Nehemiah 1:1-11

Take out your copy of God's Word and turn to the Old Testament book of Nehemiah.

Last week we began our new study as we've concluded our study of the book of Romans.

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A lot of history you presented last week and I don't know that everyone's going to remember all those details throughout our study together.

And I'll do my best to kind of pull back in the necessary parts of it as we go along.

But I saw the benefit of that and as I sat down to write it, you must know that I'm not a fantastic writer.

And so I copied and pasted this.

Gave credit where credit is due.

This is an introduction by John MacArthur as well as his outline.

And then I included in it the four objectives, the things that I want to see accomplished in our time together in Nehemiah.

So that's just there for you, for your resource.

If you didn't get one, we'll have them out in the hallway on your way out.

You can certainly pick one of those up.

Let's begin this morning by reading, starting in verse 1 of chapter 1 of Nehemiah.

The words of Nehemiah, the son of Hakaliah.

Now it happened in the month of Kislev in the twentieth year as I was in Susa, the capital.

That Hananiah, one of my brothers, came with certain men from Judah.

And I asked them concerning the Jews who escaped, who had survived the exile, and concerning Jerusalem.

And they said to me,

The remnant there in the province who had survived the exile is in great trouble and shame.

The wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its gates are destroyed by fire.

As soon as I heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned for days.

And I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven.

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.

Remember the word that you commanded your servant Moses, saying,

If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples.

But if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there I will gather them and bring them to the place that I have chosen to make my name dwell there.

They are your servants and your people whom you have redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand.

O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant and to the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name and give success to your servant today and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.

Now I was cupbearer to the king.

Let's pray together.

Father God, we thank you for the great blessing of your word.

It is a tremendous grace to us.

And I pray that today, by your spirit, you will apply it to our hearts.

That we won't just hear words, give some mental recognition to them, but that they will in fact change us.

That we will become more like your son as a result of hearing the preached word this day.

And we pray this in Christ's name.

Amen.

And Nehemiah, you'll notice here at the beginning, the circumstance is being set up.

He's cupbearer for the king Artaxerxes, the king of Persia.

He's quite a ways.

He's in the city of Susa, which is where the king was wintering at the time.

Many, many days journey from Judah.

And his brother comes to visit him to say that the city is in calamity.

It's shameful because the exiles have returned from captivity.

Babylonia has flipped over to be a Persian rule.

Persian king has allowed them to go back.

And they've yet to build the wall.

It's in shambles.

They're a weak people.

And therefore, the name of God has been made weak.

And this is why he's distraught.

Verse 4, this is why he sits down and he weeps and he mourns for days.

It's very, very heavy on his heart, the circumstance here.

And Nehemiah wants to see something reconciled in this way.

He wants to see the wall built.

He wants the glory of God to be proclaimed amongst his people.

Remember that the visible outworking of God's glory at this time are his people, the state,

the well-being of his people.

And the fact that they've been returned from exile for so long and they're still in shambles

is a great affront to God's glory.

And this so presses on Nehemiah as he has such a zeal for God's glory that he mourns the condition of Israel.

Now, we get to clues later on.

We don't know at this point as we begin to read about his prayer.

But we do find out later that the ambition that's laid upon him is to actually go back to Judah

and to begin to build the wall, to lead the reconstruction.

But you need to understand the task that was ahead of him before we move on.

He's serving as the cupbearer of King Artaxerxes.

Artaxerxes, you can read in Ezra chapter 4, has put out an edict to stop the building of the wall.

Ezra 4 · chapter mention

The wall was being built some 20 years earlier.

There was an effort being put forward to do it, but some people of the land, as they're called in Ezra,

some people who were not Israelites,

seeing that the glory of the Almighty God could supplant the glory of King Artaxerxes,

write a letter to him.

And in response, he issues an edict, forcing the building of the wall to stop.

So here is Nehemiah serving under a king who has already made a command that the wall should not be built.

And in this day, for a king to reverse an edict would be to say that he's powerless,

that he was unwise to begin with.

And it did not happen often that this would take place.

Know also that the wall itself, we'll talk more about this in some of the coming weeks,

was four and a half miles in circumference, 15 feet tall and 15 feet thick.

It was a huge, huge project that was ahead of him.

And so what do we find Nehemiah doing?

He prays.

And I have to tell you honestly, as I searched out what we ought to do next,

moving beyond Romans,

the impression on my mind for Nehemiah was that it was about a group of people

building something to the glory of God.

That's one of my desires, that we will see as a church,

that that's what we're here to do together.

That it's going to be a hard work, that we're going to have to press into it.

I did not realize, having read Nehemiah numerous times,

what an incredible book of prayer that it is.

Nehemiah begins with prayer.

Charles Spurgeon once said,

if any of you should ask me for an epitome, a perfect example of the Christian religion,

I should say that it is one word, prayer.

I learned a new Latin phrase today.

And I don't use Latin to just sound really intelligent.

I think I know maybe ten Latin phrases now at this point.

But I want to kind of plant this one in your mind.

And it is sine qua non.

S-I-N-E-Q-U-A-N-O-N, if you're taking notes.

Sine qua non.

Which means, without which, nothing.

Prayer is not just a part of our Christian living.

It's not a little thing we attach alongside our efforts.

But it is the thing without which we can accomplish nothing.

Sine qua non.

Without which, nothing.

Prayer is vital to any effort for the kingdom.

Now, we all, I'm sure, grew up and have heard phrases like,

Prayer is just talking to God.

Trying to make it approachable.

Something that even I could do.

Prayer is just talking to God.

And many of us have grown up with kind of a buddy Jesus mentality.

You've seen the t-shirts, Jesus is my homeboy.

He's my pal.

I come alongside and I just chit-chat with him.

About my life and what's going on.

And don't be mistaken, certainly Jesus instructed us to pray for our daily bread.

He's concerned about the details of our life.

He cares about even the smallest of things.

But we as Christians too often pray paltry prayers.

Trite.

Meaningless at times.

Prayers.

Think about many of the prayer meetings you've probably attended.

And the vast majority of the requests have nothing to do with the kingdom of God or the souls of men.

But are typically about health.

Again, not that that's a bad thing.

Don't catch the wrong end of the stick, so to speak here.

God cares about those things.

But how we speak to him matters.

And praise God that there's room for maturation in our prayer.

That we can grow up in our prayer process.

And it would be wise of us to take an example.

Take a look at how it is we are instructed to pray.

Recognize that the apostles, men who were Jews, who had spent their life praying,

asked Jesus,

Lord, teach us to pray.

Did Jesus respond to them?

Prayer's just talking to God.

Guys, do it.

No, he gave them a very clear example of what prayer should look like in their lives.

The men have been getting together on Friday morning and spending some time praying together.

And I told them this last Friday that I'm so thankful to lead a group of men that pray God-honoring,

biblically founded prayers.

What an absolute blessing that is.

We should be maturing in the way that we pray.

And here is a great example of this.

I, since a very early age with Cademan, who's three now.

You guys, if you know me, I have another son named Judah.

He's downstairs asleep right now.

He's one.

But I tell them that I love him with my hand.

A little sign language.

And I say, I love you with my hand.

I love you.

And it lets me do that when I can't speak to him.

Quiet times, I can do that.

And Cade gets it.

He absolutely knows what I'm trying to tell him.

But he has a really difficult time forming that shape with his hand.

I've tried to show him how to do it.

I've tried to show him how to hold his fingers down, hold his fingers up.

He just can't quite pull it off.

And so Cade's version of I love you is this.

Right?

Which I've just taken to mean I love you too.

Right?

He just gives it back.

Recently, he's altered it to I love you with three fingers like this.

Let's see what you can.

Cade, man.

I love you.

There we go.

There we go.

Three fingers.

Right?

That's great, buddy.

Thanks.

Right?

Is God satisfied simply with the intention of our prayers?

And I would say to you, no.

Right?

If Cade, man, the rest of his life tells me that he loves me with words insufficient for that

or a hand symbol that just doesn't quite mean that.

Cade continues to do this.

At some point, I'm going to go, Cade, man.

That means peace, pal.

It doesn't mean I love you.

Right?

Like, it's time.

It's time for you to shift the way you tell me that you love me.

Right?

We should be maturing in the same way.

I want to show you four observations concerning Nehemiah's prayer.

And I have to tell you that probably the most important thing we can learn today,

the most important thing we can learn today,

is that Nehemiah had a holy ambition.

He had a task ahead of him,

which all of us have ahead of us as Christians.

As ministers of the gospel,

we all have tasks laid out before us.

God has prepared good works for us in advance.

The most important thing that we should learn today

is that it should be preceded by prayer.

Right?

Sine qua non.

Without which nothing.

Right?

Prayer should precede all of that.

So I want you to keep that in mind

as we're moving quickly past that point

to talk about Nehemiah's prayer itself.

Right?

If I had to say one thing to you this morning,

I have already said it.

Right?

Prayer must precede our work.

Right?

But I want to bring you four observations this morning.

Firstly,

Nehemiah prayed persistently.

Nehemiah prayed persistently.

So notice in verse 4,

he sits down,

he weeps and he mourns for days,

and he says,

and I continued fasting and praying

before the God of heaven.

We see also later on

that he prayed down in verse 6,

day and night.

So we see an example of his prayer here.

Right?

We see maybe a noted time,

but this was the thrust of his praying

and it happened consistently.

It's important to know

that this report of what was going on in Judah

was brought to him in the month of Kislev,

which is approximately November, December.

When does he actually get to speak

to our exerxes in chapter 2?

In the month of Nisan,

which is approximately March or April.

So catch that,

roughly four months has passed in this time.

He recognizes this great task

that's ahead of him

and he sets himself to prayer.

He says here,

he continues,

and he does it day and night.

There's a fervency here in prayer

because Nehemiah recognizes

that the task ahead of him

is not something he can accomplish on his own.

So he is persistent in his prayer.

Believe that he understood

what John 15, 5 says

when Jesus says,

apart from me,

you can do nothing.

This is a lesson for us.

So often we rush into things.

We don't ask God

to move and to act,

to come along at all

for the ride.

I do this all the time.

I use my business savvy

to try to get things accomplished.

And apart from prayer,

I can accomplish nothing.

I try in my sermon preparation

to be incredibly prayerful

before I ever even come

to the text for the week,

try to pray God's blessing on it

that he'll open up my mind,

help me to see,

help me to study,

find the right resources

to pull it all together.

And I'll tell you this week,

I did that well.

I let this text run through me.

And then yesterday morning

when I sat down

to take all those things

that were running around

in my head and in my heart

and put them on a piece of paper

so that I could make

an organized presentation

of what was going on

here in this text,

I just rushed right into it.

And I struggled.

This is like the fourth outline

I wrote of this.

If you noticed that I double checked

when I said I had four points,

I wanted to make sure

that I actually did have four points

and I didn't change that

at some point along the way.

And I recognized yesterday

that just the conviction

that I had prayerfully prepared

my mind and my heart,

but I didn't prayerfully prepare

to even put the notes down.

I had to stop

and I had to repent

and ask God's blessing

on even just typing it out

on a piece of paper.

We can do nothing apart from God.

And there's a patience here.

We've got Nehemiah.

He's weeping and he's mourning for days.

He is heartbroken over this.

And yet for months he prays.

He persists in prayer.

Young people,

I know your life just feels

like it's passing by,

that you've got to get in the mix

so quick.

You have such a desire

to do mighty things for God

and I pat you on the back for that.

But be patient in prayer.

Seek to know God's will

for your life in prayer.

So firstly,

Nehemiah prayed persistently.

Secondly,

Nehemiah begins his prayer

by proclaiming God's character.

He roots his very prayer

in who God is.

Look at verse 5.

He says,

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.

He ties it all in

to who God is.

His plea with God to act

is requisite on God's character.

He says,

O Lord, God of heaven,

in the Hebrew,

this was an expression

of God's sovereignty.

That if God is the God of heaven,

he is therefore the God

of all kingdoms,

the whole universe,

God reigns over.

This was a phrase

that became especially precious

to the Jews

as they went off into exile.

As they began to understand

that God was not just

the God of Israel

reigning over them,

providential in their lives,

but also of the entire world.

They saw the predicted judgment

come to pass

through the Babylonians.

They saw that God

used even wicked men

to bring judgment upon them.

They came to know

this O Lord,

God of heaven,

that he is in fact

sovereign over all things.

Isn't it interesting

in Matthew chapter 6,

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

when the disciples

asked Jesus how to pray,

he begins,

Our Father in heaven.

This is the Greek version

of this Hebrew phrase.

Our Father in heaven.

Him who reigns over all.

Certainly,

Nehemiah,

as he's versed in his scriptures,

would have been familiar

with Proverbs 21.1.

As he's thinking about

approaching King Artaxerxes,

the king,

and asking him

to go back on an edict.

Asking him to not be him

is essentially

what he's asking him to do.

Proverbs 21.1 says,

The king's heart

is a stream of water

in the hand of the Lord.

He turns it

wherever he will.

He begins his prayer

proclaiming that God

is the great sovereign

of all things.

And he calls him

the great

and the awesome God.

Great speaking of his power.

His ability to do anything

that he wishes to do.

To set his mind

to do it

and he will,

in fact,

accomplish it.

And he calls him

the awesome God.

Here's a misused phrase

in our language,

is it not?

It's kind of entered

into our vernacular

as something maybe

just a bit cooler

than cool.

I misuse awesome

all the time.

The word awesome

simply means

to inspire awe,

but it also carries with it

the idea of dread.

A fear of something.

Something that's

so mighty

and so big.

In the case of God,

because of his majesty

and his glory,

that you shrivel at it.

That you shrink

at the awesomeness

of God.

I was trying to think

of a practical example

of a day-to-day thing,

and I don't experience

things that really

could properly be called

awesome,

although I think

I call things awesome

all the time.

But I thought about

when I was a child,

I grew up in Arizona

and my dad took me

to fish below Hoover Dam

at a place called

Lee's Ferry.

Hoover Dam,

700 plus feet tall.

And we got to take

a motorboat,

I got to drive it,

I was like eight,

which is the coolest thing

I've ever done,

probably,

in this cliff face,

avoiding the sandbar.

It was really fun.

But we went up

to the bottom

of Hoover Dam

and we began

to fish down the river

from that point.

And I would say

in human terms

that was pretty awesome,

being at the base

of that 700 foot dam

and the cliffs around it

are the same.

Awesome.

But a better picture

of that is

what if that dam

was beginning

to crumble before me,

right,

and we're in the speedboat

at the bottom

and I know that

at any moment

the water's gonna

burst forth

and come rushing

down that canyon.

That maybe is the feeling

that you might have,

right,

of the word awesome,

the way in which

we should think

of our God.

Right?

That he inspires

that kind of awe.

This is how Nehemiah

begins his prayer.

Recognize that in verse 11,

as you think about that,

you think,

wait a minute,

are we supposed to dread God?

Is that the way

we're supposed to react

to him?

In verse 11,

Nehemiah says,

talks of his servants

who delight to fear

his name.

They delight in the fear

of God's name.

He is this awesome God,

sovereign,

all-powerful,

able to accomplish

whatever it is

that he sets himself to.

Right?

That's the type of dread

that we're talking about here.

And then he goes on

to talk about his covenant

and his steadfast love.

He proclaims that God

is immutable,

meaning unchanging.

Right?

That if God has said

he will do something,

he keeps a covenant

with his people,

he makes a promise to them,

that he will,

in fact,

carry it out.

There's no changing our God.

He is immutable.

So Nehemiah begins his prayer

by proclaiming God's character.

And Nehemiah's prayer,

thirdly,

is motivated

by God's promises.

It's a nice connection there,

right?

We see that he praises God

for his covenant

and steadfast love,

proclaims that,

and then reminds him

of his promises.

We're doing a bit of a skip down here,

but verses 8 through 10,

and we'll come back up

to verses 6 and 7.

Right?

Let's read that together.

Remember the word

that you commanded

your servant Moses,

saying,

If you are unfaithful,

I will scatter you

among the peoples.

But if you return to me

and keep my commandments

and do them,

though your outcasts

are in the uttermost

parts of heaven,

from there I will gather them

and bring them to the place

that I have chosen

to make my name dwell there.

They are your servants

and your people

whom you have redeemed

by your great power

and by your strong hand.

Nehemiah's prayer

is motivated

by God's promises.

Why would Nehemiah

have any reason

to think

that God would

bring him before

King Artaxerxes

and change the heart

of this king

to send him back

to build an encampment,

a fortress,

against himself

and write the bill

for it?

Why would Nehemiah

ever think

that could ever

even be possible?

It's because he knew

God's promises.

Verse 8 starts out,

Remember.

Now, he is praying.

This is a record

of a prayer,

but don't think

that he's being irreverent

at this point.

This language is a plea

with God

to enact his word.

Right?

Please do the things

you said you would do.

Right?

And we see there

this promise

that was made.

He's loosely quoting

from Leviticus 26

and Deuteronomy 4.

He makes a covenant

with his people

that is conditional

on their obedience.

When they're disobedient,

he judges them,

sends them off

at the hands

of the Babylonians.

But at that time,

he says,

if they will repent

and turn back to me,

I will restore them

in their land.

And this is the promise

that Nehemiah

is calling on God

to fulfill.

Arturo Zerdia,

a pastor that I

particularly appreciate,

said,

our Heavenly Father

takes delight

when we stake

our confidence

in Him.

When we are so confident

in His eternal character

that we claim

the promises

He has made to us,

God is pleased.

Certainly,

Nehemiah was familiar

with Isaiah,

the prophet.

Chapter 43,

verses 6 and 7,

God says,

I will say to the north,

give up.

And to the south,

do not withhold.

Bring my sons from afar

and my daughters

from the end of the earth,

everyone who is called

by my name.

Now, this is pre-return,

right?

So we're quite a few years,

some 90 years beyond that.

But then certainly,

Nehemiah understood

that it goes on to say,

whom I created

for my glory,

whom I formed

and who I made.

You see that

as he begins to call

on God in verse 10,

they are your servants

and your people

whom you have redeemed

by your great power

and by your strong hand.

They are a picture

of your glory

here on this earth.

Act,

restore,

help us

build

the wall.

Now, just out of curiosity,

I got on the internet

this week

and I typed in

how many promises

does God make

in the Bible?

I found a lot of answers.

My favorite one

was from like a

wiki answers

or answers.com

or something like that.

And a person simply said,

I have no idea

but my father

once counted them

and said 7,487.

I don't know.

I don't know

if that's a real number

or not.

I would presume

it's probably getting close.

I have no idea

who this father is

that counted

these promises.

But the scripture

is riddled with them.

They saturate

this book.

How many promises

of God

do you know?

Fifty?

Ten maybe?

Can you think of a few?

Five?

One?

Could it be

that our prayers

are paltry

because we don't know

what God has promised

He will do?

So we are not

saturated

in the scriptures

the way we ought to be?

The word of God

and prayer

are mutually dependent

on one another.

You cannot rightly

understand the word of God

apart from prayer

and you cannot pray

as you should

without the promises

of God's word.

The two walk together

hand in hand.

So Nehemiah's prayer

is motivated

by God's promises.

Fourthly,

Nehemiah's prayer

is humble

and intercessory

in nature.

We're looking back up

at verses 6

and 7.

He says,

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.

Notice that

following Nehemiah's

vision of God's character,

immediately following it,

he becomes very humble

in his prayer.

A vision of God's character

will always

make us painfully aware

of our own shortcomings.

When God shows up

in all of His majesty,

we become very,

very aware

of who we are.

This is why

all good praying

begins with God's character.

When we go to God,

we need to recognize

who He is

and who we are.

We're not going

to talk to buddy Jesus.

We're not chumming up

next to Him

to see what He may

pull off on our behalf.

He is God

and we are not.

But Isaiah,

when he sees Jesus

in all His glory,

what does he say?

Woe is me.

Peter,

when he finally,

fully realizes

that Jesus is the Messiah,

says,

depart from me, Lord,

for I am a sinful man.

John,

when he has this vision

of the resurrected Christ

in chapter 1 of Revelation,

he falls down on the ground

like a dead man.

This is the natural response

to a proper view

of God's character

and it ought to be

the way our prayers

proceed along.

Notice here

Nehemiah's

first person language.

He says,

I confess.

We have sinned.

I and my Father's house

have sinned.

We have acted

very corruptly.

It would have been easy,

I think,

at this point

for Nehemiah

to pray that

those other Jews

for the sins

that they committed

in the years past

that caused them

to come into

Babylonian exile

would be really easy

to push off,

to press it onto

the others.

But yet,

here he takes it

upon himself.

You remember

at the fall

after Adam and Eve

ate of the fruit

and God comes to them

and asks them

what they've done.

He asks this of Adam

and we see the very first

communication

of fallen man

and what does he do?

He blames it on Eve.

He says,

the woman

who you gave me.

Not only does he blame it

on Eve,

but he blames it on God,

his own sin.

And then Eve turns

and blames it

on the serpent.

It is part of our

fallen nature

to press blame

on others.

But here we see

Nehemiah takes

credit for it.

He says,

I and my Father's house

have sinned.

We are in the

continual process

of sinning against you

and not keeping your law.

This has been

going on

for all of these

generations

since the exile.

You sent us into exile

because of it

and yet here we are

still.

But he's repenting now

on behalf

of the people.

So he's humble

as he approaches God.

And his prayer is also

intercessory in nature.

He's also praying

on the behalf

of the nation

of Israel.

Is it possible here

for him to speak

and repent

to change the hearts

of the Israelites?

No.

But he prays

on their behalf

anyway.

God,

for your name's sake,

for your glory,

we have been evil

in your sight.

Restore us.

Send us back.

Roots it back

in his character

in this way.

And Nehemiah

in this way

is a type

of Jesus Christ.

Now,

I want to introduce

you to typology

if you're not familiar

with this.

So,

I've said

I recognize

through the past

years,

various people

throughout the scriptures

are types

of Christ.

And I don't mean

that in the way

that a Granny Smith

apple is a type

of apple.

Right?

I don't really like

Granny Smiths.

I think they should

be excluded

from the apple

category.

but I don't mean

it in that way.

Right?

We're not saying

that,

I'm not saying

that Nehemiah

is a type

of Jesus Christ

and that he's

a different version

of him.

Right?

But typology

references a person

who supersedes

the antitype

or the fulfillment

of it.

It's a shadow,

a presupposition

of something

that's later to come.

For example,

in that way,

David is a type

of Christ

when he takes

on Goliath.

Right?

And the picture

being shown here

is that one day

a greater king

will come

and defeat

death on our behalf.

Right?

That we're not

going to have to

fight that war

but he's going to

come and fight

it for us.

The one man,

that man being

Jesus Christ.

And the Old Testament

is just full

of typology

pointing us to

Jesus Christ.

We're meant to

look at a Nehemiah

and expect

something greater.

Pressing us

too.

And as Nehemiah

intercedes

for the people

of God

in the same way

Jesus intercedes

for us.

He is the

greater Nehemiah,

the antitype

to the type

that is

Nehemiah.

Romans 8

33 and 34

reads,

Who shall bring

any charge

against God's elect?

It is God

who justifies.

Who is to condemn?

Christ Jesus

is the one

who died.

More than that,

who was raised.

Who is at the

right hand of God

who is indeed

interceding

for us.

Notice here

that the tie-in

here is that

no one can bring

a charge against

God's elect.

No one can

convict us

of anything

because it is

Jesus Christ

himself who

intercedes for us.

Who leans over

to God and says,

Not that one.

Pass over him.

My sacrifice

was enough for him.

I took on

his punishment

and her punishment.

He intercedes

on our behalf.

So he is the

greater

Nehemiah.

Turn with me

from Nehemiah.

In closing,

we're going to look

at John

John 13 · chapter mention

chapter 13.

I just want to

show you something

here.

This is Jesus

the great

interceder.

I miss this

until this week.

We see the

Last Supper

beginning in

chapter 13.

See Jesus

washing the

disciples' feet.

And throughout

this process,

he's teaching

them things

along the way.

And at the

end of chapter

14,

I just totally

read over this

so many times,

he says,

Rise.

Let us go

from here.

So in my mind,

I always pictured

Jesus talking

through chapter

15 and 16

and even 17

with the high

priestly prayer

of him sitting

in this upper

room around a

table.

But they

weren't.

They were actually

walking along.

At the

beginning of

chapter 17,

this is kind

of where this

caught my

attention.

The record is

when Jesus had

spoken these

words, he

lifted up his

eyes to heaven

and said,

and here's

where we have

the high

priestly prayer.

Him pouring

out his

desire for

the apostles

and those

who would

precede them.

But notice

at the beginning

of chapter

18,

when Jesus

had spoken

these words,

when he had

completed this

prayer,

he went out

with his

disciples across

the Kidron

Valley where

there was a

garden which

he and his

disciples entered.

This is the

garden of

Gethsemane.

He pauses

somewhere before

they go through

this.

Now this is

pure conjecture

on my part,

but I just

want to paint a

little bit of a

picture for you.

And this Kidron

Valley was the

brook of

Kidron,

and it was

used as a

drain from

the temple.

Recall that

we're in the

Passover week.

There was an

estimated six

million Jews

in Jerusalem

at this time.

And there's

sacrifice happening

that week on

and on and

on and on,

non-stop.

You could even

think of it,

the priest must

have been knee

deep in blood.

And where did

it all go?

It drained

through the

Valley of

Kidron,

down the

brook of

Kidron.

And this is

the brook

that they

pass over as

they're going

in to the

Garden of

Gethsemane.

And I just

imagine,

we don't know,

I mean,

please hear me

say,

I do not

know that

this is the

case,

but I

imagine that

this may

have been

what caused

Jesus to

pause,

to lift

his eyes

to heaven,

and to

pray.

Why?

He knew that

his blood was

about to be

spilt,

right?

He knew that

he was about

to make the

full and

final atonement.

All this

blood that was

pouring through

there,

that was

necessary for

the remission

of sins,

was just

meant to

show our

need of a

Savior.

And he

was that

Savior,

about to

make the

ultimate and

final sacrifice.

If you read

through the

high priestly

prayer,

I think also

he has in

mind the

suffering that's

going to

come to

his disciples

as a result.

The blood that

they will spill,

that they will

share in his

suffering in

that way.

And I believe

that he's moved

to pray at

that point.

So look back

at chapter 17,

just a portion.

It's really hard

for me to decide

what part of this

we would read

together.

But look at

verse 13.

Jesus here

praying to

God,

but now I

am coming to

you and

these things

I speak in

the world

that they

may have

my joy

fulfilled in

themselves.

I have

given them

your word

and the

world has

hated them

because they

are not

of the

world,

just as I

am not

of the

world.

I do

not ask

that you

take them

out of

the

world,

but that

you keep

them from

the evil

one.

They are

not of

the

world,

just as I

am not

of the

world.

Sanctify

them in

your truth.

Your word

is truth.

As you

sent me

into the

world,

so I

have sent

them into

the world,

and for

their sake

I consecrate

myself,

that they

also may

be sanctified

in truth.

He's

praying for

the apostles

here.

Then verse

30 he

says,

I do not

ask for

these only,

but also

for those

who will

believe in

me through

their word.

All of

us.

He expands

this prayer

to all of

us who

have placed

our faith

in Jesus

Christ,

the word

of God.

You see

here this

picture to

draw you

a connection.

We have

been sanctified.

We have

been set

aside from

the world

for the glory

of God.

The way the

Old Testament

Israelites

had been.

To be built

up into a

spiritual house,

not a

physical one.

We're not

set to the

task of

building

grandiose

buildings to

the glory

of God.

We're building

up a

spiritual house,

the church.

church.

This is

what has

been set

before us

and it

is an

immense

task.

It's not

something we

ought to

think we

can accomplish

on our

own.

And as

such,

we ought to

set ourselves

to prayer.

We have

Jesus as

our great

example,

teaching us

to pray in

Matthew 6.

And we'll

address that

some more

in the coming

weeks.

Let me close

with a quote

from Hudson

Taylor,

an English

Protestant

missionary to

China.

He says,

All God's

giants have

been weak

men who

did great

things for

God because

they believed

that God

would be with

them.

Let's pray

together.