Building Together

Hello, good morning.

My name's Tommy.

I'm the rector here.

If you're new or visiting, welcome to you.

Delighted that you can be with us.

We have several baptisms to celebrate in a little while.

We always love that, but first we're going to spend a little time looking at God's Word.

We have been in a memoir of sorts reading the story of the life of a man named Nehemiah.

God calls Nehemiah to lead in the rebuilding of Jerusalem and then to spiritually help

to rebuild God's people who are scattered and destitute.

It is a great story.

We've been getting a lot out of it, but quite frankly, the chapter that we just heard read

is one that many people are very tempted to skip.

It's like reading a 2,400-year-old phone book.

I don't normally do this because this is all really devoted to the glory of God,

but I want to take a moment to say Sharon did a phenomenal job with that reading.

I would personally have been quite intimidated to have to read that,

and Sharon this week just quietly said, I'll be happy to do it.

And with all due respect, I would be happy to listen to Sharon read the actual phone book.

She's such a gifted reader.

But yeah, it's so good.

It's amazing to see God's people doing what they're gifted to do.

It's such a joy to see that.

That's actually going to tie into the themes that we're going to be looking at.

But we are, when we read this chapter, we're essentially presented with a very long list of names

that tell us who was involved and what section of the wall they were assigned to.

And so it raises the question of what could something like this possibly have to teach us

so many years later?

The answer, in short, is that there is a continuity between the Old Testament and the New Testament.

They're all part of the same story.

In Nehemiah, they're focused on the rebuilding of the physical city of Jerusalem.

But in the New Testament, God's project is much larger.

It's actually the project He's had all along,

but we get to step back and we get to see what Jerusalem really represents.

In the New Testament, we see that God's plan of renewal actually means building the new Jerusalem.

And the new Jerusalem isn't just a city in the world.

It is the world.

It is God's vision at the end of the New Testament of what the whole world will become when His work of renewal is complete.

One great city where the heavens and the earth come together and God's presence dwells in the midst of it and illuminates it.

The new Jerusalem.

And because we know where the story goes,

that means that as we look at these people working together to rebuild Jerusalem 2,400 years ago,

we can apply some of this to the ways we approach our work.

And we can begin to make connections between our work that God has given us to do

and His larger project of renewal culminating in the new Jerusalem, the new creation at the end of all history.

So we're going to look at this list of names and we're going to see that it teaches us three things about our work

and the relationship between our work and the kingdom of God.

So let's pray and then we'll dive in.

Lord, we thank You for Your Word.

We thank You that it is not just ink and paper,

but that it is living and active,

that because of Your presence with us and Your Holy Spirit,

because of Your grace and Your love,

that You're able to do Your work in us through Your Word.

And we ask for that this morning.

We ask that we would have hearts that are open,

that we would be willing to place ourselves under the authority of Your Word,

that You would stir up those who have become complacent,

that You would comfort those who are afflicted.

Lord, that in all ways You would do what only You can do in us,

and that through Your Word written,

we would come to see Your living Word, Jesus Christ.

And it's in His name that we pray. Amen.

Amen.

So three things that we can learn from this list of names and work assignments

about our work that God has given us to do.

The first thing that we see right away is this,

that our work is sacred in the kingdom of God.

Our work is sacred in the kingdom of God.

In our culture, we have a tendency to think in dualistic ways about work.

We tend to divide work into sacred work and secular work.

This, in some ways, goes back to medieval Catholicism.

It was heightened by the Enlightenment.

It was further heightened by the emphasis of the separation of church and state.

There's been lots of rounds of things that have happened throughout history

that have deepened this sense of divide in our minds

between sacred kinds of work, pastors, missionaries, and secular work.

And along with that division, there's a kind of hierarchy.

People tend to see sacred work as somehow more important,

higher up the tree, the hierarchy.

Secular work is necessary because somebody needs to give the offering,

but it's seen as lower down in the hierarchy.

That is not, I would say, a biblical view of work.

And it is certainly not the view of work that we see here reflected in Nehemiah.

Some people have tried to spiritualize the order in which we are given these names,

but then some archaeological work was done in the 1960s.

And I think it was a woman named Kathleen Kenyon,

and she helped us understand what Nehemiah is actually doing.

If you look at ancient maps of the wall of Jerusalem,

we realize Nehemiah is giving us a counterclockwise tour around the wall.

That's all he's doing.

So he's giving us a counterclockwise tour.

He starts with the sheep gate.

He goes all the way around the wall, and he ends at the sheep gate.

You can almost imagine him riding along, riding down as he goes.

Okay, there over there.

Okay, he's there.

There, there.

And he goes around the wall, and he just lists it as he sees it.

And one of the first things we notice is that there are priests and religious leaders listed,

but they're listed right alongside everyone else.

There's no separation.

There's no distinction.

There's no priority given to them over anyone else.

And this accurately reflects the larger biblical view of work in general,

that from God's perspective, there is no sacred, secular divide when it comes to our work in the world.

The Bible actually begins with God himself going to work,

showing us that God is the ultimate entrepreneur.

He's in the business of creation.

And then we have the first problem in creation.

It's not the fall.

This is before sin entered in.

The first problem is in Genesis chapter 2, verse 5.

Genesis 2:5

Everything's in place, but there is no one to work the ground.

Now, it's easy to just skip right over that,

but we need to think about what that actually means.

The story begins by God creating and ordering a world that is perfect and yet unfinished.

It's unfinished.

It's a world that by design is full of potential,

but that potential needs to be realized.

So God intentionally creates a world that is incomplete,

and it needs something.

And it turns out, if you keep reading, that something is us.

God puts Adam in the midst of his creation and says,

get to work.

In Genesis chapter 1, verse 28,

Genesis 1:28

this is what we have come to call the cultural mandate.

God creates humans and tells them,

be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it

and exercise dominion over it.

Now, what exactly does that mean?

The Bible scholar Nancy Piercy unpacks this verse in a wonderful way.

She says, the first phrase, be fruitful and multiply,

means to develop the social world.

It's not just talking about having babies.

It is talking about that, but it's talking about much more than that.

Developing the social world.

In other words, build families, churches, schools, cities, governments, laws.

The second phrase, subdue the earth, means to harness the natural world,

plant crops, build bridges, design computers, compose music.

Taken together, this tells us that our original purpose

was to create cultures, build civilizations, nothing less.

We were created to work, to take the potential of creation

and bring it to its fulfillment.

God made a world that by design needs work,

and he created us to do that work.

The point is this.

God cares about your work.

God cares about your work.

Because he created you to work.

So even if you feel like nobody sees you,

God sees you.

Even if you feel like no one knows the hours

that you put in behind the scenes,

God knows.

Even if you feel like your work doesn't matter,

it matters a great deal to God.

Because when we work

the way we were created to work,

we glorify God.

It doesn't matter if we're digging ditches

or doing brain surgery.

We are doing what God created us to do

when we work.

This is one of the reasons why

it makes sense that the Hebrew word avodah

means two things,

and it's used interchangeably.

In the Old Testament,

it means work.

It also means worship.

The same word means work and worship.

From God's perspective,

work is in itself

a way to worship and glorify him.

So just think about this question

before we move on.

How would this change

the way you approach your job

if you were to pause

and reflect on what we're talking about

for just a few minutes every day?

Excuse me.

Wow.

Shouldn't do that again.

What if every day

you approach your laptop,

the emails in your inbox,

the phone calls,

the meetings on your schedule,

what if you approached

all of those things

as though you were a priest

entering into the temple

to offer worship to the Lord,

to offer service to God?

Right?

If you work from home,

maybe you have a desk or an area,

a certain chair that you sit in at home.

If you go into an office,

maybe you have a desk or a cubicle,

some area that is your workspace.

What if you entered into that workspace

as though it were a sacred temple,

and you were a priest,

and you were there

to render service to God?

Worship isn't confined

to Sunday mornings.

It's possible to worship God

every day of the week

by doing the work

that God has given us to do

in ways that glorify Him.

So our work is sacred

in the kingdom of God.

That's the first thing

we can draw out of this text.

Number two,

everyone has a job

in the economy of God.

Everybody has a job.

Nehemiah's list shows us

how many different kinds of people

are involved and necessary

in rebuilding the city.

There are metal workers

and perfumers and parents

and government leaders

and business people

and retailers and contractors,

all different kinds of people,

and they all have a job to do.

In God's economy,

the employment rate is 100%.

There's no unemployment.

And there are different classes

of people.

There are wealthier,

if you look into the backstory

of some of these people

that we can get pieces of their story

from other places in Scripture,

some of these people listed

are very wealthy aristocrats,

and they're working

right alongside the poor.

You have white-collar workers

working right alongside

blue-collar workers.

And the list even includes people

who had messed up in the past.

Malkijah, the son of Haram,

first shows up in the book of Ezra.

He first shows up in the previous book, Ezra.

Thanks, brother.

He first shows up in Ezra,

and in Ezra,

he's a very different sort of individual.

Ezra's calling God's people

to repent and return to him,

and Malkijah is listed among the men

who had married foreign wives,

which means he was probably

worshiping foreign idol.

How about that?

He's married into a kind of foreign tribe.

He's worshiping foreign idols,

and so he's listed among the people

who need to repent,

return to the Lord.

And then we see him here in Nehemiah

13 years later.

He's clearly repented.

He's clearly come back to the Lord,

and he's working right alongside

everyone else.

There's a place for him.

There's a place for everybody.

Everybody is part of rebuilding the city.

Everybody, every one of us,

has a section of the wall, so to speak,

that we are responsible for repairing.

And the only way we're gonna get it done

is if everybody does their part.

It's if everybody pulls their weight.

And that's exactly what it's like

for those of us who are Christians.

As I said, in God's kingdom,

the employment rate is 100%.

Every single one of us has a job to do.

When it comes to the renewal of the world,

when it comes to God's great project

of renewing and restoring all that is broken,

we all have a section of the wall

that has been entrusted to us.

What that means is there are needs around you

that only you are uniquely able to meet.

Some of us do that work of repairing the wall

through leading or teaching.

Some of us do it through organization

or planning or administrating.

Some of us are parents or we teach or we are coaches.

Some of us offer counseling or encouragement or support.

Some of us use our creativity or we are entrepreneurs.

Some of us through physical work or serving or cleaning

or fixing things or building things or selling things.

Right?

God can use you no matter who you are,

no matter what you've done in the past.

In fact, if you look at scripture,

many times God delights in using the people

we would think least likely to have a place in his kingdom.

He delights in taking the person that everybody says,

I don't want them on my team.

I don't want them on my labor crew.

And God says, I'm gonna do something amazing

through that person.

Because that's the kind of God he is.

God can use almost anyone.

There is one exception here though.

We see it right in the middle of the passage.

As we read along, we see people standing shoulder to shoulder,

all working together.

If you were listening to Sharon Reed,

it's this person was next to this person

and this person was next to this person.

But we get to verse five.

And next to them, Zadok the son of Banna repaired.

And next to them, the Techoites repaired.

Listen to this.

But their nobles would not stoop to serve their Lord.

The nobles from Tekoa are the only ones listed

who refuse to join in the work.

They're the only ones.

Why?

Well, it literally says,

and their nobles would not bend the neck.

So the issue here is pride.

God cannot and God will not use people who are prideful.

The Bible is very clear on this.

The Apostle James says God opposes the proud,

but gives grace to the humble.

Jesus Christ himself says,

whoever exalts himself will be humbled

and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

Now, when we talk about pride,

what we're really talking about is our general view of life,

our general view of what life is all about.

Our culture strongly emphasizes self-exaltation.

We're led through a variety of influences to believe that it really is all about me.

It's all about my accomplishments,

my accolades,

my achievements.

When we hide this,

we try to hide that attitude under a kind of veneer of false humility,

what we often call humble bragging.

We find ingenious, creative, rhetorical strategies for bragging

without seeming like we're bragging.

David Brooks writes a lot about this.

He says that our humble bragging has become so unapologetic

that now humility is the new pride.

We have ways of aggressively promoting our humility

such that it has become its own manifestation of pride.

Just go on Twitter.

You see people all the time on Twitter saying things like,

you know, I was so humbled to receive this award.

I'm so humbled to accept this position.

Right?

And what Brooks says is,

you never see people tweeting about something

that would actually lead to humility.

Like, I'm humbled that I went to a party and nobody noticed me.

Or, I'm humbled that I got fired for incompetence.

Like, nobody tweets that.

But that would actually lead to humility.

Right?

So we have this kind of aggressive false humility that we put out there.

True humility flows out of a right view of reality,

which is simply this.

It is not about us.

It's not about me.

It's not about you.

We're not the protagonist.

It's about God.

It's about God's purposes for our lives.

Until we wrestle with that,

our lives are not going to make sense.

Because reality constantly reminds us,

it's not about you.

You're not the hero.

Verse 5 is actually heartbreaking when you really think about it.

These nobles had the chance to be listed among all of these people,

all joining in and doing this work together.

This could have read,

everyone worked and no one worked harder than the nobles from Tekoa.

That's what it could have said for all of history.

But instead,

they are remembered,

they are singled out for all of history

as the only ones who refused to participate.

All because of pride.

It makes you wonder,

what are we missing out on

in our lives because of pride?

What great work

are we not a part of?

What opportunities

are we blind to?

What doors remain closed?

What stones remain unturned

because we think it's all about us?

Because we're so focused on what we think we owed

or on proving ourselves

or on what other people think about us

that we're excluded from what God's doing

right in front of us.

God uses people who are simply willing to say yes to him.

People who say,

I'm not above whatever you would call me to do.

People who say in the words of the prophets,

here I am, Lord, send me.

I'll do it.

If you're wondering what God's purposes in your life might be,

if you're seeking to know that,

that's a great place to begin

just by simply praying that prayer.

Every day, saying yes to God,

saying here I am, Lord, send me,

and then saying yes

to whatever comes your way.

So this brings us actually to the third point.

Number one, the first point,

our work is sacred in the kingdom of God.

Number two, everyone has a job in the economy of God.

Number three, the work we do,

all the work we do is in service to God.

With the exception of the nobles from Toccoa,

the rest of the community actually sets an amazing example

for how to approach our work.

For starters, they were truly humble.

Some of the professions listed

would have been quite lucrative.

These are not all people

who are accustomed to manual labor,

and yet they're willing to roll up their sleeves

and do the hard work necessary to get the job done.

No one is above doing whatever task

might be required of them.

You know, there was a great example of this yesterday.

We've bought and we now own this property

at Fifth and Q Northwest.

We're renovating it now.

We're raising money now, actually,

to renovate it over the next year.

And it had gotten really overgrown

because we're not able to use it yet,

because we are still doing that work.

And so we had to go do some work.

And so some of the men from the men's ministry

said, we'll take care of it.

And we had a bunch of guys show up on Saturday morning,

and they brought a bunch of tools

and spent a couple of hours out there.

You know, we just, we were trimming hedges,

and we were, you know, mowing grass

and pulling out weeds and hauling stuff away.

And it was just a couple of hours of guys.

Now, some of these guys may have super important job titles.

They may have lots of people who wanna meet with them.

They may have, you know, but they're like,

a job needs to be done?

We're gonna take care of it.

You want me to pull weeds?

You want me to get dirty?

We'll take care of it.

And it's that kind of attitude.

It's such a beautiful thing in the church.

When you have somebody in the church

who might, in another kind of sphere of life,

they might be the CEO of a multinational corporation, right?

They might be a high-level political leader, right?

But in the church, they might be setting up folding chairs.

They might be taking out the trash.

It's beautiful when you see God's people

gather together with true humility,

willing to do whatever needs to be done.

Another characteristic you see here

is that these people demonstrate

a generous commitment to the common good.

You need to read closely to figure this out,

but it's not only the citizens of Jerusalem

who are building the wall.

There are volunteers who are coming in

from the surrounding region,

traveling 15 or 20 miles to help.

Now, these are people who,

they did not directly benefit

from Jerusalem being rebuilt.

They had their own farms.

They had their own communities.

They had their own workshops.

They had their own families.

They had stuff that needed to be maintained back home,

but they were willing to leave their homes

and their families in order to offer themselves

in service of the city.

And there are several examples of people who,

when they finish their section of the wall,

the Tekoites are one of these examples,

they finish their section,

and then they go on to do another section.

These are people who are so generous,

they're willing to go above and beyond.

Now, why are they so exemplary?

I believe it's because they knew,

because Nehemiah makes it very clear

in the previous chapters,

because they knew they weren't just working

for their boss,

but they were working for their boss's boss.

They might be digging a ditch.

They might be building a fence.

They might be,

they might have a foreman

who's telling them what to do.

That's their boss.

But they know that ultimately,

they're working for the Lord.

That's how Paul talks about Christian work

in Colossians chapter three.

He says,

whatever you do,

work heartily as for the Lord

and not for men,

knowing that from the Lord,

you will receive the inheritance

as your reward.

You are serving the Lord Christ.

He's saying,

whatever your job is,

whether you have a supervisor,

whether you're self-employed,

work wholeheartedly

because you're working for Jesus.

And that, my friends,

is the real definition of Christian work.

It's not limited to any particular career path.

It's working wholeheartedly

in whatever job you've been given

because you know that you're serving Jesus.

Whatever career you have chosen,

there are ways of doing your job

that are sinful and idolatrous,

and there are ways of doing your work

that honor and obey and glorify Jesus.

That's the difference between Christian

and secular work.

So you can have somebody

with a very sacred job title,

like a pastor,

but that person does their work

in a very secular way.

They mistreat their staff.

They use the church as a vehicle

for their own fame and success

rather than as a place

to serve and minister.

Likewise, you can have somebody

with a very secular job title,

but they do their work

in a very sacred way.

You know, I was at an event,

Laura and I were at an event

a couple of weeks ago,

and we ended up meeting

the head of the catering company

responsible for catering the event.

And we made the connection,

you sort of feeling each other out,

and we realized pretty quickly

that we're both Christians.

And then this man

just begins to pour out his heart.

And he gave one of the most passionate

and beautiful descriptions

of biblical hospitality,

of the central importance

of table fellowship,

of the way he believes

hospitality, generous hospitality,

has the power to change

and transform people,

and how that connected

to his own story

of coming to know Jesus

and being transformed by him.

And I was tearing up.

And then I saw the way

this man treated his employees

as well as the guests,

how he treated everybody

with incredible respect

and kindness and patience.

You know, that man,

that man is a priest, right?

His sanctuary just happens

to be the dining room,

and his sermons come

in the form of the meals he serves

and the way he responds

to his employees

when they're 30 minutes behind.

Right?

That's what it looks like

for someone to do their work

as though they are doing it

for Jesus.

It was very clear

to see this guy in action.

It was very clear

who he serves.

Let's bring all this

to a close.

When you wake up tomorrow,

wherever you are going,

whatever you're going to do,

whatever tasks lay before you,

I want you to try

to do your best

to remember these three things.

Number one,

your work is sacred

in the kingdom of God.

What would it look like

for you to approach

your tasks tomorrow

as though you were doing

the sacred work

of leading worship

in the temple?

Number two,

you have a job

in the economy of God.

Ask God what that is.

Ask God to help you

understand what is

your section of the wall.

How is your work connected

to the renewal

that God is doing

around you

in whatever spheres

you occupy?

And then number three,

remember that the work you do,

you ultimately do

in service to God.

You may hate your boss.

You may have a boss

that treats you unfairly.

You don't feel like

it's worthy of your respect.

But remember that

your boss has a boss.

One day,

your boss will be called

to account by his boss.

And remember that ultimately,

the one that you're serving

is Jesus.

And so work wholeheartedly.

And as you work,

rest in and trust in the fact

that God delights

in you doing that

every bit as much

as he delights

in us coming together

and singing praises to him.

God delights in you doing

what he put you

on this earth to do.

Let's pray.

Lord, we love you

and we thank you

that even though

none of us deserve it

and none of us

even asked for it,

that somehow we have been

enfolded into

and invited into

being a part of the work

of renewal

that you're doing

in the world, Lord.

And this is only

because of your grace

that we on our own

don't deserve any of this.

We can't repay.

And yet it's your delight

to forgive us

and to bless us

and to include us

and to give us

a section of the wall.

Lord, we are all

like that man,

Melchizedek, Lord.

We've all gone astray.

We've all gone after

other gods.

We've all tried

to glorify ourselves.

But you've given us

a path of restoration.

You've given us

a way back

to be a part

of the real work

that's happening.

And I pray that you

give us a vision

to see and understand

how the work that we do

Monday to Friday

connects to that larger work

of renewal

that you're doing

in the world.

I pray that you

would give us

a renewed vigor

and passion for it

because of you.

That we would understand

that the meaning

of our work

doesn't come from

what we do.

It comes from

the one we do it for.

Lord, I pray that you

would keep this central

in our minds.

We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.