From Prayer to Permission

We are so glad to see you here this morning with us. My name is Drew Chapman and I serve as the senior pastor here at First Baptist. And look, last week we kicked off our fall series in Nehemiah. And so we're going to be in the book of Nehemiah for this whole entire fall. And we learned what Nehemiah got some news and he was kind of wrecked by the news. He was burdened by the news. He had a godly burden for the news. And he took it and he wept and he prayed and he fasted over this burden that he had. And it says that the scripture tells us when we ended the sermon last week, I said for about four months. From Nehemiah verse 1, 1 to Nehemiah chapter 2 verse 1 is about four months. And so we have four months passed and so what is happening in that time? He's going to the Lord and Jerusalem is still in ruins and the wall is still in ruins and the gate is still in ruins. Nothing externally is happening in this four months. And so Nehemiah is going back day and night to God and he is praying to God, asking him weeping begging God to change. And so for four months, begging God to change his situation, begging God to rebuild the walls and to rebuild the city. And look, I wonder if this morning somebody here can't relate to waiting on God. I wonder if there's not people here this morning that can relate to this idea that you honestly have come to the Lord. You have brought something to the Lord. You have prayed and you have sought his face about it. You have begged him and you have fasted and you have gone to him day and night maybe four weeks, maybe four months, maybe some of us even for years. And it just seems like nothing's happening. It seems like that nothing is going on as if God is being silent or that God is not present. Like this door that you're asking him to open, nothing has opened up and you just continue to keep asking. I wonder if there's not somebody that can relate to that here this morning. Maybe it's a job situation that you continue to bring to God in prayer. Maybe it's a marriage that you continue to bring to God for healing in prayer. Maybe it's a wayward child that you continue to bring to God, asking God to just to turn their heart and to turn their heart back to him. Maybe it's a diagnosis. It's just something in your life right now that you're a begging God and you're praying to God about. And this door that you keep asking him to open or this opportunity that you continue to ask him to make happen just seems to not be happening or the door continues to be closed. And I just want to tell you this morning silence from God is not the same as God's absence. God is working in the waiting like we can trust that and we can believe that something in what's happening in the four months that Nehemiah was praying and fasting and being near and being in the presence of the Lord. There's something happening but here's the deal. It wasn't happening in Jerusalem. It wasn't happening with the city and with the walls and with the ruins and all of that. It was happening in Nehemiah. And at some point the waiting is over and we're faced with the question like what actually happens when God does open that door and what happens when that opportunity is there before us. And we have to walk in boldness through that open door. We're going to see both of those here this morning. That's exactly where Nehemiah chapter 2 verses 1 through 10 picks up. And so again here one of our values at first about this is that we stand on the Word of God. And so we also want to stand for the Word of God. So I want to ask you to stand up if you would just in reverence the God's Word as I read Nehemiah chapter 2 verses 1 through 10. In the month of Nisan, the 20th year of King art exorcism, wine was before him. I took up the wine and gave it to him. All right Nehemiah is the cup bearer and he's writing these words. Now I had not been sad in his presence and the king said to me why is your face sad? Seeing you are not sick. This is nothing but sadness of the heart. Then now I was very much afraid and I said to the king let the king live forever. Why should my face not be sad when the city, the place of my father's graves, lies in ruins and its gates have been destroyed by fire? Then the king said to me what are you requesting like what do you want Nehemiah? So I prayed to the God of heaven and I said to the king if it pleases the king and if your servant has found favor in your sight that you send me to Judah to the city of my father's graves that I may rebuild it. And the king said to me the queen sitting beside him how long will you be gone and when will you return? So it pleased the king to send me when I had given him a time. And I said to the king if it pleases the king let letters be given to me to the governors of the province beyond the river that they may let me pass through until I come to Judah. And a letter to ask the keeper of the king's force that he may give me timber to make the beams for the gates of the fortress of the temple and for the wall of the city and for the house that I shall occupy. And the king granted me what I asked for for the good hand of my God was upon me. Then I came to the governors of the province beyond the river and gave them the king's letter. Now the king had sent with me officers of the army and horsemen but when sambala and the horanite and Tobiah the eminite servant heard this it displeased them greatly that someone had come to seek the welfare of the people of Israel. Are you maybe seated? Listen this morning in Nehemiah chapter 2 verses 1 through 10 this is our big idea this is what I want us to grab on to and walk away with here this morning. Faith is believing and acting like God is telling the truth. We're going to see this in Nehemiah's life here this morning. Faith is acting is believing and acting like God is telling the truth. First faith is believing. We're now in month number four of Nehemiah's prayer and we know this because in chapter 1 it says that when he got the news from his brother the month was kiss left and now it's Nissan that's four months have passed and so we understand that that he got the bad news and now he can he's got the burden he's got this godly burden to rebuild the walls and to rebuild the city to to again have the witness of God and the reputation of God to the nations be restored and a lot of it's going to come through this wall but nothing has changed on the outside in that four months nothing has changed in Jerusalem the walls were still down the king hasn't said a word yet or initiated a conversation with Nehemiah nothing in Jerusalem is different but something is changing in Nehemiah before he can ever act like God is telling the truth sometimes we just want to do that we just want to react and we just want to hurry up like we hear something and we want to react but before Nehemiah can act like God is telling the truth he has to become a person that believes God and believes that God is telling the truth to him and so in this time of prayer I believe there's some things that are happening in the life of Nehemiah there's some things that are happening as he responds to the king as this interaction in this conversation that we see between him and king art exercies I believe there's some things going on and so this morning when we say faith is believing what's happening in the times of prayer what's happening when we don't think that God is working or that God is silent what are what's actually going on well I believe this is happening for Nehemiah his despair is turning to direction his despair is turning to direction if you think about despair it convinces us that nothing can be done despair is like this grief upon grief and if we just let it stay grief it becomes despair it's that the problem is too big and we've already determined the outcome that is that outcome is hopeless like we already said no it's impossible that's never going to happen that's too big it's too difficult it's too hard or whatever and so we stay in despair but some point during this four months when Nehemiah gets the news from his brother he goes from God this is devastating to God I think you're asking me to go and not only do I think you're asking me to go God you're giving me a vision for what this could be you're giving me a vision for this wall you're giving me a vision for the city and I don't know if you've ever had this thought or if this has ever happened in your life but you're praying about something I think what happened in this despair to direction Nehemiah goes God I think I'm the answer to the prayer I've been praying have you ever had that where you're like praying for somebody or you're praying for a situation and all of a sudden it hits you like wait a second I think you're asking me to be the answer to that prayer and this is what happens in Nehemiah's life first he's weeping fasting praying that's the language in chapter one of somebody that's just devastated by the news but the language in chapter two is he's facing the king now he's got a plan he's got a timeline he knows the resources that he needs he's taking that despair and he's taking it to God he's put it at the feet of his God and God has taken that despair that grief upon grief and he has turned it into direction for Nehemiah because direction is what it looks like when you actually start to believe God is going to do something about that godly burden that you have and so he moves from despair to direction he also moves from fear to courage you don't arrive to the king and say I'm terrified and I'm afraid to then I answered the king and you don't do that on accident something else is happening in that four months of his prayer time and that alone time with the Lord those months of prayer were also months of him imagining the moment picture this I just imagine Nehemiah in those times with God going okay if I go to the king I'm going to tell our conservancy this and what if he responds this way and maybe he's even role-playing and you try to you pray through that risk and you pray through those different options and in those things that God is building courage within him and we're going to see like he's still afraid it's not that the fear just disappears and he's just recklessly abandones it all and just recklessly goes to the king he's still afraid But in there, the God. God is building courage because he's afraid of the king and for good reason. And here's just a couple reasons why I believe Nehemiah is afraid of king Art Cersi's why because first the way he ascended to the throne has a lot of blood and a lot of conspiracy around it. His father was murdered, his brother was murdered. He wasn't even the next one in line. They blamed it on his other brother. They framed him for it and his other brother was put to death for frame it for for the murder of his father and his other brother. And then when Art Cersi finds out who actually did it, right, this guy was making a play for the throne. He wrestles and fights him and kills him. So there's already blood and conspiracy around this throne, around this person that Nehemiah is about to approach. The second reason is this. If you go back to Ezra chapter 4, Art Cersi's is the reason why the rebuilding of Jerusalem was stopped because he decrees because some officials say, hey listen, they write to him, they write to the king and they say, listen, if a walled Jerusalem happens, that walled Jerusalem becomes powerful, that walled Jerusalem is going to stop paying tribute to Persia. And so he writes a decree and he says, hey, stop the building. And so why is Nehemiah afraid? He's afraid because there's blood and conspiracy around the throne. And then there's also this is the guy he's going, he's literally going to the king and saying, I need you to reverse the decree that you've already put out. And I'm asking you to send me, I'm asking you to let me be that person. This courage that we're hearing about in chapter 2 was built in the time and in those four months of prayer. He moved from fear to courage. Not only that, he moved from concern to conviction. You notice that yeah, concern to conviction. So we have to spare the direction fear to courage and then concern to conviction. And what do I mean by that? Well, when he heard the news about the city of Jerusalem, he was concerned. He had a godly burden. But over time in this four months, it was not just concerned anymore. It was a deep conviction. It was a consuming desire that Nehemiah had to go into rebuild the city, to go into rebuild the wall, to go for the reputation of God and the witness of God among the nations. This is what Psalm 374 means when it says, delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Now, an immature reader of that might go, that's what I'm talking about. God, give me the jet. Like, let me just hang out with you in your presence and give me the jet. Give me the house. Give me the spouse. Give me all that my heart desires. That is not what that Psalm means. That Psalm means when we delight ourselves in the Lord, his will starts to become our will. His desires start to become our desires. This is what's happening in Nehemiah. Nehemiah is moving from just a concern and just broken over this news that he has heard. And now he is moving to a conviction, a consuming desire that this has to get done. This is something that he will eventually have to act on because at some point Nehemiah, whatever he believed, was going to have to become something he did. It's both. And so belief is this. They move from despair to direction. He moved from fear to courage and he moved from concern to conviction. And then it says faith is acting. I want you to notice three things that happen in these few little verses as Nehemiah interacts with the King. Acting means this. Acting means being available. If we're going to act on the belief that we have, if we're going to act on the conviction that we have, if we're going to believe that God is telling the truth, then it means being available. See, Nehemiah didn't know when God was going to open a door. He didn't know exactly how God was going to do it. He was just available. Pastor Keith Pugh, our senior adult pastor and our pastoral care pastor, he says it this way. God is not looking for ability. He's looking for availability. And that's exactly what's happening in Nehemiah's life here. God is not looking for impressive people. He's not looking for the smartest. He's not looking for the best looking. He's not looking for the wealthiest nor the most educated. He's not looking for any of that. He's looking for individuals whose hearts have been shaped by him in the secret place that have a godly burden. And he's looking for those that afterwards are available to him and open to him for whatever he might want to do. I had a conversation just this week with a young lady who's talking about missions. And she's called to missions. And she believes that God's calling her to full-time missions. And so we had a chance to talk. And I just said, tell me about where you think that's going to be. Where do you think God's going to, like, where is he leading you? And she said, well, I got a heart for this country. I've been there several times. But she said, I don't know. I'm open right now. And that's what it looks like to be available to God just to be open. Like, hey, I know you've shown me some things, God, and God had shown Nehemiah some things. He had proved himself to be faithful and to be trustworthy. But it's going to just take Nehemiah being open. It's going to take us being available to be used by God. For whatever it is we've been praying about, for God to move us to action, we must be available. And this is why he's available because it comes in, like, if I'm Nehemiah and I'm planning this, it does not come with the statement that the King asked. The King says, why are you so sad? Like, why is your faith sad? If I'm in that secret place and I'm praying back and forth and I'm doing role plays and I'm imagining the scenario that's going to come up, it's probably not going to be with that question. And at that moment, though, Nehemiah is ready. And he says this, he says, why is my faith sad? He sees an open door and he sees an opportunity to seize this. That this is work. This is what he's been prepared for. And this is what he's been planning for. And look, there's an old saying that says, if you stay ready, you ain't got to get ready. That's what it means to be available. It doesn't mean we just react when that opportunity comes. It means we're already ready when that opportunity presents itself. So we were available, but we also means being humble, being humble. Verse four, I love verse four. When I was reading this and I've just been reminded of God, Nehemiah's dependence on God in those four months leading up to opening the door and to opening up that opportunity. But even in the middle here, the King says, why are you sad? Nehemiah says, why shouldn't I be sad? The grays of my father and the city. It's all in ruins. Like, you would be sad too. And then the King says this, like, what are you requesting? Translation, what do you want, Nehemiah? And in that moment, in between answering the question and the answer, Nehemiah goes, I pray to the God of heaven. Like God, like, I'm dependent on you leading up to this point to open that door. But even right now, I'm walking through it. God, like, I'm taking a step through that door right now. I still need you, God. This is when I still need you the most. I am dependent on you. That is what it looks like to be humble. There's lots of definitions for humble. But the reality is humility is just depending on God. See, arrogance and pride. If Nehemiah would have gone to the King and arrogance and in pride, he said, man, I'm educated. I've got a cut bearers role. I know the King. The King knows me. I know this person. I know that part. I can go in there. And I'm going to tell him what I want. I'm just going to demand it. And he's going to give it to me because I'm Nehemiah. Nehemiah says, I'm afraid. And I got good reason to be afraid. And in that before he answers, you go, God, I need you right now. God, right now, I'm about to open my mouth. And I'm about to say something to the scary King. I'm about to do something that I can't believe I'm about to do. And God, I need you. That's what it looks like to be humble. And then being bold. So acting means being available, being humble, it means being bold. This might be the most convicting part of the passage because when the moment finally arrives, why are you sad? What do you want Nehemiah? Nehemiah does not fumble. All right. He is specific. And he is bold in his request. He said, give me like, how long is it going to take? Nehemiah can answer. It's going to take this long. When will you be back? I'll be back then. What do you need? Man, I need resources. I know that you're the King that decreed that this, their Jerusalem should stop being rebuilt. But I'm about to be bold. Would you give me the resources to let me go back and build Jerusalem? Will you let me build the gate? Will you send me the timber to build the wall? Will you even give me the the resources to build a little house that I can, that I can stay in until the wall is finished? He is bold in his request. And he is not vague in his request. He is very specific. This is all what's been happening in the four months. I believe if Nehemiah goes to the King, if he had spent the last four months, whatever, binge watching Netflix or whatever, right? He wasn't planning and he wasn't preparing. He wasn't doing anything like that. And the King goes, what do you want? Like, why are you sad and what do you want? And Nehemiah would have been like, I don't know how long you're going to be. I don't know how long it's going to take. When will you come back? I'm not sure. What kind of resources do you need? I'm not sure. I think the King looks at him and goes, you know what? I don't think you're as burdened over this as you think you are. But see in four months, Nehemiah took this godly burden. God had given him direction in it. God had given him courage with it. And God had given him a conviction, a consuming desire. And God and Nehemiah comes to the King and says, this is what I want. And it says that he. grants him his request. And I want to pause here for just a second because it's easy for us to hear this go, man, Nehemiah prayed, he prepared, and it worked out. That's right. Nehemiah manifested this into existence. Like that's what our culture would say. It's all over social media now. We just manifested. If you just believe hard enough, you speak it with enough confidence, you can will this into being. I was in another conversation this week. We were having dinner, and the waitress was telling us about her future. And she said, I've given it to the universe. And y'all, that's real. I hope it works out. I've given it to the universe. Manifesting says, your belief creates the outcome, and you're the source. Nehemiah, in the rest of scripture, they teach us the very opposite. Nehemiah's preparation did not manufacture this opportunity or this outcome that he received. It just prepared him to be ready when God opened the door and when that opportunity did come. That's the difference. Manifesting tries to say that you create the moment and faith says, no, you don't create the moment. God creates the moment. You just prepare yourself for the moment. And as we're about to see, Nehemiah does not take credit for this. There's nothing in Nehemiah that takes credit for this. Verse eight is like God is telling the truth. It helps us understand where Nehemiah's faith is, and it helps us understand where Nehemiah has rooted his belief. And the king granted me what I asked for the good hand. Why did that happen? Because he's so kind and he's so nice, because he's over the conspiracy and he's over all the blood, and he just thought, man, I made a mistake when I decreed that Jerusalem, none of that is true. Why is it true? Nehemiah says, for the good hand of my God was upon me. It is God's favor that Nehemiah recognizes. Nehemiah does not in any way question why this happened. It wasn't Nehemiah's charm. It wasn't the eloquent words that Nehemiah used. He was scared to death. He prays in the middle of it because he doesn't necessarily know what's going to happen. He just knows if I really believe this, then I need to act upon it. And I'm believing that God is telling the truth. I'm believing that God is really for Jerusalem. He's for these people. He wants his reputation to be known and his witness to be known among the nations. And so he is courageous. He knew what was at stake, but he was prayed up. I've heard it said this way, he was prepared. Okay, like I'm like, it's hard to say, but it's true. He was prepared, man. He had prayed and he had prepared. And he just needed God to open the door in an opportunity. And listen, this is important. It's easy to walk away and just think, man, he prayed and he prepared. But we've got to know that God was in this. And you can pray and you can prepare, but we also need to know. Like we're trusting that God will open a door, but he is not obligated to. He is kind and he is loving, but whatever happens, we know that it is for a purpose. We know that it is according to his plan. That is why in that quiet place, our will is aligning with his will. Nehemiah believed God was telling the truth about his character, about his heart toward his people. He believed like he needed to act upon this. And he also believed that God was telling the truth. And so our big idea here this morning, faith is believing and acting like God is telling the truth. But also wants to see that there's a cost to our faith. There's some friction that will come. Verse 10, I included it. It would have been real easy if we were making a testimony video about Nehemiah at this point. That's how the video usually stops. Yeah, you know, I prayed and then I went to the king. He asked me this question. I told him, man, I need to go back, send me. I need letters. I need resources. And the king granted me what I asked. And then we stopped the video. And everybody goes out, it's like, man, God is incredible. But the reality is that there's so much that happens after those videos. There's so much to faith. There is a cost that comes to faith. And we just need to hear this this morning that if we are going to step out and we are going to walk through the door, whatever that door is and that opportunity is, that God puts in front of us, we need to know that there's probably going to be opposition. And there's probably going to be friction with other people. And so listen, they run in this Sambhala and Tobaya. And it says it displeased them greatly that someone had come to seek the welfare of the people of Israel. And we're not going to like these guys in the days ahead. They are opposed to what Nehemiah is believing that God has sent him to do. We'll see more of this as we continue the series. But this morning, we need to know that when we believe and when we act like God is telling the truth, when we become a people that believe it, and we know the truth of God and then we act on the truth of God, we got to understand that there are going to be, there's going to be opposition and there's going to be friction that comes with it. It's why the month of prayer that Nehemiah was so important. It's why every act of obedience that Nehemiah had leading up into this point was preparing him for this. It's why he's going to be able to look back. He's going to be able to put a stake in the ground and go, no, I know God. I know God was asking me to do this. The favor he gave me with the King, all of the things that have happened up into this point. When he can't see God's faithfulness in the future, when he doesn't know what's up ahead, when he gets the opposition and he gets the friction, he can look back to that stake in the ground and say, God, I will trust you to be faithful in the future because you have been faithful in my past. He's going to need a throne. He goes to this earthly throne and he can cling to that. And you and I, we need a throne that we can go to, but we don't go to an earthly throne, church. We go to a heavenly throne. Hebrews tells us this. Since then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens. What's his name? Jesus, the Son of God. Let us hold fast to our confession before we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses. But one, who in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin, let us then what? With confidence drawn near to the throne of grace that we have may receive mercy and find grace in our time of need. Nehemiah had the time at just right. He had to hold his face a certain way before the king. He had to make sure the king was in a good mood. You and I, because of what Jesus has done, we do not have to worry about that. We have someone that Nehemiah at the time did not have. We have a high priest who has gone ahead of us who knows exactly what it's like to be human. He knows exactly what it's like to be tempted. He knows exactly what it's like to be afraid and who has secured our welcome at the throne ever before we show up. That's why we can draw near with confidence here this morning. That is why we can draw near in the waiting. We can go to God and we can draw near with confidence. And we don't have to hold our face a certain way. We don't have to make sure our God is in a good mood. We don't have to even get his attention. We always have his attention. Why? Because we have a high priest who can sympathize with us in our weakness. And so we go in the months of waiting or the years of waiting. But we also go in mid-conversation to the throne of grace so that we would receive grace and we would receive mercy in whatever that opportunity is God has put in front of us. Or whatever that door is that he is opening up in front of us. We go to our God in humility and say we need grace and we need mercy even to walk through this door. Our faith is not blind. We have a God who is trustworthy and we know we don't have to face it alone. We bring it to the throne of grace. But we do not come to an earthly throne. We approach with confidence a heavenly throne. And we find mercy and we find grace. We bring our despair and he gives us direction. We bring our fears to him and he gives us his courage. And listen, it's not that we just aren't afraid at all. That's not reality. It's that we can still walk and courage even in that fear because we have a God who is trustworthy and we have a God who is good and we take our concerns to him and he helps us nail those down and they become convictions. And we're available and we're humble and we're bold when that opportunity comes that he presents to us. And faith is believing and acting like God is telling the truth. So this morning, how do we put this into practice this week? I hear some all God has next steps that I want us to write down. First, this week I will name the burden I've been carrying but haven't fully brought to God. I will bring it honestly in prayer to him. You know, maybe you've tried in the past and you felt like God was silent or you didn't get the answer you want or you didn't get any answer at all. You didn't get a sign, you felt like that door never opened up that opportunity never came. I mean, take it to him and honesty and vulnerability and name it before him. And then the formation step is this week, I will let God shape me in the waiting. I will write down ways that I see him shifting my desires as I wait on an opportunity. Look, it's not being wasted. If you're waiting on something, it's not being wasted. That there's things happening, that God is doing things in you. Probably more in you, probably less in changing. your circumstances or changing the situation, he's probably doing more within you during this time. So, recognize what he's doing, write it down, pay attention to how is God conforming you even in this waiting period to the image of Jesus Christ. How is he making you more like Jesus even as you wait? And then the faith step is this. This week I will walk through the door, God opens with humility and boldness. The door in front of you, it might end up looking different. You might not know what it is, you see the opportunity, but it takes the same faith to step through that door, it takes the same boldness of Nehemiah to step through that door. Well, thank you for joining us today. My name is Drew Chapman on the Senior Pastor here at First Baptist and look, we would love the privilege and the honor to get to pray for you and so you can email us any prayer request at [email protected] and look, if you've ever considered supporting our ministry, we would love to continue to reach more people. And so you could give to the work of the ministry here at First Baptist as well. And then lastly, if you are ever in Tuscalusa or you live in Tuscalusa, we would love to have you in person with us. Join us any Sunday morning. You are invited to come worship with us here at First Baptist.