Hebrews chapter 11, verse 10. This is, of course, the chapter of the great heroes of the faith, not heroes because they were great in themselves or good or holy. We know who they are. They're the usual cast of characters that God chooses and elects because of his grace, sinners saved by grace. But they are esteemed by God because they put their hope, their dependence upon him. Notice what is said in chapter 11, verse 10, the word of the Lord. For he, that is Abraham and the patriarchs, was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. Verse 16. But as it is, they, the patriarchs, desire a better country that is a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. Jumping over to chapter 13, verse 14. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. And of course, Just a pause here before we go over to Revelation 21. The writer to the Hebrews is saying, this was true of God's people then and there, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the patriarchs, but it's also true of you today. They were looking for a city whose foundations and builder is God. And we in this earth have no lasting city. We look forward to the city that is to come. And what is this city? Well, we find it in Revelation 21, the first 11 verses. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and the sea was no more. Excuse me. And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride, adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. And he who was seated on the throne said, Behold, I am making all things new. Also he said, write this down for these words are trustworthy and true. And he said to me, it is done. I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage and I will be his God and he will be my son. But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death. Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues and spoke to me saying, come and I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb. And he carried me away in the spirit to a great high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God. its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. Amen. And then back to Nehemiah chapter six, beginning at verse 15, we'll read until chapter seven, verse four. So the wall was finished on the 25th day of the month Elul in 52 days. And when all our enemies heard of it, all the nations around us were afraid and fell greatly in their own esteem, for they perceived that this work had been accomplished with the help of our God. Moreover, in those days, the nobles of Judah sent many letters to Tobiah, and Tobiah's letters came to them. For many in Judah were bound by oath to him, because he was the son-in-law of Shekinah, the son of Arah, and his son Jehohanan had taken the daughter of Meshulam, the son of Berechiah, as his wife. Also they spoke of his good deeds in my presence and reported my words to him. and Tobiah sent letters to make me afraid. Now when the wall had been built and I had set up the doors, the gatekeepers, the singers, and the Levites had been appointed, I gave my brother Hananiah, the governor of the castle, charge over Jerusalem, for he was a more faithful and God-fearing man than many. And I said to them, let not the gates of Jerusalem be opened until the sun is hot, and while they are still standing guard, let them shut and bar the doors. appoint guards from among the inhabitants of Jerusalem, some at their guard posts and some in front of their own homes. The city was wide and large, but the people within it were few and no houses had been rebuilt. Amen, thus far the reading of God's holy and inspired word. Let us go to the Lord in prayer and ask for his blessing upon our time. Let's pray. Our gracious God and Heavenly Father, Lord, we look to you for all things, including now aid and help in understanding your word and understanding, Father, not only the mission of the church, which, Father, is not to be found in an earthbound kind of mission, only for the things of this earth, but, Father, is to seek the things above, Our mission is bound up with Christ, who is at your right hand. Help us, Lord, to understand what that mission is, and to, Father, hope in Christ always, Father, who will be revealed and our salvation with him on the last day. Help us to, in this present struggle, as we await our future redemption, to work, to labor, to spend and be spent with great joy in your kingdom. Father, with great contentment and gratefulness, always looking to Christ, the author and the finisher of our salvation. Help us now, we ask these things. In Jesus' name, amen. I trust that you will see how so much of life, even at its best, is so anti-climactic. It's so full of expectation and excitement at times, and yet, at the end, kind of disappointing. It was brought home to me as a Knicks fan, if you follow the NBA, if you are a Knicks fan. how big the win was against the defending champs in this past week, and Ray Sean knows what I'm talking about. We beat the Boston South, it's like, oh, woo-hoo, that's wonderful, except we still have the Indiana Pacers in front of us, and then whoever comes out of the Western Conference. So very good for us Knicks fans, and yet the work is not done. quite done. In school you find this all the time, right? You pour your heart and soul into a project, into a paper, only to find, and of course you knew this when the semester started, that there is yet one more project facing you down yet to come. Parents, we put all our energy in raising our children, changing their diapers, feeding them, clothing them in those little years, all seems well. And before you know it, they become teenagers. And then from teenagers, they become young adults. And what do you know? They still need to be parented and loved and taught and spoken to. And in all things in the Lord, loved onto Christ. What about the Christian life? What can we say about our walk? At the height of great triumphs, we oftentimes think we're taking three steps forward, only to find that in so many ways we've taken two steps back. We have conquered, we have overcome bad habits or set of sins, and what we find in our hearts is that there is still sin within us. There is much more sin, right? We become so proud of, dealing with our sins and addressing them with the grace and the Spirit's power, and yet now we have to repent of our pride and our boastfulness and all the rest that comes in this fallen world. What about the church? She advances onward, Christian soldiers, onward as to war, and yet what we find is that she advances, advances, but is never finished with her work. There's always one more thing to do. And so the advancements, the triumphs, the victories, even your personal successes in this fallen world are, in many ways, anticlimactic. And that, I want you to see, is by design. That's not a bug, that's a feature of the Christian life. We are to be thankful for the advances that we have. We are to be thankful for all the personal victories and successes that God is pleased to give you. And yet there's a kind of inadequacy, a kind of provisionality to life here on earth. that makes everything kind of anticlimactic. And that is by design so that we would turn our gaze and turn our eyes to Christ and to that final day of glory when Christ comes back to that eternal celestial city, the new Jerusalem that will descend from heaven above to earth. The great bride, perfected, lovely, encrusted with jewels. Later on, we're told in Revelation 21, God's church secured forever by her savior. On earth, the church is militant, struggling, three paces forward, two steps back. It seems like every triumph is attended by a defeat. What does that mean? What should we do? All of that is to make us long for the return of Christ and for the final finishing and completion of the work of Christ on that last day. And you see, something of that is what we find here in our text, the kind of anticlimactic nature of our work. We're told in chapter six, verse 15, so the wall was finished on the 25th day of the month, Elul, in 52 days. Nine months after chapter one, Elul. first few verses, when Nehemiah first heard of the situation in Jerusalem with its broken walls, with its gates burned by fire. He was 1,100 miles away. And nine months prior, he heard of this, and he was heartbroken, and he spent time in prayer, and then eventually asked permission of the king to go and rebuild, with the king's provisions, Jerusalem's gates and walls and towers. And so six months, nine months after he first heard of the news, six months after he's arrived, and then just under two months after he started, the wall is finished. This is the great climax of the book. This is what we've all been waiting for. This is what we've all been working towards and praying for with Nehemiah and the people of Judah. The wall was finished. And yet we ask the question, was it? Okay, the wall is finished, but is the work finished? Why are there still more pages in Nehemiah? Why does Nehemiah go on for six, seven more chapters if the wall is finished? Because the work is not completed. Because you see, God's people have not been perfected. Because following such a great triumph, Such a glory, Nehemiah tells us, of inglorious events. Many Jews were entangled with the world, and the city itself, although rebuilt on the outside, no pun intended, in its perimeter, was empty inside. and still exposed to attack. The completion of the wall and the gates and the doors was a remarkable event that gives us, you see, a view not only of the future glory of Christ's return, but it gives us a view of our present ongoing work as the church. And I want to take those then two points as the points of our sermon. The wall is finished, and in that we have a view of the future glory that is ours in Christ, but we also have a view of the present struggles of the church. the future glory of Christ. How joyful, how joyful Nehemiah and the people must have been to see the fulfillment of God's promise and the rebuilding of the wall of Jerusalem. It was no little incident to act. The walls had been destroyed by God's judgment because of Judah's sins. And God said, I will exile you to Babylon, to Assyria. But in time, I will bring you back to Jerusalem. I will have you rebuild the walls as a symbol of my salvation, of my forgiveness of your sins. And here, Judah sees it, Nehemiah, and the people see the fulfillment of God's promise. They see God's salvation, his faithfulness, his goodness, his triumph. So clearly manifested in the rebuilding of the city. And it was all rebuilt, as we're told in verse 16, accomplished with the help of our God. It was rebuilt because of God's mercies. And now all the nations are afraid. Amidst impossible human odds, God did the impossible. And that's something we've seen, the God-centered nature of Nehemiah's mission, of his conviction. God is with us. God will do this work. God is in charge of this building project. It is God's city. It is God's wall. It is God who has done the impossible. It's Christ who builds His church, we would say in this New Testament era. And here we see a picture of that final glorious future of the church, of what we see in Revelation 21, when the church will have been completely rebuilt and perfected and completed and established as God promised. In Matthew 16, I will build my church, I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Why? Because it's my church, Jesus Christ says, because you belong to Jesus Christ. You experience, you enjoy, as we've just sung in the hymn, the church is one foundation in this world, mystic, sweet communion with God, the three in one. how glorious that day when Revelation 21 isn't just a text in our Bibles, but when it is the reality, when we see it not only with the eyes of faith, which we do now, but when we see it with our own very eyes transformed by God with a new body and a new creation. And we will say on that day, God has done it. And on that day, The day of Revelation 21, the nations will fear the Lord. The nations will know that God was present with his people, that this work was done with God's help. Psalm 66 alludes to this reality. Verse 3, all of God's enemies, the ESV translation says, will come cringing in fear before God and will realize that God is with His people. He was always with His people. God never left his people. Our Savior has always been with us. He tells us in Matthew 28, lo, I am with you until the end of the age. Jesus Christ, the foundation of the church, who is building his church, will remain present in power and in goodness and in blessing for and with his people until the end of the age. The great irony is that the nations who sought to instill fear in God's people, it is they, we're told in Nehemiah 6, 16, who fell in dread fear. That day when Christ returns will be a day of perfection. When the wall of Jerusalem, when the city will be completely finished and rebuilt, As we see it in Revelation 21, will be a day of perfection. A day that will dawn and never end. A day without sickness, without sin, without sorrow, without a shadow of doubt. A day without all the struggles of this fallen world. we will behold the church and see God's hand in it. 1 Corinthians 2, 9 says, what no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, what has not entered into the imagination of man, God has prepared for those who love him. It's unimaginable. We can't fathom what that day will be like. And we worship God as we look forward to this final and joyful future still to come. And that is symbolized for us in the completion of the wall of Jerusalem. And yet, the completion of the wall in Nehemiah's time is not the final act of God in history. Nehemiah and Judah completed the wall in 52 days, but they could not settle down and take a false comfort in their work in finishing and saying, well, we're done. because there was obviously more work to be done. The completion of the wall was not the consummation of all things, just like your triumphs in Christ here on earth are not the ultimate final consummation, the final return of Christ. You might think that the end has come. You might want it to have come. You might think, oh, it's all finished, it's all done, I've arrived. And yet you'll find there's more to be done. the holy city in Nehemiah's time and in our time is not completed, is not finished. We find, as Nehemiah does, that every advance of God's people in history is attended by present struggles and setbacks. We complete a great work for God, and yet our work is not over, the battle is not done. We find ourselves like Elijah in Mount Carmel, in 1 Kings, after facing off the prophets of Baal, right? And having prayed and seen fire come from heaven, answering his prayer, It's a great triumph for the people of God. Wow, it's here. Revival has come. The end is at hand. No, it's not. What we find is that the threat of Jezebel and Ahab against the man of God, against the church of God, makes Elijah fall into what most people think was a great depression afterward. And this is, you see, the story of the people of God. This is our present struggle. And what we find in our day is what Nehemiah found in his day. What do we find here with Nehemiah in chapter six, verse 17 and following, except that the church still entertains alliances with the world. In verse 17, what we find is that there's been a kind of correspondence relationship between Tobiah the Ammonite and the nobles of Judah. This is unthinkable. This is precisely what Nehemiah sought to avoid. He sought to delineate the people of God from the Ammonites, from Samballot, from Tobiah, the enemies of Judah. And yet what we find is that the enemy of Christ and so many of God's people are on friendly terms. Not just are they on friendly terms, look at verse 18. They're bound by oath to him because they're married. They're all family. He was the son-in-law of Shekeniah, the son of Arah, and his son, Jehohanan, had taken the daughter of Meshulam, the son of Berekiah, as his wife. Tobiah was the son-in-law of Shekeniah, and if you don't remember that name, he was a builder on the wall. Shekiniah had given his daughter to marry this sworn enemy of God. And then Tobiah's son, in turn, married the daughter of Meshulam, who in Nehemiah 3, we're told, was another builder on the wall. The church, you see, is entangled with the world. They had given him their allegiance. They were bound to him by a sworn oath. What a dreadful reality this is, when God's people make their peace with the world. We saw last week in James chapter four, to become a friend of the world, to imbibe, to ingest, to adopt their values as your own, is to constitute yourself an enemy of God. Here, these workers of Judah are working on rebuilding the wall, but they're also working against God's purposes. They're working for the kingdom of God, for the church of Christ, but they're working at cross purposes with God. How is this possible? It's possible in Nehemiah's time. It's possible in our time when we make peace with our sin, when we make peace with the way of the world, when we give our allegiance, beloved, when you swear by what dishonors God, you have become an enemy of God. You're making your peace with your sinful desires and you're declaring war on God. And you can say, hey, I've worked on the wall. I have worked in the kingdom of God. What are you talking about, pastor? Yeah, just like Meshulam, just like Shekinah. Think about this. They're working on the wall to rebuild the city of God. And yet they have no problem being on friendly terms, marrying and being intermarried with the enemies of God. And so I ask you, yes, you've done X, Y, Z for the church or for the kingdom of God, but where are you at? Where is your heart at? Are you for the Lord or are you turned against him and for the world? I don't get it, pastor. I don't get it. Why can't I do this? Why do the pastors, why do the elders want to know about this thing in my life? Come on, man. I'm a church member. I'm a Christian. No, it's because you are a Christian, because you belong to Christ, that we are interested in your wellbeing, in your health, in Christ. And you must return to the Lord, to the work of the reformation that's symbolized by the work of the walls, but it was meant to demonstrate a deeper work of Christ ruling in your hearts. of your devotion to God. And here, the leaders of Judah, we would say the leaders of the church, had been given over to this external work, but had completely neglected the work on the inside, the work of their heart, of their devotion, of their values. Then we're told in verse 19, that the leaders of Judah were not only Tobiah's family, but they thought well of Tobiah. They were running a kind of PR, public relations campaign with Nehemiah. They talked to Nehemiah all day long about how great a guy Tobiah was. You know this Tobiah guy? You got him all wrong, Nehemiah. He's a really good guy. He is for the wall. You've misunderstood. You got on the wrong foot with him. He's a really good guy. He's so good, we gave our daughters to marry his family. And more than this, it's kind of a fifth column approach that they have very subversively. Every word said by Nehemiah in secret is reported by them to Tobiah. And you have to wonder, with friends like these, who needs enemies? Right? Everything Nehemiah sought to do last week, we saw that there was kind of a three-pronged campaign from the world upon the church to befriend and co-opt the world, to pressure the church, and then to terrify the church. All those things are precisely what these leaders fell prey to. So when we look at what the walls symbolize regarding the future, we take great hope, the finality of Christ's work, the return of Christ's work, but when we take a look at what the walls symbolize for the present, there is much work to be done. Much work still remains. And then there is a second problem that we'll look at in future weeks, which is found in verse one through four of chapter seven. Not only has the church made entangling alliances with the world. But the city is so weak and feeble. She is empty inside. The irony, of course, is that Jerusalem's walls have been finished, and yet its defenses are weak. It lacks the infrastructure that would allow it to defend itself, to stand on its own. And Nehemiah has a kind of hyper-consciousness about this, about his city's weaknesses, and seeks to address them and to strengthen those areas. There's no standing army watching over the city to guard it, so Nehemiah appoints men of integrity, we're told in verse two, that Hananiah was a more faithful and God-fearing man than many along with Hananiah. He appoints these men of integrity to guard the city and to appoint men to guard the city's gates. And then the city is scarcely populated with very few people in it. Hardly any houses have been rebuilt, we're told in verse four. So it's very easily exposed and open to attack. So Nehemiah says, not only do we need to guard the ramparts and the gates, but we need to monitor the gates and open them up only when the sun is at its hottest, brightest points. Only when everything can be seen and is in plain sight at all other times, Judah must shut the door and bar the door from the inside. So what do we make of this text here as we've been considering it in many ways? What does this all mean for you? Nehemiah understands something about how vast the spiritual needs of the people of God are, and how extensive the work of reformation must be. It's not just the walls and the gates that need rebuilding, but the people themselves need to be rebuilt. And yet, the vastness of the work beyond the rebuilding of the walls is no reason to not rebuild the wall. is no reason to not work. And that, you see, is the church today. That is you, that is us, that's this church, that's the church, capital C, around the world in this country. and in all countries of this world. The church today is weak and frail, and yes, advancing always, but as the hymn puts it, that we've just sung, the church is one foundation, it advances mid toil and tribulation and tumult of her war. And yet the fact that the church struggles against false teachers and heresies and schisms that rent her asunder, the fact that a church can be faithfully established in one generation and yet swept away by falsehood in the next generation, none of this is reason to not serve the Lord and work for the Lord. So often, and I get the instinct, people of God, I get it. We want to guarantee the ROI, return on investment. We want to know that what we're working on is going to pan out, is going to be successful, will be established and will bear much fruit. But you're not called by Christ to work because your work will remain here on earth forever. You're called by Christ to work because he is the Lord and you are his people purchased by the blood of Christ, by grace, right? Imagine our lives, your life will be so impoverished if you say, well, I'm only going to invest in relationships that will pan out, right? That will have some reciprocity to them, right? I'm only going to do things in life. I'm only going to do things in the church that give me some guarantee of investment. We don't treat anything else in life this way. Listen, you know you're going to grow sick, old, and die. You know this, I hope. The Word of God tells us this. Do you not take care of your body? Do you not attend to your health? Well, you know, it's gonna happen anyway, whatever. No, you say, well, I better take care of myself here. I better watch what I'm eating. I better maybe do a little bit of exercise or walk 20,000 steps or whatever, right? The fact that things can be swept away, the fact that there's a kind of anticlimactic nature to life doesn't mean we don't work. It means that we continue to work in faithfulness to God. I'm struck by Proverbs 13, 22 and 23 to use but another example. Proverbs 13, 22, 23. A good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children. but the sinner's wealth is laid up for the righteous. But then, verse 23 is right after, the fallow ground of the poor would yield much food, but it is swept away through injustice. These two Proverbs have to go hand in hand. A good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children, but guess what? That inheritance is probably property, some kind of landed estate. Okay, he leaves an inheritance to his children's children, and yet we're told that injustice may sweep it away. What does that mean? That you shouldn't leave an inheritance to your children? That you shouldn't work because of the what ifs? Here's another example. Every church that Paul the Apostle planted in a few generations was swept away, was destroyed, was no more. Every single one of them. Does that then mean that Paul should not have established those local churches, those local congregations? And here you see what we find is the inadequacy of our victories and triumphs here on earth, but also something else. All of that is meant to draw your attention. The inadequacies, the anticlimactic nature of so much of life, the weak nature of the church is meant by God to draw your attention, to draw your heart to Him, to that final day, to that final city, to that final victory when Christ will be Lord over all. Mid toil and tribulations and tumult of her war, the hymn goes on to say, we wait the consummation of peace forevermore. All the struggles in your life, all the struggles of the church is meant by God, by his divine design to create in you a longing for the final resurrection, for the return of Christ, for the establishment of perfect peace and justice in a new creation. We don't look forward to a day here on earth that can be overturned. If those days come, those personal victories come, praise God for that. Those earthly triumphs of Christ's church, praise God for that. But that's not what we're looking forward to. You do know that all of human life will waste away, will wear away. There's a universal solvent on everything here on earth that the scriptures call death. We live in the shadow of death. We don't look forward to rebuilding city gates that can be rebuilt, but then later on destroyed many years later. If God gives us those city gates, praise God for that. We don't look forward to a victory that will be enjoyed, but then overturned by evil. So what then, what then do we look forward to? Everything that we read about in Hebrews. Chapter 11, verse 10, we look forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. Hebrews 11 verse 16, the saints of God, like the saints of God of old and the saints of God now desire a better country that is a heavenly one. Hebrews 13, 14, for here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. And if we were to paraphrase Hebrews in all these passages and many more, we would say that in this age, we have no golden age, but we seek that golden age to come. In this earthly city, we have no lasting place of security, but we seek that eternal celestial city that Christ is building for those who love him. On this earth, we have no savior or deliverer who can bring about the kingdom of God, but we look with longing eyes for our savior and his salvation to come. And you see, this is the point of scripture. draw your attention to Christ, to draw your attention to your true savior, your true king, your true prince, and that's the point of the book of Psalms, that by the end, right, all throughout the book of Psalms, we've been told about David and the human king and his victory and his glory, but by the end of the Psalter, Psalms 146 to 150, David and the Davidic and the merely human king have vanished from the scene, and all that remains is God. All that remains is Yahweh and his kingship and his salvation. Yahweh, the high king of heaven, our hope, our refuge, our salvation. So what does this all mean for you? It means that in the presence, as we view the presence, you are to work for the Lord. You are to labor on. Your work is not in vain because the Lord sees it, the Lord receives it, the Lord places it and uses it in his kingdom as he chooses. That's why it's not in vain. And you are to do so with great joy. And you are to do so receiving on a daily basis the provision that Christ gives you. But you are to never, never lose sight of that future view, of that glorious day that is yet to come, a day that God will bring about, a day that God will accomplish, a day when all things will be made right. And so we hope in God's salvation and in that final and future day of Christ's glory as we continue to labor on. Amen. Let's pray. Father, our God, we thank you for your word. We thank you, Lord, for the revelation of your will for our lives. And Father, we ask and pray that we would labor on, that we would labor on in our walk with you. That, Father, we would throw our bread upon the waters for in a few short days, you tell us in Ecclesiastes, it will return to us. And that, Father, we would sacrifice and serve, Father, knowing that the results are in your hand as our sovereign God. And yet, Father, in all of our toils and tribulations and the tumult of our war, of our battle, against our own sinful nature and the world and Satan himself and all his minions. Help us to never lose sight of that great and glorious reality, Lord, that is yet to come. Lord, we wait for the consummation of peace forevermore. Even as Nehemiah, Father, rebuilt the walls and finished them in record time because of your grace and mercy, and yet had so much work yet to do, help us, Lord, in like manner to face this fallen world with gusto, with grace, with joy, and always with your strength. and your spirit. Hear us, Father, for these things we ask and we pray now, in Jesus' name, amen.