All Hands on Deck for the Year of our Lord

*The sermon manuscript below was generated from the recording by AI …

Well, if I was to ask those of you who are familiar with our Wednesday prayer night what is John’s favorite hymn, you’d probably all say number 285. I’m really sad he’s not here for this, because I’m gonna quote it. He’s gonna be really disappointed when he read- listens to the recording. Hymn number 285 says, “There’s a work for Jesus ready at your hand; ’tis a task the Master just for you has planned; haste to do his bidding, yield him service true; there’s a work for Jesus none but you can do.”

“There’s a work for Jesus ready at your hand; humble though it be, ’tis the very service he would ask of thee; go where fields are whitened and the laborers are few; there’s a work for Jesus none but you can do.”

“There’s a work for Jesus ready at your hand, precious souls to bring; tell them of his mercies, tell them of your King; faint not, nor grow weary, He will strengthen and renew; there’s a work for Jesus none but you can do.”

Do you believe it? It’s very easy to say it. Do we live like it? If outsiders would look at us, would they say, “Here is someone, here is a church, here is a people, here is an individual doing the work that Jesus has given them”? And I wonder, even when I say that, what comes to your mind? What is the work that you think of?

This is a strange chapter, isn’t it? It’s foreign. I mean, unless you happen to be an engineer or overly enthralled by archeology, this is a strange chapter. Bolts and bars and doors and walls and names. You get a bit lost in the detail, don’t you? And yet, this chapter has been given to us by our king, inspired by His Holy Spirit, so that we would be edified, so that we would be built up, so that we would be encouraged in the faith, so that we would do the work of our God, so that we would do the work that Jesus has made ready for us.

The people of Jerusalem are about to enter into a great work. We know that because in the last chapter, we were told in chapter 2 that the people came to a conviction. Nehemiah’s encouraging them, and then they say to him, “Let us rise up and build.” And you get this catchcry of the residents of Jerusalem. It’s not just the leaders. It’s as though one body of people in Jerusalem rise up and say, “Let’s do it. There’s work to be done. Let us not grow weary.” And this is going to be a great work, four and a half kilometers of wall. Approximately 10 to 12 gates, depending how many of them are destroyed. They, they guess somewhere between 8 to 12 meters high and 2 to 3 meters thick. This is a serious building mission, right? It’s not like our building missions. You know, we’re gonna build a new church, which means we’re gonna raise money, right? Because then someone’s gonna come with a contracting team and do the building for us. You will notice that there was not a single stonemason mentioned in the reading. There was not a single builder mentioned. There was no architects. There was no one that you might call a professional wall builder mentioned. There was just regular people mentioned. And they, and they will do this work, as we’ll find later on, in 52 days. In 52 days, they will accomplish an enormous feat.

And what I would like you to see tonight is that the principles at play in this passage are the very same principles that motivate us to seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, to labor for the Kingdom of God in our lifetime right now. And the first principle you must see is that old proverb, “Many hands make for light work.” Many hands make for light work.

I’ve never traveled there, maybe some of you have, but have you ever reflected on the pyramids or, or the Great Wall of China? Uh, monumentous, right? Now, you don’t have cranes, and yet the blocks that are used in the pyramid are huge, and you look at them and you think to yourself, “The scale. How did they do this?” And of course, you know the answer to that, don’t you? Slaves. When you’ve got lots of slaves, you can build all sorts of stuff, and they had lots of them. In fact, they had a whole nation of them. And the same thing with China, with the Chinese Great Wall. As the slaves died, they buried them in the wall. A convenient place to get rid of the bones, right? Lots and lots of hands enabled them to build great things.

Now, they had far less people in Jerusalem, and yet many hands made for light work. A- and what you need to see is that every soul has a part to play in building up the Kingdom of God. Every soul has a part to play in building the Kingdom of God. And, and so the first thing I want you to see in this is that there’s so many different types of people. Like, take, take just a few examples here. In verse 4, we learn about Meremoth and Meshullam. Now, M- Meshullam gets mentioned quite a few times, he takes a few different sections. Meremoth and Meshullam are 2 priests. And what’s striking about them is Meremoth is a descendant of one of the most corrupt priests in the Old Testament at the time of King Ahaz. Now, King Ahaz is the guy who goes to Damascus and basically just wholesale imports Damascene worship to Jerusalem. He shuts down the temple and establishes Damascene worship, and it’s Meshullam’s father, father, father, father that is the one that builds it all. He was the high priest of the temple, and he condoned sacrilegious worship. And yet, here is Meshullam. On the other hand, you’ve got Meremoth, who was from a godly line, and there’s no blight in his history. And so we see these 2 very different people, and yet side by side, what are they doing? Laboring for the kingdom. Their past doesn’t matter if they’re doing the work.

Or consider in verse 7. We get this group of people called the Gibeonites mentioned. I wonder if you guys remember who the Gibeonites were. A very important story in Joshua. You remember the people who go into the promised land, and as they go into the promised land, destroy Jericho and things are going well. And funnily enough, the home people start getting a little bit worried. and one group of people come from a very far away land. Say, “Ah, we’re not from around here. We’ve got moldy bread, and look, our clothes are worn out. We’ve come on a long journey.” they lie and deceive. It’s entitled the Gibeonite Deceit. Do you remember what happens? The people of Israel make a covenant with them, don’t they? They’re not Israelites, and yet God allows them to stay in the Promised Land, and by His providence, those people are here laboring in the midst of the people of God for the sake of the Kingdom of God. They’re outsiders. What part do they have in Jerusalem? Well, every part, because God’s included them. They’re outsiders, and yet now they’ve become insiders, and they labor for God’s kingdom.

And then another interesting one is in verse 17 to 18. We hear of this group of people called Keilah. You might say to yourself, “Well, who’s Keilah?” Maybe this one’s a little bit more of a random reference to you. But when Saul was trying to kill David, David fled to a place called Keilah, and he hid there, and he said to God Because he heard Saul was coming, he said, “God, should I stay here, or will the Keilaites hand me over?” And the Lord said, “Flee, because the Keilaites will definitely hand you over.” And sure enough, David flees, and the Keilaites immediately contact Saul and say, “We know where David is. Come and get him!” And they betrayed David, and yet here they are in the City of David, laboring for the sake of the kingdom. Israelites who at one time were on the wrong side of the fence, rebelling against God’s king, and yet here they are laboring for the City of God.

But there’s another one which is one of my favorites in verse 12. Next to him is Shallum, the son of Hallohesh. He’s a ruler of half of Jerusalem, and he repaired with who? His daughters. Now, in an egalitarian society, this is not very striking, because anything a man can do, you know the sentence, a woman can do better, right? And so we need to make sure that we’ve got equal balance of men and women in all of the important jobs and make sure that they’re fairly represented everywhere. And so when we hear of women doing things, it doesn’t really shock us, because it’s quite normal in our society, but this is very abnormal. Wh- why are there a group of daughters on the wall? I mean, you don’t hear of any other women mentioned in the passage, and yet isn’t it wonderful that Shallum gets to work and his daughters pick up their trowels and get out there with them. Why? Because they love the Kingdom of God, and they’re happy to get stuck in and labor, because there’s work to be done. They can’t just sit around making scones for the pastor all day. There’s a wall to be built. I hope you know that was a jest, by the way. There’s a wall to be built. There’s work to be done, and they’re there in the middle of it.

Now what does this all tell us? Well, it tells us that it doesn’t matter who you are. You have a part to play in the Kingdom of God. You might be a man or a woman. It makes no difference, the text says. The Kingdom of God needs you. You might be a foreigner who’s recently been converted, and yet you have a part to play. You might be a long historical enemy of God, and yet even for the Gibeonites, there is a place to work. Brothers and sisters, God does not exclude anyone based off who they are from kingdom work. If they are a citizen of the king, then there’s work to be done, and that’s an encouragement to us, isn’t it? Because sometimes we might be tempted to think, “Well, I’m not a, I’m not an important person. I’m small or I’m big. I’m old or I’m young. I’m a man or I’m a woman. I’ll leave the work to somebody else.” And the Lord says, “No. There’s work for you.”

And so, we see all these different types of people. And we could go on, but, but let’s have a look at the different types of positions we see at work here. In verse one, right out of the gate is who? The high priest. Now, if anyone had an excuse not to get involved, wouldn’t it be the high priest? “Well, brothers, I’ve got important ministry to do. I haven’t got time to be digging in cement and laying bricks. I need to be making sacrifices. I need to be praying for the people of God. I need to be ministering in the temple.” But do you notice who the very first person to put himself forward is? Eliashib, the high priest. And that’s the way it should be. Woe betide pastors and ministers who lazily sit in their studies and do nothing. Let them be leading. Look for men who will lead in the kingdom work. Oh, yes, there’s study to be done and prayers to be made, and that is more important, and that must be done, but that doesn’t neglect them from duty.

And there’s priests in there, isn’t there? All throughout the passage. We won’t read them, but in verses 2 to 4 and 21 to 22 and 28 to 30, priest after priest after priest. Now, this actually makes a lot of sense. It probably doesn’t click in your mind, because when you think of a priest, you probably think of old, skinny guys in long robes with funny hats. But priests in the Old Testament were, were buff. Why? I mean, have you ever tried butchering an animal? It’s hard work. Now, do it manually when you don’t have something to lift a carcass. It’s hard yakka work. The priests were strong, and they put their strength to good use, didn’t they? They labored for the sake of the kingdom.

But then we also see goldsmiths in verse 8 and verse 31 to 32. The goldsmiths are there. Now, smithing gold is very different than building a wall. I don’t know if you know that. Goldsmithing work is fine detail work. It’s not laying bricks. And yet the goldsmiths use their resources, and their time, and their efforts for the sake of something very outside of their field, because that’s what the kingdom needs.

But then there’s also And I, and I love this. This is probably one of my favorites of the position. There’s a perfumer in verse 8. Now, none of the others Did you notice there’s only one perfumer? I don’t know what the rest of the perfumers were doing, but they were obviously a little bit too delicate for wall-building. And so, we’re left with a perfumer. But one of the perfumers, he makes ointments and perfume and remedies. He, the, the word is kind of like an apothecary. And what’s he doing? He’s out there building a wall. He’s digging postholes. He’s carrying bricks. Now, for you who are townies, you probably won’t appreciate this as much. I can still vividly remember the first time my father made me dig a post line on the farm. He said, “We need to put a fence in here. Here’s what you do.” He showed me how to do it, and then he went off and did other work and left me. I thought, “Well, that’s not a problem. I can dig a hole.” And I dug the holes, but I tell you, by the end of the day, my hands were shredded to pieces, because they were soft, and my back was destroyed. And by the end of the week, it didn’t hurt so much. What do you think it was like for the perfumer, perfumer? He was probably a pretty soft, delicate person. And yet, there he is, throwing in his weight for the sake of the kingdom.

And there’s Levites, and there’s temple servants, and even the rulers are there. They’re mentioned in 9, verse 12, verse 14, verse 17, verse 18, verse 19. There’s rulers of Jerusalem, 2 of them. There’s rulers of Keilah. There’s rulers here, there’s rulers there, and yet, what? They don’t see themselves as too important as to come and do menial labor, do they? And don’t you love it when you see that? Nothing encourages my heart more than when I see Matthew and Rob stuck in working, cleaning table, doing dishes, sweeping up. Well, because the Lord Jesus Christ said to us, “You haven’t been given authority to rule it over others. You haven’t been given authority to look down.” No, it’s to serve. It’s for all of us.

And so, these men of all these different positions, they take what they have and they use it, don’t they? And what does that teach us? Well, it teaches us that it doesn’t matter what you are in life, you have a part to play. I mean, I wonder if you noticed that lots of them were, were working outside their home. Now, there’s good logic for that if you’re building a wall. I mean, if I’m building outside of someone else’s house, I might not be as particular. But if I’m building a wall of protection outside my own home I wanna make sure it’s really strong. So there’s a logic to that, but isn’t it wonderful that they’re just outside their house. I mean, maybe they’ve got children inside, and their wife’s there, and they’re bringing out oranges at the halftime break as they get stuck in and work. They’re busy laboring, and it doesn’t matter what they are.

And so, maybe you’re a mom, and you think to yourself, “I haven’t got time. I’ve got, I’ve got children to look after. I’ve got stuff to do. There’s washing up to my ears. I’ve got a house to clean. My husband’s coming home from work, and I need to get dinner. I can’t be out here building a wall.” I say, “Amen,” and you don’t have to, because God has given you, in this time, a particular sphere of influence. And as you serve God in that sphere, you are building the Kingdom of God. And so, you begin to see that my mothering is kingdom work. And if you’re a banker, or you’re a farmer, or you’re a student, you need to see that these things have been given to you, like a perfumer or a goldsmith. Not to go and do wall building, but rather, to build the Kingdom of God.

I mean, just think about it from a mother’s perspective. This, this dawns on me so often in my mind, we so undervalue mothers in this society, don’t we? Get the child out and get them back in to work as fast as humanly possible. Now, can you think about it for a second? A mother is entrusted with, pick a number, 3 souls. Infinite souls that will either be eternal joys to their Father in Heaven, or eternal horrors in hell, and God entrust- entrusts to that mother these souls, souls that He has created for His purpose. And He entrusts them into her hands and says, “Here are 3 eternal souls that I am entrusting into your hand to care and to prepare for eternity.” Well, if that’s not kingdom work, what is? I mean, how many of us men get 3 souls to intimately care for at work? Well, how many of our work colleagues want to talk to us about the Kingdom of God? I mean, most of them glaze over and find the exit door to the lunchroom as fast as humanly possible, don’t they? And yet, you too, in your workplace, are called to master that part of the kingdom for God.

And so, we see different people, and we see different positions, but we also see different proportions of labor. It’s interesting, you, you get a person in verse 3 who builds just a gate. Now, it’s not a small feat, building a gate, but he just builds a gate, doesn’t he? And then, you get someone who builds just outside their home, and then you get someone wonderful. Have a look at verse 13. This is one of the heroes of the story, Hanun. “The inhabitants of Zanoah repaired the Valley Gate. They rebuilt it and set its doors, its bolts, its bars, and repaired 1,000 cubits of the wall as far as the Dung” Now, for most of you, you think to yourself, “Well, okay, that doesn’t mean a whole lot ’cause cubits, it doesn’t really give you the sphere.” That’s 10 to 13% of the whole wall. That’s a big load. 10 to 13% of the whole wall is done by Hanun and his helpers, and yet, he who was given much achieved much, and he who was given little achieved little. And neither played a more important position in the wall, did they? Because all hands have to be on deck.

You see, you might be tempted to think to yourself, “Yeah, but I’m, I’m so limited in what I can do.” You know, maybe I, I’m sickly, or I’m just tired, or my work limits me, or my life limits me, and I’m got little to give, I’ve got fatigue, I’ve got, I’ve got There’s all these reasons of why I can’t do it. And yet, you need to understand that the person who lays the one stone is just as important as the person who builds an entire wall, because every part’s needed. Because if one brick’s missing, then the whole city is vulnerable, isn’t it? And it’s the same in the Kingdom of God.

And so I think this means for us, primarily, and it’s a very simple application, you are needed. You know, we remember that advertisement that America used to do with Uncle Sam? “We need you for the army.” That famous picture you see everywhere. Well, that’s true for the Kingdom of God. Not one of you has the right to say, “I’m not needed.” And no one has the right to say to you, “You’re not needed,” because every single one of you has been entrusted with gifts, talents, abilities, resources, personhood for the sake of the Kingdom of God. And so the challenge for you and I in this first point is to ask ourselves the question, are we using it? Are we doing it? Or are we tempted to draw back for whatever reason? What are the reasons that make you draw back? What are the reasons that you actually just want to sit down on the La-Z-Boy and put your feet up? What are the reasons that stop you serving in the church, in your workplace, among your family, among your friends? Every sphere of your life.

Brothers and sisters, can I put it simply? Get to work. I don’t say that as a chastisement. I hope you know that. Rather as an encouragement because there’s so much work to be done. There’s a kingdom to build, and you’re needed, which means you matter. And so we see that many hands are made for light work. Many hands make for light work.

The second principle we see in this chapter is, is that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Maybe you’ve heard that before. I think it was Aristotle who said it first, “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” You know, if you asked Hanun If you asked Hanun what he was building, what would he say? What do you think? Would he say, “A gate? Uh, this section of the wall”? Would he say, “You know, I’m repairing this element here”? Uh, no, I think he would say, “I’m building the wall of the City of Jerusalem.” And I think if you went up to any of them and you asked them You know, like, you’re a foreigner, you’re a tourist, and you’re just traveling through the area. And you walk up, and you notice there’s a city, building stuff, and you walk up and say, “Oh, what are you constructing?” “Well, we’re making our city wall.” “Why?” Because the, the individual part is not so important, is it? Because if Hanun buil- builds a fantastic wall, but everyone else gives up, Hanun’s wall counts for nothing. And what we begin to see here is that the entirety of the Kingdom of God is the focus, not our little corner of the kingdom.

And this is really important for us, because of our societal upbringing, we primarily function in an individualistic mindset, don’t we? If someone at One of your friends asked you how many people went to your church, what number would you come up with? You would count individual people, wouldn’t you? You’d say, “30, 40, 50, whatever.” You wouldn’t say, “Family units.” You wouldn’t say, “Well, actually, 1.” I’d say, “What do you mean one?” “Well, ’cause we’ve only got one church. One body. What are you talking about? That’s a weird question. Why would you ask me how many people go to our church? We just have a church. I never even think about how many people are there.” We are very individualistically driven, which means when we start thinking about kingdom work, we start focusing on minute sections.

And so, if you think about a church much bigger than us, you know, you have the, all the different programs. And so the crèche director focuses Well, it’s all about the crèche, right? And the music team directs all about the music. And all the little groups, they focus on their little thing, and who cares about everything else? We need to get our thing done, and our thing’s more important, and we need to achieve it, and we’ve gotta do it. And they focus very minutely and individualistically, but what we need to do is learn to step back and say, “Wait a second, it’s not about RBC.” And it’s not about me. It’s about Christ’s kingdom. Wholesale, from shore to shore, where ‘ere the sun doth shine, Jesus reigns, right? And His kingdom is being advanced into every people group, every tribe, every tongue, every nation, every language, and we are called to be advancing the kingdom in all of it.

And what this means is, we become passionate, not just about us, but we become passionate about the church down the road. Why? Well, because if the church down the road is advancing the Kingdom of God, we want them to win. We want them to succeed. And you know what? We can cheer when other churches thrive and we don’t. Why? Because it’s not about us, and it’s not about our church. It’s about God’s kingdom. And we can rejoice with those who advance, and we can weep with those who don’t.

I felt very rebuked by this, because I heard of some churches that canceled their services over Christmas, and my heart immediately judged them, and my heart immediately kind of smirked at them because, to be totally frank, it’s a natural result of their bad theology, and it didn’t surprise me in the least. But shouldn’t I weep? Shouldn’t I be grieved in my heart that there’s a group of people in the Kingdom of God that don’t even care about their Savior enough so they just cancel church for a month? Why am I so quick to, to judge and scorn them, rather than be broken-hearted because God’s worship gets put on hold? What does that? Kingdom-mindedness, right? A heart that is enveloped with the mission of Christ in this world.

The reason being the very same reason that motivates these men and women: The glory of God is established in the City of God, right? And when the City of God’s walls are broken down, God says to them, “I will bring judgment on you,” and people will walk past and they will hiss and they will say, “Look at what God has done The glory of God is established in the City of God, and it’s just as true today because we’re the City of God, aren’t we? The Kingdom of God is the City of God, and He’s building it up, and we should desire it to be established for the sake of the glory of the living God It also protects us against tribalism, doesn’t it? And enables us to support others. Think of the Dargaville church that’s here. I hope you all took opportunities to encourage Pastor Wally today for the word he preached, and encourage his wife before they return to their labor up in a tiny little place like Dargaville. And how can we encourage the church in Fielding and American Samoa? Support these other churches that we love.

And so, we see that many hands make for light work, and the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. And the last thing we see is that the one Lord of all makes it all possible. The one Lord of all makes it all possible. You know, they’re in the middle of rebuilding or extending, widening the motorway, right? Well, granted they’ve been doing it for the last 50 years, and they’ll be doing it for the next 50. But if I was to ask you who b- who built the motorway, who would you say? Definitely not the safety truck guy. We know that. Um, is it, is it the ro- the dude on the roller? The guy on the digger? The dude with the shovel? The guy with the lollipop sign? Y- who, who built the motorway? I- it’s not easy to answer, is it? Well, all of them, I guess you could say. Well, who built the wall? Well, all of them.

And yet, I wonder if you noticed who wasn’t mentioned in this passage. Uh, you remember I told you that this book is like the life and diary of Nehemiah? You, do you recognize Did you realize Nehemiah’s not mentioned? Did you know it’s the only chapter in the entirety of the book where Nehemiah is not mentioned? Does that seem odd to you? Well, why? Is it because he’s not involved? You know, maybe he turned up, he motivated them, and then he stepped back. You know, let the locals do the building. No, it’s because though he’s unseen, he is everywhere, isn’t he? I mean, the reality is Nehemiah is the one who assigned their tasks because he’s the governor of the city now. Nehemiah is the one who brought wood from the king and resources and supplied their every need. Nehemiah is the one who would go around wall to wall, as we’ll see, motivating people, speaking to people. He’s the one that gonna resolve conflicts and deal with problems. He’s the one who’s gonna be there with a sword on his side. He’s gonna be providing money, resources. He’s gonna be protecting. He’s going to be feeding the hungry. Nehemiah is an unseen but all-pervasive influence everywhere through the entirety of this chapter, and in this way he is a glorious picture of Christ, isn’t he?

I mean, who builds the church? Well, someone’s gotta preach. Someone’s gotta count the money. Someone’s gotta make the coffee. Someone had to make the food for the shared lunch. Someone has to set the chairs out. Someone has to pack them away. Someone did all the dishes this morning. There were about 3 of them, absolute troopers, and I commend Lots of people build the church, but ultimately we know Christ builds the church, doesn’t he? And these guys knew that because Nehemiah says, in Chapter 2, Verse 20, “The God of heaven will make us prosper.” So, let’s get our trowels. God is gonna make us prosper.

You see, God Himself is building the church through the King, Lord Jesus Christ, by His Spirit in our presence every single day. When you go into your family as a mother or your workplace or your student life, wherever you go, you go to do work, but you do so with the Spirit of the living God working in you and through you to advance His kingdom and to achieve His purposes. Now, this is a very simple principle, and yet it’s so easy for us to overlook, isn’t it? And the wonderful thing about this principle is it should fill us with great confidence.

Now, one of Rob and my favorite joking conversations is the debate of post-millennialism and amillennialism. We love to joke about it together. And I love to say to him, “I’m a happy, positive amil,” or, “I’m an amil who labors like a post-mil.” Why? Because I believe in the God who achieves ends. And I don’t really care what your view of the millennial is, but I do care what it produces. And what I love to see is Christians who are passionate for the Kingdom of God, Christians who believe God will do what He promises, and so labor. Do you have that confidence?

I mean, you imagine if Nehemiah stood up to the enemies in verse 20 and said, “God will make us prosper!” And then he turned around and walked outside and all the people went, “Oh, it’s just never gonna happen. The task’s too big! There’s not enough of us. I mean, we don’t even know how to build bricks! This is ridicu- what, Nehemiah, what have you done? You didn’t even hire any contractors.” But you see none of that, do you? You see trust and confidence in God to achieve his means and his ends.

This should also make us incredibly dependent, shouldn’t it? Because if it’s God who’s gonna make us prosper, no matter how much laboring I do, unless God’s at work, I’m basically wasting my time. This is what I love about Wednesday nights, as we fall on our faces before God and say, “God, move. God, we’re doing it. We’re doing it, we’re doing our best, but we need you. We need you to be at work.”

Brothers and sisters, Rome wasn’t built in a day, but it was built eventually, wasn’t it? The Kingdom of God isn’t built in a day, but it will be buil- it will be finished one day. And you know the wonderful thing about the kingdom? It’ll never fade like Rome did. I mean, what is Rome? A shadow, right? But the Kingdom of God will go on from age to age for all eternity.

And I guess the, the ultimate challenge that comes to us in this passage is, are we playing our part? What is our part? Do we even know we have a part? And are we doing it? Well, brothers and sisters, may God grant us a vision for the Kingdom of God that would push us into kingdom labor, and may God cause us to prosper, that we might see the Kingdom of God pushing back the kingdom of darkness here for the praise of His glorious grace.

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