When I was in university a group of us would go down to High Street in downtown Columbus, Ohio and talk about Jesus with the people down there. To get a little context, High Street is a little like the Byward Market are here, close to the university, center of town, lots of bars, lots of people on the street. So we’d talk about Jesus and sometimes people would be interested about learning more, and sometimes they’d want to check out a Christian Church – the only problem was that we couldn’t find a good church in the area to send them to. We looked and looked, then found one, just over the bridge – walking distance to the place where we shared with people. I checked out there doctrinal statement online – looked good, so Jean and I and a couple of friends went to visit them. We sat through their service that Sunday morning. It was easy to notice that they were very traditional and everyone had very grey hair, but that’s fine – would they be welcoming of the students and street people we’d send them? We talked to the pastor after the service, and I am not sure if I have ever been as disappointed with a Christian in my life as I was when he told me that it would probably be better if we didn’t send those type of people to his church. Keep in mind that theirs was the only gospel preaching church for miles around the inner city core. This was his answer: “We don’t think we’d be a good fit for them. Even though we’re located right downtown, we think of ourselves as more of a country church that just happens to be located in the middle of the city.” I was a bit upset. Ok, very upset. How can a church be so disconnected of the community around it to the point that they would say, please don’t send people to us?
We’re actually going to be moving fairly quickly this morning. Last week we spent most of our time defending and defining the concept of a church as the Family of Families. We’re not a business, not a political organization, not an entertainment complex, but a family. We defended this logically and scripturally.
Today, we’re going to focus more on implications. Particularly, we’re going to ask the question, “If the church is a family, then how do we get along as a family?”
If any of you come from broken families or families that were less than ideal, you know that this is important, even perhaps the more important question. For there are dysfunctional families, and there are dysfunctional churches. And here’s why this is so important – very rarely (although it does happen) does someone’s experience within a dysfunctional family turn them off to the concept of family in general. For example, it is rare that someone would say I hated my dad, so now I believe that the concept of fatherhood itself is erroneous. It does happen, but it is rare. However, I meet people quite often who had a been experience in a church and now believe that the concept of Jesus is erroneous. So it’s not only important to believe and understand the church as a family, but also to act like one – and not just any family, but a harmonious family that glorifies God.
How a person functions as a member of a church is determined to a great extant the person’s images of what a church is.
If the church is understood as . . . then a good member . . .
• Country Club participates, pays his dues, invites guests
• Corporation makes a profit, attends meetings, protects image
• Spiritual Co-op gives in order to get, does his share
• Lecture Series listens, takes notes, attends
• Theater is on time, dresses appropriately, is a critic
• Counseling Centre is open and honest, comes to get needs met
• Political Activist Group supports the cause, debates outsiders, raises funds
The question before us is whether there is a Biblically prescribed model of what the church should look like that will inform how we are to view our responsibilities and the nature of our participation within it.
Read Acts 13:1-3, 14:19-28
Intro: OCBC was planted as a church in the spring of 1976 to reach Mandarin-speaking immigrants in the Ottawa region. Over the years, God has blessed our congregation with people and resources to continue serving as a light to this community. In the nineteen eighties, our English congregation was added to minister to the Canadian-born children of those immigrants. Today, our Mandarin and English congregations strive to work together as one family to establish believers in the Gospel.
Being an ethnic church is not without its struggles. In a presentation given at the Association of North American Chinese Evangelical Free Churches (ANACEFC) Conference in 2009, Keynote Speaker John Auxier of Trinity Western University delivered a message outlining an ominous life-cycle he observed through his research of Chinese and other immigrant churches.
Phase 1: The Missional Phase: This is the initial phase of the immigrant church, usually occurring during a time of booming immigration. The church serves as a place for these displaced immigrants to connect with others who share their cultural background. In this stage, the focus of the church is external. Evangelism thrives. Outreach drives the church and is contagious, for as the church engages itself in mission, it sees people coming to the Lord, which encourage it onward in mission.
Phase 2: The Maintenance Phase: Sooner or later, however, immigration slows. Because there are less people to reach, evangelistic attempts become less fruitful, and missional activities diminish. It’s during this time that the focus turns inward, on maintaining what has been established. Programs turn inwards. It is also during this time that English Congregations are added, generally first as children’s or youth ministries to minister to the second generation.
Phase 3: The Monument Phase: During this phase, the first generation who started the church is now aging. Generation 1.5 (those first generation immigrants who were not part of the first wave) struggles to please everyone, wanting to please the elder generation, while concerned about their Canadian-born kids. And the kids? Most of the second generation leaves the church after the age of 25. The younger generation has no vision for reaching their generation for Christ through the church, so the ones who seek to reach out do so through other organizations. A survival mentality develops; people are so scared to further damage the church that innovation becomes very difficult. In this sensitive environment, church politics becomes more and more of a problem.
Phase 4: The Mortuary Phase: Most churches, upon getting to this stage go down one of these paths.
1) Over several generations, the church will become transformed into an English-speaking congregation with a Chinese heritage.
2) Over several generations, the church will shrink to the point of closing its doors.
We believe that neither scenario is attractive to us. As long as Chinese immigration into Ottawa remains at substantial level, our church must continue to shine as a beacon to new immigrants looking for a home. At the same time, our children and young people need to be part of a church in which they can envision a future for themselves, retaining their ties to their families and community while also branching out as members of the broader Canadian society. In some ethnic churches, these divergent goals have been perceived as being antithetical to one another, leading to conflict within and loss of unity in mission, yet we believe that it is possible a find in the scriptures a common vision and strategy that can unite a diverse church such as our in one mission.
Two Congregations, One Mission
The missionary teams sent out in the book of Acts did not go out aimlessly into the world, but went out with a clear mission. Acts chapter 13 and 14 give the clearest synopsis of this mission, from the sending out of the missionaries to their return at Antioch. At the end of this account Luke writes a very interesting phrase, in Acts 14:26. He writes, “they sailed to Antioch where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work which thy had fulfilled.” It’s this last phrase that is most important to us. When these missionaries went out into the world, they were given a work to do, a task which they were complete that was clear enough so that when they came home, they could say, we did it. So what was their task? We can quickly summarize their strategy found in chapters 13-14, in what has been referred to as “The Pauline Cycle”.
1) Evangelize Strategic Cities: Interestingly, we do not see the apostolic teams planting churches in every city. Instead they focused on key cities, strategic places for God’s kingdom. When they got there they made contacts and shared the gospel of Jesus Christ with those who would listen.
2) Established Believers into Local Churches: The pattern again and again throughout the New Testament is that believers were to be baptized and accepted into the local church. While baptism is an initiation into the body life, it is only the beginning of the establishment process. In verse 22 you see Paul strengthening the believers, encouraging them in their faith, and teaching them about life as a member of Christ’s body.
3) Entrust to Faithful Leaders: Paul did not stay long in the churches he planted – Ephesus was his longest stay of three years. But in the short time he spent in the churches he has very busy training men to be capable leaders to guard and guide the church after he moved on (see verse 23).
4) We must understand that this is not the end of the cycle! In fact, if the cycle were to end there, the church that was planted would be a phase #2 maintenance church. Yet this is not the case of the New Testament churches, and this is vital to us to understand. You see, the Antioch church that sent Paul was not the originator of the Pauline Cycle. They themselves had been planted by the Jerusalem church and as they were evangelized, and established and had leaders appointed, they continued the cycle geographically sending Paul and his team out. However, the church must not only keep the cycle geographically, but also across generations. This is seen most clearly in 2 Timothy 2:2, in which Paul instructed his protégé Timothy, In this passage Paul refers to four generations. The church needs to be replanted in every generation. The cycle must continue for everyone who comes into the church, whether they walk in here off a plane from China, or are born in the church.
This final arrow makes all of the difference between a church being a phase 1 or a phase 2 or 3 church. It gives purpose to everything we do in the church. For in order for the cycle to continue, we must be continually evangelizing, continually engaging our culture with the gospel, continually establishing new converts in the faith, continually raising up and training leaders, and continually sending some people out to continue the cycle geographically while keeping others in to continue the cycle generationally.
The Pauline Cycle gives us a clear mission as we seek to become a phase #1 church again. It brings unity to both of our congregations as we both seek to labour in the same vision, even as the outworking of that mission will look very different given the cultural context of each congregation.
Questions:
1) Why do you think there is often such tension within intergenerational or multi-cultural churches?
2) How does a focus on the mission of the church alleviate some of the potential tension?
3) What is required from those further along in the Pauline Cycle in terms of their relationship to those less established?
4) Where do you see OCBC as being strong in our establishment of people along the Pauline Cycle? Where do you us as still needing to grow up?
5) Where do you see yourself as fitting into the Pauline Cycle of OCBC?
Project: Write a half-page reflection on where you see yourself fitting into the Pauline Cycle at OCBC. How could you build into people less established? Through what means could you possibly become more established yourself?
This section of Nehemiah is devoted to detailing the schemes hatched against Nehemiah as the wall was nearing completion. In this section, Nehemiah describes the personal attacks he faced as he attempted to do God’s work. This sets chapter 6 apart from the intimidation of chapter 2, which was broadly directed against all of the people working on the wall. This is a very personal chapter, and it reminds me of something that I read in the book “The christian in Full Armour” by the Puritan William Gurnell. That is, Christianity is not for cowards. Some people view Christianity or the religious impulse as a crutch – something for the weak or the cowardly who can’t cut it in life without the belief in a safety net God. Let this chapter remind us that it takes courage to be a Christian. It takes courage to pray, to say, “Lord, have your will.” Who is braver, the person who thinks they are so in control of their own life that they never leave their comfort zone, or the person who comes to God and prays, “Lord, have your way” no matter where that takes me or what it causes me to do? Who is braver, the person who lives at the level of the world with its comforts and sins, or the person who through the power of the Spirit and the leading of the word does battle against the flesh? Who is braver, the person who never stands up for Jesus, the person who looks wise in the eyes of this world, or the person whose faith in Christ leads them to live differently and to look like fools in the eyes of this world. You can be safe and cowardly, or you can live for Christ. Nehemiah lived for God’s glory, and this was no safe thing.
Today’s message is entitled “Motives and Mortification.” I want to work carefully in this text so the Spirit is given full reign to convict our hearts and transform our lives. In doing so, I pray that I can cut to the heart of the issue in this text, for at first glance we may come away from this text with another law or shallow application.
Just to catch you up: we are studying through the book of Nehemiah together at the beginning of this year, as we believe that God is leading our church to seek the welfare of our city in a unique way, and so we’ve turned to Nehemiah as it is a book about God using his people to seek the welfare and rebuild their city. God is the hero of the book, but He uses a humble and faithful man, Nehemiah, to accomplish his will.
We are going through Nehemiah as we believe that God is calling us to do a work in seeking the benefit of our city and so we are hoping that we willed be spiritually prepared for the work that God has called us to do. Adam spoke on the first part of chapter four last week and touched on the theme of opposition and that the Christian life is hard, even at times painful, and I’m going to continue on in that theme as we cover the second half today. My message today is called “Battling and Building” in recognition of these two essentials elements of life. Battling and building. Let me explain how this works on some different levels and then we’ll jump into the text for God’s authoritative word.
Here is my thesis that I wish to explore today: much of our happiness and success in life, not to mention our endeavors in the Lord, stems from our preparedness and willingness to battle and to build. Here what I mean. Take your health for example. Here is the truth: although everyone gets sick, not everyone is healthy. You can be in great health and still get pneumonia or catch a virus or whatever. So every one will have to “battle” with sickness at some point in their lives – you don’t beat yourself up because you get sick – you battle the sickness. Yet some people get sick more often because they are routinely unhealthy. These people need to “build” health into their lives. Getting through a sickness is not the same as living a healthy lifestyle which promotes well-being. One is short-term crisis response, the other is long-term proactive habit-forming discipline. We could be talking about mental health as well – you may go through or have friends going through crisis – anxiety, depression, eating disorder, whatever – and we have to learn to battle to get through the crisis, yet they may also have to learn to build, how to renew their mind, how to take thoughts captive, how to pray and praise and build their life around the grace of the gospel. Leaving behind health, consider relationships. Your marriage will hit times of crisis, rocky times, arguments, painful seasons that you will have to battle through – not battle each other, but fight through the crisis. Yet, the secret to a healthy marriage is to continually be building, strengthening the relationship. Parenting’s the same: crisis are going to come, you are going to be in the depths of pain and you got to fight through it, but you also can be proactive in building a household of love and affirmation and godliness. Church is the same – we may face opposition or crisis together and need to be reactive at times, but we also labour and strive to build healthy community. Battling and Building. Let’s see what God has to say to us through Nehemiah.
Battling (Nehemiah 4:15)
In 15 we have one of the most anticlimactic verses in scripture:
When our enemies heard that it was known to us and that God had frustrated their plan, we all returned to the wall, each to his work.
Just to recap for you, this is the third time the phrase “when our enemies heard” is uttered in this chapter. The first time, verse 1, “When Sanballat heard that we were building the wall, he was angry and greatly enraged, and he jeered at the Jews.” Scripture actually records their trash talk and Nehemiah prays and simply ignores them. Don’t get involved. Don’t strike back. Pray to God, let him take care of them. Keep building. The second time is verse 7, “When Sanballat and his friends heard that the repairing of the walls was going forward and that the breaches were beginning to be closed, they were very angry.” They turned up the heat and made plans to attack. Again Nehemiah led the people in prayer, but now also set up a guard as protection and prepared the people to fight leading up to the great Braveheart moment of verse 14: “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 homes.” That’s where Adam left off last week. Escalating battle. The wall of Jerusalem becomes Helm’s Deep. Ready to fight, Get your battle paint! To arms, to arms! And verse 15: When our enemies heard that it was known to us and that God had frustrated their plan, we all returned to the wall, each to his work. Literally verse 15 says, God had broken their counsel. You can read to the end of this chapter and the rest of the book and not one arrow was fired by the enemy. All of the Lord of the Rings fans are like – where’s the battle? I told you – anticlimactic. I want you to notice a few things about the battle here:
• God had frustrated their plan: At first glance that is the interesting phrase, isn’t it? God frustrated their plan. How? In what way? Well what was their plan? Remember, we were told in verse 8: their plan was to fight against Jerusalem and cause confusion in it. This is probably the best translation. Another translation might read, to cause vacillation – doubt, division. Should we continue on in this manner? And if you remember from last week, they almost succeeded. The people of Judah tried to bring their young men home. Come home! Don’t fight! Come down off that wall – you’ll be killed. That’s when Nehemiah gave his braveheart speech, and, look here – that’s what won the battle. The Lord gave the people the spirit to fight! The victory wasn’t the winning of the battle, the victory was the willingness to fight. The battle is won without the drawing of a sword. Nehemiah recognized that the will to fight is a gift from the Lord!
• Satan is a coward: This is what I want to proclaim to you today – Satan is a coward! The will to fight is victory because Satan is a coward. James 4:7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. He will flee! Run to God, and resist the devil and he will flee!
Satan, you’re a coward! How do we resist the devil? 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. 11 Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. 12 There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor? Humble yourself under God, humble yourself before your brothers.
• Confession of sin.
• Take captive every thought (don’t be double minded)
• Remember that your brother is not your enemy.
• Remember that victory is the Lord’s.
Building (Nehemiah 4:15-23) When our enemies heard that it was known to us and that God had frustrated their plan, we all returned to the wall, each to his work.
We returned to the wall: Nehemiah had indeed taken a few days to get organized to deal with the threat, but then they got right back to the work. There is no shame in Sabbath. Whether we are talking about physical or mental health, relationship issues, the mission of the church, whatever, there is no shame in taking time to battle before getting back to building. Two errors we fall into is that we just keep building, ignoring the warning signs, arrows flying around our had and we just keep driving ourselves until we crash never dealing with the crisis. The other error that we can easily fall into is to never get back to building. Here I am thinking of the church I just visited. They’ve been through crisis. They went through a church split, some of their leaders had family issues, they’ve been through pain, and their response has been, shut it down, circle the wagons, refuse to ask questions of mission and purpose and future. It’s not healthy to ignore the crisis signs and just press forward without Sabbath, but its also not healthy to remain on the sidelines. Once the immediate threat is weathered, Nehemiah gets them back to building, but, notice this – they build in a way to protect them against ongoing threats.
16 From that day on, half of my servants worked on construction, and half held the spears, shields, bows, and coats of mail. And the leaders stood behind the whole house of Judah, 17 who were building on the wall. Those who carried burdens were loaded in such a way that each labored on the work with one hand and held his weapon with the other. 18 And each of the builders had his sword strapped at his side while he built. The man who sounded the trumpet was beside me. 19 And I said to the nobles and to the officials and to the rest of the people, “The work is great and widely spread, and we are separated on the wall, far from one another. 20 In the place where you hear the sound of the trumpet, rally to us there. Our God will fight for us.”
Neh. 4:21 So we labored at the work, and half of them held the spears from the break of dawn until the stars came out. 22 I also said to the people at that time, “Let every man and his servant pass the night within Jerusalem, that they may be a guard for us by night and may labor by day.” 23 So neither I nor my brothers nor my servants nor the men of the guard who followed me, none of us took off our clothes; each kept his weapon at his right hand.
One question that encourages me as a leader here: Why wasn’t this Nehemiah’s plan from the beginning? Shouldn’t he had known that there would be opposition? Sometimes leadership is reactive. Nehemiah possibly never imagined that it would come to this.
• They divided the labour (verse 16)
o Some were building and some were ready to fight the leaders were supporting them and overseeing and ready to call to arms. Everybody had his role, people were using their gifts. Some worked, some served, and some waited for battle, sitting in armor waiting to go. Prayer ministry – labor. Here’s the plan.
• They equipped themselves to build and battle (17-18). This is vital. Some people go through their Christian life from crisis to crisis rather than equipping themselves for health, vitality and maturity.
o Christian identity: Victory over the Darkness
o Living by grace
o Discipleship: First Principles
• Marriage, Work, Purpose, Mission
• They came to the aid of others (19) Every one was ready to come to the aide of others. They encouraged each other: God will fight for us. Not messiah complex I can fix your problem – but pointing to God. Now I’ve seen this happen in our church as well – often it is not publicized.
o Fellowship groups.
o Other churches.
• They persisted. (21-23). Day and night.
o Move to Westboro. Not just an anointing service and initial outreach. We need to organize ourselves for continual sustainable prayer and community involvement.
o We persevere to proclaim the name of Jesus.
Jesus came to battle sin and build his church.
This is the week that we actually get to work. You’ll see that this chapter is not as exciting as the others. It’s a list of 38 hard, unpronounceable names and some others split into 42 different working teams in the seven neighborhoods of the city of Jerusalem. Some commentators skip this chapter completely, saying, “they built the wall.” Other commentators focus on the actual wall, so it reads like a lonely planet tour guide from someplace you’ll never go to: “and next is the tower of the cauldrons, probably better referred to as the tower of the bakers because you could get a nice bagel there.” As I read the chapter however, I am more interested in the people. These are the people God uses. They are regular people working jobs, raising families, volunteering in their community. We are introduced to goldsmiths, perfumers, community leaders, and merchants who dedicated themselves to the service of God as well. Think about this for a second, they spent their whole lives dedicating themselves to their vocation, but were recorded for history not for their successful career, but for what they did as volunteers.
In America one of the stories we tell our school kids is of the midnight ride of Paul Revere. If you don’t know the story, Paul Revere was one of two riders who rode through the colonies warning of the advancement of the British armies. Upon seeing two lamps lit in the steeple of North Church tower, Revere set out on his midnight ride yelling, “The British are coming!” This story was so ingrained in my mind as an American, that I was surprised last summer when I went to Boston with Jean and found in many churches there bells made by Paul Revere. Paul Revere had a job? I guess in my mind his whole life was just waiting on the hill for the signal and riding on his horse.
Author and consultant Susan J. Ellis writes, "Paul Revere earned his living as a silversmith. But what do we remember him for? His volunteer work. All activism is volunteering in that it's done above and beyond earning a living and deals with what people really care passionately about. Remember, no one gets paid to rebel. All revolutions start with volunteers”. American president Woodrow Wilson expressed the volunteer spirit, “You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand."
These are the people from 2:18 who rose up and responded to Nehemiah’s call with a “we will arise and build!” I spoke last week of this crucial moment when the vision of one person or a small group is picked up and assumed by the group as a whole. Yet as important as that moment is, that moment actually accomplishes nothing. We could conceive of being part of organizations that talks about its vision and defines its purpose and mission statement, yet does nothing except reward itself for its vision casting. And nothing is more discouraging to a leader when everyone is saying yes, lets do it, we will rise up and build! And then you organize the first workday – and no one comes. We don’t need cheerleaders - we need laborers. If we are going to accomplish the things God sets in front of us as a church, its going to take everyone working. If we are going to be a church that shines for Ottawa, we have some building to do.
The Work is Spiritual (3:1-2)
The account begins with the work of Eliashib, the high priest, and his brothers the priests working on the Sheep gate, and then the chapter continues along following the wall in a counter clockwise direction. So the work begins and ends with the Sheep Gate, near where the temple of the Lord had stood. Notice here and through the book the priests are getting their hands dirty, doing the labor alongside of the others. This is a powerful principle in itself, but it is magnified in the New Testament church that affirms the priesthood of all believers and sees no distinction between clergy and laity. Jesus is our high priest, we need no and have no other mediator besides him. Yes, Jesus does give to his church apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastor/teachers, and sometimes churches hire these as full-time ministers of the gospel, but these ministers are to work hard to set an example in their service and their labors for the Lord. Acts 33 I coveted no one’s silver or gold or apparel. 34 You yourselves know that these hands ministered to my necessities and to those who were with me. 35 In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”
Notice as well that here at the beginning Nehemiah notes that the work is dedicated to God, once again underscoring that this is ultimately not our work, but his. So these priests were not doing there regular duties of serving in the Temple, but they were building the wall, and still they recognized that the work they were doing was spiritual work. See we make this distinction too fast – the distinction between sacred and secular, between God stuff and our stuff. We compartmentalize our lives. Church, my devotions, fellowship, thise are sacred things that God speaks to and works in. My job, my family, my ambition those are secular things that God doesn’t have to much to speak to. Sunday: God’s, Monday: my Boss’, Saturday: my own. Some things are God’s and some things are not. Some of us then go to the other extreme because we’ve seen that compartmentalization as a bad thing, so we say every things is spiritual, but go to far and we become like zen-New Agey, Ohhm meditating be one-with-every thing because God is everything. I’m God your God, the chair is God, The third way, the Biblical way, is to recognize that there is God and there is us, but that everything that is made and everything that we do, is for God’s glory. My work is not God, but it can be used for God’s glory. This is what the priests do in this chapter. They consecrate the wall, setting the entire work in the context of faith. Yeah I’m carrying bricks, but its for God’s glory.
The Workers Labor By Grace (3:3-5)
We have to dig a bit deeper in this next section. It starts off simply enough with the sons of Hassenaah rebuilding the Fish Gate, but there are a few interesting names here which remind me that the Lord is not looking for perfect people with perfect backgrounds to do his work, but that He provides the grace for our labor.
• In verse 4 we meet Meremoth, whose family had been rejected from the priesthood as unclean in Ezra 2:61-62 because their family name could not be found in the official genealogies. Now imagine, Meremoth had seen his father and his uncles and himself excluded from the priesthood, having been told they weren’t fit to serve the Lord, yet here he is, showing up on the first day to work. He could have been bitter – cut off from the community, he could have cut himself off. Rejected, he could have retaliated or retreated. Yet the Lord gave him grace and we find later that his family is indeed restored to the priesthood. He reminds me of a guy in the New Testament named Mark who accompanied Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey. For some reason, he left the team along the way and returned to Jerusalem, and when the missionaries were getting ready to go on their second trip Paul wouldn’t let him back on the team. Again, does he get bitter? Does he blame others? What we do know is that God restored him, to the point that in Paul’s old age he calls for Mark to come to him because he has been a great benefit to him, not to mention that he also became the author of the Gospel of Mark! God uses rejected people. Joseph rejected by his brothers, Moses rejected by both the Egyptians as their Pharoah and the Hebrews as their brother. And of course Jesus, of whom the prophet Isaiah says, he was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief”, John says that Jesus “came into his own and his own received him not.” Yet God did not reject him and remained well-pleased with his own Son. Have you been rejected, strengthen yourself in the Lord, who was rejected for you.
• We also meet a guy named Meshullum. Now Nehemiah doesn’t tell us here now, but later in the book we find out who Meshullum is. Meshullum daughter is married to Tobiah’s son. Who’s Tobiah? We’ll we met him last week and shows up again and again throughout the book as Nehemiah’s chief opposition to the building of the wall. In fact in 4:3, Tobiah is literally standing at the base of the wall where the Jews are working and teasing and mocking them: Look at that thing! If a fox hops on it it’ll fall down!” Meanwhile, his son’s father-in-law is up on the wall sweating away. Fun family dinners in that family, I’m sure. Some of you can relate. God has done a work in your life and your family does not understand or even teases or mocks you. Or you feel a call of God on your life and you family offers no support or even puts up obstacles in your way. They may even be Christians! Even in the same church! Again, Jesus’ family – who had witnessed his virgin birth – thought he was crazy and was taking this whole Messiah thing too far. They tried to take him home to his hometown. Only after his resurrection do we see his brothers come to believe in Him. Bryan Phipps story.
• Finally, we are introduced in verse 5 to the Tekoites. They are not named, and we are only told that they are not the nobles of Tekoa, because the nobles held back because they couldn’t bring themselves down to serve in the vision that God gave Nehemiah. Now this is interesting, because who else do you know from Tekoa? Of course! The prophet Amos. And what was Amos’ job – of course! A stinky shepherd. And what was Amos’ message? Of course! That the rich and powerful people should stop taking advantage of the poor people and stomping on them! Amos is the original social justice prophet. In Martin Luther King Jr.’s. ”Letter from a Birmingham Jail”, he refers to Amos as “an extremist for justice” citing Amos 5:24: "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream." Apparently, even after going into exile for their sins, the nobles of Tekoa still did not get the message. They would not stoop to serve their Lord – most commentators point out that the Hebrew more likely refers to Nehemiah than to Yahweh, which might speak to their reason for not participating. Some people refuse to participate unless they are in charge. God’s work becomes a power struggle. Nehemiah, we hear you’re going to rebuild the walls. You need us right? We have all this management experience, we could be co-advisors, sit on your board – what are you doing with that shovel. You want me to what? See ya. You know who comes to help? The guys that the Tekoa guys have been stepping on all these years. They come out to help – it’s like a vacation!
So these are the people that work on the wall. The rejects, the conflicted, the humble. The imperfect volunteers who maybe never built a wall before, but they trust Nehemiah and believe in the Lord’s work.
I want to pause here and press in a little more, because some of you are hurting. Some of you have been rejected, some of you have been conflicted and some of you have been hurt, either by others or by the accuser of the brethren himself. Perfectionism is a lie from the pits of hell that binds the church and its laborers. We need to learn to live and work by grace. I’ve been rejected – but I am perfectly accepted in Christ Jesus as a child of God. I face conflict in my family or have little support, but Jesus supplies the strength and support I need. I have been oppressed or abused, you can have wholeness in Jesus. Look, I am not going to guilt you in to working for the Lord – that doesn’t work and it burns people out. We’re not going to shame you into it either, if your burnt out and need a break, tell someone and take one. And if you’ve got deep-seated issues you’ve never dealt with in the Lord, let’s work through them, help you to understand the Gospel so you can learn to live out of grace. But none of us is perfect, but Jesus calls us his workmanship, his poem. These are not perfect people – but they made the Bible. You’re not a perfect person, but maybe if you live out of grace, your children and their children will tell stories of you.
The Work Begins at Home and Extends Outward
Six times in this chapter Nehemiah records of individuals who “repaired opposite his house”. As Matthew Henry wrote in his commentary: “When a general good work is to be done, each should apply himself to that part which is within his reach. If every one will sweep before his own door, the street will be clean; if every one will mend one, we shall all be mended.” Don’t know where to start? Start where you’re at. Yet also in the chapter, we read of those who come to work in Jerusalem from elsewhere. The men of Tekoa were from 11 miles out from Jerusalem. Gibeon (7) was six miles away, Zanoah (13) twelve miles away.
I think this is an appropriate illustration for us as we seek the welfare of this city. You all live in neighborhoods and have access to arenas of ministry that are set in from of you. As we get into the seek the welfare study we’ll be talking about using your home as a center for mission. Yet as a church, God has placed us in a community – namely Westboro, so that even though most of us don’t live in this neighborhood, we can adopt this community as ours and seek to shine God’s light for the people here.
OCBC: What walls?
• Fellowship groups: join one!
• University Fellowship: new leaders
• Sunday School/Junior Fellowship coordinators.
• Sunday School Teachers.
• Youth Sunday school teachers.
• Nursery workers
• Outreach teams: Alpha Courses? Door-to-door?
In this passage we are introduced to some guys who oppose Nehemiah’s vision for the city. I wish I could say that they made a stink here at the beginning and let things go, but they continue to be thorns in his side throughout the entire project. To do God’s work, even if everything looks like its going great, we need thick skin. Our enemy the devil knows what we are planning and will work to thwart God’s work.
• In Chinese church, we tend to value harmony and peace, and so we've heard that if we want to accomplish anything for God that there will be spiritual opposition, and so we’d rather be “normal” Christians and think we’re safe than actually set out to do anything for God. I say “think” your safe because if that is you, you’ve already lost. You’re already defeated. The enemy already has victory in your life. I don’t want to become a board member of serve in leadership, because it might be hard and I might become a target for Satan. I don’t want to share m y faith at school because then I’ll be marked.
• We need to understand that, yes, while we may need to at times move forward with caution, there is still a confidence that we can have from the Lord. We are going to see in this passage how the vision and burden for the city is transferred from Nehemiah to the people with caution and confidence.
Planning and prayer – we’ll see today that these are not mutually exclusive pursuits but pursuits that go hand in hand. The problem is that many of us do not know how to join them together – so God gives us a Nehemiah moment for our family, or our career, or our ministry, and some of us just pray and others just jump in and start planning. I believe that most of us, myself included are planners – good pragmatic Chinese! God gives a Nehemiah moment, immediately we start thinking logistics and strategies and five-year plans and timelines and budgets. This is me. And then when I mess things all up, God says, maybe you should’ve asked me first. So this is something I am learning – how to pray and plan so that I’m able to wait on God’s will in God’s time and see things happen for God’s glory and not my own great planning. Others of us, whose first response is to pray, God bless you, need to understand how God turns that prayer into planning, so that you’re ready when the opportunity comes to do that the Lord has put on your heart.