What's Your Job

Turn to Nehemiah chapter 3

What’s your job in the Church?

What’s your work for the Lord?

What are you doing to advance God’s kingdom here on Earth?

In the world today, there are a great variety of people:

Young & old; rich & poor; educated & uneducated.

Doesn’t it make sense that it would take a variety of people working for God to reach them all?

In the Lord’s work today, there are a great variety of jobs that need to be done:

Of course, there is the teaching and preaching,

And there are the jobs needed in the a congregation like this:

cleaning, sweeping, waxing, watering, painting.

But the Lord’s work involves more than just jobs around the church,

the Lord’s work also involves jobs around the community.

In Camp 7 today, there are a great number of jobs to do for the Lord — not just cleaning the chapel:

Somewhere in Camp 7, there is a widow who needs some company.

Somewhere in Camp 7, there is a family that doesn’t have enough to eat tonight.

Somewhere in Camp 7, there is a sin that needs to be confessed.

Somewhere in Camp 7, there is a wife who needs to ask her husband’s forgiveness.

Somewhere in Camp 7, there is a family that needs new clothes, but they can’t afford it.

Somewhere in Camp 7, there is a person who needs to tell her friend about the love of God.

Somewhere in Camp 7, there is a roof that needs to be fixed (I hope it isn’t Manang Rosita’s roof).

In the Lord’s work today, there are a great variety of jobs that need to be done.

Not just jobs around the church,

But jobs that need to be done in people’s lives.

People that we know.

People that we see every day.

People who live next door to us. Or down the road a bit.

People who are hurting. People who are lonely. People who are hungry.

People who will spend all of eternity in Hell because no one ever explained to them how to go to heaven.

Now, Nehemiah Chapter 3 is the kind of chapter that I always want to skip.

When you first read it, it seems to be just another one of those lists of unpronounceable names that the Bible has so many of.

But chapter 3 is not a chapter to be skipped!

In my studying for this series of sermons, I was pleased to find that chapter 3 is one of the most interesting chapters in the book of Nehemiah.

Because, along with all these unpronounceable names,

this chapter is filled with lessons to be learned about doing the work of God.

Lessons that will speak to our lives today — right here in Camp 7.

1 Elia-shib the high priest and his fellow priests went to work and rebuilt the Sheep Gate. They dedicated it and set its doors in place, building as far as the Tower of the Hundred, which they dedicated, and as far as the Tower of Hananel.

Last week we looked at Nehemiah chapter 2 —

When Nehemiah finally revealed his plan to the people and called on them to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.

Chapter 3 tells of the beginning of that great work.

The initiative is taken by Eliashib the high priest, who, along with his fellow priests, rebuilt quite a bit of the wall, a gate and a tower.

Now, in chapter 3 we’re going to see two different kinds of work being done: rebuilding and repairing.

It seems that the wall was not torn down evenly by the enemies of Jerusalem;

some sections needed to be completely rebuilt,

while other sections just needed to be repaired.

And, you know, it’s the same with our lives.

Sometimes there’s a part of our lives that has been damaged:

A broken heart, A wounded spirit, A cracked self esteem, A collapsed dream.

And sometimes the damaged area just needs to be repaired,

Other times it needs to be completely rebuilt from the ground up.

But either way, I know the perfect contractor to fix the damaged areas in your life: Jesus Christ.

It’s a fact that if you try to repair your own life with your own strength and your own resources, whatever you fix will quickly break again.

Illus: There was a mechanic once who guaranteed his repairs — 5 days or 50 kilometers (whichever came first).

But if you allow Jesus to fix your life, the repairs will last forever — that’s a good guarantee.

Have you ever been used by Jesus to fix someone else’s life?

What a joy!

What a great thing it is to come home at night, take off your shoes and say, "God used me today."

If you’ve never been able to say that, then you’re missing out on one of the greatest joys of being a Christian.