Nehemiah 3.
Beginning to build.
Last week and the week before I mentioned how God has an incredible plan for each of our lives.
One of the really great things of having the bible is that you can look through the window at actual lives lived out before God. You can see peoples highs and you can see their lows and if you have some sense of what is actually going on you can see whether they are going to make it or not.
in a character like David for example - who does some really great things and one really dumb thing.You see that through it all he makes it!
Where in the life of someone like king Ahab for example you see clearly he is not going to make it because even after he has messed up - he doesn’t turn around - he doesn’t care he just keeps on messing up.
In fact it was the behaviour of people like King Ahab that led Israel to the mess that Nehemiah found it in on his return from captivity in Susa.
He finds the walls in ruins and the gates burned and the whole place looking like a lounge after a tribe of two year olds on a birthday party rampage have passed through.
The place is just a mess - utter destruction reigns.
You know, I think, sometimes we underestimate the damage that generational sins have wrought on our communities.
What about the guy who decided that because backstreet abortions were so terrible - and they were - lets have legal abortions. That decision has cost 100’s of thousands of New Zealanders their lives and today we don’t have just tourists visiting our beautiful land - we have to import our citizens because we have killed the rightful citizens progressively in the years that have passed before us.
Right now in a myriad of ways New Zealand needs someone to rebuild the moral walls around it because they are broken down folk and nothing good will will happen until they are firmly built back in place.
People wonder why there is progressi vely less and less blessing in our nation - right now folk are saying - why is there so few gold medals at the Olympics as if this were a big deal - the answer lies not in money but it lies with God who can not bless a nation that continues to slide into moral decline which equals rebellion against the living God.
make no mistake folk on it’s current continuim New Zealand is in trouble just as Israel was as she rebelled against God.
But one day in Israel’s history the slide was reversed and that day happened the day that Nehemiah said "Come let us rebuild the walls of Jerusalem" and the people replied "Let us start rebuilding" So they began this good work.
In New Zealand the walls need to be rebuilt and the church needs to lead the charge. There is no point in waiting on the government to rebuild the walls - it will play it’s part - but the church needs to lead the charge.
Now I am not aware that God has called us to be responsible for the whole nation personally.
In fact I am fairly sure he hasn’t.
That doesn’t mean he hasn’t called us to carry a burden for New Zealand but that is a different thing to carry the responsibility for the nation.
But what he has called us to do is to be faithful where we are doing what God has called us to do. As we do that God can do incredibly powerful things and it can have amazing impact on our own area but beyond that to the province and to the nation and even beyond the nation to the world.
]Mother Tereasa a Catholic nun began a small and seemingly insignificant mission to the dying on the streets of Calcutta - but you know that ended up in her being a world wide icon for compassion and love in the name of Jesus.
Why because it was driven by a God given vision.
Nehemiah - had a God given vision -
His vision was to see the Spiritual and physical restoration of Jerusalem - to see his people who had been reduced to slavery - prosper again.
So he set out to inspire his people to rebuild the wall around Jerusalem and in so doing he was drawing a line in the sand for the Jewish people - The wall announced to God and the world - We are back - God is going to be worshipped in this place.
When our forebears came to this area and settled here they built churches - and I just love the story where they shifted the huge old building that was the church from up at Switzers down to Waikaia and then about thirty or forty years ago they built two new churches and recently we altered Waikaia church. In all of these projects our forebears and some of the people here were nailing their colours to the mast and they were announcing to the community - God is going to be honoured in this place.
We in turn need to honour these people -
There are great reasons to thank them for flying the christian flag here long before we were able to.
But also the people of this generation have done very well in sharing Christ with the world around them.
We want to honour and be thankful for that stuff as well.
When Nehemiah arrived in Jerusalem - guess what?
He wasn’t the first person there. There already were a significant group of God fearing people there who were living out as well as they could under trying - slave like circumstances their lives before God.
But you know they hadn’t made great progress -
Nehemiah after a brief survey of the circumstances said -
"You see the trouble we are in Jerusalem lies in ruins, and it’s gates have been burrned with fire. Come let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem and we will no longer be in disgrace. I also told them about the gracious hand of my God upon me and what the king had said to me. "
Chapter 2 verse 17 ff.
At this point the people take heart -
They have a vision before them of something great - and Nehemiah comes with the means to live out the vision.
Friends - I want to tell you this morning that God has a vision for Riversdale - Waikaia parish - he has loved this place for a long long time and has bestowed great blessings upon it.
I would say that our parish has people who have been doing quite well in maintaining a christian presence here in Riversdale - Waikaia - we have done well in many things - about four or five years ago = people looked at this parish as being an outstanding example of how to reinterpret the gospel for our times.
Since then there has been a kind of flat time -
But the time is coming and will soon be here when we will gather around a fresh vision and look to a fresh hope.
I want to talk a little about that vision in a general way later but first I want to tell you about three types of people that Nehemiah encountered who either inhibited the vision or helped it.
I want to finish on a positive note so I will share the negative bit first.
Nehemiah chapter 2 verse 19 and 20.
The first people that Nehemiah encounters when he begins to try to bring his vision to bear are the enemies of the vision - they are people who don’t really belong to Israel.
Their response is to mock and to ridicule Nehemiah’s plan.
Nothing is more vulnerable than a great vision or dream and sometimes the opposition can come from those you most love.
As a young man I applied for and got a job as a salesman - I had a vision that I could become a succesful salesman.
As a 19 year old I was about to leave my former job when the company secretary came to me and asked me what I was going to do.
I told him
His response to me was brief - just two words. "You’ll starve."
What a disheartening word that was for someone about to go on a new enterprise.
If we have a great God given vision we must be aware that mockery and opposition will surely follow - often from those we love very deeply.
Once Jesus shared the vision that God had given him of his future -
Mark chapter 8 verse 31ff.
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Peter’s reply receives such a harsh response from Jesus because such negativity is incredibly dangerous -
Jesus knew what he had to face -
he knew it was tough -
the last thing he needed was opposition - admittingly well intended - from one he loved so dearly.
The second group of people I’d like to talk about. Are those that Nehemiah encounters in verse 5 of chapter 3.
The next section was repaired by the men of Tekoa, but their nobles would not put their shoulders to work under their supervisors.
In Psalm 62 verse 9 you can read Lowborn men are but a breath, the highborn are but a lie.
if weighed on the balance they are nothing;
together they are only a breath.
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though your riches increase do not set your hearts on them.
As christians we are called to serve God - God calls us to lay aside our wealth and position and to be like poor people before him.
The modern chorus that says
let the poor say I am rich
and the rich say I am poor
sums up this sentiment.
The thing about the Nobles of Tekoa - they would not work under their supervisors.
In the Christian church where God puts us - how easy it can be to do our own thing - to choose to run where we want rather than to co-operate with those over us in the Lord.
It is true that our house group leader may not be perfect - it is also true that we may not fully understand where they are leading us - but given time if we learn to follow we may well help them to grow as a leader and indeed our obedience in humility will not only teach us it will inspire the whole group.
But the nobles of Tekoa were not like that - they were used to being in charge.
You could say that they had a very week self esteem because they didn’t have the humility to realise that laying blocks was not their particular skill - they needed to realise that God knew what He was doing when he put the particular supervisors over them -
They were probably skilled block layers who could show them what to do.
The floods last year were a wonderful example of people taking their rightful roles - the people who knew about sandbagging and so on were the leaders and all the other people in the town - schoolteachers - truck drivers vets took their instructions from those in the fire brigade who knew what they were doing.
Great followers make good leaders.
We are all called to follow at some point in our christian life.
If you haven’t learned to follow then it is too early to be in leadership.
The third category of people are those who enthusiastically obey the leadership that God has put in place.
They replied, "Let us start rebuilding." so they began this good work.
There is an overwhelming enthusiasm among those who recognise that what Nehemiah is doing comes from God -
The majority of the Jews join in and co-operate and though there are hard times ahead before the job is completed there is groundswell support for it.
Nehemiah had made sure that he had the co-operation of those who count. That is seen in chapter 3 verse 1 Eliashib the high priest and his fellow priests went to work and rebuilt the sheep gate etc read it.
The high Priest could easily have sat back and said well I am the high priest I don’t need to labour - but he didn’t - he rallied around his fellow priests and they rebuilt the sheep gate.
Notice that the high priest gives a lead he is an example to everyone else - He builds the first bit - So much for the image that ministers only work one hour a week on Sunday.
The over-riding impression is that the whole community, apart from the shirkers, worked very hard for 52 days to restore the walls around Jerusalem.
There was a collective effort and those who worked, worked very hard.
For example:-One commentator has said, "God is a great believer in putting names down." That is true. There are
many chapters like this in the Scriptures. But that should really encourage us. It means that God has
not forgotten our names either. He loves to record the names of obscure people. He may be writing
your name down in some great book right now that others will read in times to come.
We find that the majority of the people take their place under Nehemiah’s leadership.
One of the things we need to do is to decide which kind of people we are and what kind of people we would like to be.
By and large we would say that we would like to be the people repairing our particular part of the wall.
God has a place for you in His plan and you are significant.
But you have to choose.
you will not choose by what you say
You see the Arabs - these days claim they own Jerusalem - the scriptures are clear - they do not - they only have what they have because of the Jews disobedience not buy any other reason.
We need to keep in mind that we get to work on the walls of building the Kingdomm of God only by God’s grace.
jesus died for our sins and it is through that act of Grace that we get to take part in that great enterprise.
We need to decide if we want to be like the Nobles of Tekoa - are we too proud to obey the supervisors God has put over us - Do we say well if only God had given us this person or that life would be better.
So we do our own thing.
you can;’t rebuild a wall like that.
Or are we like the people who work long and hard on the wall like:-
Look, for instance, at Verse 13:
The Valley Gate was repaired by Hanun and the residents of Zanoah...They also repaired five
hundred yards of the wall as far as the Dung Gate. {Neh 3:13 NIV}
Note the also. They exceeded their allotment and went on to help somebody else to the extent of
repairing 500 yards of wall (an enormous section; probably much of it was still standing and needed
little repair). You will find other mentions of men who did their work and then repaired "another"
section.
Are you the sort of person who does your bit and then helps your neighbour with their bit?
I believe that many of you are.
So thething for us to do out of this is to decide what kind of approach we are going to take in restoring God’s church.
Finally we need a vision to follow.
One of the things we will do here as a church over the next year or so is to clarify our vision.
But there are some things that we already know.
God is wanting his church to be a church that goes into the world and makes disciples of the people around us.
God requires his church to - yes be a worshipping church - but we are also called to reflect his love.
Does God look on us and commend us for the wonderful way that we love each other?
This morning from this passage can I urge you to work towards being the kind of person who takes their part in the rebuilding of the walls here in Riversdale Waikaia - and can I encourage you that god has avision for this place and it centres around the church being seen from the outside as being a relevant happy place that worships God sincerely from the heart and where the people love each other and walk their walk with deep respect for their leaders and each other.
not because they are perfect but because God has put us together to serve him in this place.
