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A few years ago, I remember sitting in my office in Asheville, NC, one quiet Tuesday morning. Of course I was in uniform. As an Air Force recruiter, I spent most of my time in uniform. But as my office partner and I sat there that morning taking care of some paperwork, it seemed like everything started to happen at once. Emails started pouring in. I started getting instant message after instant message. Our fax machine started pouring out papers. All of our phone lines and both of our cell phones started ringing off the hook. You see, just a few minutes before, at 8:46, a group of al-Qaida terrorists flew American Airlines Flight 11 into the World Trade Center’s North Tower. Of course we all know what happened from there. My office partner and I immediately turned on the radio to try to catch some of the news as we were fielding calls and trying to respond to emails and such. Try to remember back to when it first happened. Nobody really knew what was going on. Nobody really knew the extent of it. It was chaos. But in the midst of the chaos, people began responding. Fully armed F-15s were scrambled over the capital for the first time ever. The military was put on high alert. We had to lock our doors and perform patrols and bomb checks. And then within a day, others were responding in different ways. On the one hand some churches were calling impromptu prayer meetings. On the other hand, Palestinians and other Arabs were celebrating in the streets of the Middle East. But even the response within our own country wasn’t universal. Federal buildings all over the country were receiving bomb threats. Where I was, on September 12, hundreds of people gathered around the fountain in the middle of downtown Asheville—to protest America. The point is, everybody responded to the attacks on 9/11. What happened was so brazen and violent that it had to evoke a response. But different people responded differently. Some responded courageously. Some responded cowardly. Some even responded humbly and repentantly. All events in life are that way. Especially tragic events. They don’t have to be on the scale of 9/11, but every event we experience in life prompts a response. Sometimes we respond the right way. Sometimes we respond the wrong way. Sometimes we respond by lashing out in anger. Sometimes we respond by crying out in pain. Sometimes we respond by turning to God. That’s what Nehemiah did in our passage tonight. He had just received the report back from his brother and the team he had sent to Jerusalem. And the report wasn’t good. The news was devastating to him. So he responded. His response was immediate. It was decisive. It was bold. So what did he do? Did he start working on a rebuilding plan? Did start recruiting a team to help him fix the problem? Did he start gathering materials and money? No—he didn’t actually DO anything. Instead, verse 4 says, he sat down and wept and mourned for days. And then he did something that was the best response he could have possibly had. He fasted. And he prayed. Nehemiah’s first response wasn’t like my typical first response. In my flesh, my typical first response is to figure out how to fix it. But not Nehemiah. He fasted. And he prayed. And the summary content of his prayer is recorded for us here. I say it’s a summary, because verse 4 says that he mourned and fasted and prayed for days. We don’t have all the words of his prayer recorded here. But we do have a summary of the content. And what rich content it is. Because in these verses, we see how we should respond. We see how, when bad news hits us… whether it’s something as big as 9/11 or something a whole lot smaller… before we jump up to do something in response… we need to respond like Nehemiah did. These verses show us how he did it. They show us a five-fold response to bad news. The first response is recognizing prayer. Look at verse 5:
NEHEMIAH 1:5
The first response to distressing news is recognizing prayer. One of the hardest things to do in life is get our mind off of ourselves. Especially when something bad happens. If something bad happens in the world around us, the first thing we think is, “How’s this going to impact me?” When something bad happens a little bit closer to home, many times we think, “Why me?” But either way, we’re thinking about me. Sometimes we get beyond that. Sometimes, we get really selfless and start thinking about other people. How’s this going to impact my family? How’s this going to impact my friends or neighbors or my community? But that’s not what Nehemiah did. He didn’t start worrying about himself as a Jew. Being so far away, that probably wouldn’t have been what most people would have done anyway. But here’s what most of us would have done in his situation. Most of us would have been thinking about all of our kinfolk who were down in Jerusalem. They would have been the first ones on our mind. What were they going to do? How were they going to live? Were they safe? How would they protect themselves with no wall? But the people weren’t the first ones on Nehemiah’s mind. The first One on Nehemiah’s mind was God. The first thing on his mind when he hit his knees in prayer was God and His glory. Instead of focusing on the problem, he focused on the God who holds the problem in His hands. He focused on the nature of the all-powerful God He was praying to. And this wasn’t some cheesy God-is-my-boyfriend kind of praise song he was lifting up. He called on the God of heaven. And he called Him the great and terrible God. The word for terrible is translated in modern translations as awesome. That’s good, in the truest sense of the word. But we’ve lost the sense of what awesome really means. It doesn’t mean that God is terrible in the evil sense of the word. It means that He is frightening—even terrifying. As a matter of fact, that’s what the world is closest to in meaning. It’s the same sense in which the writer of Hebrews says in 10:31, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” But at the same time Nehemiah recognizes God’s terrifying awesomeness, he recognizes God’s faithfulness and His mercy. He recognizes that God makes promises and keeps them. He recognizes that God is merciful and He shows mercy on people who don’t deserve it. That’s why we can say that God is a good God even at the same time we recognize that He is a terrifying God. He is good because He has made certain promises. And we know that He will keep His promises. And because of that, when we are covered by His promises, we have nothing to fear from Him. Only praise. Nehemiah recognized that in his prayer. His response to distressing news was recognizing prayer. It was also relentless prayer. Look at the first part of verse 6:
NEHEMIAH 1:6a
The second response to distressing news is relentless prayer. If you were really to be honest with yourself, how long do you typically spend in prayer each day. Now, out of that time, how much of it is spent in focused, concentrated prayer time. The time we might speak of as being in your prayer closet. The time when you are alone with your Bible and God. If you were to keep track of it on your watch… would you use the hour hand or would you use the minute hand? The sad fact is, most of us would use the second hand. But not Nehemiah. He used the calendar. Verse 6 says that he had been praying day and night. Was that because he thought God wasn’t listening? No—he knew that God was attentive to his prayers. He knew that God’s eyes were open and He was seeing what was happening. But he was pleading with God to take action. He was talking with God and pouring his heart out to God in order to lay himself bare before God. Was he looking to change God or persuade Him to do something against His will? No—that’s what the pagans do. The pagans perform all kinds of rituals and sacrifices and chants. They do that because they think that they can do things to manipulate the gods. That’s not why Nehemiah was pouring himself out in fasting and prayer day and night. He was relentlessly emptying himself before God. By not eating and not sleeping, he was showing himself to be completely dependent on God. He was completely emptying his hands and coming before God stripped bare of all pride and self-will. He was telling God, “I can’t do it.” “I am wholly and completely dependent on you.” And it wasn’t just words. It was relentless action. He was relentlessly broken before God. That was his second response. His third response to distressing news was repentant prayer. Look at where we left off in verse 6 through verse 7:
NEHEMIAH 1:6b-7
The third response to distressing news is repentant prayer. When you come before God in prayer… and you truly recognize Him for who He is. When you recognize Him as holy and righteous and pure and powerful and fearfully awesome.... And then you follow that up with relentlessly emptying yourself of any pride or self-determination. When you relentlessly show yourself to be completely and wholly dependent on God… that you can do nothing… that your plans and programs and money and works are completely worthless. When you come before God like that, the next step becomes self evident. Because when you begin to see God as the Holy One He really is… and when you begin to see all of the things you’re really trusting in besides Him… it is convicting. And when you’re in such a state of prayer as Nehemiah was, that conviction results in repentance. But I want you to look at his repentance. Remember why he was praying in the first place. What put him in this state of mind was the condition of a group of people who were hundreds of miles away from him. He hadn’t ever been with them. He was only related to them by blood. He probably didn’t know most of them. They lived lives completely removed from him and where he was. But how did he pray for them? “Lord, help those poor people down there.” No! He identified himself with them. He repented along with them—just like he had been right there sinning with them. He confessed the sins of the entire nation. But not like we like to do with America. We like to pray for America in the third person. “Lord the nation has turned from You. Have mercy on the nation.” Nehemiah didn’t do that. He included himself in the repentance. He said “we have sinned against thee.” And then he got more specific and personal. He said, “I sinned. My daddy sinned. My whole household sinned.” The whole confession is filled with “we”. He acknowledged the entire nations sin before God. His response to the distressing news he received was repentant prayer. That was his third response. His fourth response was remembering prayer. Look at verses 8-10:
NEHEMIAH 1:8-10
The fourth response to distressing news is remembering prayer. Conviction is a frightening thing. Seeing God as holy and seeing yourself as a sinner is scary. But that’s where God’s promises come into play. Nehemiah was obviously a student of God’s Word. He remembered God’s promises to His people. He remembered the promise of God in Deuteronomy 30:1-5 when He said, “And it shall come to pass, when all these things are come upon thee, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before thee, and thou shalt call them to mind among all the nations, whither the LORD thy God hath driven thee, And shalt return unto the LORD thy God, and shalt obey his voice according to all that I command thee this day, thou and thy children, with all thine heart, and with all thy soul; That then the LORD thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all the nations, whither the LORD thy God hath scattered thee. If any of thine be driven out unto the outmost parts of heaven, from thence will the LORD thy God gather thee, and from thence will he fetch thee: And the LORD thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it; and he will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers.” You see, Nehemiah knew that God had given the Jews the opportunity to return to the land. He had given them the opportunity to return to Him completely. But they weren’t doing it. The promise hadn’t been completely fulfilled. But Nehemiah had no doubt that it would be completely fulfilled. So he prayed God’s promises back to Him. Just like we should pray God’s promises back to Him. Lord you have promised to work all things together for good to them that love you and are called according to your purpose. Lord, you have promised that you will never leave me nor forsake me. Lord, you promised that you are faithful and just to forgive my sins and cleanse me from unrighteousness. Lord, you promised that you will never test me beyond what I can bear and you will always provide a way of escape. Lord, you promised that once you have truly saved me, no one can pluck me from your hand. Lord you promised that you’re going to finish the work you started in me. The Bible is full of God’s promises to His covenant people. When He saves you, you are His. And when you are His, you need to remember His promises. Just like Nehemiah did. Nehemiah’s response to the distressing news he received was remembering prayer. Finally, his fifth response was requesting prayer. Look at verse 11:
NEHEMIAH 1:11
The fifth response to distressing news is requesting prayer. Not one time up until now did Nehemiah ask God for anything. That is amazing to me. Here this man was fasting and praying and losing sleep. He was in anguished prayer before the Lord. And most of the time he wasn’t asking for anything. Is that how we pray? Even in our corporate prayers here on Wednesday evenings… is that how we pray? No—if we spend 30 minutes together in prayer, most of it is spent going over the things we want God to do. Maybe we need to work on that a little bit. Because out of all the words of Nehemiah’s prayer, he only asks for two things. Prosper me this day and grant me mercy in the eyes of the king. Actually, that’s only one thing. Because Nehemiah was going to ask the king if he could go to Jerusalem. And his prayer request was that God would cause the king to say yes. That’s it. Days of fasting and praying for that one simple request. Now notice what he didn’t do. He didn’t ask God the question 1000 times. Jesus called that vain repetition and told us not to do that. He asked once. Everything else led up to that one request. He used lots of words to tell God how great and awesome He is. He used lots of words to tell God how they had failed Him. He used lots of words to tell God how faithful He is and to talk about all of His promises to them. But when it got right down to his request, he didn’t say much. Prosper me this day. Give me mercy in the sight of the king. And God did. Throughout the book, you’ll notice a phrase that Ezra introduced us to in Ezra. It’s the phrase, “And the good hand of my God was upon me.” And it certainly was. Because Nehemiah knew how to pray. He knew how to pray so when distressing news came, he didn’t fall to pieces. He didn’t come up with all the things he needed to do to fix the problem. He didn’t waste effort trying to figure out who caused the problem. No—his first response was to pray.
What is your first response when you receive distressing news? When you get news of layoffs or tax increases or pension cuts? When you get news of family members in trouble or in pain? When you get news of bad medical reports or sickness or disease? When you get news of strife or discord or dissatisfaction? What is your first response? Maybe it’s time we all respond the right way. Respond by recognizing God for who He is. Respond by relentlessly pleading with God. Respond by repenting of your sin before Him. Respond by remembering His wonderful promises. And then and only then—respond by lifting your requests to Him.
