02 How Nehemiah Teaches Us to Pray Through Hard Decisions (Nehemiah 1:4-11)

Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening to the Wednesday in the Word podcast. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is our series on the book of Nehemiah. This is the second talk in the series, and today we'll be looking at chapter 1, verses 4 through 11. You can follow along with the lecture notes by going to wednesdayintheword.com slash Nehemiah 2. I'm so glad you joined us. Okay, welcome back. Krisan Marotta: We are in the book of Nehemiah. I hope you are getting into it. I really love this book. And last week we just did an introduction to the series, and I'm going to review a little bit just for those of you who are new. And then set the stage for what we're going to talk about today. We're going to talk about chapter one. Nehemiah means God comforts. And we left him last week in this tension of being the cupbearer to the king and brother to the exiles. So Nehemiah was living this very safe, very secure, comfortable life, at least as comfortable as it was possible to have in that day and age. At the end of the chapter, he says he's cupbearer to the king. And that was the Persian Empire, Artaxerxes, who at the time was the most powerful man in the world, the most powerful nation in the world. And the cupbearer was the person responsible for tasting the king's food and wine before he ate it. And so that traditionally was a person of very high influence. Because he that the job had such access to the king. You were around him basically all day, every day, every time he wanted to eat. And so that person had to be a trusted advisor because the king was putting his life in this man's hands. And it became a person of influence. So Nehemiah would have been one of the king's regular advisors. He most certainly would have been educated to hold that job, and he probably had a lot of status in the land, probably wealth, although he may have just been living in the palace and not being personally wealthy. They're in Susa, which is the winter capital of the Persian kings. And so if you want to live someplace in 445 BC, this is a good place to be. This is about as best as it, as good as it gets, because he's in the palace. He has access to the most powerful man in the world at the time, and he would have had influence and a pretty good career. So at the beginning of the chapter, his brothers from Jerusalem come and say, and they bring him news of the people who have returned from exile and gone back to Jerusalem, and he says, How are they? And in verse 3 it says, Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and the gates are burned with fire. So here he is, rich, powerful, and successful, and here are his brothers, destitute, poor, and in danger. And he says, Now what? What do I do? This is the tension he faces. Now, just to remind you, just to set the stage for you, this is after the Babylonian exile and the captivity, the Persians come over and come through and conquer Babylon, and they are the first to allow the Israelites to return home. So Ezra has led, I think at this point, there's been one group that went back about 538, and then there's a second return around 558. And so Nehemiah is taking place after that. So he's talking about the two groups that have been allowed to go back and leave captivity in Babylon and start to rebuild their lives. The destruction he's talking about is probably not the destruction the Babylonians caused in the initial captivity. If you read in Ezra 4, there's an attempt recorded in that chapter where they start to rebuild the walls and rebuild the city of Jerusalem after the first group of exiles that goes back. And that is met with force. That is met with powerful iron fists, and they are crushed. And that was probably about 10 or so years, 10 or 15 years earlier than this. And that's probably the destruction he's talking about. And the um the walls are down and the gates burned, because that uh attempt to rebuild the walls was met with uh brutal force. Okay, so Nehemiah is, here's his dilemma. He's Kapmer to the king, he's brother to the exiles. What do we do? He's powerful, he's secure, his brothers are in danger and they're in exile, he's rich, his brothers are poor, he's safe, they're in danger, he's comfortable, and they're living among destruction. So the dilemma he's facing is who does God want me to be? Should I stay here in this position of power where he has a chance to make changes? I mean, he's got the ear of the most powerful man in the country or in the world at the time. If anybody could bring about change, he could. He's got this man's ear. Maybe he should stay, maybe he should go. Now, I suspect for a lot of you face some kind of tension in that area. You, for some of you who are probably a little farther down the life's path, you've found that level of security, you know, maybe you've started paying off the student loans or saving for kids' college education or retirement, and your career's starting to get on track. And so you're kind of past those lean years of being newly married or newly out of school where there's no money to do anything. And so here you are, life's starting to pay off, and you probably know people who are on the front lines of ministry. Maybe they're a university campus or a third world country or an urban neighborhood or some kind of ministry, and you think, hmm, should I be doing that? I have a friend, for me, this tension I've had all my life because one of my college friends, we met the very first day of college, and she was not a believer, but by the end of the year she became a believer. We graduated the same day, and since we've graduated, she has lived in Inner Mongolia, Outer Mongolia, Taiwan, uh, Beijing, and Tibet. And that's where she and she's in Tibet now. And she has two beautiful daughters, and she and her husband have lived overseas all their lives and um teach English as a second language. And every time I write her a check, I think, hmm, I'm glad I'm not there. That just terrifies me. What she's doing. It's like, oh, I'm so glad she's called to that. She's very good at it, but it's for me, it's like, ooh, quaking the knees would start knocking to think, would God ever call me to do that? I don't think I could. Um so for me, it it does make me wonder. You know, I'm I'm convinced God's calling her there, and not me. For one thing, I don't know the language, and she does. Um, but you you probably know other people who are in that situation. Now, some of you are looking at me like, yeah, tell me about that financial security thing. When does that happen? You know, yeah, not in the lap of luxury, but it would be nice to pay the bills every month. Um so and I imagine we're gonna talk about that because you'll see later in the book, Nehemiah is gonna directly address some of the family, the younger families in the trip in the community and their economic oppression. So there's a chapter coming up for that. But if you're on the other end where you're thinking, no, I'm not secure, or this is not a tension I face because I'm just hoping to have some money at the end of the month, I think what we're gonna learn today can help you too, because it's a struggle with decision making. And how do you decide what God is wants you to do? So if you're facing the decision of, you know, should I take this job or not take this job, what if it means moving? What if a promotion means, you know, less time with my family? Should I should I do that if it gives us the economic power to pay off loans or whatever, but it the sacrifice of less time, how do I make that decision? Or if you're a young mommy, maybe trying to decide how much other responsibility should I take on? Um, do I commit to this group or that project while raising kids, or should I wait until my kids are older to take on that responsibility? Or you could be deciding to start a family, or how many kids are enough, or are you done? Or maybe you're on the other end of life trying to figure out how to care for an elderly parent or how to be a grandparent, and should you be closer or farther, and and um all of us are probably facing some decision, and what we're gonna see is how Nehemiah makes his decision, you can apply to any decision you're making, even if it's not cut through to the king, brother to the exiles kind of decision. Now, before we look directly at it, let me also point out that Nehemiah's case is not isolated. There were other people in the Bible who faced the same decision. Joseph, remember, had risen to great power in the land of Egypt, and yet he was a Jew, and his family comes back, and he probably had some tension of do I stay, do I go? David had the same problem when he was anointed king of Israel, but Saul was still on the throne and he's running for his life. There was a time where he was living among the Philistines, and they accorded him great respect and honor. And so he had this thing of here I'm supposed to be king of Israel and they're trying to kill me, and here I am among the Philistines, and they love me and they're treating me with respect. Maybe I should stay here. Daniel, he was closer to Nehemiah's time, he was one of Nebuchadnezzar's top advisors. He was a Jew in the secular court, and then also Queen Esther, who was a Jewish woman and yet a Persian queen. How do you resolve that tension? So the dilemma is common throughout scripture, but the answer is not always the same. So before we look at how Nehemiah resolved it, let me give you two ways not to resolve that kind of tension. The first one we mentioned last week, which was ignorance. In other words, one way to resolve the tension of being, of having this decision to make, is to pretend it's not there. You know, to stick your head in the sand and say, hmm, no problem, I don't see anything. And that's the wrong way. Nehemiah went and asked, how are my brothers doing? What's happening in Jerusalem? He he became aware. So you don't want to resolve the tension by ignoring it. I think the other response is kind of, and this is my temptation, which is of course why I thought of it, is to race off in this flurry of activity. You know, oh, we've got a problem, so let's let's make some phone calls, you know, and start a committee and and get a program going, and we'll generate lots of paperwork, you know, and activity and meetings, and we'll make something happen. You know, this is the strap on the six-shooter and blaze off into the sunset kind of approach. That's what I like to do, you know, because then I feel like I'm doing something, but usually not much changes. So MiMI does not do that. The other, I think, natural inclination is to give up, to say it is just too big a problem. It is, you know, Susa is thousands of miles from Jerusalem. They're there, I'm here, there's no way I can affect anything. There's too much inertia, there's too many obstacles. Um, and besides, God will probably send somebody else. So I'm just gonna give up. The problem is beyond me. Um that also may not be the right option. And Nehemiah doesn't choose either of those. He doesn't fire up in all directions at once, but he doesn't do nothing. He does too many negatives. He does something. And what he does is enters into the presence of God. He wants an answer, and he says, I'm gonna commit to finding it. So this is Nehemiah chapter 1, verse 4. When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven. So Neah's Maya's response is essentially four months of prayer. He doesn't know what to do. The answer is not obvious. God put him where he was. We have no reason to assume that he was there for any kind of bad reasons or deceit or trickery. He was born in captivity, he was raised, he was given this job, he probably worked his way up to it. So he could have stayed. The problem is now there are people he loves, people he's committed to in his community who are suffering and he doesn't know what to do. And he says for some days, that's probably four months, because in 1-1, we start in the month of Kisla, which would have been November, December on our calendar. And then in 2-1, when we get to the next section and he starts to take action, he refers to the month of Nisan, which is March, covers March and April. So it's four months later. Now, granted, that four months covers the winter period and the rainy season at the time. So that would have been very difficult to travel to Jerusalem during the winter rainy season. And so you could say, well, he was just waiting out and for a more convenient time. And maybe, but that is wise in of itself because he looked at the consequences, he looked at the options, and he said, right now is not the time to blaze off in the action. It's winter, it's gonna be difficult to um to go. So he wisely waits that time out, but he's not idle. He spends it in a meaningful way. And the prayer I think we're gonna look at today is probably a distillation of all of them. He probably tried multiple prayers over those four months, and this is probably a compilation of all of them, or a representative of it. So before we look at the prayer, let's look at the verb he uses to describe his reaction. First of all, he says, I sat down and wept. And that is just an emotional response. He is feeling someone else's pain, and that's okay. When you see that kind of tension, when you hear news of people you love and you know they're in danger, um, that it is the logical response, and he's, I don't think it's shame to admit it, I sat down and wept because he cares about these people. They're in danger. They're in um they're in despair. And I think it's what Paul talks about when he writes in Corinthians if one part of the body suffers, the rest suffers with it. If one part is honored, the rest rejoices. That's the kind of response he's talking about here. Now, for some of us, that's easier to do than others. There are people who are naturally more empathetic, you know, they kind of jump in with both feet and want to be involved and responsive, and there are others who have us who like to keep distance and keep some kind of a wall up, and often God doesn't let us do that, breaks in that wall anyway. So Nehemiah's first response is to let himself be emotionally involved. Then it says he mourns. And mourning is a thoughtful response. So if the weeping is emotional, the mourning is kind of a meditative, reflective, thoughtful, deliberately engaging the circumstances kind of response. So it's going beyond the emotion to acknowledge there's pain here, there's gif there may be guilt, there's there's hurt. Let's face it head on and deal with it. And you're gonna see when he gets into the prayer, he's gonna acknowledge that not only is this a hurtful situation, but we were wrong. We did this to ourselves. Um the exiles rebelled, and now this is part of the punishment. Then it says he fasted. And this was interesting to me because fasting is certainly the choice to restrict your diet, but the point of it was to spend time with God. And in the ancient world, meals were not like ours. You know, we can have a sandwich on the fly while we're talking on the telephone and answering email, and we hardly know we've eaten. You know, and meals take like 10 minutes. Um, and that's not the case in Nehemiah's time. Meals were big communal events, and they took a long time. They took a long time to prepare, you know, no flash it in the microwave and take it out of the freezer and flash in the microwave kind of thing. So they took a long time to prepare, and they you were expected to sit and have these extended conversations and be part of this social event. A couple of summers ago I got a taste of this. We went to Italy and visited my husband's side of the family. He has like a hundred first cousins in Italy. And his grandfather was one of twelve, all boys. No, one daughter, all then eleven boys. Don't you think that mom was a boss? And so all the descendants of these brothers are were there, and we um visited the farm where his grandfather was born, and the house, some parts of this house are 150 years old, but it's been added to. The kitchen is one of the oldest parts of the house, even though it's been updated over the years, and they had a table in the kitchen that could comfortably seat 20. Speaker: At least. Krisan Marotta: And we sat down for this meal, and everyone had in front of them five dishes stacked on top of each other, you know, five plates. And I thought, okay. And the meal started at one o'clock and wasn't done till five. And I don't know how they did it, because there were at least 20 of us, and then there were some people at side tables around, and everybody had five plates. I thought, how could anybody have that many plates in their house? But it was expected. So they put the first curse on, you know, that was like the antipasta, and then that plate would disappear, and then they put your salad course on, and that plate would disappear, and then you had your pasta course, and then you got the main course, and then you got uh things like fruit and cheese. And I learned very quickly, do not ask for seconds. Because there's just always more food coming, and there were at least ten people talking at once at any given time. And all the ants that were like in their 50s and 60s were all running around going, mancha, mancha, much eat, eat, you know. And they're just like ladling food everywhere. And I thought, that's a meal. I that was like the highlight of our trip. I remember this. I mean, and I thought that must have been what it was like in the Maya's time. You had it was a big communal event. Um, it's you know, a meal was not a sandwich at your desk. This was um a huge event. So, fasting, I think, for him was a deliberate attempt to kind of step back from all the daily responsibilities and entanglements of life in order to spend time with God. So it's kind of saying, I'm gonna withdraw from the social network because I have a decision to make, I need to spend time with God, and I need to carve out space to spend with him. So I started thinking, what would that be in our day and age? You know, fasting is probably not it, because we can eat, you know, drive through McDonald's, you can eat in ten minutes. Um, what if you gave up your car keys? You know? How many hours a week would you give back? That might be more equivalent. Or you didn't answer your email. You know, think how much time that takes. And maybe that's the modern equivalent of fasting, of stepping back, saying, I have this decision to make, I have to make space in my life. What would you have to give up to make that space? I don't know. Maybe it's maybe it's not answering the uh not answering the telephone or not answering your email or um hanging up the car keys. I don't know, because meals don't make that much demand on our time anymore. Not like cell phones and beepers and cars and all that. I mean, think how many ways people can reach you. In the ancient world, they had to basically walk and find you or send a messenger, but today, you know, you've got phone and fax and email and instant messaging, and and you can send, you know, an email across the world in in five minutes and find someone. So I think the point for Nehemiah was not so much to do without food, although there is some value in that. But the point was stepping out of the rat race, stepping back from the pace of daily life and saying, I have a problem and I have to go to God and I have to make space in my life to do that. And that's what he was doing. So he wept, which was the emotional response, he mourned, which was a thoughtful, meditative response, he fasted, and then the fourth thing, he prayed. And we're gonna get a um a distillation of that prayer. And I think I would assume that this term of praying is inclusive, that this also included a lot of time spent studying the scriptures and studying the Old Testament text. Because you're gonna see in his prayer, to pray what he did, he had to be informed of scripture. He had to know it. Um, so he spent time not just talking to God, but listening to him and studying his word. Okay, so let's look at this prayer. So this is Nehemiah chapter 1, verse 5 to 11. Then I said, O Lord, God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and obey his commands. Let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear 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 fathers, and my father's house, have committed against you. We have acted very wickedly toward you. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees, and laws you gave your servant Moses. Remember the instructions 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 command, then even if 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. All your servants and your people, whom you redeem by your great strength and your mighty hand. O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of this your servant, and to the prayer of your servants who delight in regarding your name. Give your servant success today by granting him favor in the presence of this man. And then the line I was upverited king. When I first read this prayer, I thought, okay, sounds like every other prayer in the Bible. You know? Been there, done that. And then I started to panic because I thought I have to teach something on this prayer. And I don't know what to say. So I began comparing my prayer life to this prayer. And it was very humbling. And this is where I really learned a lot. So I hope that it has that same impact on you. I think this is one of the great prayers of the Bible, and we can learn a lot from it. Notice the first thing he does, he begins the prayer by speaking to God about God. And that is actually the way the majority of prayers in the Bible begin. You know, as Jesus said, Our Father who art in heaven. So I started noticing, my prayers started, dear God, I want, I need, I'm hurt, I'm lost, I'm confused, I'm angry, I need this, I want you to do that. And nine times out of ten, my prayers started, all the focus is on me. I'm hungry, I'm tired. Occasionally I'm thankful, but if I'm really honest, more often I want, you know, fix this problem in my life, get me out of this jam. Um make my life easy, tended to be a big common theme. Um, usually not answered. So, at least not the way I wanted it answered. So, what I noticed about Nehemiah is he's not focused on himself, and he has a decision to make. I mean, he could have focused on himself. He has a real pressing need. He has to make a decision, and yet his focus is on God, and that's how he's gonna make the decision. What do I know to be true about God? And that's gonna inform everything he says and does. So, when I started looking at other prayers in the Bible, I started noticing that most all of them start with the focus on God, who he is and what he's done for us. So he says, Oh, Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps his covenant of love. So notice the second thing he acknowledged is that God is in charge. God is the great and awesome God who keeps his covenant of love with those who love and obey his commands. So here he is, he's cut marrow to the king. He's in a position to influence people. He's in a position to turn the king's mind one way or the other. And yet he says, it's up to you, God. You're the one who's gonna determine how this turns out. Events in history are going to have their resolution based on what God decides, not how smart Nehemiah is, or how politically astute he is or how eloquent he is, or um, you know, how clever or whatever his best efforts are. He starts right up front and says, success for me is gonna depend on what God does and how he decides. And God keeping his covenant, keeping the promises he made to Moses and to Abraham thousands of years ago. So he says, You're the God of heaven, you're in control, and you're the one who will keep your promises. Now, did it look like God was in control? I wondered. We were gonna see when we go into chapter 2 how extensive the destruction of Jerusalem is. It probably didn't look like God was in control. It probably looked like the king of Persia was in control. And um, it wouldn't have been obvious that God was somehow bringing glory to himself through this situation. And I started thinking that's often the case in our life. I mean, we look around and we think, hmm, is God really in control or do I need to work harder and form those committees or start making phone calls? It always seems like everybody else is in charge, but from neopliance point of view, God's the one who's gonna make it all come together. And that was meaningful to me because I politics is one of my hobbies. I like to kind of pay attention to that. And this war on terror is terrifying if you really start reading the things that some of the Islamists that are coming out of the Islamist world, they are not uh peaceful, let's all get along kind of statements. They are, you know, we want to kill you and have your blood run in the street kind of statement. And you look at that and it's like, ooh, it's hard to believe. Is God really in control? How can he let all this go on? And yet, I think learning from Nehemiah, he is in control. It's events are going to happen in history based on God keeping his covenant, based on God keeping his character and showing forth his mercy and compassion. Um, and that's how Nehemiah starts his prayer. I was also thinking closer to home, we've, you know, we've been struggling and advertising for nursery workers since last May, and we are desperately trying to find them. So if you know anybody who wants to work in the nursery, please send them our way. And my temptation is to think, hmm, God must have forgotten about this. He must have abandoned this because my plan is this, but something else is happening. So here's a shocker. God knows what he's doing, and I don't. Again. So I had to stop and think, hmm, whatever happens, God's in control. He knows our need, he knows what's best. What I think is best may not is obviously not right. So it's tempting when you're facing some big decision in your life to think, hmm, God's abandoned me, he's lost control, but he has he is in control. So he says, Oh Lord, God of heaven, the great mouse of God who keeps his covenant of love. And then in verse 6, let your ears be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayers of your servant. So I think what he's adding to that is not only is God in control, he's actively involved. He hears and he listens and he cares. And that's the other piece I think we forget. We think God is up there, but maybe he doesn't care that much about me and my little situation. And yet Nehemiah's conviction is this is a God who listens. This is a God who sees and cares, and he's actively involved in our lives. Um, frequently, if you read through the Old Testament prophets, they are often, they castigate people and rebuke people who are worshiping idols by saying they're deaf and dumb. They cannot hear you, they cannot see you. They're blocks of wood, they are, they can't, they're made by human hands. How can you trust in something they can't see or hear? And Nehemiah's point is the exact opposite of that. This is a God who sees and hears and cares. So he's in control and he's actively involved, and he cares about the outcome. Then the second thing he goes on to say is he's honest about the problem and the and his own guilt. He says, I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father's house, have committed against you. We have acted very wickedly toward you, we have not obeyed the commands, decrees, and laws you gave your servant Moses. So he's honest about the problem. He says, Look, guilty as charged. We rebelled against you, we deliberately trampled your word, you carted us off into exile, and you were right to do it. And now here we are, trying to come out of exile, and we deserve what we got. You're entirely right. So he doesn't flee, you know, well, extenuating circumstances or special cases. It reminded me of the hymn we sang on Sunday where it says, I confess your judgment just. Your judgment is just, we deserve it. And Nehemiah could have said, you know, it was my father's generation that sinned. He wasn't born when the captivity happened or when the exile happened. He was born afterwards. So he could have looked at that and said, I wasn't in Jerusalem during the monarchy age. I couldn't have sinned. I didn't bring this about. I'm just a victim here. You know, I was born and raised in Persia and Babylon. So he could have said, no, you know, it's those other people, it's my fathers, my ancestors that started this problem. But he doesn't. He says, I'm sinful too. All of us are sinful. We all are guilty as charged. And I don't know about you, but it seems to me that today sometimes we're too quick to assign our problems to spiritual warfare. Now, some problems do result from that, but I find in my life, more often than not, it's because I'm selfish. I just did something thoughtless or sinful or selfish, and that's why I'm experiencing what I'm experiencing. Except, of course, in marriage, because then it's my husband's fault. Always. Always. You find that to be true, right? Um so Nehemiah starts with my father's house is rebellious, and so am I. We're guilty as charged. We, you are just in all your actions. God is just. And I think that's another place to start when we're facing a decision. We need to come to it knowing that we're sinful, knowing that we don't always see things the way we should see them, and not shy away from that. But notice he doesn't stay there. He doesn't wallow in the guilt. He goes on to say, in verses 8, remember the instruction you gave to 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. So he's praying back to God his own words and saying, You promised you wouldn't leave us there forever. Yes, you promised to judge us if we were sinful, but you promised to keep us as your people. You promised to bring us back, no matter how bad it got. And he quotes Leviticus and Deuteronomy. And sometime, if you have time, compare this prayer to the prayer in Daniel 9. They're very similar. Which makes me wonder, I don't know exactly when they were all written down, but Nehemiah must have been familiar with that prayer. And I don't think it's an accident. It's interesting to compare those two side by side. So he knows what God has said and done in history, and he's praying that back. And that's what makes me think he must have spent a good deal of that four months in studying the Bible, studying the Old Testament, and seeking God's word. So he says, it's up to you, God. You promised. You promised to bring us back. Here we are, we have a chance to go back, the walls are desolate, the gates are burned, and success or failure is going to depend on the promise you gave to Moses. You need to keep it. And if you're a God to keep it, and that's how it's all going to turn out. All right. And at the end of this, oh let me make one more point. He spent four months, I think, in Bible study to come to this point. And that impresses me because we live in kind of this instant society. You know, we want our um, we get real-time news on the internet, and you can watch history as it happens, and you can email someone across the world in ten minutes, and you know, so we want these like five-minute devotions and and 15-minute quiet times and a nugget of truth that we can take every day with our, you know, with our antioxidant vitamins. And for Nehemiah, it didn't work that way. It took him four months to come to this point. He cleared his schedule to meet God and to study his word. And so he can say at the end of that, here's what I know to be true about God. You promised that if we were guilty you would judge us, but you also promised that you would bring us back. And I'm asking you to stand on that promise. You're the one who made the promise. So now he refers to the people whose hearts are broken, who revere the name of God, who want to follow him again, and he's saying, you know, God, be who you are, essentially. So at the end of this prayer, he makes one simple request, which is actually kind of striking to me, because after all this time, he makes one request at the end in verse 11. Oh Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of 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. So when he does make a request, it's based on what he knows to be true about God. It's not emotional, it's not whiny, it's just, here's what I know to be true about God, and so he's asked based on that. And his request is basically, give me the courage to do what I must do. And that is really the essence of what he prays. He decided at this point that he's going to go before the king and ask the king to let him go back to Jerusalem. And he doesn't say, you know, give me the words to say, um, he doesn't pray about being politically savvy or any of that. He just says, give me the courage to do what I must do. I think that's what he means by grant me favor in the presence of this man, grant me favor in the presence of the king. So he's saying, when I have to face that moment and I have to speak up, will I be able to do what I think is right? And that's his request. Now, it was a dangerous thing to do because if you read Ezra IV, the king had at that time given a decree that anyone who tried to rebuild Jerusalem would be killed. And so he's going to go and ask the king to change his mind. And the king did not do that in this day. They don't just change their minds lightly. So he could face immediate execution by making this request. And I think that's what he's saying. Just give me the courage to do what I must do. So for Nehemiah, at the end of this four months, he decided that his course of action ought to be to go back to Jerusalem and to help rebuild the walls. And as we'll see next week, he goes to the king and he asks permission to do that. I don't, that's not the answer for everyone. He, you know, for other Old Testament characters like Esther and Daniel, they stayed. They never went back to Jerusalem. But for Nehemiah, the answer was go. So if you're disappointed that I'm not going to give you a the path is always this way. I can't give you that answer. And I can tell you it's not always the same for the people we know about who face the same dilemma. And I can't pretend to know, you know, should you take this job or that job or how many kids or how do you hand you know care for your family? But I can tell you the way to find the answer is the same way Nehemiah found it. And I think that's what we need to learn. If you're facing some kind of decision, some dilemma or some problem in your life, the way to do it is to seek God, to clear your schedule, you know, to carve out time, to go study God's word and meet Him deeply in prayer and in study and try to figure out, based on what I know to be true about God, what is the wisest thing to do in this situation? So if you're experiencing that kind of dilemma or facing that kind of decision, I just ask you, are you willing to do what Nehemiah did? Are you willing to spend that kind of time with God to end with the level of expectancy that yes, he will answer you, that yes, there isn't a resolution, be willing to study and see what his character is like, what he said, what he values, to find the wisdom necessary. I think the promise we have is that if we do that, we will get an answer. Think about what James means when he talks about asking for wisdom. We will get it if we ask, and we ought to be willing to expend that time of uh that kind of prayer and time to find it. It's not always instant. So next week we're going to look at chapter 2, and I'm excited about chapter 2 because it was one of it explained to me, there's I always kind of avoided the gospels. I don't know, when I was studying the Bible, because Jesus says some things that I go, what did he mean? You know, uh the Pharisees made sense to me, but the things Jesus said is like, mmm, I don't get it. So I've always kind of been afraid to really dig into the Gospels, except parables and a few things like that. But this chapter in Nehemiah explains one of the most confusing statements of Jesus when he makes a Matthew. So we're gonna get a little New Testament preview uh next week along with Nehemiah, because I think his case illustrates the principle Jesus was talking about. So let me close there and then give you some time to ask questions in very small groups. And let me just pray to closest. Father, thank you that you are a God who loves us and cares for us, and that you are in control even when we don't see it. And we pray that we would be willing as the MILS to go to spend time in your word and spend time seeking you in prayer, and if we're facing those decisions that we would know that we delight in giving us wisdom. Thank you that you're a God who sees and cares effectively well, but not a God who just over taking all these words and working on making it more difficult.