Sermon Tone Analysis
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Today, we’re continuing our study in the book of Nehemiah.
And we’ve
been looking at the prayer Nehemiah makes for his people at the beginning of the
book.
He’s received bad news about what’s been going on in Jerusalem, and now,
after a good long cry, he prays.
Two weeks ago, we started looking at his prayer
and how he begins with worship.
He worships God by extolling His greatness, His
tremendous power and glory, and worships God for His love, compassion, grace,
and mercy.
And today, I want to continue looking at Nehemiah's prayer, except I’m not
going to take the next verse.
I’ll get to it, maybe, but I want to skip down today and
focus on verse 11 because it speaks to the heart of prayer that is answered.
Or it’s a
key ingredient we need when we pray.
And the ingredient is a right heart and a
right heart intention.
I mean that we have to have a clean heart before the Lord.
As
Autumn talked about last week, we don’t want bitterness, wrath, anger,
unforgiveness, or pride to lurk in there; but we also want to pray with a genuine
intention to be the best disciples we can be and to follow Jesus fully as much as we
are able.
Our heart intentions matter when we pray.
James 5:16 AMP “The heartfelt and persistent prayer of a righteous man
(believer) can accomplish much [when put into action and made effective by
God—it is dynamic and can have tremendous power].”
The heartfelt prayer of a
righteous person (or a person who has been made right with God through Jesus
Christ) matters.
And I want to talk about what it means for a prayer to be heart-felt.
I want to discuss why our hearts matter so much when we come to God in prayer.
But let’s pray first before we jump into our study.
Father in Heaven, we give
You glory, honor, and praise as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
We say You
are great and glorious, and You are full of mercy, love, and compassion.
Thank you
for this time we have together today.
The Heart of the Matter | 1
I ask that You would bless Your word and that You would quicken our hearts
to respond to the message the Holy Spirit would say to the church.
I ask that You
would meet us here today and minister Your life, Your healing, and Your grace to
each one of us.
Open our hearts, eyes, and ears to You, Lord.
We give You glory,
honor, and praise today.
In Jesus’ Name, amen.
Nehemiah 1:11 NKJV O Lord, I pray, please let Your ear be attentive to the
prayer of Your servant, and to the prayer of Your servants who desire to fear Your
name; and let Your servant prosper this day, I pray, and grant him mercy in the
sight of this man.”
For I was the king’s cupbearer.
This is the end of
Nehemiah’s prayer.
There’s a lot going on that we can study, such as praise and
worship, which we looked at last week.
But I’m skipping down to verse 11 today
because I want you to know that our heart posture in prayer matters.
The heart
posture of Nehemiah is one that wants to obey the Lord, one that desires to be the
person God wants Him to be and to do the things God wants him to do.
There always has and always will be a very close relationship between
loving God and obeying Him.
But both of those things, love and obedience, come
from our hearts.
They spring out of our hearts.
Our heart attitudes provide the
origin for what we do and how we act.
Matthew 12:33-35 NKJV “Either make
the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for a
tree is known by its fruit.
34 Brood of vipers!
How can you, being evil, speak
good things?
For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.
35 A good
man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil
man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things.
Jesus is saying that what’s inside us is going to come out of us, because our
heart attitudes are made manifest, or evident as we go through life.
Jesus said that
‘out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.’
The Heart of the Matter | 2
This could be good or bad - but what’s in the heart is going to come out
when a person talks and acts.
Whether it’s bitterness, anger, unforgiveness,
perversity, love, peace, grace, or kindness, you’ll be able to tell eventually what’s
in there by what a person says and does.
A good person out of their heart brings
good things out, and a bad person brings bad things out of their heart.
“The thought
is of bringing to light what is in the secret place, and that a person’s words or deeds
reveal what is really important to them and so their true character.”1
And the point here is that our emphasis in our walk with Jesus should be our
hearts, because that’s where our treasures are, that’s what generates our thoughts,
emotions, and behaviors.
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