04 Rebuilding: What Nehemiah Teaches About Christian Community (Nehemiah 3-4)

Krisan Marotta: Hello, this is Krisan Marotta and the Wednesday in the Word podcast. Today we'll be looking at the Old Testament Book of Nehemiah, chapters three and chapter four. This is the fourth talk in our series on the Book of Nehemiah. You can follow along with the lecture notes and find links to everything mentioned in the talk by going to our website. You'll find that at wednesdayintheword.com slash Nehemiah 4. Thanks for joining us. How many of you like puzzles? Does anybody else like puzzles? Look at all these people love puzzles. I'm so excited. I like puzzles, and I'm the only one in my family. So I brought one today. You can't, I don't know how well you can see this. But this is a thousand-piece puzzle. And if I just kind of spread it out here on the floor and tried to do it myself, how long do you think it'd take me to do it? A long time. I'd be here, you know, a couple more weeks at least. But if I took this puzzle and I divided it as a thousand pieces, and say I broke it up in sets of a hundred pieces, and I gave each of you, um, divided up the room, and I gave you each a hundred pieces, and I said, you know, put put your pieces together, how long do you think it'd take? Not as long. Not as long. Not as long. Some of you are going, still take me two weeks. But um it would go a lot faster. And if we took the our hundred-piece sets, you know, and maybe broke them up in in groups, oh, thank you. Groups had like 50 pieces, or we gave some people the this is uh an Amish kind of quilt affair, if we gave people some of the buildings and some people the water, and we figured out who was really good at the trees, and we can we could kind of strategize and probably really do a good job on the puzzle. So if we were going to enter a competition, we could sit down and think about, hmm, how could we how could we get this done the best and the quickest way? And if I was a really wise and kind of omniscient puzzle maker, you can see where I'm going with this, I could so orchestrate it so that your group would get just the right pieces to put together. And you would would do it well, you do it together, and you'd all learn something. And that is the lesson of Nehemiah today. And I think it's what Paul was talking about, this is from Ephesians 4, uh, verses 15 and 16. He says, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow and grow up in all aspects into him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body being fitted together and held together by that which every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part. That's the part I want you to notice. According to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love. If we all work together on the puzzle, we can do a lot better job and accomplish a lot more than one person working alone. And if we all find our calling in the puzzle, so to speak, then it it works even better. We we build each other up in growth and love. And that's what we see in Nehemiah chapters 3 and 4. I think it's a picture of the body of Christ working together. Every joint, every part, making contribution. I'm standing on the cord here. Um and so we we grow together in that. All right, so look at Nehemiah. Let me just review where we've been. We're gonna pick up in chapter three today, but when in chapter one we met Nehemiah, and he was caught in the tension of two worlds. He was the cupbearer to the king, and he was brother to the exiles. So as cupbearer to the king, he was rich, probably educated, powerful, he had a high position of state, he was working next to the king, uh, who was the most powerful man in the world at the time, and the most powerful country at the time. And so he's got it made in terms of kind of where he's at in his career and his life. And yet, his brothers, his kinsmen, are living in Jerusalem, they've gone back to um the city, it's in ruins, they're living in danger, in despair, and in poverty. And so he's he's caught, he's torn by this, his heart is torn, and he says, What what am I to do? How should I live? How should I respond to being a rich, well-off um follower of God when my brothers are living in despair and exile? So he prays for four months and tries to answer that question, what should I do? And at the end of that four months, he decides that for him he should go back and try to help rebuild Jerusalem. So in chapter two, which we looked at last week, he faces three crisis moments where he has to rely on the Word of God. And that's his only weapon, his only defense. First, he goes before the king and asks for permission to go, to return to Jerusalem, and as we saw, that's kind of a political minefield that he navigates successfully, relying and trusting on God. And then he makes his way back to Jerusalem and he has to challenge the people who are living there and who are in somewhat of despair and broken hearts that they should undertake this huge task. And again, he encourages them with look at what God has done. And then finally, we see him facing the voices of his enemies, where they're they see the work on the wall is starting and they don't want it to start, and they challenge him, and he responds to them again with the word of God. So now we're going to look at, now you might have left last week thinking, well, you know, that's great, but my life isn't like that. I've never been called before the king, so to speak. I don't have those big do-or-die crisis moments where um where I have to defend my faith or say just the right thing and trust God to give me the words to say, you know, my life is this long series of mundane kind of frustrations. At least mine is. Um and I think for most of us, we don't, those crisis kind of do-or-di moments come along now and then, maybe, maybe once in a lifetime. For most of us, the struggle is more unbelief or doubt or uh just getting the strength to go get through another day and thinking, well, you know, what I'm doing doesn't matter, no one notices, it's not important, it's not making a difference, I'm kind of wasting my life, God seems distant or irrelevant, and it's just that kind of wear and tear. That's what we're going to talk about today. Because that I think is the struggle that the people in Nehemiah's life are facing, the kind of daily wear and tear, the daily stress of just doing the job that's been put in front of you. And remember, last week we talked about this is the training ground, that those day-to-day kind of routine, boring, going through the motions days are the days where God is teaching you the patience or the gentleness or the kindness or whatever it is, so that when you face that crisis moment before the king or whatever, you're prepared. So we started a little bit of the answer of how do you deal with that last week, and we're going to continue that today. So in chapter two, we we have these two great statements. The first one in um in verse 18, where Nehemiah says, I told them, speaking of his countrymen, about the gracious hand of my God upon me and what the king had said to me, and they replied, Let us start rebuilding. And they begin the work. So you've got the people ready and motivated, and then in verse 19, you've got the other side of the coin. But when Sambalat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official and Geshem the Arab heard about it, they mocked and ridiculed us. What is this you're doing? And are you and they asked, Are you rebelling against the king? So on the one hand, we see this people who are willing to work now, they're motivated, they're ready to start this task of rebuilding the walls, but they're facing this kind of harassing uh voices of their enemies. And that's what we're gonna look at in three and four. Three, we're gonna look at the community, and in four, we're gonna look at what do you do in face of the uh the opposition. So, I'm not gonna read chapter three, because it would be pretty funny for you all to hear me try to pronounce all these names. It's basically a list of who did what on the wall, on the um building the walls. And you the question is, why is this even in the Bible? Why would Nehemiah see fit to record this? Is this like, you know, the Oscar night of wall building? And oh, I'd like to thank all the little people that made it possible. There was the men of Tocoa who worked on this section, and the people of Derrico who worked on, you know, you know, those Oscar speeches that go on forever where they thank everyone they've ever met. Is that is that what's going on here? Or is there something more we're supposed to learn? I think there's something more. And let me just try to point out some of the highlights of it to you and what I think we can learn from it. There's over 30 households recognized in this list, uh and they come from everywhere. There are some from Jericho in verse 2, there's people from Dakoah in verse 5, uh, Gibeon and Monorath are both mentioned in verse 7, and you there's a few other regions where they're mentioned that people came from these various places. And I think this is going to be true of most of people in the church. I thought about as an, instead of using my puzzle analogy, of having you all asking you questions like what state are you from? You know, how many people were born and raised in Virginia? Or um what kind of job do you have? And if I started asking questions like that, I bet we'd get somebody in every station of life. We have um different last names. Our last names have different nationalities and ethnic backgrounds, we're in different age ranges. Some of us were probably grew up in the big city, and some grew up in a little city, and some grew up in a farm, and some people came from large families, and some from small families, some from broken families, some people may have multiple advanced degrees, and some people may never have finished high school. Um I suspect some people in this room moved around a lot, and some people stayed in one place, and we probably have a whole range of economic backgrounds, financial backgrounds, um, and people who came from, you know, maybe a dysfunctional or abusive or neglectful family, and some who came from, you know, the perfect family with the manicured lawn and and all the lap of luxury. And that's what we see in Nehemiah. We're gonna see people from everywhere. And yet the one thing, there's one, there's I could ask one question and everybody in the room will raise their hand, the one thing that brings us all here is the saving grace of Jesus Christ. I mean, essentially that's why we're here. We recognized our need for a savior and we found him and accepted him. And part of what I think we can learn from this is there's no cookie-cutter believer. There's no one right way to come to God. There's no one background that sets you up to guarantee you to find him, or one background from which you couldn't find him. And that's helpful to remember as a parent because you think, oh, you know, I've blown it. My kid's three and I've already ruined everything. He'll never find the Lord because I just, you know, I didn't set the right home life. Um not true. There's no perfect Christian personality, there's no perfect Christian family life, or no setting that guarantees you access into the kingdom. God pulls people from all walks of life, all kinds of backgrounds, all kinds of nations. And um, everybody has a different story. Notice to the occupations that are mentioned in this chapter. You'll see there are people from high status, kind of well-educated occupations, and then more ordinary ones. In verse 1, we're told the high priest and his fellow priests worked on the wall. In verse 8, we're told the goldsmith and the perfume makers worked on the wall. So you've got the priests, the kind of educated elite, and then you've got more of the craftsmen and the merchants, and throughout the book, you'll see officials, nobles, servants, Levites, and slaves are mentioned. So there's people from all different walks of life joining together to do this work. And again, I think part of the point is we're not mirror images of each other. Being one in the Spirit does not mean we all have to look like each other, and we all have to think the same way, and we all have to act the same way. The common ground is we're all share in the blood of Jesus Christ. Now, notice too in verse 5, not everybody pulls their weight. I thought this kind of we this sounds familiar. And next to them the Tokoites were paired, but their nobles would not stoop to serve their Lord. Or um one of the set one of the translations is would not put their shoulders to the work. They just didn't want to sweat. You know, that's kind of the idea. And I always that struck me because I thought, gosh, what if you were mentioned in the Bible and it was this? You know? You finally get mentioned in the book and it's ooh, you didn't do your job. So they are they are noted for their uh failure to respond to to the community. And yet others are noted for their diligence. Look at verse 20. A man named Baruch, he's at the opposite end. Next to him, Baruch, the son of Zabai, zealously repaired another section from the angle to the entrance of the house of Eliash the high priest. So it's like, ooh, he took this whole section and he did it zealously. And I think again, he's remembered forever in scripture as as having as being commended for his job. So you've got people in the body who are lazy and some who are not. And I think that's going to be true well throughout the generations when we call for volunteers. You know, it's the usual suspects lineup. Out of the thousands in this church, it tends to be the same group of people showing up. And our problem's not unique. Um also notice that family names were typically mentioned by the father in this day and age. If you wanted to talk about a household or a group of people or a tribe, you would identify it by the patriarch of the group. Uh, and that's pretty typical throughout the chapter of people are recognized as the son of someone. But notice verse 12, uh, if I can find it here. Shalom, the son of, however you pronounce his name, ruler of half the district of Jerusalem, repaired he and his daughters. His daughters worked on the wall. And I think they're probably mentioned not because they were the only daughters, but because they probably worked especially hard. So again, you find everyone's mentioned men and women working side by side. In verse 13, when it says Hanum and the inhabitants of Zahoa, the word inhabitants suggests everybody, all ages, all genders, young, old, male, female, everybody who lived there worked together. And what you see, I think, why is Nehemiah giving this uh this list is because this is a wide variety of people with all different backgrounds, all different nationalities, different stages, different occupations, different education levels, and they have come together to do what no one could do alone. So to go back to my puzzle analogy, it takes the whole community to do this, and working together, they can accomplish what they could never do alone. Remember from chapter two, the devastation is immense. We saw Nehemiah, we have the description of him riding through the city at night, and the rubble is so big and so overwhelming that a single man on a single horse can't get through at certain parts. So the problem is overwhelming. It's going to take everybody working together, and I think that's the lesson we want to learn as a church. That as a church, as a community of believers in Charlottesville, we can do a lot more together than we could ever do alone. And I I think for American Christians that's a harder lesson because we we kind of have this rugged individual background and and we're gonna do it ourselves, and we're we know we never need help. We're we're always have just finished a struggle, but yeah, and thanks, you can pray for me now, but I've successfully navigated all by myself. Um and I think there's we lose something in that. We get we have placed so much emphasis on having a personal relationship with Jesus that we miss the fact that he calls us into a body. Now, I'm not minimizing the personal relationship, that is important, and and you want your faith to be a genuine, life-changing, soul-searching uh personal relationship, but we are not called to that in isolation. God also then places us in a particular church, in a particular neighborhood, in a particular community, and calls us to be a people together, and then we can accomplish a lot more together than we ever could working alone. There's another point though I wanted to pull out of this chapter. There's a phrase that comes up over and over again. If you look in verse 23, after them Benjamin and Hashub repaired opposite their house, and after them, Azariah, the son of Messiah, son of Ananiah, repaired beside his own house. And that phrase, repaired by their house or repaired in front of their house, comes up over and over again. And that got me thinking, if you're if you're wondering, great, okay, I'm part of this body, how do I get involved? How do I know which piece of the puzzle is my piece to work on? How do I know where to start? I think if you're looking for a place, start with the broken wall in front of your house. That's essentially what they did in Nehemiah's day. Look at the people God has already put in your lives. Um if you want to think, you know, you don't have to do a lot of research and try to figure out what's happening in the farthest uh reaches of the kingdom that God may be doing, but look at who he's put next to you, who's who's in your family, or who sits next to you in church, or um I think start with the the door that's already open, the nearest and most obvious, and begin serving there and then see where that leads you. You may walk through that door and eventually end up in Timbuktu, you know, or Ireland, who knows? But go through the door that's open. So what would what do I mean by that metaphor? Well, if you have a non-believing spouse, that's a good place to start. That's someone God has put in your life. If you have rebellious children, or if you're a parent at all, you have children, they're your responsibility. That's the place you ought to be ministering. If you're a nurse, what about the patients you come in contact with, or the doctors day in and day out? Uh if you're a teacher, the kids in your classroom, or the parents of your kids and the kids in your classroom, or your neighbors, or the people you talk to, you know, if you're on the phone kind of job, who do you talk to on the phone every day? Or um students, what about your professors, or the people that live in your your dorm or next to you? The idea is God put you here for a reason. He put you in Charlottesville, He put you in this church, He put you in this Bible study. How about the people in your small group? Um, He put you in this neighborhood. Look for who he's already put in your life and start ministering there. Um I know a man who kind of diligently sought out every short-term mission trip he could go on, and he went a, he was on every committee, he was on every trip, and yet he never spent time with his wife, and they ended up getting divorced. And I would say he missed the broken wall in front of his house. That was one person God called him to minister to, and he missed it. Uh now obviously there's I'm sure it's more complicated than that. I'm not minimizing missions, so don't get me wrong. I'm not saying, oh, you know, don't do that. Not what I'm the point I'm trying to make is not everyone is called to leave Charlottesville. Some of you are called here. Um, and most of us are called to be here where we are now. And there's something to me, in my mind anyway, I figured out that short-term missions are appealing because they're containable, you know, they fit in two weeks, and they start and they stop. You have a definite beginning and an end date. You usually have a goal that you're working on or a project, and you can see progress, and so it's doable, it's containable, and it has a beginning and end. Unlike, say, raising kids, you know, that that can take 30 years, grind down your faith, and you never see results, you know. So it's a lot harder to do that. Um, I think. So are you encouraged now? So the point of that is if you're looking, where do I fit in? How should I get started? What piece of the puzzle is my piece? Look for what's right in front of you. Who has God already put in your life? Who are the people that you're coming in contact with now? Start there. Now, God put you here in this church, in this family, in this neighborhood for a reason. And this dovetails with what we talked about last week in chapter two about paying attention to daily life and the mundane kind of day in and day out stuff. Look at what God is teaching you here and now in this training ground, and the people around you are part of that. So start with the wall in front of your house. Okay, let's look. That's all I'm going to do with chapter three. So let's move on to chapter four. You can, as you might expect, people get excited, they step out, and they start working for God, and it's not all met with fun engagement. It's met with hostility. So, chapter four, let's look at verse one through three. Now, when Sembalat heard they were building the wall, he was angry and greatly enraged, and he jeered at the Jews. And he said in the presence of his brothers and of the army of Samaria, What are these feeble Jews doing? Will they restore it for themselves? Will they sacrifice? Will they finish up in a day? Will they revive the stones out of heaps of rubbish and burned ones at that? Tobiah the Ammonite was beside him, and he said, Yes, what they are building, if a fox goes up on the wall, he will break it down their stone wall. So they get started and they're immediately ridiculed. And you we hear these voices, Sambala and Tobiah come up again throughout the book, challenging, angry, and trying to get them to stop what they're doing. And it's interesting as you go through this book, they threaten and they threaten and they threaten and they never do anything. It's all words. But I think that's something we can expect. If you step out and you start doing something, whatever it is, you will face opposition. You may have a boss or a coworker who's out to get you, or an unbelieving spouse who ridicules your faith, or you know, maybe you're working in local politics and people are opposing you. And we face a lot of external ridicule. The temptation then is to take that into our heads and play it over and over in our minds. So we start telling ourselves, oh, you know, I might as well give up. The job's too big. My efforts will never lead anywhere, it probably won't work. Someone else could do it better than me. Um I don't have the right education, or I don't have the right skills, or I'm too old, or I'm too young, or I'm too slow, or I'm too obnoxious, or I don't, I'm not outgoing enough, or I'm, you know, we always have an excuse. There's some reason I can't do this job because I'm just not the right one. And we play those voices in our heads over and over. And I think that's the problem that's going on with Nehemiah, the people in Nehemiah's day. They heard these external voices of St. Ballat and Tobiah, but then they internalize them and begin to believe them. And so the reason the walls were still broken is because their hearts were broken. They had given up. They um they heard this, what are those feeble Jews doing, and thought, yeah, what's the point? It's too big a job, it's too overwhelming. And notice part of the ridicule, will they offer sacrifices? The idea behind that is what? Are they gonna get their God involved? They think God's gonna help them? That's part of the ridicule. Would God do something for them? Would that would they offer sacrifices to him and expect that he might respond? How silly is that? If you've read the book of Hagai, you know at this point they have rebuilt the temple. It's a rather kind of small temple in comparison to what was in Solomon's day, but it was a temple and they had rebuilt it. So they did actually have a place they could go and offer sacrifices. And the ridicule they're hearing is do they think God would do something for them? Do they think God would listen? They won't accomplish anything. And I think part of the reason the walls are still broken is their hearts are broken, and their hearts are broken because their God is too small. They have given up, they have stopped believing that God would respond, or that God would listen, or that he could bring something wonderful out of the rubbish and the destruction. And that got me thinking, most of us probably have some area of our life where we've given up. You know, you've prayed about it for years and years, and you just get to a point where you think, there's no point. As I was thinking through this, I realized I have a well, there's one one of my high school friends I still keep in touch with. It's been a lot of years, I won't tell you quite how many, over 20 years. And the entire time I've known her, she's been kind of a lukewarm Christian. Not I'm never quite sure if she's really there. And when we first got to know each other, I was I was determined, you know, we always gonna get her on fire and help her really get a grip on a solid grip on her faith. And it's been 20 years and I've given up. I stopped kind of talking to her about it and stopped praying for her and stopped really thinking about it. And this, as I was thinking through Nehemiah, I thought, why why did I give up? God can do anything. And you know, just because he doesn't do it by Friday, that doesn't mean that he's not gonna answer. I mean, Abraham waited uh, you know, for his whole lifetime almost for Isaac, and and some of the promises that were given to him were like fulfilled 480 years later. So we the problem is giving up on God and thinking he's too small. And if he didn't answer the prayers the way I thought he should answer them in the timetable I wanted him to answer them, then why try? Why keep praying? And that's what Nehemiah's gonna challenge them to come back to. That um stop thinking our efforts aren't good enough. We have a great and awesome God behind us who's put us here in the puzzle and given us a job to do, and our job is to do it and let him take care of the rest. I was listening to a song this week by Take Six. It's a anybody know that group? It's an a cappella group. Uh uh, I love their music. And one of the lines in the song was, uh, When will you let go and understand that I've got the master plan? God speaking. And that really struck me as, hmm, I like my master plan. You know, I kind of hold on to that a little bit. And, you know, if it doesn't fit my timetable, then I give up or or turn to despair. Okay. So the Jews are facing this overwhelming task, their hearts are broken, they've given up on God, and then they're surrounded by their enemies. Look at verse 7 and 8. But when Zembalat and Tobiah and the Arabs and the Ammonites and the Ashdites heard they were repairing the walls of Jerusalem, the repairing of the walls of Jerusalem was going forward, and that the breaches were beginning to be closed, they were very angry, and they all plotted together to come and fight against Jerusalem and to cause confusion in it. And we prayed to our God instead of guard his protection against them day and night. Those are the four points of the compass. Sembalat is in Samaria, which is on the north, Ashdod is on the west, Ammon is on the east, and Arabia is in the south. So he's giving us this picture of they are surrounded by their enemies, and everyone all around them is kind of massing against them to stop this wall building. And that I think is adding to their despair, adding to their, you know, our enemies are surrounding us, the task is overwhelming. What's the use? And that's what I want to challenge you to think about. Are there areas in your lives that you've given up on God that you think, oh, I've tr I've lived with that problem for so long, or I've lived with this broken relationship, or I've lived with this uh struggle with anger or struggle with whatever for so long that that I, you know, it's just never gonna go away. Um every time I try, I kind of make a little progress, and then I fall back into the same old routines and the same old patterns. And um we we internalize those voices of ridicule and think, you know, my my efforts are feeble. There's no there's no point in trying. Or perhaps you've come out of some kind of violent past or a broken family or a dysfunctional family, and you think, I can never change, I can never get beyond that. Those cords are still gonna hold me down and and mess up my relationships now. Why do I think it won't be any different? Um or if you're some people are lonely and have been lonely so long that they're afraid to step out and ask someone, you know, you want to go to lunch, or you want to do you want to get together sometime? And we we stop trying to take those efforts. Or maybe you're in a marriage that seems hopeless and you think it will never change, or a family relationship that's been estranged or broken, and you think God can never do anything there. You know, parents and children or siblings or in-laws, and the voices say, Oh, we've grown so far apart, we don't have anything to talk about, we've forgotten what uh you know how to be friends or how to be uh family in the first place. Why do I ever think it would be any different? And that's the challenge Nehemiah is going to speak to. Those are the kind of voices I think the Jews were listening to in their heads, my efforts are feeble, they're foolish, they're not worth it. And their walls then remain broken, or the challenge is unmet because their faith is shattered. Their God is too small. Um, why do I think this look let me give you a look at verse 10. And it was in Judah it was said, the strength of those who bear the burdens is failing, there's too much rubble. By ourselves we will not be able to rebuild the wall. And you notice they put that in quotes. If you look at that in the Hebrew, it's a limerick. It rhymes. It's like a little um little poem. So it would be like saying, Roses are red, violets are blue, I can't do the job, and neither can you. It's that kind of a structure. And I think he's pointing out they had said over to and over to themselves so many times, we can't do it, that it turned into a little jingle, a little a little slogan, you know, roses are red, violets are blue, I'm giving up. Uh the mountain's too high, what's the use? And some people, some commentators think they sang it, that it was set to music. I don't know about that, but um again, they're they have internalized the failure. Notice in verse 11, and our enemies said they will not know or see till we come among them and kill them and stop them at work. And at that time the Jews who lived there them came from all directions and said to us ten times, ten times over, you must return to us. Or better, wherever you we turn, they will attack us, I think is probably a better translation. So you've got the enemy say it once, and the Jews repeat it ten times. You know, they threatened and we've magnified the problem. We we've turned it into this limerick. They're too strong, they can't win, it will never work, it's hopeless, the job is too big, and so they've given up on their God to do anything. So, what does Nehemiah do? What how do you handle a situation like that? He provides, I think, exactly the right kind of leadership. Because he doesn't talk about the impossibility, the task, or the strength of his foes. He goes right to the heart of the matter and talks to them about the power of God and challenges them. Until you trust God to start rebuilding the walls, until you start trust God to handle these voices that are both internal and external, you're not going to succeed. So it's similar to his response in chapter one when he was faced with his own dilemma of should I go back to Jerusalem or stay in Susa? He turns to God and spends four months in prayer. Now he's going to challenge the people to turn back to God. And notice, and remember from chapter one when he started his prayer, he started with, Oh Lord, God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and obey his command. That's what he's going to bring back to the people. Your God is a great and awesome God who's concerned, who's attentive, who cares about you, who manages the hairs on your head and the sparrows in the field, and he knows the task before you, and he's put you here for a reason, and that's what they've lost their faith in that God. So this is where Nehemiah meets him. So, where are we? Verses four and six. I'm skipping around to pull out the points. So when the ridicule started, the first thing Nehemiah does is pray in verse 4. Hear, O our God, for we are despised. Turn back their taunts on their own heads and give them up to be plundered in a land where they are captives. Do not cover their guilt, and let not their sin be blotted out from your sight, for they have provoked you to anger in the presence of the builders. So the first thing he does when he's got these people who are ready to start, but they're facing this eternal or this external criticism, and they've internalized it, is he prays to God and says, Hear us, God, you've got to stop the voices. You've got to be the one to fight for us. And that's a mark of good leadership. A leader ought to turn first to God, and not to, you know, let's organize a committee or let's um set up a you know a new program or whatever, but turn first to God and talk to God and say, Lord, fight for us. Now, it's kind of interesting that he prays to the point of don't even forgive them, which I'm not sure what quite what to make of that. I think the force of his prayer is, Lord, you have to stop the voices. Um, as New Testament believers, we know that we can pray for our enemies and love our enemies and that Jesus died for them as much as for us. I'm not sure how much of that Nehemiah would have understood, how much he would have known about Gentiles being included in the promise or not. But I think what he does know at this point is somebody has to stop the voices, somebody has to get the people back to faith and trust. And his answer is, Lord, it's up to you. You have to fight for us. Um and I think that's the right instinct. Stop the voices, stop the ridicule, and fight for us. And that's the kind of leaders we want. Leaders who turn to God when the going gets tough. But not only does he turn to God, then he turns to the people and tells the people about God. So in verse 9, he had, and we prayed to our God and set a guard as protection against them day and night. And then in verse 14, after I looked things over, I stood up and said to the nobles, the officials, and the rest of the people, do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord who is great and awesome and fight. So his reasons for calling them back is not because their efforts are so wonderful or their organizational skills are so great, or they're they have this great intellectual ability or craft ability or verbal ability. He's saying our success depends on the Lord, who is great and awesome, and has promised to be with us. And that is the right response. He talks to the people, he talks to God about the people and the problem, and then he talks to the people about God, and that's two qualities we want in a leader. The second thing he does then is equip them to fight, equip them to stand firm. He doesn't encourage them to become dependent on him or to follow him or to be like him. He's he gives them the tools they need, and I think this is what we would call discipleship. What he did what he does is gives everyone a sword and everyone a tool, and they all uh use both of them. I mean look at look at the closing verses of this. I'm gonna start in uh seventeen. Those who carried materials did their work with one hand and held a weapon in the other, and each of the builders wore his sword at his side as he worked, but the man who sounded the trumpet stayed with me. Then I said to the nobles, the officials, and the rest of the people, the work is extensive and spread out, and we are highly separated from one an from each other along the wall. Whenever you hear the sound of the trumpet, join us there. Our God will fight for us. So we continued the work with half the men holding spears from the first light of dawn till the stars came out. At the time I also said to the people, Have every man and his helper stay inside Jerusalem at night, so they can serve us as guards by night and workmen by day. Neither I nor my brothers nor my men nor their guards with me took off our clothes. Each held his weapon even when he went for water. So you have this picture of him dividing them up in groups. They're all working on the broken wall in front of their house. One person's holding the sword and standing guard, and the other person's working, and they switch. One person rests, one person works, and they switch off and take turns. And then they have a trumpet. If somebody gets in trouble, the man blows the trumpet and they all run to where the trumpet sounded to help whoever's in need. And I think that is a beautiful picture of a community of what a church ought to be like. We ought to be people who who know what's going on in each other's lives. There are times when I should be willing to hold the sword for you while you rest and need help, and vice versa. There are times when you need to rest uh, when you need to hold the sword and let someone else rest. And that, to me, that just that spoke volumes. That's what we want to be as a church. We can succeed together and accomplish a lot more as a body of believers than we can as individuals. And when we are willing to help each other out in that way, to be vulnerable, to be uh upfront about the times we we need someone else to stand guard for us and be willing to stand guard for someone else, then we can accomplish a lot more. So, you know, I mean that's the question I'd ask you again. Are you building those kinds of relationships so that if you blow a trumpet, somebody comes running? Or if somebody else blows a trumpet, you're willing to come running to them. I had a case a few years ago where one of my friends called with some crisis, and I was literally so busy I could not even stop to take the phone call. I mean, there were like all these balls in the air, and if I stopped, they were all going to fall and everything was going to crash. And I hung up the phone and I thought, this is wrong. This is being this busy is a sin because I need to be there when somebody blows a trumpet. I need to have that space in my life. And I started punting things, getting off committees and all kinds of things because I realized I was overcommitted. So part of that is building those kinds of relationships and having the time to be in those relationships so that you know what's happening with other friends and with the people that God has put in your lives. The other is being vulnerable, being willing to say, I need help, you know, I'm not making it this week. And I'll tell you a secret, everyone in this room is struggling with something. I used to think that wasn't true. I used to think, oh, you know, the Christian life is kind of wine and roses and, you know, and puppy dogs and good days, and then every now and then a storm blows through. And I've decided that's completely wrong. Everybody in this room is to has some pain in their life in some area, and it's not going to go away tomorrow. Um and we don't let each other see that. And you we think we're the only ones. So part of being a community is being open about that and saying, this is where I'm struggling, and I need a hand today, or I need a shoulder to cry on, or I need just someone to walk with me through this, and being willing to be open when at those times when we need help. I was at the Bel Air Market, and there was a couple of UVA girls, I think they were UVA students, they looked like UVA students in front of me, and some of their friends came up and they were like, Hey, how are you? How are you? How are you? Fine, I'm fine, I'm fine, and one girl said, I'm fine, and by fine I mean terrible. And I thought, yeah, that's probably what most of us mean when we say, I'm fine. I heard somebody, one of the speakers, I heard once said, Fine means frustrated, insecure, neurotic, and exhausted. Fine, F-I-N-E. Frustrated, insecure, neurotic, and exhausted. So now every time you hear that and someone goes, I'm fine, you're gonna know. That's what they mean. Frustrated, insecure, neurotic, and exhausted. Um, I'm running out of time here. I've got to let me just wrap up what we've learned today. If you're looking for the a place to be in the body of Christ, you're in the right place. This is where God has called you. Start with the broken wall in front of your house or the door that's already open, the people that are most obvious that God has placed in your life, and begin serving there and building the kind of relationships where you can hold a sword for someone and you can rest and let them hold a sword for you. And if they blow a trumpet, you're willing to come running. And if you blow a trumpet, they're willing to come running. We need we want to be open and vulnerable and upfront about our struggles enough. Now I'm not saying you have to tell everyone in the church, you know, your deep, darkest secret, but you ought to have someone that you can turn to because none of us can get through on our own. Um leadership. Look for leaders who are willing to go to God with problems, that's their first thought, and then tell the people about God. So whether we're looking at nominating elders and deacons in the church or national leaders or home fellowship or women's ministry leaders or whoever, that's the kind of qualities we want to look for. People who take their problems to God and then take what they know about God back to the people. Okay. Next week, you may be saying, this sounds really good, but um the problem is I don't even like the people sitting next to me. You know. I mean, this uh uh. Ellen and Libby just glared at each other. No. But the qu it the question is, how can you stand guard for each other when we can't even get along? You know, we bicker and we frustrate each other and we disappoint each other, and in the church we often, you know, we have our our squabbles. That's what we're gonna talk about next week. Because next week in chapters five and six, we're gonna see the community fighting amongst itself. Whereas today we looked at the external forces. Next week we're gonna look at the internal forces, the internal kind of conflicts. Okay, let me just pray to closest. I'm sorry I went so long. I wanted to give you a little longer break before your small group. Father, thank you that you are a God who puts us in the puzzle, and that you give us a job to do to which we're uniquely suited. And I pray that we would open our eyes to see who you've placed in our lives, who we need and who needs us, and that you would be building us into the kind of community that cares for each other, that's open and vulnerable, that comes running when someone blows a trumpet, and that you would give us the eyes to see and the ears to hear, and the comfort and the words to be that kind of community and a body of Christ, reaching out into our neighborhoods and into our community. And I pray for each of the small group times that you would be building those groups into these kinds of communities and giving us the comfort and security in knowing you're a great and awesome God so that we can be open and real with where we are and what we're struggling with. In Jesus' name. Amen.