Text: Nehemiah 3
Title: Unity in the Body of Christ
I. Unity behind a common cause
II. Unity in the midst of diversity
III. Unity with humility
IV. Unity achieves excellence
When I first scanned over chapter 3 here I thought, great, just a laundry list of names. That’s not too exciting. My first inclination was to just skip right over it and move on to chapter 4 where the action picks back up. But then I actually read through the chapter and was amazed.
I have to admit, the more I read and stud y this book, the more I am just blown away at how down to earth and practically applicable it really is. This is a story written thousands of years ago, but it has some lessons that are so relevant to us today.
Even in this seemingly mundane chapter there is so much that jumped out at me. As I read through the chapter I realized that it is a perfect illustration of what unity in the Body of Christ is supposed to look like. It is an awesome example of how we are to build the kingdom of God.
There can be no greater purpose or goal for us as believers than to put our hands to the good work of building the kingdom of God. These guys were rebuilding the wall, but it is clear that so much more was going on. They were rebuilding a kingdom. And the way they went about their task is a great object lesson for how we are to go about the task of building the kingdom of God today.
I’m not going to read through the whole chapter with you this morning, but what I am going to do is walk through those key verses that give us a clear picture of what unity looks like.
Look at verse 1 with me…
First of all, unity comes when we are all committed to a common cause. That’s true in the world as well as in the church. The PTA is a group of parents committed to their children’s education. The Rotary Club is a group that meets to accomplish various service activities in their communities. The Sacramento Kings are a club that meets together for a common cause- to make other basketball teams feel good about themselves.
In the church this is no different. We are gathered together for a common cause- God’s glory.
Those who did the work on the wall understood that it was much more than just a simple building project. The first people Nehemiah mentions are the High priest and the other priests. They were not above putting their hands to the work of rebuilding. They were responsible for rebuilding the Sheep Gate; which makes sense because it was through that gate that the sacrifices to God would come.
The clearly understood that the work they were doing, even though it was menial labor, was for the purpose of honoring God. This gate and section of the wall are the only places that get this dedication. They were consecrated to God. The full ceremony of sacrifice to God could now take place. They were able to better worship God once that work was done.
We all need to be united behind that same common purpose. There is no doubt that there are many different reasons why people come into the church. Some come to find friendship, some come to heal up and recover, some come to lesson the guilt they feel for the things they do throughout the week.
But at some point we have to make sure that we are all on the same page. We gather together for the purpose of worshiping and honoring God. That’s why we were created. We must be careful not to fall into the trap that many churches fall into where we become just another social club. Where most of our time and attention goes to internal issues and we never turn our attention outward.
One of the worst things a church can do is become exclusivist and closed. When we stop reaching out to the community and the world around us with the gospel of Jesus Christ, then we become something other than what God designed us to be.
The reason for rebuilding the wall was so that God would receive honor and glory and worship. Not for personal gain, or even for security. But for God’s glory. Is that a cause you can get behind? Is it one worth working for?
Next, as you read through this chapter it is cool to see the amazing unity even in the midst of such diversity.
Let me just give you a cross section of who did the work-
3-4- Son’s- young men got to work
2, 5, 7- People from other towns
1, 7, 8, 22- People from every social class- priests, governors, tradesman, laborers- v8 mentions a goldsmith and a perfume maker.
12- Every gender- Shallum had his daughters helping out
The rebuilding of the wall wasn’t something that they could contract out. It was something that they all know they had to do themselves. So they banded together, under the leadership of Nehemiah, and around a common cause, from every social class, to accomplish their task.
Isn’t this a perfect picture of the church today? Is there any organization that is as diverse, yet so unified? Just in this church alone we have people from many different ethnic backgrounds, different races, different social and economic classes, different political slants, different talents, different abilities, and different personalities.
We are incredibly diverse, yet we are all unified under a common cause. What we have in common is so much greater than all those differences. What we share is of such importance to each of us, that we are willing and able to come together every week, as one.
We share a common citizenship; we are all residents of the kingdom of God.
We share a common son-ship; we are all joint heirs with Christ.
We share a common relationship; we all have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as our Lord and savior.
We share a common focus of worship- The almighty God of heaven and earth.
We share a common partnership- joining together for the purpose of encouraging and uplifting one another.
We share a common mission- to spread the gospel to everyone we know.
Those are the things that unify us. Those are the things that matter the most. Those are the things that bring us together and cause us to lay aside all the differences.
When the people of God keep their focus on those things we can accomplish so much for the kingdom of God. It’s when we loose sight of those commonalities that we begin to become dis-unified. When we let personality differences, personal preferences, differences in style, and petty details dominate our attention we loose sight of the big picture.
The list of people here in chapter 3 could be more diverse, but they were incredibly unified because they kept they’re eyes on the goal in front of them.
Ephesians 4:4-6 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.
Along these same lines, the people who rebuilt the wall are an example of unity with humility. Maybe the best example of that is in verse 14…
This guy Malkijah was the ruler of this province. He was someone with power and authority. He was someone who probably could have lobbied for something other than the “Refuse Gate”. This was called the refuse gate because it was the gate that led out to the trash dump. It lead to the Valley of Hinnom- which is transliterated in the New Testament as “gehenna”. Jesus uses the term to refer to hell. A place of burning and torment and stench.
That’s not exactly the kind of place you would want to work next to. But this guy humbled himself and took on that responsibility.
People understood that this wasn’t the time to pull rank. Again, the reason was because they all understood that what they were doing was in service to God. It might have been hard, tiring, menial labor, but it was still ministry. It was still a holy and divine calling. They didn’t let their pride get in the way of their service.
That is another amazing quality of the body of Christ. We come together to accomplish the work of ministry, without regard to our rank or wealth or social class. We serve him humility and with joy.
I see examples of this here at our church ever single week. People who are constantly stepping up and serving where needed. I don’t want to embarrass anyone, but just a few weeks ago I noticed a guy out in the fellowship hall wiping down counters and taking out the trash. This was a guy who had served just the year before as the chairman of the church board. He had held a more prominent role in the church. But he was not in any way above doing something as simple as taking out the trash.
We understand that we are all on the same team. We are a family. We are not above chipping in and helping out where needed.
Nehemiah chapter 3 is a beautiful picture of what can be accomplished when we humble ourselves and work together with a common cause.
It is interesting to note that in this list of people who deserved honor for their selfless work, Nehemiah includes a note about some people who refused to work. Look at verse 5…
The Tekoites got to work, and accomplished a lot. But the nobles refused to work. Tekoa was a city about 11 miles away from Jerusalem. About as for as it is from here to Sacramento. These nobles didn’t want to make the trip, maybe they thought they were too important to do that kind of work, maybe they were just scared.
These nobles not only refused to do any work, they did not support the work of their masters. What this means is that they refused to submit to the authority of the leader there. They refused to submit to Nehemiah’s leadership and they refused to take part in serving God. Because of that they gained themselves a place of dishonor in the official records here, and no doubt with their own people.
The people of Tekoa didn’t let the unfaithfulness of those nobles stop them from doing the work of God. Here in verse 5 it mentions that they made repairs, and then over in verse 27 it says that the Tekoites repaired another section. They didn’t just help out, they went above and beyond.
The average people from Tekoa had no problem humbling themselves. They didn’t allow pride or ego to get in the way.
This whole chapter is an Old Testament illustration of the New Testament words of Paul over in 1 Corinthians 12… 14-26…
1 Corinthians 12:14-27 14 Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. 15 If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? 18 But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 19 If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, but one body. 21 The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don’t need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don’t need you!" 22 On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, 24 while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. 27 Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.
The illustration that Paul uses here is of a human body. It’s made up of different parts; hands, feet, eyes, ears. Each of those parts is different, serves a different purpose, has a different function. But they are all necessary to come together in order to make up a fully functioning human. If all we have is hands, we can’t see. If all we had was eyes, we couldn’t walk.
You can’t say that one part is more important than another part. They all need to be there. The people rebuilding the wall understood this. They understood that they had to work together as a single unit.
The result of this amazing unity was excellence. Even though this was a very diverse group, they came together behind a common cause, humbled themselves, and accomplished something great.
These people of God were able to do so much more together than they ever could have individually. They banded together, divided their assignments, and got the work done in record time.
When we don’t waste our time fighting amongst ourselves, or battling egos, or trying to appease everyone, the people of God can get a lot done.
A great example of this was how this church responded to the death of my grandmother this week. Not only were there lots of cards and condolences, but all the different parts of the church sprung into action. The deaconesses in charge of food took over and went above and beyond. The deacons helped out with set up and cleaning. The nursery workers came and covered the nursery for us.
All the different parts came together flawlessly and ministered to my family in a huge way. You didn’t just take care of the need, you worked with excellence and it was noticed by those who were there.
That’s just one tiny example of how our unity makes us great.
We as a church body can accomplish so much for God. God established His church to be an influence in this world. We as a unified group have a high calling. But it is only when we as individuals step up and do our part that we will reach that high calling.
Romans 15:5 5 May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus,
