"Why We Work" Nehemiah 3 Sunday Evening Worship Service

There is a lot going on in Nehemiah chapter 3 where God is revealing to us what Nehemiah's work would be.

Nehemiah 3 · chapter mention

Nehemiah is a book that isn't unusual in the Bible because Nehemiah is not a prophet.

He's not a king.

What Nehemiah is is a government official.

And honestly, he's a secular government official.

He works for the Persian, Neo-Persian Empire as the king's cupbearer, which is a trusted advisor.

Nehemiah, if you recall in chapter one, received news that the walls of Jerusalem had been in disrepair, that the gates were laid open, that there was no defensive mechanisms in the city.

And this grieved him to his heart.

And so he uh sought the king's permission, the emperor's permission, to go back to Jerusalem and rebuild the walls.

In the last few weeks in today and night, we've been looking at the background of that because it was easier said than done.

It was difficult to get the king's permission to travel back to Jerusalem.

It was difficult to uh assemble the resources necessary.

But the king gave his permission, and Nehemiah was able to go, and really the rest of the book is about that endeavor.

So this is a book about rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem.

But it uh you know it strikes us as Americans unusual because our cities don't have walls.

So we don't have a very easy ability to relate to the rebuilding of walls.

You know, our our country, uh, it was a big political thing.

You perhaps you remember it a few months ago about our own country having a wall.

You know, President Biden at his inauguration, the first thing he did after sworn in as president and gave his speech is he went into the inner chamber there of Congress and he signed his very first act as president without even going to the White House in the Capitol building.

At his literal inauguration, he signed an executive order stopping the building of the wall, uh uh the wall along the southern border.

I mean, so walls in our country are a political deal.

You know, it's it's connected to politics, how you view the country, how you view immigration, and what you think our country stands for.

It's almost a symbol more than the reality.

Um and that's not the case in Nehemiah's day, although certainly the wall of Nehemiah had some symbolic value, only because there was a reality behind it.

It pointed to the protective nature of Israel.

It pointed to its security.

If Jerusalem did not have a functioning wall, it wasn't in any respect a functioning city in that world.

Um it would just be swallowed up by the Persian Empire and all of those other cities that you don't know about that were in the Persian Empire.

The wall was critical to Jerusalem's survival.

And beyond that, there were prophecies about it, very specific prophecies, some that have already been fulfilled and some that will be fulfilled still in the future.

For example, Jeremiah 31, verse 38 uh says, Behold, the days are coming, declares Yahweh, when the city shall be rebuilt for Yahweh, from the tower of Hananel to the corner gate.

Jeremiah 31:38

There's a very specific section of the wall that in Jeremiah 31, it is prophesied that it will be rebuilt.

The context of Jeremiah 31 through 33 is the new covenant section in Jeremiah.

The Israelites had been exiled.

Judah was being exiled, the remaining southern two tribes.

Israel had fallen to the Babylonians.

That's what's happening in Jeremiah 31 through 33.

Jeremiah was telling them, pack your bags and get going.

Jerusalem, our story is over.

It's done.

We're going to exile.

God will return us.

Remember, Jeremiah buys a property deed and buries it outside the wall and says, I'm going to come back and claim my property in 70 years when God has punished all of us for our sins.

That's what's happening there.

And in that process, in that little passage in Jeremiah, God makes a prediction, a prophecy, if you will, where he says the Israelites will return to the lands.

They will come back.

And when they come back, you will know that God's favor is upon them because the wall will be built from these precise sections.

And we will see those sections referenced tonight in Nehemiah chapter 3.

Nehemiah 3 · chapter mention

It's a fulfillment of prophecies.

That's one thing that's happening in Nehemiah 3, is fulfilling Jeremiah 31.

Other prophecies about the city walls remain to be fulfilled.

For example, Zechariah 14, verse 10.

Zechariah 14:10

Speaking of the second coming of Christ, his foot will come on the Mount of Olives, he will divide the Mount of Olives.

There will be revival.

He will put to flight the Antichrist and his army.

This is the battle that's the scribes from Zechariah, second half of chapter 12 through 13 and 14.

It's the end times battle, and Jesus himself will return, and then the Israelites will be converted while they're at war.

It will start with the children and the mothers, and then finally the fathers.

It's not a conversion by household like a father is converted in everybody else's, but it's conversion from the ground up, from the least to the greatest.

They come to faith, and part of the sign of that conversion, Zechariah 14, verse 10, says, the whole land will be turned into a plain from Hewah to Ramon, south of Jerusalem.

Zechariah 14:10

But Jerusalem shall remain aloft on its site, from the gate of Benjamin to the place of the former gate, to the corner gate, and the tower of Hananel to the king's wine press.

Again, a very specific section, echoed from Jeremiah 31, but expanded, and this time tied to the future.

So when Jesus returns to the earth to establish his kingdom, there's going to be these gates that are rebuilt.

Now Nehemiah would be aware of these prophecies.

Of course, we understood that Daniel was aware of Jeremiah's prophecies, and Daniel predates Nehemiah.

And so certainly Nehemiah is aware of Jeremiah's prophecies.

He is aware of the fact that the gates have to be rebuilt because God said they would be rebuilt, only now they're not.

And so Jeremiah, so Nehemiah sets back to Jerusalem to rebuild the gate.

Of course, he has opposition.

We read about that last week.

The governors of the area are opposed to this.

The governors have their own power, their seats of power.

They don't want to see a strong Jerusalem because that would be less power and authority for them.

Not all of them left.

Some of them stayed, like pockets of resistance, if you will.

And those people who remained, they had the Assyrian idols and the Israelite worship.

They had the Torah plus the Assyrian idols.

That became the Samaritans.

They don't want Jerusalem rebuilt.

In their mind, Jerusalem should be abandoned because Jerusalem stands for the promise of David.

And the Assyria, the Samaritans were from the ten tribes of the north.

They didn't have a promise with David.

They were Israelites, but they didn't care about David.

That was a promise for the South.

And so they didn't want to see Jerusalem rebuilt.

So the governors of these areas, one Arab, one Samaritan, and one from the beyond the river, modern-day, like, you know, Jordan area, those are the people who are in authority over Jerusalem, and they do not want to see Jerusalem rebuilt.

That's less power for them.

So they're opposed to this.

Nehemiah takes on this task confronting their opposition to rebuild Jerusalem.

Now I have some pictures of the wall and the gates that he was building because I want you to understand that this is, listen, this is a series of names.

But as we go through these names, these are real people in a real place.

I didn't even press the button.

That is a Christmas miracle right there.

These are real people in a real place with real gates in a real city.

They're really trying to manage things here.

And so this here, this is present day.

Picture of the ruins from Nehemiah that have been unearthed.

If you go to Jerusalem now and you drop$15 in the old city of David, you can go on a walking tour that zigzag, you can see a person on the walking tour above it right there.

There's a sign at kind of the 11 o'clock in that picture that says this is Nehemiah's wall.

It's excavated, it dates to Nehemiah.

There's really no debate about this.

This is part of the wall that Nehemiah built.

You can tell even by looking at it, you do not need to be a professional archaeologist to look at this and say, that looks like it was built somewhat hastily, I would say.

Rocks just stacked on top of each other.

And that's because Nehemiah built this section of the wall in two days.

We're going to find out about here.

And you don't want to knock it too much because it has withstood the test of 2,419 years or something.

So, I mean, that's that's better than the fence I tried to make in my yard two summers ago that has already gone with the flood.

So this lasted a really long time, but nevertheless, you can tell it was hastily put together.

This is the wall that we are talking about.

Uh here it is uh what's called the old gate, and we'll see that in our section and our text tonight in Nehemiah 3.

This is a picture, it's about a hundred years old.

Uh you can tell the outside of Jerusalem hadn't been built up to the old gate.

Um that this gate is not built by Nehemiah, but this section of the wall was built by Nehemiah.

This is a gate that was built by the uh crusaders and the Muslims and the crusaders.

You can tell by the ark on top of it, it looks kind of Middle Age-ish.

And it is uh built with these little windows above it that you can drop, like, you know, burning oil or whatever you want to, arrows most likely, down on people who tried to get in through the gates.

That's 120 years old.

Here's that same gate today, or two years ago, I guess, is when uh I took this picture.

And here's the same gate, people going in and out of it.

Jerusalem is built all the way around this.

Again, this is a real city, real people living their real lives there in Jerusalem.

Uh and this is the gate that they would use to get in from the Muslim quarter into uh, you know, the Muslim houses on the outside into the Muslim quarter on the inside.

It's called the Muslim quarter, but it's like half of the city.

Um there's me at the other side of that gate.

And again, real people, real gate, really me, right there.

Uh the inside of it is nicer than the outside.

Um you can see from that gate, looking over your shoulder, you see directly to uh the the temple mount, directly to where, and so if you look at your map on this, uh which you have and you can follow along here, this is kind of where the Mishnah gate is, the old gate, and you're looking over the part of the Arab quarter, there, right to the temple.

And so you look into that gate, you can see the temple.

If that gate is not there, here's the picture of this.

If that gate is not there, then people have free, unfettered access to the temple mount, which is a problem if you have things like gold instruments and uh wealth stored in the temple, if the sheep are in the temple, if the horses are are in the temple courts, which is where Solomon kept his horses.

If you have the gold inside the gold uh basins and whatnot there, they can be easily looted unless you have a ability to lock the place up.

You need a gate uh to keep enemies out.

And I mentioned those little uh windows that look down.

As you look down through there, you can so I'm looking down at the entrance to the gate.

I could shoot arrows at people or drop rocks or empty Coke Zero cans, as the case may be, on people.

I didn't do any such thing, but people that were with me were egging me on, and I know some of them are listening, and they should know that they're being outed right now.

Uh huh.

See, it looks right down on the entryway as people walk, walk in and out uh of the city that's there.

And then not all the gates are kind of touristy as that one was.

This is just a normal gate on the on your map here, it's the Valley of Hinnon gate.

It's just a normal gate where they set up things that we were there during Ramadan, and so they're gonna break their fast, and so bread vendors and such are setting up right outside the gate to sell to people at the end of their fast, which is exactly what happens at the end of Nehemiah, if you remember.

When Nehemiah banishes all the unkosher food from Jerusalem and bans them from selling things in Jerusalem, they all just queue up right outside of the gate that he built.

So this is uh just an overview of the gate, a couple of the gates today.

And I want to walk through Nehemiah 3.

So you should have your map in front of you, your map on your screen, Nehemiah 3 open in front of you, and we're gonna walk through this chapter and kind of give you a survey of the gates and then get to our outline just for a few minutes.

Uh at the end, then uh Eliashib, the high priest, rose up with his brothers, the priests.

And he just we'll pause as we work through this, but it's worth pausing just right here.

And notice that they have a high priest, which is kind of cool.

If you remember from the book of Ezra, it was that was not a given.

In the days of Ezra, they couldn't find the priests.

They had to send a special uh uh entourage back to Persia to round up the Levites who were not too eager to go back to Jerusalem because they didn't really believe that you would get temple worship going again.

But now Nehemiah is back, and now through Ezra's leadership and and Ezra directing the affairs in the city and assigning priests to certain functions, there is a high priest.

So, in other words, the temple worship is functioning again.

Passover is being celebrated, the sacrifices are being offered to God.

They just need to protect the place.

And so the high priest rises up with his brothers, the priests, and they built the sheep gate.

And that's just not a poetic twist there.

The high priests are working on the gate where the sheep would be brought into the city.

These gates, they're they're not coincidentally named.

You know, you're the street that you live on is probably named at some you know random naming contest from some PTA association.

It seems like most of the streets in Burke are named by, like, you know, Rolling Brook, Gentle Arrowhead, Hill Ledge Lane, kind of street names.

There's no rolling brook anywhere around here.

Okay.

Um anyway, that's how our street names are not connected to reality.

But these gate names here are all connected to their function.

The sheep gate is where the priest would bring the sheep in, so it's close to the temple.

You can uh uh see it right there.

It's the closest gate to the temple.

You would bring the sheep in from the hills right up into the temple where they could be sacrificed.

That's why it's called the sheep gate.

It is noteworthy, I think.

This is uh people disagree on this commentary, is debate on this, but this is likely the gate that Jesus would have entered into Jerusalem as well when he came to teach uh in Passover week, that he would have entered into the sheep gate.

That seems somewhat providential and um and likely true.

So the high priests are working on the day the gates.

Notice that the high priest is this it's as noble of a person as you're gonna get in Israel.

Israel doesn't have a caste structure, they don't have nobility.

The high priest is the exalted person, and he's out there working.

The priests are somewhat revered, and they are out there working.

They have not elevated themselves as above work here.

They are actually doing labor, building the gate so they can bring their sheep into sacrifices.

They consecrated it, and the sheep, I mean they're the priests, and so they consecrate the gate, which means they they prayed for it.

They built the gate, they prayed for it, perhaps they even offered a sacrifice for it.

The idea of consecration is to separate it.

So they're saying this gate will be holy.

They set the doors on it, they consecrated it as far as the tower of the hundred and as far as the tower of Hananel.

So, in other words, they're building up their what's in the middle of these two towers.

Towers would be defensive structures.

In the middle of that, it's going to be marked by worship, being set apart for the priests.

And it is so fitting that our tour of the gates of Israel begins, and we'll go around in a circle, and so it will end with the worship of Israel, pointing forward to the sheep that will ultimately be sacrificed for the Passover, knowing that without the shedding of blood there can be no forgiveness of sins.

Verse 2 Next to him, the high priest and all of his companions, the men of Jericho built.

Now that should stand out, the men of Jericho, because Jericho is not in Jerusalem, it's a different city.

It's probably 18 hours or so walking away.

You could maybe do it in, I don't know, 12 hours on a camel kind of thing.

It's a day's journey away.

These people have traveled to Jerusalem for the purpose perhaps of finding out what Nehemiah was doing there, and now they're staying and working.

And the political leaders of Jericho are not in favor of rebuilding Jerusalem.

Remember, Jericho would be defensive to Jerusalem.

Nobody is going to attack Jericho through Jerusalem.

You're only going to attack Jerusalem through Jericho.

So the gates of Jerusalem are not going to help Jericho.

If people are attacking Jerusalem, Jericho has already fallen, kind of thing.

Nevertheless, they recognize, these people, that God has a special purpose for Jerusalem, and so they are there to work on the gates.

Jesus himself, when he comes into Israel for Passover week, will pass through Jericho.

The palm branches, palm branches don't grow in Jerusalem.

They came from Jericho.

People followed him from Jericho.

This pattern is already set in Nehemiah 3, where the men of Jericho descends, they begin working at the sheepgate and working.

We're going to go counterclockwise as we go through Nehemiah 3, by the way.

It's going counterclockwise from the sheepgate around.

Not every gate listed in Nehemiah 3 is on our map, because then it would be too confusing.

Just the key gates are.

You see them consecrating the sheepgate to the Tower of Henaniel, and the men of Jericho working next towards the fish gate.

Next to them, Zakur, the son of Imri, built, then the sons of Hasannah built the fish gate.

And it is called the Fish Gate because fish come in there.

They don't swim and flop through the streets, but this is the gate closest to the road out to the Mediterranean Sea.

It's where fish would be brought in.

Even fishermen from Jerusalem, if they came down through the kind of the Canaan bypass, so to speak, the shortcut that Jesus took to Canaan, this would be where the fish should be brought in.

And it's important to know this because that's where you would go to buy those kind of things.

If you wanted to buy bread, you go to the baker's tower.

If you want to buy fish, you go to the fish gate.

They didn't mix their stores.

So you couldn't get bread and fish and milk at the same store.

You had to go to a particular place.

And so this is where the fish were sold.

As I mentioned, there's no spiritual significance to the fish except to remind you, these are real people trying to make city life possible.

They laid his beams and set his doors and its bolts and its bars next to them.

Oh, by the way, the fish gate is where the showdown at the end of Nehemiah takes place.

There's gonna be a big fight there at the end of Nehemiah.

Men will get their beards plucked out.

It's gonna be awesome at the fish gate.

But we wait till Nehemiah 13 for that.

And Zephaniah 1.10, one other note about the fish gate.

It says that this gate will fall to the Babylonians first.

And it does, that's fulfilled in Jeremiah 39, verses 2 through 3.

Jeremiah 39:2–3

The fish gate falls to the Babylonians.

So now the people are rebuilding it so they can get their fish back.

Verse 4.

Next to them, Merrimack, the son of Uriah, the son of Hakaz repaired, and next to them Meshelem, the son of Barkoniah, son of Meheshel, repaired, and next to them Zadek, the son of Bana, repaired.

And next to them the Tekoites repaired, and their nobles would not stoop to serve the Lord.

That's an interesting little side note there.

Tekoah is where the prophet Amos is from.

Amos chapter 1, verse 1 describes this.

Amos 1:1

This is where Geshem the Arab lived.

We met him last week in chapter 2.

He was the Arab governor of this area.

He's opposed to the rebuilding of Jerusalem.

So this lets you know that this governor had people from his city that went to Jerusalem and are helping to rebuild the wall, even though their political leader doesn't want them to.

And that's why it says their nobles would not stoop to serve the Lord.

Nehemiah is just poking them with that, isn't he?

Their nobles wouldn't stoop.

And it's a it's a play in words there.

The nobles are so exalted, they couldn't get their knees dirty building the wall.

But the people who served them, they would.

The nobles didn't want to rebuild Jerusalem because they thought of their own power being diminished, but really they were refusing to serve their Lord.

And just that little phrase there, I don't want to move by it too fast at the end of verse 5.

It should color all of Nehemiah 3.

Those that are rebuilding the wall are rebuilding the wall for one reason: to serve the Lord.

That's what's happening here.

They're serving the Lord.

It's very uh very practical.

By the way, the men's men of Tekoa will see them again.

They came and worked uh in two places.

The noblemen wouldn't serve, meanwhile, the high priest of Israel and the priests of Jerusalem, they're serving.

The noble Arabs wouldn't wouldn't dirty themselves, but the priests of Israel would.

That doesn't make the nobles sound good.

This would be the Mishnah gate on your wall.

It's often called the old gate today.

And you can go there now and there'll be light shows at it.

You can buy a ticket to like a light show all over the gate.

It's kind of fun uh having seen it.

It's it's a neat thing to do.

It just reminds you, again, this is a real place.

People are doing civic life there even to this day.

But they couldn't in Nehemiah chapter two.

No light shows going on there, and they couldn't even go buy it.

Remember, Nehemiah couldn't fit his donkey through this gate back in uh chapter two, but now um they're rebuilding it, bringing city life back uh to the city.

Next to them are paired Meltiah, the Gibeonite, and Jadon the Marinotonites, the men of Gibeon and Misphah, the seat of the governor of the province beyond the river.

So the governor who's most opposed to this, Sanbala and his comrade Tobiah, and their people from their village are still working on the city, even though they are opposed to it.

They are contrary to it, but people are coming in from all over the whole state.

And this is a Babylon, uh a Persian state, not just an Israelite state.

These are Persians and Arabs that are coming in to work on the gate alongside of the Jews.

I mean, God is bringing the nations to Jerusalem here to restore it to its its glory.

Verse 8 Next to them, Uziel, the son of Hariah, the goldsmiths, they repaired.

Next to him, Hananiah, one of the perfumers repaired, and they restored Jerusalem as far as the broad wall.

This is a long stretch of the wall that they worked on.

We're going around the southwest ridge of the wall now.

If you're following on your map, this is the longest jump there in all of the Nehemiah chapter 3, as they're rebuilding this long stretch of the wall.

Nehemiah 3 · chapter mention

By the way, that section is so long because it opens up to where other the old picture I showed you with just the dirt and everything, that's that side of the wall.

There's nothing really out there.

The enemies aren't going to come from that side.

Uh today, Jerusalem is just built out there.

Uh it's the other side of Jerusalem where the action is.

That's where the temple is, that's where the brook is, that's where Jesus would have been crucified over there, where the tractor.

Dump was on the other side.

Everything is on the other side.

The fountain, the hills, all on the other side.

This is a long flat area.

So very easy for a lot of people to work on.

You can jump down to verse 10.

Next to them, Jedediah, the son of Harumaf, repaired opposite his house.

And this is going to start a pattern whereas we go through this, we're going to see people building next to their houses.

And that, of course, makes sense.

In Rwanda, I know many of you have been to Rwanda.

Once a month they do a national holiday.

They have 12 of these a year.

It's a national work day.

The police patrol the roads.

You're not allowed to be out driving around anywhere.

It's a community service day.

Everybody goes outside and picks up trash and you can uh repair sidewalks that are broken.

You can fill potholes in, you can repair the drainage dishes that run alongside the road.

That's what you're allowed to do that day.

You can't work, can't watch TV, you can't hang out in your house, you'll be mocked by your neighbors, and it's actually against the law.

You get cited if you went about doing other things that wasn't cleaning up the city.

Twelve days a year, they do this on Saturdays.

Where do you think most people work?

Right in front of their house.

I mean, that's something about human nature.

I mean, if you could get away with working on your own yard that day, you would choose that day to do your yard work.

You know, community service, I'm mowing my grass.

Community service, I'm working on my my neighbor's fence.

It's your neighbor's fence, it's also your fence, I think.

Nehemiah understands this principle.

He has everybody working on the section of the wall closest to their house because they'll work hard hardest on it.

They'll make it look nicer.

Verse 11.

Melchaijah, the son of Harim, and Hashiv, the son of Pahath Moab, repaired another section of the tower of the ovens.

This is the place where the bakers are.

They built their towers to bring the smoke up above the city wall.

That's where you'd go to buy bread.

This was in disrepair, and so now they're rebuilding it.

Next to him, Shalom, the son of Halush, the ruler of the district of Jerusalem, repaired he and his daughters.

These are the only women listed in this chapter.

The guys out there, the ruler, so this is the highest political leader they have, a mayor.

He's not the governor, because they're not a state, it's just a city that's in shambles.

But the mayor is out there and he's got his team out there, his girls, and they're all working.

I just I just love that God put that note in there for me as a Abu Abanat, a father of daughters.

I draw encouragement from this.

This dude out there working with his girls on the wall.

I cite this to my daughters for yard work day.

Hannon and the inhabitants of Zenoah repaired the valley gate.

They rebuilt it.

And you see the valley gate now on your map there.

We've got we've worked around.

Now we're down to like the 7 o'clock point.

This is the corner.

Uh this is where it's going to start to go downhill.

You can overlook Bethlehem from that side.

Uh the val it's called the Valley Gate because it opens to the valley that will go down into Bethlehem.

Um, so they've rebuilt the Valley Gate.

They rebuilt it, set its doors, its bolts, its bars.

They repaired a thousand cubits of the wall as far as the dungates.

This is a full stretch, the full kind of south side of the wall there.

The dungate is called the dungate because this is a world without indoor plumbing.

And you would use pots, and perhaps you might have a hole in your house, but a lot of Jerusalem is kind of built on top of it.

They've been living in Jerusalem for over a thousand years.

And so there's even the concept of latrine is not very functional there.

And so you bring the waste out the dung gate and you throw it down into the brook and to the valley there.

Trash gets brought out the dungate and thrown out there.

There'd be goats wandering around and eating out there.

And this is where Jesus points to as the um the lake of fire, as Gehenna.

He refers by the time of life of Christ, this gate is referred to as Gehenna, because all the refuge and the garbage takes place there.

It is the dung gate, incidentally, because this is where uh Josiah burned the whole gate down.

And after Josiah burned it down, people started taking their refugees out there.

And that's because it's where Manasseh was offering infants to Molech.

Manasseh, King Manasseh, would take babies that were born in Jerusalem, bring them to this gate, burn them in the fire to offer them as a sacrifice to Molech.

After Manasseh went away, um, Josiah burned the whole gate into dust.

That's described in 2 Kings 23, verse 8.

2 Kings 23:8

And from that point forward it became the dung gate, as people just simply threw their trash out of there.

Verse 14.

Melchizedek, the son of Rechav, the ruler of the district of Beth Hasherim, repaired the dung gate.

He rebuilt it, set its doors and its bolts and its bars.

So that guy kind of lost the lottery.

He got a sign of the dung gate.

And Shalem, the son of Kolhoza, ruler of the district of Mizphah, repaired the fountain gate.

The fountain gate is where you bring water in.

Don't confuse the dung gate and the fountain gate, or you will get very sick.

The water gate would feed the fountains in the king's palace and the king's courtyard.

Uh, even during the Roman occupation, they would have uh pools that Herod used, and Pilate could have a little mini palace there, the Antonio Fortress, and it would have water in it that comes from the fountain gate.

Uh it's not, it didn't even need to be a gate anymore.

Hezekiah built a tunnel underground to bring the water in.

So the gate is there more uh as decoration.

This is if you go to Jerusalem now, this is where the pool of Siloam exits down there.

The Hezekiah's tunnel exits down there.

So you can walk in Jerusalem.

I've I've done this uh a couple times now.

You can walk back from here all the way into Jerusalem, going through this tunnel.

The Romans turned it into a sewer, uh, which is gross to think about when you're walking through it now.

Uh, okay.

Uh they've Jews have put in Israel's put in a little light so you can you know make your way through what was a Roman sewer, but initially it wasn't a sewer.

Initially, it was the fountain gate area where they could pipe water in, and you can come back down going through Hezekiah's tunnel.

You know, you can buy your ticket and go to this area and put a little headlamp on and wade through the water through Hezekiah's Tunnel, which is something only American tourists do.

Uh you exit down there by people's houses and a park where kids are playing, and like there's all the Americans walking out of the old sewer.

Okay.

They flew here around the world and paid money to do this.

Um, but hey, we've we've been there and they're rebuilding it right here.

Nehemiah 3.

Uh, there you go.

They're rebuilding the fountain gate.

They rebuilt it, they covered it, set his doors, its bolts, its bars.

He built the wall of the pool of Shelah and the king's garden as far as the stairs that go down from the city of David.

Again, that pool is where the uh those tunnels merge right there, the sewer tunnel and the Hezekiah Sunlaw merge, they converge right there in that pool.

Um, which you again you can go to today.

After him, verse 16.

Nehemiah, the son of Azbuk, so not our Nehemiah, a different Nehemiah, ruler of half the district of Bessu, repaired the point opposite of the tombs of David, as far as the artificial pool, and as far as the house of the mighty men.

So this is talking about David's palace where David used to live.

Remember, David uh had had built this house for himself.

He wanted to build a temple for the Lord, but God wouldn't allow it.

But he had built a house for himself.

And Solomon, of course, made it lavish and much bigger.

That's where these guys are building.

Uh after him, the Levites repaired.

We see more priests at work, verse 17.

Raham, the son of Bani, next to him, Hashabiah, the ruler of half the district of Kalah, repaired for his district.

After him, their brothers repaired.

Babi, the son of Henadad, ruler of half the district of Kalah.

Next to him, Ezar, the son of Jeshua, the ruler of Mizpha, repaired another section opposite the ascent to the armory at the buttress.

And this is kind of the Ophal area, the Ophal tower there by the horse gate where the horse could, uh, horses could come in and out, and the army has its um uh barracks there during Nehemiah's life.

After him, Baruch, verse 20, the son of Zabai repaired another section from the buttress of the door of the house of Eliashab the high priest.

The high priest lives next to the temple, and now they're building back up to the high priest door, so our circle is just about complete here.

After him, the priest of the surrounding area repaired.

After them, Benjamin and Hashah repaired opposite their house.

After them, Azariah, the son of Masiah, the son of Ananiah, repaired beside his own house.

After him, Benui, the son of Henadad, repaired another section from the house of Azariah to the buttress.

Um verse 25 in the corner, Pelael, the son of Uzziah, repaired opposite the buttress, around the tower projecting from the upper house of the king at the court of the guard.

After him, Pedadiah, the son of Perosh, and the temple servants living in Ophel repaired to a point opposite the water gate on the east in the projecting tower.

And when you see the opposite, the water gate there, you see how the city kind of bends in.

That purple wall down there, by the way, the wall that I showed you earlier, it's been excavated today, Nehemiah's wall.

That's that stretch.

So from the fountain gate to the water gate, that's what's been excavated.

The one with the girl standing on top of it, you can go see that today.

It's been, this is the section that's been excavated.

Verse 28, above the horse gate, uh, the priests repaired, each opposite his own house.

Now you get back to the temples, the priests are living there and they're working next to their own house.

Zadok, the son of Amir, repaired opposite his own house.

After him, Shemaniah, the son of Shechaniah, the keeper of the east gate, repaired.

And the east gate, very probably the most famous gate in Israel.

It's the one that's covered in bricks now.

It opens up to the graves on the opposite side where the Jews bury outside.

The Jews believe that the resurrection will take place first there.

Uh, so it's uh somewhat prestigious to be buried out just outside of this gate.

And of course, Christians came in and put their graves just below the Jewish graves, so down in the valley right there, so they're even closer, and then it goes up to the wall, and this this is a gate that is bricked over.

The uh Muslims covered it in bricks in like around 800.

So now this whole gate is is covered in bricks, it's not accessible.

I don't know why they covered it in bricks.

I had one tour guide tell me it's to keep, you know, the savior is gonna split the mount of olives and then come into Jerusalem through that gate, the scripture says.

So I had some people say the Muslims bricked it up to keep the savior out.

Um I don't think that would work.

Um he just split the amount of olives in half.

But I'm also not even sure that's true.

Uh I mean it's hard for me.

Would Muslims put bricks on a gate and say it's to keep the savior out?

That's you know, I don't I don't even know it's true, but people say that, and so I share it with you, and uh you can figure it out on your own free time.

Uh after this, each their own house.

Uh verse 30, after them Hananiah the son of Shemaliah and Henan, the sixth son of Zalaf repaired another section.

After him, Meshelim, the son of Beckeriah, repaired opposite his chamber.

And after him, Melchizedek, one of the goldsmiths, repaired as far as the house of the temple servants and of the merchants, opposite the muster gate.

And again, muster gate, the horses are kept in that area.

That's where the army would go out.

This is where an attack would come from.

Attack would come from over the Mount of Olives, from Jericho, that's where they would get attacked, and so the army is uh headquartered over there.

Um then verse 32 between the upper chamber of the corner of the sheep gate and the goldsmiths and the merchants repairs.

So we end where we begin back at the sheep gates.

This was a process that took a couple days working.

Obviously, they worked hard, some finished early, some asked for more assignments.

You saw some names in there multiple times, most worked next to their houses.

That's Nehemiah chapter three.

And uh, you know, as I look at this chapter, I think, what do you bring in way of a sermon from this chapter beyond like, you know, here's some pictures from when I went to Israel, kind of thing.

Um what do you do for a sermon this?

Well, you know, I looked through this and I did a word study, and the the most common word in this chapter is repeated is this concept, is this word, the root word for work.

Something like 18 times in this chapter.

Uh, it's repeated over and over and over again that God has designed uh these people to work.

And they are it sometimes is translated rebuild, sometimes it's translated repaired, but it's uh in Hebrew this idea of intensity of work, of putting out physical exertion for the point of working.

You see that they're uh, with the exception of the guy with his daughters, that are all the men that are working here, uh perhaps they're representing their families, but most likely the men are out there working.

We'll see them again working next week, by the way, in chapter four, where they are gonna go to war.

They're gonna work with their sword in one hand and their trowel in the other.

But I thought just for chapter three tonight, it might be worth asking the question, which is zooming out from Nehemiah 3, but I hope it's encouraging to you.

Asking the question, why did God make us as people who work?

And so I just give you an outline in your in your notes tonight why we why we work.

Um and the idea with this outline why we work is I want you to think through critically why God could have made the world any way he wanted, but he made it with work.

When the Israelites were wandering in the wilderness, they did not have to work.

They got mana from the ground.

Okay?

They didn't have to labor, they didn't have to plant manna seeds to get their manana pot pie or whatever.

God just gave it to them.

There was no work involved.

So it's worth asking yourself, why does God not make the whole world like that?

Why doesn't God make the world with kind of universal basic income, so to speak?

Which, uh not even the political element of that kind of expression, just why didn't God make the world that way, where everybody gets a certain amount of food and a certain amount of money and they can live off of it without laboring?

Because he certainly could have, and he demonstrated that in the wilderness wanderings of Israel.

But he didn't make the world that way, he called us to work.

It was philosopher/slash comedian Jerome K.

Jerome who said, I like work.

It fascinates me.

I can sit and look at it for hours.

I think some of us share that sentiment when it comes to by the way.

I said the word work was 18 times in this chapter.

If you take the word for rebuild also and combine it, it's 35 times in this chapter.

Nehemiah references work or rebuilding, 35 times.

And so I want to answer that question.

Why the focus on working and rebuilding?

I mean, God could have just spoken Jerusalem into existence with a wall, but he made the people go and labor.

And that didn't, it's not just that he made them labor, it's said he gave us a chapter of the Bible detailing down to the names and the job assignments their work.

So God wants us to study it and come away with something to affect our hearts by it.

And so I structured it with why we work.

And I'm gonna give you three answers as we go through it tonight.

First, we work because God made us that way.

We work because God made us that way.

God made us working people.

This goes all the way back to the garden.

Work does not come into the world through sin.

Work is in the world before sin.

That's a key point.

Uh even the Bible describes God as working for six days to rest on the seventh.

We are therefore to work for six days and rest.

God made us as people designed to work.

He tells Adam and Eve, be fruitful, multiply, and subdue the earth.

Exercise dominion over the animals.

Exercise dominion over the plants.

It is work to exercise dominion over both animals and plants.

Weeds are what grow naturally.

You have to labor to grow crops.

Animals are go feral naturally, to be cultivated and to be useful, to be uh to be eaten and bred and used for milk and every and dairy and everything.

It takes actual effort.

And God made it that way.

And my my point here is that He made it that way before the fall.

People were supposed to subdue the animals.

The word subdue in the Hebrew means to make fruitful.

You have something that's unfruitful, you gotta make it fruitful.

And and we use that in in English.

I mean, you have to subdue your yard.

Uh you know nature is rebelling against your yard, more so in Virginia than in places like New Mexico or Los Angeles.

But nature is rebelling against your yard.

Just take a hands-off approach to your yard in Virginia for like six months and see what happens.

You won't be able to find it in six months.

Nature will claim it back.

You have to go to war against nature to subdue your yard, to make it so you can do things like walk to your mailbox, much less play soccer, and then you can go beyond that to I'm gonna grow food in it.

I'm gonna do an actual garden in it of some kind.

That requires effort, and God made it that way.

God made us with a command to subdue the earth.

Not everybody in the earth is a farmer or is, you know, you know, herding the beasts of the field.

We labor in all kinds of different ways, between keeping the peace and the military or law enforcement to producing clothes or computer apps today.

And you know, that's the way God made us.

We have a sense of calling.

We've even used this concept of our life, a sense of calling.

That God has given you skills, your skills align with an opportunity for you to create something of value in the world.

That's the basic essence of what work is.

You're creating something of value in the world.

And that value you're creating falls all over the spectrum.

Uh some people create value in the world by being artists, creating actual beauty that people assign a value to and purchase.

Some people create value in the world by making clothes that other people wear, or like I said earlier, designing an app for your iPhone.

Somebody designs that.

They see a need in the world, they make something that fits that need, and then they sell it and you buy it.

That's work.

When you use your skills to create something of value in the world, that is what I mean by work.

And work, God made us that way, I think, because it shows our interdependence on each other.

Um for work to function, for you to work, for it to even be possible, you have to have something of value to contribute to the world.

Somebody has to want it, and somebody has to pay for it, and then you have to have something that you want to spend that money on.

Those are all the things that are necessary here to get the concept of work to even function.

That shows our interdependence.

That shows our love for one another.

I I don't I wonder if you think about your work in terms of love for another person.

Like let's use the person who makes a shirt to sell a shirt.

You recognize that there are people that need a shirt.

Your act of making it is a form of love by meeting their need.

They pay for it so that you can meet your need to provide food for your family.

And it's so easy to see with shirts or with farming.

You recognize people want to eat oranges.

They're so good.

So you grow them to as an act of love towards me.

Every orange I buy at the store and consume, the people who work at Giant and the people who drive the trucks on the road, and the people who grew those oranges in Kingsburg, California are all expressing their love towards me through that orange.

It's incredible the way God made the world.

I don't even know those people.

I've never seen the truck driver before in my whole life, but he loves me.

I know he loves me because he brings me those oranges.

And God made the world that way.

It's for us to function each to each other.

Now, this is exactly why, by the way, that there are sinful occupations in the world.

Because if your occupation is not a form of love to the world, then it is in sin.

It's not a work that God called you to do.

So there are immoral jobs in the world.

If your job is expressing hatred towards people or robbing people or taking things that are not theirs, if you if the people that you interact with receive your work as a form of hate, not as a form of love towards the world, then that's a sinful occupation.

You know, you think of even the jailer, the person who is keeping people in chains, in custody, in Fairfax County detention facility, is doing that as an act of love, not towards the inmates, but towards society.

And so you have to, if you have a job even like that, you have to be able to connect the dots to how your work is actually a form of love to the world and love towards those who need it.

This is what Paul means in Colossians 3, verse 23.

Colossians 3:23

Work heartily as unto the Lord.

You have to actually connect the dots to how what you're doing is an act of love.

I know many of you are defense contractors, and you have to think through how is what I do at work an expression of love towards my country?

How is it keeping people safe?

How is it checking evil in the world?

And when you connect those dots, you recognize that your work is an act of love towards people in our world.

Good comes through work.

Good does not come through accidents, good does not come through generically governments.

You know, governments just generically don't produce good.

People who work for governments, accomplishing something and achieving something, making something work, they are demonstrating God's love for the world.

Even in a it's it's easy to pick on government bureaucracies, but even people in government bureaucracies who are just, you know, paper pushing, you know, I have people tell me, what do you do for a living?

Paper pushing, which means either they don't do anything of value or they have a top secret job and they don't want to tell me.

I've learned that.

Paper pushing.

Oh, okay, neat.

I'm a pastor.

But even that kind of bureaucratic job is an act of love towards people because it is accomplishing something.

You are progressing something in some way if you view the world that way.

And you have to.

That's what God made us do.

God himself is a worker, God produced things with his work, he spoke, and things happened, and we received the benefit of it, and we are in his image for the same purpose.

So, God made us as working people.

Uh He made us, we work because God made us that way to express creativity, to express love for one another, and to make society function as a form of grace.

Again, think of the wilderness wanderings.

God did not have to make the world that way, but He did, so that we can express our love for each other and that we can function the world that way.

So if you're stealing, this is why stealing is such a sin.

Because if you're stealing, you're robbing the world of potential love.

You're robbing the world of the good that you would have to offer.

You did something productive.

This is why Paul says in Ephesians 5, if you steal, he doesn't just say stop and give it back.

He says, if you steal, stop, give it back, and get a job.

So you can be productive.

And then you can give money away.

I mean, that's the height of demonstrating love for somebody is giving money away.

So work and wealth are connected.

Work and greed are sinful.

Hoarding for yourself is sinful, but working and dispensing is a form of love towards the world.

And I would challenge you, you men who work, work in your mind as you're providing, we'll get to family in a second.

As you're providing for your family, think about how your work is an act of love.

And I say men who work here, because as we go through Nehemiah 3, it's the men that are called out providing for their families and doing that kind of function.

But I know our church has lots of single women that work as as well, married women, of course, but I'm speaking here specifically to men who are providing for their families or single women who have these kind of jobs.

And I would challenge you to think through exactly if you're single and you're providing for yourself in your work, don't terminate on yourself.

Because a single person is working is working just for themselves and perhaps for their, you know, those whom they know or children they might be raising or whatever.

I want you to stretch your thinking beyond only you and think how is your work an act of love towards those who aren't you and who aren't your children, who aren't your family.

So, particularly for single people, because you're in a much more flexible situation, generally speaking.

I know not every single person is much more flexible, but many are.

And so think through in your singleness in the job that you have, how are you demonstrating love for the world through the way you're working?

Because that's why you work.

It's not just to provide for your own needs and your own desires, it's to bring love and beauty and service into the world.

So, first reason you work is because God made us that way.

Second reason we work is to provide for ourselves and for our families.

And these are a hierarchy.

So that's why I want to do the first one first, because I don't want you to just run over the first one or the second one.

You know, men don't work, men don't eat.

That's true.

Men don't work, men don't eat.

That is true, but that's not the main reason to work.

The main reason to work is an expression of love and the glory of God in our world.

But secondly, to provide for ourselves and our family, and that's true at the most basic level.

There's a connection between work and food.

In the garden, people were supposed to subdue the animals so that they could eat them.

That's where this is going.

Um, they're supposed to take food from their production.

This is why the Bible says, one of my favorite verses, 2 Thessalonians 3, verse 10, man don't work, man don't eat.

2 Thessalonians 3:10

That's a great memory verse.

Man don't work, man don't eat.

You don't want a job, then you don't get food, okay?

God made the world that way.

Now, before the flood, it seems like there were only two kinds of work, herding and hoeing.

You could deal with animals, you could deal with crops, flocks or farms.

Those were choices before the flood.

But when governments were established post-flood, it allowed people to work for money to buy food from those who grew it.

So, pre-flood, as I as I read it, I don't see examples of commerce before the flood.

It seems like if you wanted to eat a steak, you had to raise a cow, and you wanted to eat corn, you had to grow corn.

But after the flood, it seems that government brings into the world the process of regulation, regulating the food supply, which is the end of Nehemiah 8, the establishment of government, I mean the end of Genesis 8, the establishment of government in Genesis 9.

You get this concept that you can have now a service job or a production job, acquiring money under the protection of government, for you to spend for food that you didn't grow or you didn't raise.

But with that diversity, all work is then leading back to food.

So it's easier to connect your labor to your food, your labor to your belly when you're, you know, a farmer.

It's a pretty much a one-to-one connection.

But when you're doing a service job, like you're designing an app or you're uh in the military or whatnot, now you have to take your wealth and use it for the purpose of food, which again is the secondary benefit.

This is why the Bible calls us to work, so that we can provide.

And in 1 Timothy 5, it says those who don't provide for their families are worse than unbelievers.

That's a pretty damning thing for the Bible to say, isn't it?

That if you don't work to provide for yourself and your family, you are worse than an unbeliever, Paul says.

Um, because you're putting negative input into the church.

You're draining the church's resources because you won't get a job.

Rather go get a job so that you can have some kind of positive income so that you can provide for your own food and not the mercy of those around you giving your food.

But if you don't, it's sound like a basketball coach here.

If you don't work, you don't gain.

If you don't work hard, you don't get food for your belly.

You don't provide, you don't experience the blessing of the world.

That's the way God made the world.

This is why laziness is one of the sins in the New Testament that people get disciplined over.

When you look at the people who are disciplined in the New Testament, people get put out of the church by name for having false doctrine, for being divisive in the church, for sexual immorality, and for laziness.

You think, how did laziness make that list?

Well, because if you won't work, you won't feed your family, you're worse than an unbeliever.

You're being a burden on the church.

You're being a burden on the church.

Look, I get that there's famine in the world, and there's depression in the world, and there's joblessness in the world, and that there are people who are in situations where they cannot work, and because of you know, no fault of their own or just the weather in parts of the world, they're unable to grow crops or whatever.

And that's where government agencies help help out.

That's where churches step in and meet the needs of other Christians.

You see that in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, as Paul's taking money from the Corinthians to give to the Christians in Jerusalem who are going through a famine.

And I understand that.

There's needs and Christians meet each other's needs.

That's true.

But the general overarching principle of the Bible is that if you don't work, you don't eat.

Um, that's just a command in the Bible, because that goes contrary to the way God made the world.

I recognize that some people have have mental instabilities and other issues, and it might be a compassionate, loving thing to meet people's immediate needs.

I understand that.

Um, but the general principle is that if a person is not willing to work, they should not be the recipient of food.

Now, this reality creates a hierarchy in society where people hire other people for work.

That's okay.

And I'm belaboring this point because it's becoming more common in our world to disdain the kind of the means of production, to bar Karl Marx's phrase, to think that the means of production are somehow negative, or that somebody who employs a thousand people is somehow less virtuous than somebody who has a thousand bosses kind of thing.

Our society seems to be shifting in the direction of disparaging wealth and those who manage wealth and use wealth to provide jobs for other people.

You know, if you read that Carl Truman book I was talking about a couple weeks ago, he talks a great deal about this, you know, in Marxist theory disparages the idea of individual private ownership of the means of production and pushes for collective ownership, you know, means of production, massive means of production that employ thousands of people, many economists argue should be owned by the government and should be owned by the community.

But that goes contrary to how the Bible describes work and the Bible describes wealth.

There can be no collective ownership of the means of production because then there is no boss that is paying you for your labor.

Your work ceases to be an act of love meeting the needs of society, and your work becomes merely a function of being in society.

The whole divine element is removed, which is why Marxist economics is so connected to atheism.

Because it doesn't work if you have a sovereign God who's judging you for your work.

It only functions if you can remove this idea that God rewards your effort.

But with this idea that God is sovereign, then you recognize God has given you the capacity to produce love and share things in the world by helping other people meet their needs by hiring them for jobs.

God gives you a boss who loves you by hiring you, even if your boss is so angry at you most of the time.

He's actually loving you by hiring you.

You know that, right?

You think, oh man, my boss hates me.

He might think he hates you also, but he's actually loving you because he's given you a job.

And so work heartily unto him as unto the Lord.

God made the world that way.

And then the occupations divide goods and services from each other.

Again, this is a post-fault reality, and thus production can't be collective.

You know, a teacher can work for the government, of course, and a teacher demonstrates love for the society by teaching children and earns income, a worker is worthy of their wages and all of that.

But when you leave kind of the teaching world or the public service world, the government world, you get into a world where it's necessary to have bosses and to have those with resources that are using their resources to produce a massive amount of things that require lots of workers for them.

This is critical.

I just want you to turn to one verse to understand this.

I think there's 1 Timothy chapter 6.

1 Timothy 6 · chapter mention

I think is an important verse.

You can leave Nehemiah behind.

We did about 15 minutes ago, I think.

1 Timothy chapter 6.

1 Timothy 6 · chapter mention

Paul says, let all who are under a yoke as slaves regard their own masters as worthy of all honor.

So that the name of God and the teaching may not be reviled.

Now, that's just not politically correct.

You're not allowed to say that kind of thing.

But Paul says it, and the first time you read it, if you're reading this absent kind of a biblical view of economics, this verse is very difficult to swallow.

There are people who are slaves, and he's not saying if you have a good master, regard your masters as worthy of honor.

He's saying, let all who are under yoke as slaves.

All, every slave, regard your master as worthy of honor.

I mean, that's this is the Roman Empire where there were brutal masters.

Slavery wasn't uh racial in the Roman Empire, it was very much class structured or politically structured.

Nevertheless, there were obviously abuses, and Paul makes no accounting of abuses here in verse 1.

He just says, if you're under the yoke of slaves, regard your masters as worthy of honor.

And if you're missing the biblical concept of economics, that verse doesn't make any sense.

It seems outlandish.

But if you understand that the very existence in society puts you in an interdependent series of relationships where somebody who is feeding you and paying you for your labor, which was the Norman slavery in the Roman Empire, that's how society was designed to function in that sense.

And so it is an act of love towards you, and so you honor them.

They're worthy of honor because they are feeding you.

Not saying that they're not sinning against you.

Of course, many slaves are sinning against you.

Paul says elsewhere in 1 Corinthians 7, if you're a slave and you get the opportunity for freedom, take it.

Get out of there.

But understand the way society works, so that the name of God and the teaching may not be reviled.

In context, the teaching here, by the way, is funding your family, paying for their food.

That leads to verse 2.

Those who have believing masters, so subset believing masters, must not be disrespectful on the ground that they're brothers.

Interesting little tendency is creeping into the church there.

Paul wants to, you know, shut down.

You have Christian slaves that are being rude to their masters because they're Christians.

Like, oh, so hey, you're not going to be mean to me because we're both believers in the Lord.

And Paul says, stop it.

Don't be disrespectful.

Rather serve all the better, since those who benefit by their good and service are believers and beloved.

Do you notice the concept of benefiting here?

He says, the slave is producing benefit for his master by contributing to society in that sense.

Not benefit to the master by peeling his grapes.

That's not what he's talking about.

Benefit to the master by the sense that there's production going on.

There's economic activity that is being developed.

Good service is the language he uses.

There's services being rendered that are producing wealth in society.

And so recognize that you are having a role to play and that every person in our world functions in that sense.

You have a boss over you.

And so you're serving him.

You're serving him, and up the up the food chain, so to speak, is the Lord.

You're serving God.

And all the way down, you're providing for your family.

So that's the second reason to provide for yourselves and your families.

And then finally, to advance the kingdom of God.

We work to provide for our families, which strengthens our church, and ultimately, which supports missions.

Your priority with your own economics is providing for your family, providing for your church, and then missions and into the world.

Laziness, of course, is an attack on the way God designed the world, the family, the church, and evangelism.

There is personal work that you do, but the work that you do gets you money, you give to your family in the form of food and shelter and all that, and then you use other of your income to advance the gospel around the world.

I love how Southern Baptists refer to a new church plant as a work.

I just love that name.

This is our new work over there.

That's a great word for it.

You know, planting a church is work.

Sending missionaries around the world is work.

And it's work that we do, and you're doing it in your own secular job right now.

You're working for the government, you're actually working in a missions agency.

You don't know that.

But by you being a Christian, you working for the federal government, you've turned our federal government into a missions agency.

Because they're paying you, and you take the money home, and some of it is going to go to missionaries in Chad.

And our government doesn't know anything about that.

They're just paying you for your wages, but no, you fooled them.

You have fooled them.

Jesus tells a story in Luke 16 about the uh the unrighteous steward, of course.

You know, he was fired for embezzling, and he on his way out goes and settles all the accounts with other people.

Uh, you know, he finds somebody who owns, you know, 10,000 uh you know, 10,000 talent or 10,000 denarii, uh, or 100 measures of oil, and he says, Oh, just you know, give me 50 of it, we'll call it even.

So he settles all his master's bills.

Outlandish.

Like imagine if you did that.

You got fired from your job as manager at Target, and on your way out, you you know, cash everybody out for half the cost of what was in their grocery carts and sent them out the door.

I mean, you'd probably end up in prison.

But the owner of Target looks at you and goes, Wow, you made yourself a lot of friends there.

I mean, that was some fancy wheeling.

I kind of respect it, is kind of what he's thinking.

And then Jesus spins it as a virtue, not the dishonesty part, but the leveraging every opportunity to advance the gospel around the world.

He spins it as a virtue.

And he says, Luke 16, verse 9, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth.

Luke 16:9

So when it fails, they may receive you into eternal dwellings.

This is why you work.

You work because God made you as somebody who contributes love and joy and productivity to society.

You work because God made you to provide for your families that way, and you work to advance the kingdom of God around the world as you give to missionaries and help expand the gospel.

Now, how far afield is this from Nehemiah 3?

I don't think that far.

I think you can connect all of these pretty directly to Nehemiah chapter 3, because God made Jerusalem with these people in it to, of course, bring the Savior through the sheepgate.

Nehemiah 3 · chapter mention

That's coming.

Through their working, most of them are working right next to the house, they are providing safety and security for their families.

And clearly, those that weren't working, Nehemiah 3 says, we're not working for the Lord.

The implication is those who were working were working to establish God's city here on earth.

Lord, we're thankful for this uh survey of Jerusalem.

And we're thankful that you made us as working creatures.

I think of how you've blessed our church with so many people with uh so many diverse jobs.

I'm thankful for uh those that provide for their families who are labors.

I'm thankful for just in my heart right now, is thinking I'm thankful for the mothers that uh labor so difficult in such difficult circumstances often, not to uh bring home money, but to raise children who fear you and who pour out their hearts in the home to raise people who understand the value of work.

Because we know we learn this in the home, we learn this from our parents.

And so I'm thankful for the families here at Emanuel, I'm thankful for the single people at Emmanuel that are laboring hard and that use their income uh to further advance the gospel around the world and to strengthen relationships to our church.

You have blessed this church with so many different kinds of people.

There's no one pattern for all of us.

Uh you've blessed us with a diversity of uh of efforts, and uh you've rewarded us in a diversity of ways.

We're thankful for that.

We do receive our charge to go into the world and work mightily as unto the Lord.

We receive that charge from the pen of the Apostle Paul, from the implication of the Holy Spirit in our heart, and we receive it as our mandate to go this week and labor for the gospel of Jesus Christ as we work in our jobs.

We give you thanks for this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thanks for joining us today.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to meet you personally at Emmanuel Bible Church.

Our service times and other church information is on our website at ibc.church.

If you want information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to tms.edu.

I hope this resource has been an encouragement to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel of Jesus Christ with boldness.

May the Lord bless you.