Unlocking Unbelief Neh. 1

I wonder if we took a poll today of how many people were here last week who left the teaching time feeling like they should pray and they ought to pray, and they wanted to pray, but this week, somehow you didn't pray anymore, Just couldn't pray. The Lord put it on my heart today to continue in this study of prayer and to address a particular obstacle that I believe is the single most prevalent downfall in our attempt to get through to God in prayer. I think it's probably a lot deeper than most of us are willing to admit or recognize, but that if we will confront the reality of this posture that is in most of us, that it will be the beginning of a release in prayer that only a few have come to know. And I think ultimately, beloved, that the church of Jesus Christ will never rise to what God wants it to be until they've overcome this one particular failure, this one particular sin. The Scriptures are full of promises. Jesus said some very incredible things. And I know that you, as I read some of these verses and just marvel at what he means here. For example, Mark 11. Jesus says these words beginning in the end of verse 22, have faith in God or have the faith of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, be taken up and cast into the sea. And does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours. Whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours. There's promises like that all through the Scriptures. John 14:12. Behold, I say to you that the things that I have done, you too will do. And even greater things you will do than these. For I go to the Father. Jesus makes what seems to be these incredible promises all through the Scripture, but the obstacle that seems to choke all of us off is unbelief. It's the plague of unbelief. When you get right down to it. You can put your name there and say, I don't believe that. And we do sugarcoat our unbelief, and we do call it a lot of other things. But in the end, it's the fact that we don't believe that Jesus really meant. How could he mean that whatever you asked for in prayer, believing that you'd receive, you'd get God, I believe. I believe for a solid gold Cadillac. And yet we know that God's not talking about that kind of thing, don't we? Somehow that just perverts what we know to be the truth of the pure love of God. But for most of us, prayer is like trash night. For me. We have this understanding in our home that I'm the trashman. My wife's teaching Sunday school, so it's all right. And so it's this understanding that Wednesday night I take the trash out. Now, my wife has asked that of me, and I think it's a reasonable request. And someday she has a lot of faith that I'm going to do it until about 10, 15. And then she says, honey, it's trash night. Of course, I'm already in bed. I relate to you, Chuck. Other times, unbelief strikes when I get home from work and the trash is piled next to the door in the family room. She just knows that I'm not going to do it anyhow, so she just helps me with that reminder. But unbelief permeates her attitude toward my taking the trash out. The only difference between that illustration and God is that I probably deserve the lack of trust and he doesn't. But you see, beloved, unbelief is what will keep us from receiving answers to prayer. Now, I want us to pick up where we left off last week in Nehemiah, chapter one, because I believe the Lord stirred some of your hearts last week from this passage. And the Lord led me to complete the thought here today. Would you follow with me as I read verses 4 through 11 of Nehemiah, chapter 1? When I heard these words, I sat down and wept. Should I allow a little more time for Nehemiah? Okay, y' all there? It's in there. Yes. Left of Psalms, right of Chronicles. You got it. Praise the Lord. Some of you who don't have Bibles, I hope you feel free to slug the person next to you who's not sharing. We want to share the word of God, right? Let's start right there. Next to us. Here we are. Verse 4, chapter 1. When I heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned for days. And I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven. And I said, o Lord, God of Heaven, the great and terrible God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments. Let thy ear be attentive and thy eyes open to hear the prayer of thy servant, which I now pray before thee day and night for the people of Israel, thy servants confessing the sins of the people of Israel, which we have sinned against thee. Yea, I and my Father's house have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against thee and have not kept the commandments, the statutes and the ordinances which thou didst command thy servant Moses. Remember the word which thou didst command thy servant Moses saying, if you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples. But if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them though your dispersed be under the farthest skies, I will gather them thence and bring them to the place which I have chosen to make my name dwell. There they are thy servants and thy people, whom thou hast redeemed by Thy great power and Thy strong hand. O Lord, let thy ear be attentive to the prayer of thy servant and to the prayer of thy servants who delight to fear thy name and give success to thy servant today and grant him mercy in the sight of this man. I want us to look at four ways of unlocking unbelief when it comes to prayer. We need to get beyond the mindset that God is a reluctant giver. A man by the name of R.C. trench, who wrote a lot of commentaries and was quite a Bible scholar, said prayer is not overcoming the reluctance of a God who doesn't care, it's laying a hold of his highest willingness. We need to get beyond the mindset that we're trying to convince God to bless us. Beloved. There's four things that I found really clearly spelled out here in the pattern of Nehemiah's prayer. And as I'll show you as we go through this, it's affirmed over and over and over again in the scripture. The pattern of this prayer is very significant. Now, most of you know me well enough to know that I'm not a formulaic prayer. Prayer. I don't believe that you have to pray according to a formula to get a result. So I want to get your mind off of the idea that if you say a certain thing a certain way, some people have an incantation when they pray and that to them is their way of building some faith that's absent. Otherwise, if they say it loud enough, it's going to be in Jesus name somehow. That is what is supposed to make the bridge. It isn't a formula, but there's a pattern. And I think the pattern is very important to you and to me because I believe that God knows the fabric of man and his wisdom is to teach us to pray according to this passage because of what it does to release faith, to believe. Let's look at it. The first thing is verse five, and I said O Lord, God of Heaven, the great and terrible God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments. The first thing to do to unlock unbelief is to focus on God. Look at God. Look at the living sovereign Almighty, as Nehemiah says, awesome and terrible God. Look at the glorious Jesus. Put your eyes on him first, beloved. So many of us come to God and the very first thing that we do is to begin to pour out our grocery list. Lord, I feel lousy today. And Lord, I'm facing a long day at work. And Lord, my car needs inspected and Lord, my neighbor has been driving on my yard. And we start going through this list of things and part of it, if we're honest, is the fact that we've got a limited amount of time. And if you've cut out 20 minutes in your morning sir to pray, you don't want to spend 10 of it just telling God how great he is, because you won't have time to get your list in. And so if you've got a limited amount of time to pray, you've got to really move quickly to get all those requests in there. So we start with the patient list from the state hospital. Let me read through that. We have this long, elaborate all these things that are needs. But God, I don't have time to remember who you are. You know what part of it is, I think is the fact that we see God as the chairman of the board. And in our culture, when you go in to see the chairman of the board, what do you do? State your business and get out. You don't say, hey, this is a nice office, right? That's a nice suit you've got on there. But God isn't like that, beloved. There's a preciousness about his presence that only opens up to you as you revel in it and as you enjoy it, as you rejoice in Him. Always start with the sovereignty of God. Always start with praising Him. I don't care if you've only got three minutes, spend the first two in praise adoring Him. You'll find that the more you focus on God and His greatness and his glory, the smaller your problems become. And somehow it's no problem for the God who translated Philip from one geographical spot to another such sovereignly to get you a ride to the grocery store. And it's no problem for the God who owns the cattle on a thousand hills to help you get your bills paid this month. But if you focus on your bills and you focus on all the things that you're not going to get done and all the problems you have. Somehow God is going to feel frustrated. Can you imagine God? I don't know if I can do all that. That's a lot of stuff that you're calling me to do. I think some of us try to talk God out of his power, but he wants to show himself powerful towards you. How many of you believe that he wants to? And so when you begin to focus on God, the first thing that you do is you shatter the unbelief of circumstance. You say that's positive thinking. No, that's right. Perspective. God is God, beloved. And your problems and my problems are just that. They're just our problems. Does God have any problems? See God having this eternal counsel with the Son and the Spirit, Jesus, we've got a problem. I don't think God wrestles very long with problems. He's got the capacity to move and to act on our behalf. Why does the Lord's prayer start? Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Why? Because God is to be praised above all. The first thing that we do, all right, I mean to tell you, it will change your prayer life. If you can get a hold of that. Worship him. The second thing. Look what Nehemiah says. Let thy ear be attentive, verse six, and thy eyes open to hear the prayer of thy servant which I now pray before thee day and night for the people of Israel, thy servants. Here it is, confessing the sins of the people of Israel which we have sinned against thee. Yea, I and my Father's house have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against thee and have not kept the commandments and the statutes and the ordinances which thou didst command thy servant, Moses. The second thing to do is to confess your sin. Now. Why? Why confess your sin? Does God know you're a sinner? Yep. Do you know you're a sinner? Yep. So why do we confess our sin? This is an important thing I'm going to tell you here because I think this, probably more than any other thing, is the downfall of most of us. It's the unbelief of unworthiness. The first one was the unbelief of circumstance. The second is the unbelief, unworthiness. I don't deserve a thing from God. I'm just a miserable, wretched, lousy salesman. And God's not going to hear my prayer today. You know, beloved, when you start that way in your mind, you're right. Because without faith, it's impossible to please Him. But confession. When you confess your sins, God restores your relationship, right? First John 1:9. If we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us of all unrighteousness. And the Bible says you've got to get this. When you confess your sins and you're made right, then God will give you all things along with His Son. If he's made you right in Jesus, then He's going to answer your prayer. Nehemiah could have confessed this sin and finished it up. And we haven't kept the ordinance and all the things that yout commanded. All I am is a lousy cupbearer. God. I don't deserve anything. I haven't had my quiet time this morning. God. I read the paper and not the Bible this morning. I listened to KDKA and not wpit. Why should you answer my prayer? I'm just a lousy sinner. You're right. And God knows it. And yet, beloved, he sent Jesus to be the answer to that. And I want you to know something. I don't believe for a moment that the great and powerful God of the universe is pouting over your sin. And he's not pouting over my sin. And I fail all the time, just like you do. We're all just continually wrestling with what we're not, beloved. But last night, as I was wrestling before God and feeling that same thing that you feel, that he doesn't hear me. And why should He? Because I didn't do what I was supposed to do. God rebuked me. He rebuked me for thinking that his grace wasn't greater than my weakness. Do you hear that? And his grace is greater than your weakness too. And God Almighty is not limited by your failure if you'll confess it to Him. Why do we think that we just stop praying? Because we don't deserve to be heard when Jesus Christ came that we might have life and have it abundantly. And I rejoice that we don't need to feel like God isn't listening to us. Because Jesus told us that he would. That the Holy Spirit within would be the confirmation that God was there and dwelling with us and living in us. And we don't need to be held back anymore by our feelings of unworthiness. How many of you feel unworthy when you pray? Don't put your hand up. You think about it. You just feel like I don't deserve it. I haven't done what I'm supposed to do. I'm wasting my time. If I were God, I sure wouldn't listen. But look what Nehemiah says. He asked for mercy, I think. End of verse 11. He calls upon God as one who forgives, One who is anxious to act on his behalf. There's a precious verse. If you thought Nehemiah was tough, just back up a little bit to 2 Chronicles. Look at this verse with me, would you? Chapter 16 of 2 Chronicles, Second Chronicles 16, 9. Would you listen to this? If you haven't been able to find it, just listen. For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show his might in behalf of those whose heart is blameless toward him. Does that just make you want to break up inside that God is looking to show himself in power toward you? You say, well, I could believe that, except that it says you've got to be blameless there. I'm not blameless. But, beloved, who is making you blameless? Jesus makes you blameless first. Thessalonians 3:13 tells you that he's perfecting it. He's making you blameless. Jude 24. Now, who is able to present you faultless without blemish before the throne of grace? And so you see, it's the same thing. The blamelessness comes from God. And when you confess your sins in his eyes, you are blameless because of Jesus. Some of you don't believe me even as I say it. I can see it in your eyes. Put your head down and say, it's God's word, beloved. He's made it that way and he's searching the earth. I just get this picture, don't you? Of somehow God and his infinite capacity, flying over Shaler Drive and looking down there. And he wants to show his heart blameless toward me or show his might on my behalf when my heart's blameless toward Him? I want that. What I'm trying to say to you is God wants it more than we do. He wants you. In your homes and in your jobs and in your schools. He wants to show his might on your behalf. Do you believe that today? And I think, beloved, that the greatest sin, if we're going to talk about sin holding us back, is the sin of unbelief. It's not the sin of reading the paper in the morning. It's not the sin of. Not putting a dollar in the Salvation army bucket or whatever it is. It's not the sin of swearing at your boss. It's the sin of unbelief. Do you know something? As I thought about the New Testament and you, I'm willing to be corrected here. I can't think of where Jesus ever said to someone or was ever recorded that Jesus could not do something because someone else was sinning. But it does say that he could do no miracles in that city because of their unbelief. God has dealt with your sin and all you need to do is receive it and then act as a cleansed one. Would you affirm that you understand what I'm saying by taking a breath? Just take a deep breath and let that cleansing. Would you do that, please? Just let it cleanse you. If you feel you understand. Was such a release to me to realize that God wasn't limited because I failed. Hallelujah. He's not limited because I failed. And all he wants me to do is just to recognize what he's done. Praise the God. Praise God. All right, the third thing, verse eight. Look what Nehemiah says. Remember the word which thou didst command thy servant Moses saying. And then he quotes the Scripture. This is the unbelief of unfamiliarity. We don't know what the Lord says in His Word, do we? Beloved Nehemiah prayed the Word. Now, I'm struck by this. First of all, because Nehemiah wasn't a priest, he was a cupbearer. He wasn't a prophet, he was a cupbearer. Last week we told you a cupbearer was simply a confidant of the king, a court executive, as it were, a responsible man, but not necessarily a man who was in full time ministry. But he knew the Word and He quoted Deuteronomy 4:25 and Deuteronomy 30 there in Leviticus. I think it's 26:33. He knew it. Now it's interesting here. Nehemiah didn't tell God what he had to do to perform the Word. He left the details up to the Lord. Sometimes we, we'll take a promise and we'll say, lord, I'm going to receive from you your promise of Philippians 4:19, that my God will supply all of your needs according to his glorious resources in Christ Jesus. And Lord, I'd like to receive that by the 10th of the month and I want to receive it in $20 bills and I don't want my wife to know about it. And we, we construct a series of in our minds this is the way that God really ought to answer this prayer of His Word. And I want to say that I think it's really Important that we allow God to answer it any way he wants. Just keep telling him what His Word says. And there's a mystery here, and it's a precious one. I hope you can receive it today that God honors His Word. There's a mystery about somehow God. Values His Word. And it's almost when you pray the Word of God back to the Lord, it's as though you throw down the challenge before him. Lord, it's here in your Word. And it's as if God rises up and says, wait a minute, My honor is at stake here. Look at this precious scripture in Psalm 138. That's to the right of Nehemiah. Psalm138, Psalm 138. 2. I bow down toward thy holy temple and give thanks to thy name for thy steadfast love and thy faithfulness. Now look at this. For thou hast exalted above everything, thy name and thy word. And the Hebrew really more properly can be translated that thou hast exalted thy Word even above thy name. And so when you tell the Lord what His Word says and that you're depending on what His Word says, beloved, it's as though to God you're saying, lord, your honor is at stake here. And it's not some arrogant thing. I've heard people say God's got to do it. That grieves my heart because I feel like there's an arrogance there of God, doesn't have to do anything. But God responds to the challenge of His Word. When you remind him of His Word, God begins to move. When you pray the Word, something happens. It's not that you lay hold of the Word as much as the Word lays hold of you and it begins to be the fabric of your faith, right? Your faith rises up. So, beloved, what else can we say? The Word. You know how to get into it. I rejoice at some who are reading through the New Testament with us in the back of your note sheet and all that. But there's no substitute for knowing the Word, right? Because God honors it. He loves to hear His Word prayed to Him. Him. And the fourth thing, the fourth way to unlock unbelief is to ask boldly look at Nehemiah's prayer at the end, verse 10. They are thy servants and thy people, whom thou hast redeemed by thy great power and by thy strong hand. O Lord, let thy ear be attentive to the prayer of thy servant, to the prayer of thy servants, who delight to fear thy name and give success to this servant today and grant him mercy in the sight of this man. There's an unbelief, beloved, of timidity before God. An unbelief that does not come to God with any expectation. A timidity of not really believing that God would want to give you the best. And I think, Nehemiah, you have to understand a paraphrase of this. He's saying, lord, you who brought this people out in the first place, make me successful. That's what he's saying, isn't he? Give success, make me successful. Cause me to have favor in the sight of this one who is in authority over me. Cause me to be fully into your will, maximum for you. There's a boldness about that prayer that I think is really important. James4.2 says, what you have not because you ask not. And when you ask, you do it to consume it on your lusts. That's another old teaching. But the critical thing is, beloved, we don't have the things of God. And I mean the things of God. I'm not talking about golden Cadillacs, but I mean the things of God. The power and the character and the life of God and all the things that we need for living. We don't have them because we don't ask boldly. There's a precious scripture that kind of affirms this whole thing. And keep your finger in Nehemiah and turn over to Acts, chapter four, would you? Acts four. Remember I had said that the Scriptures affirm this pattern. You think of the Lord's Prayer. What do you have in the Lord's Prayer? You have the opening of praise and focus on God, right? Then you have thy will be done. Which is another way of saying, saying, let your word happen where I am. Forgive us our debts. There's the confession. Give us this day our daily. There's the petition. It's all there. But look at this. Acts, chapter four. This is to me. I'd love to just do a whole morning on this passage. But I want you to see that the same basic elements are in this passage. And it starts. Look at verse. This is when Peter and John were set free and returned to the church. Verse 24. And when they heard it, this is the report of the elders. The church that is lifted their voices together to God and said, oh, God, take care of these people. They're really coming down on us. Is that what your Bible says? What's the first thing it says? Sovereign Lord, who didst make the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them? There it is, you see, starting with the focus on God. Then it goes on to talk about the Word, who did say, by thy servant David. Through thy servant David, by the Holy Spirit. And then he quotes a scripture, and then it talks about the needs that are at hand. But look at this. Here's the boldness part. I want you to see it. Verse 29. And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to thy servants to speak the word with all boldness while thou stretchest out thy hand to heal. And signs and wonders are performed through the name of thy holy servant, Jesus. You see, they didn't ask for, oh, Lord, just keep us from getting hurt. It wasn't timid. It wasn't shrinking. Lord, just preserve us from these wicked people. No, it's, lord, grant us the authority to speak boldly and show thy power and thy might through the hands of the apostles and do miracles and confirm your word. And boldness is asked for here. And it just gets me excited because what did God do? Say, no, you lousy sinners? Nope. And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness. Do you want the Holy Spirit to fall in this community? We do, don't we? And it will come as we learn to pray boldly. Boldly. Earnest prayer. The final thing that I need to say that Nehemiah demonstrates. If your finger is black and blue, turn back there now. And this quality, beloved, it isn't one of the four. Did you get the four? Okay. It's focusing on God, confessing your sin, remembering the Word and asking boldly. And the four sources of unbelief. Did you get what they were? It's the unbelief of circumstance, the unbelief of unworthiness, the unbelief of unfamiliarity. And here's the unbelief of timidity. Now, what happens? Look at Nehemiah. Well, I really hesitate to say this because I fear that, in a sense, this will knock you off, but there is a quality that's necessary to have your prayers heard in heaven, and it permeates all four of those other things, but I hesitate to put a quantity on it, because when I do, you're going to say, wipes me out. I knew I couldn't do it. You just affirmed it to me. Look what he says in verse 6. Let thy ear be attentive and thy eyes open to the prayer of thy servant, which I now pray before breakfast, before I go to work and get done. No, I now pray before thee day and night for the people of Israel. We saw earlier in verse four that he prayed for days. And you say, I knew you were going to say that. And I just can't do that. I can't pray for half an hour. Anyone feel that way? My concentration is gone. And here you're saying I've got to pray day and night. Beloved, remember this. First of all, Nehemiah was interceding for the destiny of an entire nation. And I believe that there's something here about God's understanding who you are and that relatively speaking, God knows what perseverance is for you versus what it is for a Billy Graham or a Nehemiah. If you have a little child, you talk and think in terms of persistence in a matter of what moments, right? If they persist for a few minutes, then they're persistent. Boy, my 3 year old, he can say mommy 26 times in a minute. He's persistent, right? But beloved, it would be totally out of the realm of realism to think that he would be persistent for hours. His attention span goes. God knows if you're a young Christian, if your attention span goes. He knows that. He knows what it means for you to be persistent. And the more mature you are, the more persistence means. That's all I can tell you. I don't know why, except that I believe that in it, God's doing something in you. And if you're a young adult or a teenager, and let's say that it would be for you, persistence is a couple of hours. And if you're a mature adult and you've known and walked with the Lord for a long time, then persistence for you might be days of prayer. The important thing is that we open ourselves to see that Nehemiah hung in there until he received. And that's all the Lord says, is just hang in there, brother. Hang in there, son, daughter, until you receive. Because while you are persevering, God is preparing not only the answer, but your heart to receive it. A friend of ours who had not been able to bear children, were disappointed and discouraged about the whole situation, had been praying, could not understand why God wasn't hearing. In the midst of it. There were things in their marriage that were deteriorating and their times together were unfruitful and they were not communicating. But somehow, after an encounter they had with the Holy Spirit, God began to move them in faith and he began to do some work in their marriage. And three years after this encounter, I believe it was three years, God saw fit to grant this couple a child and their testimony after the child was born to them was had that baby come when we first started asking, it wouldn't have been a fit home for him to dwell. And I believe that in our hearts beloved for many of us the answers to prayer that God would send would not find a fit reception in our hearts because he hasn't had time to prepare us to receive them. And I want to encourage you that God is doing these things. Those of you who are believing for things that seem far off, things that haven't happened yet, God's preparing your heart and in the midst he's shattering unbelief. I just pray together that all around our community the prayer of faith will rise up, that unbelief will be shattered and that persevering prayer is going to bring down the fullness of God's spirit that we all yearn to see. Would you just add your amen to that? Praise the Lord.