The People Are the Project

Alright, so let's dive into Nehemiah chapter 7.

Nehemiah 7 · chapter mention

So what we're at in the point of the story is Nehemiah has already finished the reconstruction of the wall of Jerusalem.

So we have to kind of go back and understand a bigger picture of what's happening.

In the book of Ezra, which precedes Nehemiah, Ezra kind of wrote out the narrative of the reconstruction of the temple.

So there have been a group of Jews who were exiled because of the conquering conquest of Nebuchadnezzar Babylon had fallen, Persia now had taken over, and these Jewish people were still pushed out from their homes into exile.

Under the leadership of a man named Zerubbabel.

So easy way to remember Zerubbabel, where there is rubble, there is Zerubbabel, right?

So the rubble of the temple had fallen, and Zerubbabel led a group of exiles back into Jerusalem under the blessing of the king of Persia to reconstruct the temple.

Now there's a big story in there.

You can read all about it in the book of Ezra, but the temple got built.

Nehemiah then was communicated to him that the wall was still in ruins.

The wall was still in ruins.

So Nehemiah leads the charge to rebuild the wall that fortified the city and protected them against foreign enemies.

And he accomplishes that by God's grace and power in 52 days.

52 days, the people of Israel gather together, they rebuild the wall, and they fortify the city.

And we kind of closed that chapter out last week in Nehemiah 6.

So now we're in Nehemiah 7.

The temple's rebuilt, the wall's rebuilt, they have a city, but there's no people.

And so that's where we're coming into Nehemiah chapter 7.

Nehemiah 7 · chapter mention

The city's fortified because the wall is complete.

Even though the wall is complete, Nehemiah still feels this tension, though, of outside threat.

And so what he does is he starts gathering people together in their particular offices, and he establishes leadership to protect the entry points, right?

The gates.

We figured out that there's about ten gates that were inside the wall of the city.

And so he wants to protect those gates, put watchmen there, gatekeepers is what they call them, so that they can still stay protected against outside threats.

So Nehemiah still kind of feels that tension, and he constructs a system to protect and guard the city from foreign enemies of God and of his people.

In that system, he starts appointing people to specific offices and positions.

Now it's important to realize that Nehemiah, first and foremost, in chapter 7, the three offices that he appoints people to.

He appoints people to gatekeepers, singers, and the Levites, or the priesthood.

So the gatekeepers, the singers, and the Levites who are the priesthood.

So these were all positions, every single one of these, that helped to officiate or facilitate the worship of God Yahweh.

So the gatekeepers, the singers, and the Levites, they were offices to help facilitate the worship of God with inside the city.

The gatekeepers were those who were entrusted to stand guard at the gates of the city, to conduct passage through them and to be alert of any danger.

In both books, Ezra and Nehemiah, the gatekeepers are always coupled with the singers and with the Levites, because there was a certain position of the gatekeepers that stood guard at the temple to make sure that only those who God permitted to go in and out of the temple were the ones who were doing that.

So they played a part in the actual worshiping, the functional part of worshiping God by protecting the temple itself and those who were coming in and out.

The singers, they were a segment of the Levites.

And they were primarily descendants of a specific Israelite named Asaph.

If you've read through the book of Psalms, you might see certain psalms that were written by a man named Asaph.

Asaph was one of the lead singers, and they really uh they wrote hymns, they sang hymns, they sang over specific liturgical parts of the worship of God, and so these descendants were singers from the lineage of Asaph who played a specific part in the worship of God in the city.

Then you have the Levites.

The Levites, out of the 12 tribes of Israel, the Levites were the only tribe who were able to be priests in the worship of God.

So it was from that family line that priests were born to be able to actually conduct worship inside the temple.

We talked about a couple weeks ago that actually God had ordained that if anybody who was not a Levite, who was not a priest of the order of the Levite, entered into the temple, that he would kill them.

That God would actually kill them because they had uh uh defiled the worship of God.

It was only the Levites who could do it.

The presence of God, the glory of God that dwelt within that temple, what was so uh thick and rich and reverent that they would actually, uh if the uh high priest, once a year, he would go into the Holy of Holies to offer sacrifice unto the Lord for the forgiveness of sin of Israel.

That practice alone, by a Levite, by the high priest, if he did any part of that ceremonial worship wrong, as he entered into the presence of God, he would die.

So they would literally tie a rope around his ankle and put bells on him so that they could hear if he hit the floor.

Then they'd just be like, all right, we're gonna try next year, boys.

And they just yank him out.

This is the presence of God that fills the temple.

And so who does Nehemiah establish first?

He establishes the gatekeepers, the singers, and the Levites for worship.

This is very important to understand what's happening here in chapter 7.

It's important to realize because of this.

The city itself, Jerusalem, was fundamentally constructed to establish a people who would worship the living God.

Why was Jerusalem built?

Why was the effort made to reconstruct the temple?

Why was the effort made to rebuild the city walls?

Jerusalem was built so that God would be worshipped.

And God was going to be worshiped by his people.

A city whose citizens were identified in being the people of God who worshiped and served him alone.

Nehemiah goes on to establish a leadership to oversee the guard and protection of the city.

We see this uh Hanani or Hananiah.

Uh I would subject, it doesn't really matter if we want to sit around and argue this.

Was that two people or one person?

I'm gonna submit that was one person.

There was like his street name, and then there was like his proper name, right?

It's like he goes by Hanani, but it but my birth certificate it says Hananiah.

That's kind of how I would read the text, but people differentiate, no big deal.

What we understand, though, is that this guy was the one who in Nehemiah chapter one gave the report of the condition of the walls of Jerusalem that spurred on the reconstruction project that Nehemiah led.

This was the same guy.

But Nehemiah appoints him into a position of leadership as a governor to oversee the protection of the city.

And he gives us a clue as why he does this.

He makes a statement in this first section of the text.

He was a more faithful and God-fearing man than many.

He was a more faithful and God-fearing man than many.

In his instruction on how to keep the city safe, he calls on an effort from all the citizens.

He says this he says, appoint guards from among the inhabitants of Jerusalem, some at their guard posts and some in front of their own homes.

So this is a community effort.

If we're going to protect the city, everybody's got to get involved.

Everybody has to be responsible for something so that we can keep the city safe from these foreign enemies that want to hurt the people of God and disrupt the purposes of God.

In verse 4, we get this sense that Nehemiah sees beyond the work of rebuilding the wall and understands the purpose that the rebuilding was actually for.

He says this the city was wide and large, but the people within it were few, and no houses had been rebuilt.

So when we look at this introductory section of the text in verses 1 through 4, what we discover is this What good is a city without a people?

What good is a city without a people?

They had labored hard to rebuild the temple.

We're looking at something almost 90 years later, they finished the wall.

But Nehemiah makes this statement as he is maybe able to step back and observe the fruit of his labor.

He looks at the majesty and grandeur of Jerusalem, and he says, But there's hardly anyone here.

What good is a city without a people?

The work wasn't just rebuilding a wall, the work wasn't just rebuilding a temple, the work was rebuilding a people.

A people who would worship God, Yahweh, in the ways that he had commanded them to, instructed them to, that would glorify him, that would bring flourishing to his people, that would bring blessing in the city, that would pose generational blessing of their children's children's children.

It was a rebuilding of a people, because after all, what good is a city without a people?

The purpose of Israel was to establish a place for the presence of and the glory of God to dwell, for his worship to be conducted, for the praises of his people to be known.

It was to fill it with those who worshiped Yahweh, to identify citizens of his kingdom, where he was their God and they were his people.

It was to mark the people as his own possession.

It was to establish them as distinct from all of the other people of the earth.

The rebuilding of the city, the temple, and the wall always was a means to a greater end.

A city with a people, a people who would worship Yahweh, who would be distinctly his, and he would be covenantally theirs.

That's what Jerusalem was about.

That's what the reconstruction effort was always about.

The worship of God by his people.

In verses 5 through 6, what we see is this: a city of worship filled with a people of praise.

A city of worship filled with a people of praise.

Here in verse 5, we see that God actually puts into Nehemiah's heart to fill this city with people.

Now we have to ask ourselves, what people?

What were the credentials that they were going to use to be able to identify who should dwell and inhabit this city?

Because we have to look back again to understand that there were efforts with inside Jerusalem for people who were in outside nations who were not Israelites, who worshipped foreign gods, who were idolatrous people, who did not hold the same ethic as Yahweh and his commands, that were trying to dwell within Jerusalem, and they were actually marrying into the Israelite bloodline.

We would call them Samaritans.

If you ever look throughout the New Testament, you're going to see a lot, especially in the Gospels, this language of Samaria as a city and Samaritans as a people.

What they were, they were people who had intermarriages with outside nations, and they became a people that were no longer of the bloodline of Israelites.

They were not what they would call purebred Israelites.

And the Jews hated Samaritans, hated them.

They counted them as less than human.

They would actually equate them with dogs.

They believed that Samaritans would not actually resurrect in the resurrection, that they would remain dead eternally.

That's how much the Jews hated the Samaritans.

And so all that tension in the Gospels, when Jesus engages with Samaritan people, when it when Jesus travels through Samaria, all that tension is built from this experience of Ezra and Nehemiah, where there were Jewish people who were having intermarriages with outside nations, and they were becoming, they were allowing their idolatrous worship and their ethic that was not of Yahweh to inform and shape a new people and a new culture that dishonored God, that was an abomination to the worship of the living God Yahweh.

So who is going to dwell in this city?

If the city was for a distinct purpose, then it must be inhabited by a distinct people.

And so God's desire is to fill the city with the people of his covenant.

So he puts it in Nehemiah's heart.

We need to fill this city.

Now we have to ask the question: who are we going to fill it with?

Well, if the purpose of the city was for the worship of God, they were not going to fill it with people who did not worship God.

They were going to fill it with God's people who worshiped him and who submitted to his word and command, who sought to be obedient to him and walk out righteousness and seek to glorify him in their everyday lives.

That's who they were going to fill the city with.

And so by God's providence, Nehemiah discovers this book, this book of genealogy.

And it is the same list, almost verbatim, of the people that we find in Ezra chapter 2.

Ezra 2 · chapter mention

That was the people who came out of exile to rebuild the temple under Zerubbabel.

So he finds this book of genealogy and he says, Well, we're going to start here.

And he makes a roll call.

These are the people who would be allowed to come and dwell within Jerusalem to worship God Yahweh.

So God's desire is to fill the city with the people of his covenant, those whom he has put his steadfast love upon and set apart from all the other nations to worship and serve him.

So he has Nehemiah called the people to be enrolled by their genealogy so that the city would be filled with Israelites, God's covenant people.

This list has the names of those who almost 90 years earlier came back to start rebuilding and had constructed the temple.

This is almost an exact copy, like I said, from Ezra II.

You can go back and look at it, who were returning from their exile back to the city.

The city of God was being rebuilt for the people of God.

Nehemiah was working to establish who were going to be the true citizens of God's city.

Because again, not just anyone could dwell there.

Not just anyone could inhabit this city.

Because the city was built to demonstrate the covenantal love of God for his people to the world around them.

It was a city where the worship of Yahweh and the songs of his praise would fill every square inch of its area.

Israel would stand distinct as a city of worship filled with a people of praise.

So the book of genealogy provides a resource to identify who truly were the people of God who could fulfill the purpose of the city.

Then we look at verses 7 through 73.

And this is just a list of names.

This is kind of the genealogy of that book unfolding.

And what we see here is that the people make the place.

The people make the place.

Again, what good would it have been to have the temple where God's presence dwelt, where his worship was conducted, if you filled that city with people who didn't worship God, who was not of his covenant, who didn't serve him and seek to obey him.

Or what good it would have been if the city was never filled with people at all?

If it was just a shell of stone without any real purpose.

The people make the place.

For the rest of the chapter, Nehemiah is going to name those who were the first to begin settling back into Jerusalem under the leadership of Zerubbabel to reconstruct the temple.

This was going to be their starting point for understanding who were truly Jewish and who could truly inhabit Jerusalem.

We talked about the idolatry and the false worship and the unclean marriages.

And when we get further into Nehemiah, you're going to see Nehemiah actually deal with those unclean marriages in some God-honoring ways and in some really sinful ways.

But he tries to deal with it the best that he can.

He tries to purify the city and the people who are in it.

From this book of genealogy, what we'll see in the Nehemiah chapter 11 to come is one out of every ten people were expected to go from their families and inhabit the city.

Nehemiah 11 · chapter mention

So we kind of get this genealogy.

We get this list of names and families.

We get all the people who came with them.

They're still not really settled there.

In Nehemiah chapter 11, they start casting lots and they start, maybe some of them become what is that in tributes?

Nehemiah 11 · chapter mention

Yeah, catching fire.

Who is that?

Anyway.

They start being tributes.

Like, I'll go, I'll go, and I will inhabit Jerusalem, right?

And so we kind of see this kind of happening, but some of them they cast lots and they said, okay, one out of every ten of you, you're going to go and fill Jerusalem.

But it was out of this book of genealogy.

We'll see that in chapter 11.

Uh, some things to realize, though, about these names presented in verses 7 through 73.

In total, there were 49,942 people who had come back to Jerusalem from exile.

49,942 people.

In verses 61 through 65, we're introduced to a people who are described in verse 61 in this way.

The following those, uh the following were those who came up from Tel Malah, Tel Harshah, Cherub, Adon, and Emmer, but they could not prove their father's houses, nor their descent, whether they belonged to Israel.

We see this in 61 through 65.

61, it describes these people as this way.

They were a people who could not be verified as true Israelites, and in their company were even some who were claiming to be priests.

I think there's two observations made.

Why is it so important that this little section in 61 through 65 of these people is placed in this record?

I think two observations can be made from this.

Number one is that even though they could not be affirmed as God's people, they were permitted to still dwell there and be a part of the culture.

This really speaks to the church in the New Testament age, the visible and the invisible church.

The visible church is how we see it.

This morning, we can look around with our physical eyes and we see people.

People who are here.

Some of us are believers in God, who trust Jesus, who have put all of our faith in his death, burial, and resurrection, and we are now citizens of his kingdom because we've been brought in through the bloodline of the Messiah as He's washed us, cleansed us, made us righteous, and established us as the family of God.

Some of us are here that is true for us.

There's some of us sitting in the seats and our own physical eyes can see you don't trust Jesus.

You're not reconciled to God the Father through his finished work.

You haven't put your faith in him for the forgiveness of your sin to be able to have relationship and communion with him.

So the church visible is how man sees it, but the church invisible is how God sees it.

God sees every single one of us who is his, who his name has been engraved on their heart, who is Found in the Lamb's Book of Life.

You want to talk about a book of genealogy?

Look at the Lamb's Book of Life that holds each and one of our names who've been reconciled by the Son to the Father, and we are eternal citizens in his kingdom.

You see, there's a lot of us who are allowed and permitted to be inside the church visible, even though we don't really belong to God.

But what's the hope?

The hope is that as you sit under the preaching of his gospel, the hope is that after as you as you surround yourself with the singing of the glory of his name, as you be put in community with those who are trying to walk out this Christian faith, who are trying to be conform to the image of Jesus, that your heart would be torn from your chest, and that stone brick would be cast far from you, and a new one of flesh would be put in, that you might be made a citizen also.

The second thing I believe that this speaks to is that though they may have been a foreign people, they were brought into the holy city because of God's desire for the nations.

While God might be establishing a purity of Jerusalem of those who would worship him, of his covenantal people Israel, God's gospel was always for the nations.

It was always to draw in the nations surrounding Israel into serving and worshiping the true and living God Yahweh.

And we see this even in the New Testament church that we are to go into Jerusalem, Judea, to the whole world with the gospel of Jesus.

What is the local church?

What is the local church?

But this light beam, this lighthouse of an epicenter for the culture and world around us to be jealous of the love of which we have with one another, of the way that we live in this familial bond because of Christ, that we have been filled with the Spirit, we have joy unexplainable, peace that doesn't make sense.

We are those who are walking in faith.

The world should be jealous, and the nations around us, the culture around us, should desire to be a part of what we're doing.

The gospel is for the nations.

And when we see the true gospel fully understood and realized at the end of time when Christ returns, it is every tribe, nation, people, and tongue that fall and worship God because it is the diversity of humankind, the image-bearers of God, who are called to be worshipers of Him also.

So why was this little group of people permitted to be in there?

I believe it speaks to the heart of the gospel.

I believe that it speaks to a people who don't really belong yet, but there's hope that they will.

I believe it speaks to God's desire for the nations to worship him, to be conformed to the image of his son, to reflect his glory forever and ever.

In verses 70 through 72, we see the people gave toward the work.

It kind of breaks apart from the genealogy record, and it shows those who gave toward the work.

The work needed resourcing.

It needed things like uh uh uh gold and silver, it needed priest cloths, it needed these kind of resources to make sure that the work could be could be completed.

Not only were they giving of their time and effort, but they were giving of their resources also.

From the leaders to the everyday people.

From the leaders to the everyday people, the work was able to be completed because it was resourced through a people who were all in.

And then in verse 73, Nehemiah resolves the list with this.

So the priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers, some of the people, the temple servants, and all Israel lived in their towns, and when the seventh month had come, the people of Israel were in their towns.

Notice what he resolves with.

He resolves with the people who were responsible for the worship of God.

In the very beginning of chapter seven in verses one, the gatekeepers, the singers, the Levites, at the very end in 73, the gatekeepers, the singers, the Levites.

He bookends chapter seven with those who were responsible to facilitate the worship of God Yahweh among his people.

This fully galvanizes the purpose of this city and the people who were to fill it.

It had no power intrinsically to create a people for its purpose.

The city did not.

It was established, it was fortified, but the city didn't make the people.

The people ultimately made the place.

The people of God who would dwell there and establish families for the service and worship of God.

So what's our main idea this morning?

God is building a city full of kingdom citizens.

God is building a city full of kingdom citizens.

What we see in Nehemiah chapter 7 is a portrait of the church under the headship of Jesus.

Nehemiah 7 · chapter mention

It really puts on display what the local church is supposed to be about when we understand Nehemiah 7 in its context and in its totality.

It's a people who are called to serve and worship the living God.

They are called from before the foundation of the earth, not through a book of genealogy, but from the Lamb's Book of Life, to one day inhabit the holy city, the new Jerusalem, where Yahweh will be their God and they will be his people.

It's a true and better Jerusalem that awaits us, church.

A city built for the worship of God, a city built for the glory of God, and a city that will be filled with those who alone can truly worship Him.

Those who have been gathered into the family of God as citizens of his eternal kingdom through Jesus alone.

Yet until that time comes, we have the local church to be established as a portrait of that future reality, a place constructed for the worship of God and to be filled with the worshipers of God, those who are identified and affirmed as truly belonging to Him.

Those who through the Spirit and in truth are able to worship God in the ways that He has commanded He would be worshiped.

We are not affirmed to belong to Him through genealogy or through tradition.

We are made known by grace through faith, through repenting of our sin and trusting in the finished work of Jesus.

You see, it's the role of the local church to call and confirm a distinct people who would fill the city to worship God.

To identify and affirm those who belong to the King and reside within his kingdom.

It is the heart of God to display his love through a distinct people who have been set apart from the world to serve and worship him.

This is why we do church membership at Sacred Mission.

What is the heart of church membership?

You get almost zero benefits.

We don't give you like a bunch of cool stuff because you become a member here.

Why do we do church membership?

It is our effort as shepherds and spiritual leaders and elders to be able to affirm to the best of our ability those who truly belong to Christ, to affirm that their residency is within the kingdom of God, that they have been drawn out from the world and they have been placed here to be able to worship and glorify Him and be in communion with Him and with His people.

That's why we do church membership.

Do you see the parallel of Nehemiah 7 in church membership?

Who are those called to worship God?

Let's name them.

Let's call them out and set them apart and establish them within a place so that they may do what they are called to do.

Worship Him in covenant relationship.

That is why we do church membership.

To identify and affirm those people.

Yet often we have a lot of difficulty understanding church membership, understanding things like exclusivity with the love of God.

We have a hard time paralleling God's love and an exclusive model or understanding of church.

But it's the expression of God's love through the local church that gives us the ability to fully demonstrate that He is a loving God who has set His love upon a particular people.

We often fail or refuse to accept the love of God as exclusive and set upon a distinct people.

And we also fail to see the local church as the primary reflection of the future Jerusalem that our hearts should long for.

You see, some of us we find the love of God to be very unloving.

We find the love of God to be very unloving.

God's love, biblically, is rooted in exclusivity, not in inclusivity.

It is rooted in that.

From the foundations of the earth, God determined that he would love a particular people, and he set that love upon them in an exclusive reality.

We see this throughout the Old Testament narrative of Scripture, in the words loving kindness or steadfast love.

To fully understand loving-kindness and steadfast love of God, what it means that before the foundations of the earth, out of his free will and out of his divine nature, he chose to love a people and he placed that love upon them out of his own choice, and nothing, nothing can take that away from you.

Why does God love you?

Because he chose to love you.

God does not love you because you're awesome.

God does not love you because you're horrible.

God loves you because he chose to love you, and there is nothing, nothing, that can destroy that choice or affect negatively its outcome to love you.

A critically biblical portrait of God's love in the church is marriage.

When we look at how often we see throughout the Old Testament and New Testament, God trying to help us as finite beings, as fallen beings who are under the curse of sin to understand his love for us, he uses the portrait of marriage to help us understand that.

Think about the radically exclusive reality of marriage.

Marriage is not inclusive.

Marriage, just in case you didn't know, should not have everyone else involved in it.

It should be radically exclusive.

What you do in marriage is you say, I will love this person and I will not love another.

The Bible tries to help us understand that's the love of God.

That's the love of God.

Marriage is an ultimate exclusion of all others for love to be lavished on one.

We've been doing some premarriage counseling, and we talked about in one of our sessions this week, we talked about the one.

The one, right?

If you have ever been in a state of singleness or you've been pursuing, you desire marriage, you've probably thought about the one, right?

This magical unicorn cloaked in angel feathers, and you're just searching for it in the forest, and there it is.

That's the one.

I found her, she is mine.

Uh no, the one doesn't exist, it's a fabrication of like our romanticism, right?

What is the one?

Here's fundamentally, here is the one.

When you say there will never be another, the one is discovered and understood when you say there will never be another.

Now, in our fallenness and our sinfulness, there's experiences and realities where that is marred and we don't get to see the fullness of that beauty.

But ultimately, what why is Katie my one?

Because by God's grace and his goodness and mercy toward me, there will never be another.

That's why she's the one.

She didn't float down in a in a robe.

God didn't reveal it to me in a vision while I was sleeping in the desert.

No, he just, I said there will never be another.

That's what makes Katie the one.

What does God say to his people?

There will never be others.

There will be you.

I will set my love upon you like a groom sets his love upon a bride.

And there will never be another.

God's love is radically exclusive.

There is only one bride for the bridegroom.

There is only one bride for the bridegroom.

There is only one church who belongs to Jesus.

In his return for his bride, Jesus will make known to the world the depth of his exclusive love for his people.

Let's read this in Matthew 25, 31 through 33.

This is a red letter.

This is Jesus talking.

When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne.

Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.

And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left.

What does the love of God look like?

Exclusion.

Jesus coming back for one bride, for one church, for one people that are his.

And there's no one else that can fill that place.

Throughout the scriptures, God's love is communicated through covenant, made known to us as the steadfast love of the Lord.

It is his free will choosing out of his divine will and good pleasure of those whom he would place his love upon in unfailing and eternal ways.

The love of God will eternally be known and realized in this way.

It'll be through a distinct people who have been called to dwell in an eternal city for his glory.

When Jesus returns, for the rest of eternity, God's love will be known and seen and celebrated and magnified and glorified and exalted through his radically exclusive love for his people.

The church is called to affirm those who belong and to call to repentance those who are yet to belong.

Some of us, though, we don't allow the love of God to fill the city.

We don't allow the love of God to fill the city.

While the love of God is exclusive, the love of God is calling.

While the love of God is exclusive, the love of God is calling.

And it's calling people to trust in Jesus, to repent of their sin, and be reconciled to the Father through his finished work of his death, burial, and resurrection.

The love of God may be exclusive, but the love of God is calling because there are a particular, distinct people from before the foundations of the earth that he put his steadfast love upon.

And you and I don't have the spiritual eyes to see that, but we have the physical reality of being called to preach the gospel to all people.

We have to submit to the truth that the love of God is calling, calling people to be citizens, calling them to repent of their rebellion against a holy king and trust in the finished work of his son.

Nehemiah said this in verse 4 the city is wide and large.

It demands to be filled with people.

The love of God should give us a joy to call them home.

The love of God should give us confidence to call them home.

God has a people.

When the apostle Paul in Acts chapter 20 was beaten to the point of death and thrown out of a city, the Lord spoke to Paul as he's there pretty much on his deathbed.

Acts 20 · chapter mention

He speaks to me, he says, Paul, get up and go back into that city.

And here was his reason.

Because I have many people in that city.

What was God communicating to Paul?

Paul, there's people that need to be called.

There's people that need to be called to come home.

There's people who need to lay down their efforts of rebellion.

There's people who need to repent of their sin.

There's people who need you, Paul, to proclaim the truth of the gospel of my son so that they might be citizens of my kingdom.

We should have a confidence.

God's steadfast love and loving kindness should give us confidence to open our mouth and call home these citizens.

That's what happens in Nehemiah, right?

That's what happens in Ezra.

Who is going to go?

There was a call made, and there were some who went.

There were some who went to rebuild and reconstruct.

Mark 16, 15 through 16 says this.

And he said to them, speaking of Jesus, go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.

Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but who does whoever does not believe will be condemned.

Well, our responsibility, church, our responsibility is not in the whosoever.

Do not get caught up in the whosoever.

John 3 16, uh for God so loved the world that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.

You and I, theologically, in our heads, we get stuck in the whosoever.

God will deal with the whosoever.

He is the one who goes to the threshing floor and he separates the wheat from the chaff.

That's not our responsibility.

Where's our responsibility?

Get out of the whosoever and get into the prescriptive command to open your mouth and proclaim the gospel to all creation.

That's where we need to be involved.

Let God sort out the whosoever.

When we see the fruit of repentance and baptism, let's celebrate.

Let's joyously celebrate citizens coming into the city.

When we see those who further rebel against Jesus and their hearts hardened against him in his ways, man, let's just get on our face and pray.

At our midweek prayer for Lent this week, we talked about in Jesus' gospel of Matthew, he talks about the harvest is great, but the laborers are few.

And we've talked about this a few times, but it's in chapter 9, verse 38.

Sorry, I'm like, this wasn't planned, so my brain's uh chapter 9, verse 38.

Here's what he says He says, the laborers are few, but the harvest is great.

Therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest for laborers to come into the kingdom.

So what I've done is I've set an alarm for 9.38 every day, except today, because I'd be preaching and stuff.

Uh but Monday through Saturday, 9.38, alarm goes off, says, pray for laborers.

Pray for labors.

So what do I do?

I've done it this week.

It's been awesome.

I've stopped.

I pray, God send laborers into the harvest.

God send laborers into the harvest.

God send laborers into the harvest.

We should be concerned about preaching the gospel.

We should be concerned about calling citizens to inhabit the city.

What good is a city without a people?

The local church should be filled with baptized, affirmed, joy-filled members because it seeks to see the resemblance of the future Jerusalem here on earth.

Why do we want to fill sacred mission with people?

Because we want people who are baptized, affirmed, joy-filled people who have put their faith in the gospel.

Anytime I talk to someone about, oh, church is getting too big or it's not small like it used to be, or blah, blah, blah, it is always rooted in I love you, but in selfish desires.

We should desire to as many people as possible hear and respond to the gospel of Jesus.

We should be a people desire.

The city, what does Nehemiah say?

The city is wide and large, but if you think that this is sufficient to fill the city, we need a bigger vision of what the city is and the people who could inhabit it.

We need a bigger vision for what God could do in this Mason Westchester area.

We need to step outside of our tiny scope of thinking and realize that the harvest is great.

It's the laborers' fault that there's few who are going out there to do the work of proclaiming the gospel to see this building filled ten times over again.

The fruit is on the vine.

Are we gonna go and pluck it off?

That's the question.

What good is a city without a people?

Do we allow the love of God to fill the city?

Here's the good news for us Jesus died.

As an alien of a holy city, so that we could be made citizens of the heavenly one.

Jesus died as an alien of a holy city so that we could be made citizens of the heavenly one.

It was no coincidence that they marched Jesus outside of the wall of Jerusalem, that they marched him through the gate to the hill of Galgotha to be crucified.

He was counted as not one of them.

He was counted as a foreigner, an alien, a person who doesn't belong.

And he was nailed to the tree and he died for us.

As one who doesn't belong, he was taken out.

He was made an alien of Jerusalem so that you and I could be made citizens of the heavenland.

Hebrews 13, 12 through 14 says it this way.

So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood.

Therefore, let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured, for here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.

Hebrews perfectly summarizes the purpose, the eternal divine will of God for his son to march outside of that city wall that Nehemiah had reconstructed in 52 days to walk through the gate of which he hung there on a cross, so that we might be made citizens through his alienship.

So that though we don't find a place within physical Jerusalem, you and I find an eternal place within the true and better Jerusalem that is to come, the one our hearts should long for.

Why does this matter?

Why is any of this important?

Because God is building a city.

In Revelation we see the holy city coming from heaven.

And it's getting ready to be filled with people.

And the proclamation of God is I will be their God, and they will be my people.

People from every tribe, nation, and tongue who have been brought in through the blood of the Son, who was a foreigner, an outcast, an alien in his own city, so that we could be made citizens of his.

So what would it look like for us?

I wanna, I hope that we would be a portrait of the filled city to come.

If the church is supposed to be a reflection, a resemblance, a portrait of the new Jerusalem that our hearts are waiting for, man, can you imagine?

That city is gonna be filled.

That city is going to be filled.

And it's gonna be filled with people who worship God because they have trusted in the finished work of his son.

Through his death, burial, and resurrection, they have been brought into the family of God.

They're gonna be people from every tribe, nation, and tongue.

They're gonna be people who forever worship the Lamb who was slain.

Man, that's what the city's gonna look like.

Why doesn't this look like that?

Now.

And in ways it is.

In ways it is.

And we want to celebrate that.

We want to prop that up.

We don't want to just completely kind of like um neglect celebrating the work of God that He has done here in just three years' time.

But can you imagine what God can do in 10 years' time, in 15 years' time, in 20 years' time when we hand this off to our children and they hand it off to their children if the Lord should tarry?

That sounds really Southern Baptist, but that's what they say.

If the Lord should tarry, my grandpa would say that.

I'll eat that, I'll eat that donut tomorrow if the Lord tarries.

Um can you imagine if we would be a portrait of the city to come, a filled city, with a distinct people who have been called and set apart from the nations to worship God forever.

Let's strive for that sacred mission.

Let's pray.