Take out your copy of God's Word and turn to the Old Testament book of Nehemiah.
Last week we began our new study as we've concluded our study of the book of Romans.
!
A lot of history you presented last week and I don't know that everyone's going to remember all those details throughout our study together.
And I'll do my best to kind of pull back in the necessary parts of it as we go along.
But I saw the benefit of that and as I sat down to write it, you must know that I'm not a fantastic writer.
And so I copied and pasted this.
Gave credit where credit is due.
This is an introduction by John MacArthur as well as his outline.
And then I included in it the four objectives, the things that I want to see accomplished in our time together in Nehemiah.
So that's just there for you, for your resource.
If you didn't get one, we'll have them out in the hallway on your way out.
You can certainly pick one of those up.
Let's begin this morning by reading, starting in verse 1 of chapter 1 of Nehemiah.
The words of Nehemiah, the son of Hakaliah.
Now it happened in the month of Kislev in the twentieth year as I was in Susa, the capital.
That Hananiah, one of my brothers, came with certain men from Judah.
And I asked them concerning the Jews who escaped, who had survived the exile, and concerning Jerusalem.
And they said to me,
The remnant there in the province who had survived the exile is in great trouble and shame.
The wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its gates are destroyed by fire.
As soon as I heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned for days.
And I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven.
And I said,
O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments.
Let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer of your servant that I now pray before you, day and night, for the people of Israel, your servants.
Confessing the sins of the people of Israel, which we have sinned against you, even I and my father's house have sinned.
We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, and the rules that you commanded your servant Moses.
Remember the word that you commanded your servant Moses, saying,
If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples.
But if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there I will gather them and bring them to the place that I have chosen to make my name dwell there.
They are your servants and your people whom you have redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand.
O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant and to the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name and give success to your servant today and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.
Now I was cupbearer to the king.
Let's pray together.
Father God, we thank you for the great blessing of your word.
It is a tremendous grace to us.
And I pray that today, by your spirit, you will apply it to our hearts.
That we won't just hear words, give some mental recognition to them, but that they will in fact change us.
That we will become more like your son as a result of hearing the preached word this day.
And we pray this in Christ's name.
Amen.
And Nehemiah, you'll notice here at the beginning, the circumstance is being set up.
He's cupbearer for the king Artaxerxes, the king of Persia.
He's quite a ways.
He's in the city of Susa, which is where the king was wintering at the time.
Many, many days journey from Judah.
And his brother comes to visit him to say that the city is in calamity.
It's shameful because the exiles have returned from captivity.
Babylonia has flipped over to be a Persian rule.
Persian king has allowed them to go back.
And they've yet to build the wall.
It's in shambles.
They're a weak people.
And therefore, the name of God has been made weak.
And this is why he's distraught.
Verse 4, this is why he sits down and he weeps and he mourns for days.
It's very, very heavy on his heart, the circumstance here.
And Nehemiah wants to see something reconciled in this way.
He wants to see the wall built.
He wants the glory of God to be proclaimed amongst his people.
Remember that the visible outworking of God's glory at this time are his people, the state,
the well-being of his people.
And the fact that they've been returned from exile for so long and they're still in shambles
is a great affront to God's glory.
And this so presses on Nehemiah as he has such a zeal for God's glory that he mourns the condition of Israel.
Now, we get to clues later on.
We don't know at this point as we begin to read about his prayer.
But we do find out later that the ambition that's laid upon him is to actually go back to Judah
and to begin to build the wall, to lead the reconstruction.
But you need to understand the task that was ahead of him before we move on.
He's serving as the cupbearer of King Artaxerxes.
Artaxerxes, you can read in Ezra chapter 4, has put out an edict to stop the building of the wall.
The wall was being built some 20 years earlier.
There was an effort being put forward to do it, but some people of the land, as they're called in Ezra,
some people who were not Israelites,
seeing that the glory of the Almighty God could supplant the glory of King Artaxerxes,
write a letter to him.
And in response, he issues an edict, forcing the building of the wall to stop.
So here is Nehemiah serving under a king who has already made a command that the wall should not be built.
And in this day, for a king to reverse an edict would be to say that he's powerless,
that he was unwise to begin with.
And it did not happen often that this would take place.
Know also that the wall itself, we'll talk more about this in some of the coming weeks,
was four and a half miles in circumference, 15 feet tall and 15 feet thick.
It was a huge, huge project that was ahead of him.
And so what do we find Nehemiah doing?
He prays.
And I have to tell you honestly, as I searched out what we ought to do next,
moving beyond Romans,
the impression on my mind for Nehemiah was that it was about a group of people
building something to the glory of God.
That's one of my desires, that we will see as a church,
that that's what we're here to do together.
That it's going to be a hard work, that we're going to have to press into it.
I did not realize, having read Nehemiah numerous times,
what an incredible book of prayer that it is.
Nehemiah begins with prayer.
Charles Spurgeon once said,
if any of you should ask me for an epitome, a perfect example of the Christian religion,
I should say that it is one word, prayer.
I learned a new Latin phrase today.
And I don't use Latin to just sound really intelligent.
I think I know maybe ten Latin phrases now at this point.
But I want to kind of plant this one in your mind.
And it is sine qua non.
S-I-N-E-Q-U-A-N-O-N, if you're taking notes.
Sine qua non.
Which means, without which, nothing.
Prayer is not just a part of our Christian living.
It's not a little thing we attach alongside our efforts.
But it is the thing without which we can accomplish nothing.
Sine qua non.
Without which, nothing.
Prayer is vital to any effort for the kingdom.
Now, we all, I'm sure, grew up and have heard phrases like,
Prayer is just talking to God.
Trying to make it approachable.
Something that even I could do.
Prayer is just talking to God.
And many of us have grown up with kind of a buddy Jesus mentality.
You've seen the t-shirts, Jesus is my homeboy.
He's my pal.
I come alongside and I just chit-chat with him.
About my life and what's going on.
And don't be mistaken, certainly Jesus instructed us to pray for our daily bread.
He's concerned about the details of our life.
He cares about even the smallest of things.
But we as Christians too often pray paltry prayers.
Trite.
Meaningless at times.
Prayers.
Think about many of the prayer meetings you've probably attended.
And the vast majority of the requests have nothing to do with the kingdom of God or the souls of men.
But are typically about health.
Again, not that that's a bad thing.
Don't catch the wrong end of the stick, so to speak here.
God cares about those things.
But how we speak to him matters.
And praise God that there's room for maturation in our prayer.
That we can grow up in our prayer process.
And it would be wise of us to take an example.
Take a look at how it is we are instructed to pray.
Recognize that the apostles, men who were Jews, who had spent their life praying,
asked Jesus,
Lord, teach us to pray.
Did Jesus respond to them?
Prayer's just talking to God.
Guys, do it.
No, he gave them a very clear example of what prayer should look like in their lives.
The men have been getting together on Friday morning and spending some time praying together.
And I told them this last Friday that I'm so thankful to lead a group of men that pray God-honoring,
biblically founded prayers.
What an absolute blessing that is.
We should be maturing in the way that we pray.
And here is a great example of this.
I, since a very early age with Cademan, who's three now.
You guys, if you know me, I have another son named Judah.
He's downstairs asleep right now.
He's one.
But I tell them that I love him with my hand.
A little sign language.
And I say, I love you with my hand.
I love you.
And it lets me do that when I can't speak to him.
Quiet times, I can do that.
And Cade gets it.
He absolutely knows what I'm trying to tell him.
But he has a really difficult time forming that shape with his hand.
I've tried to show him how to do it.
I've tried to show him how to hold his fingers down, hold his fingers up.
He just can't quite pull it off.
And so Cade's version of I love you is this.
Right?
Which I've just taken to mean I love you too.
Right?
He just gives it back.
Recently, he's altered it to I love you with three fingers like this.
Let's see what you can.
Cade, man.
I love you.
There we go.
Three fingers.
Right?
That's great, buddy.
Thanks.
Right?
Is God satisfied simply with the intention of our prayers?
And I would say to you, no.
Right?
If Cade, man, the rest of his life tells me that he loves me with words insufficient for that
or a hand symbol that just doesn't quite mean that.
Cade continues to do this.
At some point, I'm going to go, Cade, man.
That means peace, pal.
It doesn't mean I love you.
Right?
Like, it's time.
It's time for you to shift the way you tell me that you love me.
Right?
We should be maturing in the same way.
I want to show you four observations concerning Nehemiah's prayer.
And I have to tell you that probably the most important thing we can learn today,
the most important thing we can learn today,
is that Nehemiah had a holy ambition.
He had a task ahead of him,
which all of us have ahead of us as Christians.
As ministers of the gospel,
we all have tasks laid out before us.
God has prepared good works for us in advance.
The most important thing that we should learn today
is that it should be preceded by prayer.
Right?
Sine qua non.
Without which nothing.
Right?
Prayer should precede all of that.
So I want you to keep that in mind
as we're moving quickly past that point
to talk about Nehemiah's prayer itself.
Right?
If I had to say one thing to you this morning,
I have already said it.
Right?
Prayer must precede our work.
Right?
But I want to bring you four observations this morning.
Firstly,
Nehemiah prayed persistently.
So notice in verse 4,
he sits down,
he weeps and he mourns for days,
and he says,
and I continued fasting and praying
before the God of heaven.
We see also later on
that he prayed down in verse 6,
day and night.
So we see an example of his prayer here.
Right?
We see maybe a noted time,
but this was the thrust of his praying
and it happened consistently.
It's important to know
that this report of what was going on in Judah
was brought to him in the month of Kislev,
which is approximately November, December.
When does he actually get to speak
to our exerxes in chapter 2?
In the month of Nisan,
which is approximately March or April.
So catch that,
roughly four months has passed in this time.
He recognizes this great task
that's ahead of him
and he sets himself to prayer.
He says here,
he continues,
and he does it day and night.
There's a fervency here in prayer
because Nehemiah recognizes
that the task ahead of him
is not something he can accomplish on his own.
So he is persistent in his prayer.
Believe that he understood
what John 15, 5 says
when Jesus says,
apart from me,
you can do nothing.
This is a lesson for us.
So often we rush into things.
We don't ask God
to move and to act,
to come along at all
for the ride.
I do this all the time.
I use my business savvy
to try to get things accomplished.
And apart from prayer,
I can accomplish nothing.
I try in my sermon preparation
to be incredibly prayerful
before I ever even come
to the text for the week,
try to pray God's blessing on it
that he'll open up my mind,
help me to see,
help me to study,
find the right resources
to pull it all together.
And I'll tell you this week,
I did that well.
I let this text run through me.
And then yesterday morning
when I sat down
to take all those things
that were running around
in my head and in my heart
and put them on a piece of paper
so that I could make
an organized presentation
of what was going on
here in this text,
I just rushed right into it.
And I struggled.
This is like the fourth outline
I wrote of this.
If you noticed that I double checked
when I said I had four points,
I wanted to make sure
that I actually did have four points
and I didn't change that
at some point along the way.
And I recognized yesterday
that just the conviction
that I had prayerfully prepared
my mind and my heart,
but I didn't prayerfully prepare
to even put the notes down.
I had to stop
and I had to repent
and ask God's blessing
on even just typing it out
on a piece of paper.
We can do nothing apart from God.
And there's a patience here.
We've got Nehemiah.
He's weeping and he's mourning for days.
He is heartbroken over this.
And yet for months he prays.
He persists in prayer.
Young people,
I know your life just feels
like it's passing by,
that you've got to get in the mix
so quick.
You have such a desire
to do mighty things for God
and I pat you on the back for that.
But be patient in prayer.
Seek to know God's will
for your life in prayer.
So firstly,
Nehemiah prayed persistently.
Secondly,
Nehemiah begins his prayer
by proclaiming God's character.
He roots his very prayer
in who God is.
Look at verse 5.
He says,
And I said,
O Lord, God of heaven,
the great and awesome God
who keeps covenant
and steadfast love
with those who love him
and keep his commandments.
He ties it all in
to who God is.
His plea with God to act
is requisite on God's character.
He says,
O Lord, God of heaven,
in the Hebrew,
this was an expression
of God's sovereignty.
That if God is the God of heaven,
he is therefore the God
of all kingdoms,
the whole universe,
God reigns over.
This was a phrase
that became especially precious
to the Jews
as they went off into exile.
As they began to understand
that God was not just
the God of Israel
reigning over them,
providential in their lives,
but also of the entire world.
They saw the predicted judgment
come to pass
through the Babylonians.
They saw that God
used even wicked men
to bring judgment upon them.
They came to know
this O Lord,
God of heaven,
that he is in fact
sovereign over all things.
Isn't it interesting
in Matthew chapter 6,
when the disciples
asked Jesus how to pray,
he begins,
Our Father in heaven.
This is the Greek version
of this Hebrew phrase.
Our Father in heaven.
Him who reigns over all.
Certainly,
Nehemiah,
as he's versed in his scriptures,
would have been familiar
with Proverbs 21.1.
As he's thinking about
approaching King Artaxerxes,
the king,
and asking him
to go back on an edict.
Asking him to not be him
is essentially
what he's asking him to do.
Proverbs 21.1 says,
The king's heart
is a stream of water
in the hand of the Lord.
He turns it
wherever he will.
He begins his prayer
proclaiming that God
is the great sovereign
of all things.
And he calls him
the great
and the awesome God.
Great speaking of his power.
His ability to do anything
that he wishes to do.
To set his mind
to do it
and he will,
in fact,
accomplish it.
And he calls him
the awesome God.
Here's a misused phrase
in our language,
is it not?
It's kind of entered
into our vernacular
as something maybe
just a bit cooler
than cool.
I misuse awesome
all the time.
The word awesome
simply means
to inspire awe,
but it also carries with it
the idea of dread.
A fear of something.
Something that's
so mighty
and so big.
In the case of God,
because of his majesty
and his glory,
that you shrivel at it.
That you shrink
at the awesomeness
of God.
I was trying to think
of a practical example
of a day-to-day thing,
and I don't experience
things that really
could properly be called
awesome,
although I think
I call things awesome
all the time.
But I thought about
when I was a child,
I grew up in Arizona
and my dad took me
to fish below Hoover Dam
at a place called
Lee's Ferry.
Hoover Dam,
700 plus feet tall.
And we got to take
a motorboat,
I got to drive it,
I was like eight,
which is the coolest thing
I've ever done,
probably,
in this cliff face,
avoiding the sandbar.
It was really fun.
But we went up
to the bottom
of Hoover Dam
and we began
to fish down the river
from that point.
And I would say
in human terms
that was pretty awesome,
being at the base
of that 700 foot dam
and the cliffs around it
are the same.
Awesome.
But a better picture
of that is
what if that dam
was beginning
to crumble before me,
right,
and we're in the speedboat
at the bottom
and I know that
at any moment
the water's gonna
burst forth
and come rushing
down that canyon.
That maybe is the feeling
that you might have,
right,
of the word awesome,
the way in which
we should think
of our God.
Right?
That he inspires
that kind of awe.
This is how Nehemiah
begins his prayer.
Recognize that in verse 11,
as you think about that,
you think,
wait a minute,
are we supposed to dread God?
Is that the way
we're supposed to react
to him?
In verse 11,
Nehemiah says,
talks of his servants
who delight to fear
his name.
They delight in the fear
of God's name.
He is this awesome God,
sovereign,
all-powerful,
able to accomplish
whatever it is
that he sets himself to.
Right?
That's the type of dread
that we're talking about here.
And then he goes on
to talk about his covenant
and his steadfast love.
He proclaims that God
is immutable,
meaning unchanging.
Right?
That if God has said
he will do something,
he keeps a covenant
with his people,
he makes a promise to them,
that he will,
in fact,
carry it out.
There's no changing our God.
He is immutable.
So Nehemiah begins his prayer
by proclaiming God's character.
And Nehemiah's prayer,
thirdly,
is motivated
by God's promises.
It's a nice connection there,
right?
We see that he praises God
for his covenant
and steadfast love,
proclaims that,
and then reminds him
of his promises.
We're doing a bit of a skip down here,
but verses 8 through 10,
and we'll come back up
to verses 6 and 7.
Right?
Let's read that together.
Remember the word
that you commanded
your servant Moses,
saying,
If you are unfaithful,
I will scatter you
among the peoples.
But if you return to me
and keep my commandments
and do them,
though your outcasts
are in the uttermost
parts of heaven,
from there I will gather them
and bring them to the place
that I have chosen
to make my name dwell there.
They are your servants
and your people
whom you have redeemed
by your great power
and by your strong hand.
Nehemiah's prayer
is motivated
by God's promises.
Why would Nehemiah
have any reason
to think
that God would
bring him before
King Artaxerxes
and change the heart
of this king
to send him back
to build an encampment,
a fortress,
against himself
and write the bill
for it?
Why would Nehemiah
ever think
that could ever
even be possible?
It's because he knew
God's promises.
Verse 8 starts out,
Remember.
Now, he is praying.
This is a record
of a prayer,
but don't think
that he's being irreverent
at this point.
This language is a plea
with God
to enact his word.
Right?
Please do the things
you said you would do.
Right?
And we see there
this promise
that was made.
He's loosely quoting
from Leviticus 26
and Deuteronomy 4.
He makes a covenant
with his people
that is conditional
on their obedience.
When they're disobedient,
he judges them,
sends them off
at the hands
of the Babylonians.
But at that time,
he says,
if they will repent
and turn back to me,
I will restore them
in their land.
And this is the promise
that Nehemiah
is calling on God
to fulfill.
Arturo Zerdia,
a pastor that I
particularly appreciate,
said,
our Heavenly Father
takes delight
when we stake
our confidence
in Him.
When we are so confident
in His eternal character
that we claim
the promises
He has made to us,
God is pleased.
Certainly,
Nehemiah was familiar
with Isaiah,
the prophet.
Chapter 43,
verses 6 and 7,
God says,
I will say to the north,
give up.
And to the south,
do not withhold.
Bring my sons from afar
and my daughters
from the end of the earth,
everyone who is called
by my name.
Now, this is pre-return,
right?
So we're quite a few years,
some 90 years beyond that.
But then certainly,
Nehemiah understood
that it goes on to say,
whom I created
for my glory,
whom I formed
and who I made.
You see that
as he begins to call
on God in verse 10,
they are your servants
and your people
whom you have redeemed
by your great power
and by your strong hand.
They are a picture
of your glory
here on this earth.
Act,
restore,
help us
build
the wall.
Now, just out of curiosity,
I got on the internet
this week
and I typed in
how many promises
does God make
in the Bible?
I found a lot of answers.
My favorite one
was from like a
wiki answers
or answers.com
or something like that.
And a person simply said,
I have no idea
but my father
once counted them
and said 7,487.
I don't know.
I don't know
if that's a real number
or not.
I would presume
it's probably getting close.
I have no idea
who this father is
that counted
these promises.
But the scripture
is riddled with them.
They saturate
this book.
How many promises
of God
do you know?
Fifty?
Ten maybe?
Can you think of a few?
Five?
One?
Could it be
that our prayers
are paltry
because we don't know
what God has promised
He will do?
So we are not
saturated
in the scriptures
the way we ought to be?
The word of God
and prayer
are mutually dependent
on one another.
You cannot rightly
understand the word of God
apart from prayer
and you cannot pray
as you should
without the promises
of God's word.
The two walk together
hand in hand.
So Nehemiah's prayer
is motivated
by God's promises.
Fourthly,
Nehemiah's prayer
is humble
and intercessory
in nature.
We're looking back up
at verses 6
and 7.
He says,
Let your ear
be attentive
and your eyes open
to hear the prayer
of your servant
that I now pray
before you
day and night
for the people
of Israel,
your servants,
confessing the sins
of the people of Israel
which we have sinned
against you.
Even I
and my father's house
have sinned.
We have acted
very corruptly
against you
and have not kept
the commandments,
the statutes,
and the rules
that you commanded
your servant,
Moses.
Notice that
following Nehemiah's
vision of God's character,
immediately following it,
he becomes very humble
in his prayer.
A vision of God's character
will always
make us painfully aware
of our own shortcomings.
When God shows up
in all of His majesty,
we become very,
very aware
of who we are.
This is why
all good praying
begins with God's character.
When we go to God,
we need to recognize
who He is
and who we are.
We're not going
to talk to buddy Jesus.
We're not chumming up
next to Him
to see what He may
pull off on our behalf.
He is God
and we are not.
But Isaiah,
when he sees Jesus
in all His glory,
what does he say?
Woe is me.
Peter,
when he finally,
fully realizes
that Jesus is the Messiah,
says,
depart from me, Lord,
for I am a sinful man.
John,
when he has this vision
of the resurrected Christ
in chapter 1 of Revelation,
he falls down on the ground
like a dead man.
This is the natural response
to a proper view
of God's character
and it ought to be
the way our prayers
proceed along.
Notice here
Nehemiah's
first person language.
He says,
I confess.
We have sinned.
I and my Father's house
have sinned.
We have acted
very corruptly.
It would have been easy,
I think,
at this point
for Nehemiah
to pray that
those other Jews
for the sins
that they committed
in the years past
that caused them
to come into
Babylonian exile
would be really easy
to push off,
to press it onto
the others.
But yet,
here he takes it
upon himself.
You remember
at the fall
after Adam and Eve
ate of the fruit
and God comes to them
and asks them
what they've done.
He asks this of Adam
and we see the very first
communication
of fallen man
and what does he do?
He blames it on Eve.
He says,
the woman
who you gave me.
Not only does he blame it
on Eve,
but he blames it on God,
his own sin.
And then Eve turns
and blames it
on the serpent.
It is part of our
fallen nature
to press blame
on others.
But here we see
Nehemiah takes
credit for it.
He says,
I and my Father's house
have sinned.
We are in the
continual process
of sinning against you
and not keeping your law.
This has been
going on
for all of these
generations
since the exile.
You sent us into exile
because of it
and yet here we are
still.
But he's repenting now
on behalf
of the people.
So he's humble
as he approaches God.
And his prayer is also
intercessory in nature.
He's also praying
on the behalf
of the nation
of Israel.
Is it possible here
for him to speak
and repent
to change the hearts
of the Israelites?
No.
But he prays
on their behalf
anyway.
God,
for your name's sake,
for your glory,
we have been evil
in your sight.
Restore us.
Send us back.
Roots it back
in his character
in this way.
And Nehemiah
in this way
is a type
of Jesus Christ.
Now,
I want to introduce
you to typology
if you're not familiar
with this.
So,
I've said
I recognize
through the past
years,
various people
throughout the scriptures
are types
of Christ.
And I don't mean
that in the way
that a Granny Smith
apple is a type
of apple.
Right?
I don't really like
Granny Smiths.
I think they should
be excluded
from the apple
category.
but I don't mean
it in that way.
Right?
We're not saying
that,
I'm not saying
that Nehemiah
is a type
of Jesus Christ
and that he's
a different version
of him.
Right?
But typology
references a person
who supersedes
the antitype
or the fulfillment
of it.
It's a shadow,
a presupposition
of something
that's later to come.
For example,
in that way,
David is a type
of Christ
when he takes
on Goliath.
Right?
And the picture
being shown here
is that one day
a greater king
will come
and defeat
death on our behalf.
Right?
That we're not
going to have to
fight that war
but he's going to
come and fight
it for us.
The one man,
that man being
Jesus Christ.
And the Old Testament
is just full
of typology
pointing us to
Jesus Christ.
We're meant to
look at a Nehemiah
and expect
something greater.
Pressing us
too.
And as Nehemiah
intercedes
for the people
of God
in the same way
Jesus intercedes
for us.
He is the
greater Nehemiah,
the antitype
to the type
that is
Nehemiah.
Romans 8
33 and 34
reads,
Who shall bring
any charge
against God's elect?
It is God
who justifies.
Who is to condemn?
Christ Jesus
is the one
who died.
More than that,
who was raised.
Who is at the
right hand of God
who is indeed
interceding
for us.
Notice here
that the tie-in
here is that
no one can bring
a charge against
God's elect.
No one can
convict us
of anything
because it is
Jesus Christ
himself who
intercedes for us.
Who leans over
to God and says,
Not that one.
Pass over him.
My sacrifice
was enough for him.
I took on
his punishment
and her punishment.
He intercedes
on our behalf.
So he is the
greater
Nehemiah.
Turn with me
from Nehemiah.
In closing,
we're going to look
at John
chapter 13.
I just want to
show you something
here.
This is Jesus
the great
interceder.
I miss this
until this week.
We see the
Last Supper
beginning in
chapter 13.
See Jesus
washing the
disciples' feet.
And throughout
this process,
he's teaching
them things
along the way.
And at the
end of chapter
14,
I just totally
read over this
so many times,
he says,
Rise.
Let us go
from here.
So in my mind,
I always pictured
Jesus talking
through chapter
15 and 16
and even 17
with the high
priestly prayer
of him sitting
in this upper
room around a
table.
But they
weren't.
They were actually
walking along.
At the
beginning of
chapter 17,
this is kind
of where this
caught my
attention.
The record is
when Jesus had
spoken these
words, he
lifted up his
eyes to heaven
and said,
and here's
where we have
the high
priestly prayer.
Him pouring
out his
desire for
the apostles
and those
who would
precede them.
But notice
at the beginning
of chapter
18,
when Jesus
had spoken
these words,
when he had
completed this
prayer,
he went out
with his
disciples across
the Kidron
Valley where
there was a
garden which
he and his
disciples entered.
This is the
garden of
Gethsemane.
He pauses
somewhere before
they go through
this.
Now this is
pure conjecture
on my part,
but I just
want to paint a
little bit of a
picture for you.
And this Kidron
Valley was the
brook of
Kidron,
and it was
used as a
drain from
the temple.
Recall that
we're in the
Passover week.
There was an
estimated six
million Jews
in Jerusalem
at this time.
And there's
sacrifice happening
that week on
and on and
on and on,
non-stop.
You could even
think of it,
the priest must
have been knee
deep in blood.
And where did
it all go?
It drained
through the
Valley of
Kidron,
down the
brook of
Kidron.
And this is
the brook
that they
pass over as
they're going
in to the
Garden of
Gethsemane.
And I just
imagine,
we don't know,
I mean,
please hear me
say,
I do not
know that
this is the
case,
but I
imagine that
this may
have been
what caused
Jesus to
pause,
to lift
his eyes
to heaven,
and to
pray.
Why?
He knew that
his blood was
about to be
spilt,
right?
He knew that
he was about
to make the
full and
final atonement.
All this
blood that was
pouring through
there,
that was
necessary for
the remission
of sins,
was just
meant to
show our
need of a
Savior.
And he
was that
Savior,
about to
make the
ultimate and
final sacrifice.
If you read
through the
high priestly
prayer,
I think also
he has in
mind the
suffering that's
going to
come to
his disciples
as a result.
The blood that
they will spill,
that they will
share in his
suffering in
that way.
And I believe
that he's moved
to pray at
that point.
So look back
at chapter 17,
just a portion.
It's really hard
for me to decide
what part of this
we would read
together.
But look at
verse 13.
Jesus here
praying to
God,
but now I
am coming to
you and
these things
I speak in
the world
that they
may have
my joy
fulfilled in
themselves.
I have
given them
your word
and the
world has
hated them
because they
are not
of the
world,
just as I
am not
of the
world.
I do
not ask
that you
take them
out of
the
world,
but that
you keep
them from
the evil
one.
They are
not of
the
world,
just as I
am not
of the
world.
Sanctify
them in
your truth.
Your word
is truth.
As you
sent me
into the
world,
so I
have sent
them into
the world,
and for
their sake
I consecrate
myself,
that they
also may
be sanctified
in truth.
He's
praying for
the apostles
here.
Then verse
30 he
says,
I do not
ask for
these only,
but also
for those
who will
believe in
me through
their word.
All of
us.
He expands
this prayer
to all of
us who
have placed
our faith
in Jesus
Christ,
the word
of God.
You see
here this
picture to
draw you
a connection.
We have
been sanctified.
We have
been set
aside from
the world
for the glory
of God.
The way the
Old Testament
Israelites
had been.
To be built
up into a
spiritual house,
not a
physical one.
We're not
set to the
task of
building
grandiose
buildings to
the glory
of God.
We're building
up a
spiritual house,
the church.
church.
This is
what has
been set
before us
and it
is an
immense
task.
It's not
something we
ought to
think we
can accomplish
on our
own.
And as
such,
we ought to
set ourselves
to prayer.
We have
Jesus as
our great
example,
teaching us
to pray in
Matthew 6.
And we'll
address that
some more
in the coming
weeks.
Let me close
with a quote
from Hudson
Taylor,
an English
Protestant
missionary to
China.
He says,
All God's
giants have
been weak
men who
did great
things for
God because
they believed
that God
would be with
them.
Let's pray
together.