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Australian Homiletics / Preaching
INTRODUCTION
Let me tell you a story about a group of women in a country town, who had a weekly prayer meeting. They not only prayed for missionaries, and people in their church, but also for people in the town. In fact it became so well known that this group of women would pray for you if you asked them to, that people would stop them in the shopping centre and ask them to pray for them, or their family, or someone they knew who was in need. One day, the group was contacted by a desperate family. "Our three year old daughter has been diagnosed with meningitis. She is being flown to the capital city for medical treatment, but they don't hold out much hope that she will still even be alive when the plane lands. Will you please pray for her?" That group of women prayed and when that plane landed two hours later, that little girl walked off with no signs of meningitis. A miracle? Yes! An answer to prayer? Yes! But perhaps you are a little sceptical. Maybe you're thinking, "That sort of thing might happen in Africa or South America, but not here." Or perhaps you're thinking, "That might happen when some people pray - you know, people with the gift of 'intercession' or really holy people, sort of super-saints, but not an ordinary person like me. I couldn't pray for a miracle!" But among that group of mums who prayed, there weren't any super-saints, just ordinary women - housewives, nurses, teachers, shop assistants, mothers. And it didn't happen in any far away exotic place - it happened right here in WA! How do I know? Because I was one of those women who prayed!
When you hear stories like that, how do you feel? A bit overwhelmed? A bit daunted? I do, even though I was a part of it. I doubt there are any here today, who would not want to affirm that God answers prayer, and that we should pray regularly. But when it comes to actually doing it, sometimes it's a different story isn't it? Where do we start? What do we pray about? How can we pray effectively? Well let's have a look at Nehemiah's prayer and see if we can't learn something about prayer from the way he prayed.
The situation is that after the Jews had been in exile in Babylon for seventy years, they started to return to Israel and to Jerusalem. The Temple had been rebuilt and work had begun on rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem, but the work had been stopped by decree of the Persian king. That was some fifteen years prior to where we take up the story.
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"I am Nehemiah son of Hacaliah, and in this book I write down what I have done. During the month of Chislev in the 20th year that Artaxerxes ruled Persia, I was in his fortress city of Susa, when my brother Hanani came with some men from Judah. So I asked them abut the Jews who had escaped from being captives in Babylon. I also asked them about the city of Jerusalem."
They told me, "Those captives who have come back are having all kinds of troubles. They are terribly disgraced, Jerusalem's walls are broken down, and its gates have been burnt."
It seems that even what work had been done, was now in ruins again. And Nehemiah's response? He mourned and fasted and prayed. How long do you think he prayed for? A few hours? A few days perhaps? Well, when we compare the date at the beginning of chapter 1 with the date at the beginning of chapter 2, it appears that he was praying for about four months. This prayer that is recorded here takes less than 2 minutes to read, but it is the culmination of four months of praying. Sometimes answers don't come immediately. Sometimes there is a need to pray over an extended period of time.
There was another time when that same group of women that I mentioned, were approached by a family in need. This time the family had a two year old boy suffering from kidney failure. He was a candidate for a kidney transplant, but he only weighed 5kg. The doctors said it would be useless doing the operation unless he weighed at least 10 kg because he would not survive the operation. The family asked that we pray that he gain enough weight to have the operation and we made a commitment to pray for him each week. Each week we prayed, he gained weight. But there were some weeks when we forgot to pray and those weeks there was no weight gain. It was over a year before he weighed enough to have surgery. You see, this was no quick and easy prayer with a quick and easy answer. We had to honour our commitment and pray for him each week for an extended period of time. It was only as we persevered in prayer, that God brought about the answer.
In this extended period of praying that Nehemiah has, what sort of things does he pray for? He begins his prayer with a statement about God. The God of heaven is great and awesome and he faithfully keeps his promises to those who obey him.
Suppose you wanted to build a house. Who would you get to build it? Wouldn't you look for a builder you felt sure you could trust? One who had experience and expertise. One you knew was capable of building the house well. But not only would he need to be able to build the house, he would also have to be willing to build it. He would have to accept you as a client and sign a contract to build the house for you. For the house to be built, the builder needs to be both able and willing to build it. Likewise, for Nehemiah's prayer to be effective, God must be both able and willing to act. And this is what Nehemiah addresses in his opening statement. The fact that God is great and awesome means that he has the ability to act. The fact that he faithfully keeps his promises means that he is willing to act.
Nehemiah's faith is based on his knowledge of what God is like, and his knowledge of what God had promised. So too, when we pray we must have faith, and that must be faith in God based on knowledge of what he is like. But there was another part to the statement. God keeps his promises to those who obey him. And it is this that leads Nehemiah into confession. God's people have sinned. They have been disobedient and not kept the covenant. But notice that Nehemiah doesn't just confess the sins of the people. In fact he begins by confessing that he, himself has sinned. It is relatively easy to say "They sinned" - not so easy to say "We sinned" or "I sinned".
Nehemiah's confession may seem a little surprising. Undoubtedly he was not free from sin, but largely what he is doing here, is confessing other people's sins as if they were his own. His confession deals with a long history of rebellion, coldness, selfishness and defiance of the prophets, all of which happened before he himself was born. Nehemiah had a sense of corporate responsibility which most of us lack today. Both our culture and our religious heritage stress individuality. We regard ourselves as individual members of the church, so we don't confess the church's failure as our own. But this principal of identification is one which runs right through Scripture.
Moses, when the people had sinned by worshiping the golden calf, prayed for them. He identified with them to the extent that he prayed, "I beg you to forgive them. If you don't, please wipe my name our of your book." (Exodus 33:32) Daniel, too, begins his prayer for the people by confessing their sins and including himself in that. There are few people who have lived as godly a life as Daniel, yet like Nehemiah he prays not "God forgive them", but "God forgive us". (Daniel 9:5ff) Paul so identified with, and was concerned for, his people that he said "My heart is broken and I am in great sorrow. I would gladly be placed under God's curse and be separated from Christ for the good of my own people." (Romans 9:2-3)
Jesus, too demonstrates this principal of identification. When he came to John to be baptised, he stood in line with sinners. He had not sinned, but he deliberately chose to identify himself with sinners. Even more so in his death on the cross, did Jesus identify himself with sinners. So too, we need to identify ourselves with those for whom we pray. When we confess the shortcomings of God's people, we must include ourselves in that.
Having confessed their sins, Nehemiah continues to plead on behalf of his people. His pleading is based on God's promises - promises that include both judgement and blessing. Along with Abraham, Moses, Daniel, and Paul, Nehemiah makes no polite and gentle statement of desire. Rather each of them makes bold demands from hearts desperate enough to make them reckless. What can we say of such people? How can we justify people who seem to forget their own mortality and smallness, to say nothing of God's majesty and holiness?
But these were precisely the things of which they were most aware. Their God was greater and holier than our feeble pictures of him. Their bold recklessness arose from a deep awareness that their deaths would be of no account. Their main concern was that the world would know what God was like. Their boldness came out of a love for God's people and a zeal for God's reputation. The people of Israel were God's people, and God's reputation was bound up in their fate, just as today the church is God's people and God's reputation is bound up in the fate of the church.
In the prayers of Nehemiah and others we see three prerequisites for pleading with God on behalf of others: a zeal for God's reputation, love for people, and an indifference to your own life and destiny. If these things are true of us, then we will be able to pray as Nehemiah did. Such praying is grounded in a knowledge of who God is and what he has promised. Nothing delights God more than that we take his promises seriously. When we do that, the Holy Spirit strengthens our faith. Indeed we find that in our praying, we have been responding to the prompting of the Holy Spirit. We think we are praying our prayer, but we find that it is orchestrated by the Spirit. When we reach out in faith, we find that we are touching life and power - the life and power of God!
But we have yet to examine the crucial part of Nehemiah's prayer. At this point, his prayer takes a startling turn. Now he finally asks God to do something, seemingly almost as an afterthought. "When I serve the king his wine today, make him pleased with me and have him do what I ask." Seems a bit of an anticlimax doesn't it. Why so staggering a beginning for so small a request? He seems to have been using a sledgehammer to kill a fly. But what he asks for is a critical factor. Nehemiah was no doubt aware that the king would have to overturn his own previous decree. This was the same king who, fifteen years before, had ordered that the work on Jerusalem be stopped. Such a request could be highly dangerous, even for a royal favourite. Humanly speaking, Nehemiah had no reason to expect such favour. It would have to be something God brought about. Nehemiah has spent four months praying. Now it is time for action. His prayer is not a substitute for action but a prelude to action.
What is the critical factor that we need to ask God to deal with? If we at Bellevue are to rebuild the way Nememiah did, if we are to make progress, if we are going to be able to share God's Good News with the people around us, then I believe that we have to make the first step towards them. We have to change so that they will be comfortable coming here when we invite them. We can't expect them to change to fit in with us because they won't. They will just see us as irrelevant and will not come. Over the last few weeks, we have had some times of special prayer. Last week, we renewed our commitment to God. Now the time has come for us to follow up our prayer with action. Either without the other is useless. If we rush ahead without prayer, we will burn out. If we pray but never take action, we will stagnate. We have spent time praying, now we need to step out in faith and take action.
As I have been studying Nehemiah's prayer over the last few weeks, it has become my prayer for Bellevue. I have written a paraphrase of his prayer substituting the people of Bellevue for the people of Israel. This is my prayer, but perhaps you might like to pray it as well. We're going to put it up on the overhead for a couple of minutes so that you can read through it, and see if this is what you want to pray. Then I am going to read it as my prayer and if you want to pray this too then please pray with me.
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Lord God of heaven, you are great and awesome. You faithfully keep your promises to everyone who loves you and obeys your commands. I am your servant so please have mercy on me and answer the prayer that I pray day after day for these people at Bellevue who serve you. I, my family, and the rest of your people here, have sinned by being disobedient. Time and again we have decided to follow you, but then chosen to do nothing.
Please remember the promises you made. You said that our sin would separate us from you. But you also said that no matter how far we strayed, if we confessed our sins and obeyed you, you would forgive us and restore us to a right relationship with you.
Our Lord, I am praying for your servants - those you saved by your strength and mighty power. Please answer my prayer and the prayer of your other servants who gladly honour your name. As we change the way we do things so as to be more relevant to those around us, please help those who find this difficult, to be able to adjust, and give us the strength and courage to keep moving forward. Amen.
Song: Oh Lord, Your Beautiful
Prayer:
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I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now. I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ. (Philippians 1:3-6 NRSV)
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Lord God of heaven, you are great and awesome. You faithfully keep your promises to everyone who loves you and obeys your commands. I am your servant so please have mercy on me and answer the prayer that I pray day after day for these people at Bellevue who serve you. I, my family, and the rest of your people here, have sinned by being disobedient. Time and again we have decided to follow you, but then chosen to do nothing.
Please remember the promises you made. You said that our sin would separate us from you. But you also said that no matter how far we strayed, if we confessed our sins and obeyed you, you would forgive us and restore us to a right relationship with you.
Our Lord, I am praying for your servants - those you saved by your strength and mighty power. Please answer my prayer and the prayer of your other servants who gladly honour your name. As we change the way we do things so as to be more relevant to those around us, please help those who find this difficult, to be able to adjust, and give us the strength and courage to keep moving forward. Amen.
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