You'll open your copy of God's Word to Nehemiah chapter 2. It is our joy and delight to make our way through books of the Bible. And we began just two weeks ago. This is our third sermon from the book of Nehemiah. You can find that in your Pew Bible on page 398 or in your worship guide if you'll follow along for the reading of God's Word. In the month of Nisan in the 20th year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was before him, I took up the wine and gave it to the king. Now I had not been sad in his presence. And the king said to me, why is your face sad, seeing you are not sick? This is nothing but sadness of heart. Then I was very much afraid. I said to the king, let the king live forever. Why should not my face be sad when the city, the place of my father's graves, lies in ruins and its gates have been destroyed by fire? The king said to me, what are you requesting? So I prayed to the God of heaven. And I said to the king, if it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, would you send me to Judah, the city of my father's graves, and that I may rebuild it? And the king said to me, the queen sitting beside him, how long will you be gone? And when will you return? So it pleased the king to send me when I had given him a time. And I said to the king, if it pleases the king, let letters be given me to the governors of the province Babylon beyond the river. that they may pass through until I come to Judah. And a letter to Asaph, the keeper of the king's force, that he may give me timbers to make beams for the gates of the fortress of the temple, and for the wall of the city, and for the house that I shall occupy. And the king granted me what I asked, for the good hand of my God was upon me. Thus far, the reading of God's holy word. You may be seated. It was the week of my wedding, and I had fooled this young, beautiful woman to say yes, and say yes to more than just marrying me, which was enough, but saying yes to a move, a move that would take us across the United States, from California to the East Coast, all for me to go to seminary. And so in the midst of a wedding, we were attempting a move. which I do not recommend doing. We had everything ready and we were ready to get married. And while we were going to be gone on our honeymoon, we were going to have everything shipped across the United States. And yet we had one major problem that remained. We had no idea how we were going to support ourselves once we got there. We had no jobs lined up, but I had been working a government job in California and I had put in a transfer to continue that job in this new state. And that had never been done before. And so I put in the paperwork. And like most government agencies, I heard nothing for months. But we continued to pray and to ask the Lord. And our wedding day and this move was fast approaching. and yet I still had no job. But I believe it was the very last day of my job, two to three days before the wedding, I got word that the transfer was approved and that there would be a job waiting for me upon arrival. And it was a powerful example to us that God answers prayer. And he might even use government bureaucracy to do so. It was an Ebenezer moment, a stone of remembrance. Perhaps you have some of those in your life as well. Times that you saw God and act and move in ways that only He can do. And that is what we have before us in our passage this morning. We have Nehemiah's Ebenezer moments when God answered prayer. and did so in a spectacular way. And the Lord is still pleased to answer prayer today. And so we wanna look at this passage under three points, before the king, the request to the king, and then the benevolence of the king. First, before the king. Well, if you were with us, we saw in chapter one that there was news that was brought to Nehemiah, who was in Persia and Susa, the capital city, that what was taking place in Jerusalem was not good. The city and the people were in ruins. And this drove Nehemiah to his knees to pray, not emotionless, heartless prayers, but deep, genuine prayers, even with tears. And not just to make a request to God, but as we saw last week, to adore the great name, the great and awesome God that he came before in prayer. To even confess his sins like we have done this morning. To remember the promises of God, to revel in the glory of God and the redemption of his people. And so let me ask you, have you engaged in that this week? Have you done what Nehemiah did in chapter one, what we saw? Have you engaged and participated in this wonderful gift that is given to you in your salvation to be able to come before the Lord, the King of Kings in prayer? Have you done it? I hope you have. I hope it was life-giving to you. And if you have not, or perhaps did not do it as much as you would have liked to, Well, then I encourage you that you have another week set before you, another week to participate in this act of walking by faith. But as we saw, Nehemiah came to make a request, and we see that at the very end of his prayer. He says, Lord, give success to your servant today, and grant mercy in the sight of this man. Now, we don't know in particular when this prayer was made. When Nehemiah prayed this particular prayer and what I believe it, seems to be was a summary of all of his prayers that he prayed before the Lord on this subject matter. And in fact, we know from the beginning of chapter one to the beginning of chapter two that there was four months between the time that Nehemiah heard about the state of Jerusalem to the time that the king notices that there is something different about Nehemiah. And so it was a four month span. And literally it says in chapter one that he prayed night and day. And so if we take that quite literally, if we prayed once in the morning and once at night for four months, then we can do the math and come up with that Nehemiah prayed about 250 prayers. And each prayer, if each prayer was a summary of what is in chapter one, then for 250 times he prayed, Lord, give me success and make it today. And yet four months came and four months went, and seemingly there was no success. Seemingly there was no action on God's part. He prayed for it to be done today and that day would go by and it was still no answer from the Lord. And yet the next day he prayed, Lord, give me success today. And yet there seemingly was not success. And yet what we see or should see is that Nehemiah continued to pray. He did not give up. He was persistent in prayer. Nehemiah didn't go before the throne once or twice of his God and say, Lord, give me success today. And when it seemingly was not given success, he says, well, I guess God's not listening. God is not hearing my prayers. It must not be God's will. And so he moved on to some other subject, some other matter. No, he prayed, and he prayed, and he prayed some more. Let me ask you as we begin this morning, is that the characteristics of your prayer life? Would that describe how you think about prayer? Is there persistence to your prayer, even when there is not seemingly results, when you cannot say there is success, or when you see the fruit of your prayer life? Jesus teaches us that we are to continue We are to persist in prayer, even when we do not get the results we may think or we may want. He even gives that parable, you remember, of the persistent widow going to the judge to plead her case again and again. And he says that the judge, even though he was a cruel judge, concedes and listens and does what she asks just to get rid of her. Jesus says, if such a wicked man, if such a wicked judge that has no care for this widow or no care for people at all would do that, how much more will the good God who loves us and cares for us hear us and have us to pray and have us to persist in prayer? I heard recently of a couple I was a part of this church for many years. I prayed for years for their prodigal son. Prayed for about 40 or 50 years. And they just reported recently that he came to faith. He came back to the faith that he grew up in, sitting in these very pews, confessing of his sin and confessing of his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and his mother. in her 80s, was able to write on Facebook, which is pretty impressive, but she's in her 80s and is on Facebook, but nevertheless, she was able to write of this wonderful praise to the Lord, and her word to everyone was never stop praying. Never stop praying. And that's what this passage would say to us as well, that the Lord's timing is not our timing. Lord, a thousand years are like a day, and a day like a thousand years, and yet his timing is right, his timing is perfect. I know that it's hard for us to believe sometimes, hard for us to know that and to trust that, but never stop praying, and never stop even praying that the Lord would answer your prayers today, this day. As one of the early church fathers said, let us make God too ashamed to look us in the face if he deny our persistence. Let us make God too ashamed to look us in the face if he deny our persistence. I think that is the attitude that we have with Nehemiah. And what is wonderful is that the Lord eventually did hear his persistent prayers and answer them. It says it happened when he was before the king, doing that which he was called to do, to bring the wine to the king, because as we saw last week, he was the cupbearer to the king of Persia. And you might say it was a normal day, just like any other. But something happened in particular on that day. The king noticed that Nehemiah was not himself. In fact, that he was sad. But yet we read this very strange and perplexing statement of Nehemiah's is that he was very afraid. Now, why was he afraid? We misunderstand the situation. We might think, well, he should be relieved or joyful or excited that the king finally noticed that there's something not right. Something not right with Nehemiah. There's something not right in his kingdom. But no, we misunderstand the relationship between Nehemiah and the king, that they were by no means equal. Nehemiah was a servant to the king, an esteemed and trusted servant, but nonetheless a slave. And so he and the king were not even in the same social stratosphere. And as a servant, He was to serve the king in every way possible, not the other way around. In other words, all the servants, all those that were in the king's court were to bring the king delights. Their whole purpose was to lessen his load and his cares, to distract the king from the heavy burdens of his kingdom, of his reign. The king had his own troubles, his own difficulties. Therefore, the servants weren't to bring their personal problems around him. And so it was their responsibility to bring service with a smile, as we would say, not with sadness. And so for the king to notice his glumness here, his gloomy demeanor, was not just a bad job performance. No, this almost immediately meant extermination. Not from his job, but from his life. And so Nehemiah had every reason to be afraid that the king would notice his sadness. And that's why I think it says that I had never been sad in his presence. Nehemiah's not just saying there, well, it's because I'm just an upbeat, happy Joe kind of person. No, his very duty required him to be that way. And that is why I do not believe that we should think that Nehemiah came intentionally into the king's presence with sadness. This was not planned or prepped. He did not come that day wearing black and having ashes upon his face. No, Nehemiah was experiencing deep sorrow and yet I believe it was hidden sorrow. It was soul sadness known only to God. But God did see Nehemiah's sadness. And I believe he had the king of Persia, the greatest king on earth at that time, to also notice Nehemiah's sadness and to ask, why is your face sad seeing you're not sick? This is nothing but sadness of the heart. The king takes notice of his servants. I think it's important for us to pause and to remind ourselves that in our prayers and in our petitions, we need not wait for the king of kings to take notice. We don't come to the Lord to have him be informed on something that he's not already informed about. We don't come to him to have the Lord be aware of our situation. No, he is aware of our situation even far more and far greater than we are. He already knows before we ask. And so we come and we bear our heart and our soul and we're able to do so. Not before the king of Persia, but the king of kings and the Lord of lords. And perhaps this morning you come in a similar state as Nehemiah. Perhaps you come with sadness. Perhaps you come with a burden. Perhaps you come loaded down with cares. Maybe you look at the state of the world or the state of the church or a personal situation. And you think this is too much, Lord. I cannot handle it. My soul is overwhelmed. We should take notice of and praise God for is that our King notices and pays attention of his children, of his sheep, of his flock, and he provides comfort and care often when no one else can. Others cannot know sometimes the extent of the things that we are going through. And oftentimes they misunderstand, and that also can be deeply hurtful, but your king fully understands. He fully knows what a privilege it is to have a king such as that, and to be able to go before him. What a privilege it is to be a child of God, and to have this wonderful aspect of prayer at our disposal. Well, second, we see then requests to the king despite his fears. Nehemiah speaks and he tells the king of why he is sad. He says it is because of my father's city. As we will see next week, it is a city that Nehemiah never even went to. He knew nothing of Jerusalem and yet his care and concern was for this city, this place that God had given And so the king asks, what are you requesting? Again, the irony of that statement cannot be missed. It's the king asking the servant, what is it that you request? Not the other way around, as it should be. But look what it says, verse four. So I prayed to the God of heaven. You'll see this throughout the book of Nehemiah, but these shorts, intercessory prayers that Nehemiah prays, these quick prayers. You cannot roll out the prayer mat and pray a petitionary prayer. No, the moment was now. And so it's a quick prayer, perhaps just, Lord, help me. Lord, give me the words. Lord, be with me. And yet what we should see is that Nehemiah wasn't so hasty as to not first look to heaven That is what praying without ceasing looks like. To pray in the moment prayers, as Nehemiah prays here. But we see that Nehemiah prayed, but he was also ready. He was ready with an answer. He was ready with a response. which demonstrates, and we'll see this throughout the book of Nehemiah, that Nehemiah had given this a lot of thought. He didn't just pray and just kind of leave it up to the Lord and say, Lord, you're just gonna have to take care of all of this, all of the details, all of the plans. No, he prayed and he planned. There's a Russian proverb that says that you're to pray to God and keep rowing. In other words, you do not stop rowing the boats just because you pray. And the same is true. We need to pray, but we also need to plan and we need to prep. And so when God answers our prayers, we know what to do. And part of his thinking and no doubt his prayer was that he, Nehemiah, was going to be a part of the answer. And we can't miss that point. He doesn't say, Here I am, Lord. Send somebody else. He doesn't say, King, there's this problem. Send your men to go take care of it. Take care of this problem. No, he says, send me. Send me. Allow me to be a part of this answer. And that's because Nehemiah saw himself as a servant. You see this at the end of his prayer in verse 11 of chapter one. Oh Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servants and to the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name and give success to your servant today. Notice how often he uses that word. Nehemiah saw himself as a servant. If you want to see prayer's answers, then you need to be a part of the answer, which means that you need to have this servant attitude, this servant mindset. And that means you need to be able to give up and give of yourself and to sacrifice for the cause. That there's pain and there's effort that's involved in this. And we see this with Nehemiah, that his request in a sense came at a personal cost. Now I know life in Susa was probably not perfect. But no doubt, it was far better than what life was going to be in Jerusalem at that time. He was living in the king's palace. He was serving the king. But he was willing to go and now live in squalor and be a part of this has-been city to no longer serve the king, but to serve poor exiles of Jerusalem. And Susa, at least he was respected, he was honored. But there, as we will see, he will be harassed and mocked. You have the daily difficulties of leading these people. No, there was no glamor in this task. There was no glory to be won. And in that, we see a picture of Christ, don't we? That our Messiah, the Lord Almighty, left a far more glorious place than King Artaxerxes' palace. to come to a place like this, to take on flesh and to blood and to be part of his creation, not to be served, but to what? Serve. To wash the feet of lowly people, to provide for them with little to none gratitude or thanks given, and then ultimately to give of his life unto death, why for our sake? And perhaps you're saying this morning, well, why be a servant? Why serve? There's no glory in that. There's nothing gained. Really? Your soul was gained through service. Not your service, but his service. And that is to be the mark of Christ's disciples that we now give away our lives as living sacrifices. Does not Jesus say, whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will gain it for my sake. Is that the characteristic of your life? How is your redemption marked by service? How are you serving? How are you serving your family? your church, your community? Does it come at an expense? What are you forfeiting to do it? What are you willing to give away? Not because we do it sadly. No, we do it with gladness. We do it with joy because this is what we are called to be, to be servants. And that is in every area of life, but especially In your church, to paraphrase a former president, don't ask what your church may do for you, but what you may do for your church. Why? Because that is the attitude of your Savior. And all that would be disciples of his, all that would take up his cross and follow him, mentioned before, there's a ministry catalog before you, we don't put those in there just so you can know about it, we put those in there so you can be a part of it and so you can serve. And you might say, well, there's not this aspect that I really wanna be a part of. So be it, be a part of the answer, be a part of the solution. This isn't to be the extent of our ministry, no, this is just to be a reflection of what the Lord would call us to do, but he may be calling us to do much more through you. And we as leadership would love to see that be spurred on. If we can help you, so be it, but don't allow that to stop. When the Lord cracks the door, we see that Nehemiah was ready with his request, be a part of the solution, even unto great cost, the cost of his very life, and so too was our Lord for our sake. But third, then we see the benevolence of the king. Again, I don't think we fully understand the magnitude of Nehemiah's request, as we already mentioned. First, the king is serving the servants, even asking, how long will you be gone? How long will you be out of my service? This is not like asking time off from your employer. No, as a servant, you had no time off, okay? And so this is very different. And second, if you go back to Ezra chapter four, you will see that the very reason that Jerusalem is in the state that it is in is because the current king that Nehemiah now stands before put a cease and desist order on the rebuilding of the walls. And so Nehemiah is, in a sense, maybe indirectly saying, king, you're kind of the reason why Jerusalem is like this. So overturn what you previously directed, because that was a bit of a mistake on your part. Typically, monarchs who see themselves as gods don't look favorably upon correction, and yet this is essentially what Nehemiah is doing with this request. And third, you could see how this request of Nehemiah could potentially be seen as a coup. Jerusalem was an occupied territory, occupied by the king of Persia at this time. And what is Nehemiah asking to do? He's asking to go back and rebuild the city, to rebuild the walls, to rebuild the city as a whole. Why? So that they could gain their independence? That independence would come from the king that he's standing in front of. And so you could see how all of these requests could have gone sideways in a moment. But it even goes far beyond that. Not only is the king willing to grant this request, but Nehemiah goes on to say, well, also king, can letters be sent to the governors so that I could have safe passage? Could you also write to your head forester for timbers so that wood can be taken from the king's forest so that we can rebuild the walls and we can rebuild the gates and rebuild the temple and oh yeah also build me a house in other words this is a bold request this is all on the king's time and on the king's dime you would say this is really truly unbelievable Nehemiah's asking to be relieved of service so that he can be sent and also that he could have safety and that he could have full supplies. This isn't a light or a little request. But what we see is that the king answers. And what we should see even beyond that is what Proverbs 21 1 says, that the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord. Like the rivers of water, he turns it whatever he wishes. And that is what he exactly does here. The Lord is directing the heart of the king. All of this would have been doomed to fail if God was not in it. But God was in it. And he was willing to answer these prayers. The question we need to ask is, are we? And are we willing to pray prayers that are as big and grand and grandiose as this? that if God is not in it, then it is doomed to fail. Again, not for our glory, not for selfish gain, far from it, but for his name's sake. I think too often we are afraid to ask and to keep asking. And yet, Nehemiah knew who he was talking to. He knew that this was the man that could do something about his situation, really the only man who could, and he was willing to ask. And the king, as we see here, favorable to it, he was benevolent. How much more, our king? How much more, our Lord? As that wonderful hymn says, thou art coming to a king, large petitions with thee bring, for his grace and power are such that none can ever ask too much. Do we believe that, that there is nothing that we can ask that is too much? Do we come with that type of boldness? Nehemiah's requests were over the top, really. And yet all of his requests were granted. And why was that? Was it just the benevolence of this king? Was it because he highly esteemed Nehemiah? Was Nehemiah so respectable and done such a great job in the service of the king that the king was willing to honor him in this way? Well, that no doubt played a part, but Nehemiah gives the true answer. It comes at the end of verse eight. for the good hand of my God was upon me. The good hand of my God was upon me. See, it wasn't ultimately the benevolence of the king of Persia, it was the benevolence of the king of kings and Lord of lords. The Lord would bless him and hear his cry and answer his prayers. Again, is our God any less benevolent than the God of Nehemiah? He is not because it is the same God, one and the same. And he delights to answer prayer. Jesus says, if our earthly father is to know how to give good gifts, how much more our heavenly father gives good gifts to those that ask. So let us ask and let us do so boldly for the sake of his kingdom and for his church and for his glory. I'll close with this that reminds me of a story. When I was in college, living with roommates, and one of my roommates asked another roommate for a piece of gum, quite a simple request. And the roommate said, sure, you can have a piece of gum. And then the one that asked said with all seriousness, can I have four? He went just beyond asking for two or three and straight to four, to which he was rightly turned down. No, you cannot have four pieces. Of gum. Perhaps you know of that if you have toddlers in your home. But at least he asked. And you can't blame him for asking. You couldn't even blame him for his boldness. But do we even ask? Do we have a bold and daring faith that's willing to ask? Because does not Ephesians 3.20. say that our God is able to do immeasurably more than we ask or even imagine. Do we believe it? Nehemiah did, and his prayers were answered. Let us individually and corporately pray in such a way as this, and let us see what God may do and how he may use you and me. And may we have the heart of Isaiah when he says, here am I, Lord, send me. Join me in prayer. Gracious God and Heavenly Father, as we look at the faith of Nehemiah and his willingness to pray and to ask and how you answered, oh Lord, Lord, we are convicted because sometimes we think that your arm is too short. And oftentimes it's because our faith is too little. And we don't believe that you can do far more, immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine. Lord, forgive us for our facelessness. If you gave your son, how will you not also give us all things for your glory and for your namesake? And Lord, we would ask that you would do it, oh Lord, for the church and for the sake of your kingdom. Would you continue to build us up and use us as your servants. Here we are, Lord. Use us, mold us, send us so that we'd be vessels for your honor and for your glory. We pray this in Christ's name, amen.