Nehemiah 1–2 | Resolved: Nehemiah's Example (Pastor Marc Cogan)

Speaker: That king actually came more or less by himself.

So his has a privileged position in this setting.

Uh, we need to remember that as this story, this account, what happens

to Nehemiah that he writes begins there are many things that God

has already put in place, right?

We don't know how all these things came to be, but it is God who has established

like everything that's come before this, so that what we hear about next.

May happen.

Okay.

So the setting is a serious one.

It's an intimidating one.

Uh, this is not a, a light role that Nehemiah has and the things

that are gonna come after this, we need to remember what that's like.

If you've read the book of Esther, uh, the book of Esther gives a lot

of detail to how this might look.

Granted, Esther happens effectively a generation earlier, but you can remember

from that account many of the things that will be helpful to inform your.

Uh, imagination as it were, as we think about this.

So that's where Nehemiah is.

Well, Hannah and I comes from Judah, and in verse three, uh, he

tells Nehemiah what has happened.

Read with me in verse three.

And they said to me, so Ken and I and his compatriots, they say 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.

Notice what Nehemiah asks about, like Nehemiah's first question, and I imagine

he probably asked other questions, but his first question, the thing that sits

most heavily on his part is God's plan.

God's people, the city of Jerusalem is important to him.

If it were not, he wouldn't have asked, and if it were not, he would be concerned

with his privileged role as a cup bearer.

He'd be concerned with increasing his status into his present surroundings,

but he is demonstrating that he has a heart on the onset with his concern

about God's plan and about God's people.

What is he talking about exactly?

What are these, these, these guys talking about as they talk about Jerusalem?

Well, one might think it's related to the original exile, right?

The original exile of the people of Israel.

That would've happened, uh, probably between 6 0 5 and 5 86, so that would've

been significantly before this account.

And I think it's more likely that what is being referred here is

what occurs in the Book of Ezra.

The book of Ezra talks about a number of the attempts and I trust, again,

you've read that before, but just to refresh your, remember, it talks

about a number of the attempts of the people of Israel to, to reestablish.

They're kingdom, uh, of course under the greater kingdom that they are

still in some sense subject to, but they seek to rebuild the temple and

in fact, they seek to rebuild the walls, but not with a ton of success.

Ezra chapter four, verse 23 says, then.

And this is just an example for you to recall what is going on since then.

When the copy of King Art's letter was read before Rainbow and Hai described

and their associates, they went and pasted to the Jews at Jerusalem, and

by force and power made them cease.

They made them see.

So there are political oppositions, there are, uh, even threats.

Uh, there are threats of military, a action.

There's threats of Raiders, and, and there is also King Arteris

who is, uh, calling them to cease.

And granted, I'm not gonna go into all the details of the timeline here, but it goes

on and answer and says, then the work of the house of the Lord that is in Jerusalem

stopped, and it ceased until the second year of the raid of Darius King Persia.

So all that to be said.

This situation is, is not good.

This is not a good situation for the people of Israel.

And we see them in what Hannah and I says, okay, what does Nehemiah do?

What does ne Nehemiah do?

He has, in some sense, every right to sprinkle to action.

He hears this news, and it might be right for him to say, I gotta solve this.

I need to go to the king right away.

I need to travel to Jerusalem to solve this problem, to help with this.

I need to talk to Hannah and I and and some patriots and say, you guys need to

do this and that and the other thing.

And in some sense, he would be right to do that.

In some sense.

He would be right to do that, but he doesn't do that.

He doesn't do that.

At least he doesn't spring into action in the way that our flesh

might suggest that we should.

He does spring into action.

He does spring into action, and he does that by turning to the Lord in prayer.

And that's our first 0.4

this morning, which is.

Point number one, pray when life hits hard.

Nehemiah cared about a situation in Israel, cared about what was

going on in Jerusalem, and he could have done many things, but he chose

to spring into action as it were by turning to the Lord in prayer.

When this news hits hard, verse four of Nehemiah one says this,

put down at your Bibles with me.

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.

As soon as I heard these words, I prayed.

Our flesh often says that we need to do things immediately.

We need to respond to things with our own solutions and our own strength

and our own power right away.

Especially as men.

Especially as men.

We want to solve the problems.

We want to be the solution to the things that we fix.

You know, maybe you have a kid who you're trying to raise and you're struggling

with obedience, that you struggle with them being humble and hearing you.

It might be tempting to immediately spread into action.

And in some sense it's good.

I'm not, don't hear me saying all of this is necessarily bad, but if we are

relying on our own strength, we might turn and say, okay, what are we going to do?

What are the three steps that we're gonna do to solve this issue of disobedience?

We need to do that this then, but it needs to be proceeded by court.

Maybe you have a difficult job situation.

Maybe your boss is difficult.

Maybe you have a coworker who's difficult it.

It might be that he say, I know how to solve this.

I'm gonna go to my boss and I'm gonna talk to him.

I'm gonna tell him these four things that are wrong, and it's gonna solve the

problem because he's gonna intervene.

Or maybe I'm gonna go to hr.

I'm gonna go to hr.

I'm gonna tell them, here's the violations.

You need to do something about this.

Right?

Or maybe say, I'm done.

I'm gonna quit.

I'm gonna go find another job.

I'm done.

Not that any of those things are necessarily bad because we have a

heart that thinks and believes that we can solve those problems ourself,

and that's the end all, be all.

We're gonna be in trouble.

Or maybe you have a, a wife who is struggling with anxiety or pain or

depression, and it eats it here.

It, it's difficult for you to watch.

It's painful for you.

You might be inclined to turn right away to solve your problems,

to suggest things, to bring up solutions, to do all sorts of things.

And, and again, we need to do those things as end, right?

You need to love your wives with action, but have you ever we dealing with

those things turn to the Lord in prayer and mourning and weeping for days.

The many of us have not, but Nehemiah is an example of how we ought to do that.

Well, here's a, here's a silly illustration.

I've flown quite a bit less than the number of past number of

years, but I've flown quite a bit.

And I remember our flight sequence, I believe it was from San Jose to Phoenix

to Albuquerque, and I'm on my flight from San Jose to Phoenix, and I'm.

Taxiing up to the gate.

I'm not flying in the plane, taxiing up to the gate and I look at my phone

and I realize my connecting flight is like three hours late and I go,

okay, I'm gonna solve this problem.

I'm gonna solve this problem right here, right now.

I'm gonna go up to the counter.

There is another flight to Albuquerque that's actually leaving before my

original flight, so I can get on that and I can get home and not waste my time.

So I confidently walk up to the desk.

You know, I stand behind somebody who I don't know is, is in tears because their

bag is, you know, four inches too big.

It doesn't fit in the thing.

Wait for that to be resolved.

And I talk to the person, I say, look, this is my flight's late.

I want to get home.

Can I get on this other flight?

I don't know.

Let me see.

And then she, you know, begins typing and I don't know what they're doing.

Are they sending messages to their kids?

Like, like they're typing way too long to solve a problem that I think could

be solved with just a few key plates.

But, you know, typing, typing, typing, typing.

She finally goes, yes, we can get you on that flight.

Well, great.

I get on that flight, arrive, Albert walk to the bag, claim, and

I stand by bag claim in my bag.

He's in Clayton, I can't play yet.

Stop there.

I was able to change my flight, but I wasn't able to change my bags flight.

So like sat on the other side of security for like two hours waiting

for my bags to show up on the carousel.

All my clever solutions, all my creative things that I told the

person at the desk to try and convince her to change my flight.

Or meaningless.

Or meaningless, of course, that's a silly example, but often in our life

when we seek to solve problems, uh, we.

Find ourselves not really able to do it, not fully able to solve the problems.

God certainly has called us to, to act and we'll get to them.

But why do we turn to prayer?

Because we're turning to God who is indeed able to solve problems.

He's able to solve them, and he's able to solve them in a fine,

complete way without the silliness of ending up in a situation like I was.

I want to mention that he prays for days.

I think that's worth observant.

I don't think in 2026.

Most of us pray for days and some of that is practical reasons.

There's practical reasons for that.

Certainly.

Uh, Paul calls us in first, IANS five 16 through 18.

That passage there that we are to pray without ceasing, right?

That is an important aspect of the Christian life.

Uh, that's something that we should strive for, but I also think we need

to recognize that there's plenty of places in scripture that call us to

pray for a long time, to pray at length.

And Nehemiah doesn't pray for a minute.

He doesn't pray for an hour.

He prays for days.

He prays overnight.

He prays at length.

And one of the things that I think we should pursue in our Christian

life is yes, praying without ceasing, but also when there are serious

things that require our prayer.

Praying for days that could look like a lot of different things.

Again, I know that's not necessarily possible for all of our work schedules

and, and, and the life that we may live, but have we ever taken time off to pray?

Have you ever said, I'm gonna take a PTO day so that I can pray for my kids?

Have you ever spent a night maybe praying for your, your job situation, right?

Giving up the rest that you probably dearly need?

So that you can pray for that situation so that you can pray for your boss, so

that you can pray for your coworkers.

Have you ever, uh, spent days praying for your wife as she

struggles with something serious?

Have you ever wept up for her as you pray?

Have you ever mourned?

Have you ever fasted?

While you pray, the Bible often talks about fasting and prayer together,

and that's nonetheless true here.

Right?

What is he doing?

He is fasting and praying.

In fact, fasting even comes, at least in terms of word order before praying.

Do you fast?

I, I'm not gonna go into on the technicalities of fasting, but if

that is something that God is calling you to do in a spiritual sense, not

necessarily just in a health sense, which I know we like to talk about a lot.

And there's nothing wrong with that.

But if he's following you to spiritually fast and the Bible makes

it clear that Christian's fast, I would commend to you, uh, Dr.

Donald Whitney's chapter on fasting from a book called Spiritual Discipline.

So if that's something that you feel called to do, uh, indeed,

that's a helpful place to go.

So, are you facing something hard?

Is there something in your life that you know God cares about?

Is there something you know that God has?

Clearly made, prevalent, not just in your mind, but through

scripture that you are facing.

That's difficult.

It it, it comes in practical ways and I mentioned kids and job and

wife, but it might be something else.

It might be a legal situation, it might be a health situation that you're facing.

I would encourage you, even this very week, to seek an opportunity

to pray a long time about it.

You may not be able to do it like Nehemiah, you may not be

able to take days to do it.

But I would suggest to you even this very week set it to aside a significant

portion of time, an amount that your schedule allows to pray for that thing

that's in your mind right now that you are facing, that is difficult, that

is challenging, that emulates Nehemiah in that way, even this very week.

Well, we've talked about the method.

We've talked about the method that Nehemiah uses, but it's also important

that we examine the content of his prayers, the content of his prayers.

And thankfully, Nehemiah gives us the content of his prayers Granted, he prays

for many days, and so I think what we see here is a summary, a faithful summary.

Of his prayers and, and perhaps he did pray these specific words at

a time, uh, but this is, this is an encapsulation of his prayers.

So read with me, uh, in verse five.

So we're still chapter one in verse five.

I'm gonna read a little bit longer than maybe normal, but I think it's

important that we hear the whole thing all at once and then we will

digest it together, verse 5 cents.

And I said, oh Lord 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 dig in 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 abruptly 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 faithful,

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 the 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.

Oh Lord.

Let your dear 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.

Excuse me.

Now, I was a copier to the king.

What do we see in Nehemiah's prayer?

We see him praying for things that only God can do and specifically our second

point for this morning is praying for what God alone can restore, pray alone,

or praying for what God alone can restore.

Let's break this prayer down 'cause I think this is a helpful template for us,

for our prayers and specifically for our prayers of confession before the Lord.

He could just begin to begin to saying, I'm Ty Young.

I have broken your rules.

And there might be times in our life where it's appropriate for

us to pray like that in a moment.

If we're gonna commit ourselves to lengthy prayer about something, it

is helpful to follow this template.

And what does Nehemiah begin?

He begins with who God is.

But look at verse uh, look at verse five.

He begins by telling God, not because God doesn't know these things.

Begins by telling God that he's the great and awesome God.

He describes him and he also talks about what he does.

You are the God, right?

Who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him

and keep his commandments.

So he began this by recognizing who God is.

Makes me think of one John one five and that this is a section on a

confession if you are familiar with it.

Right?

And what does John begin this section of?

Right.

He begins one John one five by saying this is the message that we have heard

from him and proclaimed to you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all.

It is right and it's good and fitting for us to begin prayers

by acknowledging who God is.

It's right for us to declare things that are true about him.

That sets the context, that sets the pretense for the confession that we say

for the requests that we make to him.

And Nehemiah does that well.

Also, even again, before getting to any requests or to his confession,

he makes another specific, another specific set of statements.

Again, not that God doesn't know these things or that he has to save them

in order for God to be willing to do it, but he recognizes that God is a.

Who listens.

In verse six, it says, let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear

the prayer of your servant that are now praying for you day and night for

the people of Israel, your servants.

He recognizes and, and reminds God, not in the sense that God just forgotten,

but ramani God of his promise to listen.

Isn't it amazing that you.

This very warning can go before God in prayer.

You have a God who listens.

You have a God who has his ears open, as it were, his eyes open,

as it were to your problems.

And as you pray this, it will set up in your mind as you pray, uh,

the right setting, the right context again for the confession, for the

requests that you might make to God.

And then Nehemiah gets to his confession.

Right.

He says, even I, even I and my father's house have sinned.

He makes a very specific consent confession.

I, I think it's fair to suggest that he probably spoke at length

about each of these things, right?

He talks about, uh, the, the acts of corruption, right?

That he's not kept the commandments, the statutes, and the rules that

you've commanded your servant, Moses.

And we see him later in, or Nehemiah specifically addressing those s and those

instructions, and he knows them well.

So he confesses in a specific way.

Uh, there is an aspect here in which he's confessing for the people of Israel.

He, he confesses the sin of the corporate body of Israel, and he

also confesses his individual sins.

You as a New Testament believer, are not gonna be confessing the sins of Israel.

It is possible that there would be a time and place for it to be appropriate

to confess the sentence of a corporate group and specifically perhaps the church.

I think that is less common because of the way God has set up the

church as opposed to the way that he set up the people of Israel.

There may be a place for that, but I wanna focus on the fact

that we need to be specific in our confessions about our sins.

And that is something that each and every one of us, including myself, even this

very morning, need to be bringing to God.

We need to be bringing specific confessions about how we have not kept

his commandments, how we have not loved him, how we have not done as we should.

It's worth saying, right?

That it's not the, that's not the method by which we receive forgiveness.

Right.

And it is, if we die and we haven't confessed all our, of our sins, we don't

end up in purgatory or somewhere else.

Speaker 2: Uh,

Speaker: but it is a good and natural and healthy thing for us to be in

regular confession of specific sins.

Uh, following Theand of Nehemiah, but that's not the end of his prayer.

That's not the end of his prayer.

There's two more really big elements that kind of go together.

One is he reminds the people or he reminds himself rather, of god's, of his promises

to judge the people, and he reminds himself and he reminds God, as it were,

of God's promises to redeem his people.

So he says, right, and he's referencing Deuteronomy 30, and as he phrased

this, he says, reminding himself of the commandments that God gave to Moses.

He says, if you are unfaithful, I'm gonna scatter you among the peoples, but if

you return to me and keep my commandments and do them though your outs are in the

uttermost parts of the heaven from there and will gather them and bring them.

To the place that I have chosen to make my name dwell there.

So Nehemiah is turning back to the promises that God has already

given him, that God has already given to the people of Israel.

He's acknowledging that God is right to have judged the

people to send them into exile.

He's acknowledging that they have broken the commandments and that it was right

for God to bring about that judgment, but he's also praying that God would

redeem his people, that God would keep his promise to restore his people.

You don't see him pray specifically, God let the king notice my

sadness, and therefore I'll have an opportunity to talk to him, which

is what we're gonna see happens.

But we do see him reminding himself, reminding God in prayer of his promises.

He does have a specific request.

In the sense of a, a sort of general request that he may be part of God's plan.

And he says this, give success to your servant today and bring him

mercy in the sight of this man.

And then again, now I was, come bear to the king.

We need to, we need to pray like this.

Right?

I already mentioned, I already mentioned perhaps your kids.

I've already mentioned perhaps your, your wife.

Maybe there's something else that comes to mind, but.

We need to pray like this, and I'm not gonna pray for days.

Don't worry.

I'm not starting a day long prayer here to demonstrate this, but a

prayer for us might look something like this as it relates to our

job, as it relates to our work.

I say something like this, God, you are the provider.

You are the one who has created everything.

You are the one who has created me and my family.

You are the God who is kind to me and has provided for me already in my life.

You might say, God, you are the one who hears all of the conversations

that happen in my workplace.

You have heard every conversation, every argument, every discussion that's happened

between me and my boss, and in fact, you have heard all of the conversations that

were had behind closed doors without me.

But Lord, you are a great God who is willing to hear my prayers or my hand.

I, I am coming before you speaking to me, asking me for things, and

that is an amazing and good thing.

And even as you may think that your boss is causing issues or your

coworkers causing issues, it is right for you to confess and say, Lord, I

have harbor bitterness in my heart.

I have been upset with my boss in ways that are not appropriate and

know what I call my boss when I was talking to my wife about his

last night, or forgive me for that.

Forgive me for the laziness that I.

Carry that.

Forgive me for the times when, when I've been belligerent and difficult

and yes, Lord, he, I do believe in good faith is causing issues, but also I

recognize that I have been unfaithful at moments and at times you say, God,

I recognize that you are a God who says that he will judge the wicked.

I don't want to be the witness.

I, I'm turning to Christ as my holy hope for righteousness.

I, I can't do this perfectly.

I can't be a perfect employee.

I need your help.

I need your help.

Bend the cross.

I need your help through the Holy Spirit on a day in and day out basis.

But God, you are the one who says that you will reconcile everything.

You will judge everything.

You'll make everything right, I recognize, and I'm asking for that to be possible.

Right now.

But I also see that it may not be, it may not end the way that I

see it, but you are a God who will make all things right At the end.

You will reconcile all of the accounts.

So your firm may like look like that.

And again, this is just an example that's this, a sample of what it may be.

And again, if we're gonna follow the example of Nehemiah, I think it would

be significantly longer, at least as we pursue this particular example.

If we turn to a God who restores, God is the one who

can solve these problems, right?

Our ability to solve problems is limited.

It is finite.

It's not that we are not called to act, and we're gonna get to that in a second,

but we need to begin by recognizing that we have a God who is able to perfectly

act, who has already sovereignly, set forth all of human history.

And we can come to him in prayer because he is the one who can solve

the problems that we may face.

And ultimately that is a recognition.

And I think even Nehemiah is beginning to understand this of the fact that

we need Christ, we need him to be the one who solves the problems we face.

Uh, we're not gonna be able to build walls that solve our problems.

We're not gonna be able to build, uh, armies that are gonna

be able to solve our problems.

We need to turn to Christ as the ultimate solution.

Okay?

So he's brave.

He's brave, and we've spent most of our time here.

But that doesn't end, right.

It is not just a, okay, I pray and now I'm done.

Right?

That is true of the Christian life.

We pray and then we go out and we do our jobs.

We love our families.

We do the things in life, and that requires action.

That requires us to be active, as it were, and let's see how

that plays out in Nehemiah.

So let's look at verse one of chapter two together.

If you look down at your Bibles with me, I think again, it's helpful

to read a little bit more that we'll break this passage down.

In Nehemiah chapter two verse one, it says, in the month, Nissan in

the 20th year of King are Xes.

When wine was before him, I took up the wine and gave it to the king.

Now, I had been sad in his presence and the king says to me, why is your face sad?

See, you are not sick.

This is nothing but sadness of heart.

Then I was very much afraid.

I was very much afraid, and I said to the king, love the king lives forever.

Why should not my face be sad when the city, the place of my father's

grace lies and ruins and its gates have been destroyed by fire?

Then the king said to me, what are you requesting and what is Nehemiah?

Dear?

He prays again.

He says, so I pray you to the God of heaven.

And I said to the king, if it pleases the key, and if your servant has

found favor in your sight, and you send me to Judah, to the city of my

father's Graves, not the ability.

And the king said to me, the queen was 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 the time.

Notice a few things here, I guess before we do, but we need to

recognize that, uh, we have to act.

There is part of a Christian life, whether we like it or not, where we need

to act and we need to act in obedience.

Um, but that action is never separated from prayer, right?

The foundation of what Nehemiah does is days of prayer, we be mourning.

He also prays in the moment, right, as the king says, what are you requesting?

What does he do?

He prays in the moment, and that's our third point for this morning.

Which is pray as you obey.

Pray as you obey the Lord.

Remember that he is in great fear, right?

This situation is not an easy one for him.

I, I think in Esther, right?

And I trust that you know that story well, as Esther plans to go before

the king, she recognizes that it may in fact result in her death, right?

That is the same again, it was a generation earlier, but it's the same

context that we're working in here.

She recognizes that going before the king is a serious matter.

And granted, the situation of Nehemiah is different, right?

The king asks him the question, but this is no laughing matter.

This is, this could indeed result in death.

We don't experience that today.

We don't go before, uh, city council and prosper and risk dying at the hand of the

mayor, but that is in fact a reality in the situation, and he faces great fear.

I think there's an aspect in which he is afraid of the king.

Or the king poses a threat to him.

But I also think that part of the fear he's experiencing is a fear of God.

And the reason I would suggest that is because of what he does.

If he was afraid of man, if he was afraid of man exclusively, then what would he do?

He would say, I don't have anything.

Say I'm gonna go keep my job as a cup bearer.

I'm gonna keep this privilege position and I'm not gonna get in any danger.

But what does he do?

I think he's fearing the Lord and he is responding to the situation,

uh, as he oughts to right.

Instead of fearing man, he fears the Lord and makes his request known to the

king at even great risk of his own life.

So that's begins it.

Uh, but also notice that he prays in the moment.

He prays in the moment, and maybe you've done this right.

Maybe there's something that happens and you go, God, please help me,

and that's a good thing to do.

But it's far better for those prayers in the moment to be built on a foundation

of many days and maybe many years of praying that preceded it, right?

His prayer as he prays, we don't know what he prayed for.

The Lord is built on those days of morning and weeping.

And care for God's promises and God's people, and that makes it possible.

That makes it effective.

But that is a good thing that might not have happened otherwise.

Right?

I, I know that there's many times in my life where things have happened that have

gotten bad or I can tell are going bad and my response is often not to pray.

But that's because I haven't been praying about the situation leading up to that.

I think we see Nehemiah praying diligently about it and then ready

and able to pray in the moment.

It is a habit of a sorts that he has developed, and I think it's one that

we should develop as well, right?

We should have our prayer list that has those deep concerns on it and

that we're praying day in and day out for, or perhaps for many days for it.

But then we need to also pray for things in the moment.

How do we do that?

Especially as men, it's so easy to be single-minded, focused on something.

And when you know that the email you're gonna open up is a problem,

or when you know your boss is walking in the door, if it's not

gonna go well, what's your response?

We need to build a habit in those moments to respond in prayer

before anything else happens.

Let me suggest to you, and I said this on the podcast, so maybe I,

you know, maybe you already heard it and you're gonna be bored.

But I think responding to the emotional swells that we have in our life.

Is a great way to trigger us to pray, to cause us to pray.

And I know we're men.

I know we don't have any emotions.

I know nothing faces us ever, but those rare times, I'm kidding.

Of course, those rare times when we feel those emotions on an hourly basis,

I think is a helpful time for us to train ourselves to respond in prayer.

I know many people will pray when they arrive in the driveway, right?

Or maybe they're going up the elevator.

They'll use those sort of physical moments, and that's a

great way to practice prayer.

But if we're gonna be like Nehemiah, and when somebody asks us something like the

king asked Nehemiah, how are we gonna be trained to pray in those moments?

And I'm gonna suggest one way that he may do that is to feel that emotion.

Nehemiah felt great fear and he responds in prayer before

saying anything to the king.

Well, his prayer is answered.

His prayer is answered, and it's answered in two different senses.

It is answered in an immediate sense.

Right, and we don't have time to go through the whole book of Nehemiah, but

his prayer is that the king will hear him.

The king will allow him to go forward and go to Jerusalem and eventually rebuild the

wall, which he is successfully able to do.

He made a specific request of of God, right, that he would find

favor in the eyes of the king, and God answered that specific prayer.

God is a gun who answers prayers.

Like that.

And so there's an immediate answer to that, but I also wanna make sure

that we don't miss that there is a long-term answer to that prayer

that doesn't get answered fully.

It doesn't get answered fully.

Yes, Nehemiah is able to go back to Jerusalem and rebuild the walls.

He's able to do that with God's hope.

But what is Meyer really asking for in his prayer?

As he prays the prayer of Deuteronomy referencing Deuteronomy 30, he's asking

for the restoration of people of Israel.

And yes, there's a physical aspect to that, but there's

also a spiritual aspect to that.

Nehemiah gets to participate in that, and you can see that later in the book,

in the restoration of the, the spiritual practices, the people of Israel.

But it's not complete.

It's not complete.

And even, even at the end of chapter two.

If you will turn or, or look down at verse 19.

Halfway through there it says, they jered at us and despised us and said,

what is this thing that you are doing?

Are you rebelling against the king?

So even in the long term, he still faces opposition.

God did not answer fully in the sense that there's perfect restoration at this point.

Not fully answer.

Nehemiah's rear, right?

There are still those who.

Challenging.

There are still those who cause obstacles to it, even at the very

last chapter of Nehemiah, right?

We see AYA causing continued problems and, and there is need for restoration.

So in our own lives, we need to look for both of those things.

We need to look for the specific answers to praise.

And we can see those if we are faithful.

I, I spoke at the NAC conference about prayer journaling, and I find

that prayer journaling is a really helpful way for us to remember how

God has answered those prayers.

But we also need to know and recognize that God answers our prayers in ways that

are far more complex and in far more long term, long reaching ways than we may like.

Uh, we need to look for those things and be encouraged, and be thankful for when

the answers are prayers in that way.

Uh, but also recognize that Nehemiah acted.

Nehemiah acted in this moment, right?

He prays to God, and then he says what you have to say, that action,

that courage, that resolve, that Nehemiah demonstrates to ask.

The king is a product of his prayers.

It's a product of him remembering who God is.

It's a product of him remembering.

That God cares for him, that God listens to him.

It's a product of him recalling the promises that God has made to his

people, the promises that God has made to him, and it allows him to act.

It allows him to be courageous.

Remember, remember the tank man.

We don't know who he is.

We don't know who he is, but what did we know was gonna happen because of

his willingness to lay down his life?

If those tanks were to run over, he had no guarantee that things would end well.

He had no promise that his sacrifice would be meaningful.

He had no idea what was gonna happen.

Yet he was willing to do that.

He had the courage and the resolve to do that.

How much more us as Christians who have the sure promises of God.

Who know what is done.

Yes, we may not know what this week holds, but we know that

God is going to care for us.

We know that God is going to save us.

We know that God is going to restore the heavens and the earth.

We know that we will dwell with him as sons forever.

With those assurances, with those confidences, then we

can come to him in prayer.

We can come to him in confession.

We can come to him in reliance and in trust.

The difference is, is we know He the end.

We know the end.

And so we can come to God this week.

I encourage you to, to get on your knees, to pray to the Lord.

Ask him for help, confess your sins to them so that when the moment comes

when you need to act, encourage and resolve that you will be able to

do that faithfully for the Lord.

Amen.

Let me pray for us.

And then we would like to small groups.

Lord, thank you for this morning.

I'm thankful for for men.

I pray that you will help us, help us to be courageous men who are resolved, and I

pray that we will follow the example, the footsteps of me in room, that we will turn

to you as a God who is able to do that.

We are not able to solve those problems, but you're a God who is.

Whatever problems we face in our life, you are a God who cares about them.

And ultimately it will resolve them.

Help us to be people who trust in that so that we can go about our lives acting

in confidence, going before key or bosses or whoever it may be, with confidence

in you and trusting in your promises.

I pray for our small group time that it'll be beneficial and profitable

in your son's name and right.

Amen.

We have smaller time, so I think most of you have been here before.

If you haven't written.