Have You Seen This Chapter

Introduction

All right, rule number one is be careful with the water in the vicinity of the electrical equipment. I’m sure there are other rules too, but that one will suffice for now. So we’ve all seen chapters like this before. You’re reading through sequentially through your Bible on whatever schedule might be convenient for you, but you’re reading along chapter by chapter, and there are some chapters you get to, and you read the first couple of verses, and you kind of peek ahead to see how long this chapter is, and you think, can I just skip to the end of this one? All right. It’s natural. It happens. It’s just a bunch of names. I can’t even pronounce them. These are not people that I know. Let me just move on to where the narrative picks up again.

Right? That’s that’s what we all think. And sometimes we overcome the temptation, might force ourselves to go all the way through, and we get to the end and sort of pat ourselves on the back and say, man, those are some hard names in there. And then sort of move on, and we’re like, well, I’m glad the story’s picking up again. And so we move on. If you’re if you’re following the reading schedule that we talked about at the beginning of the year this year, to read through the Bible kind of chronologically in 2016, then about a month ago, you ran across several of these chapters, some in Ezra and some in the book of Nehemiah. One of the chapters that you ran across was Nehemiah chapter three.

And the second rule is have your clicker on.

And the third rule is just use the spacebar if that doesn’t work. There are more rules. I knew there were. Nehemiah the third chapter is one of the chapters like I was just talking about. We’ll we’ll read a few verses from the beginning of Nehemiah 3 here in just a few minutes. Maybe when you got to that in the reading, again, on whatever schedule you might have been on, maybe when you got to that you read all the way through it. But you were at least tempted not to. And I understand that. It’s some dry reading in places. So I want to take a look this evening at Nehemiah chapter 3. And see if there are some lessons that we might have skipped over or not thought about while we were thinking about how do I pronounce that name again?

So our focus is not on pronunciation, and I say that because I’m going to try to pronounce some of these names in a couple of minutes, and I don’t want you to focus on the pronunciation when I try to do it either. But it’s hard not to. What you’re thinking is, I’m glad it’s him and not me trying to say that. So by the time we get to Nehemiah 3, are we sure this doesn’t work? Yeah, okay, we’re sure.

By the time we get to Nehemiah 3, what are some of the things that we know already? Well, in getting through the book of Ezra of Ezra and the first couple of chapters of Nehemiah, we’ve worked our way up to somewhere around 444 B.C. That’s usually the date that we assign to the work of Nehemiah. The walls of Jerusalem had been in ruins for roughly 140 years. So the Babylonians had come to Jerusalem and they had destroyed the temple. They destroyed the walls in about 586 B.C. People had gone away into Babylonian captivity. There were some prophets who prophesied to them in the captivity. But the first captives had returned about a hundred years before we begin to read about Nehemiah. So people had been inhabiting Jerusalem again after the captivity for nearly a hundred years.

Nehemiah, we don’t know why, but Nehemiah’s family was not among those who had returned to Jerusalem when Cyrus made his decree and people came back under Zerubbabel, and then later people came back under Ezra. Don’t know why Nehemiah wasn’t among those who didn’t go back, but he had a he had a job in the palace.

Nehemiah might not have thought that it was a cozy job, but I’m going to say he was Hobnavin with the king every now and again, and he probably had a better position than many of his brethren over there. And so he had a job in the palace, and he left that job to go do some construction work in an area of the world that was not nearly as nice as the palace of the Babylonian kings. But he did that because that’s what his people needed. He’d heard a report that had come from Jerusalem. He asked the one who’d come from Jerusalem, he said, how are my brethren doing over there? And the report that he heard was that they were they were oppressed by the people around them.

The city of Jerusalem, people are living there, but there’s no wall, there’s no defense, the people around them are stronger, the people are a prey for the bands of raiders in the surrounding territory. And Nehemiah said, This is not good. They’ve been there a hundred years, and we’re still like this. And so he decided he was going to leave his job and do what his people needed to defend themselves. And we talk about, when we talk about Nehemiah, we talk about Nehemiah the character most of the time. We talk about his dedication to leave a more comfortable job for a less comfortable and probably, well, let’s just say it was it was a much more thankless task. He had a lot of difficulties to deal with.

So we talk about his dedication, we talk about the encouragement that he provided for his brethren there. We talk about the planning that went into getting the wall back up, and we talk about how amazing it was that a wall that had been down for 140 years, and the people had been back there a hundred years, it didn’t take them long to rebuild it once they actually got to the job. But what they needed was some prodding, and that’s what Nehemiah provided. So we talk about Nehemiah as a character. But Nehemiah was not Superman. He didn’t have super speed, right? He didn’t pick up the blocks and lay them all himself. He didn’t do all that. He didn’t build the wall by himself. And that’s what Nehemiah chapter 3 is about.

It’s about all of the other people who participated along with him. The people who did the grunt work, the people who laid those stones and put the mortar in. However it was that they ended up building the wall, whatever materials it was that they used, the people who did the work. There are some other chapters that we could have picked for this study.

And you get to 1 Chronicles. The first nine chapters of 1 Chronicles are genealogy after genealogy. And we can look at some of those other lists and we understand why we’re there, or we can at least rationalize why those lists are there. If we think about the context in which the books were written, and we think about how important it was for the people to understand what was the royal line. What was the line of succession? The line of kings, right? David was going to have a man would not fail him to sit on the throne forever. It was important to understand the royal line. So we understand the genealogies of the royal family. We can even understand the genealogies like you find in the first nine chapters of 1 Chronicles, where, if it is Ezra who wrote that book, and maybe it was, where they might have wanted to put together kind of a history of some of the major families in Israel to understand their descent, at least in part because there were some promises associated with divvying up the land and you know what tribe you were from and where your land, ancestral lands might have been.

There was value for the Jews in knowing who their ancestors were. And so we can look at those lists and we can kind of see I know why it might be important for that to be in there. But Nehemiah 3 is a little different. It’s a list of people who worked on the wall. It’s a little harder maybe to understand why, as God is sitting down and saying, I’m going to give the most important book of all time to my people, and I’m going to take this much room for this list. You and I might have done it differently. But God did it like this. So we want to think a little bit about why this evening. What is chapter 3 there for? What lessons are in it for us?

1. Showing Up Is Only a Start

Well, this is the first one. This is my list of lessons, anyway. You might find some others. Be diligent. Read through while you could be listening to me. That’s okay. I’m not offended. Find your own lessons. But this is one of mine. Showing up is only a start. So we said the people had been back in Jerusalem for about a hundred years after the Babylonian captivity. Give or take. Past generations had done some work already. They had rebuilt the city. The city was in ruins. The first group that came back under Zerub began to inhabit Jerusalem again, began to build some of its buildings. The temple, well, okay, the temple waited for a little while, but finally some prophets, Haggai and Zechariah came along and they said, You built your own houses.

Let’s get to work on the temple. The house of God is just as important as your own houses, right? And so the people, from about 520 to 516 BC, the people rebuilt the temple. So past generations had rebuilt the city. They’d rebuilt the temple. And the people who were living in Jerusalem now were sort of recipients of the work of those past generations. Right? And they could look back and say, boy, those are some hard workers back there. We’re glad they did that. And now we’re just here. Well, they could have said that. But showing up, being in Jerusalem, even though I have to credit the people for being willing to live there, for wanting to live in their ancestral home. There were other places in the world that would have been easier for them to live.

So I’ll give them some credit for saying we want to, we believe Jerusalem is an important city and we want to live there. I’ll give them credit for that. But showing up and being there was only a start. They needed to build on the legacy of those generations who had gone before and done some of that work. So in Jared’s lesson this morning, and by the way, the greatest fear of the guy who goes second as a guest speaker is not that he’s going to have to stand up and speak. The greatest fear is that the guy who goes first on Sunday morning is going to speak on the same subject and steal all his material. So we didn’t overlap very much. Jared’s good. But he did talk a little bit about Hebrews the 10th chapter, verses 24 and 25.

The statement that we need to consider one another to provoke unto love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together. And so what I want to say about the church that is similar to the building on the wall is that showing up is good. We’re glad you showed up this evening. We’re glad that you’re here. There is work that goes on when we assemble together. And you are engaged in that work this evening, and that’s great. But part of the reason for our assembly is back there in verse 24, that we consider one another to provoke, to stimulate, to stir up love and good works. Love and good works. So part of the reason that we’re here is not about just being here, it’s also about how we live our lives when we’re not here.

And showing up is good. It’s great. We’re glad when people do. When people don’t, it’s kind of a discouragement. But our assemblies are supposed to lead to other things. So showing up is only a start. There are generations past, just like past generations in Nehemiah’s day who had rebuilt the city and the temple. There are generations past in our own experience who have done some amazing things to make it possible for us to be here. There are people who have translated the Bible into your native tongue, even though it meant that they were going to face persecution and some of them at least death for having done so. There are people who stood up against the prevailing religious ideology of the day and said, nope, that’s not what God said.

We need to do it this way because that’s what God said. And it’s hard to do that. It’s hard to come out of a religious system that dominates the whole world and say, maybe everybody is wrong about this. Because let God be true and every man a liar. It doesn’t matter what everybody else out there says, I can read the Bible, I know what it says, and I know we need to be doing this. There are people who face tremendous difficulties in doing those things to make it possible for us to be here. We need to build on that legacy. Not just enjoy it. So what kind of work am I talking about? What I have in mind is work with a spiritual focus. And again, this overlaps a little bit with what some of the things that Jared said this morning, but are there weak Christians to encourage?

I mean, it’s no spoiler if I say in every congregation there are weak Christians who need to be encouraged. Right? Showing up is fine. But there are people who are not here, and part of the reason that they’re here is that they are spiritually struggling. And so one of the things that we encourage each other to do when we’re here is to go out and help those. So are there weak Christians who encourage absolute? Are there non-Christians who need to talk about spiritual things? Certainly. There are more of them than there are of us. Are there visitors who need to be contacted? You know, we have some groups that meet in the back after almost every Sunday evening. And part of the purpose of those is to is to contact our visitors again to say, we’re glad you were with us today.

If you have questions about what we do, feel free to ask. We’d like for you to come back. It’s a small bit of encouragement, but it’s important. We have opportunity to participate in that work. Are there personal spiritual needs that we should address? Things in our own lives that we need to clean up. Maybe so. Or most of us bordering on all of us, yeah, there probably are some personal spiritual needs that we need to address. That’s the kind of work that I’m talking about when I talk about work in the church. There are physical things, certainly, that have to happen. Building has to be maintained, it needs to be cleaned. We appreciate the people who do that. The Lord’s Supper needs to be prepared. Somebody’s got to do that.

Those are good. But those are just auxiliary things. Those are just helping the main work that we have, which is related to spiritual things. A spiritual kingdom needs spiritual work.

2. Success Is a Group Effort

Second lesson is that success is a group effort. Read the first four verses or so of Nehemiah 3. Eyashib the high priest rose up with his brethren, the priests, and built the sheep gate. They consecrated it and hung its doors. They built as far as the Tower of the Hundred and consecrated it, and then as far as the Tower of Hananel. Next to Elashib, the men of Jericho built, and next to them Zachar, the son of Emri built. Also the sons of Hasinea built the fish gate. They laid its beams and hung its doors with its bolts and bars. And next to them Merrimouth, the son of Erija, the son of Cause made repairs. Next to them Mesholim, the son of Barakiah, the son of Meshezebel made repairs.

Next to them Zadok, the son of Baana made repairs. And it goes on like that for the whole chapter. And so you sort of see how you get through those first few verses and say, maybe I can just say etc. and move on. But look at a phrase in there that’s pretty easy to pass over. Next to them, next to them, next to them, and next to them. You sort of get the idea that Jerusalem was ringed by a crowd of people all working on their own section of the wall. And I think that is the idea in Nehemiah 3. Success here was a group effort. People didn’t just show up with some materials and toss them on the ground and walk off and say, When you all get around to it, there’s some stuff.

You know, go work on it. I don’t know, people might have done that. They don’t show up in this chapter. But the point is that everybody was working, they were working together because this was a project of mutual benefit to all of them. The wall was going to protect all of them, or it was going to protect none of them. And so whatever success they had was going to be a group effort. Likewise in the church, one of the reasons God has organized us into a church and into congregations, and one of the reasons it is his will that we assemble together and work together is because we benefit from letting our talents complement each other. And so, 1 Corinthians chapter 12 is a is a famous example of that.

Paul talks about, he compares the church to a body, and he talks about different members in the body having a different function, the need for all of the members to contribute their individual talents so that the whole body functions. Because if the whole body were one big nose, there are some things that would work well, but there are a lot of things that wouldn’t. And so Paul says, every member with its own function has to provide the things that it can for the benefit of the body. So, 1 Corinthians 12 is an example, but the passage that I’m going to read from is from Ephesians, the fourth chapter. The high school boys will recognize this passage, because I’ve talked about it with them at least a couple of times in the last few weeks, because it is my favorite description of how the church functions.

I prefer Ephesians 4, that’s just me.

Paul talks about in the previous verses some of the things that God provided to the church, some of the different functions in the church, the different roles that people fulfill. And the purpose of that, beginning in verse 14, is that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men and the cunning craftiness by which they lie in wait to deceive, but speaking the truth in love may grow up in all things into him who is the head, Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

Verse 16, verse 16 stands out to me as a powerful verse in the New Testament as a description of how the church functions. The effective working by which every part does its share to cause growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. We benefit from letting our talents complement each other. This is true, this is true in marriage. There are things that Sherry does better than I do. There are a couple of things that I do well, but there are a number of things that she does better than I do. And that’s good. If there were two of me, there would be some things in our households that wouldn’t get done or that wouldn’t get done very well. They don’t get done very well when she’s gone.

I’d give it a shot. But I’m glad when she gets back. But the church is like that as well. Different members with their own function, and when we have effective working by which each part does its share, we enjoy success as a group effort. Sometimes, not as regularly as we should, but sometimes Sherry and I exercise.

It’s not just that I want to have somebody to talk to while we’re walking around the neighborhood or whatever. But when you do things together, neither one of you wants to be the first one to wimp out. Right? I don’t, you know, neither one of us wants to say, oh, I’m ready to quit, you just go on. We’d feel kind of guilty about that. When we do it together, what happens is it’s easier to sustain that effort when we might otherwise be discouraged or want to quit. It might be one of the reasons why Jesus sent out disciples in pairs to evangelize. Why Paul took people along with him, people like Barnabas and Silas and Timothy and some others. But Paul didn’t go out on those missionary trips alone.

He took people with him. And I think this is part of the reason. Not just because people have different gifts. We read about Paul and Barnabas that they had different things that they did well. One was the chief speaker anyway. Not my point. Working together makes it easier for us to go on when we see the other person going ahead.

3. God Knows Who Works

I might let myself down every once in a while. I don’t want to let the other guy down. I’d feel bad about that. What else do we learn from Nehemiah 3 and this list of people working on the wall? Well, we learn that God knows who works. Sometimes, maybe a lot of the time, work that we do goes unnoticed, at least by other people. Sometimes other people don’t know what we do. And we might there’s a there’s a part of us that kind of wants other people to notice, that we want to feel appreciated. But part of the message here is that even if nobody else knows, God does. The list of names here is a list of names written in God’s book. It is his memorial of the people who worked.

And even if I didn’t have any idea who they were before this evening, I can look at that and say, God remembers who was doing the work on his city. God remembers who was trying to get that city defended from the raiders all around. God knows who worked.

In Matthew the 6th chapter, verses 1 through 6. Jesus talks about this idea of not blowing your own horn, not literally, in fact. That’s what he talks about. He says, Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward from your father in heaven. Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory for men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, that your charitable deed may be secret. And your father who sees in secret will himself reward you openly.

And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you pray, go into your room. And when you have shut your door, pray to your father who’s in the secret place, and your father who sees in secret will reward you openly.

Revelation 14 and 20 and 22 talk about our works being remembered by the Father in the judgment. Blessed for the dead who die in the Lord, that they may rest from their labors and their works do follow them. And then chapter 20 and chapter 22 talk about God looking in the books. The books were opened. There were people whose names were in the book, their deeds were in the book. God remembered. In fact, there are a number of places in the Bible where we read about things coming to God’s remembrance. Even if they were overlooked by men, God doesn’t overlook them. One of the things that frustrated Solomon in the book of Ecclesiastes was that no matter what great thing you might accomplish, after you die, you’re likely to be forgotten.

He talks about it in Ecclesiastes 2, he talks about it in Ecclesiastes 9. He said, Whatever great thing I might do. Now, Solomon, it’s kind of funny for Solomon to say that because we obviously we haven’t forgotten Solomon. But a lot of the people of the past who did great things, I mean, we unearthed things, and every once in a while we find a name on them, but there are a lot of things that people did that we don’t know about. Of the billions of people who have lived on the earth, how many historical figures can you name? It’s not in the billions. Right? It’s in the dozens or the scores, maybe a couple hundred. But most of the people of history are lost to our remembrance, and the things that they did are lost to us.

But God knows. If you’re working for the Lord and you feel unappreciated, just remember that God knows. And you’re in his book. And there will come a time when the book is opened. People might not be reading it yet, but the book will be opened. God’s the one who holds the reward anyway. At least the reward that we really want. And I’ll say this as well. People usually do notice the results of work, even if they don’t notice who’s doing it. When people show up here and they see that the services are orderly and there’s a good spirit that prevails among the brethren, and that the classes are conducted in a good fashion, they’re well organized, things happen. When you show up in a church, that there is a sense whether it’s a church where things happen or things don’t happen.

You don’t have to be there very long before you figure that out. And even if you don’t know who’s doing it, you can still see that it’s being done. You can see from the kind of church that it is, you can see whether people are working or not. So even if people don’t know your name, they see the result of your work and they appreciate the result of your work. Even when they don’t know the details. Now, the flip side of that is that God also knows who doesn’t work. And that’s in Nehemiah 3. We stopped reading a minute ago in verse 4. The next verse says, Next to them the Tokoites made repairs, but their nobles did not put their shoulders to the work of the Lord.

-oh. It’s not all good news in Nehemiah 3. What do you know about the Tokoites? I mean, if I just asked you to take out a piece of paper and write down everything that you know about the Tokoites, it wouldn’t take very long. Maybe you’ve done it already. It’s a really short list. You might remember that Amos was a herdsman from Tokoah. Maybe. If you think really hard, and if you have a concordance or a search function, then you might remember that there was a wise woman from Tokoa that Joab brought before David one time to talk to him about Absalom because Joab had an agenda, but he wanted to work through somebody else, and so he found a wise woman from Tokoa to come tell David a story.

It was really about Absalom. But she was a wise woman from Tokoa. There are some other mentions of Jacoa, but you don’t know very much about these people. It’s just not revealed. But I know this. When the time came to work on the wall, the ordinary Tokoites were out there lifting stones, and the nobles said, not us. Why? I don’t know. I mean, you could sort of guess that they say, well, we feel like that’s that’s work for the common people, they need to go do that. We’re above all that. Doesn’t matter. God doesn’t give them an excuse. God doesn’t say, but it was okay, they weren’t well suited for this kind of work. What he says is, these people didn’t work when it was time to work.

4. Work Deserves Recognition

So there is something of lasting importance recorded about the Tokoite nobles, and it’s not very good. Because God also knows who doesn’t work. And eventually, that will be in his book as well. Now, I just said it doesn’t matter if anybody notices. And then the next thing I’m going to say about this chapter is that we learn from it that work deserves recognition. So it doesn’t matter if people notice what you do. But if you notice what somebody else is doing, let them know. That’s part of the encouragement. That’s part of the provoking and stirring up love and good works that we mentioned before in Hebrews chapter 10, is that when people do things that are good and you notice them, and you say, Good job, that kind of stimulates them to want to do more of that.

That’s the kind of stirring up that we’re talking about. Sometimes when there are public works that happen in the city. So there’s some new government building that’s built, a new courthouse or whatever. But especially if it’s a public building, you go, you look at the cornerstone for that building, and a lot of times there’s a plaque on the cornerstone or beside it. Or maybe near the door, because the door has more visibility because that’s where the people go. But on the plaque, you see some names. Who was the mayor when this was built? And who were the councilmen? Who were the people who worked long and hard to spend your tax dollars on this building? Who were the people who constructed it? They want their names on there.

They want to be remembered. Well, I can look in Nehemiah 3, and I can see a public works project, and I can see who worked on the Valley Gate and the fountain gate and all those other gates that you’re going to go through and read as you go through the chapter. I can see who worked on those. And it’s better to be recorded there than it is to be recorded on any bronze plaque on the cornerstone. You might remember a story in Matthew 26 when Jesus was in the house of Simon the leper, and there was a woman who had some expensive ointment, and she anointed Jesus with it. And some of the disciples said, Couldn’t we find a better use for this? And among the things that Jesus said to them, he said, Wherever the story of the gospel goes in the world, what this woman has done will be told as a memorial for her.

We’re still talking about her today. Because God recorded her story in the book. The disciples don’t get such a pleasant treatment in that particular story. They come across looking not quite as nice as she does. But her story is still told as a memorial for her. What she did deserves some recognition.

Likewise, in the church, God wants us to acknowledge the people who work for him. 1 Thessalonians the fifth chapter. Beginning in verse 12. Paul is an excellent example of acknowledging people who did good work. And he tried to encourage other people to do the same. 1 Thessalonians 5, beginning in verse 12, we urge you, brethren, to recognize those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you. And to esteem them very highly in love for their work’s sake. Be at peace among yourselves. Recognize those who labor, and esteem them very highly for their work’s sake. So he put that into practice in several places, including the book of Philippians. In Philippians, the fourth chapter, or not the fourth chapter, rather, but the second.

Philippians 2 in verse 25, he talks about a fellow named Epaphroditus. I considered it necessary to send you Epaphroditus, my brother, fellow worker, and fellow soldier, but your messenger and the one who ministered to my need, and talks a little about Epaphroditus, but move on down to verse 29. Receive him, therefore, in the Lord with all gladness, and hold such men in esteem. Recognize this guy for what he has done. Why, Paul? Because for the work of Christ he came close to death, not regarding his life to supply what was lacking in your service toward me. And then in chapter 3 and verse 17, Paul says, Brethren, join in following my example, and note those who so walk as you have us for a pattern. Note those who so walk.

Watch them, observe them, take note. Every once in a while, tell them, good job. In Romans, the 16th chapter, we won’t go there and read, but almost the entire 16th chapter of Romans is Paul recognizing people who have worked with him or done things for him that he wants to greet. But he doesn’t just greet them. He doesn’t just say hi. He points out the good things that they’ve done. Paul noted those who were doing what they needed to be doing. And again, they’re recorded in the book. I don’t know very much about most of those men. I don’t know much about Epaphroditus other than what Paul says here. I don’t know anything about the guys in Nehemiah 3, other than what’s said there in that chapter.

But I know that they were doing the right thing. I don’t thank people enough necessarily for the things that they do. I just sort of take it for granted that people are going to do stuff.

5. Unpleasant Work Has to Be Done

I kind of, because things have always been done, I just sort of expect they’re going to continue to be done, and so we just kind of take that for granted. But every once in a while, notice the people who are doing those things. They’ll appreciate it. Well, let’s look at a map for a second. This is a map of Jerusalem at the early first century, at the time that Jesus was there. So it’s a few years after the period that we’re talking about. But that’s okay. The part that I want you to notice is down here at the bottom of the map, the Hinnem Valley. At a period in Israel’s history before the time of Nehemiah, the Hinnum Valley was a place that was dedicated to the worship of Molech.

If you know some of the things about the worship of Molech, you’ll understand some of the nastiness that entailed. Some of the moral nastiness, anyway. But Josiah came along and he defiled the altars to Molech there and made it a place that nobody would want to worship idols there anymore because this turned into the garbage dump for the city of Jerusalem. Alright, this is where people threw their trash. This became the landfill. Nobody wanted to build an altar there anymore. So that’s good. But the point of this is not about the Hinnem Valley. The point is that you’ve got to get there somehow. You see that there is a wall that goes along the Hinnem Valley. And there’s a place that on this map it’s called the Dungate, and probably in the King James Version, it’s called that as well.

The New King James refers to it as the refuse gate. But basically, this is the place where you took your trash to toss it into the landfill. Not the nicest neighborhood in town, necessarily.

But there was a gate there, and there was a wall, and there was some work that had to be done there. So some of that work was even more unpleasant than average. In Nehemiah the third chapter in verse 14, we actually read about the guy who was working there. Malkaijah, the son of Rechab, leader of the district of Beth Hazarim, repaired the refuge gate. He built it and hung its doors with its bolt and bolts and bars. Good for Malachijah. Do you imagine there were a lot of volunteers for that? I want to work there. Probably not. Do you think it was a lot of fun working on that part? No. I imagine they got done with it as quickly as they could. Maybe smeared little minthol on their lips to mask the smell.

I don’t know what they did. But it wasn’t pleasant work. But it had to be done. Because I’ll tell you, if there’s no wall in that section of town, the next army that comes along is going to have no qualms at all about spending a few minutes in the garbage dump to get into the city. That part of the wall had to be built as well. And Malachi just stepped up and he did it. Even though it was even more unpleasant than the rest of the work. There’s always work in the church that is unpleasant. But it has to be done. Nobody likes to go and talk to people about their souls when the news is not good. When the news is good, it’s easy to go talk to people about that.

It’s easy for John to say, I want you to be in health and prosper even as your soul prospers.

We need to talk about sin. We need to talk about repentance. That’s hard. Nobody likes to do it. It’s uncomfortable. We shy away from it. We fear rejection of what we have to say. We fear being rejected personally. God said to Samuel, they haven’t rejected you, they’ve rejected me, but it still feels like they’re rejecting me. Samuel thought to himself. I’m imagining that. It doesn’t say, but I’m going to imagine that Samuel thought, it sure feels like they’re rejecting me. They were certainly rejecting Samuel’s sons, who were worthless characters anyway, but that’s a different story. In Galatians, the fourth chapter, Paul after Galatians, Am I become your enemy because I tell you the truth. That happens sometimes. It’s one of the reasons why this is unpleasant work.

6. We've Got to Live With What We Build

Sometimes it has to be done. Nobody lines up to go help the sinner who is struggling in his sin and say, we can help, but something needs to happen. It’s just uncomfortable. It’s outside our comfort zone. But the city, the city of God, needs defense all the way around, even when sometimes it involves working in some places that are less pleasant. Well, another lesson from this chapter is we’ve got to live with what we build. Let’s go back to Nehemiah chapter 3. And we’ll look at verse 23 and a couple other verses a little later, and there’s a there’s a new phrase that makes an appearance here. So you are rewarded for digging on into the chapter, some new things pop up once you get in.

Not just new names. So after him, Benjamin and Hashab made repairs opposite their house. Note that phrase, opposite their house. And after them, Azariah, the son of Maasseah, the son of Ananiah made repairs by his house. Keep on down to verse 28. Verses 28 through 30. Beyond the horse gate, I can say horse gate. Beyond the horse gate, the priests made repairs, each in front of his own house. And after them, Zadok, the son of Emmer made repairs in front of his own house. And it goes on. There’s a list of people here who made repairs by their own houses. Now I want you to think about something. If you happen to have a house that’s out by the wall, how motivated are you to make sure that the wall by your house is in really good shape.

The next time the armies come and they surround the city.

Do you want the area by your house to be the weak point in the wall? Probably not. If the barbarian hordes are going to come pouring through, you want it to be way over there. Not here. Not where I live. Let it be way over there. So these guys had to live with the wall that they built. The wall that they built was not only protecting their city, it was also defending their house. Every one of us in the church has to build on his own spiritual house as well as building on the collective city. And if we are diligent or negligent in that work, that decision will affect both our own house and the whole group.

Satan gets in every once in a while. But our resolution personally has to be that may happen, but not through my house. Whatever happened, whatever bad happens, whatever route Satan may take to come in, let it not be through my house. Because that’s the part that I have the most control over. I can control the defenses by my house. And my first job is to make sure that those are strong. I don’t want to be the weak point for the whole city. I don’t want the whole city to look at me later and say, you could have done a better job on your part of the wall, bud. Let it be that guy way over there. But not my house. When we come together to edify each other, this is part of the work of building.

It’s part of the collective work that we do together. And I have an obligation to be here to build. But when I go home from here, I’ve got some building to do in the vicinity of my house as well. Because that helps to fortify the city. That makes me more able to help others when my own house is in order. And when people decide to neglect that work of building in the vicinity of their own house, their houses are in danger, and that weakens the building as a whole. The quality of the church doesn’t come from how receptive the community is, what the moral climate of the world outside is like. Doesn’t come from whether the building is nice. The quality of the church comes from its internal circumstances.

Have we built our own house? Have we helped in the building of others’ houses? That’s what makes the church a good strong church that can withstand whatever Satan has to throw at it. Because he is at work, Jared. He is. But if he’s going to come in, let it not be in my house. We have to live with what we build. If the church is not what I want it to be, I shouldn’t just sit and complain about it. I need to get to building. If I see a weak spot in the wall, I don’t get to point the finger at the other guy and say, hey, your wall is weak over there. If the wall falls, I’m in danger regardless of where it is. If the wall is weak, I need to get to building.

Conclusion

We’ve got to live with the wall that we make. Well, finally, it’s it’s obvious that I’ve been drawing some parallels between the city of Jerusalem and the church. But Paul talks explicitly in 1 Corinthians chapter 3 about the church as God’s building. As a work that is still in progress as we build upon it. 1 Corinthians 3, beginning in verse 10, Paul says, According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation. And another builds on it, but let each one take heed how he builds on it. For other foundation, or for no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. And he goes on to say, if you do a good job building, that’s great.

If you do a poor job building, your work stands in danger of being destroyed when the difficulties come. But his point is every one of us is building. Take heed how you build, he says. Now, some people look at this passage and they think about us building our own lives. And we are doing that, but that’s not what Paul has in mind. When Paul says in verse 9, we are God’s fellow workers, you are God’s field, you are God’s building. He’s talking about us collectively as the building of God. Not me building on my own life, but how I build in the church. What I’m doing for the body. And great leadership, however good the leadership of a congregation might be, however good Nehemiah might have been as a leader, whatever his personal qualities may have been, he still needed support from people who would go out and do the work.

All of the people that you read about. The ones with the easy names and the hard names and Malchaija down there working on the refuse gate, every one of them, they had jobs, they had to eat. They had families who needed attention. They had other things in their lives that they would rather be doing. But they took the time to do the work. Take heed how you build, because the work will be tested. The wall was there because the bands of raiders were outside. If they weren’t there wouldn’t have been any need for the wall. Don’t let your work be burned up in the language of 1 Corinthians chapter 3. Don’t let your wall fall into disrepair. So work in the church is just like the work on the wall.

It’s good to show up. It’s great to show up. But that’s only a start. We have a lot more to do when we’re done here this evening. Success is a group effort. We all, there are some things in the church that we all need to accomplish together. We have to work on our own houses, but there are some things that we have to do as a group. God knows who works and who doesn’t work. Those who work, those who do a good job, those who are who are exemplary for the rest of the group, they deserve some recognition. They deserve to be noted. And for you to say, I appreciate the things that you’re doing on behalf of the work of the Lord. Some jobs, unfortunately, not pleasant.

No fun. But they have to be done for the wall to be whole and complete and for it to stand up where it needs to stand. And finally, we live with what we build. The quality of the church reflects the quality of the work of the members on its behalf. And when the members are willing to do that work, even the unpleasant ones, the church will be strong regardless of what the enemy does outside. So are you a part of God’s building this evening? I hope you are. You might not be. Are you working with the people of God on building the holy city where they dwell? You should be. But if you’re not, you can become one of his workers this evening. Or maybe your section of the wall is in disrepair.

Maybe it has been overrun by the enemy. We can help to rebuild and repair that section of the wall so that your house can stand once again as part of the defense of the building of God. If you need assistance from the congregation this evening in any way, we invite you to let that be made known by coming forward as we stand together and sing.