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September 24, 2006
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Pastor Brian Shimer
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"Connecting with God: Prayer"
Nehemiah 1:1 - 2:10
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In the first four weeks of our study on Christian Disciplines we are focused upon connecting with God or practicing the presence of God in our lives. Last week we talked about having a quiet time. This is being intentional in our relationship with God to set apart time and place in order to draw near to God. Obviously what we do in this time of quiet will include prayer, Bible study and worship, aspects of connecting with God we will discuss over the next weeks.
Today we are looking at the call to prayer.
God is stirring our world to prayer. Seven years ago the International House of Prayer began in Kansas City offering 84 2-hour prayer meetings a week. They began with 10 full time staff. And they prayed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Now after seven years they have 400-500 staff members at IHOP, including singers, intercessors, worship leaders and operations staff. They have another 400 to 500 interns and Bible School students. Their Nightwatch prayer meetings average 100 people who pray and worship through the night.
There are prayer rooms of this variety in many major US cities and around the globe. People mostly young people are hungering and thirsting for a move of God and are praying around the clock for God to heal their land. This is so exciting to me.
My own journey in prayer has been filled with trial and tribulation, with dry times and times so full of the presence of God that I did not want to leave and in the next prayer time longed to return. For most of us the description of 24/7 prayer seems far removed from our daily reality or experience in prayer. We don't know where to put the thought that God would call some to be praying for long seasons of prayer. , even though we claim to be followers of the God who calls us to pray without ceasing..
Our experience might echo the words used by a student at George Fox Seminary as he described his prayer life:
"Wrestling, agonizing, sweating, working, asking, fulfilling duty, this is what prayer has been for me in my journey of faith. I have found, along with comfort and hope, both confusion and frustration. The same questions kept lurking like shadows in the back of my mind year after year. Why is prayer so hard? Why do I lose interest in praying? Why does God feel distant when I pray?" http://www.bible.org/page.asp?page_id=330 The Teaching of Prayer in Bible Colleges and Seminaries Mary Kate Morse, George Fox Seminary
Have you ever asked questions like that? I have and so have many others.
Even 10 minutes can seem a long time when our minds race to everyplace but heaven, and our hearts are discontent to wait and focus and reflect upon God's glory.
The disciples of Jesus recognized one thing for certain about Jesus - that he had discovered something about prayer that they knew nothing about. So, of all the things they could have asked Jesus to teach them the only thing recorded in Scripture is this request, "Lord, teach us to pray." Living with Jesus they understood that everything that Jesus did was based upon His prayer life and so they wanted to learn how to pray like He did.
- What Jesus taught His disciples in response and what Nehemiah seemed to practice in relationship to God can change our prayers lives. experience of God in prayer. As we move beyond just head knowledge into the practice of prayer, - it will do you no good to even take notes on the thoughts I bring you today, if you never apply them. We cannot just know about prayer to experience it as God intends. ples and that Nehemiah practiced, our lives of prayer can be transformed. But we must move beyond "head knowledge" about prayer into the practice of prayer for this to happen.
If we talk about prayer and never pray, we will not experience what God has for us. Ah but if we simply pray by applying what the Bible teaches about this great avenue of experiencing God, we will become like the Psalmist who wrote, "My heart and flesh cry out for the living God," and "as the deer pants for living water, so my soul longs for Thee" (Psalm 84: 2; 42: 1).
- With this in mind, turn with me to Nehemiah 1.
It was in November or December that Nehemiah's brother came to him with the news of those who had returned to Jerusalem. It was news that broke Nehemiah's heart. If you can still remember what you felt like and where you were as you first heard the news of the 9-11 attack, you might have an inkling of what Nehemiah experienced.
For him, not just a couple cities, but his whole country was devastated. After 70 years of exile, those who had returned now lived in the city of Jerusalem, a city without walls; meaning a city that was defenseless, vulnerable to all attack. This was a time of mourning.
Nehemiah mourns, prays and fasts for some days. As the most trusted of the King's servants, the cupbearer, Nehemiah was in an important and dangerous position. If he caused the King to be upset, the King would have him killed. No ruler would have as his cupbearer a man he could not trust. Poison was an easily administered means of killing a king, so the cupbearer had to be trustworthy.
- IV. There is no evidence that Nehemiah begins to scheme on ways he can help the situation, instead, he mourns and prays. He clearly believes that prayer is his only first option, and it is clear also that prayer is something he is familiar with. Listen again to the beginning of his address to God: "O Lord, God of heaven, great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and obey his commands…" This is a man who loves God.
Jesus taught that prayer begins with a focus upon God: "Our Father, who is in Heaven…" begins the prayer taught his disciples. Focus first on God not the request.
Nehemiah does not list his request first but first identifies to whom he speaks, the God of heaven, the great and awesome God…"
Begin your own prayers by addressing God. Focus on God, praise God, honor God, reflect upon the greatness and goodness and mercies and excellencies of God. Name how God is Father to you - declare the names God gives in Scripture about Himself.
It is so much easier to just rush to the request. I even heard someone pray while in Phoenix who never addressed God by any name. I was a bit dismayed: "Who exactly are we praying to?" I wondered. So, in my own prayer as the leader led, I identified the name and person of the Triune God.
Nehemiah takes time to address God, identify who God is, and recognize just how great and awesome He is. If you want to connect with God, then in your prayer remember to whom you pray. Identify God by name, by work, by His works in your life. When you pray, begin with God. That is what we hear Nehemiah doing here. He begins by recounting the greatness of God.
I can think back over the years to many people whose prayers made manifest the presence of God in the room. They prayed with honest adoration of who God is… taking time to name the Father, Son and Spirit, the triune God, and give thanks for specific blessings.
Nehemiah does not allow his circumstance to control how he approaches God, but recognizes that no matter the horror of the situation, God remains God and he says so. Read the opening of his prayer with me in Nehemiah 1:5:
"O Lord, God of heaven, great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and obey his commands…"
How do you pray? How do your prayers begin?
If someone were to overhear you praying, what would they hear? Do you begin by recounting and remembering the greatness of the God you are addressing? Do you remind yourself by speaking aloud the greatness of all God has provided and done?
Do you list the great gifts God has given?
Or after your initial opening words, perhaps, "Dear Lord," does your prayer launch into the current need. Check on your own life of prayer and expand how you extol the beauty of God.
If you need some ways to do so, look at the Psalms. Psalm 145 is a great example you can simply take and use for your opening prayer. Put it into your own words. "I will exalt you, my God the King; I will praise your name forever and ever. Every day I will praise you and extol your name forever and ever. Great are You Lord and most worthy of praise…" You can replace the name "Lord" with Jesus in the Psalms as well, and make the prayer personalized upon the Lord we know.
- Nehemiah did not rush into his prayer, but began focusing his heart on God, upon the greatness and majesty of the Lord.
Although his prayer is only listed one time, it is clear from the prayer recorded that he had been praying day after day, as he says, "let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer your servant is praying before you day and night."
For three months Nehemiah sought God through fasting and prayer. He took no other action on his need, he simply prayed.
First he prayed by praising God and then by confessing his own and his nation's great sins.
Do your prayers include the confession of national and personal sin? Scripture knows of no national sin that does not also need to be individually confessed. Nehemiah did not omit himself from the need of confession when it came to national sin, nor did Isaiah complaining he too fell short of God's glory (Isaiah 6), nor Daniel overcome by grief (Daniel 9:4 ff).
Do your prayers include confession?
In the ninth chapter of the book of Daniel, Daniel begins his prayer with God and then confesses the nation's sins by saying "we have rebelled; we have turned away; we have not listened…" He lumps himself in with his confession of the peoples' sins. Daniel saw no separation of the nation and the individual in his praying.
- Nehemiah then reminded the Lord of what God has said in his Word.
God has made great promises in his word. It was Corrie Ten Boom the famous prisoner of the Nazi regime who spoke of how much God likes to hear us quote back to heaven His promises. She used to say, "God loves to fulfill his promises."
Nehemiah reminded the Lord that he had promised both judgment and mercy. In essence he said: "We have been through the scattering, now Lord, gather us again!"
After all this, Nehemiah finally reached his request. So far he has praised and adored God, confessed his own and his people's sin, and reminded God of his promises and then he arrived at his request. His request was not that God heal the whole situation, but that God would give him success in the presence of his employer. For 3 months Nehemiah prayed before his king asked: "What is it you want?"
From Nehemiah's response at being asked this question, it is possible he was risking his life to even speak his request aloud. We are only told by Nehemiah this: "I was very much afraid."
But fear did not keep Nehemiah from answering. Indeed, his answer was accompanied by prayer. The life of prayer for him was not just verbalized seasons of prayer, but prayer-thoughts shot like arrows to heaven. He prayed as he answered the king. The result of this request immersed in prayer was favor greater than Nehemiah could not have anticipated. In the book he was soon en route to Jerusalem under the protection of his king.
- Already in this one passage we have found verbal and silent arrow prayers along with the pattern that echoed the one taught by Jesus to his disciples - namely that prayer begins with a focus on God, naming and adoring God, and includes confession, thanksgiving, God's promises and requests.
In addition here is demonstrated how God can answer prayer through others and through the obedience of the one praying. In Nehemiah both the King and Nehemiah become part of God's answer to the prayer Nehemiah prayed.
You remember that Jesus commanded the disciples in the Gospel to: "Pray for the Lord of the harvest to sent out laborers into the harvest field" and then said to them, "Therefore, go…" He told them to pray for laborers and then to go labor themselves. So, Nehemiah prayed about the devastation of Jerusalem and God called him to go. Will God use you also in answer to some of the prayers you are praying?
- What must it have been like to have known: God wants me to go do this thing, but not seeing anyway to get leave to do so?
Grace, my 2nd daughter, and I began to pray for God to grant her a car in Texas before August. When Karen and I were there for Grace's graduation from the Honor Academy, and saw the distances between school, home stay, work and piano practice at a local church, we knew a car was essential. I remember driving and driving and driving the miles from the campus where Grace will be taking her piano lessons to the home where she will be living and saying to Karen, "there is no way she can do this on a bicycle."
As we prayed I began to sense that God would be providing the car before we left Texas August 14th to bring Grace home for this past month.
Our request was specific. We were praying someone would give her a car. And I had asked Grace what kind she would want if God answered specifically. She had said, "Anything is fine, but I'd love a VW Jetta".
One night, the first week of August, Vanessa, her core advisor, was driving someone to the Emergency Room. As she drove she was praying for Grace as well and the need of a car when the Lord spoke to her heart: "I want you to give her your car." She nearly drove off the road. Shocked she protested: "Lord, I need this car to drive back and forth to campus next year." But the impression was clear. She resisted for a few days wanting to test what she was hearing. She even called her mom and asked her counsel. Her mom is a strong Christian and encouraged her daughter to trust the Lord and be obedient.
With that, on the evening of the 13th, the night before we flew home from Texas, Vanessa called Grace and told her what the Lord had said. Grace was staggered. And what kind of a car did Vanessa have? A VW Jetta.
Sometimes we pray and God tells us that our obedience will provide the answer to the thing we are praying. This was Nehemiah's experience. This was Vanessa's experience.
But overarching that reality is this one: that we connect with the living God through prayer. So as you practice prayer day by day this week, remember, in your praying to "begin with God" for when you do you will make contact with heaven.
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