Nehemiah: Circles of Calling

We are in the book of Nehemiah in the Old Testament.

After decades in exile, these Israelites begin to return to the city of Jerusalem.

They rebuild the temple.

They rebuild the walls around the temple.

They rediscover the treasure of God's word.

Then they realize how much they have failed God's word.

And all that they're discovering God is faithful to them, even while they are not always faithful to Him.

And today we're in Nehemiah 11.

Let's read again verses 1 and 2.

Now the leaders of the people lived in Jerusalem.

And the rest of the people cast lots to bring one out of ten to live in Jerusalem, the holy city, while nine out of ten remained in other towns.

And the people blessed all the men who willingly offered to live in Jerusalem.

Point number one is this our calling will require our sacrifice, yet our calling rests in God's providence.

Our calling will require our sacrifice, yet our calling rests in God's providence.

Maybe you have something you want to do.

We've been talking about this throughout this series.

Maybe you have a calling, a dream, a vision, a thing you want to accomplish.

You want to make good grades, get into a certain college, you want a healthy work, life balance, or you want to try to get there, you want some spiritual practices, you want a healthy, loving marriage, responsible kids, loving friendships, you want to own a business, you want to build a garden, you want something, you have a vision, you have a desire, a dream, a calling, we would say.

And you will have to sacrifice to make that happen.

Those things don't just happen.

You will have to give time and resources and energy.

And Nehemiah, these people are called to repopulate the city.

That's the calling.

The leaders move first, and then everybody else throws their name and a hat and draw.

Can you imagine?

Can you imagine the future of where you live throwing your name in a hat?

Just imagine that we plant a Redeemer church campus in Smyrna.

The leaders go first.

They're already in Smyrna.

And then we say, hey, by the way, everybody else, we're gonna come up here, throw your name in a hat, I'll draw all the names, or you can draw the names.

I don't care who draws the names, but whatever names are drawn, you're moving to Smyrna.

Now, nothing against Smyrna, you're moving to Kinesal.

Can you imagine like your future, putting your future up like that?

I've just been asking, like, what creates a people willing to do that?

Like, what creates a people willing to do that?

Well, I think they had clarity on two really important things in life.

One, they're calling.

We are called to do this.

We are called to repopulate Jerusalem.

This is the most meaningful thing in our lives.

We will sacrifice for.

That's number one.

Number two, God's providence.

The fact that they cast lots shows you that they're entrusting God in the process.

They knew they were called to something meaningful, yet that sacrifice, that work, that effort, that energy is rested inside of God's providence.

Last Friday evening I flew home from a class in St.

Louis, and so I get home.

I land at 3:30 Friday afternoon.

I'm at my car by four.

I am thinking about one thing because it's Friday night Mica Angelo's pizza.

I love Micah Angelelo's.

It's just right here in the corner.

You should try it.

I buy pizza every week.

It's too much pizza.

I'm buying too much.

It's so good.

I love it.

So it's all I was thinking about is like, okay, I'm gonna get my car at four.

I drive home.

I got the pizza by like 5.15, pepperonian sausage.

It's amazing.

Here's a picture of Michael's pizza.

It's unbelievable.

It's so good.

And uh, have have you had it?

Okay, just making sure.

I mean, we're not talking little Caesars pizza, like no, no, no, no, no, that's not that.

I mean, this is brick oven, sourdough, he makes the sausage himself.

It's amazing.

I devour it.

And then I have leftovers, which they're even better.

Like you heat that pizza up in the oven, it's even better than the I don't know how that happens, but it's true.

Even better.

So I get out the gallon Ziploc bag.

Here's a piece of the pizza.

A gallon Ziploc bag.

And I take, I take the piece of pizza, which is amazing, and I put it inside the gallon bag, which let's be honest, gallon Ziploc bags are amazing.

Like I love, I you can do all sorts, put store all kinds of stuff.

You're on a trip, food, I mean, all sorts, I love a gallon ziploc bag.

So the bag's amazing.

And then this is just an incredible picture of what's going on in Nehemiah 11.

That it seems a little bizarre, but work with me.

That all the amazing effort, energy, the thing that's amazing is inside of something else.

These people know how to work really hard.

I I maybe you're an overachiever.

Maybe you like to achieve stuff.

I'm guessing.

All that work, all that effort is inside of something else.

It rests inside of something else.

These people knew how to work really hard, they had grit, and they knew about trusting God with that work.

The Heidelberg Catechism, a theological document, says this about God's providence, as for definition.

The Almighty, everywhere present, power of God, whereby, as it were, by his hand, he still upholds heaven and earth with all creatures, and so governs them.

The herbs and grass, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, meat and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, yea, all things come not by chance, but by his fatherly hand.

Point number two is this we live in the power of providence.

Providence, God's story is at work.

We've had this point before.

We've talked about Acts chapter 2, the people pray and they say, Sovereign Lord.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

Here's the verse.

And now, Lord, and that means sovereign Lord, maybe your translation says, Lord, you are God, upon their threats and grant, upon their look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness.

The interesting thing there is the story that's going on.

The thing that they come before God with prayer is sovereign Lord.

Meaning, Lord your God, meaning I'm not God.

This week a friend was telling me about this book, let them.

Do you know this book?

Let them?

Do you know that some people, is anybody let them?

Right?

It's just like let her, let him.

Like I could, I'll lovingly communicate, I'm there to help, but I can't control you.

I gotta let them.

You know, like it's like, I'm not God.

I mean, it's kind of the same thing.

It's like, I am not God.

I cannot control everything about this person, this circumstance, this outcome.

Sovereign Lord.

For Nehemiah chapter 11, these people, providence meant something.

Nehemiah 11 · chapter mention

It meant that they can't control everything, they can't control all these outcomes.

They're willing to put all their effort into God's providence.

They're willing to put their names in a hat.

That's wild.

That's only empowered if you trust that God is in that process.

Just as God sovereignly called his people to inhabit, repopulate Jerusalem, he calls you to places and to purposes and roles.

I don't know what those are.

I know the Holy Spirit scripture can work those out in you in time.

This week I found Pastor Brad Garrett.

He's pastor of a church in San Francisco, also named Redeemer.

That's fitting.

I found something that he teaches very helpful.

He calls it the spheres of vocation.

I think about it as I've read about and learned about it, I kind of think about like circles of calling.

Like we have different callings, different parts of our lives.

We feel called to this, but we feel called to more than one thing.

And he teaches the circles of vocation because you have a calling, right?

You're a mom, your dad, your child, a friend.

But then you have service to God's church, like to be loving and missional and what God calls you to do through the church.

And then you have maybe a vocation, your job.

And somewhere along the line, this can all get really confusing.

Am I just a mom?

Am I just a dad?

Am I just a teacher?

Am I just an executive?

Am I just, am I, am I a just a pastor?

Or like, am I a person?

Can I be a person before I'm a pastor?

Like, would you be okay with that?

I don't know.

Like, but you we can get confused with this, can't we?

We can think about ourselves in terms of our core identity in just one way and one thing we're called to.

And Pastor Garrett reminds us, good reminder for me this week, we are more than our roles, more than our callings.

We've said it before, we are God's beloved child before we do anything for God.

And then, as God's forever beloved child, we go into our callings.

Pastor Garrett breaks it down this way.

Here's an image of his spheres of vocation.

So then you can think about circles of calling.

You have a calling to career vocation, you have a calling in the church, you have a calling to your family and your friends.

And God has called us into each of these circles.

We are called, you need to leave that image up there while I'll talk.

We are called to fulfill God's purpose for us in our church, in the church.

We are called to fulfill God's purpose for us and our friendships and families.

We are called to fulfill God's purpose for us in our career, what we wake up and do every day.

And these are all separate and yet they overlap in certain ways.

And sometimes it's really beautiful when they really overlap, and you're like, oh, it's amazing how this is overlapping, and then sometimes they're separate.

But the point is that we understand ourselves as God's forever beloved, and then we go into our callings, into our roles.

We live out our calling in the church, family and friends, and career based on who we are as people.

Now back to Nehemiah, verses 3 through 24 of chapter 11.

It's just a list of people.

Long list of people.

Where they lived and their role.

This person lived here and they did this, this person lived here and they did this.

I won't bore you with reading it.

What's clear is there's 21 verses of names and places.

And point number three is this every role, big and small, matters.

So we focus on our faithfulness.

Like we're called to faithfulness.

God places us somewhere, we're called to faithfulness.

This passage is just a list of priests, Levites, gatekeepers, temple servants, and then just regular residents in the city.

Every person who moves into Jerusalem is important.

The passage is making sure we as readers understand that.

Nobody is left out.

Every role, every person matters.

This past week, I was in a new member interview, interviewing through our membership process at the end of it.

I sit down with you.

I've done this with so many of you, an interview and said, hey, tell me about your faith and what's going on.

And then you ask questions about the church.

So I was getting to hear about this young family's uh their faith and how they came to know Jesus, and then I was like, hey, tell me about being at the church.

How are you connecting?

How are you serving?

And at some point, the mom said, not the first time this kind of comment's been made, by the way, one of the major reasons we are here is our little boy keeps asking to come to church.

Okay, that's amazing.

I would just ask, okay, so how important do you think our children's ministry volunteers are?

How important do you think our greeters are?

How important is a worship volunteer?

How important is the screen operator?

Every role.

I mean that's what this passage is teaching us.

Every single role, every person matters.

And what this means is it means you are where you are because God has you there until you're somewhere else.

And that transition of being somewhere else from one role to the next, right?

We're expanding the conversation outside of service in the church.

Like in your life, you're called somewhere and you are somewhere.

And we always wrestle with that.

Like, am I supposed to be here?

Where are we supposed to be?

You are where you are, you're called there, placed there until you're somewhere else.

Your role is faithfulness.

Our role is faithfulness in that place until we're somewhere else.

And that transition could be by your effort.

It could be because you generate something and you create a change in your calling.

It could also be just like God does something.

Either way, all your work and effort and thought and all that inside of the gallon bag of God's providence.

Which is incredibly relieving.

Because it means that our entire lives, all of like the outcome, all of it is not just up to us.

But what is clear is every role matters, and we're called to faithfulness in the places God places us, and the callings he gives us.

Verse 25.

And as for the villages with their fields, some of the people of Judah lived in Kariath Arbah and its villages, and in Daban and its villages, and Jekap Zeel and its villages.

The passage goes on many more towns, many more areas listed.

These are the villages of Judah and Benjamin.

So some people are called to go into Jerusalem and repopulate, but then some people are called to settle in these towns all around Jerusalem.

And verse 36 says that the Levites also served them, the ones outside the walls.

Which we could just read right over that.

It'd be easy to read over that.

But it's saying something profound because what it's saying is in this new vision and this new calling, some people are called in the city and some people are called somewhere else.

Some people are called to do one thing, and some people are called to do another.

Point number four is this God cares about you and other people.

This is teaching us God's mission is not confined to one place.

God's heart is for you and your dysfunctional family member you're about to go on vacation with.

You're gonna be in a house with them for a week.

It's gonna be horrible.

God's heart is for your family and for the family you don't like.

God's heart is for you and the race and the country and the people group that you hold prejudice toward.

Right?

The people outside the walls.

It's a beautiful beginning image of God's heart is not bound to one type of person, but it's outside the walls and it's spreading.

Once a semester, all the ministry leaders in Marietta, we gather, we have breakfast, we hear what's going on in the city, and we also get to share a little bit what's going on in our churches.

And I I'm I'm an introverted person, despite the fact that I do this.

I love to not go to things.

I can't not go to enough.

Right, introverts?

You're like, I know what you're talking about.

I can't leave quick enough.

So I love this once I'm there.

Right?

That's how an introvert usually is.

Introverts, you know exactly.

Extroverts, you don't know what I'm talking about.

That's not for you.

Introverts, you know what I'm talking about.

You love things once you're there, but it's really hard to get there.

And then you get there and you're like, oh, this is lovely.

Why would I ever not want to come?

So I always get there, I always don't want to go, never want to go.

And then I get there and I'm like, this is amazing.

This is amazing that our city does this.

This is amazing that all these leaders and ministry staff are in one place and we're eating and we're sharing, we're talking about what God's doing.

And I we get to hear what God's doing at City Church or Stonebridge or First Baptist or Marriott Preds or Married Community, whatever, all the churches.

Listen, I love that our church has grown.

I love that.

I like to brag on that.

I like to brag on you.

I love that.

That's great.

God's doing things.

I love that.

You know what I love even more?

We're part of a bigger story.

Because it turns out when we're not growing, another church is.

Isn't that nice?

Isn't that amazing?

That's so great.

You know what's better than one big church?

Like a whole bunch of churches.

A whole bunch of healthy churches.

When we started, I I if you asked me, like, what's the spiritual health of a lot of churches in Marietta, I'd probably say, it's okay.

I'm a lot more confident on the spiritual health of churches in Marietta today.

We probably grew a lot early on because of unhealth in other churches.

We're not growing at the same rate anymore because other churches have got healthier.

You know what?

Fantastic.

That is amazing.

That is unbelievable.

Unbelievable.

That's such good news.

Our church is inside the gallon bag of God's providence.

Right?

Like we're gonna we're gonna work hard.

We're gonna try to serve each other, we're gonna like think about problems and try to anticipate.

We're inside the gallon bag.

See, God's heart and missions, it's about you.

It is, it is all about you and your family and your dream and your calling, but it's not just about you.

Our story is part of a bigger story.

Our church's story is a part of a bigger story.

Your family is part of a bigger story.

You, you are part of a bigger story.

Nehemiah is a story about these people, but it's also about future generations.

That's what we're seeing right here in this story.

These walls, these people go in the city, other people are outside.

Why?

Well, the restoration of Jerusalem is part of a larger redemptive story to restore and spread God's glory, not just in Jerusalem, but everywhere.

Beyond the walls.

Last point, point number five.

Jesus is the ultimate gatherer, resting place, gallon bag, I don't know, and restorer.

The gathering of God's people in Nehemiah 11 points to the greater gathering of God's people in Jesus.

Jesus is the ultimate Nehemiah.

That's what we keep seeing over and over again in this story, who he came to restore and rebuild his people, not just a city.

And Jesus gathers us not in a city, but in himself, right?

Ephesians 2, by his grace we are saved.

He is gathering.

And in his finished work on the cross, all of your sin, all the ways you fail.

I mean, we could, can we put the spheres of vocation back up there, like the circles of calling thing?

I mean, because you could look at this and you could go, ooh.

Friends and family, I have really caused some problems.

Career?

That hadn't worked out.

Church.

Yeah, I'm not doing much.

Right?

It'd be easy to just feel condemned.

Your calling and these callings couldn't condemn you.

But the good news is that Jesus is gathering you.

Right?

We're called to be God's beloved in Jesus before we do any of our callings.

It's by his grace.

And every person, every heart, every family, calling, every all of it matters.

All your dreams, all your callings, and what you want to do and what you want to do in your family with your work and with your friends, all in the church, all of it rests inside of God's providence.

So you don't have to be obsessed.

Or you could be less obsessed, maybe maybe that's fair.

You don't have to be anxious or neurotic, less anxious, less neurotic.

Because we're trusting in God's providence.

In all the ways we failed to these callings, we ran away, we've blown it.

Jesus still gathers us up.

That's what the cross is.

It's all of our failings and sin that we put upon Jesus on the cross and his righteousness given to us.

Here's what we love to say.

Our faith is always about what he has done for us long before.

It's about what we do for him.

So if we're gonna talk about callings and circles of calling, we're gonna talk about Jesus first and who he makes us righteous, forgiven, holy, worthy before you do anything.

And then you can go into your callings, secure and loved.

If you have any questions about this sermon, I'll be done afterwards.

Let's talk to you and pray with you.

Let's pray together.

Heavenly Father, we're so grateful that you call us beloved before you call us to a role.

That you call us your forgiven child, you call us accepted, you call us righteous, and the work of the cross before.

Before you call us to family and friends, before you call us to our vocations, before you call us into the church service, before you call us, you've already called us.

And we're so grateful and free.

Help us even more to run into our callings, what you have before us, and how we hold those with open hands inside of your providence.

To say, we want to be a people who work hard, but we're gonna trust you.

We have to trust you.

Help all of us that are control freaks when it comes to future-oriented stuff.

We get so anxious and we're gonna work so hard, we're gonna make stuff happen.

Help us to trust, trust that you are in our work, or our work is in you, and that you are working things out for your glory and for our good.

Help us to trust in Jesus more.

Rest in him and the goodness of Christ's sufficiency for us.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.