This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Welcome to day four of our look through the book of Nehemiah, week one. We're
looking at these ways you and I can face the issues in our life where we need to
rebuild, we need to be re-energized and find God's strength, find God's power.
First step Nehemiah is teaching us is the reaction step.

How do you react to a problem? And he's teaching us to mourn and to fast and to
pray. Now when I have a problem sometimes the first thing I do is just pray a
quick prayer, God solve it and go on.

And there's nothing wrong with that prayer obviously except for the fact that
I'm short circuiting part of the process. And because of that I may not see the
growth that should be happening in my life. I might not be able to see past the
problem in my life.

Nehemiah, the third thing he does is pray. Before he prays he just takes time to
mourn, to be sad in God's presence. Not to say anything but just to sit in God's
presence and to mourn the loss.

And then he just takes time to fast, to focus his attention on God and who God
is. And in the midst of that it leads to a place where he can pray. And what a
prayer he prays.

Nehemiah gives us a model of the type of prayer that helps you to recognize
God's opportunities in the midst of your problems. Let's just walk through this
prayer very quickly. Just hit the high points of what you and I can learn from
it.

What kind of prayer helps us to see God's opportunities in the midst of our
problems? Well, number one, it is the prayer that recognizes who God really is.
In verse 5, chapter 1, "Then Nehemiah said, 'O Lord God of heaven, the great and
awesome God who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and obey his
commands.

Let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer your servant is
praying before you. Day and night for your servants, the people of Israel. '"
Nehemiah prays and he says, "You are a great and awesome God.

When you pray in the midst of a problem, recognize that God is all-powerful. "
This is not a matter of God's power, what God can or cannot do. God is
all-powerful.

This God that Nehemiah is praying to, the God he has served all his life, he
says, "You are a God who keeps your covenant of love. " God is all-powerful and
God is also faithful. He keeps his promises.

He's a God you can count on to keep his promises. I know you're thinking I'm
facing problems. How could it be a God who keeps his promises?

Well, God never promised us no problems in this world. Maybe some teacher did.
Maybe you promised it to yourself somehow.

God promised us hope in the midst of problems. God promised us deliverance from
all of our problems. He never promised that you'd not have problems.

In fact, the opposite. He promised that we would. He told us clearly we're going
to face problems in this world, but he'd be with us through them.

And through those problems, he will keep his covenant of love. And then he says,
"Let your ear be attentive, your eyes open. " God is aware of your need.

His eyes are wide open. His ears are hearing everything. He knows exactly what
you're going through.

You don't have to inform God of the problem that you're facing, but you do need
to depend on God in the midst of that problem. It's the kind of prayer that
strengthens you to see the opportunity for faith in the midst of a problem. It's
the prayer that recognizes who God really is, number one.

Number two, it's the prayer that recognizes who you really are. Nehemiah keeps
praying, and he prays in the last half of verse six, "I confess the sins we
Israelites, including myself and my father's house, have committed against you.
We have acted very wickedly towards you.

We have not obeyed the commands, decrees, and laws that you gave your servant
Moses. " Nehemiah is just honest here. He says, "I confess our sins.

I confess that we've acted wickedly. We've not obeyed. " And then he gets very
specific.

He says, "Including me, including my father's house. " It wasn't just other
people, God. It wasn't just the nation.

I see it in my own life. Problems are in this world because of who we as human
beings are, not because of who God is. We brought them in in the first place
through Adam and Eve and the sin that happened in the Garden of Eden, and we're
still bringing those problems into life today.

And admitting that is sometimes the key to breaking through the problem to a
place where you can have faith in your life. I know you look at the problem and
you say, "But it wasn't my fault this time. " And maybe it wasn't.

But think of the number of times when it was your fault and you didn't face any
retribution for it. You got off scot-free. Nobody even knows about it.

If you evened it all out, the truth of the matter is you probably escaped more
retribution than you've had to endure in your life. And on a broader level, we
all have sin in our hearts. We all have selfishness in our lives.

We all have wickedness that we're dealing with. We see it sometimes. Sometimes
we don't see it.

It's refreshing sometimes just to sit in God's presence and say, "I know some of
the evil that's in my life. I don't see all the selfishness. Thank you for
loving me.

I confess what I do know. " That's the kind of prayer that sees God working in
your life even in the midst of a problem. Not trying to prove you don't deserve
it, but recognizing that God's grace is what you don't deserve.

The third thing Nehemiah teaches us, it is the kind of prayer, this is extremely
important, that calls upon the promises of God. If you want to have faith in the
midst of your problems, you've got to call on the promises of God. That's what
Nehemiah teaches us to do here.

In 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 from there and bring them to the place I have chosen
as a dwelling for my name. They are your servants and your people, whom you
redeemed by your great strength and your mighty hand.

" Nehemiah finds a specific promise for his situation from the Old Testament,
and he says, "God, here it is. You promised even if the people are exiled, and
they are right now, you'll gather them if we'll return to you. " When you
realize that you cannot depend on your circumstances, there's a great
opportunity in that.

The truth is, you could never depend on your circumstances. It just seems that
way sometimes when our circumstances are going well. When you realize you can't
depend on your circumstances, the great opportunity is to remind yourself that
you do depend on God's promises and to renew your hope in those promises, and
then you do what Nehemiah did.

This is the important step. You look for a specific promise to trust through
that problem that you're facing. How do you find it?

I mean, is there some number you can call or some website that you can go to?
Well, maybe you can do a search on the web and find it that way, but I found it
usually doesn't happen that way. God usually takes me through a process of
searching.

It might be through Bible reading, and I just come across a verse. Wow. That's
how I came across this verse in Nehemiah that was so important to me, to our
church so many years ago when we went through that flood, "We His servants will
start rebuilding.

" I just happened to be reading the book of Nehemiah, and bam, there it was. In
searching, God gave me that treasure. It could be through Bible study.

It could be through listening to a message. You could be talking to another
believer, and they share this verse. God will usually take you through a process
of searching for it, and then when you find it, it's like this treasure that you
found.

Now, you can start that right now. You can pray right now, "Lord, what promise,
what specific promise do you have for me in the midst of this problem that I'm
facing? " You search for that promise in your life that God has for that problem
that you're facing.

That's the kind of prayer that makes a difference when you're facing a problem.
That's the kind of prayer that takes you to faith. And then there's the fourth
thing that Nehemiah teaches us, the final thing.

It is the kind of prayer that calls for specific help. Nehemiah 1. 11, "O Lord,
let your ear be attentive to the prayer of this your servant and the prayer of
your servants who delight in revering your name.

Give your servant success today by granting him favor in the presence of this
man. " Nehemiah is about to go in and make a request of the king, and so he asks
specifically for success in this request. Now, notice it's a prayer with a
schedule.

He says, "Give me success today. Not some day when I go in. I'm going in today,
God, so I'm asking for success today.

" And it's a prayer with a plan, "Grant me favor in the presence of this man.
This is what I need, God. This is practically what I need.

" So you in your life, how are you going to use these four faith lessons from
Nehemiah to talk to God about a problem that you're facing this week? Let
Nehemiah's model help you to learn to pray in the midst of a problem. Offer God
praise in the midst of that problem that you're facing right now.

You might right now pray something like this, "Lord, although this problem looks
overwhelming right now, I recognize that you're the one who's truly
overwhelming. You are a great and awesome God. And Father, I know that you know
exactly what I'm going through and that you care about my hurt.

So keep me aware of your unfailing love, of the fact that you are patiently and
faithfully working out your plan in my life. In spite of this problem, and even
using this problem, you are working for your best in my life. " You begin by
offering praise to God in the midst of the problem.

You ask yourself, "Is there a sin that I need to confess that's brought about
this problem? " Or maybe not directly brought about this problem, but the fact
that I'm going through it reminds me I'm not really up on things with my
recognition of the selfishness, the sins that I have in my life before God. Is
there a sin that you need to confess?

I'm not asking if you're perfect. I'm asking have you confessed that sin before
God? And then number three, find a promise that you can write down, a promise
from the Bible that God gives you as you face this problem.

Begin that search right now. Maybe God has given you the treasure of bringing it
to your mind immediately right now as I'm talking about it. If not, search for
that promise.

And then finally, what practical requests do you need to make to God as you face
this problem? A request that has a time, that has a plan, "God, here's where I
need your help. Here's when I need your help.

" That's the kind of prayer that changes everything. Now join us tomorrow. We're
going to begin to look at the next step that Nehemiah teaches us to take, the
initiation step.