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Feb 06, 2011

Prayer That Renews

Passage: Nehemiah 9-10

Preacher: John Repsold

Series: Fresh Beginnings--Nehemiah

Category: Nehemiah--Fresh Beginnings

Keywords: prayer, renewal, adoration, worship, confession

Summary:

A full 3 chapters of Nehemiah concern prayer. This message looks at how prayer renews the people of God.

Detail:

Prayer That Renews

Series:  Fresh Beginnings—Nehemiah 9

February 6, 2011 

INTRO: 

We’re living in very interesting times, aren’t we?  In just a matter of days, the entire Middle East has been rocked by violent demonstrations and governmental turnovers.  It’s a day when kingdoms are being torn down, governments are being toppled and previously inconsequential international players are taking center stage in the world’s geopolitical affairs.  As we’ve seen the past few weeks with Egypt and Tunisia, it’s relatively easy to bring down a government, but it is quite another thing to reconstruct a better government and the soul of a whole nation.

We’re nearing the end of our study in the Old Testament book of Nehemiah.  It’s a book that is all about what is necessary to not only rebuild a protective wall around an important city (Jerusalem) but what is necessary to rebuild the souls and spiritual relationships of a people with their God.

REVIEW:  Over the past few weeks we’ve looked at the importance various spiritual practices play in renewing our lives on a regular basis.  We’ve seen how spiritual vision, the word of God, how we handle our finances before God and service to others play a big part in setting the pace for our spiritual development. 

Well today we’re going to add yet another “spiritual practice” to this important list of actions we can all take to refresh our walk with God.  It’s the practice of communication with God.  Most of us know it by the term “prayer.” 

      A full 3 of the 13 chapters in Nehemiah contain actual prayers of Nehemiah and the people of God regarding this essential rebuilding project they were involved in with both the walls of Jerusalem and their own souls.  Chapter 1 records Nehemiah’s own personal prayer conversation with God before ever leaving Persia for Palestine.  When we get to chapters 9 & 10, we come to a very public prayer between the whole nation of Israel and God.  It’s a prayer that changed the future of the nation and the lives of everyone who joined in it there in Jerusalem that day in 445B.C. 

Before I ask 3 of our people to come up here and read it aloud for you, I’d like to ask you to look for ____ particular things as you listen to this reading.  It’s a rather long prayer as biblical prayers go—44 verses covering the better part of 2 chapters.  Today we will be reading the part that takes up most of chapter 9, 33 verses.  I’ll simply refer to chapter 10 later since we studied that chapter several weeks ago when we talked about financial stewardship. 

So here is what I’d like you to particularly take note of in this reading.  It’s a prayer that talks a lot about what God has done for his people and what they have done with that blessing.  So would you listen for the following 2 things:

  1. 1.      What does this prayer say about GOD?
  2. 2.      What does this prayer say about God’s PEOPLE?

READING of Nehemiah 9:5b-38

____________________-

Quite a prayer, no?  Now that you’ve heard it, let’s disect some of the skeletal structure that may help us learn AND do prayer better in our own experience. 

      The first & biggest part of this prayer focuses upon GOD—what he has DONE for his people. Any idea how many times this prayer mentions what God has done?  About 55!  The rest of the content about God has to do with who he IS with his people (about 14 different attributes). 

On the other hand, when it talks about what God’s people have done, it’s mostly about their failures that have resulted in God’s discipline. The prayer gives 16 things they sinned/failed in and 6 things that can even remotely be considered successes. 

      I find that pretty interesting given the fact that this public prayer service was being done on a day of fasting, wearing sackcloth, having dust on their heads as a sign of humiliation as they confessed their sins and worshipped God.  Nehemiah 9:1-3 give us the scene:

1 On the twenty-fourth day of the same month, the Israelites gathered together, fasting and wearing sackcloth and putting dust on their heads. 2 Those of Israelite descent had separated themselves from all foreigners. They stood in their places and confessed their sins and the sins of their ancestors. 3 They stood where they were and read from the Book of the Law of the LORD their God for a quarter of the day, and spent another quarter in confession and in worshiping the LORD their God

I haven’t made it a whole message in this series, but confession is another one of those “spiritual practices” that helps us connect with God and receive the grace he has for us.  And that isn’t just private confession between you and God.  We as Evangelical Protestant believers don’t have a lot of room in our practical theology for public confession, do we?  When was the last time you heard someone publically confess sin?  When was the last time you were in a small group and someone confessed that they had sinned that week in some specific manner? 

      The confessional got lost in Protestant theology about the time of the Reformation, didn’t it?  Now, I’m not advocating that we return to the Roman Catholic practice of the “confessional.”  BUT, there is plenty of biblical precedent, this being one, for a more public practice of confession.  That’s why James tells the churches in James 5:13-16

13 Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. 14 Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. 16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

      I’m thinking we’re more prideful than we want to admit.  We like to keep our confession general and private.  God likes to have us at least occasionally do it somewhat publically and specifically. It was the understanding of the word of God that caused them to realize their lives were out of line with God.  It was some very specific stuff that God convicted them about that needed confession.  It was all about their failure to do what God had clearly laid down in his word needed to be done.  It wasn’t some general sense of feeling bad about themselves.  It was very specific and very clearly brought on by time in God’s word. 

Public confession of sin almost always accompanies any true revival of God’s people. 

ILL:  Wheaton College revival of 1995:  In March 1995 the campus experienced what many have called a spiritual revival. Two students from Howard Payne University in Texas had been invited to speak about a revival on their campus at the Sunday evening World Christian Fellowship (WCF) worship service on Sunday, March 19, 1995 at Wheaton. They did so and their testimonies were immediately followed by individual Wheaton students publically confessing sin. As each individual confessed, large prayer groups formed around them.

The service, held in the College's Chapel, continued until 6am the next (Monday morning). The meeting then adjourned until that evening, when after a brief introduction and period of singing, confessions again began and continued the until the next morning. Tuesday and Wednesday evenings saw the same thing happen.

Thursday night signaled the end of this moving event, with a worship service of praise and testimony attended by a large portion (perhaps a majority) of the student body. Toward the end of this service, there was a prayer of dedication for hundreds of students who wished to dedicate their lives to full-time Christian service.

Almost immediately students started going out in response to invitations from churches and other colleges to report on what happened at Wheaton. As they did, numerous campuses such as Asbury, Gordon-Conwell, Taylor University and Northwestern University experienced the same thing as students fell under deep conviction and began to confess hidden sin in gatherings large and small. 

Now let’s go back to the simple skeletal structure of this prayer. 

  • 70 assertions about God
    • 55 of those about what God has DONE (about 80%).
    • 14 about who God IS (20%).
    • 28 statements about God’s people
      • 22 statements acknowledging the failures of God’s people (72%)
      • 6 statements about right things God’s people did (28%)
    • 10 statements (in ch. 10) of commitments of God’s people to do certain things (6) and not do others (4).
    • 1 request (9:32—“Now therefore, O our God…do not let all this hardship seem trifling in your eyes….”)

What does that simple statistical observation tell us about what we should have filling our prayers, particularly when we are talking to God together?

  1. Who God is and what he has done is far more important in our conversation with God than who we are and what we’ve done (good or bad).  Focusing on God is also more important than what we want done too.  Praise, adoration and worship should form and inform our praying.
  2. Confession is not to be an insignificant part of our praying.  It was the second most frequently addressed topic.
  3. Renewed commitments was the 3rd most frequent content in their prayer.  How much of our praying deals with renewal of commitments to God?     
  4. The present issues pressing in on us (requests) may not be as important in our praying as we think. It only occurs once in this passage! 

So let’s follow that process together for a bit here this morning.  I’m going to give us some time to DO this today.  I’m going to ask you to think back over the ways you have heard, seen and personally experienced God in your life.  Some of it may be stories you heard about God’s work in your parents’ lives.  Some of it should be what God has done in your life or your family or your experience with God’s family, the church. 

      I won’t go through all the 70 assertions this prayer makes about God, but here are some areas you may want to write a brief prayer about today that dovetailed with Nehemiah’s prayer. 

  • Praise God for the amazing universe and world he made and put us in to enjoy.  (9:5-6)
  • Praise God for the life he gives to everything and the worship everything from angels to humans give him.
  • God chose us and, in many cases, generations of our family before us. 
  • He made an unbreakable covenant with us.
  • He bought and brought us out of our past.
  • He saw our suffering.
  • He heard our cry.
  • He kept his promises. 
  • God led us in different ways.
  • God spoke to us and revealed himself to us.
  • God gave us his commands.
  • God provided for our basic needs of food, shelter and water.
  • God performed miracles.
  • God gave us his Spirit.
  • God never left or abandoned us.
  • God delivered us from our enemies.
  • God brought us to a place of abundance and promise.
  • God warned us of danger and sin.
  • God disciplined us through authorities he placed over us. 

So let’s DO something with this today.  Take a few minutes to stop and think back over your life.  Let’s ask God to remind us this morning of the many and varied ways he has blessed us, been with us, directed us, taken care of us and spoken to us.  Let’s write out some “YOU” statements like these people did.   What could we speak to God that would affirm WHO he is and WHAT he does and, more specifically, has done in, around and for us?  Take your cue from this prayer.  Tell God what you remember he has already done for you. 

[5 minutes of praying and writing with background music.]

NOW, let’s speak those blessed realities to God in one or two line prayers that affirm WHO God is and WHAT he has been and done for us. 

[Several minutes of public prayer.]

The next part of their prayer had to do with recognizing where they and their forefathers had failed God.  They couldn’t build a better future until they got rid of what was wrong in their past.  Reading the word during all the festivals on that first month of the year had allowed God to speak to their hearts very directly. 

APP:  That’s probably why we sometimes stop reading the Word—it’s convicting. 

Look at what God convicted them specifically about in chapter 9.

Here are some of the 22 failures this prayer listed from the history of the Israelites.

  • “They…became arrogant and stiff-necked….” (9:16)
  • “They did not obey your commands.”
  • “They refused to listen and failed to remember the miracles you performed among them.”  (9:17)
  • “They became stiff-necked and in their rebellion appointed a leader in order to return to their slavery.”
  • “They were disobedient and rebelled against you….” (9:26)
  •  “They killed your prophets, who had warned them in order to turn them back to you….”
  • “They committed awful blasphemies.”
  • “They turned their backs on your law…and became stiffnecked and refused to listen.” (9:29)
  • They paid no attention to the warnings God sent by his prophets (9:30).
  • “We have acted wickedly.”  (9:33)
  • “Our kings, our leaders, our priests and our ancestors did not follow your law…[or] pay attention to your commands or the statutes you warned them to keep.”  (9:34)

Generally speaking, they got specific about their past failures so they would clearly know what needed to change in the present and future.  These were things that most of the nation had been involved in or negligent about. 

      For this morning, what would it be like if we were to confess the sins of God’s people today…the church in America…the church in our city…our own church, Mosaic, specifically? 

Take about 3 minutes to ask God to point out 1 or 2 things we as God’s people today have sinned in.  What have we failed to do that God has called us to do?  What have we done that we shouldn’t have done?  What do we need to stop doing? 

[Write out whatever God brings to mind in “We…” statements.  Quiet background music.]

Have a time of corporate confession in prayer. 

The remaining part of this prayer in Nehemiah mentions various

COMMITMENTS they are now making as a result of what God has reminded them in His Word they must do.  The Israelites promised…

  • Not to intermarry with the pagan nations
  • Not to do business on the Sabbath
  • To embrace their responsibility for upkeep, maintenance of the Temple and its workers.
  • They promised to donate specific amounts of their income, the first part and specific offerings to God, i.e. they made commitments about worship.
  • They determined to make the House of God a priority.

They got specific about certain obedience issues that needed changing in their lives.  They committed to STOP certain practices, behavior and activities.  And they committed to START and REGULARLY ENGAGE IN other things God wanted them to make a constant part of their life as His children. 

Has God been speaking to you about either of those two things?

  • Is there something he has asked you to STOP doing?  Some activity?  Some behavior?  Some habit?  Some business practice?  Some way of speaking or acting?  How about making a commitment today to do whatever it will take to STOP what God has put his finger on?  It will have to be with His help, grace and power.  But he won’t do it until you give him permission and make a decision that, by His grace, things are going to change.
  • Is there something you’ve been neglecting that God wants you to START or ENGAGE IN REGULARLY?  One of the spiritual practices we’ve talked about in the last few weeks—serving in His kingdom/church somehow?  Giving God the first and best of what he gives you?  Reading or studying His word regularly?  Praying with other people regularly?  Being in a regular, close relationship with some other Christians where confession is practiced and loving fellowship is experienced regularly? 

We’re not going to speak these commitments out.  But I would like you to WRITE one out IF God impresses something upon your heart or mind right now.  Maybe you want to write it out in duplicate, putting one copy in your Bible where you will see it often and putting the other in the offering as a tangible way of saying, “I’m making this commitment to God in a public sort of way.”

[Take 2 minutes to let people write a commitment out.]