I love to read. One of the areas, the genres of book that I really enjoy reading, I try to read, usually about once a quarter, I try to read a book that is in a certain sphere, and that is in the sphere of leadership. The love of leadership books has been instilled in me by my mentors. It started with one certain mentor who pastored here who required me to read leadership books and required me to give reports on them And they even had little points with blanks to be filled in. It was the worst. And he required those to come in. And I found out later on that some of the other men on staff weren't actually filling in the blanks. I was the only guy doing it. It felt like I was the only guy doing it. And that was probably because I was just a young guy. And I really enjoyed that. What I loved about these books on leadership, and what I enjoy about them is these reminders of what it means to lead and the responsibilities that come from that, and what it takes to be a good leader. One quote in a leadership book is, everything rises and falls on leadership. And their books, if you're a person that kinda just likes inspirational quotes, you know, more than just the hang in there quote with the kitty hanging on a pole, leadership books provide a lot of that. And leadership, really, when it is accurately spoken about and written about, has very much a connection within the word of God. Now, the best leadership books are leadership books that are written by believers and are based on biblical principles. There was a fellow pastor of mine who was ministering here in the area, in Elyria, and he had been asked to help out at basically, it was aftercare, it was care for young people after school, and he had been instructed that he couldn't use the Bible, and he really couldn't talk about Christ. He could be available to them if they wanted to ask questions, So he put together a list of biblical character traits, what it means to be a leader, and basically did a series on leadership. And he just said there's a leadership book that speaks about the importance of, and he'd fill in the blank. And they were all biblical characteristics. The best leadership is biblical leadership. And biblical leadership is exemplified and taught by and really illustrated by Jesus Christ. Whenever there are failures at the leadership level, the effect is widespread. In fact, that's really the story that we've been walking through in the Old Testament, isn't it? Where you have leaders who are failing and thus the people who are failing. Today, we are going to look at a prayer in one of the great leadership books in the Bible, in the book of Nehemiah. I would invite you to turn to the book of Nehemiah. So where were we? Oh yes, we were in 700 B.C. We have been walking through the scriptures and we've had three straight prayers that have taken place there in Jerusalem. In spite of all that takes place in terms of the encouragement, God showing up, and really all that takes place within the lives of the children of Israel, they still fail. We ended with Hezekiah, and Hezekiah in 2 Kings chapter 20 kind of rides off into the sunset, and even as Hezekiah is nearing the end of his life, he is reminded by God that the children of Israel still are gonna be carried away to Babylon. After Hezekiah is Manasseh, and you go from one of the best kings for Judah to one of the worst kings in terms of Judah. And there's a couple of little reigns that take place in between there. You have Josiah, you're getting into about 620 B.C. There's a great passage there about, in 2 Kings chapter 23, where you have the book of the law is found. And there's this great covenant before the Lord. In fact, in 2 Kings chapter 23, you have what the Bible itself says is the greatest Passover up to that point. And Josiah is even called the greatest king up to that point. Yet by the end of the book, just a couple of chapters later, literally within 40 years of the greatest Passover and the greatest king up to that point in the nation of Judah and their history, Judah would fall. Judah is taken captive, and you have this great carrying away that takes place. And that is where we find Nehemiah. Nehemiah is a book that is part of, is a description of what takes place towards the end of the Babylonian captivity. The Babylonian captivity lasted about 70 years officially, and you have, with Nehemiah and with those who would have been his contemporaries, you have a full generation of Israelites who are born not knowing what it was like to experience freedom, not knowing what Jerusalem was like, not even really knowing what it was like to have a sacrificial system in place. In fact, they would have pretty much grown up only hearing tales. hearing the promise of the one rightful king through the histories that we have been learning from. In fact, these books would have been some of the stories that they would have heard about in Kings and Chronicles and Samuel. They probably would have heard about the great prayers that have been prayed in Jerusalem. They probably heard these stories even as little ones. They probably would have been the Sunday school type of lessons that they would have heard. Their parents would have been telling them about the history would have brought them to where they're at. And probably, assumably, especially in light of how Nehemiah prays, Nehemiah was even instructed in what the Lord's promises were concerning how that Babylonian captivity and that captivity should end. After 70 years, a rubble and a remnant are allowed to return. 80 years later, Ezra, who's the author of Ezra and Nehemiah. In fact, some ancient scriptures calls Nehemiah, the title of it is Ezra II, Second Ezra. Ezra being the author of these two books is brought back to really, he goes to Jerusalem to try to start up a spiritual revival. So you have this captivity, you have this remnant that is returning, and Ezra's gone back to start this, and for Nehemiah, He wasn't able to Skype in. Oh, man, Skype's over. He wasn't able to Zoom in and find out with Ezra, you know, hey, what's going on back there in Jerusalem? Hey, can you FaceTime it? Show me what's going on. I want to see this great spiritual revival. I want to see all that's going on. I mean, if this is the answer to God's promises, Man, it must be amazing to be in Jerusalem. And what is going on there is probably gonna encourage Nehemiah in terms of, he's probably thinking, I wonder if I'm gonna be part of the group that is able to go back to Jerusalem and be a part of God's fulfilled promises. So, we are 250 years after Hezekiah has prayed. We are even farther than that since Solomon has prayed about when those are carried away Lord, when they cry out, will you hear their cry and return them to the place of Jerusalem? Nehemiah 1 here takes place in an aspect that Nehemiah is wondering what's going on back home. Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther that are all really close together. Esther takes place probably just a little bit after Nehemiah are a really unique, wonderful set of books. I would encourage you to read through them and get the bigger picture in terms of that. Today we're gonna look kind of at the book of Nehemiah, specifically in chapter one. Nehemiah itself, chapter 13, probably is a little bit separate from the rest of Nehemiah, which all seems to take place within about just a few months' time. And Nehemiah stands out. Nehemiah and Ezra and Esther provide stories, don't they? Stories, historical stories of leaders. who stood up and stood out to be used by God in the midst of a generation who is trying to rebuild from the ashes of captivity and dispersion. In fact, Nehemiah itself rightfully has been the subject of multiple excellent leadership books that are out there. Some have even said it's one of the greatest leadership books that there is. And if that is true, what we find out in the book of Nehemiah is that means prayer. has a huge part to play in leadership. Nehemiah is a man of prayer. The book of Nehemiah is a rich, diverse book. It is God's work in a man, following Ezra, leading, as we said, to Esther. It's about God's big work in Jerusalem, where he is fulfilling the promise of the return of Israel. He is working in people, whether it is physical work or spiritual work. There's heavenly opposition, there's heavenly provision. It is about God's work in Babylon and God's work in Jerusalem. It is about God's completion of the captivity and provision towards restoration. It is about God's work in a man and God working in men. It is about God's work building the temple and God's work building the wall. It is about grueling physical work and intense spiritual work. It is about wall construction and wall security. I'm not gonna talk about building a wall, okay? It's about heavy opposition and heavenly provision. It's about seasons of fear and seasons of rejoicing and dedication. And what we will be considering today, the balance of prayer and planning. Do you have to plan if you're praying? I heard one pastor speaking a couple weeks ago. He was talking about he had given a vision and kind of really walked through the plan for a church that he was involved in. One of the older gentlemen came up to him afterwards and said, your plans are too big. God's the one that's gonna do the leading. You don't need to worry so much about planning. And he was commenting on how that was sometimes the attitude. Well, if God's in control and God's in charge, then I don't need to plan, we'll just pray. Some of us in pride go the opposite way, don't we? Where we just plan, plan, plan, and do, and we don't do any prayer. There is a ton of planning and strategy in Nehemiah. There are times Nehemiah has to go out and basically scout out the walls and figure it out, and he's kind of doing the measurements, he's working through all of that. But Nehemiah is also a book of prayer, as Nehemiah was a man of prayer. This is, the book of Nehemiah, I found this interesting, the book of Nehemiah is home to the longest prayer in the Bible. It is also home to some of the shortest prayers of the Bible. The longest prayer in the Bible is found in Nehemiah chapter 9. In verses, it's not the longest, but it has 1,213 words. That's a long prayer. King Solomon's prayer that we already looked at in 1 Kings 8 is the one that comes up just a little bit short of that by about 200 words. It is the longest prayer in the Bible, but it also has some short prayers in the Bible and even some almost unspoken type of prayers. In fact, I invite you, if you turn the page to verse 4, you get what I think is really one of the shortest prayers in the Bible. Nehemiah 2, verse 4, it says there, And it doesn't even give the words. Zero words, I think, is the lowest number that we can get, but I think there are other zero word ones there. Throughout scripture, we find short prayers, but Nehemiah has some really short prayers where he says, hear us, O God, we are despised, turn it on to them, give us victory. He says, remember me, O God, for good, according to all I have done for this people. He says, now therefore, strengthen my hands. He says, now, my God, remember them according to their words. It says that he confessed to God. It says, remember me concerning this. Remember me and the commands that I have upheld. Remember them. And then the book even ends in prayer. Remember me for good. I just read one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 prayers in the book of Nehemiah. So he could pray short. He could pray long. Today we're gonna look at chapter one here. Nehemiah was a man who prayed. He prayed for his people. He prayed to a God who forgives and redeems. And while Nehemiah took action, God provided and protected. It is a prayer of dedication. where this prayer is something that Nehemiah really wants to make sure that he is in the right line in terms of what God wants to do. Look with me in Nehemiah chapter one. I'll start in verse one. The words of Nehemiah, the son of Hekeliah, it came to pass in the month of Chislev, in the 20th year, as I was in Shushan the citadel, that Hanani, one of my brethren, came with men from Judah. And I asked them concerning the Jews who had escaped, who had survived the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem. And they said to me, the survivors who are left from the captivity, the province, are there in great distress and reproach. The wall of Jerusalem is also broken down and its gates are burned with fire. So it was when I heard these words that I sat down and wept and mourned for many days. I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for your word this morning. May you teach us about the importance of prayer and what it means to turn to you, but also to dedicate and set us apart our lives for you. We thank you for this great prayer that we have an opportunity to look at this morning. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen. As I said, the connection between leadership and strategy and dedication all center in the book of Nehemiah around prayer. Over and over, whenever anything comes up, Nehemiah prayed, Nehemiah prayed, Nehemiah prayed, Nehemiah prayed, and he is really, in a sense, giving this leadership in terms of prayer. The leader, leaders, and strategy, and blessing, and dedication all have one prime object and mover. See, leadership has to be pointed towards God. So does strategy and dedication and even prayer. God moves in and through leaders. God moves in and through you and I. You see, we all also have leadership areas. They would be areas that we would say are areas that we have influence. To be able to influence someone, whether it be with the gospel or by our testimony, has an aspect of leadership. Have you ever known leaders that are, have leader, they are a leader in title, but they aren't really leaders. They just seem to be doing everything for themselves. And there are also those, very often, whether it's within the home or within the workplace or even out in the world or even at a school, where there are those that maybe they don't have a title in terms of leadership, but it just seems like everything they do influences others and makes a great influence in terms of all those that are around them. God is the focus for Nehemiah. God is the object of, Lord, this is what we believe we should do. Please help us. He's the object of the prayer. He's the object also of the Lord. We are dedicated to you. This book is really a book on how God moves in and through someone who is at this point living in a place that is not his home. That makes me think about the references in the New Testament to being pilgrims and strangers. Yet Nehemiah, who is not in the place that should be his home, is called and led by God to do a great thing in a relatively short period of time, which is a fulfillment of the promises of God, and it's also a provision for the people as they are called to serve and to lead. That person, this person as we see, Nehemiah's gonna be able to navigate great challenges. and to lead and provide, and he's really drawn to and reliant on God. This first prayer of Nehemiah, I'll make a couple of references. What's interesting is this prayer of Nehemiah, the pattern, and even some of the language is repeated in that really long prayer in chapter nine. There is a pattern of prayer that Nehemiah appeared to have. He had one person, one commentator called it bottle rocket prayer. These short little prayers, I don't know if you remember what it was like to shoot out, are they even legal anymore? Boy, I'm old. Are bottle rockets allowed? I mean, we used bottle rockets to shoot at each other when we were young, but I think we'd probably get thrown in jail if we did that today. A bottle rocket is what? You light it, you know, and you do know what, you know, it used to stick, the wimps would stick it in the ground, right? The really tough guys would do one of two things. One, they would actually use a glass bottle, That's what it was for. You could stick the little stem out of there and light it. Or, if you were really manly, what would you do? You'd hold the stick like that. Shoot it off. Nehemiah, there are times, he just says, remember me, God. Strengthen me, Lord. Help me, Lord, the one there. as we said before the king, he just says, so I prayed, and then he's speaking immediately. And so, Nehemiah had a pattern of praying like that, but Nehemiah also had a pattern in those short prayers, and he had a pattern in this prayer, and that pattern continues into the prayer in chapter nine. What does that mean? If there's a pattern that he is following through and continuing to do, this is part of his lifestyle. Let's look at this great prayer by this great man of prayer in what I would like to call really a life-changing prayer. We're gonna get this great impression about Nehemiah today and see that Nehemiah is a man who loves his Lord. and he expects great things from the Lord, and he prays passionately to the Lord, and is dedicated to being fully used by his Lord, and this revelation starts first and foremost in a setting. There's a setting here. Every prayer has a context. We've seen that over and over again. So we've already seen the setting here, and this is a setting that is important for us to understand. We've kind of talked about this history already. It's a timestamp. It came to pass in the month of Chislev in the 20th year. These little timestamps the Old Testament puts in place drives commentators and biblical scholars nuts, but they love it. They love putting together what year did this happen, what month did this happen, and this actually helps us a little bit later on in the book, where you're able to say, okay, how many months, how many days? There's a reason we know they're able to build up the wall in 52 days, and there's a reason we know what months these things take place. There's a reason the Bible has timestamps, because it's true. It happened. These are not made up stories. These are not things that people just threw together to be legendary. They are things that happened in a moment in time, and this happened in the life of Nehemiah. We will have an opportunity to see Nehemiah in glory, and Nehemiah is this one that this takes place, and we are reminded of who Nehemiah is. He is in a place that he is in captivity, Shushan, the citadel, or Susa, and so this reminder that Nehemiah is, in a sense, a slave. He is a man of Judah and he is part of those who would have never known, probably at his age, he would have never known Israel. As we said, he would have only heard about it. And he hears from those who have gone to Judah. One of his brethren comes from Judah and he asks about what is going on. And so you have, he is one of these that has survived the captivity. And he's wondering what's taking place in Jerusalem, the place of those last prayers, the place that David and Solomon and Jehoshaphat and Hezekiah all prayed. And he's wondering what's happened as Zerubbabel has gone back there, what's happened as Ezra's gone back there, what's going on back home? Nehemiah's heart was on a place, but also about a people. His heart was on the Lord's place, the city of Jerusalem, and the Lord's people, his brethren, Judah, and those survivors, those who are left who actually made it for him, he's in Babylon, and he would have been aware of all that was taking place, and Nehemiah, I believe, at this point, probably has an expectation of success. Surely the Lord was blessing. Surely this was an answer to prayer, of all those prayers that those kings had prayed, and as those have been going back, Nehemiah was probably expecting to hear, you can't believe how great it's going back there. You can't believe all the work that is getting done. You can't believe what all the people are doing there. You can't believe what the Lord is doing in Jerusalem. It is an amazing thing. It'll be wonderful. And so this expectation for Nehemiah would have been, hi, what's going on? What's going on with those who had escaped? Probably some had escaped, as you can imagine, from Babylon. Those who had survived, those who had been remaining there in Israel and Jerusalem. and most importantly about Jerusalem, the city of God, the city of David, the city where God was supposed to bless, the city, that place where God is supposed to do this work. So we've seen this setting. The second thing that we see surrounding this great prayer is really the message that Nehemiah receives. We saw this in verse three. He says, It's not a very positive thing. Well, there's some survivors there. That doesn't sound good. Shouldn't they be inhabitants or something? The survivors who are left from the captivity, those who had remained in the province, are there in great distress and reproach. The wall of Jerusalem is also broken down and its gates are burned with fire. There's two aspects that are important in terms of this. For a wall, those of us that have studied the Bible understand the significance of the wall and the gates. The wall is what would have provided security. The wall is really what provided identity. The wall is something that also was a very symbolic type of thing. It would have been a symbol of the strength of that city. But you also have the aspect, and throughout the book of Nehemiah, there's a lot of references to the gates, and that is to be able to go in and to go out, and for there to be able to be accessed. So all of these things are lost. The walls are broken down, the gates are burned down. Now, like we said, Nehemiah had probably been assuming it was all going well. Maybe he was even believing that he was gonna be on his way back to Jerusalem to be able to be free from Babylon. Maybe, Nehemiah was thinking, maybe I'm gonna be part of the first generation to see the rebuilding of this and a part of this. Have you ever found yourself assuming or expecting good news only to be greatly discouraged? God had promised this was all gonna work out, right? This is God. God said he was gonna do this, so all of this was gonna work out, okay? Nehemiah does not get the reply he had been expecting. He is not hearing what he wants to hear. Let's look at the response, verse four. It says, so it was when I heard these words, I sat down and wept. This news knocks him off his feet. We see the emotion there, that term wept is the word for is connected with grief, humiliation, and mourning. It is an extreme level of tears that is coming out of Nehemiah here. It is a crushing blow to his heart and soul to hear that the things he thought were supposed to be taking place, the answers to prayers that had been being prayed and probably he had been praying concerning Jerusalem and his people were not being answered. In fact, everything was in disarray and nothing seemed to be being fulfilled. So the question is, how is Nehemiah going to respond now? When we come to a time of grief, when we come to a time of sorrow, when we come to a time of, I don't know about you, I mean, maybe you're one of the, I won't say lucky ones, but let's just say God has given some great sovereignty. Maybe you've never experienced a letdown, but I've experienced a few. Anybody else out there experience letdowns? Man, it's hard to raise your hand in a Baptist church, apparently, isn't it? I see that hand, I see a couple hands there. We've all experienced letdowns, right? Maybe it's like, ugh, thanks, Pastor Dave, thanks for bringing up the times that God has disappointed me, the times that God has not done what I expected him to do. When we reach these times, there are some important questions we have to ask, and Nehemiah is gonna have to ask. One question would be, would he blame those who are in charge? Man, that's a rubble in Ezra. I knew they were losers. They can't get anything done. That's definitely their fault. What kind of leadership is going on? Why can't they accomplish anything? Maybe he would blame God. Well, maybe God just doesn't want us to succeed. Maybe he would stop believing God. Maybe Nehemiah would say, well, maybe God, maybe all these promises are just stories. Maybe those were just legends. Maybe the stories that I was being told by my parents and grandparents are just, a religious crutch to help me in my weak mind. Maybe none of that's true. Maybe he was going to, there's a word that's kind of out there, kind of deconstruct everything he believed concerning God and his promises. Maybe he would say, you know what, there is no God. Because if there was a God, he would fulfill his promises. I mean, he would not have seen any of the miracles that all the other Israelites of the past had seen. Maybe he should just settle into his cush job by the side of the king, having pretty much a buffet at his fingertips all the time. Maybe he's like, fine, whatever. I got it good. I don't need to worry about what God is doing or what God isn't doing. I've got my life to live. Would Nehemiah give up? I'm never gonna see the promised land. The children of Israel will never be free. It's over. How do we respond when the expectations are not met? Nehemiah did what we should do when things and plans and expectations are met. We are saddened, we are disappointed, but we pray. says he mourned for many days. This is something that took place over a period of time, and so this is something that is going on, and it says there that he did something else that was important. I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven. There's a preparation here that is taking place. What it means to fast is really to be focused. It is setting time aside as being able to be able to focus. Instead of focusing on food, and as a youth pastor, that's all that was ever talked about. What are we eating next, Pastor Dave? Where are we eating next? They literally would put the last bite of breakfast into their mouth and they're like, what's for lunch, Pastor Dave? I should have just had a fast every mission trip. It would have been a lot more cost effective and they would have been focused on their Savior. I mean, I would have given them leeks and fruit juice and stuff like that. So there's this aspect of fasting. Nehemiah is expecting God to do something, and he's focusing in on God, and he prays. And so what we have here is it appears this is kind of an encapsulation of what Nehemiah's prayer was through this process. So that brings us to the prayer itself in verses five through 11. And so this whole aspect of what he is doing, none of this is new territory for us. For those that have been part of this series from the beginning, we are seeing a repetition of these great prayers. There's a recognition of who God is. We see that, and you'll also see it in Nehemiah 9, verses five and six. There's gonna be a hope where there's a worshipful asking of God. That prayer style, again, is repeated in long form in chapter nine, and there's a reminder that God is always faithful and attentive, forgiving, and acting. It says in verse five, and I said, I pray, Lord God of heaven, O great and awesome God, You who keep your covenant and mercy with those who love you and observe your commandments." Prayer, as we've been seeing over and over, must always be founded in and wrapped around who God is. We have to keep doing this. We have to keep being reminded. This morning, we are going to be reminded of what Christ did. and what our salvation is based upon. Reminder is so important. God of heaven, the one great God, the one who is awesome. Powerful is the term that is used here. So there's a powerful aspect there, great, and awesome is the word for terrifying. It's not like awesome dude, it's not that type of thing. This is a term that is a term that would have brought up fear, respect, and terror. By the way, this is why Nehemiah doesn't pout, complain, question, or abandon God. It's because he knows who God is. Whenever we find ourself facing difficulties, and we're like, well, why isn't this going my way, and I don't know if God loves me, and I don't even know if He's existent. What the problem is, is we've forgotten who God is. We have not recognized who God is. He talks about who God is. He also describes God in words that we've seen over and over, right? You who keep your covenant and mercy. with those who love you and observe your commandments. The covenant is about trust. You keep your covenant. There's the mercy. Mercy has been, how much is mercy? For me personally, the more and more I've been seeing goodness and mercy in these prayers, the more and more I've been trying to add that to my prayer. God, I need to be reminded, I want to acknowledge you are good. You are merciful. No matter how you answer my prayer, Lord, you're good. He knows God is able to do this. We have to know and be growing in our knowledge of who God is. And then there is also an important aspect of prayer as well. There is a confession in terms of sin. It says in verse six, please let your ear be attentive and your eyes open that you may hear the prayer of your servant, which I pray before you now, day and night, for the children of Israel, your servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against you. Both my father's house and I have sinned. This confession of sin, specifically of his own, he's even confessing the sin of his people. Now we have to be careful, we're in an era where everybody says we have to confess all the sins of the past and we have to work through these confession, but I believe a lot of what's going on here is Nehemiah and his understanding of scripture, and our understanding of what God has said over and over in scripture is when God is not at work when it comes to the children of Israel, it was a result of them not following and turning towards God. That is not the same as we pray today. We should never get in that pattern of assuming, well, if something bad is happening, then I must be bad and must have done something wrong. Now, there are plenty of wrong things you and I do that have bad consequences. We don't get to blame God for those. You know, oh, Lord, I stubbed my toe. And the Lord says, oh, Pastor Dave, you shouldn't have kicked the rock. That's, I don't get to blame God in terms of that. But he is acknowledging, if there's a problem with the fulfillment of this promise, then it must be the children of Israel. We must not be crying out and we are still, must be stuck in this sin. And he talks even about himself. And so he's humble. He humbly confesses. And confession, we know, is a part of prayer. He claims these promises of God. He says, Lord, I know that you could do these things. Verse seven, we have acted very corruptly against you. We have not kept the commandments, the statutes, nor the ordinances which you commanded your servant Moses. Do these words sound familiar? Commandments, statutes, ordinances. This has been repeated. He is literally repeating the prayers of Solomon, Jehoshaphat, and Hezekiah. He knows what was prayed. He knows what was spoken of. He knows what God had promised. So he says, remember, I pray, the word that you commanded your servant Moses, saying, if you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations. But if you turn to me and keep my commandments and do them, though some of you were cast out to the farthest part of heaven, yet I will gather them from there and bring them to the place which I have chosen as a dwelling place for my name. There are so many similarities here to the prayers that have been prayed before, the dwelling place of the name of God, that's the language that I've been using before, and he is trusting God. He is reminding himself as he is claiming, we have to be careful about name and claim it, but he's saying, Lord, this is what you said, and using your word, I am going to acknowledge this. And he really wants then God to do something. He says, these are the ones who, you are the one who will do this. Verse 10, now these are your servants and your people whom you have redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand. He asks expectantly. Do you see it there? It's almost like a stand still and wait type of thought process, isn't it? Lord, we're your servants. We're your people. We are the ones who you redeemed. Well, what's he talking about? You say, Nehemiah, you're still in Babylon. What are you talking about? Well, he's referred already to Moses. God, you've done it before. You'll do it again. It is done by you, by your great power, by your strong hand. So he says, oh Lord, I pray. Please let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant and to the prayer of your servants who desire to fear your name. There's a part of that verse that makes me wonder if this is something that Nehemiah and his brethren have been praying about often, over and over again. We like to think, it's very easy to think, so there's this one magic button prayer that Nehemiah prays and then God just unleashes all of this blessing that will take place in the chapters to come? No. This was consistent, daily, probably collectively, prayer, praying, fasting, praying. Lord, do this. His intentions say, Lord, I believe that you're gonna do this for your people. And he even says, I believe that you are gonna do this concerning me. It says there at the end of verse 10, and let your servant prosper this day, I pray, and grant him mercy on the side of this man, for I was the king's cupbearer. There's also this aspect of he has this intention, I believe God may use me where I am at. So he recognizes, he does, especially he trusts, and he says, Lord, there's this intention, and like I said, even an expectation. God, you're gonna answer. God, you're gonna work. I believe, God, you may want to do something through me, for I was the king's cupbearer." What a prayer. Sorry. What a season of prayer that Nehemiah walked through, that as he heard what was happening, he prayed that God would work. He prayed for the children of Israel. He recognized where God had placed him. He had a process in which he was going to pray. There's been times as we've looked at these prayers, I've asked myself this question. Do these prayers look like the prayers that I'm praying or that we're praying? How can we pray in light of this? What is something that we can do in terms of prayer? This brings us to the final area surrounding this prayer. We always see it every time, the results. Nehemiah's life would never be the same after these days of prayer. In fact, Nehemiah, after this season of prayer, is going to be forever linked with the work of God and the children of God. Nehemiah prays for his people to God, who forgives and redeems, while taking personal responsibility. He says, God, I want you to do this, but I'm gonna take personal responsibility for this. So he gives this prayer, and so it's interesting. I wanna just give you a couple reminders of the prayers. I read those 10 prayers of Nehemiah at the beginning. I know you wrote them all down. But there's two words that Nehemiah uses the most, remember me and remember them. In fact, look at the end of the book really quick here. It's a book that starts with prayer, and ends with prayer. Nehemiah chapter 13, verse 29. Remember them, oh my God, because they have defiled the priesthood and the covenant of the priesthood and the Levites. Thus I cleanse them of everything pagan. I also assign duties to the priest and the Levites each to his service, and bringing the wood offering and firstfruits at appointed times, and then you talk about a short ending prayer to a book. Remember me, oh my God, for good. Remember them, and they're bad. Remember me, O God, for good. Now, there's a possibility that remember me is just, Lord, please remember me, keep me in mind. But there are also times, he does it in chapter five, where he says, remember me, my God, for what I have done. I have to be honest, I don't know if I have the guts to ask God to remember me for my works. As I was reading these prayers, I was like, mine are more, Lord, would you please forget everything done in the past? Forget that. Please use me now. I'm kinda in that, Lord, I like to forgive and forget mode. But what if that was our goal? To get to a place where we were able to say, Lord, remember me. is I have sought to please you. Man, for Nehemiah to be in that place must have been something, and it had to be wrapped around prayer. Nehemiah prayed. He prayed to God for his people, a God who forgives, a God who redeems, while Nehemiah himself took action. We're gonna be taking some time in the future This has happened a little bit, and I was in a really wonderful place where I'm trying to figure out what I'm gonna go through on Wednesday nights, and as I was looking through this, I was like, man, I think we should go through Nehemiah. So if you're looking for a place to study the word of God, Wednesday nights, we're gonna be looking at Nehemiah in here, and we'd love to invite you to be a part of that. But I would encourage you, as we are about to go to a time of communion, to ask yourself this question. When things don't go the way I want them to go, and they aren't going the way that I think they should, how then should I pray. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you so much. You are a great, great God. You are the one who provides for us. You are good. You are merciful. Lord, I would pray that as we are reminded and see this prayer that our prayer life would be different but not just our prayer life, our hearts and our minds would be changed by your spirit, by your word. Lord, I would pray that we would be committed to you, we would recognize who you are, and that, Lord, we would even be willing, as Nehemiah was, to say, here I am, Lord. How may you use me in the place where I am at? Lord, I thank you that you are a God that saves, And I thank you that you are a God who sent your Son to die on the cross for our sins. So Lord, as we move to this time of communion this morning, I would pray that we would remember and be reminded through this picture of our Savior, your Son, Jesus Christ. We ask this in the name of your Son. Amen.