Our Declaration

Prayer Series Introduction

As you may have noticed from the bulletin, or perhaps you saw this past week’s New Life News, that we are taking a break from our series on the epistle to the Galatians to turn our attention to one of our core values, namely, prayer.

Why are we doing this?

[call the other elders up front]

2 Chronicles 20:12 (ESV)

O our God, will you not execute judgment on them? For we are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.”

Who prayed this? The king of Judah, Jehoshaphat. Why did he pray this? Because he, along with the rest of Judah were facing, what seemed to be an insurmountable, overwhelming, impossible obstacle. The people of Judah had enemies. There were those who were stronger than them who wanted to come and overtake them. And after receiving word that a strong enemy was on the way to do just that, King Jehoshaphat , we’re told, was afraid. But we’re also told that he set his face to seek the Lord. He gathered the cities of Judah together to seek the Lord. And Jehoshaphat lead the people in prayer, and at one point in his prayer he says, we don’t know what to do but our eyes are on you.

Church, from our perspective. From the perspective of anyone who sees what appears to be happening in many churches around the country and particularly to some of what is happening here at New life, we may feel concerned, perhaps even afraid. The elders have spent time discussing the challenges we face, and what these challenges have put front and center is something that has always, is and will always be true of us. It’s that the challenges we face will not be overcome through human wisdom or ingenuity. So we, the elders stand before you today to declare two things:

We don’t know what to do. I know this is not reassuring. This is not to say that we have given up or that we have concluded that there is no hope. But given the challenges we face now, we do not have specific answers, but we do know that we don’t know what to do.

Our (the elders and the rest of the members of New Life) eyes need to be on the Lord. We need to do what the people of Judah did. We need to gather together to seek the Lord. In other words we need to pray.

So when it comes to addressing the financial concerns, the decrease in attendance, our responsibility to proclaim the gospel to this community and beyond, to adequately and responsibly address the ongoing concerns related to COVID and the significant effects the pandemic has had on the church and the many other trials and concerns and hardships and heartaches that some of the members of New Life currently face, we don’t know what to do. But what we do know is that whatever it is the Lord leads us to do, it must begin with prayer. Yes, the elders need to pray, but so does the rest of the membership of the church.

And I suggest that our prayer must reflect the urgency that we see in king Jehoshaphat and the rest of Judah as they were facing a powerful and threatening enemy.

How can we describe this kind of prayer?

Pleading the Promises

What we aim to show us and, by God’s grace, convince us of when it comes to prayer, is that prayer is essential and exciting. In fact, prayer properly understood and practiced is among the most exhilarating and consequential acts that anyone can do.

The way we intend to approach this series is to work through a prayer in Scripture. In our exposition of the prayer, we will identify a promise the prayer assumes and from which it draws it’s confidence and conviction. Then we will take time in the service to pray together. We will do this today and, Lord willing, the next 4 Sundays.

Nehemiah 1:4–11 ESV

As soon as I heard these words I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven. And I said, “O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, let your ear be attentive and your eyes open, to hear the prayer of your servant that I now pray before you day and night for the people of Israel your servants, confessing the sins of the people of Israel, which we have sinned against you. Even I and my father’s house have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, and the rules that you commanded your servant Moses. Remember the word that you commanded your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples, but if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there I will gather them and bring them to the place that I have chosen, to make my name dwell there.’ They are your servants and your people, whom you have redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand. O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant, and to the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name, and give success to your servant today, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.” Now I was cupbearer to the king.

Introduction

FCF: We can sometimes think of our confession and repentance of our sin as declaring our sin’s victory over us.

Confessing and repenting of our sin is our declaration of God’s victory over our sin.

A promise that will grant us confidence and humility as we practice confessing and repenting of our sins before God in prayer is found in

Deuteronomy 4:31 ESV

For the Lord your God is a merciful God. He will not leave you or destroy you or forget the covenant with your fathers that he swore to them.

God is merciful. Our sin does not cause Him to leave us or destroy us. We cannot do anything or fail to do anything that will cause God to forget his promises to His people.

We have already taken time this morning to confess our sins before God as we prepared to take communion. I want to remind us that we are forgiven on the basis of Christ’s work on the cross and His resurrection.

What must occupy the center of our hearts and minds as we confess and repent of our sins before God?

God keeps His promises and loves His people. (5-7)

AQ: What comes to the surface when we see this?

It is good that we are dependent upon God. (5)

We live in a culture that emphasizes and celebrates independence. So when it comes to the reality that we are dependent upon God, we may struggle with that idea.

But the fact is, it is good that we are dependent on God. The apostle Paul understood this about himself:

1 Corinthians 2:3–5 ESV

And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

Weakness, fear & trembling… words that confess dependence, and Paul recognized that whatever fruit came about through his ministry among the Corinthians came as a result of the Spirit of God.

Our faith cannot rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. We are dependent

God keeps His promises and loves His people. This is our hope. This is our assurance and foundation. And to have this assurance, we mus recognize our dependence upon God.

This is what Nehemiah is recognizing in his prayer. He is presuming to approach God in prayer, as a sinful man and among a sinful people, not on the basis of his own righteousness before God, but on God’s. His covenant-keeping love.

And for us today, we approach God in prayer, as sinful people on the merits of the righteousness of Christ.

And something else that comes to the surface as we recognize that God keeps His promises and loves His people is that when we come to God,

We come to God empty-handed. (6-7)

There is no attempt to explain or justify Israel’s sin here. No attempt to excuse it. Not attempt to cast it in a not-so-negative light. No comparing it to what may seem to be worse sins.

v. 7: we have acted very corruptly against you. God is the standard here, and so when we sin, we sin against him. And when we seek to come back to Him, we need to be clear that we can, but because we have anything to offer God as payment.

So much more could be said here. I want to pause though now, and invite us to respond in prayer to what we have seen in God’s word. I want us to plead to God in prayer in light of this promise that God keeps His promises and love His people.

Father, the fact that I am dependent upon you and come to you empty-handed does not prevent you from ...

God invites us to come. (8-10)

AQ: How must we respond to His invitation?

Plead God’s promises to Him.

Nehemiah’s prayer is based upon God’s word.

See Deut 4:25-31

Nehemiah was pleading with God for Him to fulfill His promises, not because he thought God would not do so but to display his confidence in God to bring about His will in His time.

This is what we must do in our prayer life today.

Notice the exodus reference in v. 10: your people whom you redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand. Nehemiah has already mae reference to the promises God made to Moses. The exodus was God’s redemptive work for His people, and that theme carries out across the Bible into the NT, where Jesus redeemed His people from slavery to sin.

In light of the promises we have from God in His word, we must be people who plead those promises as we pray. Praying that God will do His work among us. We have just a small fraction of some of the promises we have in Scripture on the screen. Let’s take a moment to plead with God in light of these and other promises that may come to mind.

God is all powerful

God satisfies our needs. (11)

AQ: What are our needs?

for God to hear our prayers

let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant, and to the prayer of your servants

attentive = give close attention to.... being thoughtful

we need to know that when we pray and express our concerns to God, He is listening and He cares..... Especially important to remember when God’s response is not immediate or what we desired

Another need is

for God to bless our faithfulness

Notice again in verse 11 that Nehemiah’s prayer that God would be attentive to the prayer of His servants are qualified: who delight to fear your name

this is an enthusiastic reverence. The servants that Nehemiah prays for are men and women who have an enthusiastic reverence for God. There is nothing insignificant or fake about this.

to move in our midst

Nehemiah prays that God would grant success to His (God’s) servant: King Artaxerxes

Nehemiah was praying that King Artaxerxes would be divinely moved to act on behalf of God’s people.

This is significant when we consider what we know about this king, because humanly speaking, Nehemiah had no reason to expect such favor.

Ezra 4:21 ESV

Therefore make a decree that these men be made to cease, and that this city be not rebuilt, until a decree is made by me.

Nehemiah was making a request that was contrary to royal policy. Are we hesitant to pray that God move in certain ways because they seem so unlikely and hard to us? God is able. There is nothing too difficult for Him. Now, we always need to be yielded to God’s will, and we should not pray for things are clearly contrary to God’s character, but though we may not know the details of God’s plan, we can pray for God to move in our midst.

Let’s take some time to pray for God to move among us. On the screen are some suggested prayers but pray for what God’s leads you to pray.

God grant us an increased hunger for your Word

Conclusion

Now remember what we suggested is a summary of this text”

Confessing and repenting of our sin is our declaration of God’s victory over our sin.

Confessing and repenting of our sin is to claim God’s victrory over our sin, and because Jesus is victorious over sin, His people are vectorious and we can therefore not hesitate to plead the promises back to Him when we pray. Let’s continue this church. Don’t stop. Pray together.... maybe even before you leave this place today....

God is faithful to keep His promises