Praying for Change

While we look at methods and we try to find the best program, God always looks for the best person. Dr. Tony Evans reminds us that as believers, we need to be ready to be part of God's solution. God can find the right leader. He can fix some churches.

He can fix some cultures. But the problem keeps on being people who do not want God and God's ways. This is the alternative broadcast featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr. Tony Evans.

Harry Truman famously displayed a sign on his desk that read, The Buck Stops Here. Well, in today's classic sermon from Dr. Evans, he challenges Christians to adopt that same mindset when it comes to shaping our culture. He argues that if we're not using our abilities to influence society for God, we're contributing to its decline. Let's join him in the first chapter of Nehemiah as he reveals how we can bring light into our culture.

This book is not only about a people, it's about a man named Nehemiah. But when a man or a woman makes themselves available to God, things can happen. While we look at methods and we try to find the best program, God always looks for the best person because God's method is always a person. God can always create a method if he can find the right person. And so the Scripture says that the eyes of the Lord run to and fro of the earth looking for somebody he can use. If God could only find the right man, he could fix some families. God could find the right leader, he could fix some churches, he could fix some cultures, he could do a lot of fixing, but the problem keeps on being people.

People who do not want God in God's ways. We ended in verse 4, and that's where we would like to pick it up, beginning in verse 4 today. Now it came about when I heard these words. I sat down and wept and mourned for days. And I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven. When he heard about the collapse of the world that he loved, of the people that he was a part of, of his community, if you will, he was so hurt and so in pain that he fasted and he prayed for many days. What I would like to introduce is what I concluded with last time, and that is that his first response was prayer, not his last response. He didn't go to God after he tried all of his human ingenuity, after he tried all of his human methods, after he had tried all the secularistic thinking, he went to God first. When there's been a collapse in your life, when do you go to God?

After the marriage counseling has failed, after all your personal efforts have been exhausted. No, no, it says he went to God first, and he went to God first for many days, and he went to God first for many days fasting. We define fasting as giving up a craving of the body because you have a greater need of the Spirit. In other words, this thing is so serious that you're willing to sacrifice for it.

And you always know whether something is serious by the price you're willing to pay for it. And so God provided the mechanism of fasting to give people the opportunity to let God know how serious things are because they will give up food or even in a marriage relationship, sexual intimacy, 1 Corinthians 7, 5, they will give that up and the couple will pray together during the time they would normally be intimate together. It is giving up a passion of the flesh for a greater need of the Spirit. Now fasting is a lost art today, but the New Testament is clear. Some things come only by fasting and prayer.

Some things are of such a serious, devastating nature that they call for sacrifice. And so that's what he does. He goes to prayer. So prayer is his preamble to action, and prayer provides his power for action. You're going to find out as we go through the text, he's going to do a lot of things, but this man is careful to bathe it in prayer. You can always tell how serious people are about their belief that God must make the difference by their prayer. So this man is facing an impossible situation, the collapse of his beloved civilization, and he prays. We would like to learn from his prayer. He says in verse 5, Now I said, I beseech thee, O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who preserves the covenant and lovingkindness for those who love him and keep his commandments.

Now most of us would have jumped in and said, Fix this problem, most of us would have jumped in and said, Lord, I've got a problem, do something. But notice how he introduces his prayer. He introduces his prayer by reflecting on the character of God. He doesn't start off with his problem, he starts off with his God. Now why does he start off with his God before an analysis of his problem? Because when you've got a big problem, you need a big God. And if you've got a big problem, as Nehemiah has, and therefore you need a big God, you ought to start off reminding yourself of who your God is and what your God can do.

He starts off by saying, I beseech thee, O great and awesome God. Now what's his problem? Total community collapse. Total economic collapse. Total social collapse.

Crime is on the rampage. He's got families who can't work together and live together anymore. He's got a society in ruin. He's got no internal superstructure to hold things together. He's got something the politicians can't solve, something economists can't solve, something the social scientists can't solve.

He's got something in spite of laws being passed can't be solved. So he says, to the great and awesome God. In other words, he puts his unsolvable problem against an all-sufficient God. When you juxtaposition your greatest problem against your knowledge of the size of God, you get a proper perspective. See, we panic because this thing looks so big.

We panic because we don't know how we're going to get this situation in our lives fixed. But when you see a God who can by the spoken word create the universe, when you put your problem or your need against a God who is able to breathe breath in the nostrils of a man and make him into a living soul, when you see a God who can take great white sharks and appoint them to swallow men in order to lead them back in his will, when you see a God who knows every star by name, what did you say was wrong? It is only the Christian who is able to see their problem in light of their God that has the confidence to move against that problem with courage. In fact, that word, great and awesome, is recorded also in Nehemiah 4 verse 14 when the people were afraid. He says, when I saw their fear, I rose and spoke to the nobles, the officials, and the rest of the people.

I saw that they were trembling at circumstances. And I said, do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord who is great and awesome.

And fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your houses. In other words, he says the way you conquer your fear is by remembering the size of your God. You know why we live in so much fear? We forget God.

And so this man himself was faced. By the way, it's important that you verbalize your prayers. Some people here would say, well, I know God is great and awesome.

No, no, no. You may know it academically, but when you're in a crisis, you don't need academics. You don't just need to know what's written on the paper. You need to enter into the experience of it. And that's why the song says, count your blessings, name them one by one. Count your blessings, see what God has done. Count your blessings, name them one by one, and it will remind you what the Lord has done. You see, when we heard the song that he woke us up this morning, now we could academically have said that this morning, yeah, God woke me up, but it was something to hear it in praise.

To remind that yes, it is indeed God who woke us up this morning. You know how it is when you're watching a sporting event and there's a great play and it's your favorite sport. You break out and you say, wow, did you see that?

That's a miracle. You jump up and with excitement you, you venerate, you express yourself with praise. And suppose you just sat there and said, wow, tremendous, awesome. No, there is something about entering into the experience of praise, because God says God inhabits the praise of his people. Dr. Evans will have more on the greatness of God and his unwavering faithfulness when he returns in just a moment.

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Explore the kingdom anytime, anywhere. The lesson we're in the middle of today is the second installment in Tony's 15-part sermon series on the book of Nehemiah. In this study, Dr. Evans walks through the incredible story of a man called to rebuild not just a city, but a people, restoring faith, perseverance, and spiritual renewal. You'll gain powerful insights on leadership, trusting God's provision, and standing firm in the face of opposition. This complete study is available for your personal audio library on both digital download, an either CD or USB stick, and includes material we won't have time to present on the broadcast. This is a valuable collection of messages, and for a limited time, we're making them available bundled along with Tony's compelling book One Nation Under God.

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That's 1-800-800-3222. Right now, let's get back to Dr. Evans in the first chapter of the book of Nehemiah. And so, he thinks about the great and awesome God in verse 5, and he talks about his character. Not only is he great and awesome, but he preserves the covenant and loving kindness for those who love him and keep his commandments. He says, God is not only awesome, but he's faithful. He talks about preserving the covenant. The covenant means the binding relationship that God enters into with his people. And as his people live in context with that covenant, they can be confident of God's grace, God's forgiveness, and God's strength.

When God's people get right with God, they can count on him coming through for them. Some time ago, I told you about the experience that my family had. We were on vacation some years ago. We all drove up and went to the Grand Canyon.

But I had made a great mistake. That is, I forgot to make reservations, and if you've ever been to the Grand Canyon, you'll know that there are like three or four hotels, and then everybody else kind of has their campers. Well, we weren't traveling in a camper, and we didn't make a hotel reservation.

Now, if you don't get a hotel reservation in the area where the Grand Canyon is, you have to drive an hour and a half to the nearest town to get reservations. We had arrived there at some ungodly hour late at night or early in the morning. We went up and said, sir, we would like a room. There were a whole line of people there, and we were told that there were no rooms. I knew how Jesus felt, no room in the inn.

I cannot tell you the frustration of being tired and can't find a room to see a hole in the ground. So we were pondering, and we only had one choice, and that was to drive an hour and a half to go back to a town that was nearby. We decided we'd go to the restroom of the hotel where there was a restaurant to clean up ourselves and to refresh ourselves before we had to drive, and we were sitting around eating just before we drove, and one of my daughters made an interesting statement. She said, you know, Dad, you haven't prayed. Every now and then I'm not very spiritual, and this was one of those occasions. I really didn't want to pray.

I wanted to sleep. So I said, you pray. So she had a simple prayer, Lord, we know that you're able to give us a room, and we know it's full, but if it's your will, give us a room, because we know you're able.

Children sometimes can pray profoundly. So she said amen, and I was thinking now let's get on the road and go to the real world. As we finished eating and got ready to get up and leave, the hotel proprietor came by and said, weren't you one of the people asking about a room? We said yes. Well, there were a lot of people before you, but I can't find any of them, and one of our guests had to leave suddenly.

Would you still like the room? I looked up at heaven and looked over at my daughter, out of the mouth of babes. But Nehemiah sees a great problem that he doesn't have a solution for, and all he can say is, oh, awesome God. Verse 6, let thine ear be attentive and thine eyes open to hear the prayer of thy servant, which I am praying for thee day and night. Now we know he's praying for many days. In fact, let me tell you how many days he was praying. You notice in verse 1, it began in the month of Chislev, and in chapter 2, verse 1, he doesn't get an answer until the month of Nisen.

Now the difference between Chislev and Nisen is four and a half months. So he goes some four and a half months praying. One of the questions I'm often asked is, how long do you pray for something?

Well, there's a very simple answer. Can you get an answer? That's how long you pray.

Sometimes it's a day, sometimes it's a month, sometimes, like him, it's four and a half to five months, other times it's years. Now God can only give you one of three answers. There's only three answers God can give. He can say yes.

That's the answer we generally want. He can say no. Or he can say nothing, which means wait. Until God says no, you pray.

You don't quit. You pray until you hear something. Because often God saying nothing is God saying, let me arrange things for the proper time to say yes. That's why you don't cut short praying. That's why you don't quit praying.

Because unless you've heard no, you assume God is going to say yes, going to arrange things different than what you asked, so that it might as well be yes, or get you ready for no. He prays day and night. He says, I pray on behalf, this is called emetession, praying on behalf of Israel, sons of Israel, thy servants.

Now look at this. Confessing the sins of the sons of Israel, which we have sinned against thee, I and my father's house have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against thee and have not kept the commandments nor the statutes nor the ordinances which thou didst command thy servant Moses. Now let me say something that will not be popular, but unless you believe it and take it seriously, nothing else will matter.

And that is that deterioration in your personal life, family life, or societal life can be traced back to sin. Let me say that again. Because this is what we've missed.

Even Christians have missed this. The walls are broken down. You would say, well, what you need is a contractor. You don't have walls. You need somebody to know how to build walls.

No, no, no. The walls were broken down because we have acted corruptly. Society dissipates because we have acted corruptly. There is a breakdown in the culture because we have acted corruptly. You can trace the headlines of the morning news in terms of what's happening in crime and what's happening in economics and what's happening in social deterioration and racial strife to sin. Now the city council don't want to hear that, but this is something Christians have got to come to understand.

The Bible says sin is a reproach to any people. That when there is a breakdown in righteousness in a culture, there is a breakdown in the culture. And what people focus on are the effects, not the cause. Dr. Tony Evans reminding us that true change begins when we turn to God in prayer for the transformation our world desperately needs.

But that transformation starts in us first. Tony's back now with a follow-up challenge about encountering Jesus. You're not a Christian because you're religious or because you go to church or even because you believe in God. You're a Christian because you've accepted Jesus Christ as your personal sin-bearer. Being religious, doing good works, that's nice, but it's not sufficient when God demands perfection. 2 Corinthians 5.21 says, He who knew no sin became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. So what God has said is He placed your sin on the cross on the Christ and then judged Christ for your sin. If you will go to Christ, He will take Christ's righteousness, which is perfect, and He will credit it to your account. So you will stand before God as though you've never sinned, not because you're sinless, but because you've got a sinless credit on your account. If you will receive Jesus Christ right now, if you will invite Him into your life believing that He died for you and rose for you personally, He will credit your account with perfection because He's already credited your sin onto Jesus Christ. So go to Christ right now and get this free gift of salvation that He's offering to all who come to Him for it.

Find out more about what it means to be a real Christian. Visit tonyevans.org and follow the link that says Jesus. You'll get a straightforward explanation from Tony and some free resources to get you started off right. Again, that's tonyevans.org. And while you're there, don't miss your chance to take advantage of the resource package I mentioned earlier. All 15 messages from both volumes of Tony's current sermon series on the book of Nehemiah, along with his inspiring One Nation Under God book. They're yours with our thanks when you make a donation to help keep this listener-supported program coming your way. Just visit tonyevans.org to make the arrangements or call our resource center at 1-800-800-3222, where team members are standing by to assist with your request.

That's 1-800-800-3222 or online at tonyevans.org. We've all been there, waiting for something to change but feeling like nothing is happening. Nehemiah faced a similar challenge, a huge problem and no clear solution, except for prayer. Next time, Dr. Evans shows how Nehemiah's prayers remind us that when we align with God's will, change is already in motion, even when we don't see it. Be sure to join us for that.