Let Us Rise Up and Build

Introduction

If you’d like to put a marker in Ephesians chapter 4, we’re going to be heading over there in just a few moments. Ephesians 4 is actually the place I first thought of going and talking about this idea of building and growing, which I think is just a need in our group. Not because anything necessarily is going wrong. It’s just when you have a group of people that’s growing and changes over time. Some faces are new, some people leave. There’s just this kind of need for talk about the unity of God’s people and the work that is to be done. And so I just see that as a need, and that’s why we’re spending a few lessons doing that. And we’re going to look at this through the eyes of a story, which I think also is very effective, rather than just principles and ideas.

Everybody always has jokes about politics, building walls and all that. I promise you, God’s build back better plan has nothing to do with politics. Alright, so we’ll just get that out there now. I’m serious. I just threw that out there because that’s always a joke. That’s fine. You can joke with me about that later. But there are no undertones about politics or who you choose to vote for or anything like that. It is purely about what we’re trying to do here and the work in this place. And it’s okay to laugh at a Democrat motto. It’s alright, you can do that. Nehemiah chapter three is where I really want to focus a lot of our time this morning, with kind of an understanding of what’s going on before we get to this text, which is kind of enveloped in the end of chapter two.

Many of you already know the story. Nehemiah has come back from serving the king as a cupbearer. He has heard that the people, the exiles who’ve returned, are in great trouble and shame. They were supposed to rebuild the city, and yet it still is sitting in shambles. And that’s embarrassing. You know, this was God’s plan for them, and they have not accomplished God’s plan, and that’s shameful. The text makes that very clear. And when Nehemiah hears it, he’s he’s mournful. He’s praying to God, and there’s a great prayer in chapter one that would be also worthy of looking at and spending time in. We’re not going to do that this morning. And he has a plan, and he talks to the king. The king says, Go back, you have my favor.

And one of the parts of the story that I won’t get into depth on this morning, but is just the frequency of Nehemiah talking about God’s favor and all this, how God has blessed him, how God is blessing the people. That’s certainly the foundation of a lot of what’s happening here, at least in Nehemiah’s perspective, and he voices this quite frequently. He rallies the people at the end of chapter two, and I want to read a few select texts from chapter two through chapter six. And I’ll kind of let you know where I’m at. I don’t want to read the entire thing because it’s a lot. and you can read this on your own, and I think that’d be worth doing.

But chapter two, verse 17, he says, Then I said to them, This is the people, the rulers, and they kind of all work as a unit. So he’s speaking to the nobles, but also he speaks to the people. You see the trouble we are in. He recognizes again, they’re in trouble. How Jerusalem lies in ruins with its gates burned. Come, let us build the wall of Jerusalem, that we may no longer suffer derision. And I told them of the hand of God, my God that had been upon me for good, and also of the words that the king had spoken to me, and they said, Let us rise up and build. So they strengthened their hands for the good work. I want to skip ahead to chapter three in verse 23.

I want to read a section here. It’s a little bit longer than that one, just describing the work as it went on. Now, this entire chapter is about that. I’m going to just take a little section of it, and we’ll kind of build from there. It says, After them, Benjamin and Hashab repaired opposite their house. After them, Azariah, the son of Meshech, son of Ananiah repaired beside his own house. After him, Banuai, the son of Hinadad, repaired another section, from the house of Azariah to the Butras and to the corner. Pelel, the son of Uzai, repaired opposite the Butras, and the tower projecting from the upper house of the king at the court of the guard. After him, Padiah the son of Perosh, and the temple servants living on Ofel, repaired to a point opposite the water gate on the east and projecting tower.

After him the Tokoites repaired another section opposite the great projecting tower, as far as the wall of Ophel. Now let me show you really quickly before I continue what this looks like. Some of you are maybe more visual, and you can kind of get a sense of what’s happening here. They’re starting kind of on the I’ll show you oriented the right way just a minute, northeast, southwest. This is laid sideways so you can see it better. But they’re starting up here in this corner, and they’re gonna work counterclockwise. This is the old city. If you went to Jerusalem today, it’s much bigger. But there’s still the old city there, the city of David, and this is what they’re working on. Right? And so they’re they’re starting down here at the corner, working their way all the way around.

And the section we’re reading is more toward the end, starting about number seven, if you can see that seven, and kind of working all the way to where that twelve is. Now, this is the way it really is, kind of if you orient it with this, the north section. So the temple mount would have been in the north, and they’re working their way west, around to the south, and then east and back up to the north again. So, focusing a little closer now, from seven all the way through here, you can kind of at least catch up with some of what I was reading there. So, back in Nehemiah chapter three and verse twenty-nine, it says, Above the horse gate. So, number ten, that’s where we’re at right there.

Above the horse gate, the priest repaired, each one opposite his own house. After them, Zadok the son of Emir repaired opposite his own house. After him, Shemiah, the son of Shechaniah, the keeper of the east gate repaired. After him, Hananiah, the son of Shalemiah, and Hanan, the sixth son of Zaloph repaired another section. After him, Meshulam, the son of Barakiah repaired opposite his chamber. After him, Melchijah, one of the goldsmiths, repaired, as far as the house of the temple servants, and of the merchants opposite the muster gate, and to the upper chamber of the corner, and between the upper chamber of the corner and the sheep gate, the goldsmiths and merchants repaired. Chapter 4 and verse 6. So we built the wall, and all the wall was joined together to half its height, for the people had a mind to work.

Chapter 6, verse 15. So you might have to jump a page here. Chapter 6 and verse 15. So the wall was finished on the twenty-fifth day of the month of Alul, in the fifth in fifty-two days. And when all our enemies heard of it, all the nations around us were afraid and fell greatly in their own esteem. For they perceived that this work had been accomplished with the help of our God. There’s a lot of content in the middle of this that’s worthwhile. In fact, later on at some point, I’m going to preach a sermon about facing obstacles, the opposition that took place to their building, because I think that would be important for us to think through. But this morning I want us to think about the idea of working together, what this looks like to work together as God’s people and what can be accomplished when we work together.

And certainly Nehemiah is doing that with these people.

And he gathers the people and they strengthen their hands and they begin to do this work, and they are divided up into groups. And so we’re going to look at the story as we work through some principles or lessons that we can gain from it. So I want to just talk about some basic ideas that I think should be helpful for us in seeing how we can work together as God’s people. And I want to sort of splice this together with Ephesians 4, because Ephesians 4 is a powerful text that really tells us a lot about working together as God’s people.

1. Understanding What We're Building

Their purpose was to rebuild the altar, the temple, worship, and the wall. God sent them back, more generally speaking, to rebuild the city. That was their purpose. Now, there’s a lot of aspects to that are also important, but essentially that’s what they were supposed to do. As God’s people, when Cyrus offered this decree in 539 BC, those who came back, their purpose was to come back and to rebuild the city and its various elements. And this is why Nehemiah is not so concerned about a structure or about a wall. It’s not that building walls is so important. And now they don’t have this wall built, and so Nehemiah is really depressed and sad. It’s the reason for it. The whole purpose of them returning was to honor God by rebuilding his dwelling place, which is the temple and even the city itself.

And Nehemiah is now hearing word that they still are in great trouble and shame. And that is what then sends Nehemiah into this mournful state with prayer and realizing something needs to be done about this. They were supposed to be fulfilling their calling from the Lord himself, but they hadn’t done that yet. So Nehemiah then takes it upon himself to then go help in this process. Well, what is the purpose of the church? What is it that we are supposed to be doing? What is our calling? I think there may be multiple answers to that, and we could go some different directions, but I think Paul covers it pretty well in Ephesians chapter 4, in a way that I think is really beneficial to all of us.

So I want to begin in verse 11. Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 11. There’s a section above this that talks about the importance of humility and gentleness and patience and bearing with one another, and all that’s really valuable as well in this content here. But in verse 11 of Ephesians 4, it says, and he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cutting, by craftiness and deceitful schemes.

Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. So what we’re concerned with is not building a physical temple or building physical walls, but we are concerned as God’s people today with building up his people. The edifice that is being built is our faith, and our faith being built together. And there’s three elements of this that Paul talks about. He says he gives all of these positions, right? The apostles, the prophets, evangelists, and shepherd teachers. The shepherd and teachers there really are actually one role, if you look at it in Greek.

Now, in our modern vernacular, sometimes we get a little bit confused with this word saint, because in some dominant religion, that’s used to talk about like exceptional Christians. Sometimes people who’ve even gone on before, they’ve died, and now they are deemed saints. But I want us to understand at a basic level, we are all saints. If we are God’s people, we are his holy ones. We are part of his people, we are saints, and that’s why in Ephesians 1, verses 1 and 2, he says, to the saints who are in Ephesus. This is to everyone. And if you’re part of God’s people, you are one of the saints. And the purpose of particularly evangelists and shepherd teachers and what they’re using, the work of the apostles and the and the prophets, is to equip the saints, to equip everyone for work.

To equip everyone for the work of ministry or service. And the purpose of that is so that we all attain maturity. So that’s the final goal of this. The final end of this is that we are seeking maturity. So whatever I or someone else does up here in preaching or teaching, whatever it is the elders or others are doing to try to talk about scripture, it’s not just so that we know more about scripture. It’s not just so that we have a better theology and we understand the scriptures to some better degree. No, the end goal is action. The end goal is work, it’s service. The point is equipping people for work. So what that means is if the service isn’t the end result, the job isn’t complete.

And everyone is to be involved. Really, that’s the picture here in Ephesians chapter 4. It’s every joint is supply. And so if service isn’t the goal, we are failing our mission. If we just know the Bible better, that’s all. We failed our mission. The mission is to equip everyone for work. And that’s why I’m making a big deal about this. That’s why I made a big deal about it last week, and I’m going to make a big deal about it this week. The goal of the church, the purpose of the church is to equip everyone for work and service and God’s kingdom. It’s to build up the body. And so Paul uses that twice in this text in Ephesians chapter 4. And the body, of course, is all of us.

We’re to be built up and to encourage each other. And so we can still learn lessons from the Old Testament where they’re building buildings for the purposes of the Lord, and then convey that into modern application with what we are trying to do now as we build. So let’s talk about some elements of this that I think are pretty important in the text. That as we are God’s people working in God’s ways, we need to see the common goal of what we are trying to accomplish. This is why Paul uses phrases like in Philippians, be of one mind, or be of the same mind. Right? We understand that we’re all working for the same thing. So whenever I begin to see the things that I want, as opposed to the things that you want, now we’re going in the wrong direction.

Does that make sense? If I’m emphasizing my desires and my wants over other people’s, I’m missing the point of what we’re supposed to be accomplishing. Right? Which is why Paul begins that text in Ephesians 4 with the idea of humility and gentleness and bearing with one another and all those concepts that are super important to this idea of having the unity or maintaining the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. That’s where he begins. And so it doesn’t have to be my way. Sometimes I need to bend to the desire of others and see what it is that they want to accomplish. And this is also pretty important in terms of building itself, that I allow other people to build in areas of interest, which we’ll come back to here in just a moment.

But the first place we have to begin is understanding what we’re building. This is why last week I made a point to emphasize I’m not talking about building a new building, even though that’s in our plans somewhere, and at some point we would like to do that. That’s not really the end goal. That’s something that may happen when we have built here, when we are building up God’s people.

2. Everyone Works

Equipping for the work of ministry, so people, everybody has a way to serve. So then this goes into the next principle. The next principle that we see here in the text is that if we’re going to build together, or if we’re going to be united in our work, that means everyone works. When they came to the land, if you look at Ezra 2, there’s about 80 to 90 families somewhere in there. In Nehemiah 3, there’s at least a minimum of 40 families mentioned in this building process. Now, sometimes it mentions things like in chapter 3, verse 2, the men of Jericho built. I don’t know how many families that involved, or how many clans, right? They’re kind of broken up in we call them families. They call them clans sometimes.

And so that’s how they’re mentioned in Ezra 2. Again, in Nehemiah 3, they’re broken up by these families or heads of families and the things that they’re doing. But I think the bottom line here is this is a pretty astounding turnout for this work. You think about all the considerations that go into this. They’ve been there now for 70 years. If we keep reading in the text, we’ll realize a lot of people don’t live in Jerusalem. They actually live out in the villages. And then you also have many who probably don’t have the ability necessarily to come in financially because their need for subsistence, maybe they can’t be a part of this. But with all of that considered, you’ve got 50% of the families.

But still, it’s a big number of people who are directly involved in the building of this wall. Nehemiah goes out of his way to list all of these people. And I think kind of in a funny twist, he also goes out of his way to mention the ones who wouldn’t work. We didn’t read that part. But earlier in the text, he mentions the Tekoites, which actually they build multiple sections, which is interesting. They built multiple sections, but it says in chapter 3 and verse 5, the Jacobites repaired, but their nobles would not stoop to serve the Lord. They were too good for work. So we had there’s a few who were too good for work.

3. Build Where You Are

But the bigger story is that really everyone was lending a hand. Everyone was a part of this process. They were finding a way to do what needed to be done. And Nehemiah, I think in his wisdom, seems to assign people or at least allows them to build in a way that just makes a lot of sense. And so that’s this kind of parenthetical I have up here that everyone when we’re building together or we’re united in our building, this is going to involve personal interest. And really it should. And Nehemiah makes sure that actually happens. So we’re talking about the wall here, but there’s other elements of this that are pretty important. In chapter 7, if you look at chapter 7, once the wall’s been built, Nehemiah is also concerned with protecting the city.

And so he builds guardposts. And there’s guards, but notice how he does this. He puts his brother in charge of all of this. And he says, appoint guards. This is in verse 3, toward the end of it. Appoint guards from among the inhabitants of Jerusalem, some at their guardposts, and some in front of their own homes. So I want to encourage us to build with personal investment. And the things that matter to us. And Nehemiah certainly allows this or even assigns this in the building process in Nehemiah chapter 3. I read that one section and you saw repeatedly that they’re building opposite their own home. But there’s plenty of that even before verse 23. People are interested in building the things that then relate to them, like protecting their own home.

Or you have priests that are building, if you remember the map, some of the things that are happening, they’re building next to the temple. So the priests in multiple spots were building next to the temple. The merchants were building inside the North Gate. The North Gate is a huge merchant area. So the guilds are then rebuilding the sections that directly affect their business. Okay, so why am I telling you all this? Because the guilds didn’t say, hey, could somebody else go build that Northgate section so we can go do business there? And the priests, they weren’t like, hey, somebody really needs to go build the wall near my house near the temple. If someone could go do that’d be really great. Or someone could plan that for me.

And so what I’m getting at here is first of all, build where you are. Build according to the purposes of God. We talked about that in point one. But there’s a couple other principles I want us to get here. And the first of those is that we need to be the kind of people who build where we are. Are you a single person? And you’re interested in single things, find other singles. Make it happen. Have people over to your home. Set things up to go do. Are you a young adult or a young professional or maybe a young married person? Open your apartment or your home. Have people over for meals, have Bible studies, do singings. This is the way that people become connected. It’s not because the church plans it for you.

That doesn’t build relationships the way it does when we individually decide that we’re going to build where we are. That I’m in this certain place, and this is important to me, and it matters. And so we take some initiative, and I realize that there’s some places along this continuum that may need some help. I get that. Right? That’s why our teenagers, we sort of plan events for them sometimes. But you know, actually, they’re pretty good about planning their own events too, because they want to get together. And so they make it happen and they come to their parents and say, hey, can I go do this? And sometimes it’s not even that convenient, but we say yes, because we want them to get together. Right?

So if it matters to us, let’s build there. I want to be careful in how I say this because I don’t want it to come off too strongly, but I just want you to understand no one is planning events for middle-aged married with middle-aged children. They plan their own events. Because that’s life. And so if we’re waiting for someone to come along to plan our events for us, we’re going to be missing out in life. Now, when there are things planned, take advantage, certainly. But the way that we build cohesion and we build together is not by waiting around for somebody else to do it. It’s by taking action and deciding that we’re going to do it because it matters. That I’m going to build where I am.

You have kids or you have grandkids, invest in their spiritual learning. We have a personal interest in our children. I talked a lot about that last time, so I’m not going to talk as much about it this morning. But we should care that our children are not tossed to and fro by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, as Paul talks about in Ephesians 4 14. It matters interesting, Dad. This is a good point for you. I had men come up and said, I’ll go in any class. That’s great. I had other couples come up to me and say, Hey, where can I serve? I’m going to talk to the elders. That’s awesome. That’s the sort of attitude that we want that’s going to bring cohesion, that’s going to bring us together as God’s people.

Are you skilled in various tasks and abilities? We’ve got some really talented and skilled people here. Jump in. Help in those areas. I know there can be some complications, and again, we’ll talk about that in a later sermon. But man, we want you to use your abilities. We want you to use your talents. You don’t always have to wait to be asked. Sometimes you can take the initiative and say, I’m here to help, and I want to do what I can do. Now, in all of that, I understand there’s things already in place and things working, and we have to be careful how we do those sorts of things. But the point is, build where you are. We don’t have to overcomplicate it. The wall needed to be built, and this family lived close to this wall.

4. Build Where There Is Need for Building

Sometimes they were on the outside, right? It’s the men of Gibeon or it’s the men of Jericho, but that wall is sort of close to where they are, and so they say, We’re going to build here. Because that affects us. Right? There’s some importance there to me or to my family or to my business, whatever it is. And the second part of this is we need to build where there is need for building. Sometimes it may not be that it’s just some big desire I have or some interest I have. Maybe it doesn’t help my kids, or maybe it’s not about the singles or the young married, or whatever. Maybe it’s about a widow or a retired person or whatever it might be. But sometimes there’s just a need that needs to be filled.

And so we build where we are, and we build in the things that we can be personally invested in, but sometimes it’s just we build where it is needed. There’s a group of people in this text that probably deserve a lot more attention than the minute and a half I’m giving them right here. But they built multiple sections of the wall. Merrimauth, Meshulum, the Tokoites. Benu or Benai, he’s called a little bit different names, but it’s the same person. Hananiah, probably the same person in verse 8 and verse 30. These people, some of them they built next to their house, but then they also saw a need somewhere else. And they rose up and they took care of it. And so sometimes it’s just that we need to fill a need when we see it.

5. Building Takes Long-Term Dedicated Commitment

And that is true in a number of different ways. It’s interesting, these people they were very enthusiastic at first. Do you remember when they first got to the land and they laid the foundation and they’re rejoicing? Some of them were sad because they remember the old temple and all of that. But overall, they were they were celebratory. They were excited, they’re praising the Lord. But then things sort of wane for years and years and years. The temple takes 20 years to build, the wall takes 70 plus years to build. And so enthusiasm at first is great. That initial burst of enthusiasm, but actually, when it comes to building, it really takes long-term dedicated commitment.

It means I have to be willing to give up some other stuff sometimes to make sacrifices. Sometimes it means I’m going to have to be uncomfortable. I might be uncomfortable with a new challenge that I have to face. Or new responsibilities. Doing things I’m not used to. I may be stressed out. I may be overwhelmed. I may be tired. But you know, these are the sorts of things we face all the time in all areas of life. We have a new job or we get a promotion. I mean, we don’t typically say, I just don’t want to be overwhelmed. You know, it’s I don’t want to be tired, I don’t want to be stressed. So now, sometimes we might. Sometimes that might be the right choice because we want to make sure we dedicate enough time to our family.

So I get there’s nuances to all of this. But typically we realize a new responsibility is not really something to be afraid of, it’s something that we dive into, that we’re willing to take on. That stress can actually be good stress. There is good stress that grows us, that makes us better than we were before. And so when we resist that’s actually not a good thing sometimes.

It’s not quite as challenging as we thought it might be. When I first started preaching, my grandpa made me do it, actually. You might remember that story. I showed up at his house and he’s like, You’re preaching tomorrow. He had no problem making people uncomfortable. And I was very uncomfortable. I mean, I think I had done one invitation in my life, you know, and I was heading down to college. that was not comfortable. And I was probably a little terrified. you know, you’re gonna get up and speak in front of people, and then I did it. It wasn’t, it was still a little scary, but it wasn’t what I thought it would be. I’ll just put it that way, and I realized, oh, you know, I can I can open the Bible and read from it and make some points.

So sometimes we get in our minds, we convince ourselves in our minds that things are more complicated or harder than they actually are. We allow ourselves to get overwhelmed, or we refuse to make commitments or sacrifices because we’re worried about what that’s gonna mean for us. And we talked last time about the importance of the things that are happening here and what it means to build God’s things and according to God’s purposes, and how that is the primary thing. And so that needs to go into my decision making. And the reality is that some of us need to learn the word no. Gotta say no to some things. We’ve got to say no to things that aren’t as important. Some of you probably need to say no to some things that happen here, even because you do a lot and you overburden yourself, and of course, what that means is other people then have to slide in and take on some of those responsibilities.

But that’s the point we’re making this morning, right? That we’re building united. That we see this with a common purpose and a common goal. And so here’s the thing. If I’m not willing to build my section of the wall, one of two things happens. First, either it doesn’t get done and there’s something missing, and we leave ourselves exposed, and their story, they’re not protected, they’re not secure, or someone else has to step up and do more. And so now that person is burdened and overwhelmed and tired even more than they were before.

When we have lots of people helping, the work becomes lighter. It’s not such a burden to everyone. It just means some sacrifice and commitment on everyone’s part. And if we know our purpose, is that the prophets and the apostles and the shepherds and the evangelists, they’re trying to equip saints, everyone, for the work of service, for ministry. And we kind of put this all together and realize if every hand is working, that everyone hears the call to rise up and build and says, let’s rise and build, and strengthens their hand for the good work, then it’s certainly something that can be accomplished by everyone. During the building, the people, a lot of them had to come stay inside the walls. We learn in chapter 7, many of them lived in the villages on the outskirts.

In chapter 11, actually, they cast lots, and one tenth of the people then come and live inside the city. I mean, this is a sacrifice, this is a commitment, to then help the city grow and to build the city. So many of them wanted to live out in their fields, maybe much like many of us. We want to go live out away from the busy life of the city. We all want to get that land, right? The property we can build our house and we can live in peace and never have any problems anymore. Of course, we know that’s not true. But I mean, that’s the idea, right? They want to go work their fields and just enjoy being out away from the busyness. But there’s a need.

And so they have to be brought in. And there’s some threats, we’ll talk about some other time, but they’ve got to stay in the city. And so there’s a there’s thousands of people who now are they’re committed to this work, and so rather than going back to their homes and working in their fields, doing the things they really want to be doing because they enjoy that, their hobbies, whatever it may be, they’re living inside the city and they’re helping build. And they’re doing this for days and days and days, actually, probably a lot less days than they thought it would be, 52 in the end, but they’re there until the work is done. Nehemiah doesn’t just cast this off on everybody else. He’s a great example of a servant leader.

He talks about how he and his servants. Now, I’m not advising that people go do this, but they didn’t even change their clothes. They always had their weapons strapped to their side. I think the idea there is they’re always ready.

They had done this before where the enthusiasm waned and things didn’t happen, and the energy fell off, and this time Nehemiah was not going to let that happen. So, what about commitments or sacrifices for the good of the body of Christ? Here’s a question I have to ask. You have to ask. What if everyone made commitments the way I do? What if everyone else did what I did? How would things function? How would they work? If they had the same level of commitment, devotion. What things wouldn’t be happening? Or would it all be happening? Maybe that’s where you are. Maybe you have fully devoted yourself. If you have, that’s amazing. I appreciate that. But probably for many of us, we can think about areas where we might want to improve and offer a little bit more help.

It’s really easy to build where we are sometimes. Some of us it may not be, but a lot of us were pretty comfortable. I’ve been preaching for 20 plus years now. I enjoy preaching. Someone says, I want you to preach, I say, great, I want to preach. But sometimes I just got to do things that aren’t that easy. That I may not enjoy quite as much. And if I’m not willing to do that, how can I expect others to do that? That’s why I love Nehemiah. He’s there to help. He wants to do his part, and he holds everyone else accountable to do their part as well. And ultimately, it’s a choice that we each have to make. Are we going to put all of our heart into it?

Conclusion

Are we going to really give ourselves to the work? This is what the people did. Right in chapter 4, verse 6, it says they built the wall. The people had a mind to work. If we have a mind to work as God’s people, amazing things will happen. I think we’ve already seen that here, and that’s what I want to continue. I want us to continue to have this mindset that we have a mind to work, and we want to see amazing things continue to happen for the glory of God. And so the question this morning is who will rise up and build? Who’s ready to strengthen their hands for the good work? To maybe even work in ways you haven’t worked before, but you realize this is about building God’s people.

What we’re trying to do here is equip saints for the work of ministry so that we can all eventually attain to mature manhood, scripture says, to measure up to the fullness of Christ, who is the head. Paul says it three times in Ephesians 4. That’s our goal. And it’s a goal that all of us can be a part of and we can all work toward.

That’s part of this process too in Ephesians 4, right? It’s part of the sacrifice that you give up self. That you die to self, you die to the old man and you put on the new. As you keep reading in Ephesians 4, this is what he talks about. Don’t no longer live like the Gentiles who live in the futility of their mind, serving their own desires and doing things their own way. Stop doing that. He tells these people, you put off the old man and you put on the new. And you can begin that process this morning if you haven’t done it already. You can give your life to Jesus Christ. We’re ready to baptize you, wash away your sins by the power of God according to his plan.

And you can rise up in newness of life, ready to work and serve in all sorts of ways in his kingdom. Can we help you this morning? Come now as we stand and we sing.