Brick by Brick - Part 3 - TOGETHER

Well, hey, good morning, everybody. How's everybody doing? Everybody doing good?

Hey, today we're in part three of Nehemiah in our Brick by Brick series.

I hope you are enjoying reading along in your scripture journals that we got,

just taking notes, writing down questions, just being curious about the Word of God.

We still have a few of those available in the lobby if you need one completely free resource.

We just want to help you guys out, to help you guys get into the Word of God,

because that is a great next step for everybody in here, to just get into the

Word of God each and every day.

And it's just a next step that's always there to be having a meaningful,

intentional time with the creator of the universe each and every day.

It's a great thing to do. So make that a part of just your life,

just a daily habit to get into the word. Right now, let's get our hearts ready

for what God has for us this morning.

Why don't you put your arms out with your palms up. Close your eyes.

Just a posture of surrender. Take a deep breath.

And remember God is just as near as the air you're breathing. Let's pray.

God today, would you guide us closer to you?

Help our minds put away the frustrations

of the past week, to put away the distractions of the coming week.

We want to fully focus on you.

We come empty with nothing to offer but surrender.

Fill us up as only you can. Holy Spirit, move in here today with power.

We believe that in advance, and we ask all these things in Jesus' name,

and all God's people said, amen,

amen. Hey, I'm going to start off today a little different than normal.

Something was shared with me. I think it was good. I think it fits our text perfectly today.

I just got some wise words. This is a story from somebody, so this is not me.

If you got beef with this, take it up with the guy who wrote it,

which I couldn't find an author. But here we go. It's called I'm So Tired.

It says, yes, I'm tired.

For years, I've been blaming it on middle age, iron deficiency,

poor blood, lack of vitamins, air pollution, water pollution,

obesity, dieting, underarm odor, and a dozen other maladies that could make

you wonder if life is really worth living.

But now I find out it ain't that. I'm tired because I'm overworked.

The population of our country is 60 million.

20 million are retired. That leaves 40 million to do the work.

There are 12 million in school, which leaves 28 million to do the work.

Of this total, there are 6 million employed by the government,

and there are 4 million that are unemployed. That leaves 18 million to do the work.

3 million in the armed forces, which leaves 15 million to do the work.

Take that from the total of 14,800,000 people who work for the county and city councils.

That leaves 200,000 people to do the work.

And there are 188,000 people in hospitals.

So that leaves 12,000 people to do the work. Now, there are 11,998 people in prisons.

That leaves just two people to do the work. You and me, and you're just sitting

there reading this. No wonder I'm so tired.

Thought that was good. But joking aside, it can feel like that sometimes,

right? Maybe that resonates with you.

There are times where it feels like you are the only one doing the work and

you're working all alone.

You're working and the other person's just sitting there reading, what are you doing?

And I think when we have those moments, it feels like all the weight is on you.

And I just want to hear, I want you to hear me say this. It is not supposed

to be that way. The weight is not supposed to all be on.

What we're going to see in chapter three of Nehemiah is the people of God working

together to accomplish the mission of God.

The people of God working together to accomplish the mission of God.

And the story of Nehemiah, they rebuilt the wall.

They do that brick by brick, shoulder by shoulder, right?

It wasn't about one person doing it all, but it was about every person doing their part.

A bit of a recap before we jump into chapter three. If you've missed the past

couple of weeks, Nehemiah was the king's cupbearer. King Artaxerxes,

Nehemiah is walking around the palace and he hears people talking in his native

tongue, his native language.

And he finds them, he asks them, hey, how are things going in Jerusalem?

Where are you from? Where I'm from? Where my ancestors are from?

And they say, things are not good. The walls are in ruins and the gates to the city have been burned.

This wrecks Nehemiah. He weeps, he mourns, he fasts, and every day he is praying for Jerusalem.

And after months of this, he has this moment with

the king and nehemiah shares this burden that god has put on his

heart for jerusalem and he shares this with the king and a little bit of backstory

this is the same king that told the last group in jerusalem to stop building

all like they started it the same king that he's asking was like cut it out

don't do it he sent a letter for them to stop and not only did he send the letter

he sent his troops as if to say if you don't stop i'm going to make you stop do not build the wall.

And Nehemiah is sitting there and he isn't discouraged by this,

that he's sitting there with the king. He shares this burden,

but he actually boldly asks the king for permission to go and to build the wall.

You think, man, that's brave. The king gives him permission.

You'd think he'd just go.

No, he asked for even more. He's like, hey, give me letters so I can have safe

passages go straight there. I don't want to have to take the long route.

I just want to be able to go and have provision to go.

The king obliges. Not only does he give him a letter, he actually gives him

an escort of people to make sure he makes it there.

Not only does he say, hey, give me safe passage. He says, hey,

I'm going to need some materials to build this wall.

Can I get all the lumber I need and put it on the king's account at the lumberyard?

And the king's like, yeah, sure, go for it.

Insane ask by Nehemiah. This is the same king who said, stop building it.

Not only does he give him permission, does he give him safe passage,

he gives him everything he needs material-wise to go and to build the wall. It's an insane ask.

Very, very bold. Here's the thing.

When God is in something, it is not wild at all.

It is not insane for him to ask. It is simply a move of God.

I don't know where you need a move of God today.

I don't know. There's a lot of life in here. I don't know where you need a move

of God, but I do know this.

God is able to do far more than we could ask or think.

He can. And it's not insane to think that he can do crazy things.

Actually, we just want God to move.

So Nehemiah, he gets to Jerusalem. He gets there at night. He examines the city's walls.

He gets a good look at everything, right? Before he just hops into the work,

he takes stock of where everything's at. He does not skip examining the wall.

The next morning, he rallies the troops and he shares the mission that he's

on there in Jerusalem. Nehemiah 2, 18. It should be on the screen.

It says, amen. All right. Then I told them about how the gracious hand of God

had been on me and about my conversation with the king.

Right. He's saying everything that he had there, he asked the king the same thing that told him not.

And the king gave him everything. And they replied at once, yes,

let's rebuild the wall. So they began the good work. Verse 19.

But when Sanballat, Tobiah, and Geshem, the Arab, heard of our plan,

they scoffed contemptuously. That's a fun word, contemptuously.

What are you doing? Are you rebelling against the king? They asked.

Verse 20, as I replied, the God of heaven will help us succeed.

We, his servants, will start rebuilding the wall, but you have no share,

legal right, or historic claim in Jerusalem.

So basically, Nehemiah goes, he shares it with the people that are there and

they're like, let's do this.

I want you to catch this. True prosperity comes from God. And I ain't talking about money.

True prosperity comes from God. Nehemiah is going to prosper in this.

He shares the vision. He shares how God has provided.

And the people of God are eager.

They are eager to jump into action.

There's some opposition, but rather quickly, he just dismisses them and says,

hey, you know what? you have no shame or you have no claim, legal right, or share.

And here's the deal. God is going to help us succeed. That's in a nutshell,

chapters one and two of Nehemiah.

Now I'm not going to read all of chapter three because it can get a little bit

repetitive, especially in this context.

But I want to read just the first five verses with you. And I think it sets

the tone for the chapter very, very well.

All right. So Nehemiah three, then Eliashib, the high priest,

and the other priest began, the other priest started to rebuild the sheep gate.

They dedicated it and set it up on its doors, building the wall as far as the

Tower of the Hundred, which they dedicated, and then the Tower of Hanel.

People from the town of Jericho worked next to them, and beyond them was Zakur, son of Emri.

Help me out with that word in yellow. People from the town of Jericho worked

to them, and beyond them was Zakur, son of Emri. Verse 3.

The fish gate was built by the sons of Hassaniah, and they laid the beams,

set up its doors, and installed its bolts and bars. Help me out with that word in yellow.

Miramoth, son of Uriah, and grandson of Hakaz repaired the section of the wall.

Beside him were Meshulam, son of Berakiah, and the grandson of Meshizabel.

I don't know if I'm saying he's right. I'm just going fast. And Zadok.

All right, help me out with that word.

Or the people from Tekoa, though their leaders refused to work with the construction supervisors.

There's a lot of crazy names and everybody was just building something.

Nehemiah, he's laying out the blueprint. And if you go through chapter three,

and it is right there in Nehemiah three, you can look at the Bible on our live

event there. You've got all the verses here.

Basically, here's what he's saying. He's laying out the blueprint of how we're

going to do this. We're going to do this together.

If you were to read the next, there's 32 verses there in chapter three. It says next 16 times.

They are working right here. This group of people is working and next to them,

this group of people working and next to them and next to them and so on and so on and so forth.

They are working side by side, shoulder to shoulder.

I've got a little image that I think is helpful. It kind of shows how they did

it. All right, this is the city.

These are the walls. This is, if you were to go through and actually plot out

what it's saying in Nehemiah three, this is where they did it and what they

were doing and what group of people was doing.

Gates and want parts. I just want to point out, there is a wide variety of people.

If you get into Nehemiah 3, it says some of them are workers.

Some of them are craftsmen. Others, merchants. There's one guy over there,

and it says it's just him and his daughters working, all right?

Here's the deal. Some of these people that are working on it,

they probably had calluses on their hands before they started to build the wall.

Others probably developed calluses after they started working on the wall because

they didn't have that kind of job, right? and somehow God built all of this

together, making it all work out.

God is using Nehemiah to spearhead his work, God's work of rebuilding the wall.

If you remember the tagline for the series, it's God's work, our hands.

It's a tension. We continue to see it is a miracle that the walls are built

and being rebuilt. But here's the deal.

God doesn't put a single break up. He uses his people.

Everyone has a different part to play in the rebuilding of the wall and the gates,

and the part that I find interesting is that you can get into this I just strongly

encourage you to read all of Nehemiah 3 but he has everybody work on the wall

that is in front of their house,

work on the wall that's in front of your house why would you have everybody

work on the wall that is in front of the house we'll work on the wall the part

that's in front of your house uh just finish this sentence for me,

this little phrase. Out of sight, out of.

You got it, crushed it, right? If you can't see something, it doesn't seem nearly

as important to you because you just, it's out of sight. It's out of mind. You don't see it.

If the wall is in front of your house, guess what you're gonna do?

You're gonna see that each and every day.

You'd wanna make sure it looked good, that you do a good job so that every time

you walk by, you're not going, man, I really wish I.

You guys ever been there? Like you think something around the house,

man, I wish I would've done this, wish I would've done that.

So you wish you would've done a good job. That's why he has him do it in front

of the house. The other part of it is this.

If there was an invasion on the city, and there was a weak spot in the wall,

that is the part where the enemy would attack, right?

I'm going to look, the enemy's going to look for a weak spot.

If you're building the wall in front of your house, you don't want that to be the weak spot, right?

If there's an invasion, you don't want it to be right there.

You'd want to protect your household. You want to protect your family.

The wall, according to archaeologists, it says it's roughly eight feet thick.

It averaged kind of just depending on the terrain, went up and down,

averaged about 40 feet tall. and that loop is almost two and a half miles long. That is a big job.

And the plan Nehemiah has is so simple. Build the wall, the part of the wall

that is in front of your house.

Build what's right in front of you.

Make sure you're doing a good job because it's yours, right?

If we build what's right in front of you, it's gonna make sure that you do a

good job and it will let everybody know where they're supposed to work.

Imagine you show up on a job site and you say, we're going to rebuild the wall.

And it's a two and a half, two and a half mile, big circle.

It's going to be roughly 40 feet tall, roughly eight feet deep.

And you got all these hands like, let's go.

Have you ever been a part of a project where everybody is moving and you're

kind of outside of your area of expertise and you just don't know what to do.

And people are just kind of moving around you. And you're like,

I really want to help, but I don't know how, right? You have no idea what to do.

Nehemiah keeps it really simple. Work on what's right in front of you.

What's in front of you, work on that. Church, we can get in a lot of trouble

when we start worrying about what's happening at somebody else's house instead

of what's happening at our own.

Work on what's right in front of you. So simple, but we can miss it on it.

We can help others work on what's in front of them, and that's good. We should help others.

We can work on things that aren't important, but here's the deal.

We have to, have to, have to prioritize what's in front of us.

If you take care of what's in front of you, here's the deal.

Here's the lesson we learned in Ema.

If everybody takes care of what's in front of them, when we come together, the job's done. It is.

Have to prioritize what's in front of us. For most in this room,

not all, but most, the greatest thing you have to work on right now is raising

your children, raising your kids to love God, love others, and make a difference.

That's what's in front of you. Anybody feel that, right? You got young kids,

that's important. That's what's right in front of you. You need to do it.

I saw a mom just give her son the elbow there, right? She's like,

you better love Jesus, right?

Speaking of Jesus, here's how Jesus said it in Matthew 6, 34.

What's right in front of you?

Jesus said, don't worry about tomorrow. For tomorrow will bring its own worries.

Today's trouble is enough for today.

Jesus is saying one day at a time.

You got enough trouble for today. Don't fret over tomorrow's troubles.

We'll handle this tomorrow.

The context of Nehemiah, he's telling the people, don't fret over all that has to be done.

There's a lot. I get that. Do what's in front of you.

Don't worry about the parts in front of others. Just do yours and build the

wall in front of your house, brick by brick.

And when they work together, they see God do the impossible.

It doesn't make sense to make this gigantic wall and make it all work where

it fits together and strong.

And just a little over a month and a half, it's insane.

But because they work together, they focus on what's in front of them.

They see God to the impossible. Church, make the most of the opportunities that

are right in front of you.

When you are faithful in taking your next step, when you are faithful in putting

up your next brick, just brick by brick.

When you're faithful and doing that, God moves.

When you focus on doing the things that are possible, you can trust God with

the things that are impossible.

We get that so flip off the times, don't we? We trust and pray for the impossible

while there's a next step right in front of us that we haven't done.

God's work, Our hands. We have to do the work.

Be faithful in taking your next step. Remember this group of people that rebuilt

the wall, they were a group of incredibly different people.

We've got priests, merchants, and perfumers.

I'd be willing to bet they all went about it a little differently.

I don't see perfumers building the wall the same way as the craftsmen.

That's just me. I don't know. I think each person brings a different set of skills to the table.

It didn't say they didn't do the work though. They still got after it.

Probably leaned on the expertise of some in different areas,

but they all came together. Look at how the apostle Paul says it.

1 Corinthians 12 verse 4 says, there are different kinds of spiritual gifts.

1 Corinthians 12:4

But the same spirit is the source of them all.

Verse five, there are different kinds of service, but we serve the same Lord.

Verse six, God works in different ways, but it is the same God who does the work in all of us.

Verse seven, a spiritual gift is given to each of us so that we can each other.

I almost forgot that wasn't yellow. That was close.

He has given each of us a spiritual gift so that we can help each other.

You're to marry those two passages together. Nehemiah is saying,

we're going to do this together.

Everybody take care of what's in front of you.

And Paul is saying, every believer has a spiritual gift or spiritual gifts,

and they are all different, but they all come from God.

And that he has given his people these gifts so they can help each other.

I'm so grateful that God has given us spiritual gifts. And I'm so grateful that

God has given us different gifts.

If you continue in 1 Corinthians 12, Paul, he talks about the church kind of

like a body, that we need all parts in order to operate.

Like what good are your hands without your eyes? What good are your feet without your legs?

Like you wouldn't want a body that was just an entire ear, like just a bunch of ears.

That'd just be weird. That's like a Picasso pan or something.

It'd be weird. It would be incomplete.

You would want one body complete with all the parts. That's how the church is supposed to look.

All using the gifts that God has given us to serve those around us and to help one another.

And it might look different in the ways that we do that. And that's okay.

Actually, that's not just okay. That's biblical.

It's going to look different. God has given us different gifts.

We aren't the same, but they are from the same God.

And we have service to the Lord according to our gifts from the Lord.

If Refuge Church was just full of Logan Key and just the gifts that I had,

this church would be in trouble.

All right, for starters, worship will be rough, bit of a doozy.

Vocals, I can't sing. Drums, only on my steering wheel, right?

I can only play Smoke on the Water on guitar. I've never heard that one on Sundays.

I am grateful we have a team of people who are gifted in their musical ability. It ain't me.

I am grateful to have people that are serving with the kids right now to give

them a safe, fun environment to learn about Jesus.

All of us working together, we have different gifts. That's a good thing. It is.

Just like it took all of them to complete the mission of rebuilding the wall,

it takes all of us to do the mission. You don't have to do everything.

You just have to do what's right in front of you.

Use the gifts that God has given you.

Everybody in this room, everyone in this room has a place that God has uniquely

and perfectly gifted you and wired you to serve service to the Lord according

to the gifts from the Lord.

You need to use the gifts that God has given you to serve those around you.

You have to. If you go back to, why did Nehemiah have them build the wall that's

right in front of their house? Because they would have a passion.

They would have a zeal for making sure that the wall was done well.

I want it to be good in front of my house. Church, if you have a passion or

a zeal for something, use that for the Lord.

It is something he has blessed you with. Lean into that. Don't run from it.

Service to the Lord according to the gifts from the Lord. It's all about him.

He gave us the spiritual gifts for a reason, and it's not for self.

Verse 7 of 1 Corinthians 12. I'm going to read it one more time.

Spiritual gift is given to each of us so that we can help each other.

Just to put it plain, there are

people that need your help. They need the gifts that God has given you.

They do. And without it, even if we come together, if you don't bring your gifts

to the table, it's not going to work.

So quit searching and start building.

Quit searching, start building, them.

Nehemiah doesn't have the people go find their places to build.

Don't go figure it out. He says, where are you?

Okay, start building there. A foreign concept to a lot of us, right?

Our world says, green your pastures, go to the other side. You just chase it.

Ecclesiastes 11.6 says this, plant your seed. I actually have this as my backdrop

on my phone right now. I need this.

Plant your seed in the morning, keep busy all afternoon, for you don't know

if profit will come from one activity or another, or maybe both.

Have you ever experienced that to be true in your life?

You spend all day working on something, and after all that work,

the return is just minimal. That's a frustrating feeling.

And I've been on the opposite too, where a one minute conversation turned into

the best thing in the week.

You don't know what profit will come from one thing or another.

And Solomon in Ecclesiastes, he's telling us, just get to work.

I think maybe the best example of this would be somebody who's looking for a

perfect piece of land, right?

They're searching for a place to set up roots as a family, a place where the

grass is green. They're just searching for the perfect fit.

And while they're searching, there's another person who's wanting that same reality.

Instead of searching for the perfect place where the grass is greener,

he just puts out the sprinkler and he gets to work building it.

Quit searching. Start building. What's in front of you? Take that next step.

Do it. The people around you need that.

What's in front of you? As we start

to wrap up, I want to go back to the beginning, where we started today.

The city was in ruins. The gates are destroyed by fire.

All the people that we saw working on the wall, they were already there. Do you remember that?

Like he goes to them and says, hey, let's rebuild the wall. And they're like,

yes, let's do it. They were already there.

Were just sitting there.

They weren't building what was in front of them. They weren't doing that.

That all changed when Nehemiah showed up.

Nehemiah showed up. He was faithful to do what God called him to do.

He had a burden on his heart. He was bold and then he brings the people together.

But after he showed up, the others stepped up.

It's huge. I can just think of examples in my life where when somebody's brave

enough to go first, so many other people have the courage to do it too.

When we show up, others around us often step up.

And it's one step multiplying to so much more.

What if Nehemiah never asked the king? What if Nehemiah heard those people and

he didn't ask about Jerusalem?

What if he never took that first step? The story looks a lot different, right?

We don't see Nehemiah do anything that is outside of like a normal human range.

And yet when we step back, we see God is moving in each and every step.

When he shows up, the people in Jerusalem, what do they do? They step up.

His obedience to take the next step multiplies into thousands taking their next step.

When we show up, others step up. But the multiplication never happens.

That multiplication never happens if we just stay on the sidelines.

You have to take your next step. Don't stay stuck where you are.

God is not done with you. keep moving forward Nehemiah shows up and it changes

everything for God's people everything.

That's a great picture of Christ. When he showed up, he changed everything.

And we step up to the call to be obedient, to be followers of him.

We step up because he showed up.

Because while we were dead in our sins, Jesus came down.

Here's what that means for us as Jesus followers. When we were at our worst,

Christ showed up and he saved us. He served us. That is amazing.

We did not deserve that. And now we get the opportunity to step up,

to use the gifts that God has given us to serve and help others.

And in doing so, we're actually doing that in service to God.

Jesus is the type. He's the stereotype. He's what we're going after.

He came not to be served, but to serve others.

We have to have the same attitude in us. We serve those around us.

And as a church, that works when we do it together.

Because here's the deal. We all have different gifts. When you show up and you

take that next step, when you show up and do that, God will make it all work together.

When you show up.

Step up. You have to be faithful to just take your next step.

And in doing that, you're going to serve another person. And when they show

up, what's that going to do? Somebody else is going to step up.

It encourages them to keep going to take their next step.

And so on and so on and so When you step up, somebody else does,

and it keeps going. That's multiplication.

That's what we see in Jerusalem. I know we've been hitting it hard this series, but it's important.

It all started with one step.

Take your next step. It does not have to be big.

You just have to take it.

Where do you need to take your next step?

Maybe you're getting into the word every day this series. You're saying,

hey, I'm getting into the word of God each and every day. I'm using the scripture

journal. I'm using my Bible or whatever.

Maybe you're saying, hey, I'm gonna get into the word every single day.

Hey, keep doing that. Keep taking that step.

Maybe you need to start serving on a team on Sundays. Maybe that's a good next step for you.

Maybe it's time to trust God with your finances or maybe it's time to make Jesus the Lord of your life.

Everybody in here is in a different spot.

What's your next step?

There's no end in the line with Jesus. The further you walk,

the more obedient you are, the more He'll move in your life.

What's your next step?

Whatever your answer is to that question.

Know that as a church, we step into that together.

Just like Nehemiah did. How were they? They were side by side.

Shoulder by shoulder, working together.

You don't have to take that next step alone. There's a group of people around

you, around this room, that would love to step into that with you.

You don't have to go that alone.

Let's do this together. Whatever that next step might be for you, take it.

He's worth it.

And when you show up, people around you're going to step up.

And it starts this flow of multiplication. Everybody gets excited to do what God's called them to do.

What's your next step? God's not done with you. He's not.

He will use you in mighty ways if you'll just keep putting one foot in front

of the other. Let's pray.

God, I thank you that you just used normal people to move.

God, that you work it all together, that if we would just be obedient to take

our next step, God, you would keep moving and showing up.

God, I pray for anybody here who's just not sure what that next step is, God,

or just to serve on a team, whether it's to trust you with their finances,

Maybe it's time for them to put you as the Lord and Savior of their life,

whatever it might be. God, give them clarity.

Give them conviction about what that step is.

God, give them the courage to take it.

To not just keep it in their head, but God, to let it go all the way down to

their feet, that they would put their faith into action.

God, would you be with us this morning to be a people pursuing you, step after step.

God, just like you rebuilt the whole wall brick by brick, God,

you would do amazing work through our faithfulness to just keep following after you.

I ask all these things in Jesus' name. Amen.