So how is your prayer life?
If God is sovereign…
If God is in charge and if he prevented Kgotso yesterday from taking part in that race. If everything on Earth belongs to him, like Brother Bernard said…. because he created it!
Then the only one person, the only response that we have when faced with difficulties such as Nehemiah, is to pray. But how is your prayer life?
Have you given up on it?
Do you feel that you’ve paid, and God is simply not answering you that you know it’s pointless?
That you see other people prospering and getting all there has desire, but you are not, and somehow God does not exist because he’s not answering your prayers. I didn’t want Kgotso to be injured, but I didn’t. My… my… my answer would never have been. He must not take part. Sometimes God answers you in ways that you don’t even understand that you don’t even want.
You pay for comfort. He gives you trials so that you can learn comfort.
You pray for patience. He puts you in a line 100 meters long!
That’s how God works. He doesn’t come miraculously and changes you.
And gives you patience, and you wake up one day and you suddenly have patience.
When you pray, God puts you in positions that allows you to learn. And throughout the scriptures he tells us the trials are those that he uses to sanctify us! To grow us to mature us now and Nehemiah just had information from Hanani about the extent of jails, the damage of Jerusalem was badly damaged. And he sent the… Nehemiah into depression. Literally.
And for four months he started praying. He prayed for four months and after four months, God answered his prayer. And he, in his prayer, he acknowledged that the suffering that Israel was going through. They deserved it because it was God’s punishment on them. You see God sending them to Babylon and getting Babylon, destroying them and they are becoming slaves. God had warned them. He has sent prophets after prophets telling them stay away from adults. I am your God! Stay away from idols!
The last prophet, Jeremiah, was even sent imprisoned for policing that. And the day came, when the law said that’s not enough. It’s enough! Now you will get your punishment. And he knew when he was praying. That… that was God’s punishment. What was going through to Jerusalem. Yet he went back to God and said, God, you made promises. Yes, I have knowledge. But you are a faithful God. You have promises that you’ve made. I’m calling upon those promises. The same with us, God says. For all those who love God, all things, good or bad, all means everything, good or bad. All things happen for good. They work together for the good of those who love God. The same thing as you and I. We can go back to God’s promises and say God, this is what you’ve promised.
Please! Jesus said we can even call him Dad, Abba, Father.
This is what Nehemiah was doing for four months – he knew he had to face a king. He knew he had to go to face this mighty patient King, whom, if he said a single word wrong that would have bent off with his head. There was nothing that Nehemiah could do unless this king allowed him to. There was nothing that Nehemiah could do unless this king protected him. So, he knew he had to go to this king, and he knew he could die.
But he did it anyway. So, in Chapter 2 of Nehemiah, The answer to God’s prayer The story about how God answered Nehemiah’s prayer unfolds stand with me to Nehemiah, chapter 2. And we will be looking at from verses… pretty much the whole of chapter 1 – to 20.
But we did do the first half of this sermon last… last time that I was here. So, we will only do the second part of the sermon, I’ll just remind you of what we did. Just also a reminder that the main point of this sermon is that God is sovereign over his creation. And His will always be accomplished.
Trusting in Him will not be in vain. God is sovereign over his creation. And His will, will always be accomplished. Trusting in Him will not be in vain. Let us read.
Now my Chapter 2 and I’m sorry that it will show very small there.
It’s quite a long. It’s quite a long chapter.