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Skip Heitzig: Some prayers can't be long. You recall when Peter was walking on the water for that very short period of time after Jesus walked on the water and said, "Come on, Peter." It worked. Peter's walking on the water until he sees the storm and he starts sinking. The Bible records that Peter said, "Lord, save me." Three words. He's sinking. He doesn't have time for, "Oh God of the universe, Heavenly Father..." He'd be dead. All he could get out was, "Lord, save me."

Aren't you glad the Bible doesn't say the long-winded prayer of a righteous man avails much? It says the effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. One commentator put it this way: "Silence would have been misinterpreted had Nehemiah closed his eyes and lingered in devotion. The king immediately would have suspected treason." So it was a quick, "God, help me."

I need to say this, however: quick prayers only work if you have a prayer life. Quick prayers are only effective if longer prayers have been in place beforehand, and they were for Nehemiah. He prayed day and night for four months. This little prayer at that moment, this popcorn prayer, was simply an act of trust. He'd always trusted; he trusted again when the king said, "What would you like?"

I want you to notice something else that stuck out to me this week. I'd never noticed it before. He says in verse four, "I prayed to the God of heaven." That happens to be a Nehemiah description of God. It's very frequently found in this book. Nehemiah refers to God as the God of heaven. We noted last week that when you realize who you're praying to and where the one you're praying to sits—heaven—he has the best vantage point in the universe. That will fortify your faith, your trusting.

No matter what's going on around you in your life, you are talking to the God of heaven. Think of the perspective. Look around your world. Is evil abounding? Yes. Is Satan deceiving people? Yes. Is the city in shambles? Yes. But is God still on his eternal throne? Yes. He's the God of heaven. When you realize this, it fortifies your trust. This is trusting.

By the way, this is why worship is so important. This is why we have worship songs before a sermon. We don't have 30 minutes of worship so latecomers can come and find a seat. We have that to get your perspective rightly adjusted as the songs remind you of who he is, what he has done, and what he can do. When you kneel before the King in heaven, you can stand before any king on earth. Here's Nehemiah standing before this king; he has been on his knees before the King of heaven. He's about to ask some pretty hefty requests, but he is confident God has called him to do this.

While you are waiting for God's timing, you need to couple that with trust. Here's what I'm saying you need to trust God for: trust that God is big enough and cares enough to reveal to you what he wants you to do, what his purpose for your life is. In fact, I would say God is more anxious to reveal his will to you than you are to have his will revealed to you. God is God, and God is able to do that. Even though you can't see it at this moment, that's where the trust comes in. Proverbs 3: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, do not lean to your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him," and maybe he'll direct your path? No, he will direct your path. Trust.

So, timing followed by trusting. Third step: testing. Nehemiah believes God has called him to go rebuild Jerusalem, but he doesn't want to presume. He wants to test that. He wants to test what he has felt God has placed on his heart because he wants to know for sure. There are three tests here. Test number one: he is honest about the problem. Verse three: he said, "May the king live forever! Why should my face not be sad when the city, the place of my fathers' tombs, lies waste, and its gates are burned with fire?"

Nehemiah knew this was the day. It's time to put up or shut up. I have to just spit it out and be honest about the problem. If this is the purpose for which I was born, I'm going to find out soon enough by just saying, "Here's the issue." I want to point something out because it shows up twice in this text. He refers to his fathers' tombs: "the place of my fathers' tombs." I think he did that for a very important reason. King Artaxerxes Longimanus would not have cared that Jerusalem is broken down with fire and the walls are in shambles. He wouldn't care. But what he would care about is respecting the dead. It was a core value in antiquity and in the Persian court to honor the tombs of your fathers, so Nehemiah brought that up as well. Smart move.

That's the first test: he's honest about the problem. Second test: he has a bold request to ask the king if he can quit, leave his position as cupbearer. Verse five: "I said to the king, 'If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, I ask that you send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers' tombs, that I may rebuild it.' Then the king said to me (the queen also sitting beside him), 'How long will your journey be? And when will you return?'"

This is quite a test. Let me explain why. If you are Bible students, you may recall the book right before Nehemiah is Ezra. In Ezra chapter 4, this king, Artaxerxes, had issued a decree previous to Nehemiah. He had issued a decree that the building in Jerusalem must stop, cease. When Nehemiah comes and says, "I want you to send me to Judah to build the city that you canceled," it's a bold request. I'm asking you to reverse your foreign policy regarding Jerusalem. You sent a letter to stop building; I'd like to start that building up again. If being sad was bad enough, he just might push the king over the edge with this one.

There's something I want you to notice also in verse six. It says, "The king said to me," then you'll notice a parenthesis, "the queen also sitting beside him." Now, that queen could have been his wife, Mrs. Artaxerxes Longimanus. But some commentators believe this was not the queen but the Queen Mother that it's referring to. If that is indeed the case, then the woman sitting next to him is Esther, which was his stepmother, as we looked at last week. If that is Esther, we know that she is Jewish, and that would have emboldened Nehemiah to be asking for this bold request.

Again, Proverbs 21: the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, and like the courses of water, he turns it wherever he wishes. Something else: did you notice in verse five? "I said to the king, 'I'm going whether you like it or not, king.'" No, I misquoted it on purpose, because what he really said is, "If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, I ask that you send me to Judah." Notice the submission.

Why do I bring this up? Because a lot of Christians get very cocky when it comes to government. They'll often quote things like, "The Bible says you obey God rather than men." Yes, you do when you need to, but I think you also need to respect authority so as to confirm the will of God. Did you know that God can work through ungodly government leaders? He does it all the time.

King Cyrus of Persia was the ungodly leader who let the Jews originally go back to their homeland. Caesar Augustus in the New Testament, an ungodly ruler, gave a decree for the world to be taxed, which drove Joseph and Mary out of Nazareth to Bethlehem so that Jesus could be born in Bethlehem to fulfill the prophecy. The king's heart is in the Lord's hand.

The third test I want to draw your attention to is that not only does he want to be honest about what he sees as the problem, not only does he want to be bold about quitting and having the king reverse his foreign policy, but now he's going to get really bold and ask, "Not only can I go, but I would like your government to pay for it. I want you to subsidize this."

Look at verse seven: "Furthermore I said to the king, 'If it pleases the king, let letters be given to me for the governors of the region beyond the River (that's the Euphrates River; remember, they're 900 miles away) that they must permit me to pass through until I come to Judah.'" It's like saying, "I want a passport, a visa, and business class tickets."

Verse eight: "'And a letter to Asaph, the keeper of the king's forest, that he must give me timber to make beams for the gates of the citadel which pertains to the temple, for the city wall, and for the house that I will occupy, my own digs.' And the king granted them to me according (this is what he notices) according to the good hand of my God upon me."

Here's what you need to notice: not only does he pray for the opportunity to go back, he has planned for the opportunity to go back in advance. What was he doing for four months? He was praying night and day, but he was doing more. He was researching and planning and figuring out what it's going to take to build, to travel. He needs protection, he needs documentation. He even researched and found the name of the keeper of the king's forest and mentions Asaph. He has been preparing, not just praying.

I bring that up because there's this mistaken idea that a Christian just needs to go out in faith, which to some people means without a plan, half-cocked, haphazard. "I'm just believing God." Believe God enough to pray and to have a plan because we're talking about your purpose in life, your calling. You don't want to get this wrong. Jesus said, "Which of you intending to build a tower doesn't sit down first to count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it?"

When I thought that my purpose in life was to be a pastor, I was in a UCLA program in radiology. But I really had this idea that my purpose in life was more than this. I wanted to pastor a church. So what did I do? I tested it. How did I test it? I taught home Bible studies. That was my petri dish. I figured I'd start a home Bible study, see if it grows and if people understand the Bible and grow in their faith. If they do, that's a good sign. If they don't, that's a bad sign, a negative sign. If the Bible study starts at 10 people then goes down to one and that's just me and I'm talking to the air, it's a good indication I'm not called to do this.

If it grows and I get good feedback, it may be an indication that I should do this. So I tested it. Let's say you think, "I'm called to be an evangelist." How do you know? Go street witnessing. Go tell your friends and family and people in your community about Jesus and see if anybody gets saved. If nobody gets saved, that's a good thing to know before you buy a sign that says "Joe Blow Evangelistic Association" and hit the road with it. You want to test it before you go. A calling that cannot be tested is a calling that cannot be trusted.

I'm going to give you the last one in a moment, the fourth step. Before I do, I have to just put this out there, especially for you Bible buffs, especially for you eschatology students. Notice in verse six when the king says, "How long will your journey be and when will you return?" It pleased the king to send him, and look at that last little phrase: "and I set him a time." Verse six marks the beginning of Daniel's 70-week prophecy.

In Daniel chapter 9, it says, "70 weeks of years are determined for your people, for the city of Jerusalem, from the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem until the Messiah." It will be 483 years—173,880 days to be exact. That timetable begins here when Artaxerxes gives the command to restore and build Jerusalem.

Timing, trusting, and testing. Let me give you the fourth step: tension. You didn't expect that one. One of the signs of your purpose and calling in life is having the right tension, the right blowback, the right opposition. Verse nine says, "Then I went to the governors in the region beyond the River and gave them the king's letters (showed them my passport and tickets). Now the king had sent captains of the army and horsemen with me (so he's got an entourage, military protection). When Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official heard of it, they were deeply disturbed that a man had come to seek the well-being of the children of Israel."

As soon as Nehemiah comes to town with this imposing entourage, news got out and the enemies of God got riled up. They're named here, and you will notice their names not only in verse 10 but throughout the book. Because they're going to be mentioned throughout the book, I need to explain them to you now so that later on I don't have to.

First is Sanballat the Horonite. He originally came from the town of Beth-Horon, east of Judah in the country of Moab. Documentation from antiquity, the Elephantine Papyri to be exact, identifies Sanballat as the governor of Samaria, the rival power north of Judah. He was in charge of all this territory, but now Nehemiah comes with letters from the king saying the king has commissioned him to build Jerusalem. So Nehemiah is in charge, Sanballat's not in charge, which means Sanballat the Horonite's territory just shrunk and his tax base just shrunk as well. He didn't like that.

Next guy is Tobiah the Ammonite. Get this: Tobiah is a Jewish name, but Ammon is east of the country of Israel. If you've ever heard of Amman, Jordan, that's the modern name for the ancient Ammonite territory. So Tobiah, a Jewish man, moved or was from the area of Ammon. Scholars have traced nine generations of his influential family in the nation of Ammon. Scholars tell us that Tobiah moved to Jerusalem and became the mafia boss. He's like the godfather of Jerusalem. He's the mob boss of town. So you've got two enemies: you've got Sanballat, governor of the northern rival power, and you've got Tobiah the Ammonite.

The call of God carries with it a certain amount of tension. We call it spiritual warfare. Calling brings conflict, and you should see opposition—the right kind of opposition—not as a bad thing but as a good thing. It's actually a sign of your calling and confirmation of your calling. When you find that your purpose in life ticks off the enemies of God, it must mean you're on the right track.

Charles Spurgeon said, "To have Satan for your adversary is a comfortable omen, for it looks as if God were our friend; and so let us be comforted in this matter." Charles Spurgeon said he'd rather have Satan as his enemy than as his friend. So make sure you've got the right enemies, the right tension. If your life is displeasing to God's enemies, it's probably because it's pleasing to God. But if your life and your lifestyle is pleasing to the enemies of God, then be worried. If your life poses no threat to the enemy, be worried. If it does pose a threat to the enemy, let it not bother you but incentivize you. "Great, I just ticked the devil off. Hallelujah! I have to do that again and again and again." So, tension. Timing, trusting, testing, and then tension.

Just a note: I was going through the text yesterday and something jumped out at me. Nehemiah believed that God still had a plan for national Israel, literal Israel. Nehemiah knew that they were in captivity for their sin, but he also knew that though Israel sinned in the wilderness, in the land, and went into captivity, that did not make God's promise to national, literal Israel null and void. God would eventually bring them back to the land. He believed that.

Then in verse 10, when he showed up, it says they were deeply disturbed that a man had come to seek the well-being of the children of Israel. That verse has been repeated since May 14th of 1948 when Israel got back in the land. All the neighborhood has been up in arms and still is that there is even a Jewish state in the region and that some have come to seek the well-being of the children of Israel.

Let's go all the way back to where we started. Jesus said, "I have come that they may have life and have it more abundantly." Abundantly. The day you were born, that's your coming. What you were born for, that's your calling. Find your calling, find your purpose. That's where the joy kicks in. That's where you get turbocharged to live another day, fulfilling your calling, your purpose, your mission.

It begins for some by receiving Christ. I can talk to you all day long about God's best for your life, but if you've never asked God to be in control of your life, you're never going to know what God's will is for your life because his will begins there: that Jesus becomes your Savior, your Master. You give your life to him; you let him control you. You intentionally ask him to save you. You are willing to turn from the old life and follow him into a new life.

Guest (Male): We're so glad you joined us today on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before you go, here's a reminder: when you give $50 or more this month, we'll send you the expound Nehemiah seven-message CD series with digital download, along with Pastor Skip's booklet, Overcoming an Anxious Mind, as our thanks. These resources offer biblical insight and encouragement to help you trust God in challenging seasons and experience his peace as you follow him. Your support helps keep this Bible teaching ministry on the air, connecting more people to God's word. Give today at connectwithskip.com/offer or call 800-922-1888. See you next time!

(Singing) Make a connection. Make a connection at the foot of the cross. Cast your burdens on his word. Make a connection. Connection.

Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's unchanging truth in ever-changing times.