Transformed Through Prayer

The Reading of Exodus 34 and 1 Corinthians 9

Today we will be reading first from the Old Testament in Exodus chapter 34. Exodus chapter 34 Beginning at verses 29 and when you've arrived there, please stand in honor of the reading of God's Word if you're able.

Exodus chapter 34 found on page 74 in the Black Pew Bibles. Exodus 34 verse 29. When Moses came down from Mount Sinai With the two tablets of a testimony in his hand as he came down from the mountain Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God.

Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses and behold the skin of his face shone and they were afraid to come near him. But Moses called to them and Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation Returned to him and Moses talked with them.

Afterward all the people of Israel came near and he commanded them all that the Lord had Commanded them all that the Lord had spoken With him in in Mount Sinai and when Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face.

Whenever Moses went in before the Lord to speak with him He would remove the veil until he came out and when he came out and told the people of Israel what he had commanded. The people of Israel would see the face of Moses and the skin of Moses face was shining and Moses would put the veil over his face again until he went in to speak with him.

Please turn now to the New Testament. 1st Corinthians chapter 9. 1st Corinthians chapter 9 verse 15 and that's found on page 957. 1st Corinthians chapter 9 beginning at verse 15, but I have made no use of all these rites.

Nor am I writing these things to secure any such provision. For I would rather die than have anyone deprive me of my ground for boasting. For if I preach the gospel that gives me no ground for boasting for necessity is laid upon me.

Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel. For if I do this of my own will I have a reward. But if not of my own will I am still entrusted with the stewardship. What then is my reward that in my preaching I may present the gospel free of charge.

So as to make full so as to not make full use of my right in the gospel. For though I am free from all I have made myself a servant to all that I might win more of them to the Jews I became a Jew in order to win Jews.

To those under the law I became as one under the law though not being myself under the law that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law not being outside the law of God.

But under the law of Christ that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people that by that that by all means I might save some.

I do it all for the sake of the gospel that I may share with them in its bless. Let me share with them in its blessings. Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize.

So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable so I do not run aimlessly. I do not box as one beating the air.

But I discipline my body and keep it under control lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified. Amen, please be seated as we pray. Thank you Lord for your word. Thank you Lord that you have Spoken and spoken clearly Lord and definitively to us.

We pray Lord for your aid today for your spirits help to Empower our pastor to give him the words and the strength to preach your truth faithfully Lord. We pray Lord that that truth would fall on fertile soil.

That hearts would be prepared today to receive that word and that we would find ourselves Closer drawn closer to you rather than farther after this message Lord because of our own hearts Lord I pray that your spirit would help us to be those who look into the perfect law the law of liberty and Being not hearers who forget but doers Lord and blessed in that doing Lord pray Lord that you would be with us today.

And that you would. And that you would bless bless not only the the preaching but the hearing of this word in Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Nehemiah's Four Months of Prayer and the King's Question

We'll turn if you would to The book of Nehemiah, I want to read to you verses 1 through 8 of chapter 2 in Nehemiah and This will bring us to Nehemiah's Discussion his encounter with King Artaxerxes which will set the tone for the rest of the book really that follows our message this morning is just going to be the first three verses and It's the beginning of a three-part series.

Nehemiah chapter 2 verses 1 through 8 will Be three separate sermons and each time I'm going to read to you all eight verses though this morning. Just verses 1 through 3 for our actual preaching. So Nehemiah 2 1 through 8 in The month of Nisan in the 20th year of King Artaxerxes when wine was before him I took up the wine and gave it to the king.

Now I had not been sad in his presence and the king said to me Why is your face sad seeing you are not sick? There's nothing but sadness of the heart. Then I was very much afraid. I said to the king let the king live forever.

Why should not my face be sad when the city the place of my father's graves lies in ruins and its gates have been destroyed by fire. Then the king said to me, what are you requesting? So I prayed to the God of heaven and I said to the king if it pleases the king and if your servant has found some favor in your sight.

That you send me to Judah to the city of my father's graves that I may rebuild it and the king said to me. The Queen sitting beside him how long will you be gone? And when will you return? So pleased the king to send me when I'd given him a time and I said to the king if it pleases the king.

Let letters be given me to the governors of the province beyond the river that they may let me pass through. Until I come to Judah. And a letter to Asaph the keeper of the king's forest that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the fortress of the temple and for the wall of the city and for the house that I shall occupy and The king granted me what I'd asked for the good hand of my God Was upon me and God blessed the reading and the hearing of his word this morning.

You know, there's a couple of kinds of people I really admire. One is the sort of person who seems to do everything well and does a lot of things. That he does well. You might think of the 19th century Dutchman Abraham Kuyper who was Like that he was the prime minister of the Netherlands.

He founded and became universe or president of a seminary in a university. He was a respected theologian still respected today and an author and much more than that. And he did it all. Well, he did it all even superbly.

He's one of those people who causes people like me to say of myself. Well but I'm a jack-of-all-trades and a master of none and We say that at least I say it because I admire the Kuypers of the world.

Who's a master of all things that he puts his hand to. And the other type of person I kind of admire. Are those people have that single? Unwavering focus in life. One thing one it consuming passion that informs everything they do.

They're driven with this one single vision marriage college. Residents everything they do passes through this one filter. Does it progress or does it hinder this one? Single goal I have in life. You know our top athletes are like that.

Whether it's morally right for them to earn millions and millions of dollars. Because they can hit or throw or catch a ball or put it through a circular thing. That's a question not for today. But there's no question that these top athletes enter into the rarefied heights of pro basketball or pro football or Baseball or any of those things but by one road.

Their whole life their every calorie their every exertion all of it is for one thing. I will be an NFL quarterback or an international Formula One race driver or An Olympic athlete or an Olympic gymnast and that's just for sports and we could think of Entertainers and musicians and astronauts.

It's all the same. You just don't get there if you allow anything to take you away from your one mission. Nehemiah. The subject of our last few weeks preaching and the next several weeks Lord willing.

He's the latter of these two types. Whether he always was a man with that one singular focus is Impossible to answer because all we know of him is in this book and it gives us very little of his actual background.

Perhaps he was like me a sort of jack-of-all-and-master-of-none and the Lord brought him by his spirit into a life focused on a single objective. This morning's text Brings us to the result of Nehemiah's four months of weeping and mourning and praying and fasting Before the Lord and what happened as a result of all this is given to us in such straightforward terms.

It's almost anticlimactic. The king Artaxerxes Said yes. What do you request? Answer is yes. Not just yes, but yes with full royal support and funding and only one condition laid upon Nehemiah. That had nothing to do with what he was going to do in Judah and the wall around Jerusalem.

The only condition laid upon Nehemiah was to return to set a time to come back. We're going to go through These messages one at a time. By using the questions that the king posed to Nehemiah that's going to be our guide and this morning is the first of those verses 2 3.

Which has this question in there? Why is your face sad? Which allows him to reveal the dilemma over which he had wept and mourned and fasted and prayed for four months. So the power of prayer is An obvious lesson here.

That God answers prayers everywhere in our Bibles from the statement of fact that he does here to the record in history that hearing he acts Nehemiah's four months before the throne of grace. Would have been an exercise of a madman if he thought other than that he was praying to a living God Who is capable of anything and willing and ready to answer?

So the power of prayer is one of the lessons that we can extract very easily from these verses also the wisdom of planning. The wisdom of planning of looking ahead. Nehemiah did pray that famous arrow prayer.

We have none of the words of the prayer. But the context allows us to read in something like thank you Lord for granting me this opportunity. Now may I use it well and to your glory? Something like that in about a quarter of a second.

So I want this morning to look at just this first question. Why is your face sad? And As I said the power of prayer the necessity of prayer is an obvious lesson in these verses that we should pray. We should trust God and we should pray as long as we must.

Luke chapter 18 Jesus speaks of the persistent widow going to the unjust judge and she goes over and over and over again. Just wears him out with her with her seeking after justice before him. Which eventually he does in the parable give her.

That's a clear lesson to these verses. I want us to think this morning. I want you to think this morning about the real power of prayer to transform. To transform not just the circumstances though. God may do that, but to transform yourself.

The first question. Leads us into that. Why is your face sad? To understand this and the question and what's going on here. We do need to take a little time with the setting. What is actually happening at that moment when Nehemiah has this opportunity to place his?

Request to place the result of four months of weeping and mourning and fasting and praying before the king. Excuse me most scholars believe that this was during a great festival that the king through.

Like what his predecessors Xerxes had done at the beginning of Esther in the book of Esther by the way Xerxes. The current king's father art of Xerxes father. His name was Xerxes in the book of Esther is called Ahasuerus.

Same man. Ahasuerus is just another name for Xerxes. So don't let that ever confuse you. But Xerxes Ahasuerus in the beginning of Esther's book had this great feast this great festival our Xerxes. In this incident with Nehemiah was doing something like that and it might have been similar to Herod's banquet in Mark chapter 6 or Matthew chapter 14 and the point of all that background is that it makes the king's magnanimous inquiry public.

Think of Esther. She comes to the king to Xerxes without an appointment and the king knows that it's important. So he asks what she needs and says it will be granted with just that one limit of up to half of his kingdom.

Herod many centuries later does something very similar when his queen's daughter Pleases everyone with her dance and and he offers her what can I give you as a reward for this dance up to half my kingdom and.

The point of all that is just so we understand. That the king's question and all that follows. Was a public thing. Then it happened when there were others in attendance and others watching. So that's the first thing we need to understand about this setting.

The other thing we might want to understand is the sad face. A Sad face was a breach of etiquette. You see everyone was supposed to be so thrilled to be even be near the king. Much less at a banquet or a festival or a party that he threw.

To be on that invitation list should be such a thrill such a joy that only joy should be seen on your face. You know, they actually have reliefs they show servants around their Persian kings. They have they have a hand over their mouth and a lot of the Archaeologists think that the meaning of that is that they are hiding before the king their real feelings.

So the hands over the mouth to keep away the true feelings, but the joy the eyes are showing forth joy or something like that. So the sad face to look unhappy. When you are in the presence of one such as Artaxerxes the great king of Persia who called himself as did others like him king of kings and lord of lords and Words like that.

We know who those should attribute to but if you're in that presence, you should be happy. Joyous. Celebrating all the time. But Nehemiah's face you see was sad. And the original language says it was more of a bad face and bad or sad.

Both of them would come from the the root word, which actually means evil. Now it wouldn't be translated as an evil face. That would be taking it too far, but it's the root word that results in sad face.

If the question is why did the king remark on that the simplest answer is both best and more important. It's right here in the text. Why did the king notice his sad face? Nehemiah tells us I had not been sad in his presence.

All palace protocols aside Nehemiah was acting differently and that alone drew Artaxerxes attention. The not sad in his presence we could read that sad not previously or ever before been sad in his presence.

That could have been a quite a long time. Our book begins. This isn't or this chapter begins. It's in his 20th year the 20th year of this king that this incident occurs. We don't know how long Nehemiah was his cupbearer.

And we spoke a few weeks ago about how close to the king the cupbearer really was. It's quite possible Nehemiah had been his cupbearer the entire time, but it's also possible He wasn't it good long time.

They had a strong relationship this I had not been sad in his presence. I had not previously shown this kind of a face in his presence could have quite a bit of history behind it. Is the only point to point I'm trying to make.

He's Definitely acting differently and the king further perceives that the sadness of his cupbearer's face has welled up from his heart you see it's no act as if you're trying to get attention and it must be a serious matter to have committed what might have been a very grave and never before seen a Breach of good manners in showing this long sad bad face.

So I want us to ask. I want to look at this text and ask ourselves and try to answer what caused the sad face. Let me think about it if Anyone should set the example for how to rejoice in the king's presence.

It would be the cupbearer and If they would be expected to be rejoicing in the king's presence. It would be this cupbearer who had never for before been sad in his presence. We have Nehemiah, an Israelite, a patriot.

Existing the living breathing death of exile. Something he had not escaped or survived in chapter 1 when that contingent comes from Jerusalem to him. He asked us about those who escaped the exile who survived the exile.

Recall that we made the point back then. Nehemiah was not an escapee. Nehemiah was not a survivor because he was in exile. He was in servitude. He was in Persia Calls it Babylon, but Persia had taken over Babylon.

So he's in Babylon the land of exile. He's not a survivor. He did not escape and despite that. Despite that He'd never before shown sadness and now at this moment He's no longer able to hide his feelings.

He's no longer able to mask himself. He's no longer able like those reliefs show to put his hand over his face and cover those feelings. Why is that? He may have been cupbearer for 20 years. So there's 20 years of no sad face.

Let us at least speculate that if it's not the full 20 years of Artaxerxes reign, he was cupbearer to this king for several years. Day in day out. Week after month after year no sad face. Because Nehemiah was always happy.

No. Because Nehemiah was able to fulfill his duty and be happy in the presence of the king until now until now and This thing that had never happened before. He sat in his presence. Four months of prayer.

Four months of weeping and mourning and fasting and praying before God. Four months of agony of agonizing before God. Prayer you see. Prayer had transformed him. Prayer is a means that God uses to mold and to shape us into the image of his Son.

Prayer is for us. Prayer is transformative to the person who is praying. Nehemiah had been concerned for Jerusalem for quite some time but now He can't hold back his feelings. Four months of prayer transformed him from a concerned citizen to a man of God with the mind of God.

We might think of Ezra as the priest who did ministry and Nehemiah as the manager who got things done, but that dichotomy is false. There are functions there are separate duties. That's true, but the church doesn't run on a business model even a good and efficient one.

You know the Apostle Paul wrote, woe to me if I do not preach the gospel. Necessity had been laid on him. Jesus read this to you a few moments ago. That's in the passive. He had received the necessity from outside of himself.

God had laid it on him. For Paul necessity came in a moment outside the Damascus Gate. For Nehemiah four months of prayer transformed an idea to a life's work. We often hear that prayer is to talk with God and That's true.

It is true. Prayer is talking with God, but that's not complete to pray. To really pray is to meet with God. Something deeper than just talking to him. Let us not give up talking to him. I don't want make anybody self-conscious that they feel like when they pray they talk to God.

Yes continue pray to God talk to God. But understand. We're really praying. We are meeting with the one true living God. To pray is to seek after the mind of God. You see if when we pray we know we are meeting with God and our minds are being conformed to his.

We cannot but be transformed by the encounter. We cannot come away the way we went in. By a myriad of circumstances too many to name. Transformation comes to us in different paces for all of us. Some have that Damascus road bolt of lightning others the slower burn.

Nehemiah met with God for four months and came away transformed. What had been a desire easy to mask? Became a burden. Impossible to hide. It seems he had always wanted to go back to Jerusalem and do some good to the city there rebuilding the wall.

But it was a desire. It was a plan. It was an ambition. It was an aspiration whatever words you want to put in there. He was always able to cover up his face and hide the true feeling from the king. Why?

Perhaps the feeling wasn't that intense perhaps I Would argue the four months of prayer Had gained for Nehemiah the mind of God. About this plan this idea this hope this ambition this aspiration that he had Turned it from that to a passion to a certainty that this Desire to go there and do this thing Was actually the mind of God that he should do it.

That's what four months of prayer did to transform him. That's why his face was sad. When it had never previously been do you have such prayers as that? Prayers that can realign your life's course prayers that can change your entire view.

Sometimes we think of prayer such a mundane activity because we're to pray always. Praying constantly giving thanks to God in the name of Christ Jesus our Lord for all things and let us never stop doing that and Yet we pray so often.

Sometimes I fear we forget that when we pray We are as it were face to face with our Creator. We are coming to him in the name of his son Jesus who died for our sins. That's got to be transformative. But it's not ever become so accustomed to prayer.

We've become like the gravediggers in Hamlet. Who can sing while they're digging a grave and Hamlet's with his friend? I forget the man's name. He says how can they do that when they're doing such a thing as digging a grave and the answer is That by constant use.

They've just grown accustomed to the job. They've forgotten its gravity. It's just become a mundane every day. Hey, what are we doing today? Well, let's go dig another grave for some poor person who died prayer Can never become like that.

Whether you pray three times a day twice a day ten times whatever the case let us remember that when we go to God in prayer as me Nehemiah did for these four months that you are kneeling and Bowing before the Living God.

Do we have prayers like that prayers where we come away knowing that we have really encountered him not just talked to him. But really felt ourselves to be in his presence. I would argue that Nehemiah was in that state for four months and when he came out of it and Met with the king again and had a chance to think about his city compared to this palatial city.

He was in there in exile. He couldn't hide it anymore. So consumed with he was as he was. With what he was now sure. Was God's will for him, you know in chapter one We have a man concerned as a patriot for God's city and God's people.

In chapter two We have the same man his patriotic zeal transformed to a passion to serve God by serving his people. Now take special note how I said that We serve God by serving his people. To serve God is to serve each other.

Search out someday the one another's in the scripture and see that that's true. How do we serve Christ? To each other. We serve each other and this is what Nehemiah is learning here. He's not just going to build a wall.

He's not just got a project that he's gonna get done. He's going to serve the Living God. By doing good for his people in the city where God has chosen for his name to dwell. There's a transformation here.

That we just can't let go of. When Moses met with God, this is why I had Jesus read to you from chapter 34 of Exodus when Moses met with God. He came away transformed. And how do we know that shining face?

That shining face reflecting the God that he had actually met with. When Peter met with God you remember that in Luke chapter 5 He fell on his knees and he begged him to leave. I'm speaking of course of Jesus Christ our Lord.

He said depart from me for I'm a sinful man. Oh Lord. When Isaiah met with God, he cried out that he was ruined. When Nehemiah met with God his idea for God became a work of God. No longer a good idea.

No longer just a good deed for the people but ministry in The name of the Lord God of heaven. We also have to deal with Nehemiah's great fear. The King said to me What are you requesting? So I prayed to the God of heaven if it please excuse me.

I lost my place. Yeah, there it is right where I left it. End of chapter 2 then I was very much afraid the great fear. Actually feared much and with great force. And we might ask why why why did he have great fear?

Was it because he had breached etiquette by looking sad when everyone near the king was supposed to be glad for the privilege. The reason for the fear you see is not actually specified. But it is there in the text as an important detail and it's stated to us in an important in a forceful way.

That is to say it seems important. After four months of prayer and fasting the whole issue that drove him to the knee his knees had permeated permeated his very being. He's not the hypocrite that Jesus railed against in Matthew 6.

Who's doing it just for an act who's saddened his face so everybody could see that he's fasting. That's not what Nehemiah is doing. He had so immersed himself in his devotions to God. He was so focused on that on that one issue he had so much the mind of God on the matter that he had in a sense become the issue and In a sense the issue had become him.

You see he's going to become that one-purpose kind of man that I so admire. The wall in Jerusalem is going to be his life's work. His high position as the cupbearer to the king is hardly going to be remembered.

Nehemiah is the man who rebuilt the walls and restored civic order and pride in Judah and here's his chance if he explains his sadness in a way that gains the king's sympathy and Cooperation he can move on to the nuts and bolts of the venture if he stumbles here.

The entire project the whole passion that he has. Now knowing it's not just an idea. It's not just a project. It's serving God. If he stumbles here the whole thing might be stillborn. In the 1970s there was a pro football player named Jackie Smith.

How many of you heard of Jackie Smith? Oh good. He was a prototype of Tight ends who could catch as well as they blocked. He had this standout career with the st. Louis Cardinals. Many of you weren't born when they were the st. Louis Cardinals, but they were.

He went to five Pro Bowls. He had 480 catches. He had 7 ,918 receiving yards and remember this was when tight ends didn't really catch the ball, but there were blockers. He retired having done it all.

Except the Super Bowl he had never been to a Super Bowl. The Dallas Cowboys talked him out of retirement for a season and the next thing he knew He was in Super Bowl 13. He was with America's team the Dallas Cowboys.

They had Roger Staubach the finest quarterback. They were such a good team. We called them the machine and the Super Bowl 13. They're playing the Pittsburgh Steelers who had the vaunted steel curtain defense and the boys were down in the game and quarter Quarterback Roger Staubach.

He's the best there was he goes back to pass and future Hall of Famer Jackie Smith is open in the end zone. Staubach sees him and he tosses the ball right to him and we say in the breadbasket mean right there between the numbers.

Easy to catch you and I might have catch it and Jackie Smith future Hall of Famer prototype of the modern tight end. Drops it. He drops the pass he had the moment he had dreamed of a dropped a pass you or I might have caught Nehemiah Doesn't drop the pass.

He had prayed for four months and was ready and verse 8 at the end of this Section I read earlier is gonna reckon all this to just one cause the good hand of my God Upon me, you know sometimes objected today.

That is New Covenant believers with the Holy Spirit dwelling within Empowering and speaking through us as he did with Peters in chapter 4 verse 8 of Acts. We read them Peter filled with the Holy Spirit and he goes on to speak to the Sanhedrin.

Blowing them away with his answer because of eggs is because of examples like this that we don't need to prepare ourselves. That we just need to trust God and let him do it all through us. I Want to dissuade anyone who might think this way.

Acts chapter 4 verse 8 does not mean that Peter was filled then it's more like Peter having been previously filled with the Spirit. It does not say or mean or imply that preparation is not incumbent upon us.

2nd Timothy 2 15 do your best to present yourself to God as one approved a worker who is not who it has no need to Be ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth. It doesn't say to just sit back and trust God.

We are to trust God to use our hard work to his glory. Ephesians 5 18 commands us to be filled with the Spirit and that means to follow the Spirit's ways rather than the world's rather than Drunkenness and debauchery for example live a life consistent with the Spirit who has filled you.

It doesn't mean that if you seek a filling before the debauched party You're gonna be okay. Paul means do what the Spirit in you would have you to do. No planning though. No preparation by prayer. No, that's how we conflict with Paul's commands.

But put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision make no plan give no forethought or foresight if you will for the flesh a positive command that comes by a negative one. Where we're commanded to not make plans to gratify it means do make plans on how to put on the Lord Jesus Christ.

I wonder why we don't pray like Nehemiah. Why do we not in prayer commit our ways to the Lord and offer up our plans? I think too often because we're planning something other than putting on Christ. Too often we're planning quite the wrong side of Paul's equation from a moment ago.

Too often we know that if we prayed honestly God might interfere with my plans. You think of it God might interfere with me. Nehemiah's famous arrow prayer is a wonderful encouragement to saints who only have a moment to come instantly to the throne of grace and Praise God.

We serve a God who looks to the heart and hears the faithful cries of his people. But let's remember that that quick prayer Was preceded by four months of constant prayer. In fact where verse 111 tells us that he was cupbearer to the king and Then verse 2 1 we have him in the king's presence.

It seems that he was called to serve him while he was praying. Someone came and said something like hey Nehemiah. It's time to get up the party's about to start the wines about to be prepared about to be poured.

You've been praying now for four months. It's time to get back to work. Something like that. If you read the end of chapter 2 the end of his prayer and Go to or excuse me chapter 1 in the end of his prayer and go to chapter 2.

It all goes very quickly. Give me success this day with this man and the next thing you know He's in the presence of that man our desert sees the king. So let's get up Nehemiah. You've been on your knees for a long while time to get back to work.