The Daily Walk | 04.24.2026 | Pastor Mike Gibbons | 1 Peter 2:4-5

Good morning, First Baptist Wimberly.

This is Mike Gibbons.

Welcome to Friday.

After a magnificent two-year walk through the book of Luke, we are beginning the book of Nehemiah this Sunday, which I am really looking forward to.

I mentally keep a picture, a thematic image of each book of the Bible in my head.

For example, for Obadiah, I picture two mountains, Mount Esau and Mount Zion, with Mount Zion towering over Mount Esau.

For Jude, I picture an anchor, which reminds me that Jesus has hold of me and won't let go.

I am kept for Jesus Christ.

For Nehemiah, I picture a charred heap of giant stones and rubble.

These stones lay half buried, black and embedded in the earth.

Now Nehemiah himself was an Israelite in exile, serving as the king's cupbearer in Persia.

He received news from his brother while he was there on the current conditions in Jerusalem.

And here was the report from Nehemiah 1.3.

And they said to me, The remnant there in the province who had survived the exile is in great trouble and shame.

The wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its gates are destroyed by fire.

Can you see the rubble in your mind?

Earlier, Ezra had rebuilt the temple, but without the surrounding wall, the city was almost defenseless.

God allowed Nehemiah to return to Jerusalem with the blessing of the king.

And Nehemiah led his people to rebuild the wall.

He was ridiculed.

They said, Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish and burned ones at that?

Now, church family, this is exactly what God did for Nehemiah and for us.

Christ has rescued us from the rubbish heap.

We are now living stones built together to form the church.

Previously, our lives were dismantled, destroyed, and broken down by sin.

We were in ruins.

But God sent a builder greater than Nehemiah.

Jesus came to earth to do the work necessary to restore.

He is building his church with living stones.

You yourselves, like living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

He is building his church with charred and ruined stones into a spiritual temple in which he is delighted to dwell.

This is Mike Gibbons, and I love being your pastor.