Each fall I bring you messages on prayer. There is a reason for that. In this time of the year we need to be very alert about our devotional life. September is a crucial time to discern important things about prayer.
The reason is not hard to find. In September, everything cranks up to a fever pitch. Everything we’ve put off doing all summer long, telling ourselves we had plenty of time, every such thing is now on our plates. School, work, church, organizations, everybody clamors for our attention in September. It’s frantic. It’s hectic. It’s September.
Do I know what I’m talking about? I juggle my calendar, trying to visit homes where they’ve said, “Come to visit us after our summer travels are over”. I respond to church leaders who tell me, “It’s time for my program to happen, and I need for you to do something right now!” I discover, once again, as always happens in September, that the quarterly estimated taxes for federal and state governments are due, the county property tax is due, it’s time for dental work, both cars need their registrations renewed, both cars need repair work, and the church says it’s time for another special missions offering -- all in September! Do you see why we have a prayer focus in September?
And it won’t be too long until they tell us how many shopping days are left until Christmas, and that leaves just one week after that to solve the Y2K bug! Wow! Can anyone argue with my premise, that this is a frantic time of the year? Can we all see why it is time to focus on prayer?
Prayer, you see, is not so much asking for things as it is re-establishing one of our most fundamental relationships. Prayer is not only asking for help; deeper than that, prayer is learning again who we are and whose we are. It’s not about what you can get; it’s about who is there to give it to you. Prayer is cultivating a connection. Without that connection, you will sink in September’s swirling seas. But if you know something about prayer, you can soar on September’s swelling streams.
This year I’ve elected to bring two messages. They have similar titles, but exactly opposite applications. I’m going to preach today about prayer when things are going well; and next week about prayer when things are going badly. I’m going to bring you good news about prayer, and say that we need to pray when it seems as though God’s in His heaven, all’s right with the world, and things couldn’t be better. And I’m also going to bring you good news and remind you to pray when it seems as though God has forgotten us, the world is on its way to hell, and nothing is right. When everything seems possible, then pray. When nothing seems possible, then pray again. “When the sun shines bright, and your heart is right,” pray. “When the clouds hang low in this world of woe,” pray then too. Pray without ceasing. Pray under all circumstances. Pray in season and out of season; pray when you feel like praying and pray when you don’t feel like praying.
You see, part of our human makeup is that if certain fundamental relationships are in place, we can function, no matter what else is happening. Put us into a relationship where there is love and acceptance, and we will be fine. But take us out of that, let that basic relationship break down, and everything goes sour. Everything breaks down. Bad times and good, stormy weather or fair skies, it doesn’t matter. We need certain basic relationships. If those are in place, we will survive and thrive. But if we do not know who we are and whose we are, nothing will be right. Nothing will succeed. And nothing will satisfy.
When I perform a wedding ceremony, I ask the bride and the groom to love and to cherish for richer, for poorer; in sickness and in health. Good times are as much of a challenge to a marriage as are bad times. Wealth introduces decay to families, just as poverty does. Success erodes people, just as failure does. And so the message of these two swamped September Sundays is going to be, “When everything seems possible, then pray” as well as “when nothing seems possible, then pray.” Your fundamental relationship with God is at stake, and it must be cultivated, at this time of the year.
Nehemiah may well be the single most successful person whose story is told in the Bible. Everything Nehemiah tried worked out right. People today still study the Old Testament book of Nehemiah in order to discover workable leadership principles. Nehemiah was an achiever. He got things done. Things went well for Nehemiah. But don’t overlook one vital factor – Nehemiah was a man of prayer. Nehemiah knew when to pray and how to pray, in the middle of success, because he saw the threats that lay down deep, even when everything seems possible. Let’s learn today from Nehemiah: when everything seems possible, then pray.
May I rehearse for you a few of the things that Nehemiah had been able to accomplish? The time is the fifth century before Christ. Less than two hundred years earlier, the nation of Judah had been conquered, its people taken into exile, and its queen city, Jerusalem, destroyed. The walls of the city, the Temple, the palaces, all lay in ruins. But the tides of history were turning, and the Babylonian Empire, which had worked havoc on Judah, was no more. In its place were the Persians, a people of a different temperament, disposed more to building up captive peoples than to exploiting.
Nehemiah, a Jew, was a high official in the court of the Persian Emperor, Artaxerxes. There Nehemiah caught a vision of rebuilding the city of Jerusalem and re-establishing his people in Judah. Let me just list, in short order, what Nehemiah was able to do, once he glimpsed that vision:
First, he persuaded Artaxerxes to permit him to lead a rebuilding project, and, to boot, he got materials and money from the king’s treasury. I guess we would say he got a federal grant to fund his own pet project, even without a 501-c-3 and a grant writer. Pretty good going.
Next, Nehemiah convinced the Jewish leaders, back in Jerusalem, that the thing could be done. You know, sometimes the toughest thing in the world is to convince the people you want to help that they really can be helped. Low self-esteem is a tricky business; sometimes the people who need help the most are the ones who resist the hardest. But Nehemiah overcame the Jewish leaders’ reluctance. Success!
Third, Nehemiah got the opposition quieted down. The Samaritans, a mixed-breed people who had settled into Jerusalem’s neighborhoods, didn’t want anything done that would strengthen the Jews. Never mind that rebuilding the city would have helped them too; they were prepared to cut off their noses to spite their faces! I could preach a whole sermon about the corrosive power of racism right there! The Samaritans didn’t want the Jews to feel secure, and were willing to sacrifice their own security in order to frustrate the Jews! Wow! But Nehemiah got that quieted down too, mainly by going forward with his vision. He knew when to listen and when not to. He succeeded!
And so, as the Scripture selection for today opens, everything seemed possible. Permission, money, support, a quiet opposition, and the walls were going up. The work was getting done. It was well organized, and people could see that it really was going to happen. This train had left the station! Everything now seemed possible.
But remember: that is the very reason for prayer. That is the very time not to forget God and God’s provision. When all is going well, that is a time to pray. When the future looks wonderful, then pray. When everything seems possible, then, of all times, pray.
Nehemiah 4:1-15 [ASK PEOPLE TO KEEP BIBLES OPEN]
There are several significant moments during which Nehemiah was moved to pray. I hope you caught them. Let me lift them up for you.
I
First, we need to pray when everything seems possible, because that is the very moment when the opposition will try to blindside us. When things are going well, when your life seems peachy keen, when you are on a roll, don’t be surprised if somebody tries to sabotage you and trip you up. It will happen. It will, because opposition once repressed does not go away, but lives to fight another day. And so, just when you think you are unstoppable, watch out! Somebody is going to try to sack the quarterback!
Now when Sanballat heard that we were building the wall, he was angry and greatly enraged, and he mocked the Jews. He said in the presence of his associates and of the army of Samaria, "What are these feeble Jews doing? Will they restore things? Will they sacrifice? Will they finish it in a day? Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish--and burned ones at that?" Tobiah the Ammonite was beside him, and he said, "That stone wall they are building--any fox going up on it would break it down!"
Oh, I could take all day unpacking this passage! I could point out that detractors live out of anger and not out of any positive motives; I could show you that name-calling is a favorite tactic of negative people –if they can make fun of you and label you, they think they have written you off. I could even ask you to look at how the opposition will tell you that you cannot do what you in fact are doing. Negative people will ignore the evidence that is right in front of their eyes and will see only what they want to see. I could go into all of that, but I won’t, because what I want you to discover is how Nehemiah read the situation and shot a bullet prayer right into the middle of it all! A bullet prayer!
Look at the text. Nehemiah is reporting for us all that Sanballat and Tobiah had to say. And right in the middle of that report, it’s as though Nehemiah’s spirit has to respond, immediately, forcefully, vigorously. Without a moment’s hesitation, he just breaks in and begins to pray. In the middle of his news report, bang, he’s off talking to God. Listen to it:
Tobiah the Ammonite was beside him, and he said, "That stone wall they are building--any fox going up on it would break it down!" Hear, O our God, for we are despised; turn their taunt back on their own heads, and give them over as plunder in a land of captivity. Do not cover their guilt, and do not let their sin be blotted out from your sight; for they have hurled insults in the face of the builders.
Do you catch it? It’s a bullet prayer, shot right into the heart of the opposition. A slingshot prayer, welling up from Nehemiah’s inner being. He does not stop to calculate. He does not say, “Just wait until I get to church, and I’ll think of something to say.” He does not attempt to argue. He does not step back and feel hurt. Nehemiah knows instantly that his spirit is under the assault of evil, and so he strikes back right away with spiritual power. Nehemiah knows what the stakes are, and does not wait to compose purple prose to the Almighty, but simply voices his heart, here and now. Nehemiah knows that God is always accessible, and so he will give no room whatsoever for the opposition to work, but commits everything immediately to the God of his strength. A bullet prayer.
One night several of us were gathered here at the church because there was a crisis in one of our ministries. There had been a serious conflict among some of the participants, and accusations had begun to fly. It was especially hard to take, because we had put so much time and energy and money and prayer and effort into making this ministry fly, and it really looked as though it was going to work. It was taking off. But then this conflict, complete with tears, threats of legal action, police officers, and all the rest. We didn’t know what to do. We didn’t know how to handle it. All of a sudden, in the middle of that terrible, interminable, uncomfortable meeting, fraught with tension and filled with anxiety, someone just burst out, “Father, in the name of Jesus; in the name of Jesus, remove from this room the power of evil and the spirit of controversy. Father, in the name of Jesus, you led us to start this ministry, I ask you now to save it.” What a moment! I’ll spare you the details; but I can tell you that that ministry is still flourishing today. That bullet prayer shot down the opposition.
When everything seems possible, pray, because that is the very moment when the opposition will try to blindside you. Pray the instant the naysayers and the controllers begin their work against you. Do not try to out-argue them or out-run them. Just out-pray them. When everything seems possible, pray.
II
And look what Nehemiah is able to report, after his prayer:
So we rebuilt the wall, and all the wall was joined together to half its height; for the people had a mind to work.
Things are really happening, and all because the people had a mind to work, fired by Nehemiah’s vision. Before you could turn around, almost, the task of rebuilding the city was half-done. It seemed as though it was only a matter of a short time until it would all be finished.
But, remember, when everything seems possible, then pray. When it feels as though the things you’ve given yourself to really will succeed, then as never before is it time to pray.
And one of the reasons is that defeat may come not only from without, but also from within. Defeat may come not only because there are those who blindside you and who don’t want you to succeed. It may also come because within your own close circle – within your family, your friends, even your church – even from within yourself – something will show up to stifle success. That something the Bible calls “confusion.” Its name is, “confusion.” Listen to the story again:
But when Sanballat and Tobiah and the Arabs and the Ammonites and the Ashdodites heard that the repairing of the walls of Jerusalem was going forward and the gaps were beginning to be closed, they were very angry, and all plotted together to come and fight against Jerusalem and to cause confusion in it.
Confusion means that doubts rise, even within the hearts of those among whom God is doing great things. Confusion means that all the “what if” questions jump up and hit you in the face. Confusion means that you begin to get all messed up about the reality that is in front of you. You thought you were doing well, and suddenly somebody says, “That’s the lousiest piece of work I ever saw.” Confusion reigns. Your doubts start taking hold.
I have this enduring memory from an eighth grade English class. For whatever reasons, our teacher decided near the close of one grading period that she would ask each of us what grade we thought we should receive. Now that is really a ridiculous exercise! You are the teacher, you should know. But ask us she did. Each student was to write his or her name on a slip of paper and then put down the grade we thought we should receive. Now I really did think I had done rather well, so I boldly scrawled a nice big “A”; and then, just for the sake of modesty, hedging my bets, I put a minus sign behind it and turned it in. Well, to my amazement, the teacher began to look at these slips and to comment, out loud, on each one. “Robert thinks he should get a B; that’s about right, Robert. Susan expects a C plus; oh, you’ve done better than that, Susan. Don’t be too hard on yourself.” Around the room she went, rendering little comments for each student. Then the blow fell, “Joe Smith, A minus! Who do you think I am, Santa Claus? You might get a B minus at best!” Confusion set in! Just when I thought I was doing well, when the world was my oyster and my eighth-grade soul was filled up with possibilities, a teacher chose to work confusion in my heart. And from then on, I could hardly do a thing in her class!
I wish I could tell you I had been as alert as Nehemiah. I wish I could report that I did what he did. But do notice what Nehemiah did at that critical moment:
So we prayed to our God, and set a guard as a protection against them day and night.
We prayed to our God and we set a guard. We first committed ourselves to the Father who has willed our success, and then we did something practical, we gave the people something visible as a sign of God’s vigilance. We prayed to re-establish our fundamental relationship to the Lord, our vision of what He had called us to do. We prayed to reassure ourselves that He would not have led us thus far, only to abandon us. We prayed, and then we reinforced our prayer with something practical to put an end to the confusion.
A few weeks ago some of you met a former pastor of mine, Dr. Homer Carter. Dr. Carter was essentially the founding pastor of Central Baptist Church in Lexington, Kentucky. He had built the church up from a new start into a congregation of several hundred people; most of that time they had met in an old house, which they had gutted and fitted with chairs, making space the best way they could. But not long before Margaret and I moved to Lexington and joined Central, they completed a large and comfortable new six-hundred-seat sanctuary. By the time we joined, the church had settled into its new quarters and was feeling as though its future was assured and that all things were possible. Just at that point, Dr. Carter accepted a call to a church in Missouri, and we were left to chart a course on our own. What do you think happened? Confusion set in. Confusion reigned. What is our mission? What is our purpose? Why are we here? Everything had been so focused on getting that building built that when that was finished, no one had any real idea why it had been built! No one had a sense of the purpose of our church! Confusion. Enough confusion that two pastors came and left in very short order, members fought among themselves and some fled to other churches, and pretty soon the congregation wished they could go back to the little old house and start all over again. Confusion reigns when you do not, in concert with the living God, know who you are and what you are about. Confusion reigns when expectations are realized and then we cannot remember why we expected them.
But if we pray to our God and set a guard – if we keep alive that fundamental relationship with our living God, and at the same time do something practical, something real, to establish where we are going and why – then confusion will be sent away, God’s purposes will be affirmed, and the possibilities that He places before us will never die.
When everything seems possible, then pray. When down deep in your soul, despite the fact that your life is going well, doubts and fears arise, and you wonder whether all of this is real, then pray. Pray and live out of your sense of mission; pray and set a guard, knowing who you are and whose you are. Be about the Father’s business. When everything seems possible, then pray.
III
For I must tell you that even when you have prayed your way through to victory, you have not finished. Even when your task is done, it is not done, for no physical victory is complete until spiritual victory has come. No task, no matter how wonderful it feels, is finished until the hearts and minds of those who have shared in it know the presence of the One who has called them. When everything seems possible, pray. And even when all the possibilities are realized, even then, pray.
The walls of Jerusalem were nearing completion. The great vision was within sight. The walls rose higher and higher; the complaints of the enemies grew less and less credible, the taunts and the jibes were not nearly so loud. It was almost done. Almost finished. Time to relax a little, right? Time to enjoy the fruits of our labors, right? We’ve earned our pensions, we’ve filled up our 401-k plans, we can settle back and applaud ourselves and say, “Look what we did”, right? Right?
Wrong! Wrong, because, well, listen to what the people said to Nehemiah. Mind you, this is when the work is nearly done, the outside enemies are relatively quiet, it looks as though the things for which they have been working are actually going to happen. This is what they said, and in fact the Bible says they said it ten times!
But Judah said, "The strength of the burden bearers is failing, and there is too much rubbish so that we are unable to work on the wall." And our enemies said, "They will not know or see anything before we come upon them and kill them and stop the work." When the Jews who lived near them came, they said to us ten times, "From all the places where they live they will come up against us."
People of God, you know you’re doing something right when you get tired and you think you can’t do any more. You know you’re in the Lord’s will when after all your labors you find out there is so much rubbish in your own soul that you can’t work any longer. You know you’re on the mark when you care so much about what you’ve done you cannot help but voice anxiety about it. You know you’ve given yourself to something that matters when after all you’ve put into it, you want to work on your own issues, you want to take care of your own soul stuff, you want somebody to know that you are anxious. It tells me that you’ve been doing the right things, you are 99 and 44/100 % on target, and that total victory is almost in your grasp when you become aware that you’ve been so long getting it done that you’ve never removed the garbage in your own heart!
Prayer. Prayer. A profound commitment to the God who has begun a good work in us and who will bring it to the day of completion. A thoroughgoing involvement with the God whose son lay in a cold tomb after having said, “Not my will, but thine be done”, but that God brought Him forth, whole and complete. One thing remains, prayer to the God who will do what He says He will do.
So in the lowest parts of the space behind the wall, in open places, I stationed the people according to their families, with their swords, their spears, and their bows. After I looked these things over, I stood up and said to the nobles and the officials and the rest of the people, "Do not be afraid of them. Remember the LORD, who is great and awesome, and fight for your kin, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your homes." When our enemies heard that their plot was known to us, and that God had frustrated it, we all returned to the wall, each to his work.
As God’s people in this place, we have committed ourselves to a redemptive mission. We have declared that we shall deepen our discipleship and multiply our ministries. We have announced that our worship will be winsome and our stewardship systematic. Some days I feel we are almost there, except there’s too much rubbish in my soul, too many issues in my spirit, too many questions in my mind, too many doubts in my heart, and I cannot stay focused on building the walls.
But when everything seems possible, I’ve learned to pray. When I get tired, weary in well-doing, I will pray. When I feel good about us, good about our mission, good about everything, and want to keep it just as it is, then I know there’s too much rubbish in my heart. And I will pray to the Lord, who is great and awesome, and, knowing that our God has brought us to this task, I can return to my work. Yes, all things are possible; only believe, believe and pray.
