And I said, O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love Him and keep His commandments, let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer of your servant, that I now pray before you day and night for the people of Israel, your servants, confessing the sins of the people of Israel which we have sinned against you. Even I and my father's house have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, and the rules that you commanded your servant Moses. Amen, dear saints. You may be seated. Tonight we're embarking on the second installment in our brand new series in this exciting book of Nehemiah, and he was indeed a praying man. Let's be emulating that even now in praying once again. Father we do know that prayer is important and especially as we approach you and you come to us and speak to us again anew and afresh at the end of this sabbath day to your bride your church grant that our hearts would be clear and good fertile soil for Jesus Christ, that the Word would take root and bear fruit upward to the glory of God and the power of the Spirit in the person of Jesus, in whose name we pray, Amen. Nehemiah was certainly a man of prayer, and we discover that right off the bat here in the book of Nehemiah, the book named after him. Right here in verse 5 of chapter 1, he begins his prayer, which we, Lord willing, will cover the balance of next Sunday. And he's going to offer a lot more prayers in this book, but none longer than this one, found at the very genesis of his tome in chapter 1. His prayerfulness, though, was some evidence of some prior achievements brought about by the grace of God working in his heart in advance. Nehemiah was praying because he was a believer. He was a man of prayer because he was a member of the covenant community of faith, and he also was a man who knew that prayer honored and glorified God, even though he needed the need of prayer and the things that he asked from God, and he did it out of faith and love, laying all of his concerns before the Lord. So before we go any further in our study of the book of Nehemiah, we ought to recognize that prayer, often connected to worship, which we're doing tonight, is something that all regenerate people do. we naturally pray. Whether we do it in an elegant fashion or grown-out prayers, we do offer petitions and praises to God. That's what born-again people do. Now, next week we're going to finish Nehemiah's prayer, but for this Lord's Day evening, let's make it our goal, by the grace of God, to imitate Nehemiah by praying to our God through Jesus Christ. Looking together at Nehemiah 1, 5-7. Title of tonight's sermon, Nehemiah's Prayer Part 1, The Doctrine, Nehemiah's Prayer Brings Heaven to Earth. Now things in those days were pretty grim, pretty bad, pretty sad, and pretty serious, given what Nehemiah's friends had shared with him from verse 3 about the state of the people of God, the church in Jerusalem. But this did not in any way keep our godly leader and hero from ascending to the presence of God, the throne of God, in prayer. through the Christ who would come and who for us has already come. Nehemiah's prayer brings heaven to earth. This makes sense because our only hope is the Lord. Nehemiah did not make the mistake which many people, even of a good nature, often do make. namely of getting right to the human task at hand. So he hears that things are not good in Jerusalem from his friend Hannah and I and others that came and reported to him. And what a lot of folks would have done would be to borrow or rent a camel, grab it, get on it, and ride over to that capital city in Judah. But not Nehemiah. Instead, he starts his project of Jerusalem's restoration not on earth, but in heaven. in order to bring the solution down to earth. And he does that in his prayer life, which was an outflow of his covenant faithfulness and his worship of God. And as you know, this is the way God always works. Everything good flows from heaven to earth. The one famous text on this is James 1.17, that all good things come down from the Father of lights, in and through Jesus Christ. Why did Nehemiah adopt this approach to life and prayer? Because he knew that Yahweh was his only hope. and that his only prospect for success was in the God of the covenant, the one who is revealed to us in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And that should be our plan of attack and our way of living as well, to bring heaven to earth in prayer. So this makes sense because our only hope is the Lord, and this is helpful since sorrow tempts us to despair. You know, given the grievous nature of the report of the church's condition in Jerusalem that Nehemiah had received, and given that Nehemiah understood intuitively that it was sin that was at the root of the problem, one might have expected him to either throw in the towel altogether and say, well, it's just too much, too big, too grievous, and too beyond anybody's hope. Or he might, instead of doing that, have resorted to man's help and wisdom, going to conventions of the world and the things that people in the world do, rather than what he actually does, which is to petition God in heaven in prayer, in faith and in humility. So instead of giving up, Nehemiah first allows himself to process the problem by hearing of it and grieving over it. And we saw last week, if you were here, how important that process was. How he takes four months from the time of hearing about the situation to even asking King Artaxerxes for permission to leave Susa and go to Jerusalem and be a help. He takes time And then he does something about it. But the thing he does is, again, not the knee-jerk reaction of most people in trouble. Instead, the very first thing he does is to pray about it. And we shouldn't think, well, you know, Nehemiah took the easy way out. You know, we shouldn't think to ourselves, well, if he was really a man of action, he would have grabbed that camel and gotten on over to Jerusalem to take care of business. The reality is, prayer is not an easy thing. and it's really hard work, even when we need to do it the most. It can be very difficult, and that's one of the reasons a verse like Romans 8, 26 is such a comfort to our souls. Let me read it for you. Likewise, the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses, for we do not know what or how we should pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings too deep for words, or in another sense, groanings which cannot be uttered by us. So are we in any kind of trouble tonight? Are we going to face some difficulties this week? You know Thanksgiving week usually when we look to holidays that's a really good thing, should be, but sometimes it's a stressful time as well. and we are traveling, people coming, etc., and a lot of times we can get a little flustered, but let's not. Let's be like Nehemiah, petition God in prayer, be thankful, recognizing that this is the season of gratitude, bringing our praise and thanks to God through Jesus Christ alone. Well, let's see how Nehemiah does that in verses 5 through 7 of chapter 1 of the book that has his name attached. and learn together the elements of Nehemiah's prayer, part one. Now the prayers of the great saints, men and women, in the Bible provide excellent models for us to follow. So let's tonight consider the elements of Nehemiah's prayer, verse 5. He opens with praise of the covenant God. And I said, O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments. So notice that the first thing Nehemiah does is he identifies God as the God of heaven, the God who actually can do something, the actual real God, the God who is powerful, the God who created the heavens and the earth, the people of of Persia, on the whole, were a pagan people. They didn't pray to the God of Heaven, but Nehemiah does that. And he appeals to two characteristics that are fundamental to the nature of this God, this Yahweh, this Lord, this Triune Deity of Heaven. First, his omnipotent power, and secondly, his covenantal nature. And the idea of covenant is very strong in all the Bible, but you really see it here, right off the bat. The fact that God was the God of the covenant, He made this covenant with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and we have the fullness of that covenant now in Jesus Christ, and the new covenant fully prevailing and fulfilled, and in fact we're experiencing it in this sermon, and we'll at the table as well. So, God is the God of the covenant. Then notice with me, too, at the end of verse 5, that God-given faith manifests itself in love and in a desire for obedience, too. After all, God is the God of the covenant who has steadfast love for those who love him and keep his commandments. And so those who are regenerated, who do love him, do do just that by the grace of God. Now, do we do it perfectly? No. But we do do it. It is evidence of our faith. So we can and should safely assume that this general pattern of opening Nehemiah's prayers was probably in his mind, his heart, his mouth, and out of his lips, if you will, for the four months that transpired from the time of, again, hearing about the bad state of the situation in Jerusalem until Nehemiah finally goes and speaks to the king to get the permission to go to Jerusalem. So he composes himself, if you remember earlier it was rather dramatic, where he mourned for days in verse 4, fasted and prayed before the God of heaven. So he'd been praying and now in verse 5 we see an actual content prayer that he was offering. He composes himself He realizes it's no longer time for mourning, of verse 4, which is an important point, dear saints. We don't live in a continual process of mourning in that sense. We always mourn for our sin, but he gets off his knees, if you will, in terms of mourning, and he begins the work, if you will, of supplication, which is asking God for what he needs. But not just him, the whole covenant community. So he's concerned about the church of his day. And therefore, we who are in Jesus Christ and in that same covenant, although in our case the fullness of the covenant, we ought to follow that example and pray, and recognize God for who He is, and in so doing, worship, thank, glorify, and praise Him, just like Nehemiah did in his prayer. So, Nehemiah opens his prayer with praise of the covenant God, then he intercedes for the covenant community, verse 6a. So that word is intercedes, in children that's I-N-T-E-R-C-E-D-E-S-C. Comes in between, if you will, the needs of the people and the God who could provide those needs by praying for, again, the covenant community, and we read these words. Let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer of your servant that I now pray before you day and night for the people of Israel, your servants." So notice how Nehemiah appropriately employs what we call anthropomorphism here in the sense that he asked God to, if you will, open his eyes and hear, if you will, with his ears the prayer of this man, Nehemiah, and he mentions hearing first. Now, notice also the object, the people are the people of Israel. So this isn't just anybody. You'll recall that we've learned over and over in Ephesians and in other series that we've studied that our first item of prayer is always the church. We're going to reference that. a little bit later here, and very soon as a matter of fact. I'll give you a very key text on that. But he is praying for the people of Israel, that he was part of that covenant community. You are the new Israel of God, Jew, Gentile, one body, and we are the Israel of God today. So, we may rightly imagine that Nehemiah was properly concerned about the spiritual and political state of affairs in Susa and in the Persian Empire. After all, he had a very high position there. He was the cupbearer to the king. He probably heard a lot of things that happened in the palace. Probably was in the king's presence a lot of times when important people came around. They talked about policy and things. But despite that, Nehemiah's real heart passion was not for Persia and Susa, although he cared. His real heart passion was for the covenant, the people of God, the people in Jerusalem. After all, they're the ones for whom he grieved and prayed and wept and supplicated for. And that should be our heart attitude too. And again, here's that verse I promised you a moment ago. It's a very famous one, Galatians 6.10. Therefore, as we have opportunity, Let us do good to all, all people everywhere, especially to those who are of the household of faith. So there's that priority again on praying for the covenant community first, and of course that's what we have. So what better starting point for doing good is there, whether it's for the household of faith or anybody else, than prayer? Our Lord Jesus himself prayed over Jerusalem in that very notable prayer that you can read about in Luke 13, 34, and 35, where he wept over Jerusalem. But before we leave verse 6a, I'd like you to notice with me four important things about this part of Nehemiah's prayer. First, he's earnest. He asks God to be attentive. It's an interesting thing to ask God to do or to be. He is intercessory. He says, hear the prayer of your servant. So he's placing himself in an important place, but appropriately. And it's not because he was a big, important person in the kingdom of Persia, but because he was a humble person in the community of the covenant. And he's persistent. He says here, I'm praying day and night. And that was probably no hyperbole. And finally, he's focused. He says he's praying for the people of Israel. He's praying for his people, the people of the Old Covenant Church. And that should be the way we think about prayer too. So tonight we're learning a little bit about Nehemiah's prayer. He opens with praise of the Covenant God, intercedes for the Covenant community, and finally, He confronts the sins of covenant unfaithfulness. This is quite an interesting text, verses 6b and 7. Confessing the sins of the people of Israel, which we have sinned against you, even I in my Father's house have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, and the rules that you commanded your servant Moses." So every true saint in the Bible prays this way. Psalm 51 is probably the most famous one after David's grievous sin. But it's a prayer of true contrition. A true heartfelt grief over offending God. And it's also personal. So he's not just throwing rocks at the people of Israel living in Jerusalem who are in a bad way because of sin. He's also directing it at his own family and himself. And that's really interesting. And that's something that It's not an easy thing to do. That's really when repentance and faith is taking true root. So it's instructive here, I think, that we notice that God is being praised for his goodness for the people of Israel. And Nehemiah's very first comment relative to the people of Israel is not, hey, look how nice they are, how wonderful they are, how great they are, but no, look at the problem of their sin. So he actually first addresses that sin issue. And then as I mentioned, he brings it even closer to home in verse six by addressing his own family and then himself, who also were part of the sin problem. And then to render this whole iniquity thing even more explicit, Nehemiah in verse 7 details some of the aspects of this kind of sin, this covenant sin, and he confesses, and I'm quoting, we have acted very corruptly against you, and have not kept the commandments, statutes, nor the ordinances which you commanded your servant Moses." So here's something that's really interesting. Again, this is a lot of covenant language. And we've seen even three points here, all of them have covenant in there. Covenant God, covenant people, covenant faithfulness, unfaithfulness in this case. And the sins that are addressed are basically sins of covenant unfaithfulness. That's where all problems start. Covenant unfaithfulness is where the real problem is. And so we understand that in very strong ways, and we should. But it's really important. It's not that individual sins aren't to be addressed and aren't important, because they actually are. And they are dealt with. And this had to do with the scattering of the people, which we'll observe later in this prayer and things like that. But the collective community, the sin of covenant unfaithfulness, was where Nehemiah started. And typically, if you read the prayers of the great saints in the Bible, that's what you're going to find happening. Really, that's where it starts. So, he's not again saying that individual sins are not significant, but he's only affirming that as a body, we either sink or swim together, if you will. So, dear saints, let's look now at a little bit more application of this prayer and how we can take it home this week and employ it as well and grasp how Nehemiah's prayer encourages the church today. You know, the Old Testament prayers are very important, just like the New Testament prayers are, and there's sort of a a hinge to, like we're coming to Christmas, and when you read like Luke 1, Luke 2, and the prayers of Mary and Zachariah in Luke, Those are kind of Old Testament, New Testament prayers. And so these prayers are really helpful for us. So we might ask the question, can we employ Nehemiah's petition as a paradigm for our own discourse with God? My answer would be, sure we should. So let's see how his prayer encourages us, the church, today. No matter how bad things are, there is always grace in Jesus. Isn't that really nice? Isn't that beautiful? This is wonderful because nothing can get so bad that even God cannot fix it. Now, that's an obvious statement, but I think sometimes it's helpful for us to realize that. Nothing in any realm of any sort can get so horrible that Almighty God, in Jesus Christ, His Gospel, His Church, cannot and does not have the ability to fix it. He can't. In Jesus, there is sufficient grace for all problems in all people, including all of our individual and corporate needs. So we might ask, have we sinned? Well, Jesus' blood was shed for believing sinners. You might say, are we weak? Well, God's grace and his spirit provides his church, his people power, commensurate with the need. Do we lack wisdom? Well, we're told in James 1 to ask God for wisdom and he'll give it. And God's word, working in and through Jesus and his covenant, provides it. Nehemiah was definitely down here. He was down. It says that in verse 4. sat down and wept and mourned for days, continued fasting and praying before the God of... He was down, but he wasn't out. And he was not going to be out. In fact, we argued last week that his victory was wrought in those four months of intercession and prayer, even before he said anything to a king who could, in a human sense, help him accomplish the goal. So, he knew the truth. He knew that God existed. And he knew that this God was faithful. And he knew that this God was able to forgive sin. He knew that this God was a God of grace. And he didn't even know God in the total fullness like we do today in the person of Jesus who is the fullness of the Godhead in human form. We realize just how incredibly blessed we are. He was calling on that same God, and it gave him gumption and courage to intercede for the covenant community by praying to the covenant God. And it should be the same for us as well. So, no matter how bad things are, there's always grace in Jesus. who bids us to boldly approach God's throne through himself alone. Every word in that sentence is very important because it is Jesus Christ who invites us to not just crawl to the throne of grace, but to come boldly but to come, not in any way, but to come in Jesus Himself, and through faith in Him, bringing, as it were, Christ in the arms of our faith. So even lacking the full right of all that we possess in the New Covenant, Nehemiah had the faith and doctrinal understanding to realize that God will answer the prayers of His own people, even if They are in the process of suffering the consequences of their sin. That again is a great encouragement to us. We all know that some consequences of sin are always there. They don't go away. But even then, God is still blessing his people who will come to him humbly and yet boldly with repentance and contrition, and come in faith in Jesus. Again, Nehemiah doesn't crawl to the throne of grace, he comes with confidence. And why should we not? We are Christ's church, are we not? We already possess all the benefits of glory, and mostly in the person of the King himself, Jesus Christ, who we will ingest not only in the Word, as we are now, by faith, but in the sacrament as well. Therefore, through our faith in Jesus, let's believe the gospel and follow that exhortation and encouragement, comforting one, that we read earlier from Hebrews 4.16, where we come boldly to the throne of grace to find help and mercy for help in time of need. And as the help of God, then, we have the sweet privilege of blessing others, both inside first, and outside, then, of the church. and we're actually getting an opportunity to do that here tonight and this week with the provision for the mission and others, but we do it in many other ways as well. We bless others with the same gospel message that we're hearing now, that Jesus Christ is the Lord and King who gave his life and atoned and substituted and satisfied a holy God's righteous wrath against our sin. and He has risen from the dead triumphant and glorious and reigns at the Father's right hand." This is good news. It's good news for every sinner and everyone that Jesus Christ calls to Himself by sovereign grace and the power of the Holy Spirit will hear it. and live it and appreciate it. So beloved, Nehemiah's prayer part one sets the stage for a rather dramatic transformation of the church in the second part of this petition. So if you're able to be here or hear it online, you'll want to stay up on the second part of his prayer. But for now, let us follow his pattern and pray again tonight, shall we? Father, we do follow the pattern of faithful saints in the Bible, all of whom prayed through the Lamb of God, either who would come or the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, who has come. And we recognize that you are the Lord God of heaven. You're the great and awesome God. You're the God that keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love you and those who, because of their love, keep your commandments by grace. And we would pray even tonight that your ear would be attentive and your eyes would be open to hear our prayers that we offer before you as the church. And we pray, Father, with confession, and with gratitude, and with repentance, and with hope. For we know that all things work together for good to those who love you, those called according to your purpose. So we offer this prayer to you in Jesus' name. Amen.