The Conviction and Essence of Godly Prayer

Okay, before we pray, I would like to introduce today's guest speaker.

We are very privileged to have a guest speaker with us today, Steve Murphy.

And if you recognize the surname, we share the same surname, and that is because Steve

happens to be my father.

My dad is in town for business, and when I heard that he was coming through Hong Kong

a few months ago, I said, we'd love to have you preach and open God's Word to us this

morning.

And so let me just tell you one or two things about my dad.

Where should I start?

I think that the enduring memory or probably the thing that sticks in my mind the most about

my father is he is a man who, as long as I can remember, about 35 years or so, is someone

who fears God and has loved His Word.

From a very young age, I remember walking through the house in the early hours of the morning,

and there was my dad on his knees before the scriptures in prayer.

He's a man that fears God and loves His Word.

And my dad's also been an outstanding husband to my mom for almost 40 years.

And in addition to that, has been the greatest father that you could ever imagine.

And I don't just say that.

I genuinely mean that.

And in addition to that, my dad is probably one of my very best friends.

And dad, I love you so much, and it's a pity that we get to live so far away from each other.

My dad's living in Cape Town with my mom at the moment, but it's wonderful to have you

in Hong Kong.

But I think there's one other thing that would be good for us to know is my dad, in

some ways, has been involved in church leadership for much of his adult life.

He's been an elder in many churches in many parts of the world, pastored a church in Vietnam

for seven years, but has also been a businessman his whole life.

And currently he's the CEO of a big reinsurance and financial services company in Africa.

And so has managed to balance this thing of having a vibrant faith and serving the community

and also a busy work life, which I know in Hong Kong is often very difficult for us, right?

Work life in Hong Kong is very demanding.

My dad is someone who's managed to manage that busy work life, serving in church, and

also being a very faithful husband and father.

And so dad, it really is a great privilege to have you sharing God's Word with us this morning.

I'm looking forward to it.

So on that note, let me pray for us, and then we're going to listen to the reading of God's

Word, and then we will listen to the preaching.

So let's, will you join me as we pray together this morning?

Heavenly Father, great and glorious God, we come before you this morning to adore you and

to praise your great name.

Father, it is in worshiping you and ascribing honor and glory to your name that we align our

hearts with what is true, and that we discover what it means to be fully human.

And so it is our joy and our privilege to worship you today.

Oh, great God, maker of heaven and earth, you who created the galaxies and the planets,

stars and moons and further space, you who billions of years ago spoke into existence that

which we have not even yet discovered.

Father, we humble ourselves before you and we say that you are God and we are not.

You are glorious and worthy of worship, and we do that joyfully this morning.

How majestic is your name, oh God.

How glorious are your ways.

Father, this morning we acknowledge our brokenness to you and we confess our sin.

God, we get angry and we hold grudges.

We feel aggrieved when embarrassed.

We feel sorry for ourselves when things don't go our way.

And God, we are broken because we are sinners, and we confess this to you.

We ask for your redeeming and your healing grace.

Father, this morning we thank you that, Jesus, because of your cross, you have purchased our

forgiveness.

We ask, Father, that as we confess our sins to you, won't you apply that forgiveness to

us, that we may walk in the freedom of renewed and joyful relationship with you.

Father, cast our sin away from us.

Wash us white as snow, we pray.

God, this is our confidence.

This is why we come before you, because of Jesus and his cross.

Thank you, Jesus, for dying for us.

Father, it's not just sinners out there, those people that need you.

We need you.

And we rejoice in that this morning.

Father, this morning we also want to pray for the many parents in our congregation.

We ask, God, that you come and you wash us with your love.

God, deliver us from finding our identity and our validation in our children and their

successes.

God, we do ask that you give us the wisdom to raise our children as you'd want us to.

Help us to shape and shepherd their hearts, not just their behavior.

Lead us, God, to teach them the gospel, not just how to act Christianly.

Give us, God, patience when parenting demands more of us than we feel we have to offer.

Give us wisdom when we are out of our depth and don't know what to do.

Give us peace, God, we pray, when we are overcome with worry and exceeding anxiety.

And Father, we pray for the children of this community.

Unborn children still in their mother's wombs.

Infant children, young children, grown-up children, adult children.

God, we ask that you work in the hearts of every child, of every family in this church, God.

Whether such children know you and honor you or not, stir their hearts, God.

Draw them back to you.

Pour your love into their hearts.

Open the eyes of their hearts that they may know what is the hope to which you've called

them, we pray, God.

Father, pour out your spirit on our children, God.

Turn the hearts of the children back to their parents and to you, O God.

O Lord, we are desperate that our children know you and serve you and find their hope in

you and rest in you.

Come and move in our city, God, and start with our families, we pray.

Come and do this, God.

Lord, we and our children need you, God, more than anything else.

Come and move, we pray, God.

Hear our prayers, Lord.

And finally, Father, we want to pray for our city.

And God, this morning, we want to bring Island ECC, the wonderful church, before you.

God, we do pray that your God will move powerfully in that church, such that they will ever grow

in their love for your gospel and their confidence in your word.

We pray, Jesus, that you will be exceedingly big in the hearts of every member and all

that they do.

God, that the honor of Christ in your name will permeate every meeting and every agenda.

Lord, this morning, we pray for Brett and Shannon and Rick Bates and their families.

We pray for their team.

Thank you for their passion for ministry.

Thank you for their kindness towards all the churches in Hong Kong.

We pray that they will continue to grow in the fear of the Lord, in love for your word,

in confidence in the gospel, and in favor with God and man.

We pray this in your forgiving, reassuring, and steadfast name.

Amen.

Amen.

Let's listen to the reading of God's word, and then we'll listen to the preaching.

The scripture reading comes from Nehemiah chapter 1.

Nehemiah 1 · chapter mention

Please follow along in your bulletins or on the screen.

The words of Nehemiah, the son of Hecaliah.

Now it happened in a month of cheese leaf, in the 20th year, as I was in Susa, the citadel,

that Halani, one of my brothers, came with certain men from Judah, and asked them concerning

the Jews who escaped, who had survived the exile, and concerning Jerusalem.

Now they said to me, the remnant there in the prophets 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 corruptedly against you and have not kept commandments, the statutes,

and the rules that you commanded your servant Moses.

Remember the words 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

utmost parts of heaven, from there I will gather them and bring them to the place that I have

chosen to make my name through 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 cut barrier to the king.

This is the word of God.

Well, good morning to you all.

It's a delight to be with you.

Thanks, son, for those wonderful words.

Jenny and I have a bittersweet kind of experience when we think of Watermark.

Sweet because Kevin and Claire are here and because you have been so gracious in extending

a call to them.

Bitter because we went back to Cape Town to be with them.

And as we had been there four weeks, then they came here.

So there's a kind of, we love Watermark.

We pray for you.

We think of you muchly.

But on the other hand, we wish they were back in Cape Town.

But as we console ourselves, we find the satisfaction that we would rather our children be in the

uttermost parts of the earth, serving the purposes of God, rather than be making us comfortable

in our own home nest.

And there is a much greater sense of security and delight and great confidence in knowing

that your children, wherever they are, are in God's purposes rather than having them close by

and maybe being missing the real heart of what God intends for them.

You do have a wonderful couple in Kevin and Claire.

I don't say that unbiasedly.

But you have in Kevin and Claire people who love God, love his word, and who know how to

pray.

The Lord gave us three promises concerning our three sons and that which spoke of Kevin was

he was a man of prayer.

And so you have a pastor who prays and a pastor who believes in prayer and turns to God when

he's uncertain on anything and everything.

But you haven't come to hear me talk about my son.

In 586, when Nebuchadnezzar left Jerusalem, he left a once proud city that had been, as it

were, the center of the known world.

Until then, under King David, it had been the capital city of the region.

And then under King Solomon, who had built his own palace and built the temple, had built

two enormous structures that spoke of enormous wealth, of enormous ingenuity, and spoke of

the favor of God upon that city.

Nebuchadnezzar, in 586, when he left it, left it ransacked, broken, and in ruins.

The great walls, which had spoken of its stature, lay burnt and destroyed.

The gates were no longer serving any purpose whatsoever.

And the temple itself had been ransacked.

That magnificent building, into which so much wealth had been poured in its construction,

was now just a collection of ruins.

And it's helpful to understand the situation, because, so we can see the context.

And so, the kingdom under David, and then followed by Solomon, split after Solomon.

When he died, the northern tribes, ten of the northern tribes, split into what was Israel,

and Judah and Benjamin became, as it were, named after Judah, with the southern kingdom.

And because they had neglected God, because they had kind of treasured their relationship

socially and kind of religiously, but had lost the essence of what relationship with the

father was, and had drifted off into pagan worship and worshiping of idols, God sent the

nations and punished them, Israel first.

And then some hundred years later, Nebuchadnezzar came and ransacked the city, and it was destroyed.

And of course, what we must understand is that Israel came into being as a nation

when that enormous night in Egypt, the angel of death passed over every home,

and that which carried the bloodstain of a cross upon the lintels of every door,

the angel of death passed over, then some 600,000 men and women, plus men, plus women and children

left Egypt.

And then, in the 40 years that followed, God fashioned this disparate group of people into

a nation.

And he chose them as a nation so that through them, he could reveal himself as the God who

wants to commune and engage with men and women.

And the Jewish people, through the laws and the precepts and the principles and decrees

of the father, became a distinct community, because God revealed his heart and his character,

and they, assimilating those, they became distinctive.

And in a sense, God chose them to show to the nations what he will do with the people who

will honor and serve him.

Of course, they didn't do that very well.

And now here, and that word that's used here as we look at the prayer of Nehemiah, as he

starts to say, O Lord God, the great and awesome God, that word Lord is the Hebrew word for

the God who rescues, the God who redeems, the God who takes out.

And its root is found in that night in Egypt when God redeemed by the blood of the Lamb a

people to himself.

And so Nehemiah, as he starts to pray this magnificent prayer, roots his approach to God

in the character of the one who redeems, who heals, who takes what is broken, who takes

what's enslaved, who takes what is powerless to free themselves, and his address is, you

who are the redeemer, you who are the rescuer, I am making my approach to you.

And friends, this morning, we must never lose sight of the redemptive nature, the restorative

nature of our God and what he has done through Jesus Christ.

He is the one who redeems.

He is the one who restores.

He is the one that takes what's broken and makes it whole again.

We are, and Nehemiah roots his prayer, O Lord God, you who have that night in Egypt taken

a people out to make whole again.

I'm coming before you this time in Susa.

I've heard of the destruction of my city.

I've heard of its vulnerability.

I've heard of its desperate state, both physically, socially, politically, spiritually.

And my appeal is to you, on the basis of what you've done in history, God come and restore.

Friends, this morning, we must be reminded that we serve and know a God who has revealed

himself through Jesus as the one who restores, as the one who makes whole.

Paul wrote so powerfully, it's one of my favorite verses, that he's not ashamed of the gospel.

Why?

Because it's the power of God unto salvation.

Now, of course, when we think of that, we can think of it in very small terms of, you

know, it's the kind of salvation we put our hand up and God saves us.

Paul's not talking about a decision and a hand in a meeting.

Paul's talking about the salvation which is able to take a man or a woman or a family or

situation in desperate need.

And God, through the power of the good news of Jesus, is able to redeem and to change and

to transform and save and restore and make whole.

That's the story of the gospel.

That's why he wasn't ashamed.

And friends, the glory of the gospel, the glory of the person of Jesus, is there is no situation.

There is nothing that's so desperate that the love of God through Christ Jesus and the dunamis,

the power of the gospel, isn't able to change and to transform.

These are not intellectual theological doctrines only, though they are.

But this should be the kind of living energy that guides and drives us.

That I'm living under the reign and the authority of one whose power is able to destroy the work of the evil one.

That all the chains he might put upon me, the gospel, is able to do things differently.

So in looking at Nehemiah, we're looking at how God was concerned for his people.

And of course, Nehemiah represents probably one of the greatest illustrations of building in Scripture.

He goes to a city that's distraught, that's broken, that's destitute.

And in 52 days, he restores its walls, he hangs its gates, and something of the security of the city is returned.

But of course, Nehemiah is not just a great builder of a city and restoring a Jerusalem that had been ransacked.

He is a prototype of a much greater builder who was still to come.

He is a prototype.

He's a prefigurement of the one who would walk through not the broken walls of bricks and stones and gates hanging limp,

but would walk through the broken walls of individual men and women's lives whose gates and whose heads hang down with shame and guilt and inadequacy

and touch them and begin to restore them and build a living temple out of burnt and disused stones that this world says are not sufficient.

And Christ is able to restore the glory of himself and his person in our own hearts and in our own lives.

This is what we really must look for when we're looking at Nehemiah.

Now, there are three things I just want to highlight out of this magnificent passage.

I want us to see that there is the first thing about his prayer.

O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love.

God, the one that we serve, is consistently preserver of what he said he would do.

The words of David as he was passing on, leaving the words to his son Solomon,

he said that all that the Lord has spoken he has fulfilled with his hands.

We have a God who doesn't just speak.

We have a God who delivers and performs that which he said he would do.

Friends, are we possessed with this conviction?

Do we understand that this church and serving God and loving him isn't a kind of religious exercise?

It's an experience with the divine.

That he who speaks a word into our hearts is the one who fulfills it.

I remember years ago when I was in business, I'd heard a sermon of a man who preached and he said,

The problem with us as Christians is we trust God for such small things.

He said we trust him for houses, for promotion, for big cars and bigger jobs.

He said these things are so small because God in the Psalms promised us,

Ask and call unto me and I'll give you the nations.

Now, let me ask you, how big is your dream?

How big are you trusting God?

How big are you trusting God?

And I remember this kind of echoed in my mind, in my mind.

And I was at lunchtime.

I can still see myself.

I got down next to the couch in my office and I said,

God, I want you to send me to a nation where our church movement is not part of.

We've never been there.

And give me the chance to do something for you there.

Fifteen years later, fifteen years later, I'd forgotten the prayer.

And we were pastoring a church in Vietnam.

A funny, unqualified man from South Africa in a communist nation leading a church.

God fulfills with his words, with his hands, what he promises with his mouth.

And so Nehemiah approaches God with this wonderful,

Oh Lord God, the one who redeems, the one who saves, the one who sets free.

And he knew there's a sense, there's a language of conviction,

there's a language of intent, there's a language of expectation.

This is not poetry.

This is the burning urge and sense and conviction from his heart.

Oh Lord God, the great and awesome God.

He knew and understood that he was coming into the presence of one who was almighty.

The awesome God, the one who inspires all.

A sense of wonder.

You see, Nehemiah rooted his appeal for all that was to follow in the sovereign authority,

the omnipresent, where God is always.

The omniscience, or the all-knowing God.

And the omnipotence, the all-powerful God.

He understood something of whom God was.

Jehoshaphat, when he was faced with the armies of the Moabites and the Ammonites,

roots his appeal for help in the character of God when he says this.

Friends, when we come to pray, do we come with the sense of assurance?

Are you not God?

Are you not in heaven?

And no one, no one can withstand your power.

Do we understand the great privilege that we have as believers to come before him and to seek after him?

And much in modern preaching has, in a sense, diluted who God is.

And when we pray, we must always keep this transcendent understanding that God is God from infinity in the beginning to infinity in the end.

That's a contradiction in terms, I understand that.

But I'm trying to just say, he is God over everything, everywhere, over all things.

You know, we sometimes think, well, no one will see it.

God's seen it.

He even knew our hearts before we began to enact that which was wrong or that which was good.

He sees and knows everything.

And what an awesome privilege.

And this is the conviction that gripped Nehemiah when he comes before the Father.

Are you not?

You see, when we dilute who God is, we've kind of, much in modern Christianity is focusing on the love of God, the goodness of God, which is absolutely wonderful and absolutely correct.

But we need to keep these things in tension.

God is gracious and merciful and profound and patient beyond anything we ever understood and can understand.

God is also the awesome, holy, authoritative force person that governs the universe.

And we need to understand that the love of God and the sovereignty of God and the authority of God are in holy tension.

And it's not one or the other.

God is God completely.

And we need to revere him.

And the manifestation of that was in Calvary.

The great love of God being poured out and at the same time the great judgment being poured out and despicably and scandalously and tragically experienced by his son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

We've lost the wonder and the majesty of him who's spoken to the darkness and light came.

Who's spoken to that which was dead and life emerged.

We've spoken to the confusion and order began to unfold.

We've forgotten the glory of the one who created all things.

And so I want to suggest his conviction was rooted in an understanding of the awesomeness of the Lord.

The awesomeness of our God.

Who is able to make lots, everything out of nothing.

Before whom the nations are counted as dust upon the scales.

Whose value and significance is but a drop in the bucket.

Who gives life to the dead and calls into things that do not exist as though they did.

He puts to death and he brings to life.

He wounds and he heals.

He calls the stars by name and the vastness of the universe with stars beyond anything modern telescopes have even begun to consider.

He knows them all.

He supervises and plots the connectivity of every single cell.

Billions of them in the human embryo.

As it's getting ready to birth a new child, male or female.

And whose steadfast love and affection endure forever and forever.

Who hears the faintest cry and who responds.

And who responds to the meekest approach at repentance.

This is the awesome God whom Nehemiah came before and of whom we must never lose sight.

He is God.

He is God.

The great almighty God.

As the Lord said, I am the Lord and there is no other.

And how dare we presume that there be any other.

As Isaiah said, he is the potter and we are the clay.

He takes Peter, the man who denies him.

Three times.

And then what does he use Peter to do?

He uses Peter to write an epistle and he uses these magnificent words.

Peter writes to the church and he says,

Think about it.

The person who denied him is the instrument and the very one Jesus through the Holy Spirit uses to pen forever and ever encouragement to the church.

To be ready to give a hope for the reason for the hope that is within you.

That had been me, I would say, you're the last person to qualify.

You denied me.

No, I can't use you again.

But God in his grace takes the one who failed and he uses him.

You know that James and John, the sons of thunder.

Now go read John's epistles.

Letters.

Full of the love of God.

The patience of God.

He is the one who restores.

He is the one who redeems.

He is the one who sets free.

He is the one who means that we needn't be defined by what we were.

We can be defined by what the gospel will make us.

Friends, have we lost sight of the awesomeness of the one before whom we come to pray?

Have we lost perspective of whom it is?

The heavens declare the glory of God and the earth reminds us.

Show us his handiwork, who he is.

We need to sometimes pause and just look at what God has done and created and placed around us

to begin again to remind ourselves of the one before whom we come to worship.

We're so caught up with our technology, so caught up with the images of videos and TVs and movies

that we've lost the movie that really speaks life into our hearts and into our souls.

The movie of the heavens and the wonder of creation.

Let me ask you, how is your prayer time?

Is it boring?

Is it routine?

Is it an exercise I've just got to get through?

Clem Sunter was a leading senior person in the mining industry in South Africa.

In the late 1980s, early 90s, there was a dreadful mining accident,

which really was a result of negligence and shortcuts in the mines,

which 189 miners were killed.

And it shook him.

He was actually chief executive at that stage.

It shook him so much that he actually asked to be relieved of that position,

and he worked elsewhere in the group.

And he developed a skill in scenario planning.

It's not strategic planning.

It's kind of trying to look at the scenarios in the future,

and if this scenario works out, what do we do?

And if this scenario works out, it's a different discipline,

and it's kind of trying to see what happens in the future.

And he became very good at it.

And I was listening to him last year.

He was talking at a conference I was at,

and he shared a moment.

He said one of the highlights of his life was in the last five years,

as he had been invited by the Chinese Politburo to address them

on scenario planning in Beijing.

And he talks of how he was ushered into the Great Hall,

and there they all were.

And he was spending three days with them on scenario planning,

economic and political possibilities,

over the next five to ten years.

And as I thought about it over the next two days,

I thought, sure, isn't this amazing privilege

to be able to address powerful men and women and government

and the leading nations of the earth

to speak about the future.

And as I was reflecting on it,

I just felt God just kind of say,

Stephen,

you get a greater privilege every morning

when you come before me in prayer.

You get the privilege to speak to the creator

of all the universe,

the one who is God,

who works and no one can prohibit it,

who says, and that's it.

You get the opportunity through my son

and with the help of the Holy Spirit

to come and beseech and to speak to me,

not to consider scenarios,

but to make appeals before me

on things that need to be changed.

in you and your communities

and in the earth.

Friends,

there is nothing that shapes you,

your life,

more than anything

like prayer.

You might have been taught it's your education,

you might be taught it's your bank balance,

you might have been encouraged,

it's a thousand other things,

but that which most shapes your life,

that which will most shape it for the future,

is the way you engage and trust God

and spend time with Him

on your knees

and seeking after Him.

Nothing will shape you

more than your time in prayer.

Nothing will shape you for good

and for righteousness

more than your time in prayer.

And that's the thing

that we probably

give the least attention to.

And we are the ones

who are most bereft

and suffer most

because of it.

James says,

Do you understand that?

He was drawing his parallel,

the prophet Elijah,

and how he prayed

and it didn't rain.

Three and a half years

and then he prayed

and it started again.

The fervent, effectual prayer

of men and women

who trust and seek after Him

can change the city of Hong Kong.

If that can change nations,

God through a community of people

who will trust Him

can bring more

than we ever dreamt possible.

Do we come before Him

as the great and mighty,

awesome God?

Do we address Him

as the one who is able

to redeem and to restore?

Or do we see it as a duty

that we must get by and finish?

And so,

I was listening

two or three weeks ago

to a man talking about

attending a prayer meeting

in our African,

I guess townships

is the way still to describe them,

that they're poorer areas

where under the old apartheid system,

African people were confined to live.

And you don't just undo those things.

There's still many communities like that.

And this European white pastor

was asking his counterpart,

pastor from that area,

an African man,

saying,

when I come to your prayer meetings

in the townships,

I'm always struck

by this profound sense of energy

and enthusiasm and conviction.

He said,

even in the most fervent white prayer meetings,

there's nothing that approximates

what you focus,

what I sense and experience

amongst your people.

Have you got any explanation for it?

The answer was tragically profound.

He said,

in the white communities,

he says,

you have so much

that you,

when you pray,

you're praying to God

as your last resort.

But for us,

in the townships,

we have nothing.

And so we turn to God

for everything

and anything that happens

or goes wrong

or might happen

because we are solely

and completely dependent upon him

and we have a history of him

answering our prayers

and working in us

that we come with a sense

of profound conviction.

And Jesus said,

how hard it is

for a rich man

to enter the kingdom

and I think he was

not just meaning it

from a salvation perspective

but he was also

meaning it

because

we don't feel

the need of him.

The second thing is,

so he approaches God

with a sense of conviction

and awesomeness

and power.

The second thing he deals with,

he deals with his sin.

He's very emphatic about it.

Sin is an unpopular

word nowadays.

Has been for a long time.

But what we fail to grasp

is that sin,

all sin

and foremost

is sin against God.

Before we sin

on the horizontal levels

with one another,

before we disappoint each other,

before we failed each other,

we have already sinned

on the vertical level.

Sin by definition,

the word hamate,

is not wrongdoing

another person

so much as it is

assaulting

the glory of God.

Sin is primarily

an assault

on our vertical relationship

and refusing

to honor him

for whom we were made

and for whose glory

we,

and whose glory

we should be reflecting.

See,

all relationships

on the horizontal

are the consequences

of sin

on the vertical.

and all man's solutions

at trying to fix

the horizontal,

if they ignore

the vertical,

are doomed to failure.

You know,

we find all

sound explanations

if we had

better economic situations,

if people were

better educated,

if people were

better trained,

if people had

better this,

better that.

And those things

are not wrong.

Don't get me wrong.

Those are good.

We should pursue them.

But if we pursue them

exclusively

forgetting that

our hearts

are broken,

that our lives

are broken,

that the relationship

with the Father

has been broken,

then these things

in and of themselves

will never be successful.

And especially

for nations

that put so much weight

around the issue

of education

and training,

let me remind you

that Germany

was the most educated

nation in Europe

in 1938.

Just made them

a very well educated

army in 1939.

You see,

the head

full of knowledge

doesn't transform

the heart

which has a tendency

and bias

towards sin.

What we need

is both the head

and the heart

to be transformed

and changed

altogether.

The most effective

antidote to sin

is to see

the glory

and the awesomeness

of God.

Because when we've

seen that,

then we cry out

with Isaiah,

I am a man

of unclean lips.

Holy,

holy,

holy.

Sin is really

setting aside

the awesome authority

of God

and his power

and his ways

and his precepts

to say,

I choose

another way,

a more convenient

and easier,

a less humiliating,

a more comfortable

way

or just avoiding

things altogether.

The world sees sin

in a much more

diluted fashion.

Sin is a kind

of behavioral issue,

you know.

You hurt me

and you shouldn't

do that.

It's not right.

It's not good.

And sin is far,

far more serious

than that.

It's an assault

upon what God

has said

and what God

requires

of us

and his people.

To injure

our fellow men

is sin.

Not because

it hurts them

but because

it's violating

the love of God

has for all people.

You see,

in Isaiah,

in Psalm 51,

David's great

prayer of repentance

where he cries out,

I'm a man,

creating me

a clean heart

and renew

a right spirit

within me.

He makes this

statement in verse 4.

He says,

Against thee,

and this is his

prayer of confession

concerning Bathsheba

and Uriah.

Bathsheba is committed

adultery with Uriah.

He had murdered

and he says,

Against thee

and only thee

have I done

what is evil.

Didn't mean

that it didn't matter

what he did

to Bathsheba

or Uriah.

He goes on

to confess that

but he recognizes

that the primary sin

was that he sinned

against God

and his failing

to trust God

to honor purity,

his failing

to try

to manipulate

and preserve

his own name

from being found

out against God

is what resulted

in the murder

and the adultery

with Bathsheba.

And Nathan's

challenge to him

was,

Why have you

despised

the word

of the Lord?

See,

all sin

comes from

when we

originally

despised God's word,

his precepts

or his statutes

or his rules

or his ordinances

because sometimes

they're inconvenient,

sometimes they're humiliating,

sometimes they're awkward,

sometimes they make us

feel vulnerable.

But in that

is where our security lies

because God honors us

when we respond to him

and when we do things

his way.

Let me say this,

if you will not face

your sin before God

and deal with it

at the cross of Christ,

you cannot,

and if we cannot make

confession before him,

you will never make

confession before people.

If we cannot face

our weaknesses

and our inadequacies

before Calvary,

you'll never face sin

anywhere else

and cope with it.

It will always

hound you,

it will always

intimidate you

and ultimately

it will always,

always pay its wages

which is death.

Death of relationship,

death of reputation,

death of standing,

death of honor,

death of all the things

that we pursued,

sin comes and pays

its wages.

Sin also

always results

in scattering

because this,

Nehemiah prays,

he says,

he reminds God

of the promise

that he gave to Moses.

He said,

if we didn't obey you,

he promised to scatter us.

Let me say this,

skin,

sin always scatters.

It always creates division.

It always creates separation.

It always destroys.

Sin never builds up.

It never unites.

It never gathers together.

It never creates.

It always breaks down

and destroys.

And you,

we might be deluded

at times to think,

oh,

we can just get away.

We'll paper it over.

Sin will always expose

the cracks

at an inconvenient time later.

The evil one

is intent

on destroying

and devouring

and breaking down.

That is his intention.

Right from Eden,

when Adam and Eve

were expelled,

the garden,

sin has been scattering

and separating

and dividing

all the time.

And the antidote

is to come

and face our sin

at the cross of Christ

and allow him

to deal with it

and allow him

to forgive us.

Then we find energy

and strength

to face

is practical

outworking

in the ordinary

events of life.

And as I wrap up,

the third point

he comes to,

he says,

if you return,

if you return.

Remember the word

you commanded

your servant Moses

saying,

and then he talks about,

but if you return

to me

and keep my commandments,

if you return,

if you return.

This is not

the language

of effort

or legalism.

This is like

preserving

and keeping,

treasuring.

If you treasure,

if you keep,

there are notes

like all of us

have from our children

when they were young.

We have ours

from Simon

and Kevin

and Drew,

the little scribbled

notes that they wrote,

their first attempts

at writing.

We've kept those things.

We've treasured them.

They're valuable to us.

They remind us of

years long ago

of innocence.

They are valuable.

And in a sense,

Nehemiah,

that's what God

is saying.

If you keep,

if you treasure,

if you long for,

if you hold on to

me and my precepts

and my ways,

if you do that,

wherever you have

been scattered,

wherever you have

gone,

even as if to the

uttermost part of heaven,

from there I will

gather you,

I will draw you.

And it's the same

words Jesus,

in a sense,

repeated,

the same motion,

the same conviction.

Oh Jerusalem,

Jerusalem,

how I long to have

gathered you as a hen

gathers her chicks.

This is the language

of passion and compassion.

This is the language

of restoration.

This is the language

of longing for being

reunited and drawn

together.

How I long to

restore you.

It's the language

of extravagance.

It's the language

of abundance.

It's the language

of unmitigated

mercy and grace.

Wherever you are,

if you want to

return,

I'm going to be

there to draw you

much more.

You don't have to

get back on your

own terms.

You don't have to

fight your way back.

Just indicate you

want to come back

and I will draw,

I will gather.

All God wants

is the cry of a

heart,

God be merciful.

And he does the

rest of drawing us

to him spells,

to himself.

Irrespective of

where you are,

to where you have

been gathered,

to where you have

been scattered,

irrespective of what

sin might have done

in the lives past,

God is able through

Christ Jesus to do

significantly and

abundantly more.

Paul captured it

beautifully, didn't he,

in his letter to the

Romans, that where

sin has abounded,

grace has much,

much more

abounded.

I just want to say

there is not a

desperate situation

in this community

or in any community

in Hong Kong

that the gospel

is not able

to deal with.

There's not a

single situation

that the cross

is not able

to overcome.

Sometimes things

do go wrong,

sometimes we are

perplexed,

sometimes we are

devastated,

sometimes we don't

understand,

but the cross

always allows us

to triumph

because God is

sovereign and he

knows everything.

The earth has no

song that heaven

cannot heal.

We sang those words

beautifully this

morning.

The earth has no

sorrow that heaven

cannot heal.

And folks,

let me just

encourage you.

It shouldn't just

be the words of a

song that should

be the deep,

deep drive

that governs

our behavior,

our going out

and our coming

in.

There's no sorrow,

there's no awkwardness,

there's nothing,

no news that I can

hear today that

heaven cannot heal.

Yes, we will feel

pain, yes, we may

feel confusion,

yes, we may be

terrified, may we

be fearful, but God,

I know this, that

irrespective of what

my emotions are doing

to me, I know that

the song of heaven

is able to heal

the pain that

earth might

deliver.

And that is why

we're not ashamed

of the gospel.

It's the power

of God.

Nehemiah's prayer

is about reminding

God of

God's word

and praying it

back to him,

God's promises.

The promises that

he would, and

now listen to this,

the promise was

that if you repent,

I will gather you

to the place where

I've made my name

dwell.

At the risk of

being a little bit

irreverent, think

about it.

You're scattered to

all parts of the

earth, you've been

destitute, you've been

robbed of everything

you have, you're

beggars, you're

forlorn, you've got

nothing.

And the promises, if

you repent, I'll bring

you back to the place

where my name dwells.

Well, if you're a

cynic, you say, what

good is that?

But actually, all of

life, and all of our

humanity, and all of

our personhood, finds

its significance, and

finds its life, and

finds its beginning at

the centrality of the

cross, and at the

beginning of the name

of the Lord Jesus

Christ.

God gathers us to

himself, because in

himself is where we

find life, and where

we find meaning, and

where we find

encouragement, and

where we find

strength.

If we're going to

try and find it

anywhere else, we

will ultimately always

be disillusioned.

We will always be

disappointed.

We may be excited

for a season, but

sure, as eggs are

eggs, as time passes

by, we will begin to

become disillusioned.

But when we find our

life in him, when we

find our meaning in

him, when we find our

purposes in him, when

we find our direction

in him, then we have

that which sustains

us through all of

life.

See, until we start

where it went wrong,

which is in our

hearts, it will never

really ever come

right.

You may see

improvements and

changes.

You may recognize

that you are better

now than you were

five years ago.

But never mistake

that the gospel is

not about giving you

a reconditioned,

panel-beaten heart.

The gospel in Jesus

Christ is about a new

heart and a new

disposition and new

leanings altogether.

The gospel is able to

sustain us and to

strengthen us and to

tie us and to draw us

to himself and to make

us all together new.

Ravi Zacharias tells a

wonderful story of an

interpreter who

trained, interpreted to

him in the Vietnam War

in the 1970s.

And then, of course,

after the Americans

fled, these men were

rounded up, went for

indoctrination and

training to try and

correct them, change

their thinking and

their views.

And this interpreter,

this young interpreter,

was at the point of

being broken.

His interrogators

wanted to turn him

from his gospel-centered

convictions to

acknowledging communism

as the answer.

And it went on for

years and he was

beginning to lose hope.

He had no gospel, he

had no material to

read, and in a state of

kind of desperation, he

felt himself slipping and

beginning to lose hope

and lose faith.

And the pressure was

mounting and he

realized they were

putting him under

pressure for a

decision.

And in a frail

prayer, he said,

Lord, if you're still

there, if you are real,

I need you to show

yourself to me in the

next 48, 72 hours.

That morning, the

cells are opened and

his chosen said, you

are going to do the

latrine duties, which

was to clean out the

buckets of the

latrines of the

seniors in the prison

area.

The dirtiest and most

unappreciated job in the

whole camp.

And as he's cleaning

the latrines out, he

comes to one bucket

and he sees some

writing on the paper

and it's English.

Hadn't seen that.

And so he looks a bit

more carefully and he

recognizes that it's

scripture.

One of the army leaders

is using scripture as

toilet paper.

And the words that he

reads that first day are

this, no, in all these

things we are more than

conquerors through him

who loved us.

For I am sure that

neither death nor life,

nor angels nor rulers,

nor things past or

present are able to

separate us from the

love of God.

He put his hand up.

He said, I want to do

latrine duty every day.

And every day he would

take that torn paper and

he would wash it, clean

it.

And he fed himself on

what was for another

person nothing more than

toilet paper but for him

the words of life that

reignited his soul and his

faith in the Father.

Folk, where's your

conviction?

Is it in yourself?

Or have you seen

something of the

awesomeness of the one

who redeems and

restores?

Will we come with

prayers that are full of

conviction not in how

well we pray but in who

we pray to?

And will we understand

that as we just say the

most fleeting of

redemptive pleas, be

merciful to me.

He comes in ways to

restore that we could

never ever have

imagined.

Amen.

Let's stand as I close

in prayer and then

worship team will come

up.

Great and awesome God,

we come with bowed

hearts and bent heads

before you this morning

and we say that there is

no one like you.

You are God.

Forgive us of the way we

trivialize you, the way we

make you so small, the way

we reduce you.

And Lord, into our

hearts and into our

minds explode something

of your awesomeness and

your magnificence, your

bigness and your

hugeness towards us and

change us and transform

us.

That these vessels of

clay might become

instruments which sing

the songs of Zion,

which shine and reflect

the glory of the

greatest Savior, the

Lord Jesus Christ.

And may our lives,

Lord, be reflective of

something that builds

more than just brick and

stone, but is used to

extend your kingdom and

build broken lives once

again that might house

the praises of Zion.

Father, these are the

things for which we ask

in Jesus' precious name.

Amen.

God bless you all.