We Did That

Josh Herrera

Shovel and Spear • Sermon • Submitted 3 years ago

Rebuilding of the temple

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Transcript

Nehemiah 4:6 ESV

So we built the wall. And all the wall was joined together to half its height, for the people had a mind to work.

Introduction:

The other Friday night I believe all of San Diego was taken back by the flash rain we had. Do you all remember that? It was just a little over a week ago. I know that today with the weather being as hot as it is it’s hard to believe that we broke out beanies, grabbed our pumpkin spice candles, and our boots, but welcome to San Diego.

OK, so we had a double header football game on tap that night. My son Jude is the quarter back of his team. Not to brag, but the team is in first place, anyway, that’s not the point. That’s not the point at all.

We had a double header that night, and our games were cancelled due to the rain. I took this as a moment to do something that every father must do with their sons. I sat them down and together we watched, Remember the Titans. Yes, I told you all that I am all about Denzel Washington movies, and Denzel did a superb job playing the role of Coach Herman Boone. And what a movie!

Now part of the difficulty of watching this movie with my 5 and 7 year old is the story line of racism. This was the first time that in Virginia a High School was desegregated, and the football team had to overcome the effects of that as white and black players were playing on the same team fo the first time. And what I love about this movie was not just the story line of how these young men were galvanized by their Coach to play together, but it’s the fact that this is all based on true events. These are all real events, in our history, of people coming together and rallying around a cause.

Here in our text, I see some of this as we dive into Nehemiah chapter 3 this morning.

A Mind to Work

At first glance, when you read through Nehemiah 3, it can be very informative, but not very applicable. There’s a lot of information, but there is not too much application.

2 Timothy 3:16 ESV

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,

So what I want to pull out of Nehemiah 3 are some big ideas that I believe paint a picture for us how we can continue to advance the Kingdom of God as we are in a building season.

It took a Dream Team

You will notice throughout Nehemiah 3 that it took a team to get the walls built up once again. We read in Nehemiah 3:1 that Eliashib, the High Priest, gathered all of the other Priests in Jerusalem and they began to build the sheep gate. In total, there were 10 gates that the exiles rebuilt, and the walls that joined these gates together.

Verse by verse we read different accounts of families and tradesmen who did their part to build the gates.

This continues all the way to Nehemiah 3:31 when read that Malchiah repaired the Inspection Gate.

For 31 verses we read family, after family, doing their part. Family, after family, offering whatever they could to rebuild the gates and the walls of the city.

I believe that there is an application here for the church - and that is simply this, it takes a team.

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, being a father to Jaden has led me to get sucked into Marvel’s Multiverse. As much as we enjoy watching the stand alone movies such as Ironman, Captain America or Black Panther, there is something different about the Avengers movies. I’m talking about when each of these Super Heroes is now put into a team of other Super Heroes and together they have to save the world, and the galaxy. You know what I’m talking about…there is something about this coming together of everyone to advance a common cause.

This isn’t just something we see in Hollywood. We see this in the scripture as well.

When I look at the Book of Acts, it’s kind of like watching the assembling of a Dream Team. Jesus had his Disciples, and these 11 men would be used greatly to advance the church, but we read that there were some free agents out there that needed to be brought in.

Who bigger than Saul of Tarsus, who would become Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles. This was the biggest free agent acquisition. It was similar to when Ray Allen, who was previously a member of the Championship Boston Squad that would join the Miami Heatles, and LeBron James, to help them win their titles. It was such a bold move to bring together someone who was once a nemesis to help the Heatles go on a four year run. Or when Rodman joined the Bulls after he was a part of their arch nemesis Detroit Piston team. Well, listen, similarly that happened thousands of years ago when Paul joined the Apostles. Paul was actually such a nemesis to the church that when they brought him in he sat on the bench for 3 years before they trusted him enough to take a leadership position within the early church. But God knew, that his team here on earth needed Paul to further advance the Kingdom and the early church.

I think about Luke, who authored the Book of Luke and the Book of Acts. He wasn’t a disciple of Jesus, but an investigative reporter who followed the disciples around documenting their journey. During the process of investigating the church, he was converted and joined the team. Without Luke we don’t get a Book of Acts and read about the formation of the early church.

I think about Apollos, who did not write a book within the Bible, but you know he was an excellent leader and teacher. So much so that he stood as an equal to Paul and the church in Corinth began to claim Apollos as greater than Paul. We all know that Paul was an effective leader, and so you can only imagine the impact Apollos was making for some to say, “I think he’s a better teacher than Paul.”

And then there was Timothy, Paul’s protege. He wasn’t a Disciple of Jesus, but he was a trusted Disciple of Paul. He wasn’t just a protege, but he was also a prodigy. He was young and so skilled in the word and leadership that after Paul would plant a church, he would hand over leadership to young Timothy. He did this on several occasions and so we can see that Timothy carried a gift to lead what Paul planted.

Someone say, DREAM TEAM.

That’s exactly what it took for the early church to thrive in a day when the church was persecuted. It’s followers were martyred. Over the course of hundreds of years the church grew in a pool of blood from its earliest believers. But the church pressed on. Everyone doing its part, it was an unstoppable force.

That’s exactly what was happening with the exiles in Nehemiah 3 as every family did their part to build the walls.

And that’s exactly what can happen here in the City of Vista as we begin to build the church.

The reason we use this language, the Dream Team, is because it takes a team to bring this dream to life. We don’t rise to the level of our dream, we rise to the level of our Team.

Ephesians 4:11–13 (ESV)

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,

This verse is a beautiful description of what it is like for the church to come together. Every person, doing their part to advance the Kingdom of God.

Everyone Brought Something

Nehemiah 3:8 ESV

Next to them Uzziel the son of Harhaiah, goldsmiths, repaired. Next to him Hananiah, one of the perfumers, repaired, and they restored Jerusalem as far as the Broad Wall.

Another description of the work that we find was that just as the Priests, who were not builders, took on the task of building, others did the same. Gold smiths showed up. Perfumers showed up. They all did something out of their wheelhouse to advance the building of the wall.

I see such a parallel to our team here at the church. When I see some of you making pour over coffee here at the church, I know that it is much different than your 9-5. Some of you are hair dressers, you work with children, you work in an office, etc. But when looking at the work that is needed here in the church, you put your “unique set of skills” aside and you pick up whatever needs to be done in order to help advance the Kingdom.

Everyone Brought Something.

Part of what we do at Growth Track is to help pull that out of you, so that you can join the effort of building the church.

Listen, we don’t always get it right. Our teams are not perfect, and we are experiencing some growing pains as a church right now. More people are joining the church each month than we can keep up with. Our team is working hard. Our team is working REALLY HARD to keep up with everything.

If you have not yet joined our Dream Team, consider this your official invitation. You have something to offer. You have a gift that God has deposited inside of you that is to be shared with the world. And listen, when you start to share that with the world you are going to start impacting lives. It doesn’t matter how small or insignificant you feel your gift is. We see throughout both the old and the new testament that anything placed into our Lord’s hands becomes significant. When it’s in his hands, it becomes great. God will take small things and use it to make a big impact.

Rebuilding Begins at Home

Another key passage in Nehemiah 3 is the story of the families who stepped outside their homes, and began to rebuild the wall directly in front of them.

Nehemiah 3:10 ESV

Next to them Jedaiah the son of Harumaph repaired opposite his house. And next to him Hattush the son of Hashabneiah repaired.

These men and their families were not assigned to a door, but they went right to the wall that was directly in front of their home and began to build. Tell your neighbor, build your home.

A healthy church is the fruit of healthy families.

Within this passage of building the walls is this truth of the importance of making sure we have protected and cared for our homes. Church, your primary place of ministry is your home. It all begins at home. If your home is not well, nothing that you produce will ever have satisfaction.

This is a personal question, but have you ever gone to work right when things were not well at home? I’m not going to get into specifics, you all can figure that out for yourself.

I remember when my wife and I went through our most difficult seasons in our marriage. It felt like nothing I did had any meaning. I had zero satisfaction in anything I did. I believe you all know what I am talking about.

The lesson is this, take care of your home. Make sure that you have put incredible rhythms in your home.

I remember recently, as I was scurrying my boys out the door to take them to school, I forgot to have them kiss Joanna goodbye. She said to me, why are you teaching bad culture?

I thought she was talking about the church. Culture? But it had not dawned on me that our home has a culture. We have our values. I was, by omission, teaching my kids that they could leave the home without honoring their mother. That was also the last time that ever happened.

So, Dad and Mom, what are you building? Are you happy with it? If not, change it!

Let me give you a quick little thing that you can do… rather than ask the question, what do we want to become, ask yourself, “who are we becoming?’

So what you do is you look at the last two weeks of your home, and ask yourself who are we becoming?

You can do this individually as well. Examine your life over the lat two weeks and ask yourself, who am I becoming?

God is Recorder of Names

As I said at the beginning of this message, you can read through Nehemiah 3 and see a lot of information, and miss the application. This family repaired this gate. This family repaired this gate. It’s verse after verse of names, families, sons and households.

Lost in all of that information is the fact that God recorded their names in this book.

God is a Recorder of Names

Everything we do will not get noticed by everybody, but everything we do will get notice by somebody, and that somebody is Him.

Don’t forget that Lighthouse. Everything that we do for Christ will last. Everything that we do to advance the church will be remembered, and it will be counted. Everything. It matters to God.

And if it matters to God, then it should matter to us.

Conclusion

What I love about some of my favorite passages that we read in the Old Testament is how the people of accomplished incredible things together, and then they memorialized that moment. They’d set some stones, and build an altar. Then they would give it a name and begin to tell others about what God did there.

I saw some of that when growing up I would hear the men and women reflect on the day that they built their church. I was part of a church in National City and the members of the church who were there for the build out celebrated that incredible feat. They shared a bond together. They would have lunch together. They would reminisce on what they built together. As much as I enjoyed seeing them sit around and talk about it, I could never say that I was a part of it. I enjoyed the fruit of it, but I wasn’t a part of it.