiah wasn't one that was taken from Jerusalem back to Babylon during the Babylonian Empire, but he was actually born into captivity. So his whole life, this is all that he knows. He's heard the stories. He's heard the faithfulness of God, but he's never experienced it. And yet he has this faithful foundation in him, which I think is a testament to when we begin to learn and grow in who God is, he instills within us a faithfulness that can only come from him. A faithfulness that can only be found in God, that it can't come from knowledge. It can't come from experience. Nehemiah didn't have any experience, but it was a supernatural foundational faith that was placed in Nehemiah for this moment, for this time. They believe that this, even though exile seemed like forever, was not going to be forever. They were holding onto this hope that God is a faithful God. They remembered how God had moved and they knew that God was going to move again. This emphasizes a significance on holding onto God's promises and trusting in his faithfulness. How good are we at that? How good are we to hold onto the faithfulness of God when it seems like it's all falling apart around us?
God was right there in the presence with Nehemiah, even as he was enslaved in Susa. And he believed God was a faithful God and was going to restore the people. Nehemiah's prayer also reflects an understanding that God's desires for his people is to live in obedience with him. We too are called to holiness and obedience. This was a core piece of Nehemiah's prayer. And I think it's something that we kind of like to just step over a little bit, because this is a hard part of the prayer, right? God, rescue me. God, save me. God, give me favor. You're a great God. I love you, God. Thank you for everything you do. You're hearing me, God. I know you're listening. You're right there. And I'm sorry for what I did. Sometimes we like to skirt this one, because this is when we have to get vulnerable, right? This is when we have to admit that we haven't done it all right, that we've messed up, that there's a responsibility on our part that we haven't lived up to what the calling is for God in our life, which is holiness and obedience. Scripture tells us to be holy as God is holy. But I think we kind of like to put that one over here and just look at it every now and then when we're feeling really good about ourselves, right? Like, man, I'm killing it right now. I'm in God's word. I'm worshiping. I'm praying real good. Oh, yeah, God, I'm being holy, man. And then those times when we're struggling, we're not in God's word. We're not praying. We're not having the faith. And we look over, yeah, you know, that calling to be holy, that's for that guy over there, and that's not for me. But Nehemiah understood this, that the broken state of Jerusalem was directly tied to the people's past disobedience. There's a whole buildup to this.
This wasn't a situation where the Israeli people like messed up one day and God wakes up and he's a vengeful God and just like, "You're cursed." We see from the fall in the garden in Genesis, time and time again, God going, "Come to me. I love you. I want you to be with me." They live for a little bit, they mess up, start wandering off. God goes, "Come on, guys. Come on back. I love you. I want you to live like this. This is how you're supposed to care for one another. This is the love that I have for you. I want you to be seen in your community." And they do it, and it's great. And all of a sudden, they just start wandering over. Bring them back. It's just time and time again, you read in the scripture and God finally gets to the point where he's like, "I just, there's nothing I can do." You got to learn. As a parent, gotten there, right? Guys, don't do that. Don't touch the stove. Don't touch the stove. Don't, don't. That's hot. Stay away. Don't do that. Be careful. I tried to tell you. God does it in such a more loving and caring way than I would as a parent, right? But God's like, "You guys haven't lived in the way that I asked you to." And yet what? In that place of captivity, God moves the heart of a king, of a heart that's far from God to step into a moment of restoration. And we have to remember that yes, as loving and caring and gracious as God is, you can't have that loving, caring grace, mercy without justice, without God holding his people accountable to their actions. His righteousness cannot overlook sin. We must address it in accordance with his holy nature. And Nehemiah's focus here on repentance, he understands the key and holiness is to how we receive God's blessing and favor in our life. We like to live life this way, right? God, if you do this, then I'll do this. God, if you just get me out of this situation, you fix this thing in my life, I'll know you're real and then I'm in church every single Sunday till I see you in heaven. Promise. God can move that way, but that's not truly how it works. God desires our heart and obedience first, and then we're able to step into this relationship with him. That is phenomenal. Repentance opens us up to the holiness of God. Nehemiah demonstrated that God's compassion opens us to restoring those who genuinely repent and seek his grace. God is a faithful God that when we say, "I'm sorry," when we own up to what we've done, God acts and God moves in ways, in greater ways than we could ever experience or dream or imagine. But the obedience is required of us to step into that holiness. We're going to get more into Nehemiah and the rebuilding of the wall and his story and his struggles and his victory and his shortcomings in these weeks, but God stirs in Nehemiah to go back and to build Jerusalem. I mean, it was only in Nehemiah's obedience himself and seeking God's righteousness is Nehemiah's true calling revealed. He wasn't called to just be a cupbearer forever. God had a greater purpose in calling for him, and I truly believe that God has a greater purpose in calling for us as well.
But this leads us to three questions I want us to take away from today. The first of which is, how do you typically respond to challenges or crises in your life? Nehemiah's immediate action was prayer and seeking God's guidance. How might you incorporate prayer and dependence on God in your response when facing difficult or important decisions?
Two, how can you strengthen your trust in God's promises and his faithfulness? Nehemiah was rock solid locked in on God's promises and his covenant. There was nothing that was going to shake that from him. That was a foundational truth to who Nehemiah was. What steps might you be able to take to deepen your understanding and trust in God's promises for your life? And how can you remind yourself daily on how to live in the holiness that God has called you to?
And then the final question, which is going to lead us into a time of communion this morning, that what areas in your life or community do you need to acknowledge and repent from sin? None of us are perfect in this room. Not myself, not Pastor Andre. None of us have arrived to this place of perfection so that's where we get to be the guys up front talking or the gals up here. No, we're all figuring it out. We're all walking this path. We're all having to daily surrender who we are and what our natural selfish tendencies are to the will and the obedience of God's holiness. Nehemiah prays this incredible prayer asking for forgiveness for himself, but also for his family, his parents, generations before. When are we praying that prayer? I don't know, maybe sometimes it's easier to pray for other people for their forgiveness. "Ah, you know that guy? Oh, Jesus, he needs your forgiveness, Lord." We're sitting there and God's going, "What about you, pal?" Where do we need to surrender?
Because it's in that surrender we find the purpose and calling for God's plan for our life. Not our plan. Not what we want to do, but God's plan, right? What breaks your heart for God? What do you hear about and it just, your heart sinks? Maybe it's, we had Pastor Vivek up here, missionary to India. They're leaving, I think, next week. Got their tickets, they're headed back to India. But they're walking into a world that they have no idea what's going to happen. It's getting hostile in India for Christians. But Vivek is stepping forward in faith of the calling that God has for him. What breaks your heart for God's kingdom?