Built on Prayer

I think we often get frustrated when God doesn't answer our prayers. We often pray for sicknesses. And those are great things to pray for. God does miracles. God heals people. God does incredible things. And that shouldn't dissuade us from praying those prayers. But we do know throughout scripture that God's will is for all to come to a knowledge of him when they hear the name of Jesus Christ. He wants none to perish, but all come to a saving knowledge of him. So, we should pray prayers and we should have action of reaching those with the gospel who are far from God. Too often, I think we're praying for our laundry list of ways our life is a wreck instead of praying for the laundry list of people in our lives who need to know Jesus Christ. But hey, if you have a Bible or you want to grab the Bible in front of you or pull out your phone, we are going to be in the book of Nehemiah. And if you're like, I have no idea where Nehemiah is, it's in the Old Testament and it's in the front more front part of your Bible. So, it's about a third of the way through after 1 and 2 Chronicles, Ezra, and you get right to Nehemiah. If you've hit Psalms, you've gone too far. Just go back to the left. Um, but we're excited as we dive into this book. We are in week two of this series. And as I was prepping for this and kind of studying through each week, um, after I would come and be here at church and, uh, study God's word, writing my sermon, then I'd be driving home after all the staffing and stuff. And I live at 175th in Joeax. So I'm taking 171st down to Dynamite Boulevard and and on Monday I saw this as I'm driving there. There's this big ugly leather chair that was all torn up on the side of the road. Drove about a half mile more and then there was the cushion to that chair and I was like, "Well, that's weird." So then I went home and then I went back to church and went through my week and then Tuesday came and I saw that ugly chair again and I'm like, you know, this is annoying. All right, this is two days in a row. Someone's got to do something about that chair. And I drove on. And then Wednesday came and I saw that stupid chair again. And I'm like, this is becoming a problem. And then I was like, somebody needs to clean this up. And you're like, you're somebody. Hey, I got an SUV and a minivan. It is not fitting in that car. All right. I got no truck. Um I got don't don't want to take it to the dump. I don't got I had all the excuses why I could not be in person. Next day, next day, next day, it was still there. It's not anymore. Don't worry. Um, you're like, I'll come pick up your chair. It's not a good chair. You do not want it in your house. All right. But here's what's so funny about that. As we're diving into the book of Nehemiah, and as we kind of unpack this in the first week, Nehemiah is a book where God uses this great leader who is in a far away land in exile to come back to God's place to Jerusalem to rebuild these walls. And last week we saw as he got the burden for this, as he got this vision that it just broke his heart, that something needed to be done about this. But here's my favorite part about this story is those walls had been down 150 years before Nehemiah heard about it. For 150 years, people were walking by and be like, "Someone should do something about those walls." And then as things went on, some people tried and they failed. and other people's looked at be like those walls are really a problem but either they're too scared, too unequipped. All the excuses ran through their head is why we cannot do something. They just left those walls in ruins. But today we're going to see as Nehemiah gets this news as it breaks his heart as we left off last week where he starts to pray and to fast. What I love is we are going to get a sneak peek into his response. And his response is first you pray to God and to seek him. And this is the foundational truth that we're going to see throughout this passage in chapter 1. We're going to be starting at verse 5 is that prayer shapes us before it sends us. You see, often I think we pray for God to do things. We pray God like, "I need this to happen. I need that to happen. God, it'd be really great if all of a sudden you fixed my life in this area." And we want God to do stuff for us rather to do stuff in us. And through the book of Nehemiah, we're going to see that stuff doesn't just happen overnight. I love in the first verse that all this sets up when Nehemiah gets the news. It says it's during the month of Chisv, which you guys all know when Chisv is, right? Like on the Jewish calendar. Um, but that's in a November, December time frame. But what I love is in chapter 2:1 when Nehemiah starts to take action. It's during the month of Nissan, which is March or April. So for 4 months, there is this burden brewing inside Nehemiah's life. For 4 months, he is fasting and praying before the God of the universe to do something in his life. And we get a sneak peek into his prayer journal this morning that's going to show us how God uses prayers to shape us. And that when we pray certain prayers that all of a sudden God starts to move and mold. And we see this in Nehemiah 1 starting in verse 5. He writes this. I said, "Lord, the God of the heavens, the great and all inspiring God who keeps his gracious covenant with those who love him and keep his commands. God, let your eyes be open and your ears be attentive to hear your servants prayer that I now pray to you day and night for your servants, the Israelites. I confess the sins that we have committed against you. Both I and my father's family have sinned. We have acted corruptly towards you and have not kept the commands, statues, and ordinance you gave your servant Moses. Please remember what you commanded your servant Moses, that if you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples. But verse 9, if you return to me and you carefully obey my observe my commands, even though your exiles were banished to the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there and I will bring them to the place where I chose to have my name dwell. They are your servants and your people. You redeemed them by your great power and your strong hand. Please Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant and to that of your servants who delight to rever your name. Give your success your servant success today and grant him compassion in the presence of this man. At the time I was the king's cup bearer. Dear God, we thank you this morning. We thank you, Lord, that as we get to read the prayer of a righteous man in Nehemiah, God, we see how this prayer gives us a model to follow, how you move in our hearts. And Lord, as God, we dive into your word, it just open our hearts, God, that you challenge us, that you move us not to be comfortable, not to stay still, but that we be pushed forward to do what you have called us to do. God, we thank you for this time, Lord. We thank you that you are moving in this place and we lift all this up in Jesus' name. Amen. I don't know about you, but I have some kids that every now and then they get impatient. Are your kids impatient? I'm impatient. My kids are real impatient. All right. Um on Friday, I was like, "All right, it's nice outside during the summer. We had a water bounce house, so we put that away. It smells a lot like bleach um in my shed right now." And then I'm like, "All right, we'll get out." and we bought a different bounce house from Sam's Club on sale. It was great. And they're like, "Now's the time where we take that out." So, I'm setting that up in our backyard and they're like, "Are you finished yet?" I'm like, "Bro, you want to help?" I'm like, "I feel like I'm carrying a leather chair across the yard right now." And they're like, "How is this not done yet?" And they're like pestering me and pestering me. And sometimes I feel like our prayers with God be like, "God, are you done yet?" I like prayed about that. Like, have you worked that yet? Have you answered that yet? Have you got to my request yet? Like, where am I at in the queue in all this? And when we come to this passage, here's what I love is Nehemiah starts this and really this whole prayer is not about what God is doing then, but is God how he starts to shape the life of Nehemiah. How in these four months as Nehemiah prays these prayers, he gives us a pattern of a prayer to pray through and how it starts to change us, how it starts to mold us and how it moves us to his will. And I think the first thing that we see is God shapes us when we pray prayers of reverence. Check out that verse 5 again when he starts this. He he starts with worshiping God in praising God. He does it in a few different ways. First he calls him Lord the God of heavens. I love this because Nehemiah was serving Artic Xerxes the emperor of Persia. in Artic Xerxes. His dad was Xerxes, which we also see in the story of Esther, who also made a guest appearance in the movie 300, if you've ever seen that. All right. And and this was a guy who literally thought he was a god on earth. And that was his dad. And Artex Xerxes was cut from the same cloth. He he had one of the massive most massive empires of that day, one of the most massive empires in history. And Artex Xerxes would have seen himself as a god on earth. But when Nehemiah prays, he's like, "I'm not praying to Artic Xerxes. I'm praying to the God of the heavens. You're a little bigger than that little guy on earth." And he keeps going. He says, "You are the awe inspiring God." This awe inspiring would translate to God that we are fearful of. Too often, I think we trounce into our prayers and be like, "Hey God, bro, what's up? I got some stuff to say." Right? And we talk about it like God is a relational God. In the Old Testament, he's called Yahweh. He is the He is the God of the Jew, but he is also Elohim, the God over everything. We just sang a song that there's no limit to his throne. That he is all. He is the God of creation, of everything. That the universe wouldn't exist without God. The universe would cease to exist without God. And the universe will exist for all of eternity because of God. And as he says, he's like, "You are awe inspiring that if we often our prayers can be so casual with God, but if we were at the throne of God, we would either burn up because of our sins or we would fall on our face in reverence to him." And Nehemiah, as he's starting this, he's acknowledging, he's worshiping, he's seeing how great his God is. And I love this. He also says, "You are the one who keeps your gracious covenant, who love him and keep his commands." He says, "God, you are not just this huge God who is all inspiring, this huge God who's the God of heaven, but you also keep your promises with us." You see, as Nehemiah starts this prayer, he's less concerned on about what he's asking for and more concerned about who he's talking to. This past week, I did a fun exercise with our staff as I like to change things up and our surprise staff here um on this on our this campus. I was like, "We're going to do something fun is instead of like uh we're doing some different things for Christmas and it's a busy season." So, I'm like, "We're going to do a staff's giving is what I called it." All right. Pretty clever, right? And I made them take this survey online that said all this information about them, what they like, what they dislike, how they like to be recognized, and all this stuff. And they all complained about taking and said it was the dumbest survey they've ever filled out. And then I gave them their directions. I had AI assign them all a person. And I said, "You're going to get a gift based on who you were assigned and you're going to write them a note and then you're going to read them out loud at our staff's giving to the person." They had a lot of comments for it. Some that I can't repeat. All right. Um they're like, "This is ridiculous." The guys were complaining most like, "Dude, this is so girly. Like, I don't think I'm going to do it." And then we actually did it and they were the most emotional and like ridiculous ones. I'm like, "Do I need to get you a room right now? Like, uh, this is getting uncomfortable." Um, but it it was awesome and it went really well. They doubted me, but it was fun. I did a handwritten note for them. Didn't read it out loud cuz that's what leaders get to do sometimes is not do what everyone else is doing. And I was like, you can read that on your own time. U but my hand hurts cuz I write like a toddler. Uh and it was handwritten. But all of it was so cool cuz this is what I loved is we got to take some time and appreciate one another for who we are, not for what we produce. And often I think our prayers are more focused on what God produces in our lives than who God is. And Nehemiah starts this starts this with this air of reverence saying, "God, I'm going to worship you. God, I want to focus on who you are, not just what you can do for me." We're going to see in a second all that God can do for him beyond anything else. But first, we need to start with this idea of prayer should bring us to worship of who God is. And I love it because he prays these prays this prayer of reverence that starts to shape him, but also it continues on and we see these prayers of response in verse 6 and 7. Uh he tells God, he says, "Let your eyes and ears be open." And I love this is he says halfway down in verse 6, he says, "I confess the sins we have committed against you, both I and my father's family." Here's the funny thing about this is Nehemiah grew up lived his entire life in Persia. Nehemiah wasn't alive when the walls were first torn down. He wasn't alive when his ancestors they made the sins to have the punishment and judgment of God is he is confessing things that he had no part of. But Nehemiah also knew that he had private sins that he had to confess. Nehemiah also took as leaders do and there are some great leadership lessons in here that we don't have even time to scratch the surface of but he took responsibility corporately for where things were going and said God not only have I sinned but your people have sinned. He said God we apologize for it God we confess it and we don't confess things so that God all of a sudden has knowledge of them. God knows our sins already. We confess them because we release the power of it. We confess them because it aligns our heart to get back with where God has for us and back on track to what he wants to do. And I just love this because Nehemiah had every intention to be like, "God, look at what what those people did before. God, look how messed up they were. Look at all the problems they started. God, we have broken walls because the people that came before me were idiots." That's what he probably wanted to say in the heart of his hearts, but instead he's like, "God, I confess that I've messed up. that we've messed up and we're looking on how we can move forward. Think of how counterculture this is today is I believe we don't often take responsibility for our own actions much less the actions of the people around us. Instead, we are experts and we see this on social media of finding out how other people are wrong, pointing out how they're wrong, telling them how they're wrong, and beating them down with how wrong they are until they feel bad about it. Just go read Twitter. That is all it is. Right? And it's like in our world we are great at seeing others people's flaws at seeing where they need to confess where they are sinners where they are broken where they are hurt. And our world does this more than anyone but it's a totally different counterculture mindset to confess the ways that not only we have failed but that as we have failed as a greater people. We think about this in the church and Pastor Jackie did a great job last week of setting up the urgency of today of not only did Nehemiah have an obstacle. He had to do great things for God's kingdom. But we have opportunities to do great things because we have failed in so many areas. The church in America, we could go and list all the ways we are failing, why churches are closing, why there are things falling short, and we get to take responsibility of that. So we can say how can we make Jesus known to a greater degree. You see Nehemiah in this prayer is going on a journey. He starts with this reverence saying God I am worshiping you God you are so great. It moves to this response where he starts to confess the ways that he has messed up. But then he continues this down with moving to some request. In verse 8 he says remember what you commanded your servant Moses. He says if you are unfaithful I will scatter you among the people. But then he also says, "But if we return, God, you said you would bring us back together. If we start following you again, all of a sudden there's going to be this restoration." Here's what's funny is Nehemiah in the section, he starts quoting God back to Godself. Like quote, he used Deuteronomy to say like, "God, you said this." Have you ever had that moment with your kids where like, "You said fill in the blank, right?" And usually they're little jerks when they say it. Like you said, if I did this, I get some candy. Anyone still have like vats of Halloween candy? I am trying to get rid of it. Um, we're like throwing away bucket loads when they go to sleep, but somehow it's coming back. It's like the the oil that keeps refilling in the Old Testament. Like I'm like, I thought this candy was gone. We can't get rid of it all. But your kids, they'll they'll remember your words like, "You said this." And and sometimes they say that to try to get you moment, but there's also that occurrence of like, oh, they know what I actually said. They're actually listening to me. That's encouraging depending on what they're listening to that you say, right? In Nehemiah, when he's saying this to God, he's like, "God, I know your word. God, I know what you've said. God, in Deuteronomy, you said that we failed away, we would be thrown into exile." And he saw it happen throughout history. We said, "But God, you also said if we turn the ship back, if we come back to obeying you, to being obedient to you, God, you said you would be faithful in your promises." is and he's saying these words back to God because he knows God is faithful to answer what God's will is. You see, I think we often get frustrated when God doesn't answer our prayers, but we don't don't always pray prayers we know that God is actually going to answer. We often pray for sicknesses, and those are great things to pray for. We should pray. God does miracles. God heals people. God does incredible things. And and that shouldn't dissuade us from praying those prayers. But we don't know if it's God's will to heal someone. We don't know if it's God's will to open that door for a job. We don't know if it's God's will to restore something in your life. We don't know what God's will is in specific situations. But we do know throughout scripture that God's will is for all to come to a knowledge of him when they hear the name of Jesus Christ. He wants none to perish, but all come to a saving knowledge of him. So, we should pray prayers and we should have action of reaching those with the gospel who are far from God. We know that's a prayer that God wants us that God wants to answer. And too often, I think we're praying for our laundry list of ways our life is a wreck instead of praying for the laundry list of people in our lives who need to know Jesus Christ. And Nehemiah here, he's saying, "God, remember what you said. God, I know your word. God, I I've been preparing and I've been praying this." And here's what I love is this is just building after four months of praying. He He's praising God in this reverence. He's confessing in this response. He's requesting based on what the scripture says. And it moves to this final appeal, this prayer of readiness. In verse 10 and and verse 11, he he says here, he says, "God, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant." And and look at this line. He says, "Give your servant success today." After four months of prayer, Nehemiah is ready. He has been shaped. He has been prepared. And now he's asking God to open the door. And he says, "Give him success today." He says this, "Grant compassion in the presence of this man." This man he's referring to in this is the man of Arges, the most powerful man in the world at this time. He's like, "Give me compassion as I have a conversation with this guy that I don't even know what it's going to look like, but please, Lord, move in that situation." And here's what's so huge about this. Nehemiah has been praying for months, but he hasn't acted yet because the moment wasn't right. But now, he says, "Today, Lord," he feels this movement. He says, "Give me success." And he says, "Success not for his own glory, but for God's purposes." He's asking God to prosper about what he's about to do, but he's ultimately it's about God's kingdom, not Nehemiah's comfort. Often I think that sometimes we get frustrated when we feel like our prayers are not answered, when doors are not opened up, when God doesn't put his hand on things. But if we're being honest, it's because we're not ready for it. That God's not we're like, "God, I want this job. God, I want to move to that place." you're all moving here to Phoenix, so you don't want to move anywhere else, right? You've all left your places to come move here. Um, is how that works. It's like, God, I I want you to open the door to go here or go there or do this or move in this way in my life. And sometimes the answer is not no, but the answer is wait until you're ready. And Nehemiah needed that time to prune him, that preparation to move him. And here's what I love about all this in verses 5- 11 is Nehemiah is giving us a pattern of prayer. And we see this pattern throughout scripture, actually in the New Testament when Jesus gives the Lord's prayer. He says pray like this. He doesn't say pray this exact prayer. And some people do pray that exact prayer. And I I I think that's overly simplistic. But he's praying in this manner. And Jesus kind of moves through these same movements of this worship, of this confession, of this making our requests known to God and then asking to be ready for whatever God is going to bring next. And here's what I love is tonight, we we mentioned it is tonight we're doing our prayer summit at 5:00. I know the Cardinal Seahawks game will still be going on by that point, but uh we got some guys out. It's probably going to be over by that point. Let's be honest. All right. I'm a diehard Cardinals fan. I'm going to turn it off at that point. But at 5:00, we're going to gather and we're going to pray through Nehemiah. And we're going to go through 5 through 11. We're going to pray in reverence and response and request and readiness that God moves not only in our personal lives, but God moves in our communities and that he shapes us to do something great. And I love that all of this is building in this passage that Nehemiah when he hears the walls are torn down, he doesn't say like, "All right, let me get my tools. I'm going to go rebuild them." Instead, for four months, he falls on his face. For four months he falls to his knees and he starts praying to the God of the universe, the God of the heavens to move. And as he does that, as God shapes Nehemiah, here's how God starts to answer his prayers. In chapter 2, it says during the month of Nissan, in the 20th year of King Arges, you see this is that four months it span because it starts in 1:1. during the month of Chisv in the 20th year. This is how it's dated here. But it says when wine was set before him being king articles he says I took it I took the wine and I gave it to the king and I had never been sad in his presence. Nehemiah was the cupbearer to the king. This is a big deal. And in verse two he says so the king said to me why do you look so sad when you aren't even sick? This is nothing but sadness of the heart. He says he was never sad in the presence of the king. Cuz if you were sad in the presence of the king, the king might ask that your sad face be removed from your head. It was a big deal at that time. This was a powerful man and not always the nicest man. And so as he's saying this, he he's thinking and and look at this line at the end of verse two. He says, "I was overwhelmed with fear." Fears probably went white in that moment. Sweat dripping down his back. But he replied to the king, "May the king live forever." That's a good way to start an argument. If you needed to tell your wife some bad news, "May you live forever." Lead that with your wife before you get into the rest. He says, "Why should I not be sad when the city where my ancestors are buried lies in ruins and its gates have been destroyed by fire?" You see, God has shaped Nehemiah through these prayers for the past four months. But these shaping prayers then led to God answering those prayers. And God shapes us with these prayers that we just looked at. But God sends us by answering prayers with a few different ways. First, he answers them with openings. I love this that as Nehemiah's praying, he doesn't notice right off the bat that something's wrong. But as this burden gets deeper and deeper and deeper and as these prayers get more intense, as Nehemiah becomes more ready, all of a sudden, God creates this opening. And this is why it's such a big deal because Nehemiah, he could have lost his job or lost his life. And this was a great job. Being the king's cup bearer, you were high up. You got to be in the king's ear at times. You It was a position people sought after. You had a 401k, a pension, you had a corner office, right? You had unlimited PTO, which you know unlimited PTO is a scam, right? In case you didn't know, um it it they scientific or scientifically they've proven through studies that if you have unlimited PTO, you take less PTO than if you have set PTO. I was in HR before. It's a brilliant thing. Just give everyone unlimited, they'll never take it. Um and he he had this great job, right? He had everything you could ever want. And then the most powerful man in the world asked him a question that he needs to give an answer to. And despite all that privilege, Nehemiah, he just couldn't hide it anymore. He couldn't hide the burden. He couldn't hide the grief that God had placed so heavy on his heart. And when the king noticed, here's something about God's timing is sometimes God doesn't open doors when we want him to. Sometimes he makes us wait. But when he does open doors, he does it in a way that we could never orchestrate ourselves. You see, Nehemiah couldn't just show up to Artic Xerxes and be like, "Hey, man. Can I have a minute? Can we just talk over the side? Like, I got this project on my mind." Like, he could have been killed for that. He couldn't have just like said like, "I want to put myself on your calendar. Can I call your secretary and see how it's going to go?" Like, there was no way that Nehemiah could have forced this without huge consequences potentially. But God opens this door. And as he opens it, Nehemiah says he was overwhelmed with fear. I love this. After 4 months of prayer, after being shaped, be being in God's presence, even claiming God's promises, when the moment came, Nehemiah was still afraid. Prayer does not eliminate fear, but it does give us the courage to act despite our fear. Because look at what Nehemiah does. Even though he's terrified, he starts telling the truth. He says, "This is why I am so burdened. This is why my life is so hard." In that honesty, then continues in verse four. It says, "Then the king asked me." He says, "What is your request?" So I prayed to the God of the heavens. I I love this. He says, "What was your crest?" And then I don't know if he just went silent for a second, but he just prays to God in that moment. In verse 5, and answered the king, if it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor with me, with you, send me to Judah and to the city where my ancestors are buried, so that I may rebuild it. You see, as Nehemiah has getting this opening that God has answered his prayers that have shaped him for so long and created this opening in his life, it also, you see, God uh moves and he answers prayers with opportunities as the story starts to unfold. I I love how King Art Xerxes is like, "Tell me what you want." And in that moment, he probably froze. He's like, "Am I really going to do this?" And and he prays like, "I'm wondering how that conversation happened. Was it just like a long silence? Did he act like, "Dude, are you still there?" Like, "Did you have to shake him?" Like, was it just a quick prayer he threw up? Like, it makes me think of I'm I'm on the phone a lot, but I don't Does anyone hold a phone anymore? I don't know. It's like CarPlay or AirPods. I'm an AirPod guy. Okay. So, I walk around with an AirPod and it's always awkward at the store when you see someone and they're trying to talk to you and I'm like, I can't talk to you right now. I got an AirPod anyway. Um, but I'll drive with an AirPod in and my kids like I'm on the phone. I'll get my kids from school and I'm already have the conversation and they're loud in the car cuz that's what they do. So, I'm like muting it in between when I'm talking. So, it's like muted and I'm like, "Stop talking. Unmute it." Yeah, man. That sounds great. Like, I would love to get together, mute again. I said stop talking. And then they're like hearing something like, "Is there someone in the background?" I'm like, "Don't worry about it. That's just a dog that drove by or something like that." Um, but I'm like muting and unmuting and there's these awkward silences. Like, I'll mute for a really long time. They're like, "You still there?" I'm like, "Yeah, sorry. I just had to tranquilize a child in the back. Um, and here our Xerxes looking at him. He's like, and he he sends up this quick prayer. And what's crazy is after 4 months of him being poured into, of God shaping him, of God moving him in the moment, he was still so scared to death that he still gave another prayer. And then he goes into it. And what I love is as he has this this kind of uh opportunity, he just lays it down there. He's like, "If it pleases the king and your servant has found favor with me," he's like, "Send me to Judah." All of a sudden, he's like, he asks for it. He doesn't sugarcoat it. He doesn't pull back. He says, "This is what I want to do." And I love cuz we see in this moment, this is what happens when prayer does shape us. When all of a sudden we move to being burdened by something to actually take an action. When we move from having grief about something to going on mission to actually fix it. When we move from somebody should do something about that that chair on the side of the road to actually doing something about it and being that person. You see, this opportunity was created because Nehemiah was ready and not just ready with a plan, but ready with confidence that God was going to work through him. But opportunities aren't just enough. We also see that God continues to move in the last part of this and we're going to go 6 through 8 and that's going to end our time in our passage today. And he says this, the king with the queen seated beside him. It was such a weird detail. I wonder if the king gave a glance over to his wife and be like, is this guy an idiot right now? And if she like gave him a signal or something. But it says with the queen seated beside him, she asked or he asked me, "How long will your journey take? And when will you return?" Here's the deal. Persia to Jerusalem was 900 miles before trains, before cars. This would be months of a journey. He's not like, "Hey, can I take the weekend and do a project at my house?" He's like, "Can I take the next 6 months off and would that be cool?" And he tells him, he's like, "Hey, it's it's a far away." He's like, "If it pleases the king," he's like, "Do this." He He continues on. He's like, "How long will your journey?" He's like, "So I gave him a definitive time." He said, "It's going to be a long time." And it pleased the king to send me. But then he doesn't stop. He's like, "While I have your attention," verse 7, I also said to the king, "Hey, if it pleases the king, let me have letters written to the governors of the region west of the Euphrates River so that we will grant me safe passage until I reach Judah." He's like, "By the way, so not only do I need to be gone 6 months, but there's a good chance I'm going to get killed in that 6 months as I'm traveling back and forth. So, can you write me letters and can I have like a royal, you know, carousel going down and can you make sure nobody kills me along the way? And I'll have a letter from you saying I'm sent by Ard Xerxes and he's like, "Sure." But then he keeps going in verse 8. And let me have a letter written to Asaf, keeper of the king's forest, so that he will give me timber to rebuild the gates of the temple fortress, the city wall, and the home where I live. He's like, by the way, I also failed to mention to you, I have no money to pay for this project. Can you pay for it as well? And listen to what it says. The king granted my requests for the gracious hand of my God was on me. God answers our prayers with openings, with opportunities, but also with obligations that this was going to happen, that there was no way that Nehemiah was not going to do this. He was obligated with his life. He was prepped for this. He was shaped for this. He was chosen for this to do this work. And God made sure that there was going to be no barrier to it. When the king asked him a question, so many would have shied back and be like, "I don't know if I can ask that much. I don't know if I can take that much of your time. I don't know if I can take your time, your money, your resources, and everything." But Nehemiah's like, "No, I'm going to ask a pagan king to do all of it to rebuild for God's glory." And here's the thing, I love this is this didn't happen in a vacuum. Nehemiah spent the past four months praying but planning because when he was hit in in the section here, right, he doesn't say this just off the top of his head like, "Oh, this would be a good idea." Instead, he spent the last four months planning the details of what this would look like, but also praying that God would provide the means. I think too often, I see this all the time is we are one of the others. We either pray but we don't plan and hope God just magically fixes our lives or we plan and we try to fix our own lives but we don't pray pray that God has his hand in it. Nehemiah shows us the balance of both these of what does it mean to pray and to plan for God's glory and what it provided through the king was letters to the governor for safe passage timber from the royal forest for the rebuilding project. Everything needed Nehemiah needed to accomplish his mission. But he ends it in verse 8 that the reason all of this happened, the reason the king granted his request was because the gracious hand of my God was on me. This brings us back to this foundational truth that is just seeped throughout this passage is that when we go to God in prayer, that prayer ultimately we don't do it just to get what we want. We don't get to do it just so God magically fixes our life. Instead, prayer shapes us before it sends us. That Nehemiah had this vision that God, he had this burden in his heart that God, something needs to be done about this. That God, this is not okay. That he had driven past the people around in life that they've been driven past this wall for years and years and years. And when he heard about it, he's like, "Someone's got to do something about it." But he didn't just jump right into action like we often do. We see a problem and we want to fix it right away. Or we see a problem and we just want to complain about it for perpetuity. Those are our two biggest ways we run to. But instead, Nehemiah sought God. And he said, "What would it look like if I just sought your face and you started to mold me down the path you want to go? That I'm going to work for the Lord, but I'm also going to depend on God. That you are going to provide the things that I cannot provide. you are going to move in the ways that I cannot move. And ultimately Nehemiah trusted that God would provide that his gracious hand was on him. The gracious hand of the God of the universe, the gracious hand that when we pray today, we know that we can accomplish things because we don't have to do the heavy lifting. Too often we're held back by things like our sin. We're held back by our ability. were held back by all that stuff. But Jesus already paid the price for all that on the cross. By his death on the cross and the resurrection, we have the power. We have the God who provides every opportunity, who makes every opening, who gives us an obligation to share our faith. He has paved the path, but are we willing to go down it? Many people in our church know the name of a great man named Mark Clayton. Mark has been a stalwart of our church for as I was asking in first service. I've been here 10 years and I think Mark was here before me. I got to see him a little bit before I went to our started our Phoenix church. But Mark has been here through so many times in the last few years. Mark has gone through some hard things in his life. Last year his wife Linda was in a tragic accident and was killed. We had our service here and and in a moment like that, you have a lot of choices you can make. Do you blame God? Do you run from God? Do you get mad at God? Or do you fall deeper in love with him? Mark continued to fall deeper in love with God to seek him, to pray to him, to ask him, to shape him, and mold him. It wasn't too long after that then Mark found out he had cancer. And as Mark had cancer and as our church prayed that he be healed that we prayed the request that we didn't know if it was the will of God to answer that over this past year we've watched Mark walk through this journey that as this deadly disease ate his body and eventually just about a week and a half ago that he went home to be with his father. through all that, we prayed prayers and and it didn't seem like God answered them in the way we wanted him to. But we did get to see how God answered prayers in Mark's life. Because after losing a spouse, after going through a horrible sickness that we can't imagine, here's what I can tell about Mark is he became sweeter. He became more loving. He became more faithful. He started sharing his faith even more boldly than he did before. And it was amazing to see a man who had every reason to be mad at God, every reason to pray prayers and be frustrated, that didn't answer the way he wanted, that he just gave God the glory every step of the way. How is God moving in your life? Maybe you're not praying prayers to rebuild walls, but maybe you're praying prayers to rebuild relationships, to change your situation with your career, praying prayers to restore things with your children, to edify your marriage, whatever it is. Are you praying prayers and acting like God's a cosmic vending machine just spitting out the results? Are you praying prayers that shape you, that are less concerned on what you get from God and more concerned what God can do in you? My prayer as we leave this place, as we come back at 5:00 and get to pray for ourselves, for our church, and for our community, as we continue to pray as a church in Sundays, on Wednesday mornings, throughout in our personal lives, that we pray prayers that shape us to the will of God and send us out to be on mission for him, to be on fire for him, and watch how he does a wonderful ful work in the life of our church.