So, once you have found your place in the book of Nehemiah, let's go ahead and stand in the honor of reading our Father's Holy Word, if you're able to. And we are going to begin reading in verse number 5. The Bible says, And said, I beseech thee, O Lord God of heaven, the great and terrible, that keepeth covenant and mercy for them that love Him and observe His commandments. Let thine ear now be attentive, and thine eyes open, that thou mayest hear the prayer of thy servant, which I pray before thee, day and night, for the children of Israel, thy servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against thee, both I and my Father's house have sinned. We have dealt very corruptly against thee, and have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the judgments, which thou commandest thy servant Moses. Remember, I beseech thee, the word that thou commandest thy servant Moses, saying, if he transgress, I will scatter you abroad among the nations. But, he says, but if ye turn unto me, and keep my commandments, and do them, Though there were of you cast out unto the uttermost part of the heaven, yet will I gather thee from thence and will bring them unto this place that I have chosen to set my name there. Now these are thy servants and thy people whom thou hast redeemed by the great power and by thy strong hand. O Lord, I beseech Thee, let now Thine ear be attentive to the prayer of Thy servant, and to the prayer of Thy servants, who desire to fear Thy name and prosper. I pray Thee, Thy servant this day, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man. Period. And then we get the little parenthesis here, it says, For I was the king's cupbearer. But short of those last six words there, the rest of that was Nehemiah's prayer to God. What we'd like to do is to bring our sermon here quickly this morning on this thought of, do we mean our prayers? Do we mean our prayers? Our Father in Heaven. It's me, Dennis, again. How you doing? I thank you, God, for the opportunity to be here today. the privilege, and even the responsibility of standing here and bringing Your Word to Your people. I pray, Father, for a double portion of Your Holy Spirit to be upon me, that You'd help me, Lord, please, to present the sermon here today the way that You'd have me to. It would be a help, an encouragement to each and every one who's listening, whether they're present here or they're watching there on the live stream, or even on down the road there on sermon audio, that they get the help that they need from the Master, Help us, Father, please, to understand just how important prayer is, and that it needs to be more than just words that we're throwing out there, more than just a time filler, that it's vitally important to our existence. Help us, Lord, please, to do it right, so that we do actually mean it when we say it. In the precious, glorious name of Jesus Christ, we do pray. Amen and amen. You may be seated. Here in the book of Nehemiah, there are several prayers recorded. This is the first one that is recorded, and there will be many prayers all throughout, two or three of them there in the final chapter. The vast majority of them are from Nehemiah. There'll be a couple from the congregation. Some are going to be nice and long. This was a bit of a nice long prayer here. Some of them are going to be only one verse long. We're going to have times where it's just going to be a quick notation that he stopped to pray real quickly. But the fact of the matter is, with all the variety that is before us here, each and every one of these prayers that has been recorded here and the idea that prayers were offered up, they were meant They were going somewhere. They were for a purpose. They weren't just a formality. This wasn't ceremony that's taking place here, not just words escaping someone's lips here so that they can hear their own voice. Amen. The Pharisees were guilty of that, liking to hear their own voice, and their prayers weren't getting no further than the sound, and that was it. They weren't reaching heaven, because they didn't mean it. They didn't have a goal in mind other than, hey, look at me. I don't want to be someone that's thought of as, hey, he knows how to pray, and oh, he knows how to pray, and that's all there is to it. Because if that's all there is to it, people saying, oh, he knows how to pray, And I'm done wasting my time. I'm wasting their time. I'm wasting God's time. I need to mean it. Do we mean our prayers? If we actually want to get through to God, if we'd like to be one of those people who seemingly has God's personal cell phone number, we've got to mean it. We want to call heaven and have him pick up on the first ring-a-ding-ding, as it were. It needs to be because we've been meaning it. And we're in a habit of meaning it that God knows that we mean it. I want to take us now over to the book of James, chapter 5. We might bounce back over here to Nehemiah. I'm not 100% sure right now, but we might just do it. But in James, chapter number 5, I want to show you a verse here. A verse that I believe describes how Nehemiah was praying there in chapter number 1, verses 5 to 11. In James 5.16, the Bible records this. Confess your faults one to another and pray one for another that ye may be healed. There's a period right there. Confess your faults. Now, let me just get this right quickly out of the way. I am not a Catholic priest. Please do not come to me and start confessing your sins. Number one, they ain't none of my business. Number two, I don't need to get no ideas about nothing. Number three, I'm not the one to confess to. Amen. That's Him. to confess your faults. I've got an issue. I need prayers about this particular situation taking place here. We did our prayer request earlier. That was confessing some faults, some areas where we are deficient in being able to do for ourselves. So we're asking one another to be praying about the subject so that in concert we are coming to the throne of grace and we're able to get the help that God has got for us. Amen. Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. We want to get the situation took care of. So we're praying about it. I keep thinking about that Miss Kelly who's been looking for all these months now for a kidney transplant. And we thought earlier this year that there was one lined up and that fell through. But we kept on praying about it. I've never met her. I wouldn't know her from Adam. But let me tell you something. I keep hearing about her. We keep praying about it. And now we've got a possible solution on the horizon. Because we've been confessing the fault that there's a bad kidney that needs to get replaced. And we've been praying for it. So that she gets the help from the master that she needs. And it's coming. By the way, that ye may be healed ain't just in one direction there, Brother Margarito. Because yeah, she's getting the healing. If she gets this kidney, and this kidney, we're going to be praying that it takes, and that both her and the donor are going to be healthy. But the fact is, if we're praying for her, that she gets this kidney, that it works, it's going to bring healing into our own lives. Because we are being faithful about it. We are growing our own faith on the subject here. And we are going to become what God would have us to be. And because we have been praying about this, it's going to help us to pray harder about our own circumstances. Going to pray for other people's circumstances. It's going to build us up. Amen. So we confess our faults to one another, we pray one for another, that we may be healed both ways there. Nehemiah is praying hard about what's going on there in Jerusalem. He knows something needs to get done. He don't know how he can do it. As we talked about last week, he's got a burden for it. And he wants God's direction, so he's going to keep praying about it. He's going to sit here and do all that he can to make sure that things are taken care of God's way. Amen. But I want you to notice the second half of this verse, because this is really where we're getting to the heart of the sermon. The effectual, fervent, Prayer of a righteous man availeth little. I'm sorry, did someone just say nope to me? Come on, grow some guts, shout it out. What'd you say? Nope. Nope? Oh, I'm sorry, I must be reading out of the NIV. The effects of a fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth occasionally. Nope. No? Ah, that's the ESV. The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth on occasion. No. Sometimes. No. The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man might get it done. No. All right, hold on, hold on. Let me clear some dust off me here. The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Yes. Amen. Much, church! Our problem is because we don't mean our prayers, we ain't seeing it availing much. We ain't getting the results as often as we want. We ain't getting the kind of results that we're looking for, because we ain't meaning our prayers. Now, God's not home, and we're walking away. And we're wondering why. Because we haven't been doing what Nehemiah did. We haven't been doing what James wrote about here. Let's look at these words here today. It's to help us understand how it is that we can mean our prayers. He says effectual. Now, I'm going to give you these words and I'm going to give you the definition according to the Webster's 1828 dictionary, which was based off the King James Bible. Amen, hallelujah. Not this modern one that's perverted, but the 1828. The word effectual means producing an effect. More specifically, the desired or intended effect. It goes on to say having adequate power to produce the effect. Amen. We want something that's going to get her done. We want something that's going to get the job done. Me and Brother Tim, we were in here working the other day. Got the cordless drill out and we're working that thing there. And we're drilling in these screws. And we started listening to that battery. He finally looked at me and says, you got another one? This one's getting ready to die on us. Yep. Let's use that one up. That was it. OK. We went and got the next battery. You know why? Because that current battery wasn't going to do nothing for us. It had done, did all that it can do. And guess what, church? When we stop and we pray about something, and we, amen, we're done, and then we leave it alone, guess what? That battery's going to die. It'll stop being effectual. Because we haven't been doing what God has told us to do. What did God tell us to do? The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. There's a present imperative in there. In other words, a continuing command. Keep at it till you got the answer. One way or another, maybe the answer's yes, maybe the answer's no, maybe the answer's wait and see. I didn't wait for that battery to recharge. I got another battery, put the old one on charge, we popped that new one in there. We just kept right on trucking. Because that battery was effectual. That battery was getting done. Church, don't quit praying. The enemy's going to tell you, give it up, throw in the towel. Don't quit praying. The enemy's going to tell you, you ain't got time. Don't quit praying. The enemy's going to tell you, hey, you're busy driving. So what? I can still pray. I have nowhere in the Bible to say, I got to close my eyes and fold my hands together. You can keep on praying about it. Keep on doing it till you finally get an answer. Effectual. I'm reminded over there in the book of Matthew, Jesus talked about that woman that came to the wicked judge. He says, even though I don't care about God, I don't care about man, she's pestering me to death. So I'm going to go ahead and do it just to get her off my back. Now are we getting on God's back when we're constantly pestering Him about something? No. He said for us to keep on keeping on. Ask, seek, and knock. That's another present imperative. Keep on doing it until you get an answer. You ain't pestering Him. You ain't bothering Him. He ain't too busy for you. Keep on praying about it. Make your prayers effectual. If you're going to mean it, be effectual about it. Number two. The effectual fervent earnest. Webster defines fervent as be hot, boiling. Typically, if you want to shape something or change something, you need the right amount of heat or intensity to make a difference. Anybody in here drink coffee? I don't drink that stuff. Y'all can have my share. I don't like coffee at all. All right? All there is to it. But I found this. You take those coffee beans and you grind them up. The water that you're going to pour on top of those ground up coffee beans needs to be between 195 and 205 degrees Fahrenheit. If it's less than 195, not all the coffee is going to be extracted from the grounds and it's going to taste weak. It's going to taste nasty. For you coffee lovers out there, it's nasty to me all the time, but that's side of the point. If it's more than 205 degrees, the coffee will taste burnt. In other words, plus or minus, it's gonna be nasty. Ain't gonna like it. But note that upper range for making coffee is 205. Water boils at 212. You're right there on the cusp of changing liquid to steam. There are times God's going to bring us very near the breaking point. Times when He's going to bring us to that point, God, there's just no turning back. What are you doing to me? The pressure's too great. The heat's too hot. I gots to get out of this kitchen. But he's bringing us there because he knows that's the temperature that can bring us to where we can change the direction that he wants to change to. Take the shape that He wants us to take. You get over there to the book of Habakkuk, chapter number two, and it says, the just shall live by his faith. And you start studying that out in the words there, and you find that it says that the upright, the self-righteous are upright in their own heart, and that means they're ramrod straight, but the proper shape for a Christian, the proper shape for a servant of God is proverbially, spiritually, down here, bent down on their knees, with their head bowed, It looks like they're all bent out of shape, but to God Almighty, you're bent into the right shape. I know some of us, we can't get down there on our hands and knees to pray, but the fact of the matter is in your heart, you should be bowing your head, you should be bowing the knee to God every single time you are praying there in your heart, to be fervent, to be right there at the boiling point, so God can do something with you, so He can do something with those prayers you're bringing to Him. How ready and willing are we actually willing to get to be at such a powerful point where our prayer changes things? The more heat we're in, the more it gets done. Maybe we need to start thinking about just how blessed we are to have all that heat on us as it's trying to bring us closer to God. Number three, Of a. Now go ahead and read the next word, righteous. The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous. Eh, throw in the word man too, why not? I'm generous today. But of a. This tells us something has to have already been done first. Often times we love to start at the point B or C or D instead of point A. I remember years ago, I realize you all are a little young for this one right here. Back in 1999, okay, there was a nice big debate going on about when does the new millennium start? Does it start in 2000 or 2001? And so many people are running around saying, well, the new millennium starts in 2001, because you've got a one there. Okay, and for all those who I'm about to offend, It starts in 2000. I was taught properly in kindergarten, you always start at zero. And that you can go ahead and assume zero instead of saying zero, one. Because you know you're at zero already. And I had this one person there arguing with me about it. He said, no, 2001 is the start of the millennium. And I said, I was born in 1974. When my birthday, right there, 1974. How many years old was I? Well, you were none. So in 75, on my birthday, how many years old was I? You were one. The millennium starts in 2000. It is zero years old in 2001. It just became one year old. Church, you got to start somewhere. Don't start from a position of, God, here I am, it's prayer request time and I'm praying to you, because you've got the wrong starting point in your heart there. Oh, come the gods, hey gods, aren't you blessed that I am here today to pray to you? Remember we talked about the faithful righteous man being bent down here, head bowed, Solid starting point. Because we're coming with a broken and contrite heart. Because we're coming to God understanding He's God and we're nothing. We're nothing without Him. But with Him we're everything. We're more than conquerors through Him. So you've got to have the right starting point if you want to actually mean your prayers instead of just, Lord, here I am. I'm reciting out of habit. Lord, I've made it a habit. As soon as I get up in the morning, I throw my legs over the side of the bed, and I stop and pray right here and now. And then that could be a good thing, because quite frankly, I found out the other day, if I don't stop and do that, I'm at work or further down the road before I even realize I forgot to pray. True story. I admit it. But don't let prayer become a habit. Make it a good habit, but make sure your heart starts off first understanding He just woke you up. He's giving you the very air to breathe. We need to come from an attitude where we are blessed and we are grateful for these blessings. Where we are grateful that He's given us the opportunity to come and pray to Him. Of A. Start right. We've got business needs to get resolved. How about we start off where He can work with us? Because if we ain't coming where He can work with us, He ain't going to work with us. Because we've already set ourselves in stone. But it goes on to say, righteous. That's point number four. I looked up that word righteous. I wanted to see just what it had to say. This was a deep, fascinating word. The word righteous. Expected a nice long dissertation on it. It simply means just. You are in good standing. You have a right standing. You are clean before God. You are just. The just shall live by faith, the Bible says. righteous man. The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man, a just man, availeth much. Brother Tim, would you help me please? I've been looking forward to this one all day long. Step in. You keep wearing that same one that I got. You know what, I even made you a little hat. I guess it would be more of a yarmulke. Now of course, it's too easy right now. So we're going to do this. You lost your yarmulke. And it got the propeller on it so it ain't a beanie. Just man. Now how often do we take in our prayers, Lord I've sinned, please forgive me my sins, in Jesus' name I pray, Amen. So God hears us praying such. Alright, didn't do you much good to say that prayer and I did it. You're not exactly properly just, are you? I can even see the red sin right there still. You are still bound. You're not a righteous man right now, my son. Oh, I did something for you. I didn't get you very clean, did I? You know why I didn't get you very clean, my son? You didn't give me much to work with. But now what if He says, Father, I did this, and I did this, and he gets specific. And he starts actually confessing these things. Nehemiah, when you get over to chapter number one, he says that my father has sinned, that I have sinned. And he's summarizing there. But he also has written that one prayer down that took place over four months. You have to understand this is a man who knows how to pray. This is a man who went and sat down and would have enumerated every sin he could possibly think of. Preacher, you've got no proof of that. Oh yeah, I do. Because I've read through the book of Nehemiah. I've read all the lists that He made, who did this repair, who was at this particular place, what all was done here, here, here, here. Nehemiah had a clerical mind about Him, and He made sure to write it down. We didn't need to have all the sins written down for us here in the book of Nehemiah, because we've got them from Genesis all the way through to the end of the Revelation there, written down for us. We need to get in our heads if we're gonna actually mean our prayers. Number one, we have to have a starting point where we are coming before God and we have confessed all of our sins. Not just said, Father, forgive me for my sins, but we've said, I've done this, I've done that, I've done this, and I've thought that, I said that, I have that, that's that and the other thing. So that God can then come. So now we can work together with our Father. Because now He knows our hearts. But He also knows we just cleaned up our hearts. We've thrown out the trash. We'll get you some hairspray for that. Church, if we actually want to mean our prayers, it has to come from the starting point that we understand He already knows it all. And we want to be righteous in His eyes if we want to have success. If we want to have His power. If we want His backing. If we want to see anything actually done with these prayer requests. It starts with us getting right with Him first. The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man, of a... It started with me making sure I was ready first before I started asking. What was that? Nehemiah chapter 1 verse 6 and 7. Let thine ear now be attentive, and thine eyes open, that thou mayest hear the prayer of thy servant, which I pray before thee now, day and night, for the children of Israel, thy servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against thee, both I and my Father's house have sinned, we have dealt very corruptly against thee, and have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the judgments, which thou hast commanded thy servant Moses. And then he goes on to say, remember I beseeched you the word, and these things that you told Moses here, and these things you promised Moses here, if we will turn back to you. And he goes on finally to verse number 11, and he begins to ask for God to help him talk to the king about it. But he got right first! The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Much means great in quantity, long in duration. Translation, you're getting results. When we pray, do we want results or are we just simply wanting to say, I checked that box for the day? Because too often that's all we're doing, we check that box for the day. By the way, the word much also means to an equal degree. Sometimes we hear the saying, you get what you pay for. Think about that one for a moment, church. You pay good money for something and you get good goods. You try to finagle your way around there and get cheap, what happens? You get a piece of junk. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 9, 6, But this I say, He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly, and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully. Nehemiah spent four months sowing bountifully. I don't know if anyone else prayed with him on this. Maybe he talked to his brother and knows who'd come with his brother from Jerusalem? Maybe he talked with other people? I don't know. I wasn't there and it's not recorded for us. But I know the Bible goes from one month in chapter one, four months later, beginning of chapter number two. Nehemiah prayed. He wanted an answer. He wanted results. He was an effectual, fervent, righteous man who was prevailing much with the God of heaven. So I want to ask you here in closing, as Ms. Heather comes up with the song, do we mean our prayers? Number two, are we getting good results? The statement is simply this, two words, keep praying. Our Father in heaven, we thank you Lord for all you've done for us. We believe Lord this is what you'd have for us to bring to your people today. We're grateful Father for the book of Nehemiah and how much there is to teach us. Rebuilding the church, rebuilding our own lives, our families, our marriages. Rebuilding our own relationship with you. Fellowship actually is the correct word, I beg your pardon. To get us to where we understand correctly. And one of these chief things that we have to do is we gotta be better about our prayer lives. There are different ways to pray. Certainly a variety of times to pray. We certainly have a shopping list of things to pray about. Even things that we didn't mention earlier in our prayer request time. But we're grateful though, Father, at the same time, Like the apostles, when they came to Jesus there in Luke and said, teach us to pray. You're still teaching us to pray, even now. Because it's that important. We thank you, Father, for this. And we do ask you, Lord, please, for our church that we will grow to be the church that you'd have for us to be in this community. that we'd be able to reach a lost and dying world and let them know about Jesus, that they too can be saved. Help us, Lord, please. In Jesus' name we do pray. Amen, amen.