Illus: Once, a man was taking a stagecoach across the country. When he went to buy his ticket, he was informed that first class seats were P100. Second class seats were P50. Third class seats were P25. The man looked in the stagecoach and all the seats looked the same to him, so he bought a third class seat. The man congratulated himself on saving money.
Well, after a while, the stagecoach started up a mountain road. After about 30 minutes, the bus came to a steep hill. The stagecoach stopped and the conductor stood up and said: "First class passengers, please remain seated. Second class passengers, get out and walk. Third class passengers, get out and push!"
This next year is going to be an exciting time for this congregation.
I truly believe that next year around this time, we’ll own a piece of land here in Camp 7.
But it’s not just going to happen by itself.
If we’re going to move forward as a congregation,
If we’re going to buy this land and keep growing as we should,
Then all of us need to get involved.
All of us need to sacrifice.
All of us need to do what we can to make this happen.
The church around the world today has too many FIRST CLASS PASSENGERS —
People who just sit back and let others do the work.
And the church has too many SECOND CLASS PASSENGERS —
People who just walk away when there’s work to be done.
What the church needs is more THIRD CLASS PASSENGERS —
People who’ll get out and push!
People who will help with the work of the church.
People who will sacrifice some personal comfort and pleasure for the sake of the work of God.
Today we’re beginning a new series of Sermons from the book of Nehemiah.
And as we look at this Old Testament book, the theme for our series is going to be all about
DOING GOD’S WORK IN CAMP 7
The first thing we need to do in our new series is look at some historical background:
Way back, about 1,000 years before Jesus was born, David became king of Israel.
After David, his son, Solomon was king,
But after Solomon, the kingdom was split in half:
the southern half became known as Judah
and the northern half was still called Israel.
Well, both these kingdoms had bad king after bad king
Both kingdoms were worshipping other gods and living immoral lives.
but the northern kingdom was a little bit worse than the southern kingdom, so God punished them first.
God allowed the Assyrians to conquer the northern kingdom, but not the southern kingdom.
But even after the northern kingdom was disciplined by God,
the southern kingdom still didn’t learn their lesson,
so God allowed them to be conquered as well — about 130 years later.
But by that time, the Assyrians had been conquered by the Babylonians.
So it was King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon who carried the southern kingdom away into exile.
Well, 47 years later, the Babylonian Empire was conquered by the Persian Empire under King Cyrus.
So the Jews, who had been the slaves of the Babylonians, now became the slaves of the Persians.
Cyrus is the king that we read about in the book of Ezra who allowed the Jews to begin returning home again.
51 years after Cyrus, the king of Persia was a man named Xerxes, who we read about in the book of Esther.
His son, Artaxerxes, is the one we’re going to be reading about in the book of Nehemiah.
So the events of Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther took place during the same period in Jewish history.
Actually, in the Hebrew Bible, Ezra and Nehemiah are the same book
because they’re basically telling the same story:
Ezra tells the beginning, Nehemiah tells the end, and the story of Esther takes place in between.
In fact, if you remember the story of Esther, she was Queen of Persia and king Xerxes was her husband.
In the book of Nehemiah, the king of Persia is king Artaxerxes,
who was the son of king Xerxes and quite possibly the son of Queen Esther as well,
which would account for his kindness to the Jews that we’re going to see in the book of Nehemiah.
So, just so we’re clear, the Jews were carried away into captivity by the Babylonians,
but were allowed to return by the Persians.
And they returned home in three waves or groups:
The FIRST GROUP of Jews to return to their homeland was led by SHESHBAZZAR.
The SECOND GROUP was led by ZERUBBABEL, who rebuilt the Temple.
(Haggai and Zechariah were both prophets during this time)
The THIRD GROUP was led by EZRA,
but when they encountered difficulty in rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem, Nehemiah came to help.
Have I totally confused you?
I hope not, but in any case, let’s take a look at our scripture for today — Nehemiah 1:1-4
The words of Nehemiah son of Hacaliah: In the month of Kislev in the twentieth year, while I was in the citadel of Susa, Hanani, one of my brothers, came from Judah with some other men, and I questioned them about the Jewish remnant that survived the exile, and also about Jerusalem. They said to me, "Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire." When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.
First, let’s look at Nehemiah’s response to the news that people and the city of God, were in trouble:
He sat down and wept.
Let me ask you this:
Do the things that break God’s heart break your heart?
When Nehemiah heard that the people of God were in distress, it broke his heart.
When he heard that the city of God was in trouble, he sat down and wept.
Do the things that break God’s heart break your heart?
"Well, (you might say) I don’t know. What kind of things break God’s heart?
I did some studying in the Bible last week to find the answer.
And as I looked in the Bible, several things stood out to me;
I found that God’s heart breaks when his people are in trouble.
I found that God’s heart breaks when his people disobey him.
I found that God’s heart breaks when he has to discipline someone.
But one thing really stood out to me in my studying:
God’s heart breaks when his dwelling place is not honored as it should be.
2 Chronicles 36:14-15 — Furthermore, all the leaders of the priests and the people became more and more unfaithful, following all the detestable practices of the nations and defiling the temple of the Lord, which he had consecrated in Jerusalem. The Lord, the God of their fathers, sent word to them through his messengers again and again, because he had pity on his people and on his dwelling place.
Now, we know that the Church is not a building.
We are the Church. The Church is the People of God, not a building.
But what we see in the Bible is that God has a special place in his heart for the place where his people meet together.
When God became a man (Jesus), he went into the Temple courts and saw that the people had turned it into a marketplace,
And do you remember what he did?
He drove them away!
because God has a special place in his heart for the actual building where his people meet together.
This is why our theme for this project to buy land in Camp 7 is taken from:
Nehemiah 10:39 — "We will not neglect the house of our God."
We all live in houses and we take care of them:
we paint them and decorate them and plant flowers around them,
But what about the place where we meet as God’s people?
We need to have the attitude of David:
1 Chronicles 17:1 — After David was settled in his palace, he said to Nathan the prophet, "Here I am, living in a palace of cedar, while the ark of the covenant of the LORD is under a tent."
King David wanted to be the one to build a house for the Lord —
A place where God’s people would meet together and worship God together.
And what he’s saying in this verse is,
"Here I am living in my own house, but the house of the Lord is a tent — it’s temporary."
Today, we might say the same thing:
"Here we are, each of us in our own house, but we have nowhere permanent to meet together as the Church."
We’re just renting this building, and if the college moves, there’s no other place for us to meet.
This is why we need a piece of property and this is why each of us needs to do what we can to make that happen.
Which brings me to the second principle that I want to look at this morning from Nehemiah 1:1-4 —
Every one of us needs to be personally committed to the work of the Church
ROBERT MORRISON — 1st missionary to China/ on boat going/
cynical captain: "so, you think you are going to make an impression upon China?"
Morrison: "No, but I believe God will."
The Principle that stands out in our scripture today is that work of God begins with you.
Today there are around 40 million Christians in China. But it all had to start somewhere.
It all started with one man who said,
"Lord, I’m going to get your work done no matter what it costs me to do it."
Too often we wait for someone else to do the work when God is waiting for you to be the one.
The Sunday school needs a teacher
and we think, "someone else will do it."
The chapel needs to be cleaned
and we think, "someone else will do it."
We’re trying to buy this piece of land
and some people are still thinking, "someone else will buy it."
But look at Nehemiah...
He didn’t say, "Hey! There’s a problem, who’s going to solve it?"
He said, "Hey! There’s a problem, I need to do something about it."
And in the work here in the Camp 7 Church of Christ,
God wants you to be personally committed and personally involved in the work.
And so we shouldn’t think, "someone else will do it..."
we should be thinking, "What can I do?"
"How much can I do?"
"How much can I give?"
1 Corinthians 4:7 — For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive?
Everything you have;
Every talent,
Every possession,
Every peso you have was given to you by God.
And he gave you these things so that you will use them in the work of his church.
James 4:3 — When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
God doesn’t give us talents so that we’ll just use them for our own pleasure.
God doesn’t give us money and possessions so that we will spend it on ourselves.
God gives us everything we have so that we will use it in the work of his Kingdom.
Every one of us needs to be personally committed to the work of this congregation.
If you have a refrigerator that’s only running at 50% efficiency, what would you do? (FIX IT!)
If you have a car that only works 40% of the time, what would you do? (FIX IT!)
If you have a business and only 30% of your employees are working, what would you do? (I don’t know, but you’d do something!)
And in the same way,
if only 50% of the members of this congregation are doing the work of God here in Camp 7, then there’s something wrong.
And if only 30% of the members are helping to buy this piece of land, then something is wrong.
Every one of us needs to be personally committed to the work of this congregation.
And if we can learn one lesson from Nehemiah,
it’s that doing the work of God requires some personal sacrifice.
If we are faithfully doing God’s work, we should expect to make some personal sacrifices.
— Sacrifices of time.
— Sacrifices of money.
— Sacrifices of comfort.
We’re going to see in chapter 2 that Nehemiah actually goes to Jerusalem to get the work of God done.
He could have sent someone else.
He could have put someone else in charge,
but he didn’t — he took personal responsibility for getting the work done.
And he didn’t just sit around and wait for someone else to do it.
Anyway, when Nehemiah went from the Persian capital of Susa to Jerusalem, it was a 1,600 kilometer trip that took 51 days.
51 days on a camel!
51 days on a dusty, dirt road!
In Susa, Nehemiah lived in the Royal Palace in comfort.
but when the work of the Lord needed to get done,
He sacrificed his own personal comfort
He sacrificed his own needs for the sake of the work of God.
Jesus also gave everything to do the work of his Father.
All twelve of the Apostles gave their lives for the work of the Church.
Earlier this century, there was a Chinese Christian named Lo Fook.
He heard that there were thousands of Chinese slaves working in the mines of South Africa.
So he sold himself as a slave to a South African mine for a period of 5 years.
When he arrived in South Africa, he was put to work as a slave,
but while he worked, he preached the Gospel.
Lo Fook died before his 5 years were completed,
but not before more than 200 of his fellow slaves had been saved through his teaching.
And the question that each of us must ask ourselves is:
How much am I willing to sacrifice for the work of the Lord?
Am I personally involved in the Lord’s work?
Do the things that break God’s heart break my heart?
Or am I too caught up in my own desires and my own work that I’m ignoring the work of God?
But I want to say something right now:
If you have already signed up for one or more square meters, then I honor you.
And God honors you and he is glorified by your commitment.
And if you truly can’t afford to buy a square meter, then don’t worry about it.
God knows your situation.
There are other ways that you can sacrifice for his work.
But, for those of you who haven’t signed up yet, I want you to ask yourself this question:
"Is it really that I can’t afford it, or is it because I’m not willing to sacrifice some personal comfort for the work of God?"
"Am I a First Class passenger, a Second Class passenger, or am I a Third Class passenger —
am I out doing the work, or am I just sitting around waiting for someone else to do it?"
Again, if only 30% of the members are helping to buy this piece of land, then something is wrong.
The sign up sheet will be right here after the service.
I meant it when I said I’m excited about this year.
And I’m excited about the future of this congregation.
