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Guest (Male): Today on Study the Word, Pastor Thom Keller has some wisdom to share about God's promises.

Pastor Thom Keller: And this is a component that I believe is lacking in many of our prayers today. I think we're good at expressing the problem, sharing that with God, and then asking for help. But from my vantage point, we, I, rarely express what the basis is for our expecting God to answer our prayer. And yet God wants us to stand on His promises.

Guest (Male): In Nehemiah's prayer, among other things, he reminded God of His promise to the nation of Israel. When making our requests, we stand on firm ground when we stand on God's promises spoken from His Word. The book of Hebrews tells us, "He who promised is faithful." This is Study the Word, radio ministry of Calvary Chapel Lebanon. Pastor Thom Keller joins us now in Nehemiah chapter one.

Pastor Thom Keller: Hey, we're in the book of Nehemiah this morning, Nehemiah chapter one. One of the enemy's greatest strategies is to try to get our focus off of prayer and instead on us trying to fix our problems ourselves. How's that worked for you in the past? Not too well. In today's lesson, Nehemiah shows us the correct strategy to follow when life happens.

Nehemiah 1, verse 1 to 4: These are the memoirs of Nehemiah, son of Hacaliah. Hanani, one of my brothers, came to visit me with some other men who had just arrived from Judah. I asked them about the Jews who had returned there from captivity and about how things were going in Jerusalem. They said to me, "Things are not going well for those who returned to the province of Judah. They are in great trouble and disgrace. The walls of Jerusalem have been torn down and the gates have been destroyed by fire." When I heard this, I sat down and wept. In fact, for days I mourned, fasted, and prayed to the God of heaven.

Just a quick review of this book. Many believe that Ezra, a scribe whose book ended 13 years before Nehemiah traveled to Jerusalem, was the author. They believe Ezra wrote First and Second Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah, all four books. They are believed to have originally been written as just one book written by Ezra, although some say that Nehemiah was the author of the book by his name by himself.

Ezra is the main character of the book by his name. He traveled from Babylon to Jerusalem in 457 BC, which again is 13 years prior to Nehemiah's arrival. Ezra was a priest who came back to restore religion to the people, whereas Nehemiah was a civil engineer of sorts who is going to come to restore the wall around Jerusalem and some of the houses.

As we open this chapter, we find that the Jews had been back home in Jerusalem for nearly 100 years. Although they had rebuilt the temple, it was a very insignificant temple compared to Solomon's temple. Although they had rebuilt the temple, they made very little progress in rebuilding the wall.

This failure to rebuild the wall around Jerusalem was not due to lack of effort on their part. Their failure was due to the fact that whenever they would start to work on the wall, their hostile and powerful neighbors would, by a show of force, compel them to stop. Or their hostile neighbors would appeal to the king back in Persia, who would then send orders back from the king telling the Jews to stop. As you'll see soon, these hindrances will in fact be the subject of much of our study ahead.

While serving the king, Nehemiah hears about these continual setbacks. Verse 3: they said to me, "Things are not going well for those who returned to the province of Judah. They are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem has been torn down and the gates have been destroyed by fire." Now Josephus says that this additional bit of news was told to Nehemiah. Josephus is a trusted Jewish historian who lived at the time of Jesus. This is what he wrote about the story from Nehemiah.

It says when Nehemiah asked, "How are things going back in Jerusalem?" they replied to Nehemiah that, "Things in Jerusalem are in a bad state and that their walls were thrown to the ground and that the neighboring nation had done a great deal of mischief to the Jews. In the daytime, they overran the country and pillaged it. At night, they did mischief so much so that many Jews were led away captive out of the country and that their roads in the daytime were found full of dead men."

Upon hearing this, Nehemiah shed tears out of commiseration of the calamities of his countrymen. That adds a whole different level of difficulty for the Jews in Jerusalem. We read that what Nehemiah did is the same thing we should do first: he fasted and prayed. Verse 4: When I heard this, I sat down and wept. In fact, for days I mourned, fasted, and prayed to the God of heaven.

Then I said, "O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps His covenant of unfailing love with those who love Him and obey His commands, listen to my prayer. Look down and see me praying night and day for your people, Israel. I confess that we have sinned against you. Yes, even my own family and I have sinned. We have sinned terribly by not obeying the commands, decrees, and regulations that you gave us through your servant Moses.

Please remember what you told your servant Moses: 'If you are unfaithful to me, I will scatter you among the nations. But if you return to me and obey my commands and live by them, then even if you are exiled to the ends of the earth, I will bring you back to the place I have chosen for my name to be honored.' The people you rescued by your great power and strong hand are your servants. O Lord, please hear my prayer. Listen to the prayers of those who delight in honoring you. Please grant me success today by making the king favorable to me. Put it into his heart to be kind to me." In those days, I was the king's cupbearer.

There are some huge lessons for us here in prayer. When we hear of something that burdens us, bothers us, upsets us, or maybe even angers us, our first action should always be to take it to God in prayer. Those of you with prophetic giftings, perceivers if you will, and others too, when God shows you something and you look around you and say to yourself, "Doesn't anyone else see this? Doesn't anyone else see what's happening here? What's going on? Don't you see what's happening?"

And you feel your mouth wanting to lock in the gear, remember this: the reason God shows you this ahead of other people is so that you would do what He wants you to do, which is to initiate what will always be God's first line of offense: prayer. It's a call to prayer. You're in the frontline as people pray. So many prophetically gifted people have been set free from some heavy weight they find upon them when they see something and they ask themselves, "What do I do with this?" The answer is simple, profound, and freeing: you pray.

God will take it from there. Before words fall from your lips, before sharing with others, before taking action, pray. As we will see in a moment, for Nehemiah, the time between the burden coming and the time when God called him to act is four months. Four months he remained silent with this deep, deep, heavy burden and did nothing until the right time came.

We learn much about how to pray for a prayer burden here. Verse 5: Then I said, "O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps His covenant of unfailing love with those who love Him and obey His commands." Notice here in what he starts his prayer out. In this beginning, he postpones presenting his petition to God by first praising God and reminding God of His covenant of unfailing love for Nehemiah and his countrymen who love God and obey His commands.

In verse 6: Listen to my prayer. Look down and see me praying night and day for your people Israel. I confess that we have sinned against you. Yes, even my own family and I have sinned. Nehemiah calls God as a faithful witness that he has been persistent night and day in his prayers for his country. In verse 7 he says this: we have sinned terribly by not obeying the commands, decrees, and regulations that you gave us through your servant Moses.

Here Nehemiah confesses that God was just and true to the warnings He issued to them, the warnings given to Moses that what would happen if God's people disobeyed His commands. In verse 6 he said, "I confess that we have sinned against you." He says, "Yes, even my own family has sinned against you. Yes, even I have sinned against you, and you warned us what would happen if we sinned as a nation." He's reminding himself and God that he's aware of the consequences that they deserve for their actions.

And verse 8: Please remember what you told your servant Moses: "If you are unfaithful to me, I will scatter you among the nations." And did this happen? Despite prophet after prophet speaking year after year over multiple centuries, it happened. The northern 10 tribes were carried off to Assyria in 732 BC, and 146 years later, the southern two tribes, Judah and Benjamin, were carried off to Babylon over a three-year wave, the final wave occurring in 586 BC.

Then Nehemiah reminds God of His promise to redeem their nation. Verse 9: "But if you return to me and obey my commands and live by them, then even if you are exiled to the ends of the earth, I will bring you back to the place I have chosen for my name to be honored." And this is a component that I believe is lacking in many of our prayers today. I think we're good at expressing the problem, sharing that with God, and then asking for help.

But from my vantage point, we, I, rarely express what the basis is for our expecting God to answer our prayer. And yet God wants us to stand on His promises. A verse that I love and quote often is Psalm 50, verse 12 to 15. God is speaking to the psalm writer and God says, "If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for all the world and its fullness are mine. Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats? Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving and perform your vows to the Most High. And call upon me in the day of trouble; listen, and I will deliver you and you shall glorify me."

Living Bible says it this way: "What I want from you," God speaking to you, "what I want from you is your true thanks. I want your promises fulfilled, the promises that He's made to you. I want you to trust me in your times of trouble so I can rescue you and you can give me glory. I want you to trust me in your times of trouble so I can rescue you and you can give me glory. That's a deal. You pray to me, I'll rescue you, you give me glory."

That's a deal. You pray to me, I'll rescue you, you give me glory. I'll rescue you, you give me glory when it happens. E.M. Bounds said this: "God's promises lie like giant corpses without life, only for decay and dust, unless we appropriate those promises by earnest and prevailing prayer." Listen again: "God's promises lie like giant corpses without life, only for decay and dust, unless we appropriate those promises by earnest and prevailing prayer."

God isn't up in heaven right now saying, "Oh, Thom, you're getting me in a lot of trouble. People are going to start coming to me with promises thinking that I really meant them, that I really answer them." He's not saying that. Isaiah 45:19 says this: "I publicly proclaim," this is God speaking, "I publicly proclaim bold promises. I do not whisper obscurities in some dark corner. I would not have told the people of Israel to seek me if I could not be found. I, the Lord, speak only what is true and declare only what is right."

Numbers 23:19: God is not a man, so He does not lie. He is not human, so He does not change His mind. Has He ever spoken and failed to act? Has He ever promised and not carried it through? And so what is the primary motive that is to be at the root of all of our prayers? Listen, what is the primary motive that is to be at the root of all of our prayers? We find the answer in 1 Corinthians 10: "So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God."

Let me give you a practical example. Let's say you want to quit smoking. A brief prayer for that might be this: "God, you are a wonderful, awesome, powerful God. I want to quit smoking. I'm so sick and tired of this, it's killing me. Please help me to quit in Jesus' name, Amen." Now, you could pray that prayer. But is there anything missing from that prayer? Well, first a scriptural promise, a scriptural mandate connecting God's word, God's promise to your prayer.

So let's modify it a bit. Here's a prayer modified: "Dear God, you are a wonderful, awesome God. I want to quit smoking. The Bible says that my body is a temple of the Holy Spirit and I am to glorify you, God, with my body." Because I read in 1 Corinthians 6:19 it says this: "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body."

"So God, I want to glorify you in my body, this temple of the living God. And I know that you will always give me the power and ability to obey you, to follow your word. And my reason to stop smoking is to glorify you, God." Because in 1 Corinthians 6:20 we read this: "For God bought me with a high price, so I must honor God with my body." And I will do that by giving up smoking.

1 Corinthians 10:31: "So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, when you stop smoking, do it all for the glory of God." The ultimate objective of every burden God will ever place upon your heart, whether that burden is for you or another person or a situation, the primary objective of every burden will always be, should always be to glorify God, always.

I wrote this in my Bible many years ago: a God-given burden is actually a God-given promise of God's hand in a particular matter. By giving us a burden, God gives us an opportunity to build our faith by allowing us to pray for something that He has already started to answer. His objective in this is to bring honor and glory to His name plus to prove Himself mighty.

Folks, understanding this is huge. Could we train ourselves to add to the end of every prayer so that the answer to this prayer would be to bring you honor and glory and praise? Listen again: could we train ourselves to add this sentence to the end of every one of our prayers so that the answer to this prayer would bring you honor and glory and praise? And the more people who are praying for a particular situation, the more total honor and glory and praise will go to God once He answers it.

Paul understood this principle. In 2 Corinthians 1 he says this: "You also must help us by prayer so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many." Listen again: "You also must help us so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessings granted us through the prayers of many." Because more people are praying, more thanks will be going up when the prayer is answered and more glory is being given to God.

And folks, this is why we should be quick to share our prayer requests with others. I don't know about you, but when it comes to certain issues in my own life, let's say dealing with my health, I am slow to ask others to pray for me. Thoughts pop up like this: "There are so many other people with much greater needs than this." Or, "I don't want to draw people's attention to me." Anybody ever think like that? I'm glad if you don't. I do.

But Paul did not think this way. Listen what he said in Romans 15: "I appeal to you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit to strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf." Listen again: "I appeal to you, I ask you please, brothers, by the Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit to strive together with me in your prayers. Pray with me to God on my behalf. Pray for me." Every time I give into that reasoning that people have more problems than I do, I shouldn't ask, or I don't want to take the attention at this moment and ask for something for me, every time I give into that reasoning, I am depriving God of glory, aren't I?

Every time I give into that reasoning, I am depriving God of glory that He can get through more people praying for that and seeing the answer when it comes. Also, if prayer changes things, which it does, is it possible, is it probable that the volume of prayer changes things? In other words, does God respond differently to the prayers of just one person for a thing versus five million all praying for that very same thing?

Personally, I think many times so. If prayer does change things and if God's primary objective is to get glory and praise through answered prayer, won't He get a whole lot more glory if five million people or even 50 more people are praying for something and He answers it versus the prayers of just one? Now, am I saying that God won't answer your prayer unless you have enough people praying? No, of course not. But the question that I raise is this: is it probable that it makes no difference at all how many people are praying sometimes?

All that to say this: if the primary objective of every prayer you pray is to give glory to God, and if God receives more glory if more people are praying with you, and if the number of people praying does in fact sometimes, let's say sometimes, affect the outcome, then why, oh why, would we not ask others to pray for us?

You know we have a prayer chain that goes out by way of email. Many of you are aware of that. It's very effective. Most of them when I get them, I just shoot up a quick flare prayer immediately. And if all of us do that, imagine what that looks like in heaven. Because in Revelation 8 it says this: "And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne.

Listen, and the smoke of the incense with the prayers of the saints rose before God from the hand of the angel." So if when an email comes out from the church office and a thousand people all shoot up a flare prayer, that sends out what I think would be a noticeably strong perfume-like burst of incense in that moment up to the throne room of God.

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