Nehemiah Part 5: A Desperate Heart
...let Your ear now be attentive and Your eyes open to hear the prayer of Your servant which I am praying before You now, day and night, on behalf of the sons of Israel Your servants, confessing the sins of the sons of Israel which we have sinned against You; I and my father's house have sinned. Nehemiah 1:6
He knew God was hearing him, but here he is desperate. Desperate: you want something really bad. Before I was a Pastor I was a hotel manager. I was desperate. I was desperate to succeed. I flunked out of college twice. I did not do good in school. My parents got divorced. I took for a short while some type of weird nerve pills. I got married really young, had a kid right away, and I was desperate to succeed. I had a job for a dollar an hour. I worked night and day as hard as I could. I was desperate. I became the best, youngest hotel manager they had. I was desperate. We need to be desperate. Desperate for the kingdom of God, desperate to see the church built. Desperate for the relationship, for the vision to work.
“And your eyes open.” We pray that here. We talk to people every day and they don’t see it. They don’t see the vision, the message. We are one of the few churches in America, people have contacted us around the country, who are really standing up and saying something. Not the only one - that would be the height of pride and arrogance, but there are not a lot of them. People don’t see it. People would rather bag groceries at Publix than really go with God.
It is not what everybody has to do, but we have to give it all up in our heart. Nehemiah had a good job, he did not need to work for God, but he did it. We have to get back, we have to pray with your whole heart. Whenever I did anything, I did it with my whole heart. When I played baseball I did it with my whole heart. My Dad played professional baseball and he did it with his whole heart. He said to me, “No matter what you do, Terry, do it with your whole heart. It does not matter if you are smart or dumb, do it with our whole heart. Give it so much.” When we do a job in these companies that we have, when we do a job for the Kingdom of God, we need to do it with our whole heart.
What did Lance Armstrong say? He won the Tour de France seven times. Seven times in a row, riding a bicycle! We don’t ride a bicycle in America. You ride a bicycle until you are sixteen and then you get a license. You put that bicycle in the garage, man! That’s what they do in franc, in Europe and all those places. That guy is from Texas. You don’t ride bicycles in Texas! But he is the greatest bicyclist of all times. They say they asked him, “What do you do on Thanksgiving, Lance?” “Well, I ride my bike.” “What do you do on Christmas?” “Well, I ride my bike.” He did not get where he is at by not riding his bike, by not doing it with his whole heart. He had probably a talent. He had a desire, but he did it with his whole heart. If you do it half way, you are going to get half way, probably less than half way. If you do your job half way, you will probably get fired.
It says here he prayed night and day. On behalf of himself? It wasn’t the “gi’me, gi’me, gi’me, my name if Jimmy.” Good, you can pray for your self. God loves you and wants to bless you, is going to bless you, all those good things. But in this verse it says, “I prayed on behalf of all the sons of Israel.” We need to pray on behalf of the United States of America. We are not going in the right way. We can yell, holler and scream all we want to in our church, but we are not going the right way. Crime is not less, drugs are not less, we have abortion and kill 3,700 babies per day. God cannot bless that. I don’t care how many times we wave the flag and say, “In God We Trust.” God cannot bless that. It is not a good thing. Same sex marriage is not a good thing. I know it sounds all humanistic, it sounds good, that the only thing that counts is that we love one another. It all sounds good, but it is not true. I am sorry, but it is just not right.
Nehemiah said I have also sinned. We can pray for the nation, but we also have to confess our sins ourselves. We have become a nation where we blame everyone else. We have nice little things where we blame our mother or our father, our husband or wife. We blame McDonalds! If you are fat it is McDonalds fault. It is not McDonalds’ fault if you are fat. You eat too much. It is our fault if we are fat. We need to take responsibility for what we do. No, actually it is my fault. I am taking the drugs, I have the bad attitude. No, you did not give me the bad attitude. It is my fault. You are not helping, maybe. Your attitude is not too good either, but it is my attitude, my anger, my problem, my responsibility. I am at fault. But we say it is your fault - if only you were better. I am only as mean as I am because of you all! It is your fault. Nehemiah said, no, me - I have also sinned in my father’s house. I have sinned.
