March 4, 2018am Ne w Hope R oad Joelton, TN 37080

Transcription

1 Nehemiah 3 Build Together March 4, 2018am Ne w Hope R oad Joelton, TN READ Nehemiah 3:28-30; 1 Peter 4:8-11 KIDS What are the 8 observations from Nehemiah 3? Have you ever been in a situation where you did not feel like you were needed? Like there was not much that you could contribute? Several years ago, I was invited to preach at a conference. I laughed about it when I accepted the opportunity, but it hit me like a ton of bricks at the start of the conference when I saw the conference pamphlet. Every other speaker on the list had doctor of theology beside his name, and underneath, there was a list of all the books they had written. Now, I do not know if you know this about me (I hate to burst your bubble), but I am not a doctor of theology, nor have I ever written a book. Everyone else s bio was chock-full of their professional accomplishments and years of tenure, and mine said, Pastor of New Hope Church. Husband to Rachel and father of Claire. (And look those are pretty big accomplishments as far as I am concerned, but I think you know where I am coming from). Professionally, I did not think that I was really needed. Corey M. Minter Page 1 of 11

2 Your situation might be tragedy-based You feel helpless. I mean you can t stop the hurt; you can t change the situation; it is out of your control. It may be personal You just do not feel like you can contribute or help much. You may even struggle with feelings of worthlessness. I have good news for you. Ready? You. Are. Needed. You are uniquely qualified and gifted by God to serve He and His Church. That does not mean that you do not need to hone your skill, practice and sharpen your giftedness, but let this sink in, God has brought you to New Hope Church because this church needs you. You have something to add that no one else can. Scripture says of the church: 1 Corinthians 12:13 For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. 14 For in fact the body is not one member but many. 15 If the foot should say, Because I am not a hand, I am not of the body, is it therefore not of the body? 16 And if the ear should say, Because I am not an eye, I am not of the body, is it therefore not of the body? 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling? 18 But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased. 19 And if they were all one member, where would the body be? A couple of weeks ago, I came across this, and it reminded me of a lesson that I heard Craig Beecher teach before. You might have heard something similar, if you have been in church long enough. Corey M. Minter Page 2 of 11

3 Imagine a cafeteria where a woman has tripped, fallen and has dropped her bowl of soup all over herself and the floor. If we were each using our spiritual gifts at that moment, here is what would happen. The person, in our midst, who is a gifted pastor or shepherd would immediately form a line and guide people around the woman so they do not slip on the spilled soup or trip over the woman. The person with the gift of mercy would immediately go and sit down with the woman on the cafeteria floor and whisper, I know how you must feel. Here, let me wipe some of this soup off your clothing. The gifted teacher, among us, would stand and say, May I have your attention please. This dear woman has fallen and spilled her soup. You could translate the word spill, to tip out, or to tilt in an extreme direction. There are reasons why she spilled her soup actually, there are three reasons so get ready to take notes so you will not spill your soup either. The person with the gift of giving has already gone back and purchased another bowl of soup and is on his way to give the woman another bowl. After the woman has been seated at a table, the gifted exhorter leads everyone in the cafeteria in a round of three cheers for the woman who was willing to get back up on her feet. Some of you are thinking, All that is great and all, but good grief, there is soup all over the place! Someone needs to clean it up! Congratulations! You have the gift of service. You arrive with a mop and pail to clean everything up and put the cafeteria back in order Corey M. Minter Page 3 of 11

4 Let me point out two things about that fictional scenario: 1. Criticism is not a spiritual gift. I know I know You are sooooo good at it, but the very last thing that woman needs in that embarrassing situation is your laughing at her or walking by saying, How in the world did you fall?! I have never done that before! No. The woman needs help. The soup must be cleaned up. Others need to be warned of the slippery spot. 2. I can almost guarantee you that as I was going through that scenario (though I exaggerated some) you looked down (maybe just a little) on someone else s gifting. If you have the gift of service, you probably thought, Who cares about encouraging the woman?! There s a mess! Clean it up! And if you have the gift of encouragement you probably thought, Get that mop out of here! This woman is embarrassed, and you re just bringing attention to the problem! I do not know why it is, but we tend to look down on each other s gifting if it is not the same as ours. If we are particularly bent towards evangelism, we usually see the ministry of encouragement as superfluous and not as important. If we have the gift of serving, we look down on those who are gifted with teaching. Stop talking about it and do it! The woman needs help. The soup must be cleaned up. You are needed. However, if I am completely honest with you, church, I believe that there is a lot of people in our church walking around with soup stains all over them, slippery and now grimy floors, because no one helped. No Corey M. Minter Page 4 of 11

5 one cleaned. No one encouraged. You know what? That mess is still there waiting for someone else to fall into it because no one warned others, no one detoured the lunch line. You. Are. Needed. That is what Nehemiah 3 is all about. We must build together. For four weeks I have preached on Nehemiah chapters 1 and 2, and they have taken us from Nehemiah s yearning to obey God and help HIS PEOPLE, to Nehemiah s rallying the people to build the torn down city walls of Jerusalem to protect themselves, and to most recently, the spiritual graffiti artists who try to discourage you from doing anything for God. Now, we come to what should be the climax of the story the building of the wall, and if we are completely honest about it, chapter three is boring. All it is is a list of names and what they did to build the wall and where they built/repaired. I am going to jump around the chapter a little bit, but hopefully, my order will make sense, and you can follow me. 1. Some people built in places of significance. Nehemiah 1:1 Then Eliashib 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, then as far as the Tower of Hananel. The very first group that Nehemiah writes about helping to build the wall was Eliashib (the high priest) and the other priests. They were not tradesman. They were religious leaders. I do not mean that they were meant to sit in ivory palaces, but their day-to-day calling was not to lay Corey M. Minter Page 5 of 11

6 brick but to sacrifice sheep for the sin of Israel a grueling, arduous task if you ever study it out. Whether they picked it or Nehemiah assigned it to them, the priests built the section of wall nearest the Sheep Gate, as well as the gate itself. This section was holy to the Jews because through it the lambs for sacrifice would go. You even see how the priests treat it with special respect. Having finished it by hanging the doors of the gate, they consecrated it (which essentially means that they prayed over it). I wonder. Did they know that in just 500 years THE Lamb of God Jesus would pass through this gate to go and pray in the Garden of Gethsemane and again when He was arrested to be taken to trial? This was a significant place of the wall. However, Some people built in places of seeming insignificance. 14 Malchijah the son of Rechab, leader of the district of Beth Haccerem, repaired the Refuse Gate; he built it and hung its doors with its bolts and bars. Nehemiah 3 is like a foreman s paradise. Everybody is working in their called position doing their assigned task. The priests hung the Sheep Gate and had a spiritual time doing it, and Malchijah well he was in charge of the sewer system, a place of seeming insignificance. Not many want that job, but I call it a place of seeming insignificance because it just does not seem important until the sewage starts backing up in the city streets. Corey M. Minter Page 6 of 11

7 I think the modern-day-church related place of ministry equivalent of Malchijah and his crew working on the city s sewage would be the nursery workers. I told Rach a couple of weeks ago that of all of the jobs and ministries of New Hope Church that I would NOT want (and I have done pretty much all of them at one point or another), it would be nursery worker, but Mrs. Suffield wrote it right when she penned the words: Does the place you re called to labor Seem so small and little known? It is great if God is in it, And He ll not forget His own. The place where you are serving may not seem significant, but you are valuable to the Kingdom of God wherever you minister. 2. Some people built close to home. 23 After him Benjamin and Hasshub made repairs opposite their house. After them Azariah the son of Maaseiah, the son of Ananiah, made repairs by his house. Men like Benjamin, Hasshub and Azariah were blessed to build and make repairs to the wall across from or beside their houses. The stepped out of there house on build day and thought, Well, I might as well start here. If God calls you to serve near your home, OWN IT! That is a blessing! But it does not mean that you are less of a missionary Take Hanun for example in verse 13 though. He started at home, but his work moved him to another place of service. Some people moved to their place of service. Corey M. Minter Page 7 of 11

8 13 Hanun and the inhabitants of Zanoah repaired the Valley Gate. They built it, hung its doors with its bolts and bars, and repaired a thousand cubits of the wall as far as the Refuse Gate. I think that is how mission-work is most naturally accomplished, by the way. This summer, we are sending out several mission teams to Cuba, Jamaica, Brazil and some US cities as well (Chicago and Lousiville), and that is great! But hear me! God is not going to magically call you to be a missionary in Africa, if you are not a missionary to your next door neighbor. My sense of what Hanun did is that is that he started near his home, and when it was all said and done, he looked down the wall to see that he had built 1,000 cubits of it. It had taken him far from his house. Missions starts at home within a 50 feet radius of your living room, but as you minister and go and go, you may look back on your life and find that you are ministering far from your home. 3. Some people were specifically designed for the work. 20 After him Baruch the son of Zabbai carefully repaired the other section, from the buttress to the door of the house of Eliashib the high priest. A better Hebrew translation for how Baruch built instead of carefully is zealously, vigorously or earnestly. This is the only time in the book that Nehemiah talks about the attitude of the worker building the wall. The picture here is that Baruch built his allotted section of the wall. In fact, he Corey M. Minter Page 8 of 11

9 built it so quickly, so well and was so gifted at building that he moved on to build another section without being told. Whether he knew it or not before taking up the brick and trowel, this was how Baruch was geared. He was a builder, and I suggest that his experience at the wall forever changed the way he looked at problems. He could build, and he did not need someone to tell him how or what to do anymore. He just built earnestly. But let s be honest this kind of manual labor was not everyone s calling in life. Some people were just willing bodies. 8 Next to him Uzziel the son of Harhaiah, one of the goldsmiths, made repairs. Also next to him Hananiah, one of the perfumers, made repairs; and they fortified Jerusalem as far as the Broad Wall. 9 And next to them Rephaiah the son of Hur, leader of half the district of Jerusalem, made repairs. Maybe I have just spent too much time with the text this week, but I found these two verses funny. I can just imagine the ribbing on the construction site as Uzziel, Hananiah and Rephaiah show up. Here we have a jeweler, a perfumer and a politician showing up to build the city s wall. This was not work that they were suited for, gifted at or probably even liked doing, but they built, and God blessed. Nehemiah says that they fortified Jerusalem. Look, just because you have the spiritual gift of teaching does not mean that you should not attend to the other gifts. You are not exempted from the Great Commission of evangelizing if your Corey M. Minter Page 9 of 11

10 spiritual gifting is giving. Just because you are pastoral does not mean that you do not pick up a mop or plunger from time to time. We ve got a jeweler, perfumer, and politician on the work site. I think we can be willing to serve in areas that are not our strengths. In those times, I believe God receives more glory, because its obvious that you could not do it without Him. Nehemiah s was an all-hands-on-deck call and so was Jesus s: Matthew 28:19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Amen. 4. Everyone was called to work. Don t take this the wrong way, but even women built the wall. Against the social norms of the day, we see: 12 And next to him was Shallum the son of Hallohesh, leader of half the district of Jerusalem; he and his daughters made repairs. Priest, layman, perfumer, builder, politician, High Priest, man, woman, adult and child answered the call to serve. There is something leveling about hard labor. Your background and culture kind of slips away when you are faced with what seems to be an insurmountable task of building the Kingdom of God. We do not see our differences as much, when we are all pulling together, working for the kingdom. But Some did not do any work. Corey M. Minter Page 10 of 11

11 5 Next to them the Tekoites made repairs; but their nobles did not put their shoulders to the work of their Lord. We do not know for sure why they did not work, but I think Nehemiah gives us two hints: 1. Nobles. I think they thought they were too good for it. They had reached a point or standing in their life where they felt that kind of thing was beneath them. It might have been their station or age that pushed this. They might have had the I ve paid my dues mentality. For whatever reason, they did not get involved. They did not build. 2. Work of their Lord. By not working, they were revealing not only the condition of their hearts but their view of God. Their nobles did not put their shoulders to the work of their Lord. At the end of the day, they did not think that their Lord was worth working for. WARNING: There are NO NOBLES at New Hope Church. There is no spiritual hierarchy which excuses you from building the Kingdom of God. In closing, I want to share with you a quote by Allan Taylor who spoke here at New Hope a couple of years ago, and we have scheduled him again for June. Your church has everything it needs right now in order to fulfill God s mission for your church. All the financial needs that we have for future ventures is already in bank accounts. All of the nursery workers, Sunday school teachers, youth group volunteers are already sitting in our pews. We need only to start building together. Corey M. Minter Page 11 of 11