An Extraordinary City Filled With Ordinary People

Good morning, guys.

My name is Justin.

I'm one of the pastors here at Sacred Mission.

It's my privilege to be able to bring God's word to you.

As you heard, we're in Nehemiah 11 this morning.

So Nehemiah 11 is 36 verses long.

And we read the first three to kind of give us an overview of what's happening.

And then the rest of it is names of people, right?

And so I felt so excited about preaching my fourth chapter of names in Nehemiah.

How creative can you get, right?

It's a struggle.

No, I'm joking.

But but the text is inspired, right?

The text is breathed by the Holy Spirit to be written down so that we might understand and know God more intimately and his will and desires for us as his people.

And so I'm encouraged by being able to finish up Nehemiah over the next couple of weeks.

We got two more sermons through this before we start our series in Philippians.

But as I was reading this passage and studying, I couldn't help but to think about church planting.

Right?

And so we planted this church in January of 2019, and God has been gracious to us and merciful to us to be able to see us uh bring fruit and the work that we've put our hand to, uh, to see people come to know Jesus and connect to the mission of what God is doing in and through us here at Sacred Mission.

Uh we were really planting to pursue redemption and restoration amongst uh people in our city and culture, but also to bring it to the culture around us, right?

God's city expands.

When we look at Genesis 1 and 2, and we look at God's commission to his image bearers, it was to take Eden and press it out toward all creation to see the beauty and majesty and sovereignty of God uh expand throughout the earth, right?

They were never meant to stay in this little garden.

It was take dominion and stretch it out over the canvas of my creation to see my glory fill the earth.

And so we weren't just planting something for a few people, we were planting something for many people and to see the glory of God expand and to transform and redeem the culture around us.

And when we came to this building, we uh when we first saw it, it was kind of it was rough.

I'm just gonna be honest.

It was rough.

This building, this building was built in 1846, the original structure.

This back part was built in 1954, and it had been at one point the epicenter of gospel culture in Mason.

It was the first church built in Mason.

Do we understand the heritage that we get to assemble in every week?

The first gospel proclaiming epicenter in this city.

And what happened though, right?

Throughout the years, things shifted.

Throughout the years, people left.

Throughout the years, the building was not given attention that it needed.

It didn't have the culture, it didn't have the energy, it didn't thrive any longer, and it became deteriorated.

It started to fall apart, it started to kind of crumble in a lot of ways.

You see, over the years it failed to keep up with the growth and the development of the city.

People moved out to other places, they built newer buildings, and this one kind of just got left behind.

It went from a cultural jewel to a neighborhood eyesore.

And we've worked really hard to bring redemption and restoration to this building.

You guys have been generous in so many different ways.

Financially, you've been generous, uh, and your work, you've been generous, and your volunteering, you've been generous, and painting skills and carpentry and general construction and whatever else it took, right, to bring restoration.

In a lot of ways, we have been living out the narrative of Nehemiah right here in this very building.

But let me ask you something.

What would this building be without people to fill it?

It would be nothing, it would be vanity.

And over time, this building would fall back to its old state, or even worse.

You see, what we enter into in Nehemiah 11 is this city has been built.

The temple has been reconstructed, the walls have been rebuilt, it's been rededicated to the Word of God, but it's still without people.

Nehemiah works in chapter 11 to actually fill the city, Jerusalem, with people.

An extraordinary city filled with very ordinary people.

These lists of names, there's there's no meat for me to dive into and be like, oh, well, this dude right here, what you really gotta realize is no, he was just a dude who died, lived and died.

That's all he was.

But they were God's people for God's worship, for God's glory.

And so Nehemiah works to fill the city of Jerusalem in chapter 11.

So when we look at verse 1 through 36, the whole chapter of Nehemiah 11, what we see is that they are filling the city of God with the people of God.

Filling the city of God with the people of God.

You see, Jerusalem had been every bit of a ghost town for 142 years.

142 years.

They were displaced, they were exiled outside of the city, and they were spread throughout Persia.

Nehemiah in chapter 1, he is gets this vision to rebuild, and so he goes back to Jerusalem and he leads this reconstruction effort that we've already talked about, took 52 days to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.

Ezra had already led, in the book of Ezra, if we read through that, he had already led a group of people to reconstruct the temple, but yet the walls were still torn down.

And so Nehemiah uh leads this rebuilding effort and completes it in 52 days.

And in Nehemiah 7, we're informed that 42,360 people had returned from exile, but most of them lived in the outskirts of villages and towns outside of Jerusalem.

They didn't live in Jerusalem.

You see, most of them occupied the outskirts rather than the immediate city proper.

So what did they do here in Nehemiah 11?

They cast lots to bring one out of ten to live within the city walls of Jerusalem.

So they they see all of these people, right?

These 42,360 people, and they're gonna cast lots to bring one out of ten families in to live in Jerusalem.

Because at the point in time, only the leaders of Israel were living in Jerusalem.

And we talked about this previously in Nehemiah.

We have uh the priests, the gatekeepers, the psalmists, right?

These people who were leaders in Jerusalem.

But what were they leaders of?

They were leaders of the worship of God for the glory of God by the people of God.

And so these were the primary leaders who were living inside of Jerusalem while everyone else was outside of it.

The high priest, you see, when they talk about this casting lots, the high priest he would wore this golden breastplate of judgment, is what they would call it.

I wish, I wish I had one that I could wear.

That sounds baller, right?

Just a golden breastplate of judgment.

And uh the inside of it they had these two stones, the umim and thermim.

And these two stones, uh, they would actually cast or roll to help make decisions.

They believed that God's providence and sovereignty was so uh uh thick, was so present within their midst that even in the casting of these two stones, uh his will would be revealed to them.

I wish we trusted God that way.

And some, I was, you know, just had some Dungeons and Dragons dice in my pocket, and I could just cast them like, yep, that's what we're gonna do today.

Uh I don't trust God that much.

I'm just gonna be honest with you.

Neither do you.

Anyway, there's the Urim and Thumim to make these decisions, and as they cast these lots, one out of ten families would be commissioned to go and live inside of the city of Jerusalem.

Nine out of ten would remain in the outskirts, the villages and surrounding towns of Israel.

Of these returning exiles, we see in Nehemiah 11, only 3,044 would actually be called to live in the newly reconstructed Jerusalem.

So 42,360 exiles return, 3,044 would actually be called to live within the city.

Jerusalem, the holy city.

What we discover in chapter 11 is this holy city needed holy people to see it thrive.

Could you imagine Nehemiah leading this project?

Ezra had led the project beforehand to reconstruct the temple, the wall's been rebuilt, and then Jerusalem just sits empty.

It would not thrive, it would fall back apart, it would deteriorate, it wouldn't have what it needs to live, it wouldn't even be able to serve the purpose that it was constructed for, for the worship and glory of God.

You see, it was a holy city that needed people to thrive.

Jerusalem would not have made it very long.

Nehemiah and the Israelite people had worked relentlessly to remove the reproach of God that Jerusalem had established.

When we talk about this language of reproach, it was the condition of Jerusalem that was a reproach.

It was a mark against.

It did bad to his name to have it remain in the condition that it was in.

We've worked hard to create this space, to not be a reproach against the gospel of which we proclaim, the God of which we serve.

So that in the city we're seen as a place where where God is glorified and exalted among his people, and that we are blessing the city.

We are creating a cultural difference within the city.

It's transformative in the very power of the presence of this building once again in the city.

But without people, what good is it?

What good is it?

The name of those who would go to live in Jerusalem are accounted for in verses 3 through 24.

So if you read throughout this chapter, 3 through 24, all of those names are people who would actually go to live with inside the city of Jerusalem.

And then if you look in verses 25 through 36, uh, those are all the names of the people who would remain in the outskirts of Israel, in the villages and other towns surrounding it.

While this chapter is a historical account for us of the people who would repopulate the holy city after its reconstruction and rededication, what we need to do this morning is step back and try to see the whole story of Nehemiah through the lens of the church today.

Because there's a temptation for us, right?

As we go through Nehemiah, it's like, well, that's great.

Good information.

How does that impact me, though, today?

What I want to help us see is if we step back and see the lens of Nehemiah through the lens of the New Testament church, I hope you walk out of here this morning understanding and realizing you are living out a parallel of what Nehemiah was simply foreshadowing for us.

You are working with God in this reconstruction, rebuilding, rededication, repopulation of a better Jerusalem.

You see, there's an arc in the narrative of God, right?

When we look throughout the scriptures, there's this meta-narrative that's happening from Genesis to Revelation.

And some of it's that it can be summed up in several different ways.

But one of the ways in which theologians have worked to actually understand that meta-narrative, that arc of story, is simply through paradise lost and paradise regained.

Paradise lost and paradise regained.

And in Genesis 1, we we see that, right?

Uh actually, Genesis 3, uh, where Adam and Eve are cursed by God and they're cast out of Eden.

Paradise was lost.

And there's been an effort in the story of God to regain paradise.

And in Revelation, we see the fullness of that regaining, that reconstruction, that new and better Jerusalem that is awaiting us as God's people, and we see the story of God fulfilled in Revelation 21.

It's a story of redemption and restoration that sets the stage for the glory of God and the good of his people.

Let's look at some themes in this.

I'm going to try and take us through a bunch of Bible verses to help us see the parallels and themes that show to us how we're living out Nehemiah 11, all of the story of Nehemiah in a true and better way of what God has for his people.

You see, when we enter the story of Nehemiah, we enter it into this reality of exiled and scattered people.

They were an exiled and scattered people who were displaced from their home because of the sin of their parents.

And so God was reclaiming them.

And we see in Nehemiah 9.34 the reality of this.

It says, our kings, our princes, our priests, and our fathers have not kept your law or paid attention to your commandments and the your warnings that you gave them.

So it was the sin of their parents that created this reality of scatteredness and exiledness and displacement from the very presence and dwelling of God.

You see, in our sinful nature, we discover ourselves as an exiled and scattered people.

We've been displaced from the blessed presence of God because the sin of our parents, Adam and Eve.

Let's look at Romans 5.12.

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, so death spread to all men because all sinned.

And so we see ourselves in a New Testament reality, a scattered and exiled people from the blessed presence of God because of the sin of our fathers.

But we take responsibility for that.

Man is not without guilt, even though it started with our first father Adam and it spread to all men.

We also participate willingly in that sin and rebellion.

That's what they were discovering in Nehemiah 9 and their repentance of what they had been participating in themselves.

We do not find ourselves absent of guilt in this, and so we find ourselves as an exiled and scattered people.

But what about the theme of redemption?

Nehemiah is sent by the king in Nehemiah 2.

He's sent by the king to go and rebuild the walls that have been torn down in Jerusalem.

Nehemiah 2, 5 says this, and I said to the king, if it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight that you send me to Judah, to the city of my father's graves, that I may rebuild it.

Jesus, he would be sent by the Father to redeem and restore what our hands had destroyed.

1 John 4:14 declares this.

1 John 4:14

And we have seen and testified that the Father has sent his son, what, to be the Savior of the world.

As Nehemiah was sent by the King, Jesus is sent by the Father to redeem what the hands of men have destroyed.

Charles Spurgeon, who was a Baptist pastor in London in the 1800s, he said this about the fact and the reality of Jesus being sent by the Father.

He says, It is a sweet thought that Jesus Christ did not come forth without his father's permission, authority, consent, and assistance.

He was sent of the Father that he might be the Savior of men.

As Nehemiah was sent by the King, so Jesus was sent by the Father.

We also see the theme of reconstruction.

Nehemiah would labor with the people of God, Israel, to rebuild what had been torn down for the glory of God.

We see in Nehemiah chapter 6, 15 through 16, it says, So the wall was finished on the twenty fifth day of the month, Elul, in fifty-two days.

Nehemiah 6 · chapter mention

And when all our enemies heard of it, all the nations around us were afraid and felt greatly in their own esteem, for they perceived that this work had been accomplished with the help of our God.

So Nehemiah labors with God's people to reconstruct the walls, and when they're finished in fifty-two days, the surrounding nations are terrified because they believe that the only way that this could have happened was with the power and might of God Himself.

But Jesus would resurrect the stones of fallen humanity, to rebuild a dwelling place for the glory of God.

This was his mission, this was his purpose.

He says, Peter, his apostle says in 1 Peter chapter 2, verse 5, he says, You yourselves, like living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

1 Peter 2:5

Are we beginning to see the parallels of the story of Nehemiah to what Jesus would accomplish for us and through us as his people?

He was working to rebuild Jerusalem, a dwelling place of God.

His presence would dwell there in the Holy of Holies, that people might come and worship him.

But we now, in light of New Testament reality, are living stones ourselves, that Jesus is building up, that we might be uh indwellers ourselves of the very presence of God for the glory of God.

Now, this would not be able to be accomplished without the deconstruction or destruction of Jesus first.

Look at John chapter 2, 19.

John 2 · chapter mention

Jesus answered them, destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.

Jesus was declaring that he must first be destroyed so that we might be built up.

What about repopulation?

The theme of repopulation spreads from Nehemiah all the way to Revelation.

You see, only the people of God whose lineage was known through Israel will be permitted to dwell there.

We see this in Nehemiah 7, verse 5.

Nehemiah 7:5

Then my God, Nehemiah says, put it into my heart to assemble the nobles and the officials and the people to be enrolled by genealogy.

And I found the book of the genealogy of those who came up at the first, and I found written in it.

And he goes through all these different names.

And so as they were reconstructing Jerusalem, they found this book of genealogy.

And there was only those who were being able to be affirmed as true Israel were able to dwell there in this reconstruction effort, in this endeavor to repopulate God's city.

For us as the New Testament church, as believers here today, it is only the people of God whose lineage would be found in the blood of Jesus, our Messiah, that will be permitted to dwell in the better Jerusalem that awaits us.

Revelation 21, 27 says this, but nothing unclean will ever enter it.

It's talking about the Jerusalem that comes out of heaven, that we would dwell with God forever.

Nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does not who does what is detestable or false.

But look at this.

But only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life.

The book of Nehemiah of genealogy parallels so beautifully with the book of the Lamb we find in Revelation.

Only those whose names are in it may dwell with God in that Jerusalem.

What about rededication?

There was this emphasis that we just went through in Nehemiah 8 and 9 of what the word of God brought to the people of God.

It had been absent from their ears.

They had not had the ability to obey it because they were ignorant of its truth.

And when they read it, when they heard it, when they sought to understand it, what did it bring?

Repentance and obedience.

Nehemiah 8 8, we see this.

They read from the book, from the law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense so that the people understood the reading.

It was there in Nehemiah 8, as Ezra stood up to read the Word of God, that people wept and mourned for hours.

They listened to the Word of God.

They pursued knowledge and understanding of the Word of God being read.

It would be believed and obeyed.

And this reality of the Word of God believed and obeyed would define clearly them as the people of God.

You want to understand a clear definition of who God's people are?

J.I.

Packer, he is a theologian and writer.

He passed just a couple years ago.

One of my favorite ones, he says that Christianity, the definition of a Christian, can be most simply distilled and summed up under this definition a person who believes and obeys God's Word.

That's the defining characteristic of a Christian to believe the truth of God and then to pursue obedience to God.

To it.

Now, before you may say that well, that's that sounds legalistic, doesn't it?

Well, Jesus said that, so do with it what you may.

We see that actually in Matthew 28.

The word of God believed and obeyed defines us as Jesus' disciples.

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you, and behold, I am with you always to the end of the age.

It is the belief of God's word and the obedience to God's word that defines us as disciples.

You see, throughout the story of Nehemiah, we actually discover our own story.

It's a story of redemption and restoration.

But we don't discover it through the physical rebuilding of God's dwelling place, but through the spiritual rebuilding of living stones who become the dwelling place of God.

The story of Israel and Nehemiah, it's our story.

We can't just sit back and look at it as some Old Testament thing that we don't have any real connection with.

It is telling us who we are in profound and true and tangible ways.

A story that through the grace and mercy of God, we're participating in its very unfolding today.

Paradise had once been lost, but it's now being restored, and we have been called to dwell there and have been commissioned to call others to make it their home also.

The mission of God is to fill the city of God with the people of God.

The mission of God is to fill the city of God with the people of God.

And you and I have been commissioned to joyfully participate in that with Him.

When we become believers, when we become connected to Christ through trusting in His life, death, burial, and resurrection, we say this all the time at Sacred Mission.

We're not just reconciled to Jesus, reconciled to God through Jesus, but we're reconciled to his people.

That's one another, and we're reconciled to his mission.

And so we are called to see Jerusalem being built up through the power of the Spirit, calling children to come home, to repopulate, through rededication, to be obedient and believe God's promises for us, to worship him, to dwell with him.

Church, this is our story.

So as we look through Nehemiah 11, as we go back and look through through the lens of the whole New Testament reality of us, what we see this is that the local church is a portrait of the Jerusalem to come.

The local church is a portrait of the Jerusalem to come.

We're not just participating in some organization.

We're not just participating in some mundane ritual or uh uh some type of social club.

We're if if if if if that's the way that we understand and gaze at the church, then we're gonna become uh disinterested, we're gonna become calloused, we're gonna become uh uh disengaged, right?

It's gonna just be something we do.

No, you're participating in something bigger.

Don't look at this as, oh, I gotta come and make coffee, or oh I gotta, I gotta go and watch kids again, or I gotta go to my mission group one more time.

No, you are participating in a transcendent, cosmic, eternal reality of God restoring and reconstruction and redemption for his glory to be filled with his people that worship him forever and ever.

That's what you're participating in.

We are here and now a physical, tangible portrait of what's to come.

And we get to joyfully participate in that and live that out.

Let's look at some of these themes of the New Testament church and what we see here in Nehemiah.

We see that Jerusalem was formed for the worship of God.

Formed for the worship of God.

We are forming this church for the worship of God.

It is only for the glory and worship and exaltation of the name of God that we plant churches because when he is exalted, when his name is glorified, when when he is lifted up, all men are drawn unto him.

We are forming this church community for the worship of God.

It's only those who have been made alive by the Spirit who can truly worship God.

We had a great conversation at Cassanos.

If you've never had Cassanos, you are missing out on your whole life.

It has been vanity up until this point.

And uh we were talking about seeker-sensitive churches.

And uh the reality is when we look through the seeker-sensitive lens of the scriptures, there is only one seeker.

It's God Himself.

As Jesus was talking to the woman at the well, he actually enlightened her to the reality that God is searching the earth, seeking those who would worship him, and they will worship him in spirit and in truth.

When we look at the whole understanding of the revelation of God about us in our anthropological state, we discover we don't seek God.

No one is good, no, not one.

We don't chase after God, we don't pursue him, we don't seek him.

It is God who in his grace and mercy and relentless love for us seeks us down and makes us worshipers of his holy name.

It is only those who actually have been filled by his spirit, who have been made alive through regeneration, who have had their heart of stone replaced with the heart of flesh that can actually even worship God.

So we, church, as God makes us alive, as Jesus rebuilds this temple with living stones that have God's spirit within them, then we are formed for the specific and distinct purpose of His worship.

We are founded on the Word of God.

We are founded on the Word of God to hear the Word of God proclaimed and exalted.

As you see them in Nehemiah 8 and 9, as they're standing up and proclaiming the Word of God for hours on end, that the people weep and mourn and repent and seek obedience to the Word of God.

That's why preaching is one of the most key aspects of our gatherings to hear the Word of God preached and exalt his holy name, that his truth might be grasped in our hearts, that we might live a life, as Luther said, of repentance and faith, that we might be conformed to the image of the Son.

We are founded on the Word of God.

I love how all of the people of Israel shifted when they heard the word of God.

Right?

They thought life was supposed to be about this, or they thought life was what was going to be centered around that, or they figured, hey, we can kind of figure this thing out on our own.

And when they heard the word, what happened?

They shifted.

They shifted because they realized it wasn't about what they wanted, it was about what he had prescribed to them what would be.

We see this even in the story of Cain and Abel.

Cain and Abel, these sons of Adam, bring forth an offering of worship in Genesis.

And God rejects one and receives the other.

Why?

Because God dictates how he will be worshipped.

We don't get the privilege or freedom to dictate how God might be worshipped.

We don't get to just go off on these wild tangents of our own beliefs and ideas or where our passions might carry us to how God might be served, worshiped, obeyed.

He is creator of all things.

He has created us in his own image, and he has dictated to us how he will be worshiped.

We don't get that freedom.

The pot does not say to the potter, hey, you're going to be worshipped like this.

No, the potter says to the clay, No, I made you.

You do what I say.

God dictates how he will be worshipped, how he will be served.

And so the word of God is primary and preeminent for us to understand.

Are we faithfully walking out what God has called us to as his people?

We are filled with the people of God.

Look at this.

We get filled with the people of God.

This is why membership at a church is so important.

We are filling this place with God's people who confess Jesus as Lord, who are marked by evidence of belonging.

Right through their confession, do they live a life of faith and repentance?

Are they marked by baptism to belong to the Lord?

These are people who are identified and recognized as those who belong to God.

This church is to be filled with the people of God for the glory of God.

We are repopulating even here in this place, image bearers who love and serve and worship Him, confess Jesus as Lord for His glory.

Not only that, but we feast on the provision of God.

We feast on the provision of God.

I love in Nehemiah 8, after they read from the book, they found this feast.

It was the feast of tabernacle.

And this feast was purposeful in helping them remember that atonement that God had brought for them.

That he had forgiven their sins and made them his people.

And it also reminded them of the provision through the wilderness where he fed them with manna to sustain them and to keep them.

You see, we feast on the providence or the provision of God every week at Sacred Mission.

Just as the people of Jerusalem in Nehemiah chapter 8 rediscovered this feast when we're called into Christ and we're called to be his people, we discover the feast of his provision and communion.

Nehemiah 8 · chapter mention

We come remembering the atonement that God has provided for us in Christ Jesus for the forgiveness of our sin.

And we feast upon the provision of his body and blood that that nourishes us in our own wilderness, that we might be nourished in body and soul for the mission of God that He has called us to.

We're also fortified by godly leaders, fortified by godly leaders, leaders who defend the people of God, the church from wolves and attacks of the enemy.

Jerusalem would have fallen quickly if it wasn't for godly leaders who are appointed and identified to help protect them, to help build a game plan of uh of how to fortify the city, how to defend it from enemy attacks, and to set people in strategic places and build a battle plan in the uh in the in the face of an attack from an enemy.

We saw all these different places, these outside nations that wanted to come in and tear down what had been built.

And there will be people who come in as Paul warns the elders in Ephesus and uh Acts chapter 20.

Acts 20 · chapter mention

There will be wolves who try to come in and tear down what the what the Spirit of God has built up, what your labor has built up in the preaching of the gospel.

Defend the church, protect her.

This is the call of the elders here at Sacred Mission to fortify the work of God, to defend her from the attacks of the enemy, from wolves that try and devour God's sheep.

Church, we put on display for the world around us a taste of what the new Jerusalem will be like.

The local church allows for the world to watch the bride get prepared for her groom.

You see, we we get to participate in something bigger than ourselves, something bigger than our preferences, our opinions, our personal desires.

As God's people, we get the joyous privilege to live within and walk out the beauty of new creation that is yet to come.

It is living out the not yet in the blood purchased absolute of the already.

It is living out the not yet in the absolute blood purchased already.

And Paul talks about this.

Paul talks about this in Galatians chapter 4, the citizenship in this way.

Galatians 4 · chapter mention

He says this in Galatians 4.

Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law?

For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman, one by a free woman.

Now this, uh but the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise.

Now, this may be interpreted allegorically.

These women are two covenants.

One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery.

She is Hagar.

Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia.

She corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children, so the physical, geopolitical Jerusalem.

But the Jerusalem above, the new Jerusalem, the one that we are awaiting for, is free.

And she is our mother.

For it is written, Rejoice, O bare one who does not bear, break forth and cry aloud, you who are not in labor, for the children of the desolate one will be more than those the one who was a has a husband.

So here's what Paul he talks about the Jerusalem above, the new Jerusalem of which we're awaiting for, as definite as already, because it has been purchased by the blood of Christ.

And so our citizenship already resides there because it has already been assured through his finished work.

And he talks about it being this not yet, though, that we're still kind of waiting for and participating in, but yet it is also already, and that we can be confident and assured that she, as Paul says, is our mother, the one who nurtures us, the one who governs us, the one who sustains us.

You see, church, God invites us to participate in this great rebuilding project, to work with him by the power of his spirit to see paradise restored.

Through the finished work of Christ, we are reconciled to God, God's people and God's mission.

There is work to be done, and we join God in his kingdom come.

Some of us, though, we start without, we start building without the plans.

We start building without the plans.

I don't know if you're like me, but um instructions are useless until I'm stuck, right?

So I will open something for my KEA and I'll just start putting it together.

And then at some point I want to burn it with fire because I got stuck and I did something wrong.

What should I have done?

I I should have looked at the instructions first, right?

And so sometimes I get myself in these places where I have to undo a bunch of work that I'd already done, or sometimes I've even been known to break it to the point of praise God for Amazon's return policy.

Or sometimes I, you know, I get ahead of myself.

Sometimes we do that because we don't have the word of God founded upon how we should live in obedience and faithfulness to God, in relationship and community with his people, and serve in his mission.

It is God's word that is central to our understanding of how we are to relate to him, how we are to worship him, how we are to relate with one another.

And so when we dismiss the word of God and we just say, hey, we can do this however we want to, one, do not be shocked when God does not uh uh uh uh accept that offering.

When God does not accept that as something, we don't get that privilege.

I already talked about this.

We have to submit, we have one obligation submit ourselves to the truth of God's word.

That is our primary obligation.

And so when we try to jump out ahead, we get ourselves in places that are all kinds of messed up.

And you see this in churches throughout our culture where they have dismissed the word of God.

You see Christians who have dismissed the word of God, and they just think that they can do whatever they want in the worship and service of God, and stuff just gets straight crazy and messed up.

You get heresy, false doctrine, you get damnable uh teaching, you get worship that is that is foreign to God, that he rejects and does not accept.

We have to have the word of God central to who we are as God's people because it is the word of God that forms us, informs us, and allows us to be obedient to how he might be served.

Some of us, though, we sit around as if there isn't any work to do.

We sit around as if there isn't any work to do.

Church, we get to participate in the joyfully in this reconstruction effort of what God is doing throughout this earth.

Uh we can't just sit around in apathy, and sometimes this kind of comes from a couple different places.

We get defeated by the culture around us, right?

We we look at the world and we just say there's no hope in this.

Uh uh, and we have to readjust our lens to see it through the way of God, that he has conquered all things.

This world is not in any type of contender to his might and power and strength?

You think that this world has a fighting chance to beat the sovereign God of all creation?

No.

And what about us as his people who are seated with Christ in the heavenly places because we've been united to him by faith, and all of his blessing and righteousness and inheritance has been given to us.

You think this world has a fighting chance?

Why are we continually sitting around in apathy when the victory has already been accomplished in Christ the King and we just have to be obedient and walk in it?

We look at this world around us like it's gonna be the end of the church.

No, it doesn't have a fighting chance.

We've got to step up and walk in that faithfulness, walk in that trust, walk in that obedience.

But then some of us, I just think we just have a really bad vision of what the church is.

And we're just sitting around waiting for it to serve us, or we're sitting around uh acting like there's nothing to do.

We we gotta get our hands dirty in the work of what God has called us to do, to see this place not just built up for ourselves, but for the tons and tons of people in our city who have yet to hear the good news of the gospel of Jesus.

And as I was studying this passage, I was reading in Revelation just all these different verses about hell.

And I was reading through the teachings of Jesus about hell, and tears started to genuinely.

I'm not one of those dudes that's like, I just began weeping.

No, I don't weep.

I wish maybe the Lord would let me cry more, I'd be a nicer guy.

But um, I literally began to get tears in my eyes because thinking about you got one life to live.

That's it.

One shot, one opportunity.

And there are people all around us dying, and you know what happens?

They get thrown into the pit of fire, the lake of fire, eternally conscious torment where there's weeping and gnashing of teeth, and the fullness of the wrath of God is poured out for them, where there's no ceasing, there's no end to that.

It just goes on forever and ever and ever, and we're sitting around like that's not real.

We're living this Christian life like that's not true.

And maybe that's because we don't believe it.

Maybe we just think Jesus is here to make our life better here and now.

Your life here and now is not worth junk compared to eternity.

Let us suffer.

Let us go to our death for the glory of God here and now, so that others might know him and not have to suffer eternally under his wrath.

Let our blood be counted as nothing for his glory.

What is our life?

It's a vapor, it's a flower that fades, it's grass that withers and dies.

It is nothing compared to eternity.

Church, why are we sitting around like there's nothing to do?

There's everything to do.

Because there's a world out there that's dying.

And hell is real.

You've got to accept and embrace the truth of hell if you're gonna accept and embrace the truth of heaven.

How dare we only pick parts of the Bible that we love that benefit our own minds and sedate our own consciences rather than see the fullness of its truth and drive and compel us to preach the gospel.

What's our gospel conviction this morning?

I'm way over time.

I apologize.

I'll get through this.

Our hope, church, is that Jesus is the cornerstone that ensures for us the new Jerusalem.

Jesus is the cornerstone that ensures for us the new Jerusalem.

Let's look at Ephesians chapter 2, 19 through 22.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets.

What's that?

It's the teaching of God's word.

It's the word that was given to us by the Holy Spirit through his prophets and apostles.

So what's our foundation?

You can Jesus.

That's I like that.

That's a good answer.

God's word.

God's word is Jesus.

Jesus is the word of God made flesh.

When we look at the beauty of the Trinity, we see God the Father, who sends, speaks.

His word, that is Jesus, that comes to earth, puts on flesh, as Jesus returns to the Father in his ascension, in his uh session, seated at his right hand, then the Spirit is sent from the Father and the Son to fill us and apply the finished work of Christ, right?

So Christ Jesus himself being what?

The cornerstone.

The cornerstone of what?

The cornerstone of God's word.

The word of God is Christ.

And it has been made known to us and revealed to us, not simply but primarily through Christ, but through his apostles and prophets also.

It is in his finished work, Jesus Himself becomes the chief cornerstone.

And it says, finishing this out, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.

In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

The new Jerusalem is built upon Christ in his word.

As sure as he is risen from the dead, sure is his creating a new home for his people to dwell with him forever.

A new Jerusalem that is established upon the foundation of the Word of God.

Jesus being the Word is then the chief cornerstone.

It's in his tearing down of his own temple, his body, and being raised that he is able to make us living stones joined together as a dwelling place for God.

Through Jesus, we are taken from being strangers and aliens to citizens.

Citizens of what?

The new Jerusalem, the better Jerusalem, the true Jerusalem.

An already reality of the not yet that we experience now.

We are citizens of his kingdom.

The truth that Jesus has established as the chief cornerstone ensures for us that this citizenship will truly result in the fullness of the already dwelling with him forever.

What do I want us to walk away with?

If you look at Nehemiah as some Old Testament thing that seems cool, hey, it's God's word.

We'll kind of listen to you, Pastor, say some things.

You're gonna miss what God's trying to show us.

God is unveiling to us his will, his plan, his purpose that we get to participate in now.

Because he's not reconstructing physical stones in some landmark area of the world.

He is reconstructing his temple through living stones of all people, tribes, nations, and tongues in this little church, this little X amount of square footage building, and the people primarily that fill it get to put on display for this watching world what is yet to come for us.

The new Jerusalem.

And so what should we do from here?

Our hope, my hope would that we would partner with God in his rebuilding project.

We would partner with God in his rebuilding project.

Church, you have mission.

You have mission.

You have purpose.

God has not called you to sit on the sidelines.

God has not called you to take a seat on the bench.

Every single one of us has purpose and mission for what?

To work with God in this cosmic rebuilding project for his glory and the good of his people.

I am so thankful for the work and labor that you guys have put in as a church family.

Man, this see the people who are connecting to Sacred Mission, to see the people who are hearing about Jesus, being baptized, children being dedicated, people being discipled in your homes, the word of God being preached, worship being expressed and passionate amongst church guys.

There are so many amazing things that you guys have worked to see accomplished, that the Spirit has worked through us to see accomplished, that God is blessed.

But let Nehemiah and Nehemiah 11 specifically of its repopulation effort be in the central focus of our minds.

There are so many people who we have yet to call to come home, to be children of the King, to be citizens of a better, eternal Jerusalem that we long for in our hearts.

Let's pray.