Hope From the Word

Guest (Male): We begin with these hope-filled, encouraging words from Pastor Bill Lubkeman.

Bill Luebkemann: I want to encourage you today. Look, we serve a mighty God and an awesome God who listens and hears and acts. He calls us his children. He allows us to call him Abba, which means father. He provides for our needs. He even has the hairs on your head numbered. He has them numbered. Not just counted. Not a bird falls out of the sky that he doesn't know about. And he wants us to walk with him, and he wants us to know his will and his power in our lives.

Guest (Male): If you're going to communicate with someone these days, you have a lot of options. Maybe you'll send them an email or a text or use your cell phone to give them a call. Or maybe go the old-fashioned way of using snail mail. There are even apps that let you send videos back and forth to one another. But how do we go about talking to the God of the universe? Today on Hope from the Word, we'll show you as we get back into our new study of Nehemiah. You may be pleased to know there's no two-year agreement to sign off on or coverages to worry about.

Pastor Bill Lubkeman has observed a few prayer principles in chapter one, and he's here to draw our attention to them.

Bill Luebkemann: So then he starts his prayer in verse five. Then I said, Oh Lord, God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and obey his commands. Look, here's another principle, recognizing God for who he is and also for what he does with regard to who he is. Nehemiah describes him here. Oh God, Oh Lord, God of heaven, the great and awesome God. He describes him here. He's the God of heaven, and he's the great and awesome God. So look, he's the God of heaven. He's not one of the gods of heaven.

He's not one of the gods in the many heavens. He's not the God of this heaven, but there's other heavens and other gods. He's the God of heaven, and there's only one of each. And there is no other God. So you know, this is believing in this is mutually exclusive with any other religious system. But you're too narrow-minded. Well, I'm just following what the Bible says. And it's been around longer than any of us, and it's still the the biggest selling book there is. Every year, more Bibles are sold than any other book on the New York Times bestseller list.

The great and awesome God. It also says he's not a mean God. He's not a nasty God. He 's not impotent. He is a great God. He 's able to do the things that he promises. And he 's an awesome God. He does all these things and so much for us. He keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and obey his commands. He Nehemiah comments here on what the Lord does. He keeps his covenant. When he makes a deal, he keeps it. When we make deals, we try to look for a loophole and ways out of it.

You buy a house, you sign a contract, you have all kind of out clauses. If the mortgage doesn't come through, we can get out of this. If this doesn't happen, if that doesn't happen, they say get it in writing. But you know what, you you need to get it in blood, the promises, because so many contracts are dishonored today. But God keeps his word. He keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and obey his commands. And he told Israel, Look, if you follow me and I'm going to do these things, if you don't follow me, I'm going to do these other things.

So And he kept his word exactly like he said. And I think it's an important principle when we pray to recognize and understand who God is. Let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to the prayer your servant is praying before you day and night for your servants, the people of Israel. I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father's house, have committed against you. Here we see a fourth principle. He tells the Lord what he needs, and he makes his request known clearly. Let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear this prayer.

He's telling God what it is that he's praying for. And he's making it known clearly. And then we see another principle here. He's praying day and night. The scriptures say to pray without ceasing. We can pray when we get up and when we lay down and when we're in the shower and when we're driving our car and if we're driving our car on I-95, we should really be praying extra. And many times we can even pray while we're at work, and some of us, you know, maybe even especially need to be praying while we're at work.

And this doesn't mean you drive down the highway with your eyes closed. Oh Lord, keep me out of an accident. Or you try to do your work with your eyes closed either. But you can be talking to the Lord all the time. And then we see another principle here, confessing our sins. Nehemiah could easily have blamed everyone else here, but he didn't. He could have said, You know, it wasn't my fault, Lord. I wasn't born yet when these things happened. But he didn't say that. He could have blamed the people before him all the way back to Adam and Eve, you know, if Adam and Eve just hadn't sinned.

We wouldn't be having all these problems. You know what, if Adam and Eve hadn't sinned and if nobody had sinned until now, you would have sinned. So it doesn't matter. We're all guilty. We've all fallen short of the glory of God. It's not somebody else's fault. He recognized his own culpability here. He doesn't know. He never heard that New Testament scripture that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. But he he seems to understand the principle here. He's close to it. He repents of the sin of his ancestors, but also for his own sin.

He seems to know here that if he was alive in his ancestors' day, he would have done what they did. He would have been part of it. Look, don't pass the buck with God. Don't be looking to blame somebody else. Oh, this would be so much better, Lord, if only, you know, this other person hadn't hadn't sinned. I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father's house, have committed against you. We have acted very wickedly towards you. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees, and laws you gave your servant Moses. Well, what didn't they obey?

Well, what did they obey? That would be a shorter list. He said not to worship idols, not to worship other gods. When you come into the land I am going to give you, don't follow the practices that those people are doing there. But yet today, as Christians, so much so we look at the world for our guidance instead of to the church or to the Bible or to other believers. Movies that were X-rated 30 years ago are now PG-13, and we say, Oh, it must be okay. It's a PG-13 movie. It's okay to let the kids go.

Somebody was just telling me this week about a movie that was X-rated in the '70s, re-released in the '90s as PG-13. And if you were a Christian in the '70s, you never would have seen that movie. But now because somebody who's unsaved says it's PG-13, we believers say, Oh, it must be okay then. And maybe we should be looking at the Bible and saying, Do we really want to go see things with promiscuous sex and violence and fun made of Christians and people sleeping together that are not married and having abortions and Christians being made fun of.

Do we Is that really what we want to do with our time and our money, is to support that kind of garbage? We need to look at the Bible as our standard. Not at the world. The world's going down. And so the standards are getting lower and lower and lower, but the Bible doesn't change. They're the same as they were always. We need to repent of our sin and put God first and do things in accordance with what his word says. And Nehemiah says here in verse seven, We have acted very wickedly towards you. I think we can repent of that ourselves, and we should.

We have not obeyed the commands, decrees, and the laws you gave your servant Moses. They didn't follow any of them for long. Maybe for a little while. A generation or two. You know, if you don't pass along your Christian beliefs to your kids, nobody else will do it for you. And the real test is when you get to grandkids to see if are they walking with the Lord. Then you'll then you'll know if you live that long, if you were really successful at it. Well, first we need to be living it before we can be passing it along.

Because if we say do as I say, not as we do, we know that that won't work. We could all be repenting for our own nation. We don't have to blame other people. Oh, it's the president. It's the Congress. It's the legislators, the politicians. What a bunch of bums. Vote them all out. Yeah, we could blame Look, we need to repent ourselves for what we've done to contribute to what this nation to the condition that it's in and and even for what we haven't done that maybe could have changed it. And I It doesn't seem like Nehemiah here is at at all afraid to repent to God.

We've acted wickedly towards you. We've not obeyed verse eight. Remember the instruction you gave your servant Moses, saying, if you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations. But if you return to me and obey my commands, then even if your exiled people are at the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen as a dwelling for my name. Look, and now we see a seventh principle, reminding God of his promises. Why? Cuz he forgot? He didn't forget anything. God didn't forget anything ever. When we remind him of his promises, we show that we know what his word says, and we show him that we understand it.

Second Timothy chapter two, verse 15 says, Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. Look, a carpenter needs to know how to handle a saw and a drill and a hammer and and if they you know, if you hammer your thumb, you're not going to work as a carpenter for long. And if you try to saw with the wrong side of the blade, the side that doesn't have the the cutting edge on it, you can do that all day and you won't go through the wood.

A a carpenter needs to know how to use these tools to get the job done, and we need to know how to use our tools to get the job done for God. Look, he does the work, but he works through us. And it says, Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved. Is the best you can do to learn the Bible, come to church for an hour on Sunday morning? Is that the best that you can do for the God who's the creator of the universe? We we we need to be in his word every day, at least a little bit every day.

What you learned from him yesterday is going to get stale today. We need to be in it all the time. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, someone who does not need to be ashamed, who can correctly handle the word of truth, the Bible, the scriptures. We can remind God of his promises. That's what he says here. Remember the instruction you gave your servant Moses, saying, if you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations. But if you return to me, Look, That's what he said. If you're unfaithful, I'm going to scatter you.

But if you then return, I'm going to draw you back again. God didn't promise you a 49-in plasma screen TV or a new house, car, or boat. Which is not to say that he might not give you any of those things, but he did promise to supply all of your needs in accordance with his riches and glory. In other words, he has it all, and he's going to give us what we need. Do you believe that? Are you trusting God to provide these things that he has promised? And do you know the basis for doing so?

Look, the Bible's filled with loads of other promises as well. When we pray in accordance with God's promises, somehow it blesses him. Look, every teacher loves it when his pupils pay attention to him or her. Whatever you teach, grade school, college, if you're just teaching your kids as they're growing up, when they learn something, makes you feel good. Every teacher loves that. How much more so parents love it when our children pay attention. I was listening to a CD the other night with Brian Harris, who was a guy that I never heard of him before, but he goes out on the street witnessing to people.

And he has a radio show and any he asks him questions. He says, We're going to make a radio show. And And he witnesses to them and records their responses. And Brian had a CD of him witnessing to some Jews and some Muslims and college professor or something and you know. But he was telling this one guy, you know, who claimed to be a Christian, Have you ever read the Bible? Oh, no, I don't have time for that. And would you have a girlfriend? Oh, no, I don't have a girlfriend. Well, did you ever have a girlfriend?

No. Well, no, I never. Well, would you like to have one? Well, yeah, I kind of, you know. Well, you know, imagine you had a girlfriend for a minute and imagine you were writing her love letters. And imagine you wrote her 66 love letters. And then imagine you found out later on that she never read them. How would you feel? Well, I don't think I'd you know, want to have her as a girlfriend any longer. And he said, Well, you know, the Bible is 66 love letters written to you by God. How do you think he feels when you don't read them?

What would you think if you sent your boyfriend or your girlfriend 66 love letters and they never read them? There were many girls at home during World War II that held on to and cherished every letter they received from their guy who was away fighting the war. And I bet many of them could quote everything in the letters or verbatim at the time. Can you quote God 's promises verbatim? At least a few of them or some of them. Look, I think we can learn here. We need to be praying in accordance with God's will, in accordance with his promises and his word.

And if you do that, then you are going to be on the same page as God. Verse 10, They are your servants and your people whom you redeemed by your great strength and your mighty hand. Look, he's reminding God here again that these people, they're your servants and your people, and you redeemed them. Remember you brought them through the Red Sea and through the desert and into the promised land, and you did all these things for them. We see him continuing to remind God of who these people are. Not that God needs to be reminded because he forgot, but because he's showing here he knows God's word.

Oh Lord, verse 11, Let your ear be attentive to the prayer of this your servant and to the prayer of your servants who delight in revering your name. Give your servant success today by granting him favor in the presence of this man. I was the cupbearer to the king. Here we see an eighth principle, and I think it is this, specificity. You know God's promises, so tell him how these promises relate to what you are asking for. That's really hard. Try typing out specificity. I was thinking, you know, if I was a kid in a spelling bee and they asked me that word, I'd really be in trouble.

You know God's promises. Tell them how they relate to what what it is you're praying for, you know. It's been said prayer doesn't change God's heart. Prayer changes our heart. And that's the whole point of the whole thing. You know, I'm praying God will change his mind and give me that new TV. I really would like to have it. The football game would be so much better on plasma. I forget it. They don't last that long anyway. They burn out quick. Prayer changes your heart to get you more on the same page as God. And he brings his entire prayer to a conclusion here explaining exactly what he's looking for and how it relates to God's promises.

Let your ear be attentive to the prayer of this your servant and to the prayer of your servants who delight in revering your name. So others were praying as well. He doesn't even really say what he wants to do. Nowhere in this prayer did he say, I want to go back and fix up the city of Jerusalem. But clearly he he seems to know that. Give your servant success today by granting him favor in the presence of this man. He even knew. We could spend a lot more time on this. We're going to end here, but you know, he Artaxerxes was perhaps the one man at this time who could uh fund this kind of expedition.

He could provide the money, the resources, the security, the timber, you know, to rebuild. He he had the wherewithal to provide for everything. And it was no accident that here we see Nehemiah in this position of being a trusted advisor to Artaxerxes. There are not accidents in God's plan. Sometimes we pray for things and then later on we say, Oh, I forgot something. Lord, I want to I forgot to tell you this other He doesn't forget anything. There was no accident that Nehemiah was in this town, in this job, working in this place, and God was going to use him through that through the connections that he made.

And God can use every one of us where we're at. It's no accident where you're at. He was the cupbearer to the king, the God that he was a trusted associate of the one who could help. Now look, don't take this message as a formula for praying, but I think these are general guidelines that are worth considering. Jesus taught many of the same things when he gave the example of prayer in the Lord's prayer. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, worshiping God. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, praying for God's will be done.

Give us this day our 49-in plasma TV. No. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us. Lead us not into temptation and allow us to forgive others. A lot of the same ideas. I want to encourage you today. Look, we serve a mighty God and an awesome God who listens and hears and acts. He calls us his children. He allows us to call him Abba, which means father. He provides for our needs. He even has the hairs on your head numbered. For some of you, that's not too hard of a job. But he has them numbered.

Not just counted. When one of them falls out, he's That was number 63,812. He knows the numbers. Not a bird falls out of the sky that he doesn't know about. And he wants us to walk with him, and he wants us to know his will and his power in our lives. And we can be ever more successful at that if we will adjust our mindset and our prayers to his will and his plan and his purpose instead of having a mindset of praying for the things that we want, we need, we got to have as soon as possible.

Please, thank you very much. Good God, good bread, you know. What How's that thing go? Good great good God, good meat. Something let's eat. You know, let's say the prayer real fast. God is good. God is great. Why do we have to eat this broccoli that we hate? And we we need to adjust ourselves to his will and his plan and his purpose. If your purpose in praying is just to get done so you can eat the meal as quick as you can or go to bed or whatever, that then you know, you're just not going to be successful.

And maybe you haven't been being successful when you're praying, and maybe you can learn from this here. If you're here today and you don't know him, he invites you to have him come into your life and forgive your sins. He doesn't come in. He doesn't just barge in. Everybody's not saved. You're not just saved cuz you're an American and you can sing, you know, the the Star-Spangled Banner. You're not saved cuz your parents were saved or your neighbors were saved or because some preacher said you were saved or because they sprinkled water on you when you were an infant.

You get saved when you decide yourself by your own will to ask him into your life to forgive your sins. Verse nine of chapter Romans chapter 10 says, if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Look, you're not saved cuz you're a good person. Cuz you know, Joe said on this retreat, trying to put your good deeds next to God is kind of like holding a candle next to the sun. And I was just picturing that cuz I'm an engineer.

Well, how big the sun is? How many earths would fit inside the sun? Isn't it more than a million or something? More than a million earths? But consider 93 million miles away. We can still see it. We can feel the warmth that comes off of it. Try to put a candle up next to that. Candle. That's like your good deeds next to God. You know what? They just don't measure up. Well, I have a really big candle. Well, you're not going to get into heaven by being good. This retreat that we went on, the whole theme was grace.

It's a great theme. Grace. It's by God's grace that we can walk with him. And all we have to do our part is to ask him to come into our life and forgive our sins. If you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. If you haven't done that, I encourage you to do it today. And then I encourage you to pray without ceasing in accordance with what God's will is. And look in his word. And don't say, Okay, where's the verse on TVs?

Now, you know, where's the verse on I want to get whatever I can have? Pray intelligently about God's word and what he wants to do in your life and ask him to show you as you read the scriptures what it is he wants you to learn and what he wants you to know. And I think we can be all more successful walking with the Lord if we pay attention to what he says to us. Lord, we thank you for your word today. Just thank you for your hand upon us, Lord God. You are the first and the last, Lord, the beginning and the end, the alpha and the omega, Oh God.

Lord, work in our hearts and in our lives, Lord. Make us more like you, Lord. Allow us to become your children, Lord. Well, we are your children, Lord. But allow us to allow us to know your power in our lives, Lord. And allow us to get on the same page as you, Lord. To put aside our selfish human desires. Put aside the things that we see with our eyes or hear with our ears, the things of this world, Lord. May we focus ourselves on things that are from the other world, Lord, from your world, from your kingdom, Lord.

We thank you, Lord, for all these things in Jesus

Guest (Male): You've been listening to Hope from the Word. We're currently in Pastor Bill Lubkeman's study of Nehemiah. If you'd like to hear this message again, you have several options. Visit our website at ccmarlton.org, download the Hope FM app to your smartphone or tablet, or look for us wherever you find podcasts. If you've been thinking about visiting Calvary Chapel of Marlton where Bill serves as pastor, we'd love to have you. Our service times are on Sunday mornings at 10:00. We also meet midweek on Wednesdays at 7:00 p.m. You can also live stream from home when you visit our YouTube channel at Calvary Chapel of Marlton.

For more information, go to ccmarlton.org. We hope to see you soon. Before the day is done, we'd like to connect with you. Share a praise report, prayer request, or what you're learning from this series. You can easily email us from our website ccmarlton.org or just call us at 856-983-1662. There's more to come from Bill's study of Nehemiah, and we'll have that for you next time on Hope from the Word with Pastor Bill Lubkeman. This program is brought to you by Calvary Chapel of Marlton.