Sermon: "Prayer and Fasting"

4th in the "Soul Training" series.
Delivered March 14, 2010 by Rev. John Schmidt.
Sermon Text: Nehemiah 1; Acts 13:1-3; Psalm 62:5-8

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But God, as we come into your Word, we pray that you will open our hearts to what we need to hear. Wherever we are in our journey with you, whatever we're carrying in our hearts, there is something, Lord, that we believe that you can speak to us and so we pray that you do that. For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

Well I've never faced a crisis quite like that, quite at the level of having a child in a situation where there doesn't seem to be any solutions and the family is, seems to be falling apart over the stresses that are related to that. I can't imagine any situation worse, personally, as a parent and a grandparent. I'm not really sure how I'd respond to a situation like that.

Now I do know how I'd respond to other crises. I could tell you how I'd respond to a death of a parent. I could tell you how I would respond and face the frustration of work over a period of years when it doesn't seem to fit. I can even tell you how I'd respond to the crisis of an earthquake. I've experienced that. Because we all face some kind of crises in life. There's no way of escaping, not entirely.

Now naturally there are all kinds of crises that maybe we can structure our lives to avoid. But if we steer clear of risky behaviors like drug usage and sex outside of marriage, there are whole groups of life-changing disasters we can avoid. If we invest ourselves in our marriages and turn away from infidelity, then we have a much better chance of avoiding the emotional trauma of divorce. If we don't smoke, we reduce our odds of succumbing to certain kinds of cancer. And if we don't steal, we're much less likely to spend time in prison for theft. I mean there are things we can do.

But man, there's a whole host of things that we seem to have no control over-accidents, illnesses, death, infertility, natural disasters, things that come on us anyway. And sometimes, even if there is something we can do to prevent a crisis, it's not us that has the power. It might be our spouse. Might be our children. It might be our parents and they just don't seem to be making the right choices. So it's not a question of whether we're going to have some kind of distressing things happen in our lives. The question is... how are we going to handle them?

And particularly today, we're going to be looking at the role of prayer. We're going to go into the book of Nehemiah, a book in the Old Testament. Nehemiah turns out to be a huge figure in the history of Israel. Around 587 BC, Jerusalem is destroyed and the people are exiled to Babylon and to other parts of the Babylonian empire. And after about 50 years of total exile, there comes a time that the people start trickling back into the land. And it happens in three waves, and each one of these waves has a major figure associated with it.

At first the people come back into the land and begin to rebuild the Temple and that's under a person named Zerubbabel. There are the prophets Haggai and Zechariah who speak to this situation. Then after a period of time, there's another wave of restoration where the people come into the land and they make a fresh commitment to living under the law of Moses. And this happens under a figure named Ezra. And about 13 years later, there's another wave of restoration where people actually begin to rebuild the walls of the city of Jerusalem and this happens under Nehemiah.

And today's passage shows us how Nehemiah got started in what turns out to be his life's greatest achievement. And it begins with bad news. So let's see how he handles it. We're going to Nehemiah, chapter 1, and you'll find that on page 437 of the Bible you'll find under the chair in front of you. Nehemiah, chapter 1.

"The words of Nehemiah son of Hakaliah: In the month of Kislev in the twentieth year, while I was in the citadel of Susa, Hanani, one of my brothers, came from Judah with some other men, and I questioned them about the Jewish remnant that had survived the exile, and also about Jerusalem. They said to me, '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 its gates have been burned with fire.'

When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven. Then I said: 'Lord, the God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and keep his commandments, 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 ancestral family, 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 instruction 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 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.' They are your servants and your people, whom you redeemed by your great strength and your mighty hand. Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of this 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.' I was cupbearer to the king."

In verse 1, we see that the book of Nehemiah is actually Nehemiah writing about his own life. That's unlike many historical books in the Bible where it's written by other people. For example, our gospels are written about Jesus, but Nehemiah is actually writing this himself. And there are spots in Nehemiah, you actually hear what's going on in his head in some of these interactions. And it's, I find it very encouraging because what's going on in his head is kind of like what's going on in mine.

And so we see his own words, and this is how he describes when he got the bad news about Jerusalem. The bad news comes that this second wave under Ezra has gathered some people and they have seemed to have been making progress. But now as they have tried to start to rebuild the walls, rebuild some gates, the people around Jerusalem complain and the king, the king of the Babylonian empire, the person described in Nehemiah, "I am cupbearer to the king." That very guy pulls the rug out from under Jerusalem and says, "No, I don't like what's going on" and what little they had accomplished is burned, and they're in disgrace. We're going to take a look at what he does in response to that.

The first thing we see Nehemiah do is pray, and so that brings our first principle that we're going to see in Nehemiah's life.

1. Prayer is a first resort, is a first step, a first response and not a last resort. Nehemiah brings his honest response to God in prayer. He's grieving. He's upset over the news and so he goes in prayer. He goes to pray and fast for some days, it says here. It's his first response to the bad news.

Now if you read the rest of the book of Nehemiah, you'll realize that Nehemiah's a man of action. Man, he is not afraid of making a tough decision. He's not afraid of telling people what to do. He's not afraid of getting his own hands dirty. And so this guy of action, his first action is to pray. Not only pray, but uproot his normal routine and seek God seriously and continually about this. The situation is so bad that he can't live normally. He has to seek God with all that he is.

Now in today's sketch, we don't know where prayer fit into their whole response of coping. But if they are like us, there's a very good chance it's one of the last things they thought to do. So often prayer is our last response and not our first response. What does that say about our conception of our own power, if prayer is the last resort? What does it say about our conception of God and of our relationship with God and of God's role in this world if prayer is our last response? For Nehemiah, his first action is to go to God.

Now let's take a look at the prayer itself, verses 5-11. It begins by saying at the start of verse 5, "Then I said." Now let me read to you verse 4, part of verse 4 as well, "For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven. Then I said..." What we see in this beautiful, theologically-solid, mature-spiritually prayer is probably not the first thing Nehemiah prayed. I believe that what we see in this prayer is where he ended up after he had prayed and fasted for some days.

In fact in this passage, we find out "for some days" is actually a big misleading. Chapter 1, verse 1, it talks about the fact that he hears the bad news in the month of Kislev. At the start of chapter 2, when all the events begin that he's praying about, at the end of this prayer, he says, "This day may something happen." When we get to that point, we find that he's in the month of Nisan. Chapter 2, verse 1. That's a four-month difference.

Now to be honest, if I were writing about myself and I had prayed four months about something, I wouldn't have said "for some days." I would have taken more credit than that. Four months.

That brings us to the second point about prayer.

2. Prayer is a process that changes us. Prayer is a process that works in our lives and not just a moment's request, and this was going on for months in Nehemiah's life. And so where he comes out at the end of this is where he comes out after really wrestling with this before God and so this has changed him. When we pray seriously like this across time, our faith that God is in control and able to act grows. Our eyes come off the problem and start focusing more on God.

As we pray more, our sense of how we've stood in the way of God becomes more acute. In other words, our sense of how much we're a part of the problem starts to become more real to us. As we pray, our determination to join God in what He's doing sharpens. And probably the most wonderful part of it is, as we pray and all of these other things are going on, another result of praying and being in this process with God is that our peace grows. Even in the midst of not having the answers, our peace grows.

None of this can happen in a five-minute request that we do once or twice. It says Nehemiah prayed and fasted for some days, turns out, for months. Prayer is a process that changes us, and that's part of God's plan. That's part of the reason why it isn't instantaneous, because He's got to do some work in us.

The third thing we see here is that...

3. Prayer gets its confidence in the character of God and in God's promises. Nehemiah is not relying on his prayer and fasting to impress God. Instead as he prays, it says, "[You are a] God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and keep his commandments." Verse 5. Nehemiah is seeking an answer on the basis of what God has revealed himself to be. That's where his confidence is.

He hasn't made up some kind of idea about God and said, "Well, I think God ought to be this way, so that's why I feel confident." No, he has sought the Scriptures to say, "How has God revealed himself? What has God said is on his heart? How does God say he relates to us?" And out of that revelation, he gets confidence. He quotes Deuteronomy repeatedly in this prayer. We can tell that Nehemiah is steeped at least in the early books of the Old Testament. And so he's saying back to God, "God, this is who you've revealed yourself to be, and I'm relying on that. You are a God who has made a covenant of love to your people."

Verse 6 and following, we realize that it's very clear that he doesn't depend on his own righteousness. He knows that he's part of the problem. Israel deserved what they got. His own ancestors were part of the problem, and Nehemiah doesn't view himself as being different than that. He can look in his own heart and realize that he shares the same problems and directions that brought judgment on Israel in the first place. There are no games; there are no excuses. He can be honest with God about who he really is because he believes that God is who God has revealed himself to be.

And then in verse 8 and 9, something really important happens. In verse 8 he reminds himself, "Remember the instruction you gave your servant Moses, saying, 'If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations.'" Saying, "God, you said that if we were evil, that you would bring judgment, and you did it."

Then take a look at verse 9, "But at the same time, God, in the same book of Deuteronomy, in the same passages, you also said that '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.' God, this is what you said. Guess what? Here we are, exiled at the farthest horizon. And God, I am seeking you. I am serious about this. I am seeking you." And so he is holding onto God's own promise, saying, "God, this is what you promised. These are the conditions. Here I am. Now answer." Rooted in the character of God.

Final insight about prayer I want to talk about and that's the fact that...

4. Prayer empowers action. Nehemiah's whole prayer focuses, comes to a focus in verse 11, "'Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of this 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.' I was cupbearer to the king."

This man, "in the presence of this man," this man is the king of the entire Babylonian or the entire empire at this point. Being, it's not exactly the Babylonian empire at this point, but its being, the exiles are there in Babylon. Nehemiah is ready to take a risk and he prays. His whole prayer ends up with saying, "Give me favor in the presence of this man." When? "Give your servant success today."

All of this prayer comes to a very clear and specific focus and he's willing to take a risk. In Nehemiah, chapter 2, Nehemiah goes into the king's presence. The king notices that Nehemiah is not himself. Maybe Nehemiah deliberately shows that he's mourning. Maybe he's been hiding it this time because, you know, you're not really free as a servant to do anything you please.

But at this point, he takes the risk. The king asks and Nehemiah shares what is wrong. He shares what's on his heart and the history of Israel changes forever. He took action. Clearly, prayer isn't a substitute for that action, but what is its function? Because it's not a last resort, because it's a foundation for what Nehemiah did, prayer is what unlocked the effectiveness of this opportunity. He laid the foundation in prayer and then took the risk.

Nicodemus, a friend of mine from Uganda, explained it to a bunch of pastors this way. We know we're supposed to share Christ with our neighbors and we look for opportunities. We invite them to things. When an opportunity presents itself, we talk about our own view of spiritual things and nothing happens. I mean, it just seems to bounce off. They're not interested in anything. And then we decide that we're going to pray about it. But now we're going to pray seriously, and we pray repeatedly. And we really hold before God that this is a serious concern. You want to see change, and you pray about it over time. God shows you things about them. God shows you things about yourself.

And then one day, you share again and you invite them, "Why don't you come to this thing that's going on?" But this time, they say, "Yes." What's the difference? Was it because this time, you were brilliant and you said it eloquently or that you had a, you know, an answer philosophically? Probably not. It looks the same from the outside, but this time, it works. It's because prayer unlocked the moment.

Far too often we fail in something or nothing happens because we didn't pray first and win the battle. What he said was, you win the battle of that conversation when you're in your own bedroom with your Bible and your journal. That's where it's won. Prayer unlocks these opportunities.

I like the way that William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, put it.

"Work as if everything depended upon your work
and pray as if everything depended upon your prayer."

It's a hundred percent in both areas, not either/or. It's all out. And it's not just the spiritual things that prayer empowers. Has to do with food and mortgages, five-year plans, gardening. It's all God's; there's no secular and sacred.

I can remember a time when we had just come back from Japan. We were looking for a house in Baton Rouge and one of the problems was all of our paperwork was in a boat somewhere between Japan and the United States. I didn't realize I needed my, you know, tax records for the prior seven years or something. I didn't know any of this and all of our paperwork's there. I'm scrambling to try to get replacement paperwork. There are all kinds of problems developing, complications in the whole process of getting the house. And on top of it, we're not in Baton Rouge. We're itinerating for the Presbyterian Church, and we're in Pennsylvania. So we're doing all this by phone and fax. And it was seeming hopeless. And yet I felt like, you know, there aren't any other options. This was what God was calling us to.

So I prayed about it and continued to pray about it and then faxed and phoned and everything else. And one day I was praying about it, and I can remember I was on campus of a college in Pennsylvania. I was praying about it and I felt in my prayer, "It's done. All the opposition now is gone. The house is yours." And so I stopped praying about it at that point. I said, "Thank you, God." And later that day or the next morning, I can't remember which, we got news that all of it had gone through, and we were cleared for the signing when we came back to Baton Rouge. We laid a foundation in prayer. We unlocked things in prayer.

Well this is a sermon about prayer and fasting and I've only talked about the prayer part and so I want to hit the fasting before we end. Why fast? Need to put aside any sense that fasting is a technique, that it's some kind of spiritual trick that's going to get God to do something he doesn't want to do or that it's an impressive show for God or worse than that, an impressive show for other people. And yet Nehemiah fasted, but he fasted out of his grief, out of the intensity of his feelings about it. It was an honest and authentic response to what was going on. It's not a technique, but it is an important spiritual discipline we see in the Old Testament and in the New Testament and in the lives of Christian saints.

I think Andrew Murray, a great Christian teacher from the nineteenth century, gives us insight into the role of fasting at a time like this.

"Prayer is reaching out after the unseen. Fasting is letting go of all that is seen and temporal. Fasting helps express, deepen, confirm the resolution that we are ready to sacrifice anything, even ourselves, to attain what we seek for the kingdom of God."

There is so much in that quote. It's in today's News and Views. If you'd like to look at it and study it and unpack it, there are all kinds of stuff there about the focus on the kingdom of God. It's not just on anything. The fact that it's a release of things. It confirms things. It shows our resolve that we are really laying ourselves on the line. "We're at the plate. We're in the game on this, God." I'm not taking it lightly. It's an important discipline.

Sometime, usually it's food that we give up, but sometimes it's TV, fasting from some recreation, something that takes a lot of our time. There are all kinds of things, but whatever it is, the goal of it is confirming the resolution that we're putting ourselves on the line. We're willing to sacrifice anything to deepen that resolution in order to seek the kingdom of God. In this case, the motivation on Nehemiah's heart is grief and his resolution is to sacrifice whatever it takes for the sake of the restoration of Jerusalem. And the world is never the same after that prayer.

Wouldn't it look different if we learned how to pray first, if we held our concerns before God over and over, if we let God work out his process in us to change our level of faith and to raise it, to give us new insight, to give us new courage? If we had an unshakeable confidence that God was going to answer us, based on the fact that he's revealed himself to be that kind of God and that we know he is reliable? If we did that, all over our lives, there'd be new power. Things that have resisted change would change. They'd become unlocked by prayer.

Who knows? There might even be a Nehemiah among us and not just a little corner of something would change. The whole world might change. And maybe that Nehemiah is you. Where is it that you have something that you might need to bring before God this way? On your bulletin, there's a response page. The first question is, "Describe a situation in your life that you feel called to bring before God in a special way." And the second question on the same page is "What regular activities might you fast from in order to make time to bring this concern before God?"

I'm just going to give us a few minutes of silence, and if there is something in your life that fits this need, take time to think about it. Hold it before God; write it down and maybe that will shape the response that God is calling for from your life. So let's just have a few moments of silence and then, I'll close us in a corporate prayer.

Lord, we hold these things before you. We're in all kinds of different places in life. Some of us have some really serious issues before us with health, with relationships, with finances. Lord, whatever it is, we pray that you'd give us a sense of how we are to pray and how are we to seek your face as we wait for your hand, as we seek the solutions, as we cope with the fact that they don't seem to be solutions. Lord, it's not just us; we have friends that are not here because of illness or because of age. Lord, we pray for them, too, to have that same encouragement, that same sense of your presence, that same hope that you give us all as we seek you.

And we pray for those who are in government or in business and who have huge decisions and yet, they are people who call upon your name. We pray for them, that if they call upon your name and seek your face, that you will give them the wisdom, that you will give them the open door to what you're doing and what you want to do through them. Lord, big things or smaller things, in every area of life where it's serious, we pray that you will teach us how to pray, for we ask it in Jesus' name, Amen.

© 2010, Rev. John Schmidt
Central Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD 21204 410/823-6145
www.centralpc.org