How God Often Answers Prayer

Because he had found out and had heard that the people of Jerusalem were a wicked and rebellious people. That's what the reports were. "Don't let them build this wall," his governors told him, "because they will rebel against you as soon as their defences are up." And so Artaxerxes sends the order and says, "No to the wall. You cannot build it." And so Nehemiah is going to ask the impossible.

He's going to ask if the king would change his mind. So let's have a look at how that works out for him in chapter 2 this morning. And we're going to only read the first half, so till verse 10. Nehemiah 2:1-10. "In the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was brought for him, I," this is Nehemiah, "took the wine and gave it to the king.

I had not been sad in his presence before, so the king asked me, 'Why does your face look so sad when you are not ill? This can be nothing but sadness of the heart.' I was very much afraid, but I said to the king, 'May the king live forever. Why should my face not look sad when the city where my ancestors are buried lies in ruins and its gates have been destroyed by fire?' The king said to me, 'What is it you want?'

Then I prayed to the God of heaven, and I answered the king. 'If it pleases the king and if your servant has found favour in his sight, let him send me to the city of Judah, where my ancestors are buried, so I can rebuild it.' Then the king, with the queen sitting beside him, asked me, 'How long will your journey take, and when will you get back?' It pleased the king to send me, so I set a time. I also said to him, 'If it pleases the king, may I have letters to the governors of Trans Euphrates, so that they will provide me safe conduct until I arrive in Judah?'

And may I have a letter to Asaph, keeper of the king's forest, so he will give me timber to make beams for the gates of the citadel by the temple and for the city wall and for the residence I will occupy.' And because the gracious hand of my God was upon me, the king granted my requests. So I went to the governors of Trans Euphrates and gave them the king's letters. The king had also sent army officers and cavalry with me. When Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official heard about this, they were very much disturbed that someone had come to promote the welfare of the Israelites.

So far, our reading. Now you may have heard of a church father by the name of Augustine, Saint Augustine, whose writings were more widely read, scholars believe, than most of the Christian leaders in the last two thousand years. His writings were more widely read than any of the other big Christian leaders of the past two millennia. There has hardly been a man that so influenced philosophy and the Christian faith than Augustine. But you may not know that Augustine wasn't always a Christian.

In fact, he only became a Christian at the age of 33. And Augustine attributed this thing to one reason alone, and that was the relentless praying of his mother, Monica, on his behalf, praying that God would bring him into His kingdom. You see, Monica had been married to a non-Christian man. She lived in a very un-Christian society.

Monica was married to a non-Christian man and tried very hard to raise her kids in a Christian way, to follow the Lord Jesus. But in painful circumstances, she saw her son, Augustine, stray from this truth that she taught him. Augustine had been identified very early as an exceptionally gifted man, academically brilliant. He had received an excellent education and had flourished in all the intellectual disciplines of Greek philosophy. Monica hoped that in this education, he would find God.

But in fact, it did the very opposite. If you read the life of Augustine, you see that he tried out every spirituality that he could find. He tried out every Christian heresy that he could find, everything except orthodox Christianity, the orthodox faith of his mom. Augustine passionately ignored his mother's warnings about living a pure life, a life dedicated to godly righteousness, and instead he pursued a life of self-gratification, immorality as a young student. You read his Confessions, which is his memoirs, and the story reads like any, or many, uni students now.

Try whatever you want, go and spend your money on whatever you want, live a life completely away from God. He goes on to live with a woman, not his wife. He has a child with her. But all the while, you hear about Monica, his mom, determining herself to never stop praying that her son would turn to God. Augustine pursues this academic life, and he moves to Milan in Italy, to a great university there, to teach.

But in Milan, he is befriended by another brilliant mind who just so happens to be the bishop of Milan, Ambrose. Ambrose goes on and he teaches him the tenets of Christianity, the doctrines of Christianity, and this time, he accepts this. It's probably taught in an educational way, or an intellectual way, or an interesting way that his mother could never have articulated. And during this time, Augustine writes in his memoir of the moment where his eyes were opened to his brokenness and his need for God. He writes this: "One morning I was weeping in the most bitter contrition of my heart when I heard the voice of children from a neighbouring house chanting the words, 'Take up and read, take up and read.' I could not remember having heard anything like this.

So checking, or stopping, the torrent of my tears, I arose, interpreting it to be none other than a command from God to open the book, which is the Bible, and to read the first chapter that I would find. Eagerly, I returned to the place where I had laid my volume of the apostle Paul, the book of Romans. I seized it, opened it, and in silence read that section on which my eyes first fell. And I read, 'Not in revelry or in drunkenness.' What a start.

Not in revelry or in drunkenness, not in licentiousness and lewdness, not in strife and envy, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to fulfil its lusts.' Romans 13:13-14. His very first verse that he read that morning. And Augustine wrote, 'No further would I read nor did I need to. For instantly, at the end of this sentence, it seemed as if a light of serenity infused into my heart, and all the darkness of doubt vanished away.'

Augustine had been brought to a saving knowledge of God in that moment. And it was only nine days later that his mom, Monica, would die. But she had heard the good news of her son. She had heard that he had come to faith. In his grief, Augustine wrote in his memoirs a prayer for his mom, and he wrote this: he said, "Now she has gone from my sight, who for years had wept over me, that I might live in Your sight, O God."

I share the story of Augustine, just this short little testimony about him, to make this one point from our text this morning. The first point is that prayer changes hearts. We see Nehemiah, how in his prayer he calls on the power of God to intervene in our circumstances and to change something that we ourselves cannot change: hearts and minds. We see prayer moving the heart of a king. Now whether you've been a Christian for a long time or whether you've been a Christian for only a very short time, this is something we need to be reminded of again and again because we keep forgetting it.

Prayer is the only thing that can change people's lives. Prayer is the only thing that changes hearts and minds. People seem far off from our ability to change them, whether that's through their stubbornness, or their lostness, or their status, or their power, or their position. We see this morning it changes the heart of the most untouchable man, the man who had the biggest empire of the known world, the Persian Empire: King Artaxerxes the First.

Nehemiah prayed in chapter 1, "For the sake of Your people, O Yahweh, God of Israel, give Your servant favour in the eyes of this man." Friends, are there people that you have stopped praying for because their lives have not changed? Are there people that you have given up on, that you said, "It is too hard, it's too hard. Nothing can change them. They are so ingrained in this lostness.

They are so anti-God"? We see in our text this morning the heart of a king is changed by prayer. We know how audacious, how miraculous this situation is. Months, only months probably before, Artaxerxes said, "No to the wall. They will rebel against me.

I know that they are a wicked and rebellious city, this Jerusalem. They will not build a wall." And Nehemiah dares to come months later to say, "God, please, change this." We see in our text this morning the heart of a king is changed by prayer. No one is beyond the long reach of God Almighty.

Proverbs 21:1 says this. King Solomon writes this: "The heart of a king is in the hand of the Lord. He directs it like a watercourse wherever He pleases." The heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord. He directs that heart like a watercourse wherever He pleases, like a farmer who digs some irrigation channels to the crops from the river. God channels the king's heart however He wants it to go.

Nehemiah was a cup bearer to the king, we know. And it would have been so tempting if I was in that position to have thought, "Well, obviously, I must have the confidence of the king. I must have a good rapport with the king if I'm the cup bearer. I know all the ins and outs and I might know his dirty secrets. For a little bit of blackmail, I could have used any of these means to try and change the king's mind."

But Nehemiah falls on his knees and prays. He prays and asks God to be the one that changes the king's heart, God to give favour to Nehemiah. The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord. He directs it like a watercourse wherever He pleases. Do you believe that the heart of your son, of your daughter, and it can be your little kid here, it doesn't have to be the prodigal son out there—

your son or your daughter, their heart is in the hand of the Lord, who can direct their hearts like a watercourse wherever He pleases. The situation that seems impossible can only be changed by the sovereign Almighty God of heaven. So go and ask. Go and ask. Pray.

But K.J., what if we pray and it's not God's will? What if we're asking for something that He doesn't want? Doesn't matter. You don't know that. Pray.

That is our command. Pray. Tim Keller, in his book on prayer, writes a good principle on keeping God's plans and our motives, which can be good or bad or indifferent, how to keep them together. He says, "God will either give us what we ask for, or He will give us what we would have asked if we knew everything He knows." Let me read that again.

"God will either give us what we ask, or He will give us what we would have asked if we knew everything that He knows." Rest in that. Pray in that. Because prayer changes hearts, friends. We know that and we see it again this morning.

Alright. Look at what happens next. Chapter 2 starts with these words: "In the month of Nissan." That's not a brand of car, by the way. It's like a joke I heard recently.

Jesus actually drove a Honda because he said at one time, "I did not come of my own accord." Honda Accord. If you don't know, I thought it was lame too. In chapter 2, the words start "In the month of Nissan." Chapter 1, however, begins the whole story in the month of Kislev.

Now according to the Jewish calendar, four months had passed from Nehemiah's first prayer in response to this terrible news until this moment. Four months of prayer, four months of waiting. What are you doing, Nehemiah? What are you doing? You've wasted four months.

Nothing has been done. The city is still in ruins. But this highlights again something that we have to remember, something that is so common in the Bible: that prayer and waiting go hand in hand. Prayer and waiting often, more often than not, go hand in hand. Nehemiah was ready to quit his job in order to answer the burning of his heart.

He was ready to quit right then and there, to leave the king's office, to hang up his little apron as a cup bearer, to punch out the last card, or some of my mates would do: they'd probably throw the goblet to the king and say, "Taste your own wine yourself, you bum." But instead, Nehemiah prays for four months for God to move the heart of the king, to give him favour, to go and do this, because he knows that is going to be the best way. And opportunity, do you notice, doesn't come with lightning bolts and choirs from heaven. It just comes one day when he's feeling really bad, really sad, and the king notices it, says, "What's wrong?"

But it comes after four months. But by this time, everything had lined up just right. By God's grace, on this particular day, the king was in a good mood. His wife was sitting right next to him, so perhaps he was going to be a bit more compassionate than other times. It makes specific mention that the queen was sitting next to him.

After four months, Nehemiah had time to work out and think about the logistics and how long it would take because when the king says, "Alright, Nehemiah, but how long?" Nehemiah could say exactly how long. And I'm sure there's a whole host of things that we don't have recorded in the Bible that had to be just right. One thing that I realised again: the month of Nissan is roughly in our calendars, March, April, which is springtime. Kislev: wintertime.

If he would have gone then, delays. He could have died of exposure on the way there. He could have had blizzards that would have slowed him down. Springtime, perfect time to travel. There's a whole host of other reasons, behind-the-scene possibilities, that God would have orchestrated perfectly for this time.

Can you see it? If you take all of these things into consideration, God's timing is perfect, but Nehemiah had to wait. Nehemiah had to wait. And we see this pattern over and over again. We know how long Abraham had to wait. We know Moses had to wait forty years in the wilderness.

God seems to take His time with answering prayer and we have to believe that God has good reasons for taking His time when it comes to our prayer sometimes. But for us, we may feel that God gets it wrong. We may feel that God doesn't love us because He's taking that long. However, we have to remember that our timing, our perspective on timing compared with God, is like comparing a two-year-old's understanding of time to an adult. Have you ever tried to explain how long a week is before Christmas time for a two-year-old?

Every morning they're going to ask you, "Is it Christmas yet? Can I open my presents?" They have no idea how long a week is. Because of our finite perspectives, our timeframes are not in touch with ultimate reality. God can let something happen at a particular moment in time for a hundred thousand different reasons that you have absolutely no idea about.

So when praying about anything, remember these three things: Pray, plan—because that's fine, plan as much as you want—God ultimately directs your steps. Pray, plan, and then be patient. Prayer and waiting often go hand in hand, not the least being that God uses this time often, very often, as times of refinement and development for that time when He will answer, to pursue you, to grow you in sanctification, to conform you more and more into the image of His Son.

Just like a parent will know that handing their child a paddle pop ice cream every time they ask for it is not good for the child. Most of the time, in fact, when a child asks for a paddle pop is not the right time. So they might wake up in the morning and say, "Mum, Dad, can I have a paddle pop?" And you know that they're asking for it because they're actually thirsty and need a glass of water. So you give them a glass of water instead.

At lunchtime they ask, "Can I have a paddle pop?" And you know they haven't had the sandwich yet. They're actually hungry. So you give them a sandwich instead. And then they ask at dinner time, "Can we have a paddle pop?"

And you know, well, okay, they've had their dinner. They've been good. They've cleaned their room. They can have a paddle pop now. Just like a parent may say no or not yet for a number of very good reasons, so God can do the same.

Nehemiah had to wait four months before everything was perfectly aligned. And so we see again: prayer and waiting go hand in hand. And then our third point this morning is how we see God graciously respond to Nehemiah's prayers. The last part of verse 6 we read this morning says, "It pleased the king to send me." That's a summary statement.

"It pleased the king to send me." It doesn't show the turmoil. It doesn't show what would have taken place inside his heart or his thinking or anything like that, how God was working in his brain or whatever. It just says God was pleased, or the king was pleased to send me. But notice how God, because He is so rich in mercy, not only grants the king's favour, but He grants him exceptional favour.

Nehemiah pushes the limit in verse 7 and he says, "Well, okay, but I'll also add this. If it pleases the king, may I have a letter to the governors to provide me safe passage all the way to Judah, which is a hundred kilometres away. Every governor in every province that I'm going to travel through will be my personal bodyguard, protect me all the way to Jerusalem." The king says, "Alright." But then not only that, Nehemiah asked for timber from the royal forest to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, this wicked and rebellious city that might rebel against him.

And Nehemiah is staggered because the king says, "Okay." Verse 8 finishes and says, "Because the gracious hand of my God was upon me, the king granted my requests." That's amazing. Friend, I want to remind you this morning that prayer is so much more than getting what you want. Prayer is a communion with the living God who knows you much better than you know yourself.

Who loves you and is gracious to you more than you deserve. You see, Nehemiah, he just wanted to go to Jerusalem. When he heard the news, he just wanted to go. He just wanted to do something. If it was bringing one stone to put on in the wall somewhere, that would have been enough.

But God grants him much more than that. That is the heart of our God. He gives us much more than we even hope for. So our prayer is a heart-to-heart conversation with a God who cares and who knows us, and we cannot forget that. In his sermon, one of my favourite preachers, Haddon Robinson, tells the story of how he used to play with his kids when they were small.

And they used to play a game where he'd take a few pennies, he's an American, a few pennies in his hands and they would sit on his lap and they would try to open his fingers to try to get to the pennies. Now according to Haddon, says the international rules of finger opening meant that once a finger is opened, he cannot close it again. But they could try as hard as they could and he could try as hard as he could to open the fingers. And he says, after taking forever to pry these fingers open, once they got to the pennies, the kids were overjoyed, obviously. And they would grab the money and the kids would run down the hall with gleeful delight.

He says, "Just kids, just the game." But sometimes he says, when we come to God, we come for the pennies in His hand. "Lord, I need a passing grade. I need Your help to study. Lord, I need a job.

Lord, my mother is ill." And he says, so we reach for the pennies, and when God grants the request, we push the hand away. But more important than the pennies in God's hand, he says, is the hand of God Himself. It's so true, isn't it? Because regardless of whether you get the pennies or not, regardless of if you get the pennies or not, knowing that you can look to the hand of your God in the first place, sitting like a child on their father's lap, means that everything will work out in the end anyway.

The fact that you can go to God is itself the greatest hope you can ever cling to. I want to remind you this morning that God does respond to prayer, and He often does so much more graciously than we would have hoped for. That He holds the heart of the king in His hand, that His timing is perfect, and that prayer and waiting go hand in hand, and that often we see God's answer to prayer and it astounds us. But I want us to never forget this: that when we pray, we go to a God who has invited us for one reason, and it is the greatest gift you have ever received and will ever receive. It is the greatest answer to a prayer that we read this morning that we did not even ask for: a love that we never deserved, that eventually our prayers come to a God who knows us.

Because this is the ultimate truth about prayer: the fact that God is attentive to our prayers, the fact that we know God will answer us when we call to Him, is because of one terrible day when His Son cried out for Him and He did not answer. It is because of one terrible day that He did not answer His Son, Jesus Christ, when He called, that prayer on the journey towards the cross where He was given the rejection that sinners like us deserved. The amazing thing, friend, is that we have received the attention that only His Son deserves. That is the greatest hope and the greatest truth of prayer that we can cling to, regardless of the pennies in the hand.

The Bible says that we have been clothed with Christ. "Holiness is Christ in me," we sang. We have been covered by His righteousness. So friend, why would we not pray? Why would we not pray?

Why would we not go to the God who, when He looks at us, sees His perfect Son? God wants us to know this morning from His word that the prayer of our hearts has the power to change hearts, that we may need to pray for a while to see those prayers answered, but there's a reason for that. But then finally, that our prayers are a result of God's relationship with us, and that God is already far more gracious than we could have ever hoped for. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank You for the truth, and we see again how powerful it is for faithful people to come before You, to cast their burdens and their concerns up to the God of heaven who has all control, all authority on heaven and in earth.

And Father, we rejoice at this news. We thank You and we're humbled by this. Father, we pray that as we understand this, as we rest in this, as we are reminded of this again, Father, that our prayers may be infused with expectation and longing and desire and hope for a God who not only knows us but loves us because of Jesus. We pray, Lord, for those people on our hearts, for the burdens on our lives, Lord, for some of us who are considering changes in careers, earth-shatteringly different perspectives and directions of our life, Father, we pray that You will have Your way, that You will grant favour in the eyes of our bosses or decision makers or whoever in our life may hold power. We ask that You grant favour in their eyes.

Father, this morning, we also pray for the lost people of our neighbours, of our family members, of our friends that don't know You, whose hearts are so cold, so dead, so lost to You. Father, they must be saved. And so we cry out, Lord, have Your way. Change hearts. Change the watercourse of their lives.

We are encouraged, Lord, this morning by the story of Nehemiah, the story of Saint Augustine. Father, we humbly just ask as servants, look into the hand of their master. Father, change our lives to reflect the great truth of Jesus Christ, His sacrifice, His death on our behalf. We pray, Lord, that we may be strengthened because of this in every aspect of our life. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.