Three theologians were having a deep theological discussion while they were walking down the street one day. They were talking about prayer. More specifically, they were talking about the most effective positions of prayer. The discussion got pretty intense so they actually stopped there on the sidewalk to try and make their points. It just so happened that they stopped underneath a telephone pole where a lineman was up in the air working on the cable. Now, I’ve been there. There’s something interesting that happens when you’re up in the air. You can clearly hear every word that’s spoken on the ground. Well, this is what he heard. He heard the first theologian make the case that the key to powerful prayer was in the position of the hands. He said he always held his hands together and pointed them upward as a form of worship. The second theologian disagreed with him. He said that the only position of real prayer was always on your knees. The third theologian said they were both wrong. He put on his most pious expression and said that the only position worth its salt was to pray while stretched out flat on your face. The lineman finally had enough of the self-righteous theologians, so he threw in his two-cents worth. He said, “Fellas, the most powerful prayer I ever prayed wasn’t when I had my hands folded the right way. It wasn’t when I was bowed on my knees. And it wasn’t when I was laying on the floor. The most powerful prayer I ever prayed was when I was dangling upside down by my heels from a power pole, suspended forty feet above the ground.” I can understand exactly what he’s talking about. Prayer is an amazing thing, isn’t it? Hebrews 4:16 tells us that because Jesus is our eternal Great High Priest, we can come boldly before His throne of grace in prayer. Why? So we can obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Mercy and grace. Mercy from God to keep us from the punishment and judgment we deserve. And the grace of God that gives us the righteousness and blessings and gifts we don’t deserve. In that verse, the writer of Hebrews uses the words “us” and “we”. “Let us come boldly”, “that we may obtain mercy and find grace.” That’s one way that prayer is a lot like our Christian life. As 21st century American Christians, we have a hard time getting the concept of “us” and “we”. So much of our American heritage is wrapped up in the whole idea of “rugged individualism” that it has warped our idea of what it means to be a Christian. It has made the focus of Christianity almost solely on the idea of Jesus being our personal savior. To be a Christian means that I’m saved. It means that I have a personal, one-on-one relationship with Jesus. I’m saved, I’m going to heaven, that’s the extent of it. Well, that’s all true, but it certainly isn’t the extent of it. As Christians, we live in the understanding that Jesus both saves us as individuals and He saves us into His body. He is our personal Savior, therefore we are a part of His corporate body called the church. Because of the nature of our salvation being both personal and corporate, that is the nature of our prayer as well. Yes, we as individual Christians are to come boldly before the throne of grace in prayer. But we as the corporate body of Christ are also to come boldly before the throne of grace in prayer too. Now, how does that happen? It happens when any one of us prays on behalf of all of us. That’s what Ezra does in our passage tonight. As the spiritual leader of Israel, this was his unique responsibility. As your pastor, it’s my unique responsibility as well. But just because it is my unique responsibility and God holds me uniquely accountable for the way I pray for this church… even though it’s uniquely my responsibility, doesn’t mean it’s only my responsibility. Although this prayer we’re looking at tonight was prayed by Ezra, it could have and should have been prayed by the people as well. It was a very specific prayer for a very specific purpose. Remember where we’ve been over the past few weeks. The remnant had traveled the 1000 mile journey from Babylon to Jerusalem. When they got there they spent about 5 months setting up and getting prepared to start the work. They had a time of preparation, a time of observation, and a time of motivation. Because of the extensive preparation where Ezra continually taught the people God’s Word and lived it out in front of them, they were convicted of the sin in their midst. They observed that sin and were motivated to change. All of that led up to the point we are in our text tonight. All of that led to one of the most powerful prayers of corporate confession in all of the Bible. I want you to notice what didn’t happen. Ezra didn’t implement a bunch of rules and laws and programs to force the change on the people. That wasn’t the type of top-down approach he used. His top-down approach was the real top-down approach. He got on his face before the real Top. And in the next few weeks, we’ll see how through this prayer, God stirred the people’s hearts to change. See, Ezra could have followed typical 20th and 21st century leadership models. He could have been the dictator that forced change. Or he could have been the cheerleader that tried to motivate change. But no matter how effective his method would have been, he could have never changed what really needed to be changed. What really needed to change was the people’s hearts. And God, through His Word, by the power of His Spirit is the only One who can change the heart. Ezra would have failed any of today’s corporate or church leadership classes. He would have miserably failed any of today’s church growth courses. They would say that he just didn’t get how to be a leader. But they would be wrong. Because he did get it. He wasn’t interested in temporary man-centered, man-generated reform. He had seen too much of that before. He was interested in the power of an Almighty God working in and through His broken and willing people to change hearts and lives and work His will through them. He was interested in God being magnified, not himself or even his people. And that’s the reason he prayed this prayer of corporate confession the way he did. Do you want to see the things that Ezra wanted to see? Do you want to see hearts and lives changed as God accomplishes His work through us? Do you want to see God magnified in and through his people here at Brushfork Baptist church? If you do, then you need to pray a prayer of corporate confession like Ezra did. His prayer came in three parts that we need to pray as well. The first part was historical reflection. Look at verses 6-7.
EZRA 9:6-7
Pray the prayer of historical reflection. What a downer. To listen to Ezra, there wasn’t anything that Israel had ever done that was good. He took it all the way back to the days of their fathers. That means he was going all the way back to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. He was going all the way back to the patriarchs of Israel, before they were even really a nation. But when he did that, how did he look at them? Did he look at them like the good old days? Did he see the past through rose colored glasses? No, as a matter of fact, it was quite the opposite. I couldn’t help but think of this part of Ezra’s prayer night before last when I was reading the resumes of the candidates for president of the SBC. There are six men who have been nominated this year, and according to their bios, they were each more qualified for sainthood than SBC president. Now, I know the nature of resumes and I know what my resume looked like that I gave to the search committee when I came here. But listen to this one: “Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee; Concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ.” What a resume. Everything I have done that I thought was good, I count it as dung. Because I did it in my own righteousness. And all my righteousnesses are as filthy rags. So Ezra didn’t build a resume. Instead, he saw the people as God saw them. He didn’t try to build up a list of credits with God by talking about all the great things they had done in the past. Because he recognized that even in their great things, there was enough sin for God to condemn them. An old Puritan prayer confessed what we never want to admit. It said that even, “my best prayers are stained with sin, I need to repent of my repentance, I need my tears to be washed.” That is the attitude that Ezra brought to the Lord. Any goodness the people had was of God. There was nothing good they could take credit for. The only thing they could take credit for was what needed to be confessed before God. So that’s what Ezra did. He didn’t offer excuses. He didn’t try and justify anything. He didn’t whitewash anything. His confession was complete in scope and number. And he recognized the problem for what it was. The problem was sinful, rebellious, prideful hearts. It wasn’t because they were oppressed. It wasn’t because they needed more stuff. It wasn’t because they needed more opportunities. It was because the sin of their rebellious hearts had kept God from accomplishing all He wanted to do in and through them. Ezra knew their history. He knew it and saw it for what it was. He stripped away any sense of pride or nostalgia. He stripped away any sort of accomplishment or achievement. He stripped it all away and saw the filthy rags. He saw the filthy rags and laid them at God’s feet and was ashamed. That’s the prayer of historical reflection. It’s a hard prayer, but it’s the first step of a prayer of corporate confession. The second step is honest recognition. Look at 8-9:
EZRA 9:8-9
Pray the prayer of honest recognition. How many times do we try to take credit for work that God has done? I think that is one of the huge problems in our churches today. If you look at the whole church growth movement, it’s all about some program or model that somebody came up with that “works”. The idea is that if you implement so-and-so’s program, it’ll work for you too. Well, Ezra wasn’t interested in that kind of stuff. He wasn’t interested in seeing what man can do. He wasn’t a pragmatist. He wasn’t interested in what works. He was interested in what God had done and was doing in the lives of His people. Listen to how he could have seen these same events: He could have said, “Because we were praying and living right in Babylon, the king decided to let us go. And when he decided to let us go, we gathered up all the people. We fasted and prayed. We walked all that way from Babylon. We planned the right way when we got here. And now we’re about ready to get rid of all these foreign wives. Look at all we’re doing.” It reminds me of Jimmy Stewart’s prayer in the movie Shenandoah. He said, “Lord, we cleared this land. We plowed it. Sowed it. Harvested it. We cooked the harvest. We wouldn’t be here, we wouldn’t be eatin’ if we hadn’t done it all ourselves. We worked dog-boned hard for every crumb and morsel, but we thank you just the same anyway, Lord for the food we’re about to eat. Amen.” But that’s not how Ezra prayed. He didn’t take credit for the work that God had done. He saw everything that had happened to them along the way for exactly what it was. He saw everything as being provided by the grace of God. It was the grace of God that had gotten them to this place. It wasn’t anything that they had done or hadn’t done. By His grace, they were able to leave Babylon. By His grace they were able to stake their meager claim in Jerusalem. It wasn’t their methods that had brought them thus far. It wasn’t Ezra’s brilliant leadership skills. It wasn’t the people’s extraordinary abilities. It was the grace of God and His grace alone that provided for them. It was by His grace alone for His glory alone. And Ezra recognized that in his prayer. That’s a hard prayer too. The first thing I want to do is thank God for what I’ve done. That’s the perspective I want to take. “Thank you for giving me the wisdom to do this and that and the other thing. And thank you for blessing my work.” That’s not a prayer of honest recognition. The prayer of honest recognition says, “God you did it. You did it all. You showed us grace. You have not forsaken us. You have extended mercy to us. You planned it, You set it up, You accomplished it. It is all Your work from beginning to end and you graciously allowed us to be part of it.” That’s the prayer of honest recognition. Two hard prayers are involved in the prayer of corporate confession—historical reflection and honest recognition. And it doesn’t get any easier. Because the third step is humble petition. Look at 10-15.
EZRA 9:10-15
Pray the prayer of humble petition. Look what Ezra does here. After looking back over the entire history of his people. After seeing all of their sin and iniquity. After seeing there was nothing they could bring to the table to be worthy of God’s love and grace. After seeing all that and then seeing all of the grace that God had showed them. Seeing how He was the One who brought them to this place of blessing. He was the One who made them anything at all. After seeing all that, what does he say? He says, “God, I don’t know what to say.” “We are completely unworthy.” “You are completely good and gracious.” “And now, I don’t know what to say, because we’ve repaid all your goodness with more sin.” And notice what he did in verses 11-12. He went back to the law and read the law back to God. He told God, “I know we’ve broken your law, and here’s the specific part we broke.” How opposite is that from how we react most of the time? Most of the time, we work really hard to set up our defense. “Well God, I sinned because I’m just weak.” “I lost my temper because that’s how You made me.” “I don’t witness because I’m too shy.” “I quit going to church because so-and-so hurt my feelings.” “I quit giving my money because I don’t like how it’s being spent.” That’s how we like to react. But how should we react? “Lord, I’ve sinned against You. Your Word tells me to be angry and sin not. When I lost my temper, I sinfully lashed out.” No excuses. “Lord I’ve sinned against You. Your Word tells me to not forget the assembling of ourselves together. I’ve been doing that.” No justifying. “Lord, I’ve sinned against You. Your Word tells me to make disciples everywhere I go. I haven’t been doing that.” No excuses, no self-justification, no defense. Recite God’s command, recognize His mercy, submit to His Lordship. God, I can’t change the past. I leave that to Your mercy. As for the present, I submit myself to change whatever you require me to change. God, You are righteous. You continue to pour your grace upon us. We cannot stand before You apart from Your grace.
What is your prayer for this church? What is your prayer for your family? What is your prayer for yourself? Have you ever prayed a prayer of confession like this one? Have you ever prayed it for yourself? Have you ever prayed it for your family? Have you ever prayed it corporately for your church? Maybe it’s time you did. Maybe it’s time you reflected on all the iniquities and sin in your past and realized that even your righteousnesses have been as filthy rags. Maybe it’s time you recognized the grace and mercy that God has shown you to get you to this point in your life right now. Maybe it’s time you petition Him to give you the strength to change. Maybe it’s time you made this your prayer:
Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Thou art the Potter, I am the clay.
Mold me and make me after Thy will,
While I am waiting, yielded and still.
Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Search me and try me, Master, today!
Whiter than snow, Lord, wash me just now,
As in Thy presence humbly I bow.
Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Wounded and weary, help me, I pray!
Power, all power, surely is Thine!
Touch me and heal me, Savior divine.
Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Hold o’er my being absolute sway!
Fill with Thy Spirit ’till all shall see
Christ only, always, living in me.
Is it time?
