Title of tonight's message is Prayer and Revival, Prayer and
Revival Nehemiah Chapter 9. I'm sure that the following
experience is something that we've all encountered.
If you've been in a prayer meeting or a group of a few
people and someone just keeps going.
Put it that way. There's a famous story about the
great evangelist DL Moody. And one Sunday he had asked a
particular man to pray during the service, and the man started
strong. But he began to drone on and on,
and after about 10 minutes, DL Moody couldn't take it anymore.
He stood up and interrupted and said, While our dear brother is
finishing his prayer, let's turn to him #342 and sing it
together. And the congregation, somewhat
stunned, did so. They sang.
And in the end, the interruption grabbed the attention of a bored
young medical student who was in the crowd at the time.
And he stayed. His curiosity peaked and he
heard the gospel and he he got saved during that service as DL
Moody was preaching and and declaring the good news of Jesus
Christ. And this individual went on to
become a legendary missionary, Dr a guy by the name of Wilfred
Grenfell. Now, why do I start with that?
Well, Nehemiah Chapter 9 as we're into it.
It contains the longest prayer in the Old Testament outside of
the Book of the Psalms. So Psalms have many, many
lengthy prayers in them. But here, Nehemiah Chapter 9 is
a wonderful prayer. It's not a rambling monologue as
we read it. It's a powerful corporate
confession as the people of Israel have gathered here in the
city of Jerusalem, as God is doing a work in the hearts and
lives of the people. And as we'll see, the the prayer
clocks in at just a little over 30 verses, just a little bit
more than 30 verses. But the length is not the point.
It's the depth of the prayer. And the prayer tonight for us
will be a blueprint as we look in our lives to be able to
approach God in prayer. That's that's something that God
has given to us as a capacity to commune, connect with him.
And then it also functions as a means to look for repentance and
revival in our lives as followers of God.
So again, after rebuilding Jerusalem's walls as we've been
studying through the book of Nehemiah and it was a record
time. The people gather not for a
victory parade, but there's a work that's been going on
through the course of this month.
It's it's almost been like a a lengthy church service.
We could say it where, where they have returned to the word
and they've been studying it and God has been revealing things to
them through that that has caused their hearts now to turn
in repentance and revival is sparking amongst God's people.
They've been celebrating the festival or or the feast of of
Booths or of Tabernacles, camping out and rejoicing and
remembering God's provision through the Exodus experience.
But now we see in Nehemiah Chapter 9, they gather on the
24th day of the month and they're fasting where they've
been feasting before, Now they're fasting and where
they've been wearing normal clothing.
They, they gathered in what's called sackcloth and ashes, dust
upon their heads as a sign of repentance unto God, indicating
what's happening in their hearts.
And it's not an individual thing that's going on here, but it's
a, a corporate thing that's happening across many, many
thousands of people. And as we read the prayer, we'll
see that they see themselves as part of, of a bigger story of,
of family and, and history of the people and a nation shaped
by generations of abandoning God and of God's faithfulness to
them and returning to God and, and on and on of, of
faithfulness and failure, faithfulness and failure
backwards and forwards. And we're going to get into it.
But before we do, I just want to touch back a little bit on last
week's sermon in Nehemiah Aid. And I mentioned some feasts.
I want to try and provide a little clarity to our
understanding on that because I think it's significant.
They're in this, the 7th month. It's the month of Tishrei.
And to be precise of what's been happening through this Leviticus
chapter 23 provides a helpful outline of of what feasts
they've been celebrating and what festivals and when.
And so the month would have begun with the feast of trumpets
on the first day. We would call that in, in modern
day terminology, terminology, Rosh Hashanah, the Day of
Atonement, as we read in Leviticus 23, is to be on the
10th of the month. Is there's not an indication of
that happening in Nehemiah 8, But we can start to assume that
they're starting to return to those holy practises as they had
abandoned them and forsaken them.
And then the feast of Tabernacles was to occur from
the 15th through to the 21st of this month.
At the end of Nehemiah in chapter 8 verse 17, they partake
of the Feast of Tabernacles. And the way that the new King
James and and the ESV word is, is a little confusing somewhat
for us. But the new living translation,
the NIV make it a little more clear that it wasn't the fact
that they hadn't celebrated the feast at all in the centuries
from Joshua's time till now, but that they had not done so to the
level of accuracy and and celebration that we're seeing
take place in the hearts and lives of the people.
It hadn't been celebrated with such joy and unity until or
since the times of Joshua is is a better understanding of the
end of Nehemiah chapter 8. So overall, I hope that that
helps to indicate the context that this month now for us is,
is really a spiritual high point for the people of Israel because
they're rediscovering things in God's Word and, and they're
looking to be obedient to that. And, and it sets the stage
really for tonight's text in Nehemiah 9.
So the main idea out of Nehemiah 9 is that true prayer and
repentance aren't about quick fixes.
So if you're after a quick fix tonight, can't help you.
It's not about excuses when we pray, but it is about and what
we'll see through is, is seeing God clearly as revealed through
his word of owning our sin honestly and of turning back to
God fully. And this prayer teaches us that.
So we're going to unpack it in three points.
If you're the note taking, we'll see.
Firstly, the biblical backbone of prayer.
If you've ever wondered, you know, how do I pray?
It's a thing of struggle in my life.
May I encourage you to see in this that Scripture is such a
wonderful backbone of prayer that it provides the skeleton
that we flesh out in our prayer as we commune and talk with God.
And so I'll explain that a little bit more, what I mean by
that. Secondly, I want us to see the
Godward gaze of prayer, that who it is that we're praying to is
significant. It's important.
We need to know and understand the attributes, the
characteristics of God Almighty. And then lastly, we'll see the
repentant response of prayer. You know what happens often when
you see God for who he is, We see ourselves for who we are and
we confess and we turn to him. So let's pray and then dive in.
Lord God, we thank you again for your wonderful word tonight,
Nehemiah Chapter 9 before us. Holy Spirit, we need you, we
need your help, we need your guidance, we need your wisdom,
your understanding. We need your strength and
compass and capacity to be able to to not only understand but
apply and live out what we read tonight.
I thank you for each person here tonight.
Bless them, guide them, teach them.
We pray this in Jesus name, Amen.
So the first is the biblical backbone of prayer.
And true prayer must have a biblical backbone, a substance
to it that is rooted in scripture.
It's not just our, our feelings or our whims.
And it's OK to pray with that way.
And you know, God, quick, I, I cry out, I need your help.
And I'm feeling this and, and I, and you know, I'm frustrated or
whatever our emotions are, but Scripture needs to be at the
core of what we pray and how we pray and why we pray.
Let's look at verses 1 to 3, Nehemiah 9, reading from the new
King James. Now on the 24th day of this
month, the children of Israel were assembled with fasting in
sackcloth and with dust on their heads.
And then those of Israelite lineage separated themselves
from all foreigners, and they stood and confessed their sins
in the iniquities of their fathers.
And they stood up verse 3 in their place, and read from the
book of the law of the Lord their God for 1/4 of the day.
And for another fourth, they confessed and worshipped the
Lord their God. I'll stop there for a moment.
This is so key. As we've just read here in the
point of the biblical backbone of prayer.
They understand these people did not just show up and and vent or
verbally process what they were feeling and thinking right now.
They understand for this month and up now till the 24th day of
this month have been immersed in God's Word.
There has been a public preaching and teaching of God's
word as as Ezra has been doing that and and, and the priests
and the Levites have been helping the people to
understand. So for days leading up to what
we have just read, they've been reading the Pentateuch first
five books of the Bible. They're living out and
demonstrating for us this truth that we know out of Romans 10,
verse 17, that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word
of God that all Scripture is profitable and beneficial.
And we looked at that passage out of second Timothy 316 and
and they're, they're demonstrating the truth of that
as we're reading this. And now they're gathered in
sackcloth. We read they have dust on their
heads and and half of the day has been reading and and
worshipping 1/4 of it reading 1/4 of it responding as as God's
word has revealed certain things they cannot help but declare
praise and worship under God and a group of Levites.
We'll see in verses four and five and you can read ahead
through a number of verses. I'm not going to read all of the
verses tonight, but I'll point you to to many of them so you
can look ahead at verse four and five.
A collective of Levites gather and it's it's the prayer that
they're possibly had had written down.
We're not 100% sure and may be that they took turns in reading
out parts or, or some commentators even suggest that
there's like a call and response component that a group read out
one bit and another responded and read out another of the
prayer that we're seeing here in Nehemiah Chapter 9.
But in this prayer, it's not improvised.
It's not made up on the spot because it's saturated with
biblical history. What we'll see is that it points
out Scripture after Scripture after Scripture.
We see it covers from creation in verse 6 to Abraham's call in
verse 7. You can be jumping ahead as I'm
saying this to the Exodus miracles that God performed in
verses 9 through to 15 of their wilderness wanderings in verses
16 through to 21. And there's cycles of following
the Lord and rebelling against the Lord that we see again and
again throughout the book of Judges and through first, second
Kings, First and Second Chronicles.
It's like a mosaic of scripture, this prayer quoting and echoing
God's revelations as he has provided in his Word.
But why does this matter? Why is why is this the first
point? Why have I not read on further?
Why is it important that our prayers be saturated with
Scripture? Because in Scripture, what we
see is that scriptured prayer is God initiating conversation with
us. So when when we're reading the
Bible, when we're reading Scripture, it's God starting the
conversation. Prayer is US responding to God's
initiation. Does that make sense?
So God speaks through his word. You know, many people will say,
I want to hear God. I want to hear his voice.
I want to know what, what it, what it is that he has for me.
God does so through his word. Hebrews starts with that.
You know, in times past God spoke through the prophets and
you know, in various ways and so on.
But now he has spoken through his Son and in John chapter 1,
we're told that in the beginning was the Word.
The Word was with God and the Word was God.
In other words, Jesus is the Word.
If you want to hear Jesus voice be in the Word, it is God
speaking to you. I don't know if you've ever had
a kind of awkward conversation or a forced conversation with
someone where they've just kind of stood in your space and not
said anything. But do you want something kind
of awkward? Right.
There's that pause. But God, God speaks to us
through his Word, and he initiates, and we respond
through prayer. So prayer then comes out of time
spent in Scripture, in Genesis, they go back to there, they
remind that God speaks the world into being, that he revealed
himself in Exodus. And you can kind of see that
they're, they're mapping through the history of the people.
And, and almost like in their reading of what they've been
travelling through in the scriptures of the Pentateuch,
Genesis and Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and and so on, that
it's that's breathed life into the prayer that we're going to
read aspects of. So Scripture, then the Bible is
God's voice to US. Prayer is our response, our
conversation with him. So tonight, if your prayers feel
dry or repetitive, you know, often it's because you're not
feeding on the Bible and understand that prayer without
Scripture is, is like a body without bones.
There's no substance. It's it's flimsy and
directionless. So if you're struggling tonight
with I don't know what to pray. I don't know how to pray.
It seems pointless, even like words just bouncing off the
ceiling or I always just seem to say the same thing.
Can I encourage you to read the Bible?
See, I sound like a broken record from the pulpit here as
we've been going through Nehemiah, but it is so much
about God's word. Read the Bible study, meditate,
be in it and pray and and ask the Holy Spirit to bring to
attention things to pray about as a consequence of reading and
giving thanks unto God for you know, revelations of who he is
and you know confession comes out of it and and intercession
and adoration unto him. You know the point of Scripture
is not information but transformation.
It's about us finding our hearts being so in line with God all
the more, you know, this way when we allow God to initiate
through his word and say, OK, I'm going to spend a time God
now with you in prayer. I've got the Bible open.
Speak to me from that. And then you respond, you know
what happens? You'll pray according to God's
will. Then it's a bit hard to pray
according to your will when the Bible is in front of you
declaring what God's will is. It's like, oh, that's different
to how I've been praying. So I need to pray that.
And you know what happens when you pray with the Bible, with
God speaking to you through that, you never run out of stuff
to pray for. If you struggle with prayer
tonight, it's likely that you're not getting enough scripture.
And may I encourage you to do that.
Maybe set aside time this week. Be in God's Word may bring about
a revival in your prayer life. Read a Psalm, pray it back to
God. Ephesians chapter 1 comes to
mind where it's this wonderful revelation of your identity now
in God. And thank the Lord for that.
Don't just pray your needs. Let the Bible shape your praise
unto him and direct your your confession and your request as a
consequence. So that's first of all, I want I
want us to see that the prayer that we're about to read parts
of is soaked in Scripture has has the backbone of the Bible to
it. And so secondly, now the God
would gaze of prayer, true prayer must have a God would
gaze a focus on him. It's centred on who God is, not
just what we want. He's not like a a celestial
genie in the bottle or a Father Christmas up there that we give
out our wish list and ask him to grant.
Verse five and six set the tone for it and the Levites, Jeshua
Cadmium, Barney Hashabniya, Shiribaya, Padaija, Shibaniya
and Pathaya said stand up and bless the Lord your God forever
and ever. Blessed be your glorious name,
which is exalted above all blessing and praise.
You alone are the Lord. You have made heaven, the heaven
of heavens, with all their host, the earth and everything on it,
the seas and all that is in them, and you preserve them all.
The host of heaven worships you. Notice this out of those verses
and what we see in subsequent ones to come.
God is the hero of this prayer. It starts with God.
They know who they are praying to.
The word you referring to God appears over 50 times in this
prayer. They rehearse his attributes,
Creator God verse 6, that he's covenant maker with Abraham,
verse 7 and 8 Deliverer of the people of Israel out of Egypt
verses 9 to 11. Their provider in the wilderness
verses 12 to 1519 through to 21. That he's the Conqueror of their
enemies, verses 22 to 25. That he's been their patient
judge verses 26 to 30. And that even in correction of
his people, he has been good and just and right.
In verses 27 and 28, they echo Exodus 34, where God reveals
himself as gracious, forgiving, merciful, slow to anger,
abounding in steadfast love. All of this is evident in their
prayer. You know, this isn't
speculation. It's revelation in their prayer.
And that's important because in a world and in the day and times
in which we live, where people speak of a higher power or the
man upstairs, that these people knew exactly who it was that
they were praying to. Sounds obvious.
To make that point, you know that you need to know who you're
praying to. We live in a day where where
people, when they talk about prayer, and I'm a spiritual
person. Have you heard some of these
terms revealed? You know the big kahuna?
The dude up there, New Ages Speaking of, you know, the
universe, Surfers da Huey. And some might argue, well, does
it matter? You know that.
And when you pray that you're not really specific on who it is
you're praying to. Absolutely it does.
Let me give you an example. Try ringing just any random
phone number up dial a random number on your mobile and you
know, someone answers it and just say this.
Yeah, Hi. I'm, I'm struggling with lust.
I always I always eat too much. I'm not sure if I I'm I'm
needing wisdom. Should I take this job?
I you know, I feel like I I can't find my keys.
I need some help with that. How are you doing?
The person, the person would, yeah, give you a few little
choice words back, no doubt, wouldn't they?
I don't know you. We don't have a relationship.
It's a total stranger. It's pretty important who it is
that you speak to, right, That you know who it is.
So the world will speculate and philosophise and postulate.
But but we have his revelation in his Word.
That's why the Bible is the backbone of our prayer.
And then that when we now pray that God is our focus, that we
understand who it is that we have the privilege of addressing
and speaking to and praying back to Nehemiah 9 they go from
creation and they move to covenant history.
They trace the storyline of of God at work and his people
specifically as as he is the hero that God chose Abram verse
7. You are the Lord God who chose
Abram brought him out of air of the Chaldeans gave him the name
Abraham. God saw their affliction in
Egypt verse 9. You saw the affliction of our
fathers in Egypt and heard their cry by the Red Sea.
They pray that God divided the sea in verse 11.
You divided the sea before them so that they went through the
midst of the sea on the dry land and and their persecutors.
You threw into the deep that God provided, and gave His law to
them. In verse 13 you came down also
Mount Sinai, spoke with them from heaven, gave them just
ordinances and true laws, good statutes and commandments.
Verse 15. You gave them bread from heaven
for their hunger, and brought them water out of the rock for
their thirst, and told them to go in to possess the land which
you had sworn to give them, and then how it was that He had LED
them by cloud and fire. Verse 19 You, yeah, in your
manifold mercies, you did not forsake them in the wilderness.
The pillar of the cloud did not depart from them by day to lead
them on the road, nor the pillar of fire by night to show them
light and the way they should go.
And how it was. I love this.
Verse 21, that he had sustained them 40 years.
You sustained them in the wilderness.
They lack nothing. Their clothes did not wear out
and their feet did not swell. That's amazing, God's miraculous
provision and care for his people, and they remember that
in this prayer. And so this isn't just
nostalgia. Oh, that was wonderful.
That was nice for our people. This is theological remembering
that's taking place here over and over.
There's this refrain that emerges as you read through the
prayer of here's what the people were like.
They were rebellious, but you were merciful.
Here's what the people were like.
They were stubborn, but God, you were patient.
Here's what the people were like.
They sinned, but you didn't forsake them.
So I want us to notice something profound that they're not
minimising their history as a people of having been unfaithful
in their relationship to God in their prayer, but they're
magnifying who God is and God's mercy in that.
That's what we need to do. When we pray, we don't minimise
our confession of sin that inevitably comes out of our
reading of God's word when we pray.
God, I've done a few wrong things.
No, we're, we're strong on on our declaration of agreement
with that in confession under God, but we remember who he is.
But God, you've said that you are merciful, that your mercy is
in you every morning and oh, I need that.
Thank you for your grace. Thank you for your love.
And yet verse 31 in your great mercies, you did not make an end
of them. God corrected them, yes, but he
never abandoned them. And that's part of their prayer.
So in in looking at those verses and in considering this prayer
and this point of a God would focus when you pray when when I
pray, when we pray. Do you understand and grasp who
it is that we have the privilege that we get to pray to?
Do you know God's attributes, his characteristics?
Is there a God would gaze to your prayers and knowing that
that that prayer isn't manipulation.
It's not about chanting and and saying a few things to twist
God's arm to have it, you know, bend towards what you want know
it's adoration of a father who loves us.
Do you feel the heart here in in reading through these verses
that in their distress, you know what's happening.
Focusing on God breathes and brings hope into their prayer.
That's a wonderful thing that's taking place here in this prayer
as you read through it, that amid the suffering and and the
sin, the recollection of that and the pain, their exaltation
of, of God is great and of might of him being mighty and awesome,
that that hope is coming to these people as they pray.
You know, when life crushes you, gazing on the character, the
attributes of God breathes hope back into you.
It lifts your soul so from this, if God is is stirring up within
you a desire to pray more to see revival in your life.
Make your prayers God centred. Start with praise Lord, You're
the the creator of the heavens and the earth.
You spoke and the world came into being.
You sustain everything. Thank you for sustaining me in
your family devotions in your personal time list his
attributes from scripture. Get to know those
characteristics of of who it is that that God has revealed
himself as layer after layer after layer of revelation is in
God's word about this is who I am.
He says to us in his word in our me focused prayers.
May they always reorient back to who God is.
And we'll pray and, and we're desperate for for God to work in
our lives and certain things and our feelings and our emotions
are a part of our makeup. I'm not saying abandoning that
altogether. But shift your gaze upward to
who God is. You know why?
Because your view of God determines your view of
everything else. If God is small, then your sin
will feel manageable. If God is distant, then
repentance is optional. If God is weightless, as one
theologian described modern Christianity's understanding of
God, then worship becomes casual and confession unnecessary.
That's the danger in the modern world.
But when God is seen as eternal self existent, covenant keeping
of majestic of worshipped by the host of heaven, then we tremble
and we worship and our prayers take on an altogether different
tone. Your revival never begins with
self analysis, it begins with God exaltation.
If you want God to do a work in your heart and your life, may I
encourage you to get to know who God is more.
And may that be then the focus that orients your prayer to the
very throne room of God. Lastly, as we see in their
prayer, and we'll cover a little bit more territory in this is
the repentant response of their prayer.
True prayer does lead to repentance as a response.
You know, it's honest about sin, turns our hearts back to God.
Verse 16 and 17 capture this. But they and our fathers acted
proudly, hardened their necks, and did not heed your
commandments. They, verse 17 refused to obey,
and they were not mindful of your wonders that you did among
them. But they hardened their necks,
and in their rebellion they appointed a leader to return to
their bondage. But you are God.
You are a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to
anger, abundant in kindness, and did not forsake them and their
arrogance and rebellion. As this prayer proceeds to
catalogue sins comes out in subsequent verses through into
18. If you jump ahead to verse 26 to
30, you'll see more and more of their confession and their
revelation, their understanding and and they own it corporately.
And this is their fathers, their ancestors before them that have
committed these sins, but they own it by saying in verse 33, we
have done wickedly. And they confess the sin cycle
of oppression, of a crying out for God's help, of deliverance
coming as God would do that, and of the rest that he would
supply. And then them forsaking God and
rebellion. And then that repeat process
happening again and again, verse 26 to 30.
And yet God's mercy comes through verse 30, verse 31.
And what we see in these verses and throughout these prayers is
what's called the doctrine of the total depravity of man.
Have you heard that terminology? Maybe you've studied some
systematic theology. It's, it's such a core tenet of
what we believe. And it's the total depravity of
mankind that is on display here personally and collectively in
their prayer. And they use some very brutal
terms about the sin of the past. And they own that as part of
their confession unto the Lord. They use terms like
presumptuous, stiff necked, ungrateful, disobedient, wicked.
Verses 16, verse 26, verse 33. How many of us would describe
ourselves in the terms that they use here?
You know, imagine a job interview or on your social
media page bio, or if you're in the the dating arena, a service
app. When you put your profile up,
tell me about yourself. Well, yes, you'll find me
presumptuous, stiff necked, ungrateful, forgetful,
blasphemous, needy, incapable, lazy, idolatrous, disobedient,
rebellious, stubborn, wicked, sinful, and totally stressed out
because of my wicked life. Do I get the job?
Do you want to go out? But we wouldn't use those words,
would we? We need to, not in that sense,
but understanding that we are sinners in light of the holy,
righteous God. And the Bible tells us that all
have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
There is none righteous. No, not one.
And so then repentance that's coming through in this prayer as
we're reading it and seeing it isn't just confession agreeing
that it's sin. Yes, it was wrong and shouldn't
have happened or we didn't do what we should have done, but
it's a turning away. It's a 180° turn from sin unto
God. Show me your ways that I might
follow you. That's evident here in their
prayer and in their acts of contrition afterwards that we
won't get to tonight. But at the end of Chapter 9 and
into chapter 10, they make an agreement, a covenant before
God. Interestingly, we'll see in a
number of chapters. They break it pretty quickly.
But we need to feel and see the the weight of this, that our sin
grieves a holy righteous God. That it is so serious that it
caused him to offer up the greatest of sacrifices and for
Jesus to willingly come and die upon the cross, to pay the
penalty for sin in its fullness and its entirety once and for
all. Yes, our sin grieves our holy
God, but I understand. And we need to make this come
through. But His grace overwhelms but
God. But God comes through in this.
So Nehemiah 9's longest prayer. Interestingly, Ezra Chapter 9
has a wonderful prayer. Daniel Chapter 9 has a wonderful
prayer. So there's a couple of
scriptures there that you know, if you're looking for OK prayers
to model Nehemiah 9, great prayer.
But have a look at those other prayers that I mentioned.
But Nehemiah's prayer here indicates the need for a
biblical backbone. Then our prayers need to have
substance that comes out of God's word because it's through
God's Word that conversation is initiated, that revelation of
who God is to us and we respond to that.
And then that that helps our prayer then be directed to God
in a God would focus and gaze that we're not just throwing
words out there as as a positive self confession and just hoping
that that heals or that helps in the moment.
But you know, we are addressing the God of gods, the Lord of
Lords, the King of kings, that he sits on the throne, that he
is sovereign, that he rules justly and mightily.
And that is who we have the privilege of being, as Hebrews
tells us, able to enter boldly into the very throne room of God
and obtain grace and help in time of need.
As we do that, you know, there'll be repentant responses
coming out in our prayers as we get a more, you know, a more
real understanding of who we are in light of who God is.
As the chapter ends, jump ahead to verse 37.
And it yields much increase to the kings you have set over us
because of our sins. Also they have dominion over our
bodies and our cattle at their pleasure.
And we are in great distress. They were ruled under the
governance of the the Persian Empire at this point in time.
And so in their prayer, the conclusion is God, we're we're
still trapped in this distress. And this situation here, they
don't hide their current condition that even though the
wall is rebuilt in Jerusalem, they're still under Persian rule
and they're not fully free. External reform is occurring,
but internal renewal is still needed.
So then, as I mentioned verse 38, they make a binding
covenant. It's personal, it's practical,
it's public, and they move from emotion to commitment in that.
And we'll get to that next time as we look at Nehemiah 10.
But effectively the people repent here.
They recommit to lives living God's ways and following him.
But as I said, if you read ahead through Nehemiah, there's 13
chapters. We'll see that it's not long
that Nehemiah has to deal with some things where this cycle
that they're praying about resurfaces.
And you see the problem in Jerusalem here with the people
of Israel and the problem in our lives.
It's deeper than walls. It's deeper than vowels.
They can make all the promises that they want.
They needed more than renewed promises.
You know what they needed? A Redeemer.
Mankind. Throughout the Old Testament,
the best of us, we fail, we fall.
That's the story of the Old Testament.
Adam and Eve blew it in the garden.
The patriarchs blew it. The judges blew it.
The kings blew it. Everything in the Old Testament
points to what we have in Matthew, in the Gospel, the need
for a Saviour, the need for Jesus Christ.
And so this chapter cries out for Jesus, the true and better
covenant keeper, the faithful Israelite who never rebelled,
the greater Moses who intercedes, the greater
deliverer who does not just rescue from enemies, but from
sin itself. Where they said in this prayer,
we have acted wickedly, Jesus said, Father, forgive them.
Where they stood in distress, Christ bore the ultimate exile
on the cross. So Nehemiah teaches us, shows us
models for us how to pray, but the gospel gives us the answer
to that prayer. Isn't that awesome?
So wonderful Hebrews tells us that we have a great high
priest. It's Jesus who sympathises with
our weakness. And so when we pray now, we pray
not drawing near to a distant sovereign, but to the throne of
grace. So I hope that tonight you're
encouraged to see God clearly enlarge your vision of His
greatness, to remember his mercy, trace his faithfulness in
your own history, repent honestly, and run to Christ, not
merely to reform, but to be renewed by the power that He
promises. Nehemiah Chapter 9 is, is God's
people broken by the Word, awed by His greatness, overwhelmed by
His mercy, and turning from sin to walk in covenant
faithfulness? So the prayer of Nehemiah 9
shows us the pathway that leads us to Christ.
Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your
wonderful word tonight. Thank you for your people
gathered here, hungry and desperate to know more of you.
Please continue to stir up in our hearts a passion for Your
name. May we be people of the Word.
May that flow on out to prayers that are soaked in Scripture as
we focus upon who you are and what you have done, what you
were doing, and what you have promised to fulfil.
Lord God, may you bless each person gathered here tonight.
May they know your peace in their hearts and in their lives.
May we be disciples and followers of you.
Use us for your glory to accomplish great things in your
mighty name, that you may be honoured, that you may be
worshipped, that you may be glorified.
These things we pray in Jesus name, Amen.