The Actions of a Repentant Heart

The Work of Revitalization

Well good morning everyone and welcome to Burr Oak. If this is your first time with us either in person or online, I am Pastor Ben and it is my humble joy to bring you God’s word today.

Last week Pastor Dick brought our communion message and he spoke about absolute grace. Our message for today ties directly into that as we are going to see what happens when Yahweh’s people come to recognize this absolute grace. We have been working through our series “The Work of Revitalization” for several months now and the topic for our message today I have only touched on. That being primarily the topic of prayer.

Prayer is one of the major themes throughout all of Nehemiah. We saw Nehemiah’s great prayer in chapter one. We have seen what one author called “arrow shot” prayers, throughout this book. We have talked about how this prayer life is born from an intimate relationship with Yahweh. We have even briefly discussed how prayer is vital to the revitalization of a church.

Yet, as it seems, many Christians are not sure what prayer looks like outside of asking a blessing over a meal, or the rhythmic prayers we teach our children.When it comes to prayer we tend to spend our time at the two ends of the spectrum. We either make too much of prayer. Meaning that we believe that prayer can only be done in certain positions, with certain verbiage, by certain people. Or we make so little of it that we never spend time in intentional prayer, excusing it away by saying God knows all our thoughts.

Our passage today consists of the longest recorded prayer in the Bible. The question we may ask at the onset, is how does one get to the point of this type of prayer? The answer to that question is through a changed heart. A heart that has seen, tasted, and experienced, the beauty of God will desire to cry out to God. So let us work first on our hearts by turning to our focus verse for this series.

Psalm 51:10–12 NKJV

Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence, And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, And uphold me by Your generous Spirit.

PRAYER

Father you have again allowed us to come together today. Lord as we prepare to receive your word open our hearts and minds to understand it. Father may you present yourself to us today. For those that are sorrowful bring them comfort. For those that are fearful bring the courage. For those that harboring sin, bring them conviction that they might be able to walk in the freedom of the light of Christ. Father we ask your blessing on our message for today. In Christ’s name we pray, amen.

Well the title of our message for today is “The Actions of a Repentant Heart: Prayer & Recommitment” And we will be looking at the ninth chapter of Nehemiah. Now this message is actually a two part message. Kerry will be bring part two next week in looking towards chapter ten.

PASSAGE

Let us hear the word of the Lord.

Nehemiah 9:1–3 ESV

1 Now on the twenty-fourth day of this month the people of Israel were assembled with fasting and in sackcloth, and with earth on their heads. 2 And the Israelites separated themselves from all foreigners and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers. 3 And they stood up in their place and read from the Book of the Law of the Lord their God for a quarter of the day; for another quarter of it they made confession and worshiped the Lord their God.

Nehemiah 9:5 (ESV)

5 Then the Levites, ... said, “Stand up and bless the Lord your God from everlasting to everlasting. Blessed be your glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise.

Nehemiah 9:6–37 ESV

6 “You are the Lord, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you. 7 You are the Lord, the God who chose Abram and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans and gave him the name Abraham. 8 You found his heart faithful before you, and made with him the covenant to give to his offspring the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Jebusite, and the Girgashite. And you have kept your promise, for you are righteous. 9 “And you saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt and heard their cry at the Red Sea, 10 and performed signs and wonders against Pharaoh and all his servants and all the people of his land, for you knew that they acted arrogantly against our fathers. And you made a name for yourself, as it is to this day. 11 And you divided the sea before them, so that they went through the midst of the sea on dry land, and you cast their pursuers into the depths, as a stone into mighty waters. 12 By a pillar of cloud you led them in the day, and by a pillar of fire in the night to light for them the way in which they should go. 13 You came down on Mount Sinai and spoke with them from heaven and gave them right rules and true laws, good statutes and commandments, 14 and you made known to them your holy Sabbath and commanded them commandments and statutes and a law by Moses your servant. 15 You gave them bread from heaven for their hunger and brought water for them out of the rock for their thirst, and you told them to go in to possess the land that you had sworn to give them. 16 “But they and our fathers acted presumptuously and stiffened their neck and did not obey your commandments. 17 They refused to obey and were not mindful of the wonders that you performed among them, but they stiffened their neck and appointed a leader to return to their slavery in Egypt. But you are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and did not forsake them. 18 Even when they had made for themselves a golden calf and said, ‘This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,’ and had committed great blasphemies, 19 you in your great mercies did not forsake them in the wilderness. The pillar of cloud to lead them in the way did not depart from them by day, nor the pillar of fire by night to light for them the way by which they should go. 20 You gave your good Spirit to instruct them and did not withhold your manna from their mouth and gave them water for their thirst. 21 Forty years you sustained them in the wilderness, and they lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell. 22 “And you gave them kingdoms and peoples and allotted to them every corner. So they took possession of the land of Sihon king of Heshbon and the land of Og king of Bashan. 23 You multiplied their children as the stars of heaven, and you brought them into the land that you had told their fathers to enter and possess. 24 So the descendants went in and possessed the land, and you subdued before them the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, and gave them into their hand, with their kings and the peoples of the land, that they might do with them as they would. 25 And they captured fortified cities and a rich land, and took possession of houses full of all good things, cisterns already hewn, vineyards, olive orchards and fruit trees in abundance. So they ate and were filled and became fat and delighted themselves in your great goodness. 26 “Nevertheless, they were disobedient and rebelled against you and cast your law behind their back and killed your prophets, who had warned them in order to turn them back to you, and they committed great blasphemies. 27 Therefore you gave them into the hand of their enemies, who made them suffer. And in the time of their suffering they cried out to you and you heard them from heaven, and according to your great mercies you gave them saviors who saved them from the hand of their enemies. 28 But after they had rest they did evil again before you, and you abandoned them to the hand of their enemies, so that they had dominion over them. Yet when they turned and cried to you, you heard from heaven, and many times you delivered them according to your mercies. 29 And you warned them in order to turn them back to your law. Yet they acted presumptuously and did not obey your commandments, but sinned against your rules, which if a person does them, he shall live by them, and they turned a stubborn shoulder and stiffened their neck and would not obey. 30 Many years you bore with them and warned them by your Spirit through your prophets. Yet they would not give ear. Therefore you gave them into the hand of the peoples of the lands. 31 Nevertheless, in your great mercies you did not make an end of them or forsake them, for you are a gracious and merciful God. 32 “Now, therefore, our God, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love, let not all the hardship seem little to you that has come upon us, upon our kings, our princes, our priests, our prophets, our fathers, and all your people, since the time of the kings of Assyria until this day. 33 Yet you have been righteous in all that has come upon us, for you have dealt faithfully and we have acted wickedly. 34 Our kings, our princes, our priests, and our fathers have not kept your law or paid attention to your commandments and your warnings that you gave them. 35 Even in their own kingdom, and amid your great goodness that you gave them, and in the large and rich land that you set before them, they did not serve you or turn from their wicked works. 36 Behold, we are slaves this day; in the land that you gave to our fathers to enjoy its fruit and its good gifts, behold, we are slaves. 37 And its rich yield goes to the kings whom you have set over us because of our sins. They rule over our bodies and over our livestock as they please, and we are in great distress.

May the Lord bless the reading of his word.

This morning, as we talk about the topic of prayer, we are going to work through our Burr Oak Prayer Guide. You can find a copy of this in your bulletin. We are going to see how these different elements are present here in this prayer in Nehemiah. We are also going to cover why each aspect is important.

P.R.A.Y.E.R.

As I mentioned in the beginning, prayer is a concept that seems to have much confusion surrounding it. We know we are to pray, but we wrestle with what to say, or how to say it, with whether they are being heard or not. We tend to grow discouraged within our prayer lives. Which frankly, that is what Satan would prefer. He would prefer for our lives to be completely void of prayer. Why? In trying to answer the question “What is prayer?” the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association gives us the answer.

“Prayer is spiritual communication between man and God, a two-way relationship in which man should not only talk to God but also listen to Him. Prayer to God is like a child’s conversation with his father. It is natural for a child to ask his father for the things he needs.” - BGEA

The prayer guide that we have produced is a tool to help you learn how to enter into this conversation with Yahweh. It is one of several acronyms that can do this. I say this because while this is what we have put out, this does not mean that it is the only formula for learning how to pray. In fact the best formula is being discipled by someone else learning how to pray by hearing them pray. But in starting out this is a good place to begin.

P - Praise God for Who He Is

If we were to turn back and look at our passage for today we would see that most of this prayer recorded in Nehemiah nine praises God for who he is. Let’s look at how it begins.

Nehemiah 9:5–6 (ESV)

Then the Levites … “Stand up and bless the Lord your God from everlasting to everlasting. Blessed be your glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise. “You are the Lord, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you.

Out of the 38 verses that make up this chapter, 25 of them are spent praising God for who he is. This ought to catch our attention. This ought to cause us to stop and reflect on why this is the case. Why is so much time spent praising God for who he is? If prayer is a conversation between a father and his child in regards to things the child needs, then why spend so much time praising him.

Many might say that it is right to praise him for all that he has done for us. And yes that is correct, we should praise what he has done, we see that in our passage for today. But praising him for what he has given us, is still different from praising him simply for who he is.

Consider Job for a moment. Yahweh allowed all the good things he had to be taken away from him. His children, his wealth, and his health. Should Job still praise him? Instead of receiving things from Yahweh, Job is now having them taken away. Should he still praise him? Job’s wife believed he should do otherwise.

Job 2:9 ESV

Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die.”

Job’s response

Job 2:10 ESV

But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.

See praising Yahweh simply for who he is, rather than what he has done for us, causes us to dwell in a different type of relationship with Yahweh. When we praise him for who he is, it causes us to recognize that we are incapable because we are not him. It causes us to take a position of humility, because we are not him. It causes us to change our focus from our situation to the sovereign rule of Yahweh. The reason we are able to do this is because of those omni words that we know that we should know, but aren’t really sure about. These are Yahweh’s,

Omnipresence - God is always present everywhere with the fullness of who he is.

Omniscience - God has complete knowledge of everything.

Omnipotence - God is capable to do anything consistent with his desires.

Omnisapience - God always understands what is best.

Continuing to compare this to a conversation between a father and his child, earthly fathers will question and doubt at times that they have done what is best for their child. That they gave them correct advice. That they either allowed to partake in or kept them from something. This is because in our limited human capabilities, we can not always be fully present, we can not know everything, we can not cause anything to be, and we do not always know what is best. This is why it is so important that as fathers we continuously point our children to the one who can and does. And we can primarily show them this by how we pray men. Through our prayers are we showing those around us that we trust God and praise him simply for who he is?

R - Repent of Sins

In modeling prayer for others, are we can also model what repentance looks like. In our passage today there are four times that the Jews repent of their sins or acknowledge the sins of their fathers. Here we find a model of what this should look like. We see both the confession of generic sins and specific sins. Generic confession admits that we have sinned.

Nehemiah 9:16 ESV

“But they and our fathers acted presumptuously and stiffened their neck and did not obey your commandments.

Nehemiah 9:28 (ESV)

But after they had rest they did evil again before you,

Specific confession names the ways in which we have.

Nehemiah 9:18 ESV

Even when they had made for themselves a golden calf and said, ‘This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,’ and had committed great blasphemies,

Nehemiah 9:26 ESV

“Nevertheless, they were disobedient and rebelled against you and cast your law behind their back and killed your prophets, who had warned them in order to turn them back to you, and they committed great blasphemies.

While it is okay to acknowledge generic sins, true repentance and change does not come through generic repentance, it comes through specifics. In what ways are you specifically sinning against Yahweh? Since we are not free of sin in this life, all of us need to get specific in the ways in which we sin against God. It is only here that we can begin to move forward to overcome sins that reek havoc in our lives.

A - Ask on Behalf of Others

One of the biblical standards that we see set in the Bible regarding prayer is that we are to prayer for others. When we take that time to converse intimately with our heavenly father, what better thing to do than to sacrificially pray for others. While we only see this in one verse from our passage from today, it is important for us to prayer for those around us.

Nehemiah 9:32 ESV

“Now, therefore, our God, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love, let not all the hardship seem little to you that has come upon us, upon our kings, our princes, our priests, our prophets, our fathers, and all your people, since the time of the kings of Assyria until this day.

Y - Yield Your Life to God’s Will

If we hold that Yahweh knows what is best for us at every given moment, then our prayers should included in them time of yielding our lives to Yahweh’s will and seeking how we can best glorify him. This is where some of the listening aspect of prayer can come in. We should be asking “Lord how can I most glorify you in this situation?” or “Lord what is it you are wanting me to learn in this situation?” and then we should listen for an answer. For those who were here when we went through our lamenting series a year ago we covered this aspect then. Looking to our passage today, we see where this yielding is assumed within the prayer.

Nehemiah 9:36–37 ESV

Behold, we are slaves this day; in the land that you gave to our fathers to enjoy its fruit and its good gifts, behold, we are slaves. And its rich yield goes to the kings whom you have set over us because of our sins. They rule over our bodies and over our livestock as they please, and we are in great distress.

Notice that while they acknowledge that it was Yahweh’s will that caused them to be in their situation, they did not stand in defiance or shake their fist at God. They acknowledge Yahweh’s rule over everything and then let petitioned him because of the distress they were under. You do not have to be happy about your situation in order to still submit to God’s will. Ask how you can best glorify him.

E - Examine Your Heart

In order to yield your life to God’s will, you will need to examine what it is that you want, desire, or worship other than God. This point of examination will often lead to more repentance. We see throughout our passage for today, that confession is a major theme.

Nehemiah 9:2–3 ESV

And the Israelites separated themselves from all foreigners and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers. And they stood up in their place and read from the Book of the Law of the Lord their God for a quarter of the day; for another quarter of it they made confession and worshiped the Lord their God.

In your prayer time, ask God to reveal to you what it is that has captured your heart. Ask him what it is that you need to separate yourself from in order to glorify him most.

R - Request Provision

The last point of our prayer guide is requesting provision. In our passage for today we see this incorporated with the asking for others.

Nehemiah 9:32 ESV

“Now, therefore, our God, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love, let not all the hardship seem little to you that has come upon us, upon our kings, our princes, our priests, our prophets, our fathers, and all your people, since the time of the kings of Assyria until this day.

When it comes to prayer, this might be the part that many really struggle with. The emotions that we wrestle through when we ask God for something can range from feeling greedy to inadequate because we cannot provide for ourselves. Yet, the Bible tells us that we should come to him asking. In fact, Paul tells the Ephesians,

Ephesians 3:20 ESV

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us,

Yahweh can do abundantly more than all we ask or think. He wants us coming to him asking for provision. Where we struggle is when we do not get what we want, when we want it. This when we need to rest in that Yahweh knows what is best for us at every moment.

There is much more that could be said about how to pray, or about why we should pray. Much of it is going to be things that we already know. For us as a church in revitalization we need to see the direct connection to our prayer life with the power of God working through us. Dr. Desmond Barrett in his book Revitalizing the Declining Church shares the story of a church in a town by the name of Shepherdsville. He states,

“Prayer and fasting would become the catalyst against the darkness of complacency,” - Barrett, Desmond. Revitalizing the Declining Church, p. 13.

A lack of prayer life within a church is an indicator that church does not really want to see the power of God in operation, that they are content with how things are. That they are complacent. We cannot over look prayer. Are you motivated to pray? Spurgeon claimed that the prayer meeting was the lungs of the church. When we went through Fresh Wind Fresh Fire, Cymbala shared how he had a traveling preacher tell his congregation that you can tell how popular the pastor is by how many people show up on Sunday morning. You can tell how popular an evangelist is by how many show up Sunday night. But you can tell how popular God is by who shows up to the mid-week prayer meeting. Are you motivated to pray?

Closing

But prayer does not end with saying “Amen.” Kerry will speak more to this come next week, but as we have seen so far in Nehemiah, prayer leads to action. We have seen this in the person of Nehemiah several times and now at the close of our passage for today we see it corporately.

Nehemiah 9:38 ESV

“Because of all this we make a firm covenant in writing; on the sealed document are the names of our princes, our Levites, and our priests.

This corporate prayer from the Jews lead to them recommitting to the ways of Yahweh, to living as they had been called to. This is the outcome of prayer meetings. A recommitment to live as Yahweh has directed us. How would this recommitment play out corporately here at Burr Oak?

As most of you know we had our annual board retreat last weekend. For those who are unaware, this retreat is where we take the time to assess how things went over the course of the previous year and begin to plan out the up coming year. At a later point we will dive into some deeper information that came out of this retreat, but I wanted to get some of the major points out today. First, I want to say thank you to everyone that took the time to fill out the survey. It was extremely helpful. As your pastor I use this survey as one way to gauge how things are going here at Burr Oak. Last year we had 24 response to the survey. This year we had 42. On top of that the biggest increase in engagement was with those between ages 12-49. Also, for those concerned about the age question on the survey next year you will select and age range rather than list your age. To see that many more engage was a huge blessing to me so thank you again.

There were 2 real big take-a-ways from the survey. The thing that was an overwhelming response was that of outreach to our community. Your responses to grading us on the purposes of the church indicated that as the lowest. The question of pick 1 thing for Burr Oak to accomplish int he next year had 30 responses of those 30, 19 specifically stated outreach. The response from the church is that you want us to be focused on outreach, so I am asking you to be committed to what you have asked for.

There are a couple ways you can do this. First, in general be inviting people to the different ministry opportunities our church hosts. This could be Sunday morning, our men’s, women’s, or young adult’s group, or one of our fellowship events like the fish fry. Next, I would love to see a Park Ministry Team put together of people from our congregation to help brainstorm and facilitate the use of our park for outreach. Finally, we have come up with an outreach program that would work on ministering and building relationships with the youth and families of our area. This program would require as many as 16 volunteers each week for an hour and a half. You want to reach out to our community and to our youth I have a way for it to be done but it will require a whole church commitment. If you are interested in helping with this please let me know and we will put a team meeting together.

The next big factor that came from the survey is the need for continuing to edify the saints. Again edification is to inspire and equip a person to continue in their walk with Jesus. There were several parts to this noted. Firstly, as your pastor and as the leadership team, we need to continue to work to invest in others to help them come to discern and utilize their Spiritual Gifts. This will add to the overall health of our church. Next there were a number of topics that were requested to be taught on. The two that were most wanted were Marriage and Family and the End Times.

We are working at what it would like look to be able to provide for these as well. In this next year we want to be able to equip you with the ability to respond to life in a God honoring fashion and to help those around you do the same as well. With that in mind these are some of the things that we plan to start in the next year.

With the start of the new year we plan to bring back our life groups in a similar format to about 5 years ago. The purpose for this is tied to the sermon series that we will be starting with the new year. During our Purpose of the Church series I mentioned that God has left two institutions here on this earth to points towards him. One is the church and the other is marriage. But instead of doing a typical marriage and family series we are going to look at the thing that sets marriage apart from other types of relationships. That being sex. Given the cultural conversations that are taking place all day everyday, it is important for the church to understand what God’s word says about sex. With that we will be working through the series

Intoxicated by Design

This will be a 15 week series in which we will look at what Yahweh has revealed to his people about the topic of sex within his word. The intent of this series is to equip us to better answer several question that are being asked today. Why should I wait for marriage to have sex? Why do we have to get married rather than just be in a committed relationship? Why is sex outside of God’s design wrong? I know that many of you do not wrestle with these questions. That is why the purpose of this series is to equip you to be able to navigate conversations with your kids and grand-kids as these are regular questions within their lives.

No Excuses

Following this series we are going to work through the gospel of John. I have to tell you I have hesitation when it comes to both of these sermon series. The topic of the first one is one that I know many Christians are uncomfortable talking about. That is why we are bring life groups back so that instead of this being 15 weeks of lectures, we can create more of a conversation regarding this topic. Along with this we are going to put together a way to anonymously collect questions and every so often I will do a Q & A time after the sermon with questions we have collected ahead of time.

With the gospel of John series, my hesitation is merely because of how long of a series it will be. It will take us nearly a year to work through the whole gospel. But with this I am asking you to be committed to these series. Be committed to invite others to come to them. Be committed to see what God can do as we dive into his word to learn how to exalt him. edify each other, and evangelize the lost.

There is much more that we have in store for this upcoming year but these are the highlights. As you pray, ask Yahweh what it is that he wants you involved in. Ask him to give you a heart for prayer and for commitment to the great work that he has called us to do.

END IN PRAYER