Nehemiah 2:17-18
Still based on readings in Nehemiah, we will talk about why this congregation has been on the Navigate Pathway, taking surveys, having conversations about our mission and participating in more unusual worship services.
Nehemiah 2:17-18 says, “You see the trouble we are in: Jerusalem lies in ruins, and its gates have been burned with fire. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, and we will no longer be in disgrace.” I also told them about the gracious hand of my God on me and what the king had said to me. They replied, “Let us start rebuilding.” So they began this good work.”
And I say, and I hope you agree, you see the trouble we are in, our finances lie in ruins and the building needs a lot of work. Our ministry has been comforting for the saved but ineffective and unfruitful among the unsaved. This means we have been failing to obey the great commission that tells us to go and make disciples. Or else our efforts to obey are out of line with God’s will and the needs of the people we are trying to reach. Let us hope it is the latter so that our failure is not the result of any rebellion.
I also want assure you that God is still gracious and has not abandoned us. Even to the worst of the churches Jesus spoke to in the book of Revelation, chapters 2-3, there was a call to repentance and that represents an offer of hope for restoration and new abundance.
So I hope you will further respond, by saying with me, “Let’s start rebuilding our ministry.”
If you are responding positively to that challenge and invitation you must be prepared for opposition too. So we are doing these special things to strengthen our relationship with the Lord, our faith in him and our reliance upon his governance and power to see us through. In Jerusalem, Nehemiah had to stand against people named Sanballat and Tobiah, human enemies, pawns in the hand of satan who is still at work today doing anything he can to undermine the work of the people of God.
Listen to Nehemiah 4:1-5, “When Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall, he became angry and was greatly incensed. He ridiculed the Jews, and in the presence of his associates and the army of Samaria, he said, “What are those feeble Jews doing? Will they restore their wall? Will they offer sacrifices? Will they finish in a day? Can they bring the stones back to life from those heaps of rubble—burned as they are?”
Tobiah the Ammonite, who was at his side, said, “What they are building—even a fox climbing up on it would break down their wall of stones!”
Hear us, our God, for we are despised. Turn their insults back on their own heads. Give them over as plunder in a land of captivity. Do not cover up their guilt or blot out their sins from your sight, for they have thrown insults in the face of the builders.
See how they prayed for strength against the enemy. We must also pray! We are not strong enough on our own. Our enemy the devil would criticize our work to discourage us. He might say, “What are those feeble First Covenanters trying to do? They don’t have enough people. They don’t have enough money. Even what they are doing is just a flash in the pan, last minute gasp for breath. Will they finish in a day? Can they make the old people young again—tired as they are?”
We must pray, “Hear us, our God, for we are despised by satan the accuser. Turn his insults on his own head. We know you have already conquered him and plundered his kingdom of death by rescuing the lost from his evil hands. Yet he goes on insulting us as we try to rebuild a new ministry to the glory and honor of your name. Now help us Lord, to work with all our hearts, as we know the citizens of Jerusalem did. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”
Nehemiah 4:6, “So we rebuilt the wall till all of it reached half its height, for the people worked with all their heart.” Let’s pray for us to have the same kind of enthusiasm and commitment.
But the opposition was internal too. It is easy to get discouraged. Nehemiah 4:10, “Meanwhile, the people in Judah said, “The strength of the laborers is giving out, and there is so much rubble that we cannot rebuild the wall.”
In addition, in spite of Nehemiah’s courage, many of the people were not the same in their attitudes. Verse 11-12 says, “Also our enemies said, “Before they know it or see us, we will be right there among them and will kill them and put an end to the work.” Then the Jews who lived near them came and told us ten times over, “Wherever you turn, they will attack us.”
We have to respond together to this kind of discouragement also and the words of Nehemiah sit us well, “Don’t be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your families, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes.” How many of your sons and daughters and their families are in church today somewhere? Let us fight the good fight, as Paul the Apostle calls it, that we may yet save and or restore some of them too! Let every home be a home in which God is honored and served, in the power of the Spirit that is granted to those who put their trust in Jesus, the Lord and Savior.
In addition to prayer, we must employ a godly strategy. One step we have already taken is the more efficient Team Leadership model of congregational governance. Another step that begins today is the PULSE survey. All of you who have email should have received or will soon see an email from the Covenant with an active link to take the PULSE survey. This will give us a better sense of how we're doing as measured by our core values: The Ten Healthy Missional Markers, and we need ALL of you to fill it out! And we don't mean one assessment per family, but one per person.
When you go to the doctor’s office, a nurse usually takes your pulse and blood pressure before the doctor comes in. It is a quick and easy way to get a general read on the patient’s health. Even though everybody is different, the results are compared to a standardized set of criteria for what constitutes good health.
According to the Apostle Paul, the church is like a human body (Romans 12:4-5). It stands to reason then that every living church has a pulse. Taking the pulse of a church provides a general read on the health and vitality of that unique body of believers.
The PULSE survey is provided by and administered by the denomination we belong to. In addition to Ten Healthy Missional Markers, they look at the VIM (Vision, Intention, and Means) and vigor level of the church. They look at tenure and leadership. They consult with the pastor and conference representatives. They report on income levels and attendance trends over the last two decades. They provide demographic information on zip codes surrounding your church.
Based on these various factors and depending on the Holy Spirit for discernment, they help us to see whether our church is “healthy missional,” “stable,” “critical moment,” or “at-risk.” They then provide recommendations and next steps to help us become a healthy missional church. In other words, taking the PULSE survey is like taking a look at the church the way Nehemiah took a look at the condition of the walls of Jerusalem. He did that to figure out what needs to be done about the walls. We do it to figure out what needs to be done about our ministry.
And that is our prayer…that every Covenant Church become a healthy missional church. By “healthy” we mean pursuing Christ. By “missional” we mean pursuing Christ’s priorities in the world. Awareness and acceptance of one’s current reality, taking out PULSE, is an important step in becoming a healthy missional church. Admitting the truth is the first step toward change.
We are doing these things because every single Christian who is alive in the United States today, but especially the wonderful people I get to talk to here in Cadillac, MI, needs to be awakened, or reawakened to the fact that YOU are called by God to do something that makes a positive contribution, to change in a good way, this broken and messed up world. You are called to go and make disciples and teach them to obey everything we learn from Jesus. You are called by God to accomplish this by whatever God honoring means gets the job done.
The ten healthy missional markers all work together to produce a healthy missional church. Here is one way of putting them all together. The huge mission you are called to includes maintaining the centrality of the Word of God, intentionally evangelizing the people around us, developing fruitful organizational structures, facilitating each person’s life transforming walk with Jesus, so that we experience a compelling Christian community with a culture of godly leadership, that is practicing heartfelt worship, along with sacrificial and generous living and giving, while maintaining a Global perspective and engagement, so that we end up transforming communities through active compassion, mercy, and justice ministries. If you are alive in Christ, you are called to be part of that and you can’t do it alone and you mustn’t back out of it.
But first you must know whether you are alive in Christ. Have you believed the gospel message that Jesus died on the cross and shed his blood, taking the penalty for sin we deserved? Have you received this forgiveness through faith that it is Jesus blood that saves you and no good works of your own?
Do you know the story of the Passover that happened in Egypt? The Jews put blood on the doors of their houses so that the angel of death would Passover and spare their first born sons from the judgement of death. Do you realize that all that mattered was the blood? In one home there might have been a very well behaved first born son. In another home there might have been a lying, thieving first born son. But both were saved from death because of the blood on the door! Not because either one deserved it.
This means that if you believe in the blood of Christ to save you from death, there is no sin that can keep you from being saved. All that matters is the blood of Jesus! This good news for the guilty sinner! Believe in forgiveness through Christ’s blood! Happy day for you! Forgiven and free in Christ’s grace!
But also, every born again believer then shares the responsibility to spread the good news to others. How could you keep such good news to yourself anyway? You are not forgiven of sin and saved just to go to heaven. If you were, you’d already be in heaven! No, Jesus said that we are sent into this world just as he was sent into this world. We are to go and make disciples and teach them what we know about life in Christ. Let’s commit together to do that!
Now in the next few minutes I am going to give you all an opportunity to respond to this message using our new response cards that will also serve as our prayer request cards. I will literally wait for a few minutes of silence while you take a look at those cards, make a decision, and fill them out. Then a couple of people will come around during the next song to collect them up. Any prayer requests among them will be incorporated into our pastoral prayer after the song.
Still based on readings in Nehemiah, we will talk about why this congregation has been on the Navigate Pathway, taking surveys, having conversations about our mission and participating in more unusual worship services.
Nehemiah 2:17-18 says, “You see the trouble we are in: Jerusalem lies in ruins, and its gates have been burned with fire. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, and we will no longer be in disgrace.” I also told them about the gracious hand of my God on me and what the king had said to me. They replied, “Let us start rebuilding.” So they began this good work.”
And I say, and I hope you agree, you see the trouble we are in, our finances lie in ruins and the building needs a lot of work. Our ministry has been comforting for the saved but ineffective and unfruitful among the unsaved. This means we have been failing to obey the great commission that tells us to go and make disciples. Or else our efforts to obey are out of line with God’s will and the needs of the people we are trying to reach. Let us hope it is the latter so that our failure is not the result of any rebellion.
I also want assure you that God is still gracious and has not abandoned us. Even to the worst of the churches Jesus spoke to in the book of Revelation, chapters 2-3, there was a call to repentance and that represents an offer of hope for restoration and new abundance.
So I hope you will further respond, by saying with me, “Let’s start rebuilding our ministry.”
If you are responding positively to that challenge and invitation you must be prepared for opposition too. So we are doing these special things to strengthen our relationship with the Lord, our faith in him and our reliance upon his governance and power to see us through. In Jerusalem, Nehemiah had to stand against people named Sanballat and Tobiah, human enemies, pawns in the hand of satan who is still at work today doing anything he can to undermine the work of the people of God.
Listen to Nehemiah 4:1-5, “When Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall, he became angry and was greatly incensed. He ridiculed the Jews, and in the presence of his associates and the army of Samaria, he said, “What are those feeble Jews doing? Will they restore their wall? Will they offer sacrifices? Will they finish in a day? Can they bring the stones back to life from those heaps of rubble—burned as they are?”
Tobiah the Ammonite, who was at his side, said, “What they are building—even a fox climbing up on it would break down their wall of stones!”
Hear us, our God, for we are despised. Turn their insults back on their own heads. Give them over as plunder in a land of captivity. Do not cover up their guilt or blot out their sins from your sight, for they have thrown insults in the face of the builders.
See how they prayed for strength against the enemy. We must also pray! We are not strong enough on our own. Our enemy the devil would criticize our work to discourage us. He might say, “What are those feeble First Covenanters trying to do? They don’t have enough people. They don’t have enough money. Even what they are doing is just a flash in the pan, last minute gasp for breath. Will they finish in a day? Can they make the old people young again—tired as they are?”
We must pray, “Hear us, our God, for we are despised by satan the accuser. Turn his insults on his own head. We know you have already conquered him and plundered his kingdom of death by rescuing the lost from his evil hands. Yet he goes on insulting us as we try to rebuild a new ministry to the glory and honor of your name. Now help us Lord, to work with all our hearts, as we know the citizens of Jerusalem did. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”
Nehemiah 4:6, “So we rebuilt the wall till all of it reached half its height, for the people worked with all their heart.” Let’s pray for us to have the same kind of enthusiasm and commitment.
But the opposition was internal too. It is easy to get discouraged. Nehemiah 4:10, “Meanwhile, the people in Judah said, “The strength of the laborers is giving out, and there is so much rubble that we cannot rebuild the wall.”
In addition, in spite of Nehemiah’s courage, many of the people were not the same in their attitudes. Verse 11-12 says, “Also our enemies said, “Before they know it or see us, we will be right there among them and will kill them and put an end to the work.” Then the Jews who lived near them came and told us ten times over, “Wherever you turn, they will attack us.”
We have to respond together to this kind of discouragement also and the words of Nehemiah sit us well, “Don’t be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your families, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes.” How many of your sons and daughters and their families are in church today somewhere? Let us fight the good fight, as Paul the Apostle calls it, that we may yet save and or restore some of them too! Let every home be a home in which God is honored and served, in the power of the Spirit that is granted to those who put their trust in Jesus, the Lord and Savior.
In addition to prayer, we must employ a godly strategy. One step we have already taken is the more efficient Team Leadership model of congregational governance. Another step that begins today is the PULSE survey. All of you who have email should have received or will soon see an email from the Covenant with an active link to take the PULSE survey. This will give us a better sense of how we're doing as measured by our core values: The Ten Healthy Missional Markers, and we need ALL of you to fill it out! And we don't mean one assessment per family, but one per person.
When you go to the doctor’s office, a nurse usually takes your pulse and blood pressure before the doctor comes in. It is a quick and easy way to get a general read on the patient’s health. Even though everybody is different, the results are compared to a standardized set of criteria for what constitutes good health.
According to the Apostle Paul, the church is like a human body (Romans 12:4-5). It stands to reason then that every living church has a pulse. Taking the pulse of a church provides a general read on the health and vitality of that unique body of believers.
The PULSE survey is provided by and administered by the denomination we belong to. In addition to Ten Healthy Missional Markers, they look at the VIM (Vision, Intention, and Means) and vigor level of the church. They look at tenure and leadership. They consult with the pastor and conference representatives. They report on income levels and attendance trends over the last two decades. They provide demographic information on zip codes surrounding your church.
Based on these various factors and depending on the Holy Spirit for discernment, they help us to see whether our church is “healthy missional,” “stable,” “critical moment,” or “at-risk.” They then provide recommendations and next steps to help us become a healthy missional church. In other words, taking the PULSE survey is like taking a look at the church the way Nehemiah took a look at the condition of the walls of Jerusalem. He did that to figure out what needs to be done about the walls. We do it to figure out what needs to be done about our ministry.
And that is our prayer…that every Covenant Church become a healthy missional church. By “healthy” we mean pursuing Christ. By “missional” we mean pursuing Christ’s priorities in the world. Awareness and acceptance of one’s current reality, taking out PULSE, is an important step in becoming a healthy missional church. Admitting the truth is the first step toward change.
We are doing these things because every single Christian who is alive in the United States today, but especially the wonderful people I get to talk to here in Cadillac, MI, needs to be awakened, or reawakened to the fact that YOU are called by God to do something that makes a positive contribution, to change in a good way, this broken and messed up world. You are called to go and make disciples and teach them to obey everything we learn from Jesus. You are called by God to accomplish this by whatever God honoring means gets the job done.
The ten healthy missional markers all work together to produce a healthy missional church. Here is one way of putting them all together. The huge mission you are called to includes maintaining the centrality of the Word of God, intentionally evangelizing the people around us, developing fruitful organizational structures, facilitating each person’s life transforming walk with Jesus, so that we experience a compelling Christian community with a culture of godly leadership, that is practicing heartfelt worship, along with sacrificial and generous living and giving, while maintaining a Global perspective and engagement, so that we end up transforming communities through active compassion, mercy, and justice ministries. If you are alive in Christ, you are called to be part of that and you can’t do it alone and you mustn’t back out of it.
But first you must know whether you are alive in Christ. Have you believed the gospel message that Jesus died on the cross and shed his blood, taking the penalty for sin we deserved? Have you received this forgiveness through faith that it is Jesus blood that saves you and no good works of your own?
Do you know the story of the Passover that happened in Egypt? The Jews put blood on the doors of their houses so that the angel of death would Passover and spare their first born sons from the judgement of death. Do you realize that all that mattered was the blood? In one home there might have been a very well behaved first born son. In another home there might have been a lying, thieving first born son. But both were saved from death because of the blood on the door! Not because either one deserved it.
This means that if you believe in the blood of Christ to save you from death, there is no sin that can keep you from being saved. All that matters is the blood of Jesus! This good news for the guilty sinner! Believe in forgiveness through Christ’s blood! Happy day for you! Forgiven and free in Christ’s grace!
But also, every born again believer then shares the responsibility to spread the good news to others. How could you keep such good news to yourself anyway? You are not forgiven of sin and saved just to go to heaven. If you were, you’d already be in heaven! No, Jesus said that we are sent into this world just as he was sent into this world. We are to go and make disciples and teach them what we know about life in Christ. Let’s commit together to do that!
Now in the next few minutes I am going to give you all an opportunity to respond to this message using our new response cards that will also serve as our prayer request cards. I will literally wait for a few minutes of silence while you take a look at those cards, make a decision, and fill them out. Then a couple of people will come around during the next song to collect them up. Any prayer requests among them will be incorporated into our pastoral prayer after the song.
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