This is a written version of my sermon from last Sunday on Nehemiah 7-8.
In the early parts of Nehemiah, one theme seems to get hammered home “walls are important.” If you are trying to put together kids clubs activities, that can become a challenge. There are only so many different ways you can build a wall each week. I think our kids club have done the range, there’s been the obvious use of Lego bricks, I think we might have had beicks made from paper. Well, last Sunday we built a wall out of people. You see, walls mater but people matter more.
This should have started to become clear as we looked at Nehemiah 5 and 6. Physical walls might see off the danger of a military attack or thieves and wild animals but were not a defence against poisonous words intended to discourage. Nor can walls deal with opposition from within when God’s people instead of loving and caring for each other look out for themselves and even trun on one another.
So, people matter. In fact, a specific people matter. When you become a Christian, it’s not just something that happens to you individually on your own. You are brought into a community, into a family. This matters because we all long to be safe and satisfied, protected and provided for and we find that together as part of God’s people, The Church.
Find protection as part of a community of God’s people who look out for each other (ch 7)
God gives particular responsibility to specific people (v1-3)
The completion of the walls is marked by the setting up of doors in their place. There’s still more to be done. Gatekeepers, musicians and Levites are appointed to post. It’s fascinating that there seems to be an overlap with city roles and with temple roles, it is possible that what we are seeing here is that the temple officials are being asked in an emergency to take responsibility for wider guard duties. However, we may also note that the city in effect acts as an extension of the temple, whilst the temple and those involved are responsible for the care of the people, their provision and protection. There is an overlap between the spiritual and practical elements to this.
On a side note, there is a reminder here to those involved in leading worship, singers, musicians etc that you have an important responsibility to care for the spiritual well-being and safety of the congregation. It isn’t just down to the elders and those preaching/teaching.
Nehemiah also appoints a governor of the city, Hanniah, a military commander who is trustworthy. This reflects the continuing state of conflict and so the times when the gates are opened are limited. God appoints leaders, elders, deacons etc in his church with specific responsibility for caring for the church family. We as elders have a particular responsibility, like Shepherds to ensure you are fed with God’s Word and kept safe from danger.
Whilst there are those with specific responsibilities, we are all responsible for each other.
How do we do this? Well, it’s by being alert to where the danger can come from. We’ve seen how opposition was coming from the outside from Sanballat, Tobiah and Gershom but also from division within as the nobles were exploiting the people.
So, part of our responsibility is to be alert to outside danger, this means being aware of how the devil can tempt us about how there is so much in the culture of the world around us that can distract us but also about how the enemy can get in through “false teachers and false shepherds.” Elders have a particular duty to warn of those dangers.
There are ways too in which we can be looking out for one another. What about when something seems to have taken over as a priority in someone’s life, work, health, fashion, a hobby. All good in their place but when they become all consuming, they become a danger. What about looking out for each other when someone seems down and discouraged.? Can you check in with someone to make sure they are okay? Can you send them an encouraging message or meet up with them to see how they are doing?
We all have a part to play (v4-73)
The city remains largely unpopulated. Nehemiah talks in absolute terms about “no houses” having been rebuilt. This is perhaps hyperbolic given that we know that some of the earlier returnees had focused on their own homes at the cost of rebuilding the temple. However, the vast majority of homes remained unrepaired and neighbourhood unpopulated. This perhaps gives further evidence of the divisions between the wealthy nobility and the rest of the people in v chapter 5.
So, under God’s direction, Nehemiah begins to gather and organise the people, registering them and organisation them around their tribal heritage. Note, that this causes some difficulties because some of them can’t find their records but they are still part of God’s people even if it is going to take time before they can identify their exact role and where they fit in.
I’m tempted to suggest that this offers one of the earliest cases for church membership. Certainly, there is an important sense of knowing that you belong to the community of God’s people and are accountable to one another. For the returning Jews, knowing their history was important. Now, we are not interested in genealogies in that way, we don’t get into God’s family through our parents or grandparents’ faith. Rather, the important question is whether or not you are in Christ and adopted into God’s family.
It is worth saying that the crucial thing here isn’t so much that there are different tasks to do, rather, it is the togetherness of a people who genuinely are God’s people because of their shared heritage and inheritance. They are being gathered and brought in together for a specific purpose.
2. Find provision as part of a people who hear and obey God’s Word (7:73b-8:18)
What do the people do when they’ve been gathered, counted, listed etc? They do something very simple but also important and profound. They gather to listen to God’s Word. Ezra the Scribe is asked to come and read out the Law to them (the Torah or first five books of the Bible). As he reads it, he carefully explaisn what it means (just like we do in our sermons).
The Torah will do two things. Thirst it will remind them of their identity, who they are, where they came from and how they got to where they were. Secondly, it will tell them how they are meant to live now as God’s people.
So, when they hear it read, they are cut to the heart. It seems that they are grieved because it convicts them of their sin. I believe this is both that they realise that what has happened to them, the destruction of their city, the devastation of their land, the exile of their people has been cased by their own sin as a nation. Secondly, they realise how far short they still fall.
However, Nehemiah and Ezra reassure and encourage the people that this is not a time for mourning and fasting. God’s Word is intended to encourage, strengthen and reassure them. Just as the walls have been rebuilt, so they as a people need rebuilding too. To make this clear and visible, he encourages them to make it a time of feasting (v9-12).
With their stomachs full, they return, ready for the long haul of listening to and being built up by God’s Word. There’s an intensification to this, as the heads of families come and take a lead ni listening and studying, ready to keep on teaching their families. They do this at “The Feast of Tabernacles”, hence they build booths to stay in. Feasting and remembrance go hand in hand with hearing God’s Word. That is why we need both communion and preaching in our services. The festival was significant because it marked the time in the Wilderness. Just the people of Israel needed that time between Egypt and the Promised Land in order to get Egypt out of their systems and to learn to live in God’s presence, so too the returning Jews needed to get Babylon out of their systems and learn how to live in God’s presence again.
And that is a big part of what it means for us to be God’s people together. Now, te whole of your life is worship and we don’t stop being church when we head back to our neighbourhoods. However, there is something important about coming together and through all of the means given us, worship, prophecy, communion, the preaching of God’s Word and fellowship together, we are being reshaped, getting the culture of this world out of our system and feeding on Christ so that we are better able to live as God’s people in his presence.
So for us, there are particular responsibilities here.
- First, we need to make sure that we identify people who are gifted and able to teach God’s Word well. We want this to be happening throughout church life not just up front on Sunday, more small groups, more children and youth workers etc.
- We need to learn how to be good hearers so that we are paying attention to what is taught and engaging, studying for ourselves, following up on teaching.
- We need to be teaching our families God’s Word. Don’t leave it all up to the kids club team!
- We need to be using the different gifts God has given us so that as a whole church we are hearing clearly what God has to say to us.
- We need to engage fully with all the means that Christ gives us to grasp and understand his grace to us. This includes communion and baptism.
Safe and satisfied in Christ
In Nehemiah’s time, protection and provision would be found within the physical walls of Jerusalem. Their experience then has provided a helpful analogy for us. However, there is a risk if we stop at those practical lessons.
First, the risk is that we can think that there are some methods to go through, having the right structures, the right programmes for church. We will be okay if we have the right number of church services, the right type of midweek groups. Don’t get me wrong, life groups and Sunday gatherings are brilliantly helpful but we can turn these into a kind of legalism.
Secondly, the risk is that we invest all of our hope in other people, in the church as an institution, in a specific pastor, in friends at church. This leads to disappointment when others let us down.
The bigger picture is meant to be that the Church are a people united together in Christ as his body so that we find true safety and satisfaction in him. The church is an expression of the provision and protection we need but it is his provision and protection. He is the good shepherd who keeps us safe, he is the lamb of God, the food that satisfies.
Faithroots 