Bayside Baptist Church

Jason King: I read a story this week about hearing loss because there's a bit of a debate going on in my house if I'm losing my hearing or not. So if you know a good audiologist, I'm all ears. There we go, got to get the dad jokes done today.

But I love this story and it's just a really good reminder of what we're talking about today. There's this man, a husband, who believed that his wife was losing her hearing. So he consulted with a doctor just to get some advice on how to check the severity of her hearing loss. Is this a really big deal? What do we need to do?

The doctor gave him some really solid advice on what he needed to do next. He said, "You need to go home and you need to ask your wife questions at various distances away from her. The further away you are and the closer you are when she hears you, that's going to help us determine the severity of her hearing loss."

So the husband goes home and the wife's in the kitchen. She's cooking and she's got her back turned to him. He thinks this is perfect, the greatest opportunity possible. He decides to go ahead and try this out. He goes into the living room about 20 feet away and he asks a question. He says, "Honey, what's for dinner?" Crickets. No response.

He gets a little bit closer. Now he's about 10 feet away and he asks the question again, "Honey, what's for dinner?" There's still no response. Now he gets as close as he can, right behind her, and he asks the question one more time, "Honey, what's for dinner?" The wife, exasperated, turns around and says, "For the fourth time, we're having chicken!"

Turns out he had the hearing problem. As I'm thinking through this story, I think that's a good picture of our prayer life. For a lot of us, we talk to God, we're having this conversation with God in prayer, and we ask ourselves, "Does he hear me? Is he actually listening to my voice? Does God hear what I am saying?"

The reality is that most of us actually need to reconfigure how we think about prayer. God is hearing our prayers. Typically it's us who have the hearing problem, not God. Most of us treat prayer as if we are going to God with a list of things we want, even a list of things that we need, and we expect and anticipate some kind of answer or response from him.

But the truth is prayer is not about what we get from God. That's not the purpose of prayer. We pray because we get the presence of God. That's why we pray. This morning I want you to hear an encouraging message from Ezra chapter 8 that reminds us of this fact. If you've got a Bible with you, go ahead and join me in Ezra chapter 8.

It's fine to lay aside your pride for a second. I know Ezra's not one of those books people typically read, so feel free to use the table of contents, but if it helps, it is in the Old Testament. In Ezra, we see this awesome thing taking place. The Israelite people have been in captivity—what we call the Babylonian captivity—for 70 years.

For 70 years they have been imprisoned by this enemy country and now they are being set free. A new king has come into power and he said, "I'm going to let these people go. I'm going to let them return to their homeland, return to their culture and their way of living." As this is happening, a man named Ezra steps up and says, "I'm here to lead my people."

The first thing that Ezra does before the Israelites pack their bags, load up the camels, and hit the road is call for a time of prayer and fasting. He tells the people the first thing that we need to do is to pray and seek God's presence for this trip. As we read this passage together, it will help us see the reality of prayer.

The reason that we pray and why we pray is not about the things that you and I get from God. It's instead about the presence of God in our life and that he hears us. I want you to listen to what Ezra says in Ezra chapter 8 starting in verse 21. Ezra said, "And there by the Ahava Canal, I gave orders for all of us to fast and humble ourselves before our God. We prayed that he would give us a safe journey and protect our children and protect us and our goods as we traveled."

"For I was ashamed to ask the king for soldiers and horsemen to accompany us and protect us from enemies along the way. After all, we had told the king, 'Our God's hand of protection is on all who worship him, but his fierce anger rages against those who abandon him.' And so we fasted and earnestly prayed that our God would take care of us and he heard our prayer."

Will you pray with me this morning as we dig into God's word? Oh Father God, will you please just bring your presence into this place right now. Lord, we want you here. Lord, we want to draw near to you and experience what you have for us through your word. Give us ears to hear. Let us lean in and listen to your Holy Spirit speaking through scripture this morning.

Lord, call us back to what it means to be a people of prayer. Help us to recognize that it's not about the things that we get from you. It's not about our list of needs or wants, but rather, Lord, it's about sitting in your presence and drawing near to you. Speak to our hearts this morning. I pray this all in the name of your son, Jesus. Amen.

The first thing that we see in this passage is that we pray to a powerful and personal God. Ezra understood that when he and the people of Israel prayed before their journey home, he wasn't praying for the sake of tradition. It wasn't just "this is what we do at this point in time." It's not something where we're just going through the motions or we're doing it because we have to do it.

He understood that he was speaking to a person. Prayer is not a one-sided monologue; it's a conversation with the Almighty. Whenever you and I practice prayer, we are speaking to God himself. When we understand who we are talking to, our prayer life takes on a whole new meaning. Notice what happened there in verse 21.

It said, "Then I, Ezra, proclaimed a fast there at the river Ahava that we might humble ourselves before our God to seek from him a safe journey for ourselves, our children and all of our goods." There's a lot here that we can unpack that helps us understand what's happening and better understand what our prayer life can look like. There are three things specifically.

The first is that Ezra and the people of Israel humbled themselves before God. They did this first by fasting. Fasting is when I select a specific time and I'm not going to eat anything. I'm going to declare over my life, "I want the presence of God more than I want food itself." When we do that, it's this humbling experience.

What Ezra and the people of Israel are doing here is saying, "I want the presence of God more than I want food." This is because their understanding of the person of God brought them to this place of utter humility. They knew who they were talking to. They were talking to the creator and sustainer of the universe, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the one who is mighty and powerful and is sitting on the throne of heaven.

They took on a posture of humility through prayer. The second thing that we see here is that Ezra referred to God as "our God." It's personal. It's indicating this personal relationship that the Israelites had with God. God was not only greater than them, he was also personal and personally connected to his people.

God is not distant and removed. He's not a cold cosmic force like from Star Wars. He cares about his people and he cares deeply. He's like a shepherd who cares for his flock of sheep. He's like a father who cares for his children. That's what we see when Ezra prays "our God."

Third, we can consider the specific things that Ezra and the Israelites were praying for. They prayed for themselves and for their safety as they were journeying back home. They also prayed for their children, lifting their kids up in prayer. They prayed for these personal items and possessions that they were taking back with them.

These possessions were going to be used to rebuild their place of worship when they got back to Jerusalem. The things that Ezra is calling the people to pray for in this moment are deeply personal. They're praying over their very lives and their children and the future of their children. They're praying over their worship.

What that reveals to us is that for Ezra and the people of Israel, they understood not only that God is powerful but also that God is personal. They were willing to say, "God, I'm willing to lay everything down at your feet. I'm willing to entrust everything that I have, everything that I am, and my entire future into your hands because I know that you're powerful and I know that you care about me."

Ezra prayed with humble familiarity because he understood who he was praying to. He knew that God was powerful and that God was personal. I love what R.C. Sproul, a theologian and writer, said about this. He said, "When we pray, we must remember who we are and who we are addressing."

When we pray, it should come from this place of humble familiarity. First, I'm humble in the presence of God. I'm not walking in with my hands in my pocket all nonchalant like, "What's up, God?" I don't have my arms crossed in anger like, "God, you better listen to me." I come with humility.

I get down on my knees and on my face and say, "I'm speaking to the creator and sustainer of the universe, who is much greater than I am." But it also comes with familiarity. It comes with this recognition that I'm speaking to the one who cares about my soul even more than I do.

Our prayer life should begin with a place of humility because we're praying to the creator and sustainer of the universe. I want to put that into perspective for us because I think a lot of us forget that. We get stuck in this place where God is just kind of a tradition. God is just words on a page or something that I do on Sundays to start my week.

God is so much bigger than we could even imagine. To put it into perspective, think of this: Exodus describes God as two pillars, a pillar of fire and a pillar of cloud taller than skyscrapers, as the people of Israel are fleeing from Egypt and God's guiding them. That's how he appears.

When God appears to Moses and he hands him the Ten Commandments, do you remember how God is described? As a huge storm on a mountaintop. That's what God is like. When Job talks with God and he begins questioning why things are happening in his life, God speaks to Job out of a tornado.

The same God who split the sea and caused the sun to stand still in the sky, that's the God that we are speaking to. Psalm 33 and Genesis 1 tell us that he spoke everything into existence. Everything that you experience—from the clothes that you're wearing to the breath you breathe to the taco that you're going to eat for lunch today—everything that we experience, he has created.

Second Chronicles 2:6 says something really amazing about this: "But who is able to build a temple for him, since the heavens, even the highest heavens, cannot contain him? Who then am I to build a temple for him, except as a place to burn sacrifices for him?" It is just a place to worship him.

When we recognize who we are praying to, it should bring us to our knees, flat on our faces in awe and wonder and humility because he's so much bigger and grander than we are. We recognize how powerful and grand he is, but we also recognize who he is—his character and his person.

God is not some distant, unknowable cosmic being who's cold and indifferent towards our lives. God is close to humanity. God cares about us very personally. Scripture describes him as merciful, loving, gracious, and kind. Every single one of you in this room, he cares about you.

He knows every hair on your head. Mine's starting to thin, so there's less of that. He knows every detail of what's going on in your life and he cares about those things. He loves you deeply and personally. This is the same sentiment that Jesus communicated in the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6 when he said, "Our Father in heaven."

Our God sits on the throne of heaven. He is the creator and the sustainer of the universe. He is sovereign over everything that exists. But we have the privilege, as Romans 8 tells us, of calling him Father as his adopted children through faith. When we pray, it's not about saying all the right words. It's not about following some kind of formula.

It is a conversation with our Father who loves us deeply and personally. Our prayer life should be marked with this same humble familiarity that Ezra carried. When we pray, we come before the throne of God and we recognize that he is greater than whatever burden weighs on our heart. He is in control over every circumstance that we are walking through.

We also pray to the God of the impossible. If we first recognize who we're praying to and recognize that God's sovereign over everything, then that should have a massive impact on the way that we are praying and the things that we are praying for. It should lead us to pray big, impossible prayers.

We're speaking to the God who created everything and brought everything into existence with a word. Shouldn't our prayers be a reflection of that? Do we pray like that's the case? Like the one who breathed stars into existence hears us? We should be praying in such a way that if someone were to look at our prayer life they would say, "This person is insane. Why are they praying this way?"

That's exactly what we see Ezra do in this passage. Look again at verse 22. Ezra said, "For I was ashamed to ask the king for a band of soldiers and horsemen to protect us against the enemy on our way, since we had told the king that the hand of our God is for good on all those who seek him, and the power of his wrath is against all who forsake him."

The road that Ezra and the Israelite caravan were planning to travel was dangerous. The journey from the Ahava Canal to Jerusalem was notorious because there were bands of robbers and thieves waiting in ambush for unsuspecting travelers that they could take all their belongings from.

The Israelites would have been prime targets. They're carrying all of this gold and silver with them meant to rebuild their place of worship, nearly 25 to 30 metric tons of gold and silver. That's a lot of gold and silver. For Ezra and the Israelites in this moment, taking all of these supplies down this road would have been foolish.

Everyone around them would have known this is a really bad idea. It would have been like me leaving my wallet on the dashboard of my car and leaving the doors unlocked. Any one of us could read this and say that was a really bad idea on Ezra's part. That sounds really stupid.

But Ezra knew who he was praying to. Even though it seemed impossible and everyone else around them would have thought that they were insane for doing this, he understood that for God, nothing is impossible. The things that you and I pray for are a reflection of how we view God.

The things that we pray for are a reflection of how we view God. If I'm willing to step in and say, "God, here are these huge things that are important to my life, and I know that you're powerful and I know that you love me and you care about me," then that reveals that I have this high view of God.

I know that God is the sustainer and creator of the universe. But am I only praying about small things that maybe are inconsequential and don't have as much weight or bearing on my life? Remember who you are praying to. He is powerful and he is personal. God made everything and he's sovereign over everything.

There is not a single thing that exists in all of time and space that is not under his authority. He cares for you like a loving father and like a kind shepherd. Charles Spurgeon once said, "He who counts the stars and calls them by their names is in no danger of forgetting his own children."

Don't be afraid to take anything and everything in your life before the throne of God and pray about every detail. God cares about all of it. There is nothing that is too big for him to handle and there is nothing too small for him to care about. Like Jesus told his disciples, "With God all things are possible."

Your prayer life is a great measure of how you view our God. If you truly believe that God is powerful and that he cares about you, then you will pray these big, bold, courageous prayers because you know that he is capable of anything and everything. Pray in such a way that if someone were to overhear your conversation with God, they would think you're insane.

They would say, "This is crazy. Why would they pray for that person? Don't they know that they're a lost cause? Why would they pray for this situation? Don't they know that it's hopeless?" We pray that way because for our God there is nothing that is impossible.

Pray knowing that he can do anything and everything. The reason that we can pray like this is because we pray to a God who hears. When we pray, God hears us. He hears our voice calling out to him. That's probably the greatest thing about prayer: that we're engaged in this conversation with the God who knows us and loves us.

We're not speaking to a wall or talking into an endless void; we're speaking to our heavenly Father. That's what Ezra and the Israelites discovered at the end of their time of prayer and fasting. Verse 23 says, "So we fasted and implored our God for this and he listened to our entreaty."

Then we see what happens next in verses 31 and 32. He says, "Then we departed from the river Ahava on the 12th day of the first month to go to Jerusalem, and the hand of our God was on us and he delivered us from the hand of the enemy and from the ambushes by the way. We came to Jerusalem and there we remained for three days."

I love what verse 23 says: "God heard us." Ezra and the Israelites prayed and fasted, and God heard what they said. It wasn't because of the words that they used or some kind of special formula. God heard them because God loves them and cares about them.

Ezra emphasized that God heard them prior to their safe arrival in Jerusalem. Before they ever arrived, he notes that God heard them.