Amelia Church of Christ - Christian Church in Amelia, OH near Cincinnati in Clermont County

This is the fourth message in our Demolition series. This series is based on the Old Testament book of Ezra. This book tells the story of how God brought the Israelites out of captivity and rebuilt them as his people. But as we’ve been saying all along, before God could rebuild them, he had to do some demolition work. He had to demolish some things in their lives to make room for something far better. And he’s doing the same things in our lives as we move through this series.

Today, we experience a God who is all about demolishing the walls of our prayerless lives. I realize that “prayerless” isn’t actually a word. My computer kept underlining it in red to remind me that it’s not a real word. But today, I’m declaring that prayerless is actually a word, regardless of what Microsoft tells me. I’m saying that it’s a word. And it’s a word that describes that way a lot of us live our lives. And it’s a word that ought to scare us. Prayerless should never describe someone who follows Jesus, and yet all too often, it does.

I won’t ask for a show of hands, but how many of you went through this entire week without prayer? How many of you could count the number of times you prayed this week on one hand? If we actually took that poll of all the Christians in this room, the results might not be all that encouraging.

Now, let me say right at the outset that I know some of you pray. I mean, you pray. Prayer is your lifeline. You can’t imagine going through a day without prayer. That’s awesome. I’m humbled and challenged by your commitment. I want you to take this message as an encouragement to grow even stronger in your commitment to prayer.

For others of you, you don’t pray. Let’s just be honest. You don’t pray. You don’t even know how to pray. This message isn’t going to answer your every question about prayer, but it will give you some tools to help you get started.

We’re in Ezra 8 today. Let me catch you up on what’s happened since last week. God had called his people to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. Last week, we saw the people of God run into some serious opposition as they pursued that mission. In fact, the opposition became so strong, that the Israelites allowed themselves to be taken off mission.

There’s a tragic verse at the end of Ezra 4. The Israelites had run into intense opposition, and Ezra 4:24 says, “Thus the work on the house of God in Jerusalem came to a standstill...” (Ezra 4:24, NIV)

The Israelites walked away from their God-given mission for decades. But now, let’s fast-forward in the story. Decades later, the people of God resumed their mission. They had paid a great price for walking away from God’s call for their lives, as we talked about last week. It took a long time, but they finally returned to their mission and the temple was completed.

Ezra, who conveniently wrote the book of Ezra, wasn’t in Jerusalem for the temple construction. He was still in Babylon with a huge contingent of God’s people. Remember that the Israelites had been in Babylonian captivity for decades. Not all of them had returned to Jerusalem yet. But now, they were all free to return to their homeland in Jerusalem. Ezra was going to be in charge of leading a huge group of them out of Babylon back to Jerusalem.

King Artaxerxes told Ezra, “Now I decree that any of the Israelites in my kingdom, including priests and Levites, who wish to go to Jerusalem with you may go.” (Ezra 7:13, NIV)

God’s faithfulness to his people showed again and again. He was faithful to them, even though they had disobediently walked away from his command to rebuild the temple. He gave them a second chance and now the temple was completed. And now, he is bringing even more of his people back home, leading them out of foreign land where they had once been in slavery.

That’s where we’re picking things up today. Ezra is preparing to lead more than 5,000 Israelites from Babylon back to Jerusalem.

Let’s pick it up in Ezra 8:21. “There, by the Ahava Canal, I proclaimed a fast, so that we might humble ourselves before our God and ask him for a safe journey for us and our children, with all our possessions.

I was ashamed to ask the king for soldiers and horsemen to protect us from enemies on the road, because we had told the king, “The gracious hand of our God is on everyone who looks to him, but his great anger is against all who forsake him.”

So we fasted and petitioned our God about this, and he answered our prayer.” (Ezra 8:21-23, NIV)

As we unpack these verses today, there are three principles of prayer that we can pull out and being to apply in our lives.

First of all, we have to pray with humility. If you want to discover the truth of this thing called prayer, this is where you have to start. The life or death of our prayers starts with our own attitude.

Look at verse 21 again. “There, by the Ahava Canal, I proclaimed a fast, so that we might humble ourselves before our God and ask him for a safe journey for us and our children, with all our possessions.” (Ezra 8:21, NIV)

Powerful, life-affecting prayer begins with a humble attitude. It begins by recognizing who you are actually going to encounter in prayer. You are going to encounter God.

St. Augustine reminds us, “Since it is God we are speaking of, you do not understand it. If you could understand it, it would not be God.”

We’re talking about the incomprehensible God. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The Great I AM. The Alpha and Omega. The eternal, omnipotent God of heaven and earth. That’s who you are coming to meet in prayer. And that should be enough to take your attitude down a few notches.

It’s really no wonder that some believers through the ages have felt more comfortable praying to saints or relying on intermediaries, rather than praying directly to God. When you truly encounter God, it is a humbling, sometimes terrifying, experience.

In his book entitled Prayer, Philip Yancey wrote, “As a journalist, I have had occasion to spend time with famous people who make me feel very small. I have interviewed two presidents of the United States, members of the rock band U2, Nobel laureates, television stars, and Olympic athletes. Although I prepare my questions thoroughly in advance, I rarely sleep well the night before and have to fight a case of nerves.

In prayer, I am approaching the creator of all that is. Someone who makes me feel immeasurably small. How can I do anything but fall silent in such presence? More, how can I believe that whatever I say matters to God? If I step back and look at the big picture, I even wonder why such a magnificent, incomprehensible God would bother with a paltry experiment like planet earth.” (Yancey, Philip. Prayer. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006, p. 48.)

When you approach God, there can’t be even a hint of arrogance or pride. If there is a speck of pride in our attitude, then we will not truly encounter God in prayer. Our pride and arrogance will build a wall between the Lord and us that is insurmountable. God has nothing but contempt for pride.

As Mark Driscoll said, “Pride is what got Satan kicked out of heaven and it will earn you a cut in line to hell.” God absolutely detests pride. Scripture says it clearly.

Throughout the Bible, God consistently promises that he will reject arrogance, but he will reward humility.

James 4 says, “‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’ Submit yourselves, then, to God.”(James 4:6b-7a, NIV)

Let’s just think about this logically. If God opposes the proud, and we try to pray to him with pride in our hearts, what is going to happen? He will reject us.

So how do you know if you are a prideful pray-er? Here are some clues…

1. Instead of seeking God’s direction, you simply want God’s permission. You always pray with your own agenda in mind. Rather than allowing God to direct you where to go or what to do, you simply want his permission to do what you’ve already predetermined in your mind and heart.

2. You are always asking, but never thanking. Our church used to have a worship experience called APEX once a month. For one of those worship experiences, our creative team determined that we were not going to ask God for one thing the entire night. We weren’t going to sing a song that asked him for anything. We weren’t going to ask him for anything in prayer. We decided that we would not ask for one single thing. Instead, we would spend the entire night thanking God for who he is and what he has done. Do you have any idea how hard that was?!?!

Ask Brian how hard it was to construct a song set where none of the songs asked God for anything. Try praying a prayer where you do not ask God for anything. It’s incredibly tough to do because we are programmed to do just that…ask.

Now, the Bible does tell us to ask for things in prayer. But, if that’s the only reason we pray, because we want God to give us something or to do something for us…then we have elevated ourselves to the throne of God and we have demoted God to role of Santa Claus. God isn’t some spiritual vending machine ready to spit out a blessing anytime you insert a spiritual quarter. When we treat him that way, it’s incredibly prideful.

3. Your prayers always center around you. You pray for things that affect you. You pray for outcomes that will benefit you. Your prayers are almost always egocentric.

In 1 Samuel 12, Samuel tells the Israelite people, “As for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the LORD by failing to pray for you.” (1 Samuel 12:23a, NIV)

If Samuel were to only pray for himself and not pray for others, he saw that as nothing less than sinful. Why? Because it would be rooted in pride, and we’ve already seen what God thinks about that.

4. You walk away from prayer unchanged. Anytime we truly encounter God, leaving unchanged is simply not an option. If you leave this worship experience today unchanged, the problem isn’t with God. The problem is with you. And you can just about guarantee that somewhere, somehow, you are carrying a prideful attitude that simply will not allow God to work in your life, to change you from the inside out.

There may be no more destructive force in our faith walk than pride. It simply short-circuits everything that God wants to do in our lives. That’s why, before Ezra and the Israelites set out on their journey, he called them together to pray, so that they could humble themselves before God. If you want to breathe new life into the way you pray, you have to start with this non-negotiable. You have to pray with humility.

There’s a second principle to pull out of our passage from Ezra. Pray with urgency.

Some of you felt an urgency this past Tuesday. The date was April 15 and you felt an urgency to do a little thing called your taxes. Your back was against the wall, you scrambled to get all the paperwork done, you stood in line at the post office to get it mailed off that day…there was such an urgency in the process that you couldn’t even focus on anything else.

When is the last time you approached prayer with that kind of urgency? Have you ever seen prayer as so absolutely urgent that you just couldn’t do anything else?

Ezra definitely did. Look at Ezra 8:21 again. “There, by the Ahava Canal, I proclaimed a fast, so that we might humble ourselves before our God and ask him for a safe journey for us and our children, with all our possessions.” (Ezra 8:21, NIV)

There was an urgency to this prayer gathering. Ezra was getting ready to lead more than 5,000 people on a four-month journey to Jerusalem. They would be traveling in the heat of the summer, often traveling through sun-scorched desert regions. These 5,000 people would require daily food and water, not mention the needs of all their pack animals. The logistics of leading this massive group through some of the toughest terrain on the planet drove Ezra to his knees. There was an unmistakable urgency in his prayer.

Have you ever approached prayer with that kind of urgency? A lot of you have. It probably happened when life dealt you a very tough and very unexpected hand.

Several years ago we experienced a family crisis. And I prayed like I had never prayed before. I prayed with more consistency, I prayed with more passion, I prayed with more urgency than I ever had before. It felt like I did nothing but pray. You know why? Because it’s all I could do. Prayer was the only thing I had left, and so I approached it with an unprecedented sense of urgency. It’s easier to look up when you’re flat on your back. That’s exactly where I was. Life had knocked me flat on my back and they only place I could look was up.

A lot of you know what I’m talking about. You remember that time when you were hurting so badly that you prayed with an unbelievable urgency. Some of you are experiencing that now.

Ezra knew he was leading these people into the desert. He knew that things were going to get very tough, very quickly. So he prayed with intensity and urgency. It’s what we do when we’re in the desert.

But what about when we’re by the canal? Look at the verse again.

“There, by the Ahava Canal, I proclaimed a fast, so that we might humble ourselves before our God and ask him for a safe journey for us and our children, with all our possessions.” (Ezra 8:21, NIV)

Ezra was standing beside the waters of the Ahava Canal. This was an irrigation canal the kept the land well-watered. Around that canal, everything was green, lush, and beautiful.

To really understand the full symbolism, you have to know the original meaning of this canal’s name. The Hebrew word “Ahava” means love. Literally, this was “love’s canal” or “the canal of love.”

Praying with urgency is not a problem when you’re in the desert. When it seems like everything else has dried up, prayer is our go-to response.

But what about those seasons of life when you’re not in the desert? Instead, you’re in a lush, green land watered by the canal? What if, instead of feeling like you’re in the desert of abandonment, you’re being watered by the canal of God’s love? Is prayer as urgent to you then?

For most of us, the answer is no. Urgent prayer is reserved for a crisis. For times of hurt and pain. For the desert.

But when things are going good, when everything is green and growing, prayer slips to the back burner pretty quickly. Instead of urgency, we approach prayer very casually…if we pray at all.

Parents, let me ask you…what if your kids only came to you in a crisis? Now, obviously you want your kids to come to you if they’re in a crisis, but what if that was the only time they came to you? What if they only came to you when they were in desperate need? Wouldn’t be much of a relationship, would it?

If we wouldn’t want our kids to do that to us, why do we think that God will tolerate that as our Father? If you’re in the desert, then pray with urgency. But if you’re by the canal, prayer is no less important. No less urgent.

When we are in the desert, it’s not hard to tell if we’ve prayed while we were by the canal. In other words, how we pray when times are bad really reflects whether or not we learned to pray when times were good.

Last month, I made a hospital call that had a dramatic impact on me. I went to see a fellow named Dave, who is a member of our church here at Amelia. I saw Dave in the pre-op room right before they wheeled him to the operating room for major surgery.

I prayed with Dave and his family. But then Dave said, “I want to pray, too.” I’ll never forget what he said next. Dave prayed, “God, we will glorify you…whatever happens today…we will glorify you.”

This prayer came from the mouth of a man who was facing a very risky surgery and a possible life-threatening diagnosis. He was in the desert, but his confident, faithful prayer told me that he had prayed by the canal a thousand times before that. He prayed with urgency when things were bad because he had learned to pray with urgency when things were good.

You want to revitalize your prayer life? Pray with urgency, in the desert and by the canal.

Let’s unpack a final principle from our text in Ezra. Pray expectantly.

When you pray, do you pray like you mean it? Do you pray, seriously expecting something to happen? Ezra did.

Look at our text again. “There, by the Ahava Canal, I proclaimed a fast, so that we might humble ourselves before our God and ask him for a safe journey for us and our children, with all our possessions.

I was ashamed to ask the king for soldiers and horsemen to protect us from enemies on the road, because we had told the king, “The gracious hand of our God is on everyone who looks to him, but his great anger is against all who forsake him.”

So we fasted and petitioned our God about this, and he answered our prayer.” (Ezra 8:21-23, NIV)

The Israelites had gained favor with King Artaxerxes, but there were still a lot of people who opposed them, like we talked about last week. There were a lot of people groups around them who had no use for the Jews. And if they could ambush them on this journey, it could be a massacre.

Ezra knew the danger, yet he said, “I was ashamed to ask the king for soldiers and horsemen to protect us from enemies on the road, because we had told the king, “The gracious hand of our God is on everyone who looks to him, but his great anger is against all who forsake him.” (Ezra 8:22, NIV)

Ezra had talked a big game to the king about his faith in God, but now he had to back it up. How would it look if he said that he believed that God would protect them on the journey, but then he asked the king to send a battalion with them? Ezra knew it was time for him to put up or shut up.

So what did he do? Verse 23 says, “So we fasted and petitioned our God about this, and he answered our prayer.” (Ezra 8:21-23, NIV)

Ezra sized up the danger, but then he sized up his God. And he prayed with humility, urgency, and expectancy. He prayed, expecting God to come through.

Does that describe the way you pray? Do you pray, expecting to see God move? Expecting God to act? Or do you go through motions, praying, but not expecting anything to happen?

Isn’t it funny when we pray for something and then we’re shocked when it actually happens? We say things like, “I can’t believe it!” while God is shaking his head, saying, “That’s the problem. Why can’t you believe it?”

There are times when God doesn’t answer our prayer the way we want. He is supremely wise. He is sovereign. He doesn’t answer to us. But yet, in his love, there are still a lot of times when he allows our prayers to affect his actions. Is that incredible or what? The omnipotent God of the universe allows himself to be swayed by my prayer. I can’t even comprehend that, but I know it’s true because he said so in the Bible

Psalm 65 says, “You faithfully answer our prayers with awesome deeds, O God our savior.” (Psalm 65:5, NLT)

When you pray, do you expect to see the awesome deeds of God? Do you expect to see awesome results? When you pray for rain, do you remember to pack an umbrella? Do you pray expectantly?

Ezra gives us three key principles that have to be central in the way we pray.

Pray with humility.

Pray with urgency.

Pray expectantly.

God loved you enough to give you the gift of his presence. You can access it anytime through prayer. You don’t have to go through somebody else. You have to follow religious rituals or formulas. You can simply enter God’s presence humbly, with an urgent expectancy. If you start doing this with consistency, I can promise you this…you’ll look back on this day as a turning point in your life. God will knock your socks off with what he’ll do in your life.

Mike Edmisten

Tags: Demolition, prayer, Ezra