Everybody's God A Job

Open your Bibles to Nehemiah 2, if you got them and you want to read along with me. Otherwise, I'll put it here on the screen if you want to follow along that way. Nehemiah 2, verse 17. Listen as I read it for us. Then I, Nehemiah, said to them, You see the trouble that we are in, how Jerusalem lies in ruins with its gates burned. Come, let us build the wall of Jerusalem, that we may no longer suffer derision. We jump down to chapter 3, verse 1. And next to them, Merimoth, the son of Uriah and Hachos, repaired. Next to them, Meshulam, the son of Berechiah, son of Meshezebel, repaired. And next to them, Zadok, the son of Baanah, repaired. And next to them, the Tekoites repaired, but their nobles would not stoop to serve their Lord. Joadah, the son of Passiah and Meshulam, the son of Besodeah, repaired the gates of Yashinah. Verse 7, and next to them repaired Melatiah, the Gibeonite, and Jadah the Marathonite, or however you say that. The men of Gibeon and of Mizpah, the seat of the governor of the province beyond the river. Next to them, verse 8, Uziel, the son of Harhaiah, goldsmiths, repaired. Next to him, Hananiah, one of the perfumers, repaired. They restored Jerusalem as far as the broad wall. Next to them, Rephaiah, the son of Hur, ruler of half the district of Jerusalem, repaired. Next to them, Jadiah, the son of Harumphah, repaired, opposite his house. Next to him, Hatush, the son of Hashabaniah, repaired. Verse 11, Malchijah, the son of Harim and Hashub, the son of Pahahophmoab, repaired. Another section in the Tower of the Ovens. Next to him, Shalom, the son of Haloshesh, ruler of half the district of Jerusalem, repaired. He and his daughters and all of God's people said, What? What in the world are we supposed to get out of a list of names like that? Great question. This is the Word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. Thanks be to God indeed. You may be seated. You may be seated. It can be difficult, to say the least, to figure out what exactly you're supposed to do with a passage like this one.

How many of you, how many of you have ever had the experience of getting into a Bible reading plan? You're all amped up. This is going to be the year that you read through the Bible and everything is going great. And then you hit a list of names like this one. Usually it's the end of Exodus, start of Leviticus. And if you somehow manage to keep your head above water during those books, then Numbers pushes you under for the coup de grace. And it's like when you were a kid and you were running toward the ocean and you were running at full speed and you hit the water. It's like you're suddenly trying to run through cement. Y'all, so many resolutions to read the Bible, wither and die in biblical list of names like this one. Am I right? Other people in your small group are talking about their quiet times and how much they're getting out of them. And they've got tears in their eyes. And you're like, I've been reading about a bunch of mare moths who begat some mushulams. And I'm pretty sure I fell asleep somewhere in the middle of all of it. And I've gotten zero edification out of my quiet time the last few days. I will freely admit to you that when I get the list of names like this in my Bible reading, I start skimming. And, brace yourselves, I think that's fine. I do not feel guilty about that at all. But, but, these lists do serve important purposes in your Bible. And you need to understand what those purposes are. And then after you understand the purpose for a particular list, then you can skim a little. Let me first remind you historically what is going on in the book of Nehemiah. Nehemiah leads the third part of a three-wave restoration project that God is bringing to his people who have been in exile for right around 100 years. The first wave was led by Zerubbabel. Zerubbabel, 538 BC, had overseen the rebuilding of the temple, the restoration of public worship there in Israel. That is the first half of the book of Ezra is where his story is contained. The second wave, the second half of the book of Ezra, is led by Ezra himself. That's going to take place in 458 BC, who reacquaints the Israelites with the word of God.

of God. He literally reads the word of God over the people. After they've returned to Jerusalem, he explains the meaning of the word to them, and he calls them to obey it. And then, finally, we've got Nehemiah, who in 445 BC leads the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem, walls that will give the city cohesion and an identity, will restore order, and allow economic life to flourish in Israel again. One Reformer that I have not mentioned yet, by the way, who works alongside these guys, somewhere right around in here is a young lady named Esther. Esther served as queen there in Persia. Esther had been married to King Artaxerxes' father, Ahasuerus. King Artaxerxes being the king that's mentioned in Nehemiah 1 and 2 that Nehemiah serves. In fact, some scholars suggest that the queen who's listed in Nehemiah 2, verse 6, they suggest that queen is Esther. It certainly would have been possible that she was still alive even after her husband had died, and it's very likely she could have been sitting on the throne. Scholars say the fact that Nehemiah somewhat randomly mentions the presence of the queen in verse 6 suggests that she had some kind of special significance to him, and that might have been because she was a fellow Jew named Esther. Either way, Queen Esther had stood up in the government to protest a racial genocide that was being planned against her people, which leads me to our first observation. Number one, God's plan of restoration involves spiritual awakening. That's going to happen through Zerubbabel and Ezra. It involves social reform. That's going to come through Esther, and then it's going to cause economic flourishing. That's what you see here

in Nehemiah. Tim Keller says, leading the return from the exile, you've got male and female. You've got lay and clergy. Clergy would have been Zerubbabel and Ezra. Lay would have been Nehemiah. You've got people working for spiritual maturity, people working for economic flourishing, and people working for better public policy. God uses them all in his restoration project. God is interested in all three spheres, and God calls his people to all three spheres. Now, the spiritual always comes first. That's intentional. Zerubbabel and Ezra came first. In fact, the preacher Tony Evans says, this is what made the civil rights movement in our country so effective and enduring. The civil rights movement was not perfect, Dr. Evans says, not by a long shot, but movement leaders often prayed before they marched, and they put God and his vision of justice in the world at the center of everything, which gave their movement not only a transcendent purpose, it also gave it an enduring permanence. But, Tony Evans goes on to say, leaders in the movement did not stop with the spiritual. They didn't merely preach sermons and pray. They went on to press for social change. You see, wherever the gospel is preached and believed, social reforms always follow, and then that is followed by economic flourishing. There's an economist named Barry Asmus who co-wrote a book with theologian Wayne Grudem called The Poverty of Nations. I would highly commend this book to you, in which they demonstrate that in societies that adopt a Christian worldview, human and economic flourishing is consistently the result, and that is because they

demonstrate in this book, the Christian worldview is an expression of God's design, so it shouldn't surprise us that people flourish as they operate according to that design. It's like reading the owner's manual for a new dishwasher and then operating your dishwasher according to the manual. It's going to work best when you do it that way. Now, I know some of you hear that. You say, well, of course they say that. They're Christians and that's what Christians would say about their own beliefs. But listen, they are not alone in their findings. Noted British historian Tom Holland says the exact same thing. Tom Holland is not a professed believer. By the way, I'm talking about Tom Holland, the historian, not Tom Holland, Spider-Man. Okay, different guys. But Tom Holland says, you look through the best parts of Western history and you will find Christianity at the center of our best social reforms. The abolition of slavery, the rise of women's suffrage, child labor laws, universities, hospitals, the social safety net. It's not atheists, Muslims, or Buddhists that are leading those things. Those leading the way in those things were Christians. In fact, at the beginning of the 20th century, every single hospital in Sub-Saharan Africa had been started by a Christian mission. In fact, of particular interest to me was an article written by New York Times journalist, Nicholas Kristof. Kristof is an atheist, an outspoken atheist who writes a lot in the New York Times about ending human rights abuses around the world. In this article, he says that wherever he went in the world studying social.

reform, he couldn't get over the fact that just about everywhere he found reforms, he found Christians at the center of them. Hospitals, nonprofits, empowerment programs in poor neighborhoods, over and over and over he said, it was Christians driving the work. In fact, he admitted in this article, it drove him nuts because he was trying to commit secular people to care for the poor, but he had to admit that Christians had a centuries long headstart on him. Now, what is my point in telling you all that? My point is that just because you're not called to do what I do, to work in the church, to stand up here on the stage and teach the Bible, doesn't mean that you don't have a role in building a part of Jerusalem's walls. In manifesting Christ's kingdom here on earth, the gospel is gonna send a lot of you into places of social reform and places where you can promote economic progress, so-called secular jobs, jobs in medicine and education, helping people buy their first home. I'm not talking about just nonprofit work either. I'm talking about just things you do that bless your neighbor and help them live better. One of those spheres is gonna be the focus of your divinely placed burden. One of these spheres will be the focus of your Nehemiah dream. Now, let me just be clear, I do pray for a lot of you,

particularly you young adults or those of you in college, I pray that God will call a lot of you into church leadership. I've told you this, the number one predictor, Rodney Starr, the church historian says this, the number one predictor of the future of any Christian movement in history, it's not how big they are, how much money they have, how many baptisms, how good their preachers are, the number one predictor of any Christian movement in history is always how many young men and women they are raising up into full-time ministry. So I want us to do that really, really well, summit. Honestly, one of my pet peeves, don't get me started on this, is when people think that all the great leaders ought to go into business or government or law where they can make a lot of money and make a real difference, and then those who can't cut it in those arenas, well, they should just go into church work. Sure, I will admit this profession is not the most lucrative, I understand that, but I think some of the greatest leaders in the world ought to be going into God's church. I mean, what a calling, what a privilege. But my point is not all of you are gonna be called to lead in the church, but that doesn't mean God doesn't have a place for you on that wall, manifesting his kingdom.

So again, God's plan of restoration involves spiritual awakening, social reform, and economic flourishing. You need to figure out which one of those roles is your primary. Y'all, this is a core teaching principle here at The Summit Church. In fact, it's one of the core themes of my book, Everyday Revolutionary, I hope it's not news to you. God's plan for bringing renewal is about more than what I do up here in the pulpit. It starts here, but it unfolds through you in the community. I've pointed out to you, for example, that the first time, the first time in the Bible, the phrase fill with the Spirit is used, Exodus 31. First time, the Lord said to Moses, see, I've called Bezalel and I filled him with the Spirit of God, to what? To preach, to write worship songs, to pray in tongues. No, I have filled him with the Spirit of God with ability and intelligence, knowledge and all, craftsmanship, to devise artistic designs, to work in gold, silver and bronze and cutting stones for setting and in carving wood in every craft. Get your mind around that. Summit Church, the first time the phrase fill with the Spirit is used in the Bible. It is about a man's artistic and woodworking ability, not his preaching or praying ability. Bezalel was filled with the Spirit to be an interior designer.

God's plan of restoration involves spiritual awakening, social reform and economic flourishing. And that leads me to number two. God's plan of restoration involves everyone. When I read the list in chapter three, what stands out to me is the repetition of the words next to. Next to Eliashib were the sons of Hassanah and next to them was Merimoth and next to him were Shalom and his daughters, all of them working on different parts of the wall and most of them working on the sections that were right out in front of their houses. Commentators tell us that Nehemiah's point in presenting the list this way, it's to try to show us that everybody was involved. I was doing something, my neighbor was doing something and his neighbor was doing something and on down the line. Scholars say the way the work happens in Nehemiah, listen to this, is a culmination of the progression that we've seen building throughout the Old Testament. At the beginning of the Old Testament, when it started, God brought his plan into being mostly through selected individuals, spiritual superheroes like Moses or Joshua or Samson or Deborah, they're the ones doing all the work. But here at the tail end of the Old Testament, remember Nehemiah is the last chronological book written in the Old Testament. At the tail end of the Old Testament.

Now we're seeing, watch this, God start to use everybody in Israel to bring about his kingdom. You see, one of the things that's significant about Nehemiah 3 is what it doesn't say. It doesn't say, well, Nehemiah did this, and then Nehemiah ran over there and did that. Rather, it says this rando over here that you'd never heard of did this, and that lady over there whose name you don't know, she did that, and this guy's daughters, teenage daughters were working on this part over here. Everybody had a role in restoring Jerusalem. This diffusion of the work continued on in the New Testament. In Acts chapter two, when the Holy Spirit falls on the church, Peter stands up and says that that's a fulfillment of a promise that in the last days, God's Spirit would be poured out on all flesh, all believers, and then he says, your sons and your daughters will prophesy. Saying your sons and your daughters will prophesy means ordinary people. Every Christian is going to prophesy. You see, again, in the Old Testament, it was only special selected individuals who prophesied, people with names like Elijah or Isaiah or Jeremiah or Habakkuk, but now, Peter says, the spirit of prophecy has been given to all believers. Everybody's got a spot on the wall, a place they are divinely empowered for mission.

You have a role. Hear me, in the kingdom of God, there is no such thing as a passive consumer. It's like our friend David Platt always says, God did not save you so that he could sanitize you and set you on his sanctified shelf. No, he saved you so he could send you into service. A Christian who has not embraced his or her role in the mission has simply not yet fully embraced the call to follow Jesus. There's like Charles Spurgeon said it in an even more punchy way. When it comes to Jesus's kingdom, you're either a missionary or an imposter. A missionary or a mission field. There is no third option. Y'all, I tell you this all the time. The call to get involved in the mission of God, it's not a secondary call that you receive from Jesus. After you've joined the church and gotten small group and gone to seminary, and then at some point, Jesus is gonna appear to you like he did Moses in a burning bush and say to you, hey, now I want you to start serving me in my kingdom. No, the call to get involved in the mission was included in the initial call to follow Jesus. The very first call Jesus ever gave to follow him, Matthew 4, 19, Jesus said, follow me and I will make you a fisher of men. Which means when you accepted the call to follow Jesus,

you accepted the call to mission. There is no such thing as a person following Jesus who's not engaged in the mission because engaging in the mission is what it means to follow Jesus. You're either a missionary or an imposter, a missionary or a mission field. Thus we say, the question is no longer if you are called, the question now is only where and how. Every one of you is responsible to discern how God has designed you, to think about what gifts he's given you, what experiences he's led you through, how he has written your story, and then discern from that what he wants you to do specifically with that in his kingdom. The question is no longer if you're called, the question now is only where and how. In fact, I've told you before how God called me. It really did not come through a dramatic Damascus Road or Burning Bush experience. If there was anything dramatic about it, it was simply dramatic in the transformation of how I began listening for the call. I've told you this, I was a junior in college. I was pursuing a law degree. Things were going great. I seemed to be pretty good at it. A lot of doors were opening. I thought I could make a lot of money in doing this.

And I thought, well, if God wants me to do something else for his kingdom, then he will surely tell me. I'm ready for him to appear to me in a cloud. I will obey him if he tells me to do something like that. Other than that, I just plan on being a good Christian and making lots of money and donating to the church and living a Christian life. Well, my pastor in college told me, challenged me to read the book of Romans seven times. And on my seventh time through, one morning in my quiet time, so I'm reading the book of Romans. I've told you, I don't know how to fully describe what happened, but it just became real to me what it meant for people to die without Jesus. And it became real to me that there were still 2.2 billion people in the world who had never heard his name. And what I knew in my head, I suddenly felt in my heart. And it was a Nehemiah 2.12 kind of moment where suddenly my heart just got consumed with this realization of the lostness of the world. And I remember having this image in my mind, I've told you about it, where I'm walking down some railroad tracks and I discover one of the railroad tracks is a young child who's hurt and unable to move, who's still alive, but here comes a train. And I remember thinking, you know, if that were the actual situation, I don't think I'd get down on my knees

beside the railroad tracks and say, Lord, would you just show me what your will is in this moment? Lord, just. Just give me a peace, just give me a sign, Lord, show me. I just beg you, God, just show me. And open my Bible randomly and point to some verse. No, I'd be like, no, you dummy. You know what God's will is in this moment. Rescue the kid. That's obvious. And I was like, well, I know what God's will is when it comes to the world. He's already told us. So I started to pray, Lord, show me what I'm supposed to do about that. Lord, show me what I can do. Here am I, Lord, send me. Since the Lord's saying to me something, in my spirit, he just said, now at last you are praying the right prayer. You see, up until that moment, I've been sitting around passively praying, God, if you wanna do something in my life, show me through a burning bush. When what God actually wanted me doing was actively praying, Lord, show me how my life can best be used for the spread of the gospel. Because the question's not if I'm called, the question's just where and how.

Y'all, we talk about finding God's will, newsflash. It's not lost. You don't need to find it. The Lord is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance, and he equipped you to do something about that. So like Jim Ellie, the missionary always said, you don't need to sit around waiting on a voice when you've already been given a verse. A voice is not as good as a verse. So I asked my pastor, I said, what am I supposed to do with this? He said, well, where are your desires right now? I said, I desire to teach the word of God, and I desire to take Jesus to nations where he's never been named. And that's what led me first to be a missionary, and then now to be pastor of your church. My point is every believer needs to ask God how his or her talents and gifts can best be used in bringing Christ's kingdom to earth. We need to go from passive willingness to serving God's mission, to an active pursuit in figuring out what divine desires God has put in our hearts, and what special gifts he has put in our hands. The question is no longer if you're called, question's only where and how. What's your role? What's your role?

Are you seeking something? Are you pursuing something? You know, I'm gonna be honest. Maybe some of you have just gotten accustomed to the brokenness around you. I mean, Pastor Dustin, who's our young adults pastor here, pointed out to me this week that a lot of these people mentioned in this chapter, Nehemiah 3, had been living in Jerusalem for 50 years before Nehemiah led them to start rebuilding the walls. Meaning they gotten used to the broken down walls. They'd walk past them every day and didn't even think about them anymore. Maybe you've gotten used to broken down walls in our city. Poverty, racial injustice, broken marriages, addicts, lost college campuses. Honestly, I feel that when people complain to me about the problems that are caused by our church's growth. Y'all listen to this. At most, at most, the max number of people involved in any significant way in the church, in church, in the triangle, in any church, 56%. And that is being really, really, really, really, really generous with what it means to be involved in a church or what even counts as a church. Right, I mean, drive down your street at 9.30 on a Sunday morning and see how many people aren't going to church. And you know, it's not 56% of the people in the triangle who are going to church every Sunday.

But even if it's the full 56% that are actively involved in a church, that means at least 44% of the people in the triangle are not Christians and would tell you they're not Christians. With a population of 2.4 million, that means there are at least a million people here who don't know Jesus. Have you gotten used to that? Have you just gotten used to that? Are you okay with the number of people that are going into a Christless eternity? Y'all, when we push you to invite people to Easter, that's not a vanity project for us pastors so that I can have a number to boast about. It's because literally hundreds of thousands of our neighbors are lost and need Jesus. Parts of our city are spiritual rubble. So people always ask me, Pastor, when are you going to stop pushing the Summit Church to grow? When's enough enough? And I'm like, when there's not a million lost people still in the triangle, that's when. I always say to these people, why are you so focused on the size of our church and not on the number of lost people in our community? We're not trying to grow a mega church. We're trying to reach a mega city. We're not trying to build an empire. We send out people on our resources all the time

to plant other churches. Sometimes right here in our backyard, like Redeemer Midtown that we just planted or Waypoint. So yeah, we're planting other churches, but we're never going to intentionally stop growing here. People said, well, you're just into growth and you're just all about the numbers. And I'm like, absolutely I am. I'm in the numbers of people saved and numbers of marriages restored, numbers of addicts delivered. What numbers are you into? Which of these people do you want us to stop reaching? I always say, yeah, maybe you're a little inconvenienced by the parking lot jam or how crowded the lobby feels sometimes, or maybe your favorite seat that you sit. and our service got taken by somebody else. But you know who loves a growing church? That parent of the prodigal son who just started to come back to church because he got involved with our young adults. Or that wife who's been praying for her husband for years and he's just started to come back to church and he's coming to Summit Church. They're grateful that our church created room for one more. Everybody's got a role and there's plenty to do. I know of an unmarried couple in our church who requested counseling with a married Christian couple because of an unplanned pregnancy.

There's just things everywhere. By the way, did you notice verse five? Kind of read right over it. And next to them, the Tekoites prepared. Their nobles would not stoop to serve their Lord. What you need to hear, what you need to read of that, God takes note. God takes note of those who do not serve. In every movement, y'all, every church, including this one, there's a group of people here who think they're just too important to get their hands dirty. Who enjoy the show, but don't want to help build the wall. I've known people here who told me, y'all, straight up with a straight face. They weren't working in kids' ministry. One married guy with kids actually told me, I don't want to volunteer in kids' ministry. Let the single people do that. I was like, get out of here. What, you want us to appoint you ruler? Are you a noble of the Tekoites? My son, Aden, my 16-year-old son, used a little phrase I love. He says, if serving is beneath you, leadership is beyond you. Every person, okay? Every person who considers his church home should be involved in some way in sacrificial serving and sacrificial giving.

Might I just very graciously ask you, if God were to make a list of those engaged in ministry here at Summit, how many of us would have an epithet like that one? Those nobles would not stoop to serve their Lord. And by the way, one more thing. Do I move on to number three? Did you notice that for a lot of these people, what they did was clearly outside of their skillset? Verse eight talks about perfume makers. Those dudes at some point in their life decided that outdoor physical labor was not for them. They were going into the fragrance industry, okay? And yet in this chapter, these dudes aren't making scented candles, serenity by Jan, or you know, that provide heavenly fragrances while you guys work. No, something like that. No, this was not the time for that. Help was needed on the wall. Listen, it's great to find a ministry that fits your passions and skills. And I wanna help you do that. I genuinely do. I hope you know that. I'm very committed to that. And we have not done a great job with that here, but hear me. When the kid's class is closed because of a lack of leaders,

well, that means somebody's not getting to hear the gospel and part of the wall is broken. And sometimes we gotta walk away from our perfume making and work on the broken part of the wall that's right in front of us. Everybody's got a role, right? Listen, we end every service here with three words. You are sent. Do you know what that means? Or you just think, well, he's sending us to lunch or he's sending us into that meat grinder they call a parking lot out there. And this is his way of saying, get out of here. That's not what we mean. The question is, do you know where you're sent into the mission? Where you're sent onto the wall? The question is no longer if you're called friend, the question is only where and how. Number three, in God's plan of restoration, we learned from this list that he rarely uses experts. Look again at that list in Nehemiah 3. One of the things that's gonna stand out to you is that none of the people Nehemiah lists are builders. There are priests and goldsmiths and perfume makers and somebody's teenage daughters. There are administrative bureaucrats and paper pushers, but not a single professional architect, carpenter or bricklayer is named. I need you to get your mind around this.

And by the way, those of you going with us to Jerusalem in the summer are gonna get to see this firsthand. But the most sacred city in the world, the city that has been fought over more than any other city in history was built by a bunch of people with no construction experience at all. At least the walls weren't. But y'all, that shouldn't be surprising, is it? God builds his greatest things always through ordinary people. That's a theme that runs cover to cover through your Bible, right? He chooses a couple of sterile geriatrics in their 80s when it's time to birth a nation into the world. He builds his church, not with 12 scholars or 12 accomplished governmental leaders. or 12 men who've built amazing businesses, or 12 rich guys. When it's time to build a church, he chooses 12 fishermen and blue collar workers. We're always inspired when we see a secular illustration of this, right? For example, the greatest actor of all time is Nicolas Cage, of course, but the second greatest actor of all time is Harrison Ford. Okay, Harrison Ford. And I think, Counter Reeves is a honorable mention at third,

but I think one of the things that I love most about Harrison Ford is his origin story. True story, in the late 1960s, Harrison Ford had some bit parts in a couple of shows like Gunsmoke, but nothing that paid much of anything at all. And Harrison Ford had a family to support. He had a wife and two young sons. So Harrison Ford taught himself carpentry. That was his job. And he got hired to build a door for George Lucas's office on the set of Star Wars. And during one of the casting sessions, George Lucas needed an extra who could read lines opposite the auditioning actors. In other words, he didn't want an actor. He wanted somebody to be a stand-in dummy so that the real actors could play off of him. So he asked this rando door-building guy to come in and read a few lines opposite these actors, and the rest is history. That is an amazing and rare story in Hollywood, but y'all, it is standard fare in the kingdom of God. God uses ordinary people, not spiritual superstars to build his kingdom. First Corinthians 127, Paul says it plainly. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. He chose what is low and despised in the world to bring to nothing things that are so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

God doesn't wanna use you if you think you're awesome because you're just gonna clog up the line. I remember hearing the great Southern Baptist pastor, Adrian Rogers, give an amazing illustration of this. I've never forgot it. He passed through a congregation of several thousand. They didn't meet in multi-sites back then. He just had kind of one congregation, one big service. So he asked several thousand people one Sunday morning. He said, okay. He goes out in this audience of several thousand. He said, if you were valedictorian in your high school, would you stand up? Handful of people stood up. He said, just remain standing for a minute. He said, if you were an all-American athlete, would you stand up? More people. If you went to a college on scholarships, if you were homecoming queen, if you were student body president, then starts going through this list of accolades that when you're young, make you awesome. When he gets done with his whole list of who's who type of accomplishments, about one fifth of the congregation was standing. He then had everybody look around. He said, look around, y'all. Clap, everybody clapped. He's like, these are the people that society has rewarded

and declared to be the best of the best. And then he looked at everybody standing up. He said, hey, I got good news for you. And I got bad news. He goes, the good news for those of you who are standing, the good news is that God can use you too. The bad news is you're not his first choice. All those people sitting next to you are his first choice. So I'm telling you, you better stop saying, God, I'm not trained. God, I can't do anything to help. God says, well, then you're the exact one I'm looking for. Because it's not about what you can build for me. It's about what I'm building through you In fact, I'd prefer you not be all that talented because then you try to take credit for all of it and be convinced your ideas are as good as mine. You're just gonna clog up the line. I wanna use people who plainly recognize that the power comes from me. That leads me to our fourth and final point. God restores his city through instruments of grace. Keep in mind, the people you're reading about in this list are the sons and daughters of the people who'd been exiled in Babylon because of their sin. They had a checkered past to say the least. Their families had been so faithless and so unbelieving that God literally kicked them out of the promised land. Maybe you can relate. Maybe you got a sordid past.

Maybe you come from a messed up family. Maybe you have things in your past you don't wanna talk about. Maybe you're just aware of what goes on between your ears throughout the week. And you wonder how could God ever use somebody like me? Broken, needy, prone to wander. Maybe you're divorced. Maybe you just got fired and it was your fault. Maybe you're a newly released prisoner. Maybe you're still in prison. Maybe you're still recovering from some mistake that has left you wounded. I've got good news for you, friend. God builds his church through bad, broken, messed up people. In fact, he builds his church only through bad, broken, messed up people because that's the only kind of people there are. Matthew makes the same point. In another list of names. that most of us aren't quite sure what to do with. It's the list of names that opens up the New Testament. It's the genealogy of Jesus, Matthew chapter one. I'm gonna read it to you, but I'm gonna try to take you through the emotional arc that Jewish people would have gone through when they read this list of names for the first time. Okay? I am not sure this is gonna work. I tried it at eight o'clock.

That was the first service I've preached this weekend and it was okay. They told me to try it in the second service, so I'm gonna do it again. But I'm gonna have you, as an audience, I'm gonna have you reflect their emotional arc. Here's how it's gonna work, okay? I'm gonna read the genealogy and when I give you a thumbs up, that means the Jewish people felt mostly positive about the person I'm naming. And so I want you to respond with applause. But when I give you a thumbs down, that means they were probably mostly embarrassed by this person, so I want you to boo or hiss. Preferably both. Boo, hiss, okay? And when I give you the waffling hand, I want you to say, huh? Because that means you don't have any idea who this person is and they probably didn't either. By the way, keep in mind, this is not our verdict on their lives. It's not God's verdict on their lives because there's a lot more to their stories than what you're gonna first see. I'm just trying to take you through the most likely emotional arc that Matthew's audience would have gone on when they first read this list, okay?

Again, I'm only 60% sure this is gonna work. You wanna practice? Can we practice? Okay, by the way, this is for everybody at all campuses, not just, it's Chapel Hill, North Durham, Blue Ridge, Garner. Y'all ready? Okay, here we go. We're gonna practice, remember? Okay, so when I go. Okay, good, okay, good. And when I go. Boo and hiss, that's right. And this. Okay, good. All right, here we go. Here we go. Let me find where it is. This is the list of the ancestors of Jesus Christ. A descendant of David who was a descendant of Abraham. That's a strong start. Abraham was the father of Isaac, a child born miraculously in Abraham's old age. And Isaac was the father of Jacob, the man who entered the Messianic bloodline by stealing his brother's birthright. Jacob was the father of Judah and his brothers who sold Joseph into slavery. And Judah was the father of Perez and Zarah, whose mother was Tamar,

the one who disguised herself as a prostitute and seduced Judah, who was her father-in-law, to impregnate her with Perez and Zarah, who were in that list I just mentioned. That's a big old. Ooh. And Perez was the father of Hezron, and Hezron was the father of Ram. Go Heels. No, I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Totally different. Ram was the father of Amminadab, huh? And Amminadab was the father of Nashon, who was the father of Salmon, who was the father of Boaz by Rahab, another prostitute, but a woman brave enough to defy her entire community and choose God when all of Israel was acting like a bunch of cowards. And Boaz was the father of Obed by Ruth, a great woman whose story is told in a book of the Bible, bearing her name. And Obed was the father of Jesse, who was the father of David, the greatest king of Israel. Except that David also stole Uriah's wife and had him killed. David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah, who was the father of Rehoboam, whose arrogance and stupidity led to a divided kingdom. And Rehoboam was the father of Abijah, who had 14 wives, ladies. That's right.

And Abijah was the father of Asa, a good king, but later disobeyed God and died of gangrene of the feet. Asa was the father of Hezekiah, who cleansed the temple and reestablished the kingdom. And Hezekiah was the father of Manasseh, who started off great and ruled for 50 years, but then turned evil in his final years. And Manasseh was the father of Zerubbabel, who rebuilt the temple. And Zerubbabel was the father of Abiud, the father of Achiom, the father of Eliud, the father of Eleazar, the father of Mathan, the father of another random Jacob. And that Jacob was the father of Joseph the carpenter, who was the husband of the Virgin Mary, of whom was born Jesus the Christ, the King of kings and the Lord of lords. All right. You get the point? You get the point? Up or down for next service? What do you think? Okay, mostly up. Okay. You get the point? All right, here we go. Somebody hissed. Matthew writes that genealogy that way because like Nehemiah, he wants you to see that God takes broken people and transforms them into instruments of grace. The list that closed the Old Testament is a group of messed up people. And a list that opens the New Testament is a list of messed up people. And what you see is others look at you and what they see is a messed up person. When they look at you, what they see is a moral failure. They see somebody whose life is riddled with mistakes. Maybe you think

you actually were a mistake. Maybe they look at you and they see an adulterer, they see a washout, they see a prostitute, they see a prisoner, they see a nobody. But what God sees is somebody that he plans to use to build an eternal city with foundations that can never be shaken. So let me just say it plainly for you guys in the back. God has a plan for your life. He wants to use you. In fact, everybody right now, just look at the person next to you, just look at him. He wants to use that person. Is that hard to believe? That person next to you is amazing. He wants to use him to do something with eternal significance. In fact, reach over right now and just kind of touch him. Just like touch him on the shoulder. They're special. That person is special. Can you feel it come off of them? And all it takes is simple, ordinary obedience. Just yielding yourself to the Holy Spirit to say, here my Lord, send me. Oh, here's how I want to close. I want us to zoom out again. And I want us to see Nehemiah's book from the perspective of the whole Bible. Because the reason these four things are true is because of what Nehemiah, the purpose it serves in the Bible. This book is not primarily about a man named Nehemiah putting up some brick and mortar on a piece of real estate in the Middle East. It's not even primarily a book about you and your dreams and how you can realize them. No, the book of Nehemiah is ultimately about a greater Nehemiah who would build a truly eternal city, a city of salvation and eternal refuge. By the way, there's a strong hint of that right at the end of chapter two. Look at verse 20, if you still got your Bible open. There were some outsiders, some foreigners who come to Nehemiah and they're like, what are you doing? Then I replied to them, Nehemiah said, the God of

heaven will make us prosper and we his servants will arise and build. But you foreigners, you got no right or claim in Jerusalem. See, the wording of that is striking to me. You foreigners have no portion or right or claim in Jerusalem. It's striking because God had said exactly the opposite about Jerusalem. He had promised that one day Jerusalem would be a blessing to every people group in the world and that foreigners from every nation on earth would come and find their salvation in Jerusalem. You see, this is clearly what Nehemiah is building is clearly not the Jerusalem God had in mind, at least not the ultimate version of it. The architect of the real Jerusalem, the real temple was not going to be born for another 400 years. And he was going to be born into a manger in Bethlehem, the truer and greater Nehemiah. He wouldn't turn away foreigners. He would welcome them in and say, come unto me, all you who labor in a heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. The Jerusalem that Nehemiah built was one that he fought to keep closed to outsiders. He put up a wall. The Jerusalem that Jesus builds is one he died to open up. Nehemiah built walls to keep the impure out of Jerusalem. Jesus tore him down so that whosoever will may come. You see, the truth is the verdict on all of our lives is thumbs down. But Jesus built a city and a temple where we could be saved by grace. You see, friend, this is the gospel. You can never be righteous enough, pure enough, good enough, talented enough to earn God's favor. There's nothing you could do or ever have done that would garner his attention and earn a place at his table. So what Jesus offers to you is his righteousness as a gift, a gift entirely of grace purchased for you by the cross of Jesus Christ. It is called gift righteousness, meaning it's not

righteousness you earn for yourself by being good enough. It's righteousness that God gives you as a gift purchased for you by the blood of Jesus Christ. And after you receive that gift righteousness, it's followed by gift power, not power that comes from your talents and your wisdom, but power that comes from just yielding yourself to the Holy Spirit. All of that is available to those who will simply receive those things as a gift of grace and not as a reward for personal awesomeness. This city, this city that we're building is not built by us. It's built by Jesus and its foundation. or grace. So my question is, are you ready to receive Christ's righteousness if you never have? And then, are you ready to receive Christ's power and purpose for your life? Because I will say it is high time for some of you to stop building your own city that's just gonna get destroyed one day and to give yourself to Jesus to be used by him to build his eternal city, which lasts forever. We're gonna end today by taking the Lord's table together. In fact, I would guess that for most of you, you've never done communion out of Nehemiah. But I think it's entirely appropriate. You open the bottom, you pull the bread out. See, a lot of times when we talk about communion, we talk about the bread. We talk about it like it's a visual aid, like it's a prop. It kind of reminds you of what Jesus did.

So when you feel it, you know, crunch in your mouth, it's reminding you how Jesus' body was broken. And that's true, that's part of what happens. There's a remembering. Jesus said, remember me when you do it. But see, communion is a two-way street, meaning there's something going from you to God, remembering, thanksgiving. But scripture says there's also something that's coming from him to you. The apostle Paul alludes to this in 1 Corinthians when he says, you participate in the body and blood of Jesus. What that means is that his presence is manifested to you in a very special way in this time. He promises to be present. That's why Paul says, don't you dare do it if you're not walking with Jesus. Yeah, we're all sinners. Not one of us is worthy of this. But Paul said there are some people in the church who get sick and some die because they eat unworthily. And what he means by that is they're not walking with Jesus and they're not gonna do it anyway. They're not surrendering to Jesus. You got some area of your life that you've never surrendered to him. You know it's not surrender to him. And Paul says, don't touch it. Don't touch it because you're about to touch something

that there's not just thoughts going from you to God. There's power that's coming around this. Taking this doesn't make you more saved. Doesn't make you more righteous. But the Holy Spirit invites you into a realization of it, a presence of it that is real. If you're not a Christian or you're not walking with Jesus, I would implore you, don't touch it. I'm not being mean when I say that. I'm not being exclusive because in fact, I got something better for you. What these things represent, you can receive Jesus. Right now, other people around you were taking the bread and the cup. You can actually receive Jesus. And that's what you should do. This is the city that God built. It was by grace for your sins. It was his spirit given to you. Jesus said, I want you to think often about how you live, how you stand, and how you succeed. As often as you take this, he said, do it in remembrance of me. And then Jesus held up the cup and said, this is your righteousness. It's a gift. It's not your blood that was shed for your sin. It was my blood. It's not your power. It's my power.

This city, this city is built by the blood and the power of Jesus. So Jesus said, as often as you do this, I want you to think about it and remember me. Stay in a posture here with me for just a moment and just receive, commune. That's why we call it communion because you're communing with the Holy Spirit. Let him whisper his promises of love over you. Let him point out inconsistencies and sins and invite you through him to come to him. If there's anybody here that's never received Jesus as Savior, now's the time to do it. Jesus, I surrender and I receive. May I ask you, if you would, at all of our campuses, I want you to stand to your feet. Stand here with me if you would. I'm gonna send you out to work on a mission. in whatever part of the wall that God has given you and assigned you to. As always, I'm gonna put prayer team members down at the front of every campus. They're here to pray for you. Some of you need physical healing, they're here for that. Some of you need to pray for salvation, they're here for that. Some of you need to pray for clarity on what God's calling you to, they're here for that. Some of you just have a need,

you need somebody to pray with, they're here for that. A lot happens as people are leaving, I get it, but we always try to reserve, they're a front down here at every campus just for a place that people who have a need can bring it to God, so you take advantage of that, okay? Summit Church, we gather, we gather for a few moments every weekend to just hear and rejoice in the grace of Jesus, and then we leave from here filled with the Holy Spirit to go and work on whatever part of the wall that he has assigned us to work on. So Summit Church, I charge you because of the power that's been given to you and the Holy Spirit, and because of the assignment that he's given to you in the heavenly city of Jerusalem, you, Summit Church, at all of our campuses, you are sent.