5-8-22 Pray the Word

Happy Mother’s day! In honor of moms, I thought I’d also tell few bad jokes. Why did the hawk sit on top of the church? Because it was a bird of prey. What do they call pastors in Germany? German Shepherds. Who is the most intelligent person in the Bible? It’s Abraham; he knew a Lot. Adam was the fastest, because he was first in the human race, and Samson was the funniest, because he brought the house down. Job used the most bad language; he cursed the day he was born. What kind of lights did Noah put on the ark? Floodlights.1 Bad, I know. So we’re back in Nehemiah today. We’ve been talking about Nehemiah’s prayer and how we can use the principles in it for our own prayer lives. And as we learn and implement those principles, we’ll be able to move into powerful prayers the same way Nehemiah did. We’ll be able to see lives changed, people move from bondange into freedom, and people be rebuilt into who God created them to be. And we’ll grow into who God wants us to be, too. Two weeks ago, we talked about the power of confession in prayer, and how continuing to talk to Jesus about the things you’re going through, even when you get frustrated that you aren’t growing as quickly as you might want to be, is one of the keys to breakthrough. And today I want to talk about simply praying the word. Nehemiah prayed according to the word. Praying according to the word can probably mean a few different things. What I don’t mean is that our prayers need to be confined word-for-word to what is written in the Bible. That may sound ridiculous, but there are some people who believe that. They feel like they have to pray the Lord’s prayer or Psalm 23 or a pre-made liturgical prayer or else it won’t have any effect. And that kind of thinking is more like magic words or formulas than it is a relationship. Now, you can pray prayers straight from the Bible word for word - i’m not saying that’s always a bad thing necessarily. 1 “33 Funny Bible Jokes - Bible Puns And Laughs!” LaffGaff, https://laffgaff.com/bible-jokes-funny-bible-humor/. Accessed 4 May 2022. Praying the Word | 1 Those can be very helpful as long as we don’t forget that we are actually in a relationship with God. And we don’t forget who we’re praying to. We also need to know what we’re saying and asking for when we pray that way. Again, it’s not necessarily bad, but that’s not what I’m talking about when I say to pray the Word. I’m talking about how our prayers need to be grounded in the Word so we know Who God is and what His character is; because when we know that, we can know that our prayers will be answered. But let’s pray before we get started. Father in Heaven, hallowed be your Name. You are holy and we give you all the praise and glory today. Please forgive us for the ways we’ve failed you this week, and forgive us a church for not always walking in Your ways or according to the Spirit. I ask You today to fill us again with Your Spirit and give us new grace, new power, new life, and new insight into who You are and what You’re doing so that we might see Jesus glorified. Thank You for this time and for Your word, and for dying on the cross for us. In Jesus’ Name, amen. Let’s take a look at how Nehemiah prays the word. Nehemiah 1:8-9 NKJV Remember, I pray, the word that You commanded Your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations; 9 but if you return to Me, and keep My commandments and do them, though some of you were cast out to the farthest part of the heavens, yet I will gather them from there, and bring them to the place which I have chosen as a dwelling for My name.’ Nehemiah literally starts by saying ‘I ask you to remember Your word.’ He’s not saying that because he thinks that God forgot what He said and did for the Israelites throughout history. God knows everything, He’s omniscient, so He remembers what He said and the promises He made. In other words, when we pray the Word, or pray with the Bible and based on Bible verses, we’re not reminding God about his own promises as if He forgot. Praying the Word | 2 No, Nehemiah’s prayer is grounded on and based on the Word of the Lord. In other words he’s praying based on who He knows God to be, and He knows who God is because of the word and because of God’s track record, His history. In other words, he’s basing his prayer on who the Bible says God is, not who society tells him God is or who he might want God to be. Nehemiah was still serving a foreign king and living in a foreign land as a servant. Don’t forget that part. As a side note, God is bigger and better than any god we could make up. So Nehemiah’s prayer is grounded in his understanding of the word of God, the person of God, and the character of God, as well as God’s track record. Which is perfect. Nehemiah quotes the promises of the word and his prayer is drenched in the Spirit of the Word.2 In other words, the Holy Spirit is guiding His prayer. Nehemiah prays, ‘remember the promise you gave Moses.’ Then he reminds himself of what the promise was. How many of you know that sometimes, we just need to remind ourselves of the promises of God because we forgot them. Not because God did. We tend to be forgetful, especially if we’re going through a rough time. But Nehemiah thinks back, he remembers the promise God made and it encourages him! Leviticus 26:44 NKJV “Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, nor shall I abhor them, to utterly destroy them and break My covenant with them; for I am the Lord their God.” The promise was that God won’t abandon His people, ever, if they choose to call on His Name. And this promise stands for us today. God won’t ever leave you or abandon you, even when you’re in a place you don’t know, when you’re being put down or persecuted, when you mess up, when you fail forward and when you feel like you don’t have any hope left; God won’t break His covenant of love and mercy and grace and forgiveness. He won’t kick you out of the family. 2 Hayford, Jack W. Rebuilding the Real You: God's Pathway to Personal Restoration, P74. Gospel Light Publications, 1986. Praying the Word | 3 When Nehemiah prays and brings to mind God’s awesomeness, His mightiness, and the promises He made, it’s more than just a theological formula. It’s more than just a regurgitation of something he memorized. It’s not a formula or magic words. Nehemiah remembers the times God came through for him with power and with grace. He’s remembering the history of his people and how God showed His power. He’s familiar with the history of God's work and God’s grace and God’s power and God’s people. And the truth of who God is and what He’s done is the basis of his faith as he prays and asks God to move on his behalf and on behalf of his people. In his prayer, Nehemiah quotes those portions of scripture that affirm God’s lovingkindness, mercy, and grace. In a similar way, the Holy Spirit wants to bring the word of God to our minds as we pray to get us beyond mere ideas about God and into the heart of who He is and what He wants to do in us and through us. When we pray according to the word of God, it reminds us that it’s in God’s nature to be good, loving, kind, merciful and gracious. And not just generally, don’t forget that. It’s in his nature to be good, loving, and kind to you and me. And when you pray, you don’t have to worry about what God’s will is because He’s revealed it. His nature is to save, to heal, to rescue, to redeem, to restore, to comfort, and to show mercy, grace, and love. And it’s also to provide an answer to your prayers!3 E.M. Bounds wrote that “The word of God is a great help in prayer. If it’s lodged and written in our hearts, it will form an outflowing current of prayer, full and irresistible. Promises stored in the heart from the word form the fuel from which our prayers receive life and warmth, just as coal warms us on stormy days and winter nights. The word of God is the food by which prayer is nourished and made strong. Prayer, like man, can’t live on bread alone. 3 Hayford, Jack W. Rebuilding the Real You: God's Pathway to Personal Restoration, P74. Gospel Light Publications, 1986. Praying the Word | 4 Luke 4:4 NKJV But Jesus answered him, saying, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.’ ” Unless prayer is informed and filled with God’s word, it’s flabby and void. The absence of power in prayer can often be traced to the absence of a constant supply of God’s word to repair the waste and renew the life. If you want to learn to pray well, first study God’s word and store it in your memory and thoughts.”4 Many of us might already know how to pray God’s word, but I do want to give a few examples of some ways we could as a practical touchpoint. Let’s say you or someone you know has been hurt, is mourning, or is grieving. You can pray for comfort over that person knowing that God sees exactly what they’re going through and will send the Holy Spirit as the comforter. Isaiah 66:13 NKJV As one whom his mother comforts, So I will comfort you; And you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.” In other words, just like a mother comforts her child, God wants to comfort you when you hurt. It's God’s will to bring comfort to hurting people. God sees what you’re going through, he knows your pain, and He cares. I want you to know today that God cares for you even better than a good mother cares for her child. This point can actually change your whole perspective on life! Don’t let Satan tell you that God doesn’t know what you’re going through or that He doesn’t care about you and how you feel while you go through it. God knows you, He loves you, and He cares about you. And God is the One who has ultimate power to comfort, to save, to heal, and to restore. So we can pray the word; “God bring your comfort in this situation I’m facing! I need you to hold me in your arms for a while and mother me.” And He will. Because He’s good. We can also use the word in prayer to ask God to shape our character to be more like His. 4 Bounds, E. M. The Complete Works of E. M. Bounds on Prayer: Experience the Wonders of God Through Prayer, P68. Baker Publishing Group, 2004. Praying the Word | 5 Be careful though, because if we ask Him to shape us, we might have to go through some things. I do want to warn you that if you want to be like Jesus, and move in the power of the Holy Spirit, you might have to go through a few things that are uncomfortable, that stretch you. Hebrews 5:8 NKJV though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. But my point is that we can ask God to shape our character and he’ll do it. And when we pray the word within that request, we could use a passage like 1 Thessalonians 2:6-8 NKJV “Nor did we seek glory from men, either from you or from others, when we might have made demands as apostles of Christ. 7 But we were gentle among you, just as a nursing mother cherishes her own children. 8 So, affectionately longing for you, we were well pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God, but also our own lives, because you had become dear to us. ” Here Paul is talking about the way he ministered to the people at Thessalonica. Paul and Silas grew, in their hearts, a deep love, care, and affection for the people there, and their ministry was coming from a place of concern for their well being. Because they were so concerned about these people, Paul describes the way he relates to them as a nursing mother. His description of pastoral care for people uses the metaphor of a mom who cares about her children so much she wants to make sure she helps them grow in a healthy way. And to help them grow, Paul insists that it wasn’t just the message the people recieved, but it was also Paul himself. Because he was there, the people recieve a parental-type of care, compassion and relationship as they learned how to grow in the Lord and in deeper relationship with Him.5 Eventually they would learn to turn away from Paul as a parental care figure and to Jesus Himself. Paul used metaphor and described that as moving from milk to meat. 5 Hayford, Jack W. The Hayford Bible Handbook, P404. Edited by Jack W. Hayford, Thomas Nelson Incorporated, 2004. Praying the Word | 6 We can ask for that same kind of care and compassion for other people that Paul and Silas had. We can pray the word; we know how Paul operated, so we can ask in faith knowing God will help us act that way, too. We could pray something like, “Lord, help me be gentle as I interact with people, as a nursing mother who cherishes her children, so that Your light and Your message and Your healing can flow.”As we pray for more gentleness, God will also give us the ability to be sensitive to the needs of others, just like a nursing mother is sensitive to the needs of her child. Paul gently and tenderly cradled those infant believers in Thessalonica, nourishing them with the food of God’s word. He selflessly committed himself to understanding their hopes and fears so he could meet their genuine needs. And He did that so they could grow in the Lord and learn to trust Jesus more and more. He wanted them to get the pure milk of the word so they would learn who God really is and so that they could manifest Jesus’ life, character, and grace to everyone around them. 1 Peter 2:2 NKJV “Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, 2 as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, 3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.” Newborn babies in Christ need us to act like mothers to them for a while, gently nursing them with the milk of the word. That means that we need to eat of the word, we need to feed on it, and we need to get it into our system. And as we get it into our system, it will also come out of us, not just when we pray, but also when we need the promises it contains. If you’ve heard phrases like ‘garbage in, garbage out,’ or ‘you are what you eat’ it’s kind of like that. There’s a physiological principle that if we eat garbage we’ll feel like garbage and we won’t have the proper energy to be healthy and productive. Praying the Word | 7 In a similar way spiritually, if we don’t put enough spiritual nutrients in our bodies, we won’t be able to operate correctly when we face a spiritual battle - we won’t have enough energy to be gentle, to be loving, or to be kind when we’re hit with persecution, disappointment or anger. As we put more of God’s word in us, as we pray the word, we’ll find it does wonders to our soul - it will settle us and bring us peace. God will start to take our eyes off of worldly, fleshly things and focus them on Him. We’ll start to care less about this world and more about God’s kingdom. We’ll care less about ourselves and more about others, and we’ll find ourselves abiding in Christ more and more, just like a child sitting on its mother’s lap. David talks about this in Psalm 131. He found that simple humility and trust in God (just like a child trusts its mother) brings hope. And it’s not a fleeting ‘wish upon a start’ optimism that fades; it’s a deep hope in the character of the One True God who is gentle, kind, caring, and compassionate towards us. Psalm 131 NKJV “Lord, my heart is not haughty, Nor my eyes lofty. Neither do I concern myself with great matters, Nor with things too profound for me. 2 Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul, Like a weaned child with his mother; Like a weaned child is my soul within me. 3 O Israel, hope in the Lord From this time forth and forever.” David is the king of all of Israel but he says he’s not concerned about ‘great matters.’ He’s saying that all these affairs of state, all this stuff going on, all the stuff the poets and theologians and politicians want to talk about is too much for me. I’m not going to bother with it. I’m going to focus on my heart. I’m going to focus on my soul, on being quiet with the Lord. And it works. He feels peace, he feels love. And then he exhorts Israel to do the same - ‘oh put your hope in the Lord! Lean into Him because He’ll take care of you like a good mother does. Praying the Word | 8 This Psalm is something called a ‘hymn of trust.’ It’s a declaration of humility, or of throwing away pride, it’s a declaration and a call to trust God and it’s a reminder and admonition for everyone else to simply trust in God. When David says he ‘feels like a weaned child,’ that word, weaned, has the same root that means to treat someone gently, with kindness, or to help someone grow and be made perfect and complete. In other words, God is treating him gently and with kindness, so he can feel at rest and at peace. The metaphor suggests a child who no longer cries out in hunger for the mother to feed it, but who seeks out the mother for her warm embrace and nurturing care. The word could also describe a baby who is well-fed and fully satisfied, resting peacefully in the mother’s embrace. Both metaphors are a powerful image of a person who finds calmness and quiet in the embrace of God. King David, in the midst of conflicts and crises, looks to God as a nurturing, life-giving mother. David folds himself in God’s nurturing embrace and finds life, peace, and rest.6 So today, no matter what you may face, get the word of God into you. Pray the word and lean into God’s loving embrace. Know that as you pray the word, God will move, not because you did a better job quoting Him than someone else did, but because you’re starting to better understand who He is, what He wants to do, and how He operates. The message of Psalm 131 is simple. Pride, haughtiness, and seeking after great and wondrous things doesn’t provide the calm and quiet that simple reliance on God and His provides. Mark 10:15 NKJV Assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it.” 6 deClaisse-Walford, Nancy L., et al. The Book of Psalms, P1300. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2014. Scribd, https://www.scribd.com/read/482216943/The-Book-of-Psalms#. Accessed 6 May 2022. Praying the Word | 9 So let’s all commit to be more childlike in His presence, to not worry about things too high and haughty for us but instead to simply trust the One who gives us milk to drink and manna to eat so we can have strength for the journey and grace for the moment. Praying the Word | 10