The fruit of a life of Prayer
Nehemiah 1:1 - 2:5

Prayer is not a spectator sport. A life of prayer will bear fruit in . . .

1. a responsive heart (1:1-10)
2. courage to act (1:11 - 2:5)

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There are some things that just cannot be hidden. Think of garlic, for instance. Both Carol and I are quite fond of garlic. And its a good thing that its a shared pleasure. If you come around our house much during the summer you may have the good fortune of trying some of Carols good strong, garlicy pesto. The other day, we were eating a meal of pesto when Louise, who is now part of our household, walked in. It didnt take her long to realize that she had better either escape from us or join us.

You see, A fondness for garlic is something that cannot be easily hidden. Oh, you could try. You could eat garlic entirely in secret and invest heavily in mouthwash, but sooner or later if the habit continues someone is liable to guess that you are eating garlic on the sly.

[Replace with story about someone who kept wild animal as a pet]. Or to take another case, imagine a person who feels it important to announce, I dont believe in deodorant. Now I can respect such a conviction, but if you have such a conviction its really quite unnecessary to tell anyone about it. Everyone who comes near will immediately know.

Now think about prayer: Prayer is, or should be, a very private activity. In fact, Jesus teaches us NOT to make a show of praying publicly, but to shut ourselves away in a closet and pray in secret.

But we should not let the privateness of prayer lead us to believe that prayer is somehow a passive activity, with no visible results, or that we can somehow separate our prayer life from the rest of our lives. To try to compartmentalize prayer into a 10 or 15 minute slot in our schedule is a bit like trying to keep a tiger hidden in your closet, and spending 10 or 15 minutes each day trying to placate it. Now imagine having a tiger in your closet. It would be impossible to keep it secret -- you just cant keep a wild beast hidden like that. There is only one way you could get away with it -- and that is if your tiger is not a real tiger, but just a stuffed animal. Similarly, to pray is to bring God into our lives -- and God is a good deal more to reckon with than a tiger! (Unless, of course, it is not really God we are meeting, but some imitation.)

So true prayer will -- must -- have visible results. But what are they? What is the fruit of a life of prayer?

Nehemiah was a man of prayer -- although I wouldnt have thought of him that way before looking at this passage. Nehemiah does not fit my stereotype of a prayer warrior. When I think prayer warrior, I think elderly saint who cant get around very well -- cant get out and do things. Since they cant do much else, they compensate by praying. Nehemiah was a doer, a builder, the kind of leader who motivates the people around him and who gets things done against enormous odds. Do you realize that in just 52 days -- less than two months -- Nehemiah took a pile of rubble and transformed it into city wall. [What Marvin Hale has been to us -- but on a much grander scale]

But before there was Nehemiah the man of action, there was Nehemiah the man of prayer. Ten times in the book of Nehemiah, we read about Nehemiah spontaneously calling out to God in prayer. (1:4, 4:4, 4:9, 5:19,6:9,6:14, 13:14,13:22,13:29,13:31). Nehemiahs accomplishments were the fruit of a life of prayer. Here is a man who let the tiger of prayer out of the closet, a man whose life of prayer was so full that it bubbled out and overflowed into action.

The story starts with the arrival of Nehemiahs brother with a delegation from the land of Judah. The year is 444 B.C. It has been 142 years since Jerusalem was captured and destroyed and the Jewish leaders taken into exile in Babylon. It has been 93 years since the first of the exiles went back to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple.

But the city is still in ruin, and Nehemiahs brother gives a bleak report: 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.

1. A heart responsive to Need

And Nehemiah responds:

When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.

Why is Nehemiah so upset. He has a good job, and an influential one. Hes at the center of the empire. Why is he so concerned about the situation in Judah? He is really torn up. This is no O, Im so sorry to hear that kind of response. And this is not just a flash in the pan. At the beginning of ch. 2 when he goes in to see the King Four months have gone by and he is still visibly depressed. Weeping, Mourning. Four months of depression! When was the last time you reacted like that to a news report?

I think that Nehemiahs response is the outward fruit of his prayer life. Prayer changes our perspective -- or should do -- and makes us responsive to needs around us. That is because when we come into fellowship with God we cannot help but begin to care about what God cares about.

Confession time: I am afraid that I am not much like Nehemiah. I struggle with hard-heartedness. Take prayer letters, for instance: I am terrible at reading them. Ive been seeing and reading prayer letters all my life. Ive had prayer letter overload. And general appeals missions and charities -- they dont have a chance -- they get to the recycling so fast, my conscience doesnt have time to even wince.

And you know why I have this struggle? Because I am not praying as I should, and I dont want to be reminded of that it. When I do pray, I am much more attentive to the needs around me, and I would guess thats true of all of us. To pray is to put God at the center of our concerns -- to put Him at the center of our universe. And if we do that, then our response to the world around us will begin to be shaped by Gods agenda rather than our own.

If you want a heart that is softer and more responsive to needs around you, begin by praying! If I wait until I care about something or somebody before I begin to pray, then not much praying will get done. But one of the fruits of prayer is a responsive heart -- and I find it to be true that when I do pray, the Spirit of God softens my heart to the needs around me.

Nehemiahs life of prayer shows itself in a heart that is responsive to need.

2. A heart responsive to the Word of God

But need isnt the only thing that drives Nehemiahs response. Nehemiah was also responsive in another way. Look at his prayer. What does he ask God for?

Not much really. All he asks is for God to keep his promises.

verse 8 -- 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 form there and bring them to the place I have chosen as a dwelling for may name.

Again, I think we get a glimpse of the fruit of Nehemiahs prayer life. His life of prayer made him responsive to the Word of God and the promises of God. God had made a promise. He had promised that if his people returned to him he would bring them in from exile. And it is on this promise that Nehemiah rests his whole prayer. Nehemiah didnt just look out and see the need and pray blindly-- he took the World of need and he put it together with what he knew of the Word of God. He put himself between the Word and the World, reminding God of his promises.

Most of you read the newspaper. Most of you also read the Bible. In one you are faced with the needs of the world. In the other you are faced with the will and purpose of God. Do they have anything to do with each other? Prayer is what brings them together. When you or I pray, we put ourselves between the reality of the world and the promises of God -- we bring the needs of world before God, and we let the floodlight of the word of God illuminate those needs.

And what will we see? Well see a world not just of hunger, poverty, war, oppression -- Oh, those are real enough needs alright -- but much more terrible behind every news story well see the reality of a world of spiritual need. A world of people who are in spiritual bondage, in desperate need of a Savior. And then when we look at the word of God we read that God is not willing for any to perish, but desires everyone to come to repentance. Should we not weep, and mourn and fast and pray like Nehemiah when we put the world of need and the promises of God together?

Nehemiahs life of prayer reveals itself in a heart that is responsive both to the Needs of the World to the promises of the Word of God -- and brings the two together.




3. The courage to Act

Now we come to the scary part.

Up to this point its been pretty easy to take. We pray and we start caring about the world around us more, and we start caring about the promises of God more. Sounds OK. No need to get out of that Lazy Boy chair -- just turn on the evening news and pull out your Bible and you can play Nehemiah. Right?

Didnt work out that way for Nehemiah. In fact, theres a really curious thing about Nehemiahs prayer. Did you notice that he doesnt really ask God to DO anything. He asks God to remember his promises, and listen to Nehemiahs prayer -- but He never says, God, could you please arrange to help out those poor people in Jerusalem. He doesnt ask God to destroy their enemies. Nehemiah never asks God to do anything exciting -- no miracles, no divine interventions.

He really only asks God for one concrete request. Look at verse 11: Give your servant success today by granting him favor in the presence of this man.

All he asks for is success -- meaning he had already decided to act, and he asked for nothing more than Gods blessing on his plan. And if you look at the rest of the book, you will see that God works entirely through Nehemiah.

The visible fruit of prayer in Nehemiahs life was the courage to act. He knew that prayer brings with it responsibility. I cannot pray, Thy will be done (and mean it) without being open to do Gods will. If I am not willing to obey, then to pray that Gods will be done is hypocrisy.

Example: Ive been praying for my neighbors. I cannot continue to pray for my neighbor without doing anything. Either Ill stop praying, or I must act.

And that makes prayer a rather dangerous pursuit. If you seriously and faithfully pray for someone or something, sooner or later, I believe God will call on you to act. We know that faith without works is dead -- I believe the same is true of prayer without action.

I think this is in part what Christians of the past meant when they said Work is Prayer. Without prayer our work will be without foundation, but prayer that does not overflow into work is empty prayer.

Nehemiahs life of prayer reveals itself in the courage to act.

So although your prayer life should be invisible -- never think that your prayer will not have visible results. Prayer is not a passive activity -- it is not a spectator sport. You will not be able to lead a life of prayer without it overflowing into action.