Nehemiah - Chapter 3: Builders of the Wall
SERMON TRANSCRIPT
We're continuing in our series. We've covered chapters one and chapter two in the previous weeks. Chapter one, Pastor Chris focused on Nehemiah's prayer and the importance of prayer. And last week we talked about being placed in unique positions by God and leveraging that position for the good of others. And today we're going to tackle chapter three, where at the end of chapter two, we saw Nehemiah rally the people to rebuild the wall. And so they are ready. And we're going to read our passage this morning. Now, let me give you a warning. What we're about to read is such good scripture. It is challenging. If you, okay, this would be a passage of scripture where maybe in your personal study, and I'm saying this as one who has done it, you might be tempted to skim over it because the names are so difficult and you're just like a list of names. You're like, okay, I get the picture. There's a lot of people who did a lot of things, but we are going to read it today together because we value reading scripture. It's good and we're going to do it. So you can pray with me as we read this. Let's go ahead and open your Bibles.
You can follow along Nehemiah chapter three. It says, "Elias Shib, the high priest and his fellow priests went to work and rebuilt the sheep gate. They dedicated it and set its doors in place, building as far as the tower of the hundred, which they dedicated as far as the tower of Hananol. The men of Jericho built the adjoining section and Zachar, son of Imri, built next to them. The fish gate was rebuilt by the sons of Hassanah. They laid its beams and put its doors and bolts and bars in place. Meramoth, son of Uriah, the son of Hakaz, repaired the next section. Next to him, Meshulam, son of Barakiah, the son of Meshezabel, made repairs. And next to him, Zadok, son of Banna, also made repairs. The next section was repaired by the men of Tekoa, but their nobles would not put their shoulders to the work under their supervisors." We're going to come back to that. That's important. "The Jeshenah gate was repaired by Joahida, son of Pesaiah, and Meshulam, son of Besediah. They laid its beams and put its doors with their bolts and bars in place. Next to them, repairs were made by men from Gibeon and Mizpah, Meletia of Gibeon and Jadon of Meranoth, places under the authority of the governor of Trans-Euphrates. Uziel, son of Hurahiah, one of the goldsmiths, repaired the next section. And Hanahiah, one of the perfume makers, made repairs next to that. They restored Jerusalem as far as the Broad Wall. Rephiah, son of Hur, ruler of a half district of Jerusalem, repaired the next section. Adjoining this, Jadiah, son of Haramath, made repairs opposite his house, and Hathush, son of Hashabaneah, made repairs next to him. Melchijah, son of Harem, and Hashub, son of Pahath-Moab, repaired another section from the tower of the ovens. Shalom, son of Halahesh, ruler of a half district of Jerusalem, repaired the next section with the help of his daughters. The Valley Gate was repaired by Hanun and the residents of Zenoah. They rebuilt it and put its doors with their bolts and bars in place. They also repaired a thousand cubits of the wall as far as the Dung Gate. The Dung Gate was repaired by Melchijah, son of Rekeb, ruler of the district of Beth-Hakiram. He rebuilt it and put its doors with their bolts and bars in place. The Fountain Gate was repaired by Shalom, son of Kol-Hazeh, ruler of the district of Mizpah. He rebuilt it, roofing it over and putting its doors and bolts and bars in place. He also repaired the wall of the Pool of Siloam by the King's Garden as far as the steps going down from the city of David. Beyond him, Nehemiah, son of Azbuk, ruler of a half district of Beth-Zer, made repairs up to a point opposite the tombs of David, as far as the artificial pool in the house of the heroes. Next to him, the repairs were made by the Levites under Rehum, son of Benai. Beside him, Heshabiah, ruler of half a district of Kilah, carried out repairs for his district. Next to him, the repairs were made by their fellow Levites under Benui, son of Hanadad, ruler of the half district of Kilah. And next to him, Ezer, son of Jeshua, ruler of Mizpah, repaired another section from a point facing the ascent to the armory as far as the angle of the wall. Next to him, Baruch, son of Zebai, zealously repaired another section, I love that, from the angle to the entrance of the house of Eliashib, the high priest. And next to him, Meramoth, son of Uriah, the son of Hekos, repaired another section from the entrance of Eliashib's house to the end of it. The repairs next to him were made by the priests from the surrounding region. Beyond them, Benjamin and Heshub made repairs in front of their house, and next to them, Azariah, son of Masiah, I'm so sorry, Maaseah, the son of Ananiah, made repairs beside his house. Next to him, Benui, son of Hanadad, repaired another section from Azariah's house to the angle in the corner, and Pelal, son of Uzay, worked opposite the angle on the tower projecting from the upper palace near the court of the guard. Next to him, Padiah, son of Perosh, and the temple servants living on the hill of Ophel, made repairs up to the point opposite the water gate toward the east and the projecting tower. Next to them, the men of Tekoa repaired another section from the great projecting tower to the wall of Ophel. Above the horse gate, the priest made repairs each in front of his own house, and next to them, Zadok, son of Emar, made repairs opposite his house. Next to him, Shemaiah, son of Shekiniah, the guard at the east gate, made repairs, and next to him, Hananiah, son of Shelemiah, and Hanun, the sixth son of Zelophe, repaired another section. Next to them, Meshulam, son of Berekiah, made repairs opposite his living quarters, and next to him, Melchizedek, one of the goldsmiths, made repairs as far as the house of the temple servants and the merchants opposite the inspection gate, and as far as the room above the corner. Between the room above the corner and the sheet gate, the goldsmiths and merchants made repairs.
Oh, I'm literally sweating. That was... Amen. Should we go home now? That was it. That was a workout. All right. So, we all got what happened there, right? Everyone understands... Yes, exactly. A lot of guys did a lot of stuff. So, in this chapter... Yeah, let me just break that down a little bit without the names. They're great. They're in history and great forever. But in verses 1 through 5, they're repairing the north wall. I'm going to paint a picture now. I wish we kind of had this... If we were there, this would make a lot more sense. We could just turn around and see. These are the sections that they did. So, verses 1 through 5, they repaired the north wall. In verses 6 through 13, they did the west wall. 14 through 15, the south wall. 16 through 31, the east wall. And that last verse is the eastern stretch of the northern wall. And so, if you're looking at a map of the city and you're standing there, you start at the top and they went counterclockwise, fixing everything. And some places of this wall needed to be completely rebuilt, while other sections just needed a lot of repair. And there was also a focus on 10 gates as the gates are a vulnerable spot for the city. And so, as they're thinking of repairing everything and protecting themselves again, walls and gates, everything gets fixed. Now, besides recounting who did what and how it was rebuilt, I think there are some other observations that are really helpful as we look at this chapter. And that's where I want to spend the rest of our morning.
And the first observation is that there was unity in the rebuilding effort here. The walls and gates, this was extensive work. This isn't easy. We're not talking about a small gate like in your side yard. We're talking massive city gates, massive walls. As we talked about in chapter one, some of these places where houses were built into the wall. So, these are significant projects that they're taking on and everybody had to pitch in and make it happen. This was all hands on deck and they were able to accomplish so much because they were all bought in. They were giving their all to this monumental project. And let me ask you this, have you ever seen the power of unity at work in something in your life where you've seen a lot of people come together unified over something and you've seen them accomplish something amazing? If you have, you would know that it's a pretty, it's a testimony to the power of unity to see a bunch of people come together, maybe from all different backgrounds, working on one thing and seeing that thing get done. I want to share a bit of my own experience with that. In 2011, I got to go overseas to do some missions work in Greece. And I was working a lot with refugees in the city of Athens. But for two weeks of that time, we did work with something called Operation Joshua, which is an organization that has the goal and the mission to see every single household in Greece have a New Testament in their modern Greek language. If you know anything about the Greek language, there's old Greek and there's new Greek. And so there are old Bibles. It's not that the Greeks have never heard Jesus, they obviously have. But not a lot of people have the New Testament Bible in their modern language. And so, this happens every year, it started in 2008. And for two weeks, every year, this organization gathers people from around the world to help distribute these Bibles. And Greece is divided into provinces. And so each summer, they take on a couple of different provinces. And I just want to share kind of the extent of this project. It's amazing. I was a part of this team. And so the two weeks, the first week is all about gathering the resources. So we are in assembly lines on tables. We're at this campsite. And I was blessed enough to be in Corinth, where the book of Corinthians is addressed to. And so we're in this campsite and we have pallets of pallets of Bibles. And we unpack the Bibles and we're on this long assembly lines. You take out a Bible, you're putting it in a bag with other information, and it's going down the assembly line. You're bagging it back up, putting it back in boxes. And we're doing that for five whole days. And the second week is when we distribute those Bibles. And so we are getting all those boxes in the morning. You wake up, you get into a car, and it's all mapped out as to who's going where and drivers and everything. And we're loading the trunks of these cars with as many Bibles as we can pack. And then we all sit, all five seats, if we're taking a car, we're filled. And then you sit down and someone's putting more Bibles on your lap. And so you can't even see through the windows because we were just packed with Bibles. And you go out all day and we would go from places like Sacramento, where we're in a city, and we're going to apartment complexes and just leaving a bag on every door, to the same day we could be going out to, you know, heading out, what would look like heading out to Jackson. And you're just on dirt, you know, small roads. And then you find a dirt road and it's like, "Oh, I think there's four houses up there. We're going to go up that dirt road." And so just distributing Bibles everywhere. And we come back and at night, these are people from all over the world. So we're on these assembly lines or we're in these cars with people from the US, from Canada, from other places of Europe, South Africa, Australia. And then at night we come together and we sing praises all in our own tongue. And we're singing praises, we go to bed and we do it all over again. I just want to share some. In 2011, in those three provinces, we reached over 390,000 people. We had 269 volunteers. We gave away over 100,000 New Testaments to over 866 villages. We drove over 72,000 kilometers, which I don't have that conversion, but it's a lot. And an update, so that was 2011. They started in 2008. They said that God has blessed them. This is the organization. I looked it up just to kind of see how far they've done in the past, so 10 years plus. And they said that almost 85% of the entire population has gained access to a New Testament in their modern Greek language. Just amazing, amazing work. And so today they've distributed over 1,500,000 New Testaments. They've reached over 7,600 villages, and they've driven over 700,000 kilometers with the help of 5,000 people from all over the world.
That was a blessing for me to see the unity of God's people come together to accomplish something so important, where every hand was needed, every footstep was needed to spread God's Word to these people. I'm sure that many of you have seen something similar, where God's people coming together to work and accomplish something for caring and loving and serving other people. Maybe even here at Spring Valley, if you've been here for a lot longer than I have, longer than Pastor Chris, you can think back to things like the car clinic or trunk or treat, or even what we do today, which is our fireworks showcase, where we are all working together as a church and loving people in our community, reaching people for the sake of the gospel. The point is that when we work together, there is power in being unified and striving for God and His kingdom. The people in Nehemiah's time were unified in a powerful way, and things were getting done. They were no small projects. How did the unity impact what they were working on? Have you ever come across someone who's in the zone when they're working on a project? You might be talking to them, they can't even hear you. They're so focused. They're hyper-focused on what they're doing, whether it's a project around the house or they're at work. You're like, "Hey, hello, I've been talking to you." And they're like, "Oh, sorry, what? I'm in the zone." This is what Israel was doing. They got to it. All the people were on the same page. They all had that rhythm. They were getting so much done. So one of those moments where the unification brought them to a different level and they were able to take on a major rebuilding project. So there was unity and there was power in their unity. Now, while the majority of people were unified, there were still a few who were reluctant to join in the effort.
This brings us to our second point, which is that there was opposition from within. In verse 5, there's a few nobles who do not want to partake in the rebuilding of the walls and the gates. It's the only time in this passage where there is opposition. And this time from within, in the last couple of chapters, we've talked about opposition from the surrounding nations, seeing that Israel's rebuilding. They don't like this threat that Israel could be. But now from within their own people, there is opposition. And scholars think that they didn't want to join Nehemiah because it would give their opponents a reason to attack. "Hey, if we're getting stronger, then we might actually go to war and we don't want to go to war." They also think that maybe it's just their pride. Everyone was getting involved and maybe these nobles thought highly of themselves. They're like, "I don't want to get dirty. I don't want to do that work. I'm used to being up here, high class. I haven't done that work since I was a kid. I don't want to do it." Either way, if it was pride or if it was fear, their opposition is working against what everyone else is doing and what the people are trying to accomplish. And now before we are so comfortably looking at disgust at these nobles and saying, "Oh my goodness, these fools," we should be honest and look at ourselves, right? And say sometimes, and admit, sometimes it's easier to oppose things than to be unified. Sometimes opposing something is convenient or it just might be lazy. Whereas being unified is a choice. It takes effort to get on board with something, to choose to be unified with someone else. Sometimes opposing them is just, it's easier. It's convenient.
You ever find yourself being a contrarian in conversation, maybe with your spouse or with your family or with friends? You don't really set out to, but all of a sudden someone points out like, "Why are you disagreeing with everything I'm saying? Why are you putting down every option that I'm throwing out? You're just saying no. Why are you, I'm trying to, we're all being positive here and you're the only one being negative and you're like, "Oh, I don't even, I'm just, I don't know why. I'm just being a contrarian. I'm just opposing everything that's happening." And again, sometimes it's just easier. Maybe that's where our heart is at. But I think if we were to look at that, being in opposition to what's being unified, it's a heart issue and it's a matter of pride. And pride is the number one source of divisiveness. Just like the noble showcase for the rest of the people of Jerusalem, I'm sure we've all seen how someone's pride causes divisiveness in a group of people. And it can be devastating. It can leave behind a wake of hurt and ruin. This is especially true of the church. Now perfect unity in the church won't happen until heaven. And in fact, in times it can be very difficult for the church to be unified. It's such an issue that Paul addresses this over and over and over again in his epistles to the early churches. And he speaks to the threat that pride and divisiveness are to the church and to the mission of God's people. And the answer, he says, is to humble oneself and to submit to Christ. To lower yourself, to humble yourself, and to submit to Christ. He says we shouldn't settle for what is convenient or easy, but make the effort, make the choice to be unified with God, with his church, with others. And that means humbling ourselves and submitting to God. This is exactly what so many of the people that we read, all those names, so many of them did. They were working on the walls and the gates. They humbled themselves. They submitted to the plan and the leadership that was given to them by Nehemiah that got it from God.
And so that leads us to our third point, which is they were leading, for the rest of the people, many of them were leading by example, what we call servant leadership. Besides those few nobles, we see so many in this chapter who are choosing unity, choosing to lead by example, and choosing to serve the larger community by getting to work. We have in verse 7, people from various towns outside of Jerusalem. In verse 8, people from various professions. They're not all wall builders and gate repairers. No, these are just people with their own jobs who are coming together to get a project done. We see in verse 9 that there's government leaders. Verse 12 shares that there are entire families working on sections. Verse 21, we even have faith leaders. Everyone was on board, willing to lead by example. Now we can't interview these people, obviously, but I bet if we were to ask them about their attitudes during this rebuild, they would come across as excited, as eager, and as enthusiastic to help out with this project because none of them saw themselves, besides those nobles, as too big for this job. They understood what was on the line. We've been talking about unity this morning, and the leaders in this chapter led in a way as to encourage others to rally behind them. They led in a way that invited participation. Come follow me. Do as I do. They're servant leaders. I want you to think, can you think of a time when you experienced a leader impacting for the positive, the unity of the group that you were a part of? Maybe, hopefully, by the way that they were leading and how they were doing whatever the project was or whatever the task was at hand because they were involved. I'm sure you can think of a time when you experienced a leader who led by example. Servant leadership is key for me. When I'm following someone, I'm much more likely to respect them and to follow them if I see them doing the very work that they're wanting me to do.
I grew up playing sports. Soccer was a sport that I played the most. I can recall a time. It was my junior year. I was on varsity. The guy who I played defense. At the very beginning of the season, this guy broke his leg. I got a start. I was very intimidated. I was not that gap between maybe being a junior and a senior. I just was like, "Man, these are all guys who are just really good. I'm pretty good, but I'm not at their level." But being thrust, "Hey, you got to start." We were getting into playoffs, and there was a team that was very physical. Our whole defensive back line, I'm going to try not to be technical here, was playing very soft. The other team was kind of halfway. They were passing the ball wherever they wanted. At halftime, it was still tied, but you could tell that we were just feeling stressed out. We're like, "This team is really good. I don't know if we can do this." We come back out at halftime, and the captain, I really appreciated our captain, he kind of gathered the players and said, "Hey, be more physical. You guys got this. Step up, be physical, shove them off the ball, do all this stuff." We're like, "Okay." He didn't just tell us that because after the whistle blew, the second half started, and within that first five minutes, we all saw our captain doing everything that he just told us to do. He was not football tackle, like soccer. It's a good soccer tackle. Tackling the ball, tackling people, getting the ball, winning the ball back, shoving people shoulder to shoulder, and all of us were like, "We can do this. We got this." Because we saw him do it, we knew that he was serious, and he led the way, we all got on board, and we ended up winning that game, and it was great. But I think of leadership by example, I think of him of like, he didn't just tell us. He didn't just instruct us. He said, "Watch me do it too. I got this. Follow me." Servant leadership is the most effective style of leadership, and the leaders of the city of Jerusalem understood that, and so they were on board to help out with the rebuilding of this city. Even from the very beginning in verse 1, we see Elias ship Israel's high priest, which means he would have been the top leader of Israel at this time, and he didn't let his position prevent him from getting his hands dirty and rebuilding that wall. Now, of course, we can't talk about servant leadership without speaking of the one who did it best, the goat, Jesus. He came not to serve, but to, he came to serve, not to be served, and he led his disciples by telling them how to follow him, not just physically, "Hey, follow me wherever I go." No, "Do as I do." Talking about our community group. So servant leadership is exactly how Christ lived, and it's exactly what he's called us to do. And servant leadership not only keeps us humble, but it's inviting too. It invites others to get on the same level that we're at, saying, "Hey, see what I'm doing? Come join me in this." Living like this, serving like this, loving others like this. Our chapter today was full of, yes, difficult names, but people who were servant leaders, who held high positions and said, "I'm getting to work. Who else is going to join me in that work?" I'm thankful for a chapter like this in our story where the names can be praised for the work they did together. And despite inner opposition, they served each other as they were unified in this rebuilding project.
And so I want to end our time with just a few questions to help us reflect on the truths that we've heard today. And the first question is this, what area of your life needs the support of God's people? What area of your life needs the support of God's people? There are things in this world that we cannot do alone. Just like Nehemiah could not have rebuilt the wall by himself. He needed to get the people on board. There are things that are done best when everyone comes together to help. Now we're in a society that tells us otherwise. In America, they really value someone's lone ability to achieve something all by themselves. But as this story shows, there are things where it's not only better, but the support of others is needed. It's truly needed. And so what area of your life needs the support of God's people? Needs the support of the church, of this church, of the people around you?
Secondly, what would it look like to meet people's needs even when we don't feel like it? If our lives were ever to be written out into a testament, we do not want to be the nobles who said, "Our names are the ones that didn't want to get our hands dirty, who didn't want to do the work." So what would it look like to meet people's needs even when we don't feel like it? Sometimes we avoid getting involved when there's clearly a need or helping out. Maybe we don't feel equipped. We're like, "Hey, that's out of my scope. I don't know how to do it, so I'm just going to let them go through that. God bless." Maybe we simply just don't feel like it. It's an inconvenience. We have a lot of stuff going on in our own lives, and we're like, "I just don't have the time. I wish I could, but I'm not going to." Maybe it's just a pride issue. Sometimes it's easier to stick to our own business because things can get messy with other people, and we don't like messiness. Or pride. Pride can be difficult to let go of. But what would it look like to meet people's needs even when we don't feel like it? To take on that servant leadership role, to choose unity, to choose to support, to love one another and carry each other's burdens as Christ has called us to and as Christ does for us. So what would that look like for you in this next week? As you go about, what opportunities might God be laying before you to say, "This is an opportunity to help out someone.”
Lastly, do you feel like you have a valuable role to play among God's people? Do you feel like you have a valuable role to play among God's people, amongst this church? Then let me tell you that you absolutely do. We need you, and you need us. We need the church. We need each other. God made you with a purpose and a reason. And a part of that was to be a partner with God and a part of his church family. And if you're hearing this today, then it's for Spring Valley Church. Now, the enemy loves to try and tell you otherwise, to get you to doubt your purpose or to inflate your pride and think that you're more important than maybe you really are, to trip over yourself. But you have a place, you have a role, you have a purpose in God's kingdom. And if that's what the Spirit is emphasizing to you today from this sermon, then we'd love to hear that. So come find Pastor Chris or myself after the service. And if you want to share with us that, just feel affirmed that God has a purpose, or if you're wondering, "What is my role? What can I do? I want to be a part of this church in a bigger way. How do I do that?" We'd love to talk to you. But you have a role among God's people. And I pray that you would feel that, you would know that, you'd be secure in that, God's purpose for you. I'm going to close with this. Our prayer is that everyone comes to know that they can play a part in serving God's people. And we pray that hearts are inspired to serve alongside each other. And our desire as a church is to see changed lives as the church grows in unity through the love that we have for other people and how we serve one another. I would love, theoretically, if there was a book written about Spring Valley Church, that everyone in this room, all of our names would be in a chapter like this, with ways that we served each other. This person did this. This person served in this way. This person supported the church by doing this. What a beautiful picture of a church, of God's intention for His family, for His people.
Let's pray. God, thank you again for your word and for your instruction, for your encouragement. And God, as we seek to live for you, I pray that you would reassure us in our hearts that we have value, that we have a purpose, that you mean for us to be exactly where we are. And God, as we're where you want us to be, I pray that you would help us to understand and know what it is you want us to do, how you want us to serve, how you want us to love, how we can support each other. And God, maybe also we're on the other side of that, where we need the support, we need the love of other people. I pray that you would help us to let down our walls and to let people in, to ask for help, ask for prayer, ask for support. Say, "God, I can't do this alone. I shouldn't be doing this alone. I need my church family with me." God, as we go about this week, make those opportunities where we can serve others so clear, give us the strength, give us the words to say, guide us with your spirit so clearly. And may you get all the praise, God. We pray this in your name. Amen.