Harbor Church - Mid City

Nehemiah—Building a Great City (Through Prayer)

Neh. 1—Mid-City Aug 8, 2010

We’re beginning a new series and new book of the Bible today. In the fall we typically start a series that comes out of an Old Testament Book, and we’re going to be going through the book of Nehemiah this fall for a few reasons. First, I love Nehemiah, and I think you will too—he is an ordinary working dude that God used in extraordinary ways so I think lots of you are going to connect with him. Second, this is a great book for us because Nehemiah shared the same passion that we do as a church—that is, his heart beat for the city.

So, the title of this series is, “Building a Great City,” and each week we’re going to look at a different component of what is needed to build a great San Diego & Tijuana through the life of the great city builder Nehemiah.

Now, here is the first component of building a great city: prayer. It begins with prayer. So that is what we’re going to talk about today. How prayer is involved in the work of building a Great San Diego & Tijuana.

Nehemiah was an Israelite, and he lived during the Babylonian Exile when most of Israel was exiled from the nation of Israel. Here is what happened. The nation of Israel was attacked by the Babylonians in 587 BC, and the gates were destroyed, the city was plundered and razed, and all but roughly 20,000 of the poorest Israelites were either killed or exiled to Babylon. And Jerusalem lay in ruins for 140 years.

In Ezra 4:7-23, which is the companion book to Nehemiah and really should be read together as one, we learn that an effort to rebuild the walls was undertaken during Nehemiah’s time that evidently, was happening with the blessing and patronage of King Artaxerxes (the King of Babylon), who Nehemiah works for as the cupbearer. In the process, a number of neighboring enemies wrote King Artaxerxes and told him what a rebellious city Jerusalem was and that he should remove his support. King Artaxerxes listened and pulled his protection and support and the Israelites effort was crushed, the gates were burned and they were in disgrace.

In v2 of our text we see that Hanani, one of Nehemiah’s brothers, comes back from Judah and was able to give his a first hand account of what was happening in the city of Jerusalem and Nehemiah was devastated. Fasting, mourning, and fasting and prayer. Nehemiah, at this point, has no idea what is in front of him. So he starts fasting and praying and, look at v11. “O 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.” Nehemiah gathered together a few of his buddies that he knew delighted in revering the name of God and said, “Let’s fast and pray for the city of Jerusalem. That God’s name would be made great in that city.” This is where changing a city begins.

In Ch. 1, what you see is a model for how to begin praying for a city to change. So let’s use Nehemiah’s prayer as a model for prayer that brings about city renewal and look at how to pray in such a way to bring about renewal in our city.

(1) God-Centered: v5, “O Lord, God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love.” He is focused on the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love. Friends, this is so critical to a vital, life-giving spirituality. Prayer that changes a city (and you) gets your eyes off yourself and onto Jesus. But this often missed. I talk to people all the time whose prayer lives are stale. They may throw up a few requests, but then their mind drifts and they quickly lose interest. Here is the number one problem: their prayer lives are me-centered. In many Evangelical prayer times, we spend most of the time on our needs--Aunt Susie’s hangnail and Cousin Ed’s doctor’s appt. All fine—but what you need most is to get your eyes off yourself and onto Jesus. You need to think about him. He is the one who changes cities; he is the one who changes you.

Moses is a great example of someone who got this. Heb. 11:27 puts it this way, “by faith he persevered because he saw Him who was invisible.” That is what makes all the difference. To see Jesus—a covenant keeping God of love who is faithful when you are not. Nehemiah, on the other hand, gets his eyes off of himself and he gets lost in a great and awesome God. So critical for vibrant spirituality.

(2) Confession of Sin: v6 “I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself.” He now brings his eyes back to himself and his people. Nehemiah steps up and confesses his sin. He could have so easily stopped with the sins of Israel. I confess the sins of Israel. But he includes himself. I don’t know about you, but confessing the sins of San Diego is easy. “Jesus, there are some rotten people in our city, most of them live in my condo complex. Then you start praying through the imprecatory Psalms.”

If God is going to use us in his work to make San Diego & Tijuana great, then the first step is that we come clean. You stop trying to pretend that you are someone that you aren’t.

Donald Miller told a story about this. He mentioned living for a time with his friend and mentor John MacMurray, where the first rule is to always tell the truth. John and I were sitting in the family room one night when he asked about my new cell phone. "I got it free," I told him. "How did you get it for free?" he asked.

"Well, my other one broke, so I took it in to see if they could replace it. They had this new computer system at the store and they didn't have their records. They didn't know whether mine was still under warranty. It wasn't, I knew, because it was more than a year old. The guy asked me about it, and I told him I didn't know, but it was right around a year. Just a white lie, you know. Anyway, the phone was so messed up they replaced it with a newer model. So, I got a free phone."

"Did you ever see that movie The Family Man with Nicolas Cage?" John asked. "There's this scene where Nicolas Cage walks into a store to get a cup of coffee. And Don Cheadle plays the guy working at the counter. There's a girl in line before Nicolas Cage, and she's buying something for ninety-nine cents, and she hands Cheadle a dollar. Cheadle takes nine dollars out of the till and counts it out, giving her way too much change. She sees that he is handing her way too much money, yet she picks it up and puts it in her pocket without saying a word. As she is walking out the door, Cheadle stops her to give her another chance. He asks her if there is anything else she needs. She shakes her head no and walks out."

"I see what you're getting at, John," I say. "Let me finish," he says. "So Cheadle looks over at Nicolas Cage, and he says, 'Did you see that? She was willing to sell her character for nine dollars. Nine dollars!'"

After a little while, I spoke up. "Do you think that is what I am doing with the phone? Do you think I am selling my character?" And to be honest, I said this with a smirk.

"I do," John said. "The Bible talks about having a calloused heart. That's when sin, after a period of time, has so deceived us we no longer care whether our thoughts and actions are right or wrong. Our hearts will go there easily, and often over what looks like little things—little white lies."

I went back to the store the next day. It cost me more than nine dollars, but I got my character back.

See Nehemiah was trying to reclaim his own character, and the character of Israel, and he knew that it began with confession, with coming clean about who he really was and who they really were.

TRANS: God-centered, involves confession of sin, and now look at v8..

(3) Bible-Based: v8 “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.” Nehemiah knows his Bible. Straight out of Lev. 26, “God, remember your word,” and he brings up a Bible verse and says, “God, I know your character because I know your word.”

If you are going to ask God to move in your life and in our city, then you need to know God. You need to know how he has acted in the past, what his character is, so you can ask him things that are consistent with who he is. The way this happens is by spending time in the word.

JI Packer wrote a little book on Nehemiah that has helped me quite a bit. In it he tells a story about the difference that knowing the word can make in your prayer life. He said he was attending a theological conference and he was bored by it. So he and a friend slipped off to the opera—maybe not where I would have gone if I was bored, but each to his own. So he sits down next to, as he describes her, a youngish woman and her husband, who was sitting across from him. They began to talk, and as opera buffs do, became quite animated. “It seemed that her husband, sitting on the other side of her, was not an opera man and felt excluded. I became aware that he was glaring at me and had clamped his hand firmly on the lady’s knee—I suppose as a sign of ownership. Then he whisked her abruptly away, to sit elsewhere for the rest of the performance. It was embarrassing…He was evidently feeling at that moment that his wife was closer to me than she was to him, and he did not like it. And—this is the point—what he felt was in one sense right, for she and I knew a bit about opera, and lacking that knowledge he could not comprehend what we were sharing, nor share it with us. In the same way, unless we know what Nehemiah knew about God we shall not be able to share the vision and passion that propelled him.” He says, “Unless you have studied opera and put in the work to understanding it, you’ll never appreciate it. The magic won’t be there. In the same way, unless you have studied the word and know it, then your prayer life won’t take off, and you’ll never share God’s heart for the city.

TRANS: God-centered, involves confession of sin, word-based, & now look at v11..

(4) Destined for failure unless God shows up. V11 “Give your servant success today by granting him favor in the presence of this man.” But think about the request he is about to make.

Nehemiah is the cupbearer to the king (winetaster). That means he is a high-class slave—no Babylonian would want or take this job. Think about it—“Hey, go drink that and see if you die.” Uh, no thanks—I’ll find other employment. So they made slaves do this.

So, Nehemiah, a slave, is going to go in and ask for a vacation—a permanent. Slaves don’t ask for vacations—they have no rights..

Career Change: a slave who tastes wine—Can’t you hear the conversation. “Your majesty—I was, uh, thinking about a little career change—maybe some architecture, city planning, definitely some construction.” Any experience in those fields? Not really. Do you see and feel the almost ridiculous nature of his request? It God isn’t in it, it is destined for failure. And the king says yes.

See this is what happens when you fast and pray for cities. God talks you into crazy stuff—stuff that is absolutely destined to fail if he isn’t in it. A wine taster pitches a vision building a city & city officials buy in and everyone says, “Oh, of course, I see how wine tasting has prepared you to be the governor and architect of our city. That makes perfect sense.”

I am in no way a Nehemiah like figure, but I experienced a window into Nehemiah’s life this week. We have been fasting and praying over the city of San Diego since we planted this church. Specifically, we’ve been fasting and praying over renewal coming to Mid-City, and, as you know Jesus has given us this vision to form a non-profit organization that houses a community center, an independent charter school, and possibly our church. So when God first gave us this vision one particular facility jumped out at us an ideal facility given its location, size, etc. There were only a few problems. (1) We had no money, (2) we didn’t know if the facility was for sale, So we started praying about this facility and, really any facility.

About a week ago Chris, Marnie, & I met with a woman who is functioning as our project manager and she said, “You keep mentioning this same facility. Have you talked to the owner?” “No,” I said. “We don’t have any money.” “She looked at me and said—you are letting that stop you.” “You’re right—what in the world was I thinking.”

In my mind, this must have been what Nehemiah’s prayer time was like with his friends. Finally, one of them said, “Nehemiah, you keep praying about and talking about renewal coming to Jerusalem. Have you asked the King if you could go back and help bring renewal to the city?” “Uh, no. I am just a winetaster.” “You’re letting that stop you.” And in goes Nehemiah.

So, in we go this week to the king of the board who owns this facility. Before we did, we prayed this exact line in v11, “Give your servants success today by granting us favor in the presence of this man.” So we share our vision with this man, and after listening to us, do you know what his response was, “Well, I think Jesus wants you to have this building.” I remember thinking, “Stephen, don’t let your jaw drop.” Unbelievable favor. Crazy, ridiculous, unexplainable favor…unless you know Jesus.

Now, there are still about a billion ways this could unravel. The point isn’t this building, which is why I am not going to even mention the name of it. The point is this—if you will dare to begin to pray for San Diego, then expect Jesus to involve you in things that have absolutely no shot at making it…unless He shows up.

Now, my friends, some of you are looking at your prayer life and you are saying, “Praying for San Diego—I hardly pray for myself.” My poor little, pitiful prayer life—the things you are talking about seem so distant from me. I’ll never get there. You are right, if you focus on yourself, but if you fix your eyes on Jesus then your prayer life will take off. See Jesus, according to Heb. 12:2, is the one who authored your faith, that means He wrote it into existence. But not only is He the author, but is the perfector of your faith. That means he can take whatever poor and pitiful faith and prayer life you have and supercharge it. Rms. 8:34--he lives to intercede for you. He is praying for your prayer life; He can give you His heart for cities.

See Jesus Christ, even much more so than Nehemiah, had a heart for cities. In fact, before Jesus Christ began his ministry he spent 40 days in the wilderness outside the city of Jerusalem fasting and praying. Then, he comes back into the city and the devil leads him up to a place where he can oversee the city of Jerusalem and he says, “I will give all of this to you if you bow down and worship me.” And Jesus says, “Don’t you know who the God of the City is. It is written in the Bible—worship the Lord your God only. He is the God of the City.”

And then, on a Friday, just outside the city, the God of the city was hung on a tree by the people of the city. And as he hung there, he prayed for the people of the city, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.” See the only way you can pray for the city and for people in the city like that is to fix your eyes on the praying one who prayed for us even unto death; who prays for us now in His resurrection.

Get lost in Him and He will bring this new city down here to San Diego & Tijuana.

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