The Declaration of Dependence

*The sermon manuscript below was generated from the recording by AI …

Well, something very significant in world history happened in 1776 on July 4th. Bill’s smiling ’cause he knows. 1776, Bill’s favorite day. Independence Day, 1776, July 4th. America, a group of men wrote, of course, the Declaration of Independency, where they basically said, I don’t know if you’ve ever read it, but they basically said, “England, the Crown, you are unjust, cruel, and wicked, and we will no longer submit to you. We will no longer accept your rule, and we will self-govern.” They were completely independent, they were telling the Crown, and they have been, after a war, of course, they have been until today and they continue to be so.

Now, we never get the right to write a Declaration of Independency to our king. The believer never has the right to declare independency against the Lord Jesus Christ. However, sometimes we can be tempted to become practical independents.

You, you may not know what I mean by a practical independent person, but a practical independent person is a person who’s not really independent, but acts like they are. You know, often they’re called teenagers. Um, y- you know what I mean, right? Like, they, they love the life of seeking to live with independence, but very quickly come back to Mum and Dad because they need help, and very quickly they come back because they’re not quite independent yet.

We can be like this as Christians, not so much like teenagers, but what we do is we seek to live independently of God. We are tempted to think we can do it ourselves. You know, we’re tempted to be like the toddler who can do his own shoes up. If you’re a parent, you’ve probably experienced this before. It’s time to go out, and you know your toddler can’t do their own shoes up, and you say, “It’s time to go,” and your toddler says to you, “I’m putting my shoes on.” And you say, “Okay, dear, I’ll come and help.” And they say, “I’ll do it.” And you say, “Honey, you can’t do up your shoes. Let me help you.” “I’ll do it,” they say. And of course, they can’t, and they fumble, and they fumble, and they fumble, and they fumble, until eventually you have to take over and do it for them.

But we can be like this as Christians, can’t we? “I can do it myself, thank you, God. I am big enough and ugly enough to look after myself. I don’t need your help. I’ll come to you when I need you, thank you very much.” And so when we get in dire straits, even still, we won’t run to God. We’ll try and dig ourselves out first, because we’re proud, because we’re arrogant. And when the church isn’t growing, we come up with very convenient growth strategies and techniques, because, “I’m a big boy, and I don’t need God’s help.” And we become practical independents.

Our text before us gives us a beautiful snapshot of a totally dependent man, and what’s especially striking about that is Nehemiah is incredibly gifted, strategically, skillfully. He is gifted. He is talented. If anyone can do it, Nehemiah could do it. And yet one of the marks of Nehemiah, not just in chapter 1, but all the way through the book, is an incredibly deep foundational dependence upon the Living God, and we’re gonna see that today as we study his prayer.

But maybe, maybe one of you, just quickly as aside, maybe one of you says, “Well, why are we studying a prayer? That seems a bit odd. I mean, prayer is a matter of the heart, right? It’s not a, it’s not a theological theorem.” How would you feel if I came to your house and recorded your next prayer, and then preached on it next Sunday? You’d say, “Oh, well, good. You could preach on the prayers of Matthew today. It was helpful for us to consider Matthew’s prayers.” You’d be like, “Well, that’s a bit odd,” and Matthew would probably feel a little bit embarrassed, wouldn’t he?

Maybe you’re thinking to yourself, “Well, why are we p- studying the prayer of Nehemiah? Just move on.” Well, I think there’s 2 good reasons to do this. Firstly, well, Christ sets us the example, doesn’t He? When his decei- disciples want to learn how to pray, what does He do? He doesn’t say to them, “Well, I’ll, I’ll give you some ideas, but I don’t want to give you a form.” He says to them, “If you’re going to pray, this is how you pray, ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.’” And He teaches them, and in doing so, He gave us a form of prayer to study, didn’t He?

But not only that, prayer is the truest theology of the soul. People will say they believe all sorts of different things, but if you truly want to know what someone believes, listen to them pray. And so, when you hear all of your Armenian friends praying for their lost aunt or child, what you will notice is how incredibly Calvinistic they are, because they will pray, “God, please save my sister. Give them a new heart. Bring them to you.” They never say, “Lord, would you please Well, I guess, I really hope they make a decision to believe in you.” They don’t say that, do they? And you’ll notice their incredible dependency upon the sovereignty of God, because they’ll say, “Lord, help me. I need money.” Well, it doesn’t rely upon you. God’s not just gonna make money come out of nowhere. They believe in a sovereign, providential God who will take money out of other people’s pockets and put it in their own.

You want to know a person’s theology? Study his prayers. This struck me when I read through 2 volumes of Calvin’s sermons, because at the end you get his prayer recorded. What struck me was his devotion to the Majesty of God to the point where when any- whenever anyone i- says to me, “What was Calvin’s big issue?” Say, it wasn’t Calvinism. It wasn’t so It wasn’t salvation. It wasn’t soteriology. It was the glory of the living God. And what he came to see Catholics maligned God’s glory. They stole His glory. And every one of his prayers is marked by a almost identical phrase. “May we something for your Majesty, oh God.”

And so it’s important for us to study prayer, study the prayers of God’s people, and we have them all through the Bible, all through the Psalms. So let us study this one.

And, and this prayer begins with an upward motion, an upward motion of adoration. Okay, we’re gonna see an upward motion, we’re gonna see a downward motion, and then we’re gonna see another upward motion. And firstly, it’s an upward mo- motion of adoration.

You know, on, on Thursdays we do a rest home service, Dalwin, Anne, and myself. You’re all invited, by the way, come and help out. Uh, Jeanette and Mia come along and join us. Sometimes the more songs, the merrier. Well, this Thursday, something a little bit different happened. Uh, there was a lady and, and she was asleep, and, and she’s not particularly with it, but she was asleep. And one of the other ladies saw her and felt bad for her because she was tired. She said She leaned over to me and said, “She’s tired.” And I was like, “Yeah, she is. She’s sleeping.” And so she walked over and, and she made a decision to get down on the ground. Now, um, i- for those of you that are younger than me, you don’t understand the serious decision of getting down on the ground until you get older. I’m not quite there, praise the Lord, yet. But you get I’ve been told, at least, you get to a stage where getting down and up is like a victory. It’s like, “I did it today.” And this elderly woman gets down on the floor somehow next to this lady and puts her hand on her in just the most wonderful tenderness.

But then, of course, the problem came, right? She needed to stand up again and, and, and she’s tryna She can barely move at all. And then one of the other patients is obviously feeling bad for her, so she stands up to go and help her. And I thought to my We were in the middle of singing, and I thought to myself, “This is gonna end in a disaster.” And I was just about to get up, and then I looked over and there were, 4 staff members, mind you, standing in the little nurse room watching. Thought to myself, “Please, for the love of everything, stop watching and come help.” And I’m looking at them and I’m going like this, and then they came over and, and they grabbed her and they easily just hoisted her up because they have the techniques, they’re young, they know what to do.

And what struck me about this picture was that, you know, there was no hope in, in this little old lady getting any assistance from the other old lady, right? Not a chance. And i- you know, there would have been no point in her looking to her, “Help me.” It wouldn’t have helped. You see, because when we need help, we look for powerful people, right? We look for strong people. We look for people that are able to help us. If you’re in danger, if you’re in threat, you don’t look for the 4 foot Chinese woman. I mean, it’s just obvious, right? You look for the 6’7″ Fijian guy, and you go, “We clearly want your help in this situation.” You Always look upward when you need help, right?

And Nehemiah looks upward. He looks upward to the Lord his God. And so we’re told in verse 4, he goes before the God of Heaven. In verse 5, we’re told he goes to the Lord God of Heaven, the great and awesome God. He goes to the God of Heaven. Why is that so important? It’s actually not a common phrase, interestingly enough. The Lord, Yahweh, of the Heavens is reasonably common, but Elohim, the God of H- the Heavens, is not common. In fact, it’s actually a Persian type of prayer. Why is that striking? Well, Nehemiah, in his Persian-ness, did not pray to Persian deities. Though he had a Persian accent, he did not pray to Persian gods. He prayed to the Lord our God, and he didn’t pray to the God of Jerusalem. Do you notice that? Why? Because the Lord our God is not a localized deity. You see, Babylon had a localized god, E- Edom had a localized god, the Philistines had localized gods. There was Baal, and there was Ashtoreth, and there was this and there was that, and there was Molech, and they were all in their own little world. And the more localized gods, the better you were. But what does the Lord say when s- when David says, “I want to build you a temple”? The Lord says, “Excuse me? Have I ever dwelt in a house? Do you not understand that the Heavens is my throne and the Earth is my footstool?” In other words, “I am the Lord of everything. There is no localized place for me to exist.” And this is of a great encouragement, because we’re on the other side of the world of Jerusalem, and the Lord is just as much present here today as He was in the Temple of God in the Old Testament. He’s just as much with you in your workplace and in your prayer closet as He was with Daniel and with Isaiah and with Ezekiel.

And so, Nehemiah comes to a God that is bigger than Israel and bigger than Persia, the only God of the Heavens and the Earth. He is our help. The Psalms constantly remind us. There’s a phrase that’s repeated. “My help is in the name of the Lord who made the Heavens and the Earth,” because there’s nowhere higher you can look. You know, I’m, I’m bigger than some of you, and so you might look up towards me if you need help. And, but then there’s people that are much bigger than me. Then there’s people bigger than them. But eventually, you get to the biggest person, the strongest person, the fittest person, and you can’t find any better help than that. Well, it’s the same with us. You could go to Molech, or you could go to Baal or Ashtoreth, or you could go to your bank balance, or you could go to your workplace, or your husband, or your wife, or you could go to your children or your family. Whatever is your god, you could go to those things, but they’re so small. Or you could go to the Lord your God who made the Heavens and the Earth, for no one is greater, because He made everything and everything depends upon Him. The entirety of creation hangs on a thread by His will.

And so, Nehemiah says he comes to a great God, the greatest, but he also comes to the God of Heaven, a great God, an awesome God, an awesome God. Now, the word for awesome we’ve run into before, we ran into it in Psalm 45 twice, and I said to you this is not the way we often use awesome in the sense of like, “Wow, He’s great.” It’s terrifying. Th- some of the older translations translated this as, “The terrible God.” Now, you can understand the problem with that as a translation, right? Because when we hear terrible I mean, if you just read through that and said, “I come to the terrible God.” You’d be like, “Well, that’s not a I mean, my God’s not terrible. My God’s amazing.” What’s, what’s, what’s meant here is that everything the Lord does fills people with awe and wonder and terror. They are overwhelmed. All of creation, above and below, all of it falls down in wonder before the glory of the works of God. It’s not just God Himself that’s amazing, but His works are magnificent. Isn’t this what makes you see something glorious in creation and just stand there and marvel at God? Uh, my mum is just the most wonderful illustration of this, and she’s gonna start laughing now when she watches the video. She does it every single time without fault. We pull up in the country somewhere, like our house, where there’s not many lights. She hops out of the car. She opens the door. She hops out, she looks up, and she just stands there, and she goes, “Wow! Isn’t God amazing?” That’s what’s meant here. When you see the magnificent detail of a perfectly designed flower, or the intricacies of an eye that has millions of nerve endings in it, and you look in wonder and you’re left pondering, “What kind of God could make this?” It’s mind-boggling. And yet, the answer to that is our God made that, and all His ways are good.

But there’s another thing. He comes not just to an awesome and great God, as though He was high and lifted up and far away from us, but th- he comes to a covenantal and loving God, a God whose character overflows with love. So he says, “The great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love.” He says, “I come to a God who the overflow of His being is love.” And we see that nowhere plainer than in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, right? For God so loved the world. To better translate it, “For in this way, God manifested His love. In this way, He showed us what type of love He has. He sacrificed His one and only son.”

You see, Nehemiah, in his great need, he doesn’t look down, but he looks up into Heaven and up into glory, and looks up through the lens of the Word of God by faith, and beholds God in His glory, and says, “I look to you.” E- it reminds me of the story I heard told by Sinclair Ferguson of a Scottish elder who would always pray the same way, without fault. Not the same words, but the same way. He’d stand at the front of church at prayer meeting, and he’d stand up and he’d begin praying, and he’d list everything that was wrong in the world. He’d say, “Oh, this is wrong, and that’s wrong, and this is wrong. And we’ve got problems here, and there’s sick people there, and we’re out of money, and I’ve got a sore back, and this person’s got this wrong. And God help us, and this is wrong.” And he said it would build and build and build and build, and then all of a sudden, there’d be a pause, and then he’d say, “But we come to you. We come to you,” he would say. And Ferguson says it was like all of a sudden everything was put into perspective. This mass of problems was built up to the heavens, and then all of a sudden you stood next to God and you saw that it was nothing but a anthill.

It’s perspective, isn’t it? You see, while we look at our problems, we’re like the disciples in the boat. You remember? The waves are thrashing and the winds are blowing and the boats are creaking to the point where professional fishermen cry out, “We are perishing!” And what’s Jesus doing? Well, he’s fast asleep. Why? Not, not because he’s tired. I mean, yeah, he’s tired, that’s why he’s sleeping, but that’s not why he can sleep. Why can he sleep? Because he knows, “Not a single hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in Heaven.” He trusts his Father implicitly. And because of the perspective he has of God, he can simply rise up and say, “Why are you afraid, oh ye of little faith?” Why are you afraid? What have you got to be afraid of?

Why? And you can imagine the disciples think, “Quite a lot, actually.” I mean, Jesus, open your eyes! We’re literally about to drown! We have every good reason to be afraid right now.” I’ve never seen a storm so severe!” Peter could say. And Jesus says, “Be still.”

You see, perspective changes everything. When the eye is fixed upon God, the problems just appear so much smaller. Wives, don’t, don’t you know this? I mean, sometimes doesn’t it bother you when, when you’re at home with the children and, and everything just feels like utter chaos, and then the father walks in the door and all of a sudden everything just goes calm? You’re like, “They were really naughty 20 minutes ago!” And yet isn’t it such a wonderful comfort that everything just feels so well and, and good because the husband just came home?

I tell you, my, my wife was away for 3 days, I was a r- I was a write-off. Don’t, don’t bother visiting our house when, when my wife’s not home. It’s, it’s not, it’s not great. Um, I’m not, I’m not right. Paul, Ming, and Jess had to bear up with their suffering, please. Um, I, I am not myself, I am not right without my wife around. And, and the second she came home, I felt this incredible just settled peace, just immediately, like everything is right in the world again.

This is what it looks like to look to God. You see, from his place of need, Jerusalem’s in a disaster, the kingdom of God’s at stake, he, he does this upward motion where he lifts up his eyes and looks to the God of heaven, and everything is put in its perspective, and you’ve gotta learn to do this. You’ve gotta learn in the midst of your suffering, in the midst of your pain, in the midst of arguments, in the midst of difficulties, in the midst of financial ruin, in the midst of pain, and surgeries, and cancer, and everything, to lift up your eyes. Don’t look at the cancer. Don’t look at the argument. Don’t look at the bank balance. Look to God. The things of this earth will be far less terrifying.

And so we see this upward adoration, this upward praise, this upward focus upon God, but then we see another movement, don’t we? It’s upward and then it’s downward. It goes from upward in adoration to downward in confession. A downward motion of confession.

See, divine perspective puts our problems in perspective, but it also puts our creaturely-ness into perspective, too, doesn’t it? And we saw this this morning. We talked about this during the service this morning, and quite intentionally. We looked up to the glory of God as He called us to worship, and as we sung of His praises, and then immediately we’re confronted with the law as God speaks to us, and what’s the very next thing we do? We confess our sin. It’s, it’s the upward and downward movement of confrontation with God. We come into the presence of God and the things of this world get put into perspective, and that includes ourselves.

And so Nehemiah begins to confess sin. You see, he has just seen perfection. He’s just set his heart upon perfection, and he looks at himself, and he looks at his people, and he confesses his sin. And you need to see firstly that firstly this it’s a motion of, of corporate confession. It’s really important. Do you notice? Have a look at the text. Verse 6. “Hear the prayer of your servant that I now pray before you day and night for the people of your servants, confessing the sins of Nehemiah.” No. Who? The people of Israel. Which No. Who? “Which they have sinned against you.” No, we. “We have sinned against you, even I and my father’s house.”

Now, now this is really strange. Do you know why? Because he didn’t do it. He didn’t do the things that caused God’s wrath to be poured out upon Jerusalem, did he? He wasn’t even alive yet. This is over 100 years ago, and yet he prays corporately.

Job is no f- Not Job. Nehemiah is no Job’s friend. Remember Job’s friends? After 7 days of kindness, what do they do? They stand back and they say, “Ah, you sinned. That’s the problem. You did something wrong.” And he says, “No, I didn’t.” “Yes, you did. You must’ve.” And you get about 20 chapters of 3 friends saying, “Yes, you did,” and Job saying, “No, I didn’t.” “Yes, you did.” “No, I didn’t.” Back and forth.

Well, Nehemiah is not one of them, is he? It’s like, “Oh, God. These Israelites, they’re so useless. You need to forgive them.” He doesn’t stand aloof like a Pharisee, does he? “Oh, I’m so glad I’m not like the tax collector. I’m so glad that I’m so righteous. You need to forgive him. You don’t need to forgive me though.” No, that’s not Nehemiah. He says, “Lord, forgive us.” Why? Well, it’s always right for us to pray, “Forgive us our sins.” Why? Because none of us have the right to sit with Jesus upon the cross and say, “Father, forgive them,” because none of us are sinless.

You see, the same snaky disease that infests all of them infests you and me. And this causes a great humility when it comes to prayer. Be very slow to pray against others- because the sin you see in others is buried in your own heart. Far better to see the sin of a brother and say, “Father, forgive us.” One of the most practical things you can do is every time you see a brother or sister in sin, ask yourself this very simple question: In what way in my life have I committed the same sin? Because every manner of evil is bound up in your heart. That’s why Jesus says, “Oh, you don’t think you’ve committed adultery? Have you ever, ever thought of a woman lustfully?” Now, come on men. Who of us are gonna stand up and say, “I’ve never ever had a lustful thought of anyone in my life”? So every time you hear of someone having marriage failure, don’t pray “them,” pray “we.” “Have mercy upon us. I’m just as corrupt as they are. I have no right to look down upon them.”

And so he joins himself with them corporately, but he also joins himself with them covenentally. And so he says, confessing the sins of the people of Israel, “Which we have sinned against you, even I and my father’s house. We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, the rules that you commanded your servant Moses.”

Now, the, the all of the language through this section here is straight out of Deuteronomy, especially 4, but all over Deuteronomy is, is this language of statutes, rules, commandments, steadfast love. It’s covenantal language, and what Nehemiah is doing here is praying with specificity. It’s not broad generalizations.

Here’s the problem. Our temptation is to say, “Father, forgive us. We’re sinners,” and then happily leave it there on the table. He says, “Father, forgive us for we have broken your laws, your commandments, your statutes.” Why? Because sin is defined by the law of God. Sin is not defined by the opinion of others. If anyone comes to you and says to you, “Well, that’s a sin,” do you know what you say to them? “Please show me in the word of God where it’s a sin.” And if it is, then repent, and if it’s if they can’t show it in the word, then it’s not sin. Because sin is even is any want of conformity unto the law of God. positively and negatively. So, when God says, “Do not misuse my name, do not blaspheme my name,” it means you must honor the name of God above every other name, positive and negative. You must not bring asperges upon the name of God.

And this is freeing. It frees us from those who would bind our consciences. It frees us from those who would shackle man-made laws upon us and say to us, like the Pharisees of old, “You can do this, but you can’t do that. And you can’t do that, but you have to do that, and I will define what holiness looks like for you.” But Nehemiah doesn’t do that. He says, “Father, we Forgive us because we’ve broken your law.” And that’s what it’s all about, is your standard, your rules.

But Nehemiah goes even further than this, because not only does he pray and confess corporately and covenentally, he confesses personally because he says that word, “Even I and my father’s house have sinned. I’m a sinner.”

This is what frees us, brothers and sisters. This is what frees us to have forgiving hearts, this is what frees us to embrace anyone that walks off the street, because “I’m a sinner.” There’s this wonderful moment in the life of G.K. Chesterton where a, a group of, like, authors are asked for their, uh, their opinion for what’s wrong with London. You know, “Tell us what you think is the problem of London, ’cause London’s getting bad.” A-a-and they get all these different treatises back from these professional writers. G.K. Chesterton takes up a pen and he grabs a piece of paper, and he writes, “Dear Editor, I am. Yours sincerely, G.K. Chesterton.”

Can you say that? What’s wrong with this world? I am. If it wasn’t for me, there wouldn’t be so much sin here. It’s my sin that causes problem. It’s my sin that destroys. It’s my sin that makes Christ go to the cross. Make it personal.

You know, this downward moment in confession is a wonderfully freeing and humbling reality, and here’s the thing. We can do it with all confidence because we have a God who is faithful to redeem. And see what Nehemiah bases this movement on. Verse 8, “Remember the word that you commanded your servant Moses, ‘If you are faithful, if I scatter you among the peoples, if you return to me and keep my commandments, even if you’re to the ends of the earth, I will gather them and bring them to the place that I have chosen to make my people dwell there.’ And again, they are your servants and your people whom you have redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand.”

Do you see what he does here? He confesses, but he doesn’t just sit there and wallow in his sin. He confesses because God has promised to be a redeemer. God has promised to be a redeemer. He says, “You redeemed us out of Egypt! You saved us out of Egypt! Do it again. Set us free. Redeem us out of Babylon.” And can’t we pray the same thing? When you return, like a dog to your vomit, or you look at the state of New Zealand, can’t you pray and say, “Father, forgive us. Restore us. redeem us again as you have in the past.” You can say, “Father, Father, there was a time in New Zealand when 95% of every Māori person was a believer in you. You redeemed them. Do it again. Do it again, Lord.” And you can bank on the promises of God, the steadfast love and mercy of God in your confession. It gives you boldness to come to him. It gives you opening to come into the throne room of God to receive grace in your hour of need.

And so we see this upward adoration, this downward confession, and then we see the last movement. We see upward supplication, upward motion of supplication.

You see, because he’s looked to God and recognized who God is, and who he is, and then confessed his sin, rooted in the redemption of Christ, he now has what? Total confidence as a child of God to draw near to his Father, near to the throne of grace, with boldness and confidence to make his needs known. This is the exact argument of Hebrews, isn’t it? We have a great high priest. “Whoever lives to plead for me,” we sung. This doesn’t mean, by the way, that we have a high priest who co- is constantly praying. That’s not the point when Hebrews says that he is our living intercession. His point is, as a priest standing there, he is the living open door for us to come to our Father night and day for whatever we need.

And so Nehemiah, having laid forth his sin, received cleansing and atonement from his high priest, is able to ru- l- raise up his heart and mind to God and make his prayer known, and he says very simply, “Lord” Verse 11. “Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of me, of those of us that delight in your name, and give success to your servant. Grant him mercy in the sight of the man.”

He asks for 4 simple things: See and hear, pay attention, don’t overlook me. You know what it’s like when, when a child says, “Mum, mum, mum, mum, mum, mum,” m- and eventually, “Huh? What?” He says, “Don’t be like that. When I cry, Lord, open up your ear.” The anthropomorphism, which is like when God expresses Himself in human language, is incredibly rich here. He says, “Turn your ear towards me and open your eye towards me.” It’s a beautiful picture, isn’t it? The Lord in Heaven stooping down towards a child and turning his ear. You know, y- you do this with children sometimes, don’t you, when, when they wanna tell you “Let me tell you a secret,” your child says to you. And what do you do? You l- bend yourself down and you turn your ear, and they whisper in your ear. They say, “Dad, look at this,” and you bend down and you stoop down to their level and you look at a little ladybug on their finger. This is your Father.

Nehemiah says, “Bend down to me. Bend down to me. Be cognizant of my problem.” He also says, “Pay attention. So don’t just bend down once, but focus upon me now. Father, focus upon us.” “Focus upon Israel. We need your full attention, not just a little bit. We need your undivided attention.” W- we used to have a foster child who would occasionally I’d be holding them a- and he’d put his hands like this on my face when he wanted my attention, and he’d just smoosh my face, and he’d just be like, “Oh,” like this in front of me. That’s what Nehemiah’s asked if we “Father, I need your face. I need you right here and now.”

It’s, it’s like the story told of the little boy whose mother dies a- and, and so he, he lies in bed just little, 3 years old. He lies in bed with his father and he sleeps with his father and, and during the night his father falls asleep and rolls over, a- and the little 3 year old wakes him up, and he shakes him, and he says, “Daddy, Daddy, roll over. I need your face. I need your face towards me. I need to see your face.” And this is what we’re like, right? When we’re in need, we just, “Father, I need your face upon me. I need your attention. Nothing else is gonna do.”

And then he prays. He asks, he says, “Don’t forget us. Don’t forget us. We fear your name. Don’t forget those who fear your name.” You know us. We’re Yours. You redeemed us. Don’t forget us.”

And yet all of those things are preamble. He’s setting the scene, and he has one simple request, and I think the ESV is a little bit unfortunate in its translation. “Give success to your servant today. Grant him mercy in the sight of the man.” The, the word mercy, I think is intended towards the Lord. “Lord, you give me mercy and success as I go to this man. You give me what I need. I’m gonna go and see this man.”

And don’t you find it striking that he was talking about the king of basically the entire Earth? But he’s so face-to-face with God that he’s forgotten all about the fact that he’s gonna go and talk to the King. He’s just this man because he’s face-to-face with the Living God. He says, “Give me success.” Notice there’s no There’s no grand words, is there? I mean, there’s not e- there’s n- there’s no 5 syllable words there. There’s no deep, theological words like anthropomorphism. There’s no vain repetition. It’s like, “Lord, we need You to do this, and You’ve really gotta do this, and we need You to do it. Please, God, would You do it? God, we need You to do it. God, we need You to do it.”

And you hear people pray like this sometimes, right? It’s a vain repetition, Jesus calls it. Why, why doesn’t he need to do it? Because our Father knows what we need before we ask. You know what? This saves you from feeling like you need to strong-arm God. Do you know what it means to strong-arm someone, to bully someone into doing something? Y- you know, we, we can be tempted to do this, can’t we? We haven’t got what we want, so we think, “Well, I better pray longer. I better pray more, and I better ask 7 times a day instead of one.” Well, what kind of God do you worship? Because the Father I worship, He says, “I know what you need before you ask, and I only give good gifts.”

And you know what? This frees you to simply come to your Father and say, “Father, this is what I want. Please give it to me,” and then walk away. And you can pray it night and day. You can pray it persistently. That’s what Nehemiah did. 3 months he prayed this prayer. Probably not this exact prayer. This was probably a summary of his prayer over the 3 months. But for 3 months, night and day, 180 times he prayed to the Lord, never giving up. “Father, please give it to me. Father, please give it to me.” The next day, “Give me success.” And then he goes to work, and he meets with the king, and he doesn’t get success, and so he throws his toys out of the cot, doesn’t he? “Oh, well, obviously God doesn’t love me. He doesn’t wanna give me what I want.” No, he comes back after work. He says, “God, give me success,” and the next day, “Give me success.” And after 90 days, give or take a few, we’re gonna see him act, and we’re gonna see him succeed in Chapter 2.

You see, we have a Father who delights to give good gifts, and I wonder if, if it’s not true that one of our greatest problems isn’t that we don’t know what to pray for, it isn’t that we are afraid to pray, it’s that we just give up all too easily.

I remember hearing the story told of an old father who had 2 sons, and he prayed for the salvation of his sons his whole life. And I mean, his w- all of their lives he prayed for them. And on his deathbed, they gathered around his bed and he died with anguish of soul, for their sake. And then one of the brothers said, “If that’s how a man who believes in God dies, what will it be like for us?” And they both got converted. He never gave up. Imploring consistently, brothers and sisters, let us be marked by persistent prayer.

It’s like John Knox, you know the prayer he prayed his whole life? “Give me Scotland or I die. Give me Scotland or I die.”

Well, what if that was our cry? Lord, give us Karaka. Give us Auckland. Give us New Zealand. Give us this school. Without tiring.

You see, part of the kingdom-shaped life is a deep, dependent devotion to he who builds the kingdom, because you and I can’t do it, right? I mean, who are you gonna save? Who are you gonna sanctify by your own strength? “No one” is the answer. There is no hope outside of God and His Spirit. We are deeply dependent upon him who says, “I will build my church and the gates of Hades will never overthrow it.”

And so in deep dependence, we do what I call an M-shaped prayer. This is just a little memory device for you. An M-shaped prayer. You think about one “M”, right? The bottom of the first point, you recognize your context, your need, how Uh, for Nehemiah, Jerusalem’s destroyed. Whatever it is, you recognize your need, and then you do an upward movement, you turn yourself to God in adoration and praise, “God, God, you are good. You are glorious.” And you turn your affection, you turn your heart to him. And then you come down the “M”, down into confession, “But God, I don’t deserve anything. I am” As Nehemiah says, “I am a servant. I deserve nothing.” And then you come back up the “M” again, and you make your supplication. “God, this is what I need! Help me!” And then you come back down, and you You don’t sit in your prayer closet for the rest of the week. What did Nehemiah do for those 90 days? Well, he went to work. He was a cupbearer to the king, we’re told. And while he was praying this morning and night, he labored for the sake of the kingdom of God.

And that’s our calling, brothers. And so, may God grant us all to live M-shaped devotion to our God, to live dependent upon him, and see the kingdom of God advanced here in this place.

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